U.S. Senate
See Full Big Line
(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
August 28, 2009 03:57 PM UTC
60 Comments
Regrettably, I’m not putting out snark.
On KCRW’s To The Point, the show topic was “Healthcare Reform and Questions of Faith.” It was a pretty comprehensive lineup of faith-based organizations that were either for or against health care reform. (“What Would Jesus CoPay?”) No surprise that the Christian Coalition rolled out some ancient Fire n Brimstone Preacher who denounced Health Care Reform as the first step to Socalism, but the Junk Economist was the surprise.
Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies, Cato Institute, rolled out a gem of Nutjob Thinking – if you refuse to get Health Insurance, you’ll be shot.
His line of thinking is this – if you refuse to get health insurance under HR3200, you’ll be fined. If you refuse to pay the fine, you’ll go to jail. If you try and leave jail, you’ll be shot.
Ergo, if you refuse to participate in Obamacare, you’ll be shot.
More here: http://www.kcrw.com/news/progr…
Libertad, have you started writing policy for the Cato Institute? It sounds like your line of “thinking.”
Back when they were formed, Cato and Heritage were supposed to provide some intellectual muscle for conservative ideals. They stayed above the fray and provided white papers on policy issues, letting the politicians fight it out in the scrum.
Now, they’re reduced to the intellectual level of birthers. Why? I dunno, maybe it’s the siren song of cable news, where the way to keep getting invited is to say something outlandish.
because Rush Limbaugh sure has a monopoly on stupid.
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I thought that Rush was saying something complimentary, in his round-about way, to his former nemesis. I thought he was thanking TK for NOT using his power and influence to demand extraordinary measures to prolong his life.
Is this really an insult ?
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He’s saying the Kennedy’s are rich enough to pay for whatever healthcare they need, and everyone else should be “free” to do the same and thereby escape any form of rationing. As if the reality for the other 99.99% of us is no rationing now with our public or private plans.
Not complimentary. Willfully stupid. Especially since no public plan that exists now, or any that is proposed, has the freedom to ration as severely as private insurers do right now every day.
It is an insult to everything Ted Kennedy fought for. Duh
from Westword (the one profitable newspaper in Denver)
Best quote in the article, apparently only liberals are rich:
What FTS clearly needs is some government intervention to prop up a failing business model.
Like Liberal talk radio.
Just post HERE. Duh!
He won’t get rich, unlike the Guvs, but at least he’ll have the satisfaction of subverting these Soros-funded servers to fight the vast left-wing conspiracy and heroically advance the cause of conservatism.
Besides, LB, Yokel, and our new friend Schnack could use the company.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/e…
Nixon was much much worse.
Jeez, the ex ‘n I missed all that fun.
I’ve come to see Nixon as someone who could have been a great president – at least 2nd tier greatness – but for two flaws.
One he inherited, the VN war. Although I believe he could have gotten us out faster but stayed in with the next election in mind.
And the second was his paranoia. That’s what pretty much did him in, one way or the other.
Otherwise, we was very socially liberal and he signed into law great bills for our “general welfare.” And he was working on universal health care.
That may well be right, Rush. And Ted Kennedy always cited his family’s good fortune in being able to afford the very best healthcare without regard to cost as motivation for helping the little guys who aren’t so lucky.
It’s not like more than a tiny fraction of a percentage point are getting Kennedy family level care now and those few are in no danger of losing it. The rest are either already on a government option program as government employees, seniors, serving military or vets, etc. or have our health care potentially rationed much more severely than those programs do by for profit company bureaucrats who think nothing of dropping us altogether after decades of taking our money when we actually need some serious healthcare.
Now, after reading any comment on Ted Kennedy and his fight for health care from the big fat stupid garbage mouth of Rush Limbaugh, I feel the urge for long hot scrub in the shower coming on.
I’m not really a fan of the health care legislation. But it’s pretty dumb to attack it because it rations health care.
