Romney endorses "socialism" on 60 Minutes in yet another flip-flop

You can only flip flop so much before you start tripping up badly.

Mitt Romney's latest? He just endorsed "socialism" last night. Which probably won't go over too well with the GOP base two days after Romney declared in his federal tax forms that to him America was a "foreign country."

You see, five years ago Mitt Romney told Glenn Beck that letting the uninsured get free health care via emergency rooms (which is what our country does) is "socialism.

"And in a 2007 interview with Glenn Beck, Romney called the fact that people without insurance were able to get "free care" in emergency rooms "a form of socialism."

"When they show up at the hospital, they get care. They get free care paid for by you and me. If that's not a form of socialism, I don't know what is," he said at the time.

As HuffPost notes, Romney was singing a completely different tune last night on 60 Minutes:

Downplaying the need for the government to ensure that every person has health insurance, Mitt Romney on Sunday suggested that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured.

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance," he said in an interview with Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night. "If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."

So the new "conservative" Mitt Romney is now in favor of "socialism."

I seem to remember, during the health care reform debate, hearing that we pay four times as much for people to go to emergency rooms than what we'd pay if we simply helped them get insurance, government or otherwise.

So, Romney isn't entirely wrong. It is a form of socialized medicine having the government insure health care for everyone who's uninsured. They do it in Israel, and Romney praised that only a few months ago.

But in America, all you have to do is use a dirty word to describe thing - preferably the word socialist or communist - and everyone screams in horror, even though they don't usually understand what socialism even is, or what the thing is that's being compared to socialism (ask the average American to name three things that the dreaded Obamacare actually does - good luck getting two).

But back to emergency rooms, they're expensive as hell in this country, and hardly a suitable alternative to health insurance. In France, you pay around 27 euros or so for an emergency room visit - that's about 35 US dollars. And if you have a medical procedure, they charge you more. But unlike the US, they don't nickel and dime you to death by charging you for every doctor, and every aspirin, separately. It's one flat rate, and the procedure is another flat rate.

In the US, you pay for everything, and you pay a LOT. I believe I read the average American emergency room visit costs around $1000. (That's 770 euros, for you foreigners.) And that's just walking in the door. The price goes up quickly from there.

Were emergency room visits to cost only $35 a person, then I might be more inclined to the Romney point of view (though how do you manage diabetes with regular emergency room visits - and at that point, it's no longer an "emergency" room if we're expecting people to go there regularly for non-emergencies - we might as well skip the facade and admit we have nationalized health care and pay 1/4 of the price we pay today).

I was recently in a US emergency room for more eye troubles on a recent weekend (I was concerned I might have another retinal tear, or worse), and I shudder at the bills I'm going to receive.  I also still shudder at the care I did receive from the 1st year resident who didn't appear to have a lot of hands-on experience dealing with actual living human eyeballs (my eye hurt for a week after).  (My eye is fine.  It did have a small tear, that the resident didn't see - my doc, who was willing to see me on a Sunday morning, did see it, and fixed it.)

We're #1. Read the rest of this post...

Romney flip-flops again on health care, after proudly telling Latinos he's "grandfather of Obamacare"

"No le presten atención
al hombre tras la cortina."

Predictable.

It's been less than 24 hours since Mitt Romney told Latino voters at an Univision forum that he was the proud "grandfather of Obamacare."

Even though Romney admitted that taking pride in the President's signature achievement on health care would get him into hot water with the conservatives who run the GOP.

Well, today Mitt Romney, who famously flip-flopped on health care reform four times in under 24 hours just a few weeks ago, has now backtracked on last night's pride rally, and is again demonizing health care reform as the worst thing in the world.

Worse than the guy who was its grandfather?

Mitt Romney last night, pandering to Latinos with his new orange day-laborer "tan":

The Republican even embraced the Obama administration’s claim that his Massachusetts health care reform plan made him “the grandfather of Obamacare.”

“I don’t think he meant that as a compliment but I’ll take it,” Romney said, adding that such a depiction was likely not “helpful” during the GOP primary.

