Health Care Bill analyzed by Republican

[northoftheborder]

The Republican Party recently told its leaders to call the Obama administration’s new health law “Exhibit A” of a “runaway Washington government.”

But that’s not how longtime GOP health expert Thomas Scully sees it.

“The bill signed by Obama is not a big-government takeover,” Scully told a pro-business audience in Louisville, Ky., last month, adding the new law will result in “an explosive boom for the medical industry.”

Scully, a staunch Republican who worked in George H.W. Bush’s White House and was later President George W. Bush’s top administrator for Medicare and Medicaid, said, “The health care reform bill that passed in March is very much like the Bush 1 plan. I know. Richard Darman and I wrote that 1992 plan.”

Scully, who now works in the private sector, was the keynote speaker at a gathering of health industry entrepreneurs sponsored by the Health Enterprises Network, an affiliate of the local Chamber of Commerce, here on May 27.

Three of us from Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare attended the forum, curious to see what the reform looks like to those who seek financial fortune in the health industry.

For-profit companies win, taxpayers lose

Early in his talk, Scully projected a slide on a large screen with a smiley face over the left seven-eighths of the frame and a frowning face over the right eighth.

Under the smiley face were the “winners” under the health law, including the private health insurance firms, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, dialysis and hospice companies, and disease management groups. Also listed were the device manufacturers who would pay a special tax but would simply pass it on to others and come out ahead. Home health care would take a hit in the short run but prosper in the long run, he said.

On the far right-hand side of the slide, under the frowning face, was the sole “loser”: the taxpayers. (In case you’re wondering, patients didn’t even make the slide.)

While complimenting the bill’s backers for their shrewdness (“The bill is politically smart — the doctors, drug companies and hospitals were bought off early”), he said the new law’s main weakness was its inability to control spending.

“In 10 years there will be $1.5 trillion in new spending,” a half-trillion dollars more than the administration has projected, he said. In short, the law is “a fiscal disaster,” and U.S. taxpayers will end up paying for it.

[Cleita]

1. Not only is it very much like the Bush 1 plan but it's exactly like the

Richard Nixon plan. No thanks, I think I would have preferred the completion of the Lyndon B. Johnson plan to extend complete coverage of Medicare to everyone, a plan that has proven efficient and cost effective even when the Republicans are shooting holes into and trying to kill it.

[caledesi]

3. Obama cannot win! No, no, ...well how about PO?? What do

you guys want?? Dole plan that the RW voted for but is against now??? Just say NO! I am so confused.

[nightgaunt]

7. That is part of the point. Not is all as it seems

It is really weird to see a crypto-fascist group in both parties working for the same thing but playing the partisan game to the hilt. The just be against anything Democrat no matter how Republican it is. You see the attack the plan as being "Liberal & statist" while it benefits corporate for profit medical industry. Quite a deal isn't it? All part of the mind games and psychological warfare against us.

Obama (and who he represents) have won on this an many other things. What is good for GE isn't good for America but it is good for the oligarchs.

[Hydra]

2. *laughs*

I can't wait for the cheerleaders to try and shout this down.

I saw the next bubble being built, but as usual, I don't have the funds to get in on the feeding frenzy.

[Scuba]

4. So the left compromised with the right, and ended up far right....

The only reason for the Democrats is so that there's no alternative to the Republicans.

[Gravel Democrat]

5. PBS Frontline: Obamas Deal re-aired Saturday night, maybe it's on Sunday

*must see*

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/obamasdeal/view

Watch Karen Ignagni (head health insurance tool) demand mandatory insurance (clueless about the Constitution)

Watch Rahm, the Head Soprano from Chicago work his "magic"

Watch 2 key campaign promises thrown under the bus

Watch backroom deals that many still deny

Watch and Weep. It's a *devastating* expose. One of Frontlines best

[elocs]

6. Here is a link (links are very helpful) from the story yesterday (6/19/10):

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/55674

From the last paragraph of the story:

Likes Obama plan

Scully said he was a big fan of the Obama plan, but he confessed that it was not his first choice in health reform: “Of course, the Wyden plan is really the best thing to do — it gets rid of Medicare and Medicaid — that is the totally right thing to do.”

The bill offered last year by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would have put health care financing entirely in the hands of private insurers, with mandatory individual purchase taking the place of employer-sponsored coverage.

Nonetheless, Scully was clearly pleased with the bill passed by the Democrats, which reinforces, not undermines, profit-seeking in health care.

Scully’s last words at the meeting were, “All is driven by money.”

We left even more determined to build the movement for single payer.

I'm not sure we, as Democrats, should be happy when Republicans are pleased about the health care bill because it "...reinforces, not undermines, profit-seeking in health care".

[activa8tr]

8. Maybe Republican experts know something, but day-to-day politicians

don't know shit and don't care.

They think it's a winning strategy to be against "big-guvment", EVEN IF the health care bill isn't "big-guvment". Fox News will make it SOUND like the health care bill is "big-guvment"... and that's all that matters.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. I have thought all along that this health care bill would do damage to the Dems

because I see little up side to it, rate hikes out the ass before regulation kicks in and massive expense for the program after it kicks in with little benefit to any but the health insurance companies. All to be laid at the door of the Democrats. We should have held out and forgot that compromise thingie.