Any form of administration will ration a scarce supply of something.
The free market does it by price, which I would argue is preferable to rationing it by any other means. It seems a little cold-hearted I realize, but it is the best way to ensure that doctors are properly paid for their services, health technology and pharmeceutical companies are paid properly to encourage continued innovation, and patients who can afford it get the best care. And that definitely leaves people out of the mix, ie those without insurance.
You are correct that money is the rationing mechanism and yesterday you pointed out that private insurance creates distortions in the rationing mechanism. I would like to follow up on that.
I am reading a 2004 Robert Wood Johnson study on Medicare costs (kind of a precursor to Atul Gawande http://www.newyorker.com/repor… for super dorks) and I have yet to see what causes such a wide disparity in use. Some differences can be accounted for by general health (i.e. lower smoking or obesity rates), but nothing else seems to drive costs aside from medical culture. It certainly isn’t outcomes.
The nature of healthcare and its inelastic demand seems to indicate fundamental problems with a market based allocation system. We could do things to improve the market based rationing system (differential copays to see a PA, APN, MD or specialist).
It takes time, energy and effort for a non medical professional to be able to make rational choices and a medical provider may have conflicts of interest which drive their view of the “best” treatment, so the push between controlling your own care and doing what the doctor says is pretty fundamental.
So do you mean that doctors have incentives to do more testing than is necessary?
I can agree that much of healthcare is inelastic, ie cancer treatment, hip replacement. But isn’t it possible to seperate those forms of medical care from coming down with the common cold, getting basic prescriptions (not cancer treatment drugs or AIDS mediciine).
I might even be convinced that we could plausibly have something akin to a single payer system (blasphemy on my side of the aisle) if we were to seperate the forms of medical care it covered. You don’t get covered for physicals, check-ups, flu shots, blah blah blah, but you don’t have to worry about bankruptcy when you experience a catastrophic incident.
It’s pretty complicated I guess.
Culture explains a lot of the problems, but it is not strictly “testing.” Often the conflict is between internist and specialist and how you treat an identified problem.
The nature of tests in medicine is they tend to have a lot of noise (rule things out not in, false positives, etc.) and there is some economic incentives for testing (stats on doctor owned testing facilities vs. doctors who don’t own facilities/equipment are telling), but an even bigger driver seems to be the course of treatment.
Personally, and there is some evidence to it, I believe the proportion of specialists to internists is the major cost driver. Patients need a medical home, with a doctor they trust to act as gatekeeper and educator.
that it would make sense to further privatize the services that are performed by General doctors and family doctors. The guy/gal that you go to first. I would even argue that it would be a boon for health care if this market was not covered at all by insurance.
Then you have private insurance for what you need to live. A life-saving operation, chemotherapy, in other words the expensive stuff. This private insurance could be backed up by a single payer system, which would incentivise private insurers to insure people, who wouldn’t be able to afford it without that single payer backing. Currently almost no seniors in the nation, save the ultra rich, could afford insurance of any form without the explicit backing of Medicare. So it’s not that I don’t support reform. But I would say it has to be limited to a backup insurance agency that is only accessible if you hold private catastrophic insurance, and it can only be used for the major medical stuff.
Medical care isn’t only one thing. But I think the desire to lump it all together with checkups, flu shots, penicillin prescritions is a mistake.
If people believe that it is (or if it actually is) expensive to get physicals, check-ups, flu shots, etc., then people are less likely to get them. They might instead wait until they have a serious illness. Why would it make fiscal sense to deter people from getting the services they need to stay healthy, or to catch a problem early when it’s treatable?
Based on my own family’s experience, it would have been a lot less expensive to the insurer for my Mom to have had annual mammograms instead of waiting to get help until after her breast cancer had spread to her bones. It might also have saved her and the rest of us a lot of pain and grief.
