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The USS Healthcare has taken some hits. Can it be saved?

Posted on: September 9th, 2009 by ecthompsonmd

 

For reasons completely unclear to me, the Democrats thought they could take their August recess and leave the USS Healthcare on autopilot. While the Democrats were asleep at the wheel, conservatives pounded the USS Healthcare. Death panels. Socialism. Marxism. Republican Congressmen Phil Gingrey stated that we don't need to regulate private insurance companies, that the marketplace will regulate them for us. Senator Chuck Grassley actually told his constituents "you have every right to fear."

I find it ironic, in the age of information and the Internet, that there can be so much misinformation. There are no death panels. No such thing exists in any of the three bills in the House or in the one bill that's percolating in the Senate. Anyone with an Internet connection can go online and look at these bills. Yes, these bills are long, but they are easily searchable. I cannot explain why the media has allowed this misinformation to ricochet around the airwaves.

As I see it, Republicans are playing some type of child's game where they claim to support healthcare reform. I don't see any real effort to support healthcare reform. Senator Mike Enzi is probably the best example of this. He is supposedly negotiating for a bipartisan reform bill. Just last week he told a group of supporters at a rally that he was sure that healthcare reform was going to fail. Unfortunately, Mike Enzi is a very important senator, on the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Some Republican senators have said they won't even read the final bill. Democrats, liberals and progressives need to read the writing on the wall. If we truly want change, we're going to have to push for it. We are going have to march for it. We are going to have to pull the rest of the country kicking and screaming to get it. This is the only way that we are going to prevent the USS Healthcare from sinking.

I came across an enlightening poll conducted by Research 2000 (8/31- 9/3). They asked whether individuals “favor or oppose a government administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans.” This is the liberal public option. This is not including some quasi-public option that only triggers when we have 50 or 60 million Americans without health insurance. The question did not ask anything about cost control or if the public option adds to the deficit. It was a straightforward question. 58% of respondents favored the public option. 57% of independents supported the public option. America, by a three-to-two margin, supports the public option. This is even after a month of misinformation and lies. The American people still want the public option and not some watered down version of it.

BTW, we need healthcare reform.  This isn't a luxury.  People are lining up for free clinics all over the country.  They are having to turn away people.  Where were the birthers and teabaggers shouting down these Americans who needed healthcare?

Republican Representative John Kline of Minnesota gave the weekly address on Saturday, suggesting that we just start over. Personally, I believe his suggestion was disingenuous but let's take his advice anyway. Let's simplify the whole equation. Medicare for all. Period. Fix the donut hole in Medicare part D. Allow Medicare to truly negotiate drug prices. Nothing fancy.  Nothing complex.  No triggers.  No bailout for the health insurance industry.  Simply the freedom to go to any doctor you choose and any hospital you choose.  Why can't we do this and make it affordable?

Finally, on a personal note, I've just completed one of the most emotionally and physically draining two weeks of my medical career. I've had to sit down with a number of families and tell them that their loved one was not going to make it. These end-of-life discussions, even under the best of circumstances, are obviously extremely difficult. To have elected officials, even senators, tell their constituents that there are "death panels" in any of these bills is beyond reprehensible. I know that there is a special place in Dante's Inferno just for these liars.

November 5th

Posted on: November 6th, 2008 by ecthompsonmd

 

(I wrote this last week.)

At this time of year, I especially like to use football analogies. Leon Lett was a very talented defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys during the early- and mid-1990s. In the Super Bowl, Leon Lett picked up a fumble and ran towards a certain touchdown. Approximately five yards from the goal line, he began to celebrate and Don Beebe of the Buffalo Bills came out of nowhere and knocked the ball out of Leon Lett's hand before he crosses the goal line. No touchdown.

There are a couple of ways to look at this story. One way is from Don Beebe's perspective. The Buffalo Bills were losing and losing badly.  The Bills were about to lose their third Super Bowl in a row. Beebe could've easily given up. Instead, he has become a part of football legend. With grit and determination, he prevented a touchdown. Leon Lett, on the other hand, is remembered for being a great player who made a boneheaded play.

As both presidential campaigns try to sprint to the finish line, we must remember that the world will not stop on November 4th.  All the problems that existed on November fourth will still be around on November 5th. For almost two years, Barack Obama has asked us to be an active participant in his campaign. After the election results are announced, we cannot stop being activists.

For more than 30 years, the American people have been spectators. We have been busy either cheering or booing our politicians. It is time for us to help our candidate carry the ball over the goal line. Our goal must be more than just to win a presidential race but, to make a better America.

