I liked Obama’s speech last night for a couple of reasons:

— He specifically named the lies being told about health-care reform, and called out the public officials who were spreading them. (Five points off for not naming names, though…)

— He correctly pointed out just how much common ground there is with regards to health-care reform. The public option is one controversial piece among a whole lot of not-so-controversial improvements to our system; I noticed how many times the Republicans stood to clap, and rightfully so.

I also liked his talk of tort reform for medical malpractice lawsuits, which seems as much of a no-brainer as any other piece, though apparently it’s a Republican cause célèbre. I sat on a jury in a medmal lawsuit a few years back; because a doctor made one screwup while in a stressful situation, we awarded $3 million to the plaintiffs. And felt dirty while doing it. Even simple caps on awards would be a win, in my book. (But I haven’t really looked into it.)

How bout that Republican jackass, eh? Not only yelling out “You lie!” in the middle of his speech, but yelling out “You lie!” regarding something about which Obama was very clearly not lying. We may have all witnessed the swinging of the pendulum; that seemed to be the exact moment where the jackassery of the truthiness-loving teabaggers was laid bare. One of the two people involved looked like a petulant child at that moment, and it wasn’t the president.

The whole thing made me more hopeful that some good reform will actually come out of this whole mess, public option or not.

Let’s talk about that money thing. Money can be tricky. Everybody went justifiably nuts when the Treasury department suddenly decided to lend $700 billion to banks that had more or less dug their own hole. Now it’s a year later, and lo and behold, we’re actually turning a profit on the whole endeavor. Nutty.

Health care is much more confusing. When we talk about its spiraling costs, we’re usually talking all sorts of transactions: patient out-of-pocket costs, government spending, costs for medicine, doctor salaries and insurance, etc. etc. Plus, some “expenses” are actually “missed revenue” (like the tax subsidies the government provides to cover private insurance). Confoosing.

So when people toss out the “trillion-dollar” number, where’s that money coming from and going to?
Continue reading Health care pt. 4: One TRILLION dollars →

(continuing discussion of Chuck’s article, “6 Reasons Obama-Care Is Bad Medicine“)

5. Universal health care ultimately would transform legislators into quasi health care practitioners.
Chuck’s point here is brief enough to quote entirely:

With government-sanctioned universal health care, legislators would become quasi medical practitioners because they would lead and guide the government-controlled medical boards, personnel and policies that would oversee the program. That would include abortive and end-of-life counsel and services. Federal politicians would rely upon relatively few chief physicians (appointed mostly by them), who in turn would oversee and implement the medical policies and procedures that they felt were best for the country.

Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, I’m not sure how many different ways there are to say that this is not what we’re talking about. Continue reading Health care pt. 3: Chuck Norris Facts pt. 2 →

One of the oddest leads I got when asking for health-care data from people was via my high-school buddy (and staunch conservative) Christie, who pointed me to a series of articles by none other than Mr. Chuck Norris. Chuck, if you didn’t know, is something of a political celebrity in right-wing circles. In between punching bad guys, he pitches for presidential candidates:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

And, turns out, he’s written a series of articles over at humanevents.com, the self-described “headquarters of the conservative underground.” Several are about “Obamacare.” Let’s pull the Walker Texas Ranger lever, shall we?
Continue reading Health care pt. 2: Chuck Norris Facts →