Romney, responding to a question about whether he’d repeal Obama’s health care law, went on to tout his signature achievement in Boston with language that has irritated conservatives in the past.

Romney campaign today, via an email I just received:

Today, the Romney campaign will hold a press conference call to discuss... that Obamacare is a costly disaster for American families and businesses. The call will feature Governor Bobby Jindal.

So the campaign is now admitting that Mitt Romney is the "proud grandfather" of a "costly disaster."

How does that work exactly? Read the rest of this post...

Romney proudly admits he's the "grandfather" of Obamacare

During an appearance tonight at an Univision forum, Mitt Romney embraced President Obama's claim that Romney is the "grandfather of Obamacare." Politico:

The Republican even embraced the Obama administration’s claim that his Massachusetts health care reform plan made him “the grandfather of Obamacare.”

“I don’t think he meant that as a compliment but I’ll take it,” Romney said, adding that such a depiction was likely not “helpful” during the GOP primary.

Romney, responding to a question about whether he’d repeal Obama’s health care law, went on to tout his signature achievement in Boston with language that has irritated conservatives in the past.

And he even admits that he's changing his position from his position during the primaries, because it wasn't helpful at the time.  That's an odd public admission of his famous Etch-a-Sketch approach to flip flops.

Mind you, it was just nine days ago that Romney flip flopped 4 times in 24 hours on whether he'd fully repeal health care reform.  First he wasn't going to repeal the entire thing, then he was, then wasn't, then he was.

Now he's proud to be the grandfather of a law that he wants to repeal.  Ostensibly, because it might be "helpful" during the general election.

You know what else would be helpful during the general election?  For Romney to figure out who he is, and who he wants to be, before November 6. Read the rest of this post...

Mitt Romney thinks cancer and AIDS aren't "significant"

We already know that Mitt Romney doesn't think the troops are "important."  Now we know that he doesn't think cancer or AIDS are "significant," either.

Odd that Mitt Romney thinks your cancer isn't "significant," yet he's repeatedly invoked his own wife's multiple sclerosis on the campaign trail.

It all came about when Paul Ryan said this weekend that states should be able to approve the legal use of medical marijuana.  Ryan then backtracked later, and boy oh boy, Mitt Romney wasn't too pleased to discuss the matter:

Ryan noted that the issue “is something that is not a high priority of ours.” A Ryan spokesman later emphasized that he agrees with Mitt Romney that marijuana should never be legalized. In the video embedded below you can see how Romney scoffed at a reporter who dared to ask a question about medical marijuana: “Aren’t there issues of significance that you’d like to talk about?” He went on to call marijuana a “gateway drug to other drug violations.”

Oh, I don't know.  Why don't you ask people with cancer and AIDS whether they think their illness is of any "significance."

Supporters of medical cannabis argue that cannabis does have several well-documented beneficial effects. Among these are: the amelioration of nausea and vomiting, stimulation of hunger in chemotherapy and AIDS patients, lowered intraocular eye pressure (shown to be effective for treating glaucoma), as well as gastrointestinal illness.

This is classic Romney hubris.  When it's his family, health care is the most important issue in the world, as we learned by the inclusion of talk about Mrs. Romney's illness in the official GOP convention program (putatively to show how "caring" Mitt really is).  Note that the Romney campaign has also talked about Mrs. Romney's illness previously to deflect criticism of Mitt's numerous horses and jockeys which we're told are to help Mrs. Romney with her MS.  (Though it's not clear how having a jockey race a horse in the Olympics helps Mrs. Romney's MS, or how the horses are her "medical treatment," a "hobby," and a tax write-off as a "business deduction" all at the same time).

Clearly the campaign is willing to talk about Mrs. Romney's illness.

But when it's your serious illness we're talking about, Mitt clams up.

That's why Romney is planning on ripping health insurance away from over 6 million kids if he's elected president.  And it's why he's threatening to take health insurance away from another 89 million working Americans as well.

We're not talking about a caring, loving man here.  We're talking about someone who seems to care a lot about his family, Mormonism, foreign travel, and expensive vacation homes.  And unless you're one of those four, you're out of luck. Read the rest of this post...