Then why don’t we let water suppliers set whatever price they choose? Electrical utilities? Why do we bother to have publicly funded roads and bridges instead of just private toll roads? Why don’t we choose private providers for police, military, the FAA, FDA and hundreds if not thousands of other areas of our economy that we pay for?
Because price is not always the ideal mechanism.
Price only works well when there is complete and freely available information and competition, which are related. Lack of either distorts the pricing mechanism as a way to distribute or ration.
Information about health insurance is not complete and freely available. Competition may exist, but due to the inherent complexity,no consumer can determine based on the incomplete and misleading information available. Likewise, the barriers to entry for competitors are huge and therefore it’s too easy for the existing industry to head fake any competitors and prevent them from entering, thus inhibiting competition.
See “CA energy market deregulation and Enron”
Or pore through the litigation and lobbying efforts on behalf of big pharma and consumers who were harmed.
If the American consumers of the early 70’s were aware of the exploding issue, how would it have affected the price of the Pinto? But consumers were not aware and at trial evidence was produced that demonstrated that Ford had made a market based business decision regarding the possibility of explosions. Even the most pure free market proponents would agree that information should have been disclosed. That way, if you still chose to buy a car that might explode, you’d be free to make the choice and set the price you would pay accordingly.
I actually am fairly open to some aspects of health care to be treated as a public good, and thus regulated and provided by say a GSE. I would like to see legislation passed that mandates individuals to obtain catastrophic health insurance. This insurance could be priced in a market that doesn’t compete with the government, but instead is subsidized by the government.
I think it’s disingenuous to consider all healthcare the same market. People should pay out of their pocket for regular doctor visits, flu shots, etc, and then have private health insurance that is supplemented by a Medicare type system that everyone pays into and is administered by the government for the major medical stuff. Nobody worries about going bankrupt because they get cancer, but they don’t burden the system just to get over a common cold.
I was under the impression that it’s the big-ticket stuff that kills us, expense-wise (and literally, too).
Isn’t this idea of paying for the little stuff a disincentive to preventative care that (hopefully) catches major illnesses at an earlier, more treatable (less expensive?) phase?
Did you read that T.R. Reid piece yesterday? In Japan, they have way more doctor’s visits, and a higher percentage of old folks, but their healthcare costs half as much as ours with better results across the board. As Reid’s column makes clear, there are a lot of systems out there that work better than ours. Why not examine them and pick the one that works best, rather than just tweakin something that doesn’t work and hope for the best?
that says that if people aren’t covered to get care when their sickness or injury is mild, then when it turns worse they will be covered for more expensive care under what I’m suggesting. It certainly does create a moral hazard.
I was coming at the issue from a standpoint that there isn’t just one single market for healthcare as a giant thing. There isn’t one single big market for banking, it’s split into different sectors with different regulations and consumer protections. If we moved toward a system where all healthcare, regardless of any particular segment’s (say the market for flu shots, or even a bi-annual physical) ability to perform adequately as a free market, was lumped together with other markets that certainly don’t function correctly when left to laissez faire forces(like say cancer treatment), then we are not putting together the best health bill possible.
A rational person can agree that doing nothing isn’t an option, and neither is not considering an expanded role for government in the health system. But I’d like that role to be limited in its scope, because another ticking time bomb of entitlement funding failure isn’t in anyone’s interests.
Americans are burdening the healthcare system with colds?
How does that work exactly?
They get sick. they go to the dr. Their insurance pays part- they pay part. But if the insurance wasn’t there, they would just pay it all. Or would they just skip the dr. Yikes – talk about rationing.
Your obviously thinking about this – points for that.
And you haven’t yet mangled the language or veered way off top ic just to throw a spear at someone, as far as I know , so welcome aboard.
But here’s a problem.
Describe how it came to be that most Americans get heir health insurance from their employer. Then describe how we transition from that to something where people mostly pay out of pocket for “ordinary” stuff and get gov’t subsidized* insurance for the “catastrophic” stuff.
*subsidies are major market distortions.
