Healthcare In The USA

Hi Straggler, As always, there's more to what's happening than just what the TV shows us. The health care lunacy on TV has nothing to do with the issues, it is, just like it always is when media coverage gets hyped up about a single topic, just a distraction to keep the public focused and entertained, while Big Business hashes out it's wants and needs with the White House.And distracted it has kept us.What am I talking about? Here: Source

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The latest flare-up was sparked this week when the LA Times reported that the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbyist, Billy Tauzin, was crowing about what Big Pharma had received in return for agreeing to $80 billion in cost savings plus the bankrolling of a pro-reform campaign:

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Tauzin said he had not only received the White House pledge to forswear Medicare drug price bargaining, but also a separate promise not to pursue another proposal Obama supported during the campaign: importing cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe. Both proposals could cost the industry billions

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Let the games begin...

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The next day, The New York Times corroborated the deal:

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...White House officials...assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion

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But then Congress weighed in...

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From a Bloomberg article titled "Drugmakers May Have Trouble Enforcing Health Deal in Congress":

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The bargain U.S. drugmakers struck with President Barack Obama...can’t be enforced on Congress, lawmakers say. Democratic lawmakers...including...Nancy Pelosi and...Henry Waxman have said Congress isn’t bound by the agreements...
On August 8, The New York Times ran this story, called "Obama Reverses Stand on Drug Industry Deal":

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Caught between a pivotal industry ally and the protests of Congressional Democrats, the Obama administration backed away from what drug industry lobbyists had said was a firm White House promise to exclude from a proposed health care overhaul the possibility of allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices under Medicare. Several Senate Democrats said White House officials had told them there was no such deal, sowing yet more confusion...

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So now there is a bit of confusion as to which side is going to get what they want. This needs to get hashed out, behind closed doors.Furthermore...

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And on August 9, AP reported just how much support the pharmaceutical companies wereapparently stillwilling to pony up:

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The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail his chief domestic priority.
So is it a deal or no deal? The New York Times reported that people involved in the original negotations said there had been "some ambiguity" in the discussions. Sounds like an understatement.

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You figure for that kind of money they need to see some benefit to it, right?Well...

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Rep. Bernie Sanders may have summed up suspicions about dealing with the pharmaceutical industry when he said, "The drug companies form the most powerful lobby in Washington. They never lose."

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But The New York Times also reports that although the pharmaceutical industry opposes a public insurance planone of Obama's top priorities"its lobbyists acknowledge privately that they have no intention of fighting it, in part because their agreement with the White House provides them other safeguards." And while longtime health-care reform advocates may see a poison pill in any deal involving the industry, the enrolling of tens of millions of currently uninsured people in new health plans could mean big profits to drug companies, while still putting them on the same side as the pro-reform crowd.

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And here's the reason for the media hype...

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High stakes and lots of buzz, which will only increase when Congress returns from recess.

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Congress returns Sept 4th. Until then, nothing can be decided between the White House and the Pharm Industry until Congress weighs in on the matter. The Pharm Industry is NOT going to get screwed over, and the White House is going to make sure of that.In the mean time, while they work out how much money everyone is going to make, the general public is kept distracted with town-hall stupidity and hyped up news coverage. We then get all worked up and begin to fight each other, adding more to the distraction propaganda. It then becomes a fight between the general public on itself, we turn on each other. FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC, etc, begin to take sides covering favorable stories to support whatever their individual audience supports.In the end the only ones who will gain anything are the lobbyist, big business and specific White House officials. And the beauty of it is that it keeps the general public divided once again according to their individual parties. The dems fight the repubs and vice versa. We stay blind and big business continues to get richer.Why do we have crazy town hall meetings and all this news coverage? It's a necessary distraction to keep us entertained, dude. It's nothing more than that.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

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If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

Fair enough, I can agree that individual politicians are using this for their benefit in some way as well.But my point was more toward, why the media coverage and the hype, with the town-hall meetings and with "death panels," etc? That's where I feel the disinformation is coming from, the mainstream media.Here's an article if you care to read it that touches on this. SourceA few quotes for those who don't want to read the full article:

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This basic truth must be kept in mind in understanding the health care debate. The debate has trailed off into loon tune land, and it's the media's fault.

