How is this poll "by far the strongest positive result related to President Obama's health care reform proposal."? Since the poll asks about -- "a health insurance plan like Medicare,"-- which is a single payer system, I don't see what that has to do with anything Obama is advancing. He is not proposing a single payer system.

A margin of 65% in favor of a Medicare-like single payer system and just 26% opposed is remarkable when you consider that one barely hears a word about such a system by elected officials or in the media. In the rare instance single payer is mentioned it's dismissed as a politically impossible socialistic scheme and the people who favor it are depicted as unrealistic and maybe even crackpots. This negative characterization of single payer by the mass media has been unrelenting and constant for years, for decades.

It's nothing short of amazing that the public can still favor a Medicare-like single payer system by such an overwhelming margin despite decades of nearly unanimous PR condemnation by both government officials and the media.

Tom Dooley:
If you aren't yet on Medicare, hang down your head and cry. Medicare is the best thing that ever happened to me -- first love excepted.
Ethan

I don't see any reference to the 65%/Medicare poll result in the link provided.

nyt front page article

In Poll, Public Wary of Obama on War and Health
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and DALIA SUSSMAN

President Obama is finding tepid support on two key issues, according to the latest Times/CBS News poll.

Quiddity,
Look at the graphic or just follow:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/09/25/us/politics/25pollgrx.html

It's not unusual for the NYT to bury stuff like that. What is surprising is that it's in the sixth paragraph from the end; it's usually in the third.

Where is the public anger? Congress seems ready to approve a bill that will force everyone to purchase health insurance, of which 30% of the cost will go directly to wastefull administration, profit, and excess CEO compensation. This is certainly not free-market - it's more akin to fascism, and may well be unconstitutional.

We need to stop confusing health INSURANCE with health CARE!

MAKE MEDICARE/MEDICAID THE SINGLE PAYER, call Pelosi @1-202-225-0100. NOW is the time to speak up to the Speaker.

"MAKE MEDICARE/MEDICAID THE SINGLE PAYER"

Sigh... Mike, as I've pointed out before Medicare is NOT single-payer but requires those who are too affluent - and I use that word loosely - to buy 2 PRIVATE plans - a Medicare Supplement (Medigap) and a drug plan - in order not to be slammed if they have lots of health care costs.

I think you and I are more or less on the same side but HAVING MEDICARE ALONE IS NOT SINGLE PAYER!

The crazed "liberal" media strikes again.

D.Flinchum: First word is MAKE not IS. PLEASE learn to read!

D. Flinchum: IF YOU have been calling, THEN WE are on the same side. If NOT, then????

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I have the solution to too much company influence over legislation.
Boycott some of those companies en masse and make them get it
for us. Yes, we will need to get at least 100,000 people to act on
these. With these actions you can help limit corporate power.

See our web site at http://DEMOCRATZ.ORG

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Please sign these NEW petitions for single payer health care HR676

http://bit.ly/HR676

http://bit.ly/single_payer_ross

http://bit.ly/single_payer_exxon

http://bit.ly/single_payer_california

http://bit.ly/drug_benefit

Also sign these petitions.

http://bit.ly/EFCA

http://bit.ly/10_an_hour_min_wage

http://bit.ly/women_freedom_of_choice_act

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Make these phone calls too and spread the word.

Boycott Tyson Foods of Arkansas who gave Mike Ross D-Arkansas
$37,000 for his campaigns. Call lobbyist for Tyson Foods Chuck Penry
202 393 3921 and tell him politely that you refuse to buy Tyson chicken
until Mike Ross D-Arkansas the leader of the Blue Dogs on health
care gets the entire house and senate conservative Democrats to help
get HR 676 enacted into law. Tell others to call. Send me email after
you call to info@democratz.org

Boycott American Express who gave Max Baucus $50,000 for his
campaigns. Call Joanna Lambert at 212 640 9668 and politely tell
her you will not use any American Express cards until Max Baucus
gets HR 676 enacted into law. Email me after you call.

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The GOPranos health care plan: Marry a Canadian.

Medicare may be fine, as long as it is viable. But what about the ACOs, the accountable care orgs? Suddenly a lot of people will find themselves reduced to cheap-HMO-care, because then their doctors will have a financial incentive not to treat, not to be curious.

Mike, I have contacted MY Congressman but wouldn't waste my time on Pelosi. If you don't live in her district or give her money, she - like all the others - doesn't pay any attention to you.

I even spoke at one of the first rallies (Bristol, VA) about the problems that people WHO HAVE MEDICARE still have in affording health care, especially in the doughnut hole or "gap" in Medicare Part D and the problems that disabled people have in affording MediGap because by definition they have a pre-existing condition. FWIW, Obama doesn't seem too interested in cracking down on Big Pharma.