And I quoted ordinary and catastrophic- how would you define them?
Also, and here’s the big rub as I see it in the US.
Assuming we are talking about some kind of universal coverage what do you do with the person who chooses no coverage – it’s cheapest. Until, of course, they get diagnosed with something costly. At which point they have a conversion
I see the conversation with the dr going to something like this
Dr: I will need to confirm, and you are welcome to get other opinions, but I’m almost certain you have <______>. It’s treatable, but it’s gonna cost.
Pt: Well- hmm. that sux. Uhhh, I gotta go get some of that universal insurance and I’ll be back in a week or two. (Or 30 or 60 or 90 days)
Adverse selection is another feature of the free market. And the only ay to avoid it in the case of health insurance and healthcare is to define the pool of those covered and those eligible as the same pool and charge accordingly. You can opt out only by showing you have qualifying coverage.
I’m not convinced however that there is a need to consider the treatment that you get to battle the flu or a broken wrist is the same as the treatment you get to battle brain cancer or say spinal surgery. I would consider the 1st examples to be a personal responsibility, whereas the costs and gravity of the latter are much more drastic. Firstly I would argue that people need insurance because if a person who needs these things will ultimately get the treatment with or without insurance. The $50,000.00 or so that people get in medical bills to save their lives isn’t reasonable.
But I think that people can be responsible for their less severe ailments, and if it means that they get hounded for the $2,000 or $3,000 they incur then they need to settle or have an private insurance that isn’t federally backed up or subsidized.
The delinquncies and no-pays that result from the big ticket items that save lives are what largely raise costs.
folks might have run to the doctor with every little cold but those days are fading fast. Not that those visits amounted to much of the expense of the system anyway. But now, putting off any health care for any reason because of high out of pocket costs is becoming more and more common than overuse. It will get more common as our costs will double in a few years if we do nothing.
Here’s what makes me nuts: Knowing that I would have been better off for years paying my own way, given my high deductible, instead of paying almost all of my own costs PLUS my premiums.
I rarely went far over my high deductible and often didn’t reach it. The only reason paying all those premiums was worthwhile, so I thought, was in case of something really serious so I wouldn’t be bankrupted.
Now, of course, I know that if something like that happens there will be a bureaucrat going over everything with a fine tooth comb looking for a reason to deny me, like they did to that nurse with aggressive cancer and acne treatment in her background. Or they’ll just cut me off at a certain point because they can.
I’ve been essentially paying protection money for nothing. It’s not worth the paper the contract is printed on. And that’s all that’s available to me as a self employed person who isn’t rich. It’s all pretty much the same for people like me, take it or leave it.
Rationing just doesn’t get much more brutal than the kind ruled by the profit motive. What do they care if I die only after I become unable to pay in more than I take out? The whole point is to throw me overboard when there’s no profit left to squeeze out of me. That’s just good business. No wonder no other civilized western nation would dream of such a barbaric healthcare access system as ours.
covered by United Health Care (parent company of the ‘independent’ health policy center the Lewin Group–oft-cited by the GOP) and only used my insurance for a few routine check ups, and definitely not even on a yearly basis.
The first time I had a test that cost $600, prescribed by the doctor, UHC denied me because I hadn’t cleared it with some bureaucrat in corporatelandia.
I fought it, being recommend and important to head off potentially far costlier problems, and eventually they split the cost with me. The time I spent, however, on the phone, writing letters, etc. etc. etc. was far more than what it was worth–even then.
Now, I am self-employed and self-insured. I have never used my high-deductible HSA-tied insurance. (I have used my HSA account for dental and such and think HSAs are not a bad thing for that, but I have never filed a single claim with BCBS, even against my deductible). In three years my premium has increased about 15%, for never using it or filing a claim.
The Republicans are wrong on this one, and they may lie their way into bed with their corporate sponsors all they want, and they may even be successful at perpetuating, for a time, a system where Americans die sooner, are less healthy, and yet pay more than in nearly every other developed country, but only for a time. For the Republicans are also on the wrong side of history. On this and pretty much every issue.