Romney to remove pre-existing condition protections for 1/3 US workforce, 89m Americans

I wrote earlier about how Mitt Romney had flip-flopped four times yesterday on whether he'd repeal all of the President's Health Care Reform law.  Romney is famous for not having a set position on anything, but rather reading the tea leaves on any particular day.  So it was somewhat surprising, even for the eminently flip-flopable Mitt Romney, to flip-flop four times yesterday on this one issue

To recap: First, yesterday morning Romney said that he wouldn't repeal health care reform's provisions that would stop insurance companies from turning you down based on pre-existing conditions.  (He also said that he wouldn't repeal the provisions that make insurance companies accept kids up until the age of 26 on their parents' plans.)

Then later in the day, Romney's staff said "no," he's for repealing all of it.

Then, yesterday evening, Romney's staff said "nuh uh," Romney will keep the pre-existing conditions party mostly.

Then, when folks actually looking at the exact words that Romney's staff used, they realized that Romney wasn't planning on doing anything that wasn't already in the law, and under Romney's proposal one-third of the American workforce, 89 million Americans, would lose the pre-existing condition protections they currently have under ObamaCare, as Romney so derisively calls it.

Mind you, that's in addition to the six million children who would lose health insurance under Romney's plan because they're currently on their parents' insurance.

So, grand total for the number of Americans hurt under Mitt Romney's health care reform repeal proposal, 95 million.

And counting.  I'll be hurt by Romney's repeal because ObamaCare is the only thing guaranteeing that I'll have insurance to cover my asthma drugs.  Currently, Blue Cross Blue Shield cuts me off every year because my asthma drugs cost "too much."  Under ObamaCare, annual limits on coverage would go away, and in principle I'd no longer have to go abroad every year to find cheaper versions of the same drugs.

So people like me will very much be hurt by Mitt Romney's proposed repeal of ObamaCare.  As will any parent who currently has child age 26 or younger on their health insurance.  As will anyone who ever changes jobs, loses their job, moves to another state, or decides to start consulting - suddenly all of you will be at risk of losing your health insurance all over again, thanks to Mitt Romney.


Read the rest of this post...

Romney flip-flops 4 times on health care reform in past 24 hours

The man believes in nothing.

Sunday morning on NBC, Mitt Romney said that while he wants to repeal Health Care Reform, he would leave the provisions in place that ban insurers from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions, and that require insurance companies to cover children up to the age of 26 on their parents' plans.

Hooray!  A moment of humanity from the ice princess!

Not so fast.  As soon as Mitt's conservative overlords got wind of it, Romney did a quick 180, and now is against helping people with pre-existing conditions, and with children aged 26 and under.

Let me be more precise.  Mitt Romney is now saying that if he's elected president he will take away health care from 6.6 million children that are now on their parents' health insurance plans, and he will once again let insurance companies turn away people with "pre-existing conditions" as benign as psoriasis, high cholesterol and asthma.

In reference to how Romney would deal with those with preexisting conditions and young adults who want to remain on their parents’ plans, a Romney aide responded that there had been no change in Romney’s position and that “in a competitive environment, the marketplace will make available plans that include coverage for what there is demand for. He was not proposing a federal mandate to require insurance plans to offer those particular features.”

Then, suddenly, last night the Romney campaign amended their amended statement in an effort to suggest that they would in fact preserve the non-discrimination language concerning pre-existing conditions.  Hurray!

But not so fast, a re-read of the new statement makes clear that in fact Romney won't be preserving the pre-existing conditions protections that are in Health Care Reform.  Romney simply wanted you to think he was going to preserve it, but he really isn't.

So now he's not simply spineless, he's also duplicitous.

When you're worth a minimum of a quarter of a billion dollars it's of little consequence to you that more than six million children will lose their health insurance because of your incessant pandering to the far right.

But just as serious, this is all the more evidence that Mitt Romney simply believes in nothing.  He will be whatever the highest bidder wants him to be.  And that doesn't bode well for the rest of us not worth a quarter of a billion dollars. Read the rest of this post...