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The lunacy was most clearly in evidence in former Governor Sarah Palin's claim that President Obama's plan would force her to stand in front of a "death panel" to argue for the life of her baby with Down Syndrome. This "death panel" is a complete invention by Governor Palin. There is no twist or turn or contorted permutation of President Obama's plan that would prevent Ms. Palin from providing as much health care as she wants to her baby.

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The media have allowed the politicians to turn life into death and night into day when it comes to the health care debate because they decided that anything said against President Obama's plan should be treated with respect, no matter how absurd it might be.

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The media have the job of informing the public. They have the time and the resources to know that when opponents of President Obama's plan talk about rationing, they are not telling the truth (i.e. they are lying). If the media just pass these assertions on to the public without comment, then they are giving them credibility.

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And if the opponents of health reform think they can get away with one really big lie, then why shouldn't they start moving forward with even bigger ones. It was only a matter of time before someone came up with Governor Palin's death panel line. For this we owe our thanks to the Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream media.

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If the corporate mainstream media is responsible for the disinformation, then I think the big question is why? Why are they leading the campaign of misinforming the public?Is it to draw viewers, or is there a bigger agenda focused on big business (Pharm Industry) and their wants and needs?I think in your other thread I favored "to draw viewers," but having looked into this stuff a bit deeper and finding the articles on the Pharm Industry's agreement with the White House, I'd say it's the bigger agenda focused on big businesses wants and needs.- Oni

Yes, because they're where information comes from. Palin can say anything she wants, but only when broadcasted without questioning does it become "information" to us, and information that many people trust to be true. At the very least, they trust that it has been researched to some degree and not a complete and out right lie.Like the article said, which I agree with:

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The media have allowed the politicians to turn life into death and night into day when it comes to the health care debate because they decided that anything said against President Obama's plan should be treated with respect, no matter how absurd it might be.

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The media have the job of informing the public. They have the time and the resources to know that when opponents of President Obama's plan talk about rationing, they are not telling the truth (i.e. they are lying). If the media just pass these assertions on to the public without comment, then they are giving them credibility.

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The way the media portrays these politicians establishes their credibility. If they pass on the information to the general public, who isn't well educated in matters of health care, etc., then a majority of the public believes these assertions without questioning it because they trust the source. I know I do that a lot when it comes to issues related to science. I usually trust the source. Now imagine they just start letting anybody with any crazy theory get published in science journals. I, not being a scientist, then believe the crazy theory as truth because I trusted the source.If this was the case in science we would be outraged. However, we allow the mainstream media to do just that.IMO, the source of the disinformation is the mainstream media and the reason...well, that I just don't know. It could be ratings and advertisement, but since Glenn Beck's moronic "Obama is a racist" comment, I believe about 6 companies pulled their advertisement from his show. So I don't think that's the reason. This only leaves some bigger agenda as the reason, which we can then speculate on it being the Pharm Industry or someone like that.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Hey Hyro, Can you provide the source where you heard or read this?Obama's health care reform plan has NOTHING to do with socializing medicine, you know that, right? Can you provide the source for this as well? The sad part about that is that they only feel that way because they have been lied to by the news sources that they trust. Another big mistake being made by the citizens who support the republican party is that they continue to believe that Obama's health care reform plan has something to do with socializing medicine. Well, it doesn't and they are being misinformed. Actually, to me it seems that both sides are just saying the other side sucks. Neither side has established anything in the form of an actual plan yet. The only agreement is that the current state of health care in America needs to be reformed to better assist those who can't afford it. And that is what Obama's health care plan is supposed to deal with. But of course people can't be properly educated on it when these idiots are out there on TV screaming "socialism" "death panels" "Hitler" and crap like that.The fact of the matter is that the plan we are going to get is Obama's reform plan, period. So instead of claiming that they know what he's secretly trying to do, they should listen to what he has to say, to what the reform plan says and try to understand it because it is very important to all of us. And the media should cover just that, and not what Palin is spewing out of her stupid mouth. This is irrelevant since Obama's reform plan has nothing to do with soocializing medicine.- Oni

