Hoyer Finally Admits the Obvious: Health Care Bill Killed the Dems in 2010 - FDL

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. The Republicans were able to carry on their propaganda campaign BECAUSE

the Dems made their proposal too complicated and didn't provide easily accessible, easily understandable information.

I know. I looked for an executive summary of the bill. I could find one for Conyers' single-payer proposal, but none for Obama's proposal.

The Republicans ran with this opportunity to dig up every scare story in the British tabloid press for the past ten years.

When I finally found the executive summary (on the Kaiser Family Foundation web site, not from any Dem source), my heart sank. The proposal was incredibly complicated, would add extra costs to people's medical expenses instead of alleviating them, and seemed designed to bail out the medical insurance companies rather than to solve the twin problems of cost and access.

Look, name the health care system of any other country, and I can describe it in five or fewer easily understood bullet points.

Here's Japan, for example:

1. Most doctors are in private practice

2. There are both public and private options that cost the same and provide the same benefits

3. Premiums are based on income, not on age or medical status.

4. There are co-pays, but no deductibles.

5. If you have certain chronic or catastrophic conditions or spend over a certain amount per year, the government picks up the full tab.

Here's the UK:

1. Most medical providers are public employees, but some are in private practice.

2. There are no premiums or deductibles, and no co-pays except for medications.

3. The system is funded out of general revenues.

4. It has a "private option," which you pay for either on your own or with private insurance.

5. All legal residents of the UK are automatically eligible, and visitors receive (real) emergency treatment until they are stabilized.

The Dems should have come up with a system that could be described in five bullet points and sent their best speakers out to all the media to plug it. These speakers should have concentrated especially on local media where the Blue Dogs lived and urged their constituents to pressure these Blue Dogs.

Instead of meeting behind closed doors with the insurance company execs, the Dems should have told them that their gouging days were over and that they should prepare to convert their business model to offering supplemental insurance only. If they had publicized this move (telling the insurance companies to go fuck themselves), it would have made them look tough (the voters like tough) and concerned about the welfare of the people.

But no, they had to negotiate in secret, coddle the insurance companies, and come up with a patchwork of regulations, some of which will really piss people off. (Since the full bill won't go into effect till 2014 anyway, what was the big hurry?)