Study: Quit smoking, exercise, and going out adds 5-6 years to life

Not that it's a surprise, but eating healthy food, exercising and having a social life is good for your health. BBC News:

They showed that smokers died a year earlier, but people who quit in middle age were almost as long-lived as those who had never smoked.

Swimming, walking and gymnastics increased life expectancy by around two years. People with a rich social circle lived a year and a half longer than those without.

Combining figures for healthy, low risk, lifestyles showed men could extend their lives by six years, and women by five years, by adopting the most healthy options.

I was always impressed with Jojo's French grandparents, who even into their 90's would take a walk every day. Both ate well, enjoyed having family over and led very actives lives. Genes surely had something to do with it, but it didn't hurt that they were disciplined at the table and kept active. Even after her grandmother had hip surgery in her late 80's, she was back walking within two months. Read the rest of this post...

UK Conservatives promote NHS for-profit abroad campaign

The current Conservative government has been actively attacking the status quo at the NHS since the beginning. One day they're calling for a for-profit NHS, another it's about privatizing and now it's some of both, with the added (complex) idea of taking the system abroad to generate profits. All of this leads back to the simple question of how this helps British people have better healthcare.

While there may be specific one off examples of how the NHS has gone abroad successfully, it's a stretch to imagine taking the system abroad in a bigger way and it somehow will be a success. As someone who has opened up businesses around the world for over twenty years, there's nothing simple or straightforward about it. Assuming a few examples can be magically repeated in other countries, with other laws and different cultures is wishful thinking.

Even if it was easy to do and profits were there to be plucked from the sky, how does this improve the core mission of providing quality healthcare to the UK? This is a terrible idea that will only be a distraction. The Guardian:

Hospitals are to be encouraged by the government to sell their services abroad, setting up clinics with the famous NHS brand to pull in much-needed cash for the health service from overseas.

The scheme – which has been put together by the Department of Health (DH) and the UK Trade and Investment department (UKTI) – attracted immediate criticism from the Patients Association, concerned that in times of financial stringency at home, establishing overseas clinics would be a distraction too far and could undermine standards at home.

But the government points to clinics that already exist, run by big-name NHS trusts with a reputation around the world, such as Moorfields Eye Hospital and Great Ormond Street children's hospital in the Middle East. The government thinks there could be lucrative possibilities for NHS-standard healthcare services in growing markets such as India and China.

Read the rest of this post...

RomneyCare in a nutshell: "I AM gonna pay a lot for this muffler!"

Here's the answer to what ObamaCare does to Medicare, in just 11 seconds:



That's it.

ObamaCare didn't cut Medicare benefits one bit.  You still have exactly the same benefits you had before.  ObamaCare did however tell doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and Big Pharma that they weren't going to get the cash cow they were previously getting from Medicare recipients.

ObamaCare in essence told Medicare that they're not gonna pay a lot for this muffler.   And now they don't.

RomneyCare, on the other hand, proposes keeping Medicare benefits the same as under ObamaCare, but simply paying more for them.

RomneyCare in a nutshell: I want to pay even more for that muffler!

From AP:

Obama's cuts were not directly aimed at Medicare's 48 million beneficiaries; instead they affect hospitals, insurers, nursing homes, drug companies and other service providers. Simply undoing the cuts would restore higher payments to those service providers.

"People need to look at what these spending reductions are before they conclude that they are really eager to undo them," said Paul Van de Water, a senior budget analyst with the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Why should Medicare beneficiaries want to pay more to providers to provide the same benefits?"

Our government is simply doing what Europe has been doing forever - using its bargaining power to get a better deal from healthcare providers, insurers and Big Pharma.  Romney calls that "ObamaCare" - I call that capitalism, and a bargain.

So to recap, RomneyCare won't provide any more services or benefits to Medicare recipients.  It will simply pay Romney's political supporters more of your money for the exact same health care you get under ObamaCare.

RomneyCare is the equivalent of the $30,000 Pentagon toilet.  Why pay a reasonable price for something when you can grease the pockets of a big Republican donor at the expense of the deficit and the taxpayer? Read the rest of this post...

Did Mitt Romney kill this man's wife?