I don’t know if it will self-destruct (as a major party), like its various predecessors such as the Whigs and Kowo-Nothings, or if it will rise like a Phoenix and cast off it’s remaining base, but that, too, is only a matter of time.
I don’t know you, but I know hundreds with a similar story.
And using the famous AmEx 10×1 rule, that means there are thousands or hundreds of thousands.
And here’s where it’s good for D’s- they pass this they do ok in the mid-terms.
But here’s where it’s good for R’s – it ain’t like the 30’s and the 40’s where the D’s save the free world and hold the WH and do anything congressional majorities for decades. By 2012 we’ll be arguing about who saved what when and Obama will have a tough time, even though we’ll mostly all agree the healthcare reforms passed wayyyy back in 09 are generally a good thing.
I can’t argue with the notion that we nead a healthy America that is free from the fear of total ruin or constanct misery that results from illness that leads to bills that from any standpoint unpayable.
I don’t want that for fellow Americans.
That said, although I have heard Barack say that he doesn’t support a healthcare bill that is not self sustaining and doesn’t add to the deficit, and I sincerely believe he wants to pass a bill that helps Americans and doesn’t violate those principles, I don’t see the evidence that would suggest that another massive (more massive than Social Security and Medicare, because it covers all Americans not just the elderly) entitlement program that may provide a false sense of stability for a number of years, would solve our problems as a nation.
I’m a Republican, and I don’t believe in a nationalized system for all healthcare (all it has to be done is for it to be labled “healthcare” and the American government pays for it?? come on), but it can work if it is meant to provide the type of care that is bankrupting our nation. I can sympathize with people who could be cured by a system that is meant to get people healthy again. But I would advocate a system where we seperate the desperate need-to-live care from the care that is largely propogated by a tax system that subsidizes medical care through tax loops and its current policiies.
Do the majority of Americans need to go to the doctor because their throat is scratchy in the morning? Does everyone who thinks they might get the flu this coming season need a shot?? Should every single tax-paying American pay when someone decides to leapfrog a fire hydrent and breaks their arm?
That said, it makes sense to cover someone through public insurance when they get cancer, or they need surgery that will get them back to work and functioning in our society.
My theme has constantly been this: HEALTHCARE IS NOT A SINGLE MARKET. We can trust our lawmakers if they disect this market carefully and provide a government provided healthcare system that is meant to keep our responsible citizens healthy.
But responsible means that you take care of yourself, within your abilities.
GOP Rep. Jenkins comment that the party needs to find a “Great White Hope”. Since the reference is so blatantly obvious, will the defense be she’s not a racist, just a completely ignorant moron? What’s with the GOP and their taste for nice looking women elected officials who are walking punchlines for dumb bimbo jokes?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…
Comes from upbringing, her parents are probably idiots too.
As far as what the hell she was thinking, I have no friggin idea, though I guess she can always say that she “misspoke” as that seems to be the mea cuelpa for the anytime a member of the current administration says something stupid.
I offer no defense of her stupidity….
And as far as nice looking women who are punchlines for dumb bimbo jokes goes, we were thinking of trying it the other way around, but then we realized that the other side has already cornered the market on the hags.
Denver Broncos… Still Suck!
Apparently, when today’s GOP allows women to partcipate it’s only for cosmetic purposes. The Collins, Snowes etc. are being phased out and it’s not like there are or ever have been many non-white males allowed in the club in the first place.
A clue as to whether she knew what she was saying comes in her response that she just meant Republican bright lights. Then she goes on to name three white guys. Now I know it’s hard to come up with anything else among GOP pols but she didn’t think to mention the not so lily white Jindal, he of the big 2008 buzz.