If you are calling for a SINGLE-PAYER system, which is a totally NEW system, fine and dandy. Call for a single-payer system to REPLACE what we have now, including Medicare.

Outsanding column at http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/print_friendly.php?ID=or_20090923_7256
What I like most about the column is not the fact that I find Taylor’s arguments generally valid, but that he so clearly distinguishes between a correct assessment of what the trade-offs ARE vs. which trade-offs are DESIRABLE in his personal view, a distinction best encapsulated by his statement (referring to one of his points) that “These particular costs are justifiable, in my view. But they are surely costs.” It really sucks that so many people, most unfortunately so many experts on whom people depend substantially for assessing what trade-offs are associated with policy options (i.e., for analysis) skew their representation of trade-offs to support policies they prefer based on their own values/morals/priorities/ideology/partisanship, rather than offering a good-faith presentation of the alternative trade-offs associated with alternative policies and then making the case for their preferences on the basis of values/morals and priorities.

Brooks, which of Taylor's arguments do you find to be generally valid? Pick one in particular. Make a good-faith presentation of the alternative trade-offs associated with alternative policies and then make the case for your preferences on the basis of values/morals and priorities.

Lee,

Recently I invested time in a fruitless effort to have a subtantive, rational, and reasonably efficient dialogue with you. You wasted my time (see http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=09&year=2009&base_name=how_does_the_nyt_know_that_rep#comments ). So I'm not inclined toward starting another silly game with you involving starting with some non-specific opening on your part, plus your request for policy preference I may not even have (which doesn't reduce the value of the analytical points regarding what the trade-offs are) and open-ended from there.

If you disagree with something in particular in Taylor's column, say what and why, and perhaps I'll respond, although I probably won't waste as much time as last time if you prove to be just as resistant to reason.

And as for my making a "good-faith" presentation, I'm the last guy on this site who needs to be told about "good faith". Most who comment here (and certainly Dean) lack the good faith to go beyond a hyperpartisan spin and distortion and overcome bias and insincerity enough to make a good-faith effort to determine and lay out the trade-offs (some, however, are just sincere simpletons who gobble up hyperpartisan talking points without critical thought because they are incapable of much critical thinking).

I had a quick look at Taylor's column, and found that the section labeled "Slashing Medicare's waste and fraud." was not accurate. In that section, he attacks "Obama's own failure to offer credible specifics."

Even a casual observer ofthe health care debate knows that President Obama has proposed limiting the cost of the so called Medicare Advantage plans run by private insurers.

See
http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2009/03/10/obama_budget_chief_firm_on_medicare_advantage_cuts/

or

http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/091609%20CBO_Analysis.pdf

Andrew,

Waste means spending (or incremental spending) for no/negligible (incremental) benefit for the intended party. To characterize big cuts to Medicare Advantage as "waste" is at the very least highly debatable and probably false, on the basis that these cuts would translate into lost benefits. For example, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMSpLaXmls Now, one may contend that these cuts are desirable anyway, but that's different than labeling that current spending as "waste".

As a note, see Taylor's "Correction" at the bottom (not addressing "waste and fraud" in particular, but addressing cost control more generally).

Brooks, why is Taylor's column so "outstanding" to you? He complains about almost everything WITHOUT mentioning the trade-offs:

(1) He doesn't mention that all of the bills have a large number of policy initiatives to reduce excess costs. That was knowable before he was "informed that [Obama] has proposed significant steps." Also, he avoids the issue that "unnecessary" tests are only defined as such afterward, when the tests come up negative. (2) He doesn't mention that much waste and fraud in Medicare is now being investigated by the FBI -- and that two of the biggest frauds in U.S. history (up until the current financial debacle) were both private healthcare insurers. (3) He ignores that preventative care and management of poor diabetics alone -- and that is very cheap -- would slash healthcare costs by an enormous amount because currently they end up in the system when the condition is beyond repair. (He also seems ignorant of the fact that some cholesterol problems cannot be controlled by diet.) (4) He raises the old "tax increase" canard without once mentioning that right now, without a mandate, the insured are paying more than they should, to cover the uninsured -- is this not a tax, simply because the government isn't collecting it? (5) He doesn't mention the fact that an increase in budget deficits would be political death to the Democrats and therefore highly unlikely, and that the only useful CBO scoring to dispose of the matter will be of the final bills. (6) He says that the bills are going to make employers drop insurance without mentioning that it is happening anyway, and that it is projected to increase substantially. (7) He simply excuses the insurance companies from being immoralists for coverage rescission and denial because they can hide behind the need for competitive profits -- and suggests that the practice is neither widespread nor undeserved.