Yes, but what are you using as evidence? Not that 1:52 video of sound bite, right?I'm just asking for the evidence that lead you to this. Provide the media source, is what I'm asking.Chopped up youtube clips are not enough. Who knows in what context things were said? What is in the actual health care reform PLAN? - The actual plan submitted to Congress, not in an Obama speech to rally supporters. - Is there anything better than the video as evidence?The only thing in question here is his actual reform plan that he submitted to Congress. You need to show how the reform plan is leading to, or is itself, socilaizing health care. But you can't even reference the reform plan itself, so no one knows what it says. We get bits and pieces.Right now there is a lot of bad information being passed around and no one knows what the actual plan says, yet what it says is more important than what people think or personally believe Obama's future plans may be. What it says is what affects us right now. But you'll need to provide the evidence that shows that the reform plan will lead to socialism, you have only conjecture here. These are currently just bare assertion on your part. Yea, lies don't cut it.But I must still ask for physical evidence in the form of a reference to something in the actual reform plan that is leading to socialism.I feel this socialism banter is just media propaganda that you've believed, dude. Well I was just refering to the health care plan, which the republicans aren't proposing one. So the democrats are, rather the Obama White House is, and we have vague information as to what it says because the media is busy covering bullshit town-hall meeting stories and what Palin said.So we really don't know if Obama's health care reform plan is good. Then wouldn't you want to know what the reform plan says and not what is being proposed as Obama's secret mission, which is being hyped up by the mainstream media?How does the reform plan "affect citizens pockets, where is this money going to come from, and will we be stripped from vital programs that barely have funding as it is?"It seems like your opinion is being lead by media crap, Hyro. Fair enough, and if anyone enjoys reading between the line, it's me. My question is, how has it taken it's first steps toward socialism, or socialized health care? What evidence do you have that shows that it has begun this "slow and methodical process?"This socialism stuff is just media bullshit. It doesn't exist. The media created it out of thin air and have run a campaign to promote it. There is no basis for it. There is no evidence to support that assumtion (unless you can provide some outside of right wing media sources and 1:52 videos on youtube). For now, it's a lie conjured up by the media for a bigger purpose.Now what that purpose is we can speculate on. I think you need to (1) get better evidence than a 1:52, chopped up, edited youtube video. And (2) I think you need to see the bigger picture and open your mind as well.The president doesn't have an agenda that isn't controlled by a bigger entity than him.I showed in Message 22 evidence that the White House and the Pharm companies are working together. Also, I showed that the Pharm Industry, which is who you are saying will take a big hit that will then burden us, is actually in favor of the plan.

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The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail his chief domestic priority.

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Why?

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"its lobbyists acknowledge privately that they have no intention of fighting it, in part because their agreement with the White House provides them other safeguards." And while longtime health-care reform advocates may see a poison pill in any deal involving the industry, the enrolling of tens of millions of currently uninsured people in new health plans could mean big profits to drug companies, while still putting them on the same side as the pro-reform crowd.

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So you see, the big picture is not about socializing health care, it's about the Pharm Industry, who is working with the Obama White House, gaining more drug users, and "because their agreement with the White House provides them other safeguards." - But mainly make more money! Lots of it! The corruption goes beyond Obama's agenda, he's just the face the public listens to. The Pharm Industry is leading this one.And the beauty of it is that the Pharm Industry, which was using the republicans during the Bush admin to their benefit, is now using the democrats in the same way, to make bigger profits.I was trying to explain once to Straggler on another thread how big business doesn't care which party is in charge, they find a way to manipulate both sides. Well, here's the example of just that, Straggler.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Here's an article on the drug company deals. Source

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Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?
August 14, 2009 By Greg Palast

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Eighty billion dollars of WHAT?

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I searched all over the newspapers and TV transcripts and no one asked the President what is probably the most important question of what passes for debate on the issue of health care reform: $80 billion of WHAT?

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On June 22, President Obama said he'd reached agreement with big drug companies to cut the price of medicine by $80 billion. He extended his gratitude to Big Pharma for the deal that would, "reduce the punishing inflation in health care costs."

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Hey, in my neighborhood, people think $80 billion is a lot of money. But is it?

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I checked out the government's health stats (at HHS.gov), put fresh batteries in my calculator and toted up US spending on prescription drugs projected by the government for the next ten years. It added up to $3.6 trillion.

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In other words, Obama's big deal with Big Pharma saves $80 billion out of a total $3.6 trillion. That's 2%.

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Hey thanks, Barack! You really stuck it to the big boys. You saved America from these drug lords robbing us blind. Two percent. Cool!

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For perspective: Imagine you are in a Wal-Mart and there's a sign over a flat screen TV, "BIG SAVINGS!" So, you break every promise you made never to buy from that union-busting big box - and snatch up the $500 television. And when you're caught by your spouse, you say, "But, honey, look at the deal I got! It was TWO-PERCENT OFF! I saved us $10!"