So maybe she meant exactly what she said. It’s not as if the GOP doesn’t have to ‘splain another widely distributed racist anti-Obama e-mail every 15 minutes. Or that Republican tea-baggers and birthers can often manage to object to Obama policy without using racist insults. Blog comments criticizing Obama and starting right out calling him things like “monkey lips” abound.
All in all, her comments seem to reflect the core of today’s GOP culture: racist, idiotic and sexist.
are the ones who support women I don’t find attractive in positions of power. What’s wrong, party of sexists? Don’t think an attractive woman can be powerful and intelligent? Think we’re so desperate for smart women that we’ll take any old fatty that comes along?
Who’s the REAL sexist?
Uh, you. You are. Did I not make that clear? That’s what I mean to say. You.
are the real sexists. As Stephen Colbert might say, I don’t notice the sexes. When I’m with my partner, I can’t even tell whether I’m gay or straight until the Mormon church tells me.
I cannot believe his reckless behavior!
http://www.politico.com/news/s…
I can’t believe this actually made it into the new cycle.
Who fights for motorcycles to not have to wear a helmet if they don’t want to?
Who agrees thats it is ok to wear loaded guns to Presidential public events?
Politics has gone off the deep end.
even biking with his daughters, he’s a bad/fascist/communist/anarchist/terrorist-loving/America-hating kind of guy. He never takes a vacation from evil doing, does he? The horror. Bet he makes them wear burqas when nobody is looking, too.
http://mediamatters.org/resear…
Ted Kennedy helped write one of the most progressive health care bill proposals a couple months ago in the committee he chaired and oh by the way he voted for it too.
Always casting things in the most progressive light. Always making sure progressive views see the light of day! That left wing media can’t help but be fair and balanced.
everything would be peachy if only they could have worked with Teddy, didn’t vote for it.
Kennedy would not want his name on a bad bill (NCLB notwithstanding).
So get out a good bill.
http://washingtonindependent.c…
P.S. I think the ‘C’ stands for “commercials,” which is clearly why Beck had to leave it out.
I watched Glenn Beck about a year ago and he had a few salient points . I didn’t agree with him, but he seemed pretty sane.
Now he looks like some unhinged nutty conspiracy theorist scribbling gibberish on a blackboard. WTF.
n/t
If history is any lesson he should run for President. twice. Three times if you count quitting and then re-entering once.
This one is the most famous:
http://mediamatters.org/resear…
But I watched him interview Amy Sedaris, and it felt just as uncomfortable. The whole time, he was clearly thinking, “Oh the things I could do to you.”
Then he went on Fox News and turned REALLY creepy.
Sometimes whacky, sometimes some interesting and cohesive thoughts.
Now, just whacky. No, lunatic.
I actually remember listening to our favorite punching bag, Rush, in the early 90’s I guess it was. While I never agreed with his politics, he wasn’t the vitriol filled, hypocritical scumbag that we know and love now.
Same thing for Dr. Laura. Once, good advice, then out there uber-rightie stuff, a shrew. Oh, and a hypocrite!
A pattern here?
he’s telling us the place to go to save the republic? Any guesses?
Because if you rearrange the letters in SANTA you get SATAN!
I’d be surprised if Beck doesn’t start using numerology tomorrow.
46 advertisers lost!
11 letters in “Barack Obama”!
5 letters in “ACORN”!
And then there’s 32!
46*11+5*32 = 666
I knew it!
I just turned in my economics homework yesterday, and I swear I’ve never written QED so many times in my whole life. Have a good weekend everyone.
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What Bat time ?
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locally, it re-runs at midnight tonight. First aired today at 3 p.m., apparently (I had to look it up).
Will this be like the Rapture, when Glenn Beck tells us all where to go to save the republic everyone leaves at once, all these empty cars cluttering the roads?
Perhaps Beck got the scoop, in spite of what it says in Matthew. Although, on second thought, I guess that would be carried live… or, maybe, paraphrasing Gil Scott Heron, the Rapture will not be televised?
I must tune in!