In other words, in all seven of his "Obama lines of argument," Taylor DOESN'T make "a correct assessment of what the trade-offs ARE." He doesn't mention the tradeoffs that Obama himself mentioned in his speeches -- and as anyone hoping to educate his readers about the tradeoffs ought to provide in an opinion column.

This column is objectively misleading.

My definition of waste includes paying $1.30 to get 5% or 10% more than you get for each $1 spent another way.

I remove waste when I transfer $1.30 from one to another.

Since Mr Orszag says "the government spends about $1.30 on Medicare Advantage patients for each dollar it spends on patients in traditional Medicare", I have a specific and credible claim of waste: less efficient spending than required.

If I accidently overpay some group, and then stop doing so, I remove waste, whether or not that group loses benefits.

If you want to discuss tradeoff, you should be discussing the attributes of the plan, not how Obama describes the plan. That section of Taylor's article fails that test.

Lee,

Wow, what a list of assertions that range from largely inaccurate to flat out falsehoods! Thanks for confirming my good sense not to bother with you. It would take more time than I'm willing to put in, at least at the moment, to correct all your fundamental errors of fact and proportion, and it would only be for the benefit of anyone else interested in actual facts and reason, since, based on my experience with you, I doubt it would get through to you. Let me just put it this way: If one were to assume the diametric opposite of everything you just said, he'd be closer to the truth than you.

Wow, impressive, in it's own, inadvertent way. That one is a keeper, for lol purposes. I can only guess that your news and opinion consumption is extremely heavily concentrated with hyperpartisan sources; otherwise, assuming you have at least half a brain, I don't see how you could spew all those errors and do so with such (unjustified, ironic) confidence, completely oblivious to the widely available refutations and other contradictory information related to each.

Andrew,

You haven't established either your premise that the higher spending per capita on Medicare Advantage brings negligible additional benefits or your premise that equivalent benefits could be provided by some other means much more efficiently. Just presuming it and then concluding it doesn't constitute a sound argument.

Yes, well whatever you write, don't actually refute anything or correct it, because after all we are here to call names and play like children, and not to learn about the issues.

Lee,

You or anyone can just check out the thread to which I linked and, with even an ounce of sense, can see how you wasted my time and why I'm justified in asking you to point to something specific in Taylor's column that you consider invalid and state your reason rather than indulging you in some non-specific, open-ended game. So again, if you want to make a specific point about something in Taylor's column and state your refutation or challenge to it, go right ahead, and perhaps I'll address your argument. Or you could just keep playing silly games and trying to promote the false impression that you're seeking substantive discussion and I'm not (News Flash: The hyperpartisans on your "side" here will side with you no matter what you say or don't say, and no one else with any sense will be fooled).

Lee,

oops, my mistake. I actually forgot about your most recent comment in which you did -- however erroneously -- address points that Taylor made or that you think he made. But the fact that you wasted my time on the other thread is still relevant, in fact all the more so given the abundance of confusion, gross distortions and outright falsehoods in your prior comment. You haven't a clue what you're talking about, you're confident in these misunderstandings and false statements you regard as fact, and you showed clearly on the other thread that you have either no capacity or no desire to engage in rational discussion that can possibly result in your understanding and acknowledging your errors. You're just a hyperpartisan talking point machine, not someone making a good faith effort at fact-checking, critical thinking, and rational discussion, and as such, you're just a time-waster for someone like me except insofar as responding to your misconceptions may have impact with other readers.

To Brooks:
If the premises of 11:21 were true, would you accept the waste description ?

Anonymous (Andrew?),

If there is spending that can be avoided (and thus total spending reduced) without reducing beneficiaries' benefits*, then yeah, spending that money fits my definition of waste, so if the federal government could compensate those insurers less and the Medicare beneficiaries wouldn't lose anything and the savings wouldn't cause cost-shifting to another part of government (or more broadly, to the public, via government or privately), then yeah, that means we are wasting that money, because we could get just as much by spending less.

* "benefits" in the economic sense, meaning what is provided from which the recipient derives utility, not referring only to "benefits" in terms of what healthcare some plan covers, although that's at least most of it)

There is no one else reading.

On the thread to which you linked, you repeatedly insulted my comments, and then wrote that Robert Fogel's article seemed sensible.

You did not notice there that my comments were restatements of Fogel's argument.

Lee,

You are thoroughly confused and are misrepresenting what transpired on that thread, perhaps sincerely. Anyone interested can see for themselves.

You are ungenerous.

No one else is interested or will bother.