In America, you know that closing down plants means workers lose their health insurance. It's a fact. And you know that it's going to be very tough for most folks who aren't 22 years old to get insurance on their own.  More from the Nation, and the ad is below.

Read the rest of this post...

Romney praises socialized medicine in Israel that includes govt mandate

It's socialized medicine that covers everyone in the country. And Romney just praised its amazing ability to keep health care costs down.

"When our health care costs are completely out of control. Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel? 8 percent. You spend 8 percent of GDP on health care. And you’re a pretty healthy nation," Romney told donors at a fundraiser at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, speaking of a health care system that is compulsory for Israelis and funded by the government. "We spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care. 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, let me compare that with the size of our military. Our military budget is 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of GDP. We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs."

Well, Mr. Romney, here's how Israel does it - with nationwide government mandated health care.

From The Jewish Daily Forward:

Health care provision in Israel is made through not-for-profit health maintenance organizations. Six months after the Jewish state was established, in 1948, just 53% of the population had HMO insurance. Israel steadily increased its financial contribution to HMOs, making membership more affordable, and in 1973 it obliged employers to pay contributions toward employees’ policies.

But HMOs were still free to turn away people who they regarded as too high-risk, so in 1995, when 4% of the population was uninsured, the government made coverage universal by passing the National Health Insurance Law. It meant that everybody had the right — and obligation — to be covered by one of the country’s four not-for-profit HMOs. Residents of the country pay from income-related contributions collected through the tax system, which cover around 40% of HMOs’ costs. The state pays the remaining 60%.

People are allowed to choose which HMO to join and are allowed to change once a year, but the differences are mostly superficial: By law they are obliged to provide a standardized “basket” of services and medicines, from emergency to preventative. Except for some consultations and tests for which the patient makes a contribution to the cost — usually less than $10 — HMOs transfer funds to clinics, health centers and hospitals to cover all services. There are only a handful of completely private hospitals.

To some degree he can't help himself. His entire campaign is based on a lie - that he's a Republican, let alone a conservative - so now he keeps speaking the truth, like about health care in Israel, and then finds himself up against his earlier lies. Read the rest of this post...

CBO: Obamacare saves money, GOP plan costs $109bn

It's surprising that Democrats haven't done a better job of throwing this in the GOP's, and specifically Mitt Romney's, face. Politico:

Overall, the new estimate pegs the costs of the law’s health insurance coverage provisions at $1.2 trillion over 11 years, a figure that is more than offset by new taxes and Medicare cuts. CBO also projected that the House GOP’s effort to repeal the law would add $109 billion to the nation’s debt over 10 years, a number that is far below the $210 billion estimated last year.

Read the rest of this post...

How a conservative lost her fear of universal health care

A great article, that's been causing some buzz, from a conservative woman who moved to Canada and suddenly found herself in the land of universal health care.  Then a funny thing happened - she liked it.

When I moved to Canada in 2008, I was a die-hard conservative Republican. So when I found out that we were going to be covered by Canada’s Universal Health Care, I was somewhat disgusted. This meant we couldn’t choose our own health coverage, or even opt out if we wanted too. It also meant that abortion was covered by our taxes, something I had always believed was horrible. I believed based on my politics that government mandated health care was a violation of my freedom.

I started to feel differently about Universal government mandated and regulated Health care. I realized how many times my family had avoided hospital care because of our lack of coverage. When I mentioned to Canadians that I had been in a car accident as a teen and hadn’t gone into the hospital, they were shocked! Here, you always went to the hospital, just in case. And the back pain I had endured ever since would have been investigated and cared for with whatever X-rays, Physiotherapy or even Surgery that was needed, which would have been at no cost to me. In out particular province, even chiropractic care was provided after a car accident by the provincial care insurance.When I asked for prayers for my little brother who had been burned in an accident, they were all puzzled why the story did not include immediately rushing him to the hospital. When they asked me to clarify and I explained that many people in the States are not insured and they try to put off medical care unless absolutely needed, they literally could not comprehend such a thing.

