Some fact checks

About: fact check: obama uses iffy math on deficit pledge - yahoo! news

Same pig more lipstick!

The gross errors is in how adding stuff to be insured while forcing more into the plan isn't going to bankrupt the system or raise taxes. BHO said it wouldn't add to budget deficit. That means it will raise taxes instead.

Of course we don't have a CBO analysis of BHO's new plan [sic] yet because the bill is not there yet. So far no analysis of how many tax payer $$$ are added by the additional bureaucracy.
One reminder of the past came when BHO waggled his finger to the audience and said:

Text of 9/9/09 healthcare speech: ...

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the V.A., nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.

Let me -- let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

...a deja vu on the "I did not have sex with that woman ..." Bill C.

Fact check says it's true, but dynamics of a free market will force some changes because insurance costs rise when coverage increases; BHO's money shell games notwithstanding.

Comments

Mark de LA says

Source: ...

Now Obama says he's going to study the issue. "I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today," he said.

That would be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, whose resume includes eight years as director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association.

So Obama has chosen a former industry lobbyist to run tort reform.

Why are people cynical about health care reform?

...So we have the fox guarding the hen house. Expect any tort reform to come out of this?

ibid: ... There are credible estimates that serious tort reform could save the country between $100 and $200 billion annually in wasteful spending, as doctors practice defensive medicine to preempt lawsuits. Trial lawyers are adamantly opposed to any caps on damages and have made fighting tort reform their top priority for years.

...

Seth says

MR 2009-09-10 13:04:11 12579

seth 2009-09-10 12:43:04 12579

Well i am all for tort reform ... and yes, Obama's move in that direction is hardly substantive. I would like to see better studies of how much effective tort reform would save us. Note that even accepting The Standard's un-sourced "credible" estimates would mean only a savings between 4% and 9% of the 2.3 trillion we spend on health care. That sounds much different than stating it as $200 billion a year.

Well, let's see is $200 billion a year close to $900 billion cost that Obama touted for his program for the next 10 years? Those who want to spin large numbers go to low percentages & visa versa. You need a pie chart of the whole domain and then normalize the results against each other to see which are the most important factors to get the biggest effect. The cost of malpractice insurance & torts is both in the lottery winnings, the defensive measures wasted to avoid the lottery & in the patients' & doctors' time wasted. Everybody except unemployed lawyers win!

Well yes i would like to see a sourced pie chart of all the costs. As you know i tried to start one here and gave up for lack of sourced stats. Btw, you should compare $200 billion/year to $90 billion/year ... apples to apples, ya know.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-09-10 12:43:04 12579

Mark de LA says

MR 2009-09-10 13:04:11 12579

seth 2009-09-10 12:43:04 12579

You should take it as common sense that if a doctor has to pay $100,000 a year for insurance that he has to pass that on to his patients to stay in business.

Mark de LA says

My point was that if Obama's $900 billion for 10 years of cost could be paid for by the cost of trial lawyer money. What was your in this undecipherable statement?:

Seth(above): ... Btw, you should compare $200 billion/year to $90 billion/year ... apples to apples, ya know.

...

Seth says

MR 2009-09-10 13:15:35 12579

MR 2009-09-10 13:04:11 12579

seth 2009-09-10 12:43:04 12579

You should take it as common sense that if a doctor has to pay $100,000 a year for insurance that he has to pass that on to his patients to stay in business.

It seems to me that your into scaring people with big numbers. I'm just trying to show those same numbers in a more even minded manner. Certainly the doctor passes his insurance costs to his patients. A doctor who pays $100,000/year on insurance has a practice that is worth $10,000,000 ... ie 1% or a penny on the dollar. True story: i once saw a doctor who complained to me that the was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on malpractice insurance ... next month he went out of business. The more claims, the more they pay. Maybe we could find a website that gives quotes on malpractice insurance ... then we might have some real facts.

Mark de LA says

I doubt that doctor who made 10 million a year would complain about 100,000 insurance. OTOH, someone in the Obamapocket would certainly like to minimize it.

Mark de LA says

Nice going with some personal investigation - further details will be interesting!

Mark de LA says

I watched that one. I was suprised at O'Reilly. The fact that the BHO bill is forcing insurance on all the people in all the states seems to support Bill's assertions. The fact that many states would legalize pot but the feds still threaten prosecution also support's Bill's comments; your polarization notwithstanding. It is constitutional for the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. I wonder what in state regulation of insurance prevents it. That may require a lawsuit before SCOTUS or further investigation.

Mark de LA says

seth 2009-09-11 10:18:30 12579

Well i agree with both you and BillO that allowing insurance companies to compete interstate would help. Also that the federal government probably has the authority to pass such a bill. The problem is all the states rights advocates that will then start opposing the bill. I mean, after all, throwing out the long standing state regulation of insurance, is not a small matter. The question is how do we get this in the bill? Who has to stand up and support it to make it work?

Explore it in a governor's conference first. There are a lot of businesses that thrive on the Internet without brick & morter offices explore that as an option. Since all the mandating of coverage & rules not in state laws seems to be happening it may be more profitable for insurance companies to go national in the first place. The Internet helps that tremendously. The big challenge is fraud protection. Against all this is the idea that it will evolve into single-payer insurance given a push for national insurance companies. The mandates on coverage thwarts distinction between various companies & like the mandates on gasoline & MPG killed the auto industry such mandates will eventually kill the insurance industry with many crocodile tears from BHO in the process on it's way to single-payer (BHO's ultimate objective).

Mark de LA says

Ann Coulter has a solution & explanation in number 12 here.

AC: ...

Federal tax incentives have created a world in which the vast majority of people get health insurance through their employers. Then to really screw ordinary Americans, the tax code actually punishes people who don't get their health insurance through an employer by denying individuals the tax deduction for health insurance that their employers get.

If Democrats really wanted people to be able to purchase health insurance when they move or lose a job as easily as they purchase car insurance and home insurance (or haircuts, dog walkers, cars, food, computers), they could do it in a one-page bill lifting the government controls and allowing interstate commerce in health insurance. This is known as "allowing the free market to operate."

Plus, think of all the paper a one-page bill would save! Don't Democrats care about saving the planet anymore? Go green!

...

Mark de LA says

Here is a crisp coda to the above mini debate:

Some fact checks

About: fact check: obama uses iffy math on deficit pledge - yahoo! news

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