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But 2% is better than nothing, I suppose. Or is it?

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The Big Pharma kingpins did not actually agree to cut their prices. Their promise with Obama is something a little oilier: they apparently promised that, over ten years, they will reduce the amount at which they would otherwise raise drug prices. Got that? In other words, the Obama deal locks in a doubling of drug costs, projected to rise over the period of "savings" from a quarter trillion dollars a year to half a trillion dollars a year. Minus that 2%.

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We'll still get the shaft from Big Pharma, but Obama will have circumcised the increase.

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And what did Obama give up in return for $80 billion? Chief drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin crowed that Obama agreed to dump his campaign pledge to bargain down prices for Medicare purchases. Furthermore, Obama's promise that we could buy cheap drugs from Canada simply went pffft!

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What did that cost us? The New England Journal of Medicine notes that 13 European nations successfully regulate the price of drugs, reducing the average cost of name-brand prescription medicines by 35% to 55%. Obama gave that up for his 2%.

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The Veterans Administration is able to push down the price it pays for patent medicine by 40% through bargaining power. George Bush stopped Medicare from bargaining for similar discounts, an insane ban that Obama said he'd overturn. But, once within Tauzin's hypnotic gaze, Obama agreed to lock in Bush's crazy and costly no-bargaining ban for the next decade.

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What else went down in Obama's drug deal? To find out, I called C-SPAN to get a copy of the videotape of the meeting with the drug companies. I was surprised to find they didn't have such a tape despite the President's campaign promise, right there on CNN in January 2008, "These negotiations will be on C-SPAN."

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This puzzled me. When Dick Cheney was caught having secret meetings with oil companies to discuss Bush's Energy Bill, we denounced the hugger-muggers as a case of foxes in the henhouse.

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Cheney's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were creepy and nasty and evil.

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But the Obama crew's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were, the President assures us, in the public interest.

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We know Cheney's secret confabs were shady and corrupt because Cheney scowled out the side of his mouth.

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Obama grins in your face.

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See the difference?

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The difference is 2%.

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- Oni

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If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

Hey Dronester, great article. And this is the point both you and I tried to explain to Rrhain and Straggler in that thread and a few others.Lets bring in our buddy Straggler into this post and re-hash old opinions.Hey Straggler, remember when you wrote this in the "Who will be the next world power thread?" I refer you to the current "big business" control of the health care reform to see exactly how "big business decides key policies from behind the scenes."From Dronesters article:

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One disagreement between the competing plans was the highly controversial "public option." This was what the health care corporations hated most, since it was a way to directly take power out of their hands. Again, the White House backed off, "signal[ing] Sunday that it was willing to compromise and would consider a proposal for a nonprofit health cooperative being developed in the Senate." (New York Times, August 16, 2009). The "cooperative" idea is widely considered by health care advocates to be useless.

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Such sellouts were the inevitable result of intensified health care industry bribery (so-called "lobbying"), which Business Week claims to be "... a record $133 million...in the second quarter of 2009 alone..." (August 6, 2009). The same article -- appropriately named The Health Insurers Have Already Won -- examines the health care lobby's successes and notes that no matter what health care bill emerges from Congress, the "insurance industry will emerge more profitable."

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The same article also reveals -- unsurprisingly -- that health care corporations were responsible for destroying the public health care option, while "also achieving a secondary aim of constraining the new benefits that will become available to tens of millions of people who are currently uninsured. That will make the new customers more lucrative to the industry." This simply means that the taxpayer money that will be used to subsidize any health care plan will go straight towards health care company profits, while providing the same shoddy care they've always provided.

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Heads they win, tails we lose.

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The health care industry is so pleased with the deal they've struck with Obama, they're willing to put up $150 million toward an advertising campaign to insure the deal's passage.

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You also wrote: So, Straggler, I now have a question... do you still disagree?- Oni

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If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
~George Carlin

The pharm and insurance industry were not working together, from what I've been able to gather. This was headed by Big Pharm. That's a good question. I'll see what I can dig up. Some industries, like say the auto industry that has many workers may have an opinion different from the pharm industries. I'll see what I find.[ABE] Btw, take your time responding. I just noticed the complaint thread, which I actually didn't know there was one, and you seem to be public enemy number one. - When you gets over the bitching from those with thin skin, I'll see you here for some old school fist-to-cuffs... no gloves! - OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.