I started to wonder why I had been so opposed to government mandated Universal Health care. Almost every western country in the world has Universal Insurance of some kind, except the USA. Here in Canada, everyone was covered. If they worked full-time, if they worked part-time, or if they were homeless and lived on the street, they were all entitled to the same level of care if they had a medical need. People actually went in for routine check-ups and caught many of their illnesses early, before they were too advanced to treat. People were free to quit a job they hated, or even start their own business without fear of losing their medical coverage. In fact, the only real complaint I heard about the Universal Health Care from the Canadians themselves, was that sometimes there could be a wait time before a particular medical service could be provided. But even that didn’t seem to be that bad to me, in the States most people had to wait for medical care, or even be denied based on their coverage. Depending on where one lived and how rural the area was, one's access to care could be limited, and that was regardless of what country one lived in. The only people guaranteed immediate and full service in the USA, were those with the best (and most expensive) health coverage or wads of cash they could blow. In Canada, the wait times were usually short, and applied to everyone regardless of wealth. If you were discontent with the wait time (and had the money to cover it) you could always travel out of the country to someplace where you could demand a particular service for a price.

Personally, I never experienced excessive wait times, I was accepted for maternity care within a few days or weeks, I was able to find a family care provider nearby easily and quickly, and when a child needed to be brought in for a health concern I was always able to get an appointment within that week.

Read the rest of this post...

President Barack Obama’s health exchanges mirror Marco Rubio's 2008 'marketplace' idea

Seems the GOP wonderboy is about as Republican as Romney. It is sad that to be a Republican nowadays, all of these guys have to pretend to be some knuckle-dragger.

Miami Herald:

And though Republicans such as Rubio and Scott won’t admit it, Florida’s marketplace is a lot like President Barack Obama’s exchange.

Although Republican lawmakers like to play up the “marketplace” description of Florida Health Choices, it is set up like a health exchange. Like an exchange, it is a Web-based portal where people can shop for health insurance. And like an exchange, it is intended to create more options in hopes that more people will purchase coverage.

Read the rest of this post...

We already have socialist health care in America, and it's the most expensive option

America already guarantees free health care (kind of) to everyone. By law, hospitals have to give care to everyone who enters their emergency departments.  From Voices of San Diego:

It's called EMTALA, short for the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. President Ronald Reagan signed it into law in 1986. It's regularly cited as one of the greatest unfunded mandates our government ever passed.

EMTALA mandates not only that hospitals take care of anyone who enters their emergency departments — anyone — but that they not discharge those patients unless they're safe and stable.

To recoup their losses, hospitals simply pass the costs to insurers, and the rest of us, through higher rates. Though some of that sounds like more justification for simply gouging the rest of us.

"To recoup their losses," Roberts wrote, "hospitals pass on the cost to insurers through higher rates, and insurers in turn pass on the cost to policy holders in the form of higher premiums."
And hence to me, as I gulp at our employees' health care bill.

The numbers really are brutal. In 2011, Sharp Healthcare had to give $287 million in so-called "uncompensated care." For Scripps, the number was $268 million. For UCSD? $80 million.
Uncompensated care is a bit of a misnomer. The hospitals don't just absorb that loss and pout. Not all of it.

They have people to pay. Doctors aren't cheap and their supply is controlled.

No, they pass those costs onto people with insurance. It's an unfair burden for employers committed to providing health care to their employees. It certainly doesn't make it easier to hire people.

The entire health care system in our country is one big ponzi scheme. The hospitals charge more for the uninsured, and more importantly, for the insured.  Hospitals can charge ridiculous rates and insurance companies, after negotiating them down to a less-but-still-ridiculous rate pay them.

For my recent cataract surgery, the charge to use the hospital facilities for the 20 minute surgery was $14,000 per eye. That's ridiculous. The insurance company got them "down" to $5000 an eye - again, just for the facilities, the surgeon and anesthesiologist was extra, as was the laser they used to cut my eye (that alone was $1100 out of my pocket, that I had to pay BEFORE they'd do the surgery).  That's an absurd amount to pay for cataract surgery, but I needed to see this particular doctor as I'm at a much higher risk of a detachment and blindness as a result of the cataract surgery, because of my past retinal problems.  And that's what the hospital charges.