It is my opinion that we, the American people, need to accomplish five things in order to save our republic. First, we need to create jobs. Many of these jobs should come from the creation of a clean energy industry. Without good jobs, we are not going to get out of this economic recession. Secondly, we need to revamp our tax structure. We need to reward businesses that hire and pay a fair wage. Thirdly, we need to extricate ourselves from Iraq in an orderly fashion. Some troops will need to be redeployed to Afghanistan. We need to provide Afghanistan with an infrastructure so that the central government can be effective. Fourth, we truly need to invest in education. We need to do more than just throw money at the problem. We need to rebuild our crumbling schools, which would create more jobs. We need to create a system where the best and the brightest want to go into our public school system and teach our children. Last, but not least, we need to look seriously at health care. Doctors, nurses, patients, hospital administrators - almost no one is happy with the way our healthcare system is running. The system needs to be friendlier to everyone. Is excellent health care a right in this country? We need to have this discussion. The American people, not just our politicians, must be involved in this discussion. Whatever solution we come up with is one we'll all have to live with.

If we are able to accomplish these five things relatively quickly we can save our wonderful country. Through letters and e-mails, phone calls and faxes, we must continue to be engaged with our politicians. We must demand town hall meetings where we see our politicians face-to-face.  We need constantly to remind them that they work for us. They should carry out our wishes and our desires. Right now, we want change.

Supply-side Economics Never Made Sense

Posted on: October 1st, 2008 by ecthompsonmd

 

As we see the collapse of Wall Street, AIG, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, and Lehman Brothers, we all must wonder what happened. We have been told that our economy was strong. Yet within the last seven to eight months we've seen 19 banks collapse and the kind of volatility in the stock market that makes us all queasy and seasick.

Within 20 years, we went from being the most prosperous nation on the earth to the nation carrying the most debt. Personally, I think we have to look back to the 1980s for the answers. This was the so-called Me Generation. It was all about nicer clothes, nicer cars, and the biggest house in the gated community. It didn't matter if you obtained all of this through credit cards, six mortgages and a loan from Guido down the street. The bottom line was it was all about Me.

Some of this thinking came from supply-side economics. The theory behind supply-side economics: tax cuts for the wealthy and for businesses will free up capital; the wealthy would spend more money; business and the wealthy would hire more people. This prosperity would trickle down to everyone. On the surface, this makes a lot of sense but upon further reflection we see it is a magician's trick. Before we get the hard data, let's just think about this. If you're a wealthy businessman who makes $10 million a year, for argument's sake, you pay 40% of what you make in income tax. This comes to $4 million. With tax cuts, your tax rate is changed from 40% to 35%. You take home an extra $500,000. What are you going to do to spur the economy? You already have a new car, maybe two or three. You have a house, possibly two. You already have a maid and someone to cut your grass. Most likely, you will do what most multimillionaires would do, which is to invest that $500,000. The logic for business is about the same. Businesses don't hire people just because there's extra money lying around. Extra money from tax cuts can be paid out as bonuses (remember upper management is very fond of bonuses and stock options) or distributed as increased dividends to stockholders. Therefore, in this example, it appears that supply-side economics lines the pockets of the rich.

With President Bush, President Clinton, and President Reagan, we are able to look at two eras of supply-side economics sandwiching a more traditional economic approach. Real investment growth was greater in the period of 1993-2001 at the rate of 10.2 percent. President Reagan had a growth of 2.8 percent. President Bush has had a growth of 2.7 percent. Gross Domestic Product, a measurement of economic growth, increased at an average annual rate of 3.9 percent during the Clinton era while Reagan and Bush had rates of growth of 3.9 percent and 2.5 percent respectively. For me, the most important indicator of how we are doing is real average annual median income. With the tax increases during Clinton's presidency, real average annual median income grew at a rate of 2 percent. Reagan's presidency spurred an increase 1.4 percent and under the Bush administration, the increase was only 0.3 percent. (Data from Center For American Progress.)

There are multiple excuses that true supply-side believers will give us as to why supply-side economics did not work. They will claim that any change in the economy takes years to make an effect. This plainly contradicts the father of supply-side economics, Art Laffer, who stated that we would see changes in our economy "before the ink is dry" on the legislation for tax cuts. They will argue that there weren't enough government spending cuts. There's further data to support a more traditional economic approach. This approach includes higher wages, higher employment growth and results in decreased federal deficits. This was the case during Clinton's years in office, as compared with either supply-side era. In spite of all this data, though, some still advocate tax cuts for the rich. Why?

Supply-side economics simply does not work for America. Maybe this "Me First, Everything Else Second" mentality helped cause the craziness that we're seeing on Wall Street. I'm just askin'.

  • Errington C. Thompson, MD
    Errington_ThompsonDr. Thompson is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats.
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