I saw a video the other day of Krugman on CNBC in which he notes that if we simply got the cost of American health care down to the prices they charge in France, we'd likely solve our deficit problem.

Our problem is the cost of health care is bankrupting all of us.  And our healthcare system is so corrupt, so ponzi, so inbred, that it reinforces the high prices.

So while I'm willing to accept that a portion of the higher prices comes from having to pay the medical bills of the uninsured, that's not the only reason hospitals and doctors and insurance companies charge so much.  They charge so much, as the old joke goes, because they can. Read the rest of this post...

$50 million spent by GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare

They're fiscally conservative, you know. They know that they won't win a vote yet they've tried 33 times for show while sending the bill to the US taxpayer. Nice to see they're so serious about government spending, isn't it? More from Huffington Post:

While Republicans lambast the cost of implementing health care reform, a new report shows that their efforts to repeal the law have come at a major cost to taxpayers -- to the tune of nearly $50 million.

The House of Representatives again voted to repeal President Obama's signature health care law on Wednesday, marking the 33rd time Republicans have attempted to take down the legislation. The 32 previous repeal efforts faltered at the hands of the Democrat-controlled Senate; the latest attempt is unlikely to break that pattern.

According to a report by CBS News, these efforts, widely viewed as symbolic political maneuvers, come with a high price tag.

As I tweeted yesterday, if the GOP is so against government run healthcare, they all ought to give up their own government healthcare as a show of solidarity. Clearly they wouldn't want to be tainted with socialism, would they? Read the rest of this post...

British Conservatives continue assault on middle class and poor

The new plan for dumping massive healthcare costs onto others is "still under review" but if you glance at Tory history, there's a high likelihood of this succeeding. The bankers still walk free following their destructive policies yet everyone else is being asked, again, to pay for their crimes. Who has this kind of money when they're retired?

And yes, it's similar to the outrageous healthcare costs in the US that Americans already are paying whenever they get sick. For some reason, the Tories want to implement more of the US-style healthcare, which has been a colossal failure and the most expensive system in the world. What are they thinking?:

Elderly people could be forced to pay up to £100,000 [$155,000] towards the cost of their care before the state begins picking up the bill, the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, suggested yesterday.

The figure is nearly three times the £35,000 [$54,000] cap suggested by Andrew Dilnot, the author of an independent report into care funding. While the economist proposed a universal scheme that would cover the care fees of all pensioners, Mr Lansley indicated he was also considering the possibility of a voluntary scheme that would cap only the contributions of those who had paid for some form of insurance.

Pensioners moving into residential care homes would be able to borrow money from their local authorities, meaning that their homes would not have to be sold to meet costs until after they had died.

Whether in the UK or even here in France, I'm always amazed when people complain about their systems being inefficient or expensive or not that great. The dysfunctional US healthcare system that will start to change somewhat with Obamacare is by far the most expensive system in the world and it's been a nightmare to navigate. There's a reason why the US system is ranked #37 in the WHO rankings and the other systems are much higher.

Anyone who thinks moving towards more privatization and borrowing elements of the US system needs their head examined. It's a system exclusively by the rich, for the rich. It should have been gutted and thrown into a garbage dump rather than mildly reformed. Read the rest of this post...

I just paid $111 in Paris for drugs that cost me $411 last month at Costco

I just arrived in Paris today for my annual medical tourism and house-sitting (and working with Chris to devise AMERICAblog 3.0). The money I save on my asthma drugs by buying them in France rather than in the US (at Costco) will pay for my flight to Europe and then some. Here are two drugs I bought today - these are both only a one-month supply.

The first drug is Symbicort.  Note that both drugs, the US version and the French version, are made and sold by the same pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca.  This isn't some cheap knockoff - which is the lie the FDA is spouting to justify this rip-off of the American taxpayer - it's the same company charging 3.5x the price when it sees that your passport says "American."

And here is another drug for allergies, Singulair, but in my case my doctor prescribes it for my asthma, as it helps to reduce inflammation in the lungs.  You'll note that the French version and the American version of Singulair are made and sold by Merck & Co.  Merck marks it drug up by 400% when it sees that you're American.

Why do companies like Merck and AstroZeneca charge Americans nearly four times what they charge Europeans for certain drugs?  Because they can.  European governments refuse to let companies like Merck and AstroZeneca make such obscene profits on their prescription drug sales, so they tell those companies that if you want to sell your drugs in Europe, you're going to lower the price and only make a "reasonable" profit.

So what do the drug companies do?  They cut their prices in quarter in Europe, and then quadruple the prices in America to make up the difference.

Americans are quite literally subsidizing cheap prescription drug prices in Europe (we are in essence paying a drug tax forced on us by both political parties) and we have both Democrats and Republicans in Washington - who are all beholden to Big Pharma - to thank for it.

Oh, but it gets better.

I just was searching the AMERICAblog archives, and I found this post from July of 2009, nearly three years ago. In it, I talk about the price I paid for Symbicort in France at the time, versus what I paid in the states.

Here's what I found.  The price of Symbicort in France three years ago was 54 Euros ($66) - that's the same price Symbicort goes for today in Paris - AstraZeneca hasn't increased the price one cent in three years.  But a funny thing happens when you look at the price of Symbicort in the US over that same time period.  Three years ago it was $194.  Today it goes for $233.  That's a 20% increase in the price of the drug since 2009.

So, AstraZeneca is not only charging Americans 3.5x what it charges Europeans for the same drug, but over the past three years AstraZeneca has kept the relatively-low price of the drug in Europe stable - a zero percent increase in the price charged Europeans - while AstraZeneca increased the already-exorbitant US price by 20% while US inflation never topped 3% in any of those three years.

We're already paying the price of socialized medicine in America, with none of the benefits. Read the rest of this post...

GOP still has no replacement to offer over Obamacare

They don't get it and never will get it. They're only about obstruction and towing the corporate line, so of course they can't propose anything other than destroying Obamacare.

Nobody is arguing that Obamacare is perfect because it's not. It's still too much of a corporate giveaway but it's a start. The Republicans are glad to stay with the old system that everyone hates and really, it's too easy for them to take that position. Despite arguing about government run healthcare, they almost all take it while in Congress so they don't have a care in the world.

Unlike the rest of the country that has to deal with being told to pay more for insurance by their employer, Congress has it easy. Don't expect movement from this group because their plan is as good as it gets.

House Republicans generally avoided talk of replacement measures on Tuesday as they mobilized for an election-season vote to repeal the health care law that stands as President Barack Obama's signature domestic accomplishment.

Instead, they lambasted the 2-year-old law as a threat to the nation's economic recovery and predicted some Democrats would join them in repudiating it.

"This is nothing short of economic malpractice," said Rep. Nan Hayworth of New York, citing tax increases, government mandates and other items in the law. "We can and we must do better."

Fine, so give everyone a plan and quit obstructing. If the Republican plan is so great, it will win over the public, right? Since the public has only heard reheated old ideas and talk of scrapping Obamacare, they're going to be reluctant to dump everything for nothing. Read the rest of this post...

Former member of GOP leadership wants health care repeal votes every day this year

Sounds like a great way to put jobs first, by taking health care away from kids under the age of 27, and bringing back pre-existing conditions, annual limits and lifetime limits.

The congresswoman in this video, Marsha Blackburn (R-OH), epitomizes everything that is wrong with the modern Republican party. It's a party run by southern social conservatives (Blackburn is originally from Mississippi, surprise!) who are constitutionally incapable of an original thought outside of a set of specific, and rather dated, talking points that usually include lowering taxes, increasing defense spending, hating on gays, contraception and Latinos, and something - anything really - about Ronald Reagan.

In this video, Blackburn, who was in the GOP congressional leadership up until this Congress, calls for daily votes to repeal health care reform.  Richard Socarides, who refused to let her spout her bs unchallenged, should have asked Blackburn to name three things that are in the bill besides the individual mandate (Blackburn has a history of insisting that the bill still contains "death panels").  It'd have been nice to watch her spout her death panel lie, and to see her flounder when asked for specifics of the legislation she wants to repeal.

Read the rest of this post...