Live Blogging Carper Tele-Town Hall
Going to try this, not sure I can stay on but will do what I can:
First time he ever did this.
We are all experts on health care because we all use it.
3 statements — true or false?
us spends more money on care than other countries
does not get better outcomes
14k per day lose their health care
press 1 if all three are true or 2 if any of the three statements is fase
wait for results – fear that they’ll be forced to another plan
No. Talks about the exchange large purchasing pool. Like the Fed health benefits program works.
18% all three statements true
82% thought that at least one was false.
1st question Clifford How we pay for this? His wife answered. She is scared of what will be taken from her she is 80, husband 83. More explanation so they are not so fearful Lots of misinformation.
Pharma has kicked in 80M to close the donut hole for the Medicare Part D. Says this fills in half the donut hole.
Waste fraud and abuse elimination
2nd Robert for Wilmington wants to know about tort reform and why we haven’t heard it.
Says Delaware has done alot of work for this reform.
More state driven than fed driven.
Knows about caps, not sure this is a good idea,
Other states have good ideas to look at and adopt
Sorry Works
Health Courts possibly
3rd (did not get name) Compassionate Care Act Hope he (Carper) is willing to defend it because it is needed and useful. Notes medical tourism from here. Very supportive of the public option and the the way other countries deal with insurance.
Carper — something in place that keeps insurance companies are honest whether it is public option or co-ops. Suggests the entire Fed Employee Health Benefit plan be opened up to everyone to increase the purchasing pool. Says that overhead are 3% per premium. Some repubs not interested in this. Health exchange would be similar to this to keep the overheard to 3%. Goes through the trigger option as a fallback.
4th Dave from Newark. Does not want illegal aliens to be able to join the plan. Carper says that the plan does not cover undocumented folks and no plan to.
5th Harry and Linda from Newark. Question about rationing — (Van Jones is a radical communist!!!) many wingnut talking points. Wants to know why they believe that the gov won’t ration.
Carper notes that there is rationing now. Guy disagrees saying his mom had medical issues and no one rationed her care (she had Medicare for cryin out loud!) Carper does push back on this — that insurance companies decide what care people get all of the time.
6th somebody from Magnolia Tim Murray — doesn’t want things to change too much. Does not want 51 votes (1). Wants repubs to participate so everyone is represented.
Carper talks about reconciliation process. Finance still working on this — 3 Dems 3 repubs talked with Olympia Snowe who is still working and thinks that this should be a bipartisan bill.
7th A Doctor calling asking about cost control. Wants a phased approach to see spending cuts first before doing all of this.
Carper compares process to immigration reform — multiple steps and decided not to do that approach. This process needs to rein in costs (it is bankrupting companies and states), extend coverage to everybody. Talked about Geisinger, Mayo Cleveland non-profits who are doing such a great job. Primary care, wellness, chronic disease management, no fee for service, excellent results for less money. Wants to incentivize that for Medicare.
I asked a question! Asked how you get serious competition — one that gets the insurance companies to rethink their business model without a public option.
Says that it will work just like the Fed plan. Sys that the fall back public plan hasn’t been used and still claims that there is competition and successful. Drug plan under budget.
9th someone from Selbyville asking about deminishment of his Medicare benefits with this plan and also asks about a costly arrangement for renting a nebulizer.
Carper says no just provide better care, better outcomes, cover more people. Talks about the VA system and that this is more functional than lots of what we have.
10th from Harrington (?) Asking about pre-existing conditions. Can’t leave your job if you have a pre-existing condition, we have single payer via Medicare and we have socialized medicine via the VA. Also wants Dems to do better about countering the lies on Fox News.
Carper likes going on Fox (the lions den) and says that you can only set the record straight when you can. Thinks that medicare could learn something from the VA system. Talks about the exchanges again — this time talks abut this as a REGIONAL exchange — but pre-existing conditions won’t be germane in this exchange. One page insurance forms.
11th Irene from Wilmington wants to know if he has read the bill (?) . Explains that there are lots of bills plus the President’s proposal. He won’t read all of the bills. Will read the Finance bill.
12th from Seaford — if illegals don’t get covered how will they be handled (wasn’t on the call). Wants to send message that we are not paying for health care for undocumented workers but this does not stop people from going to the emergency room.
13th — explain co ops. Says that thes are not unlike credit unions (?). Some successful some not. Puget Sound successful — says that Geisinger, Mayo Intermountain Health, Cleveland are good models (even tho they are NOT coops Tom). Invokes VA as one of these models.
14th from Shelbyville — wants to know about the cost of the program and the deficit. How to pay for it when we pay 1B per year to China, 1B for medicare and we are cutting $500M from Medicare.
Invokes his Treasurer’s hat. Ran up as much new debt in the last 8 year as we did in the previous 208 years. admits not sustainable. Says that medical costs are a major portion of the GDP and more growth is not sustainable. Doug Elemendorf — house bill increases defict, others did not. (This is a glib answer) GM Chrysler in bankruptcy in no small part because of medical costs. Goes back to the nonprofit models to control the costs.
15th Reverend Cherry (?) from Dover wants to know why people are so afraid of Living Wills. She just got hers done a few days ago and want to know why this is such an issue. Carper asked her to explain what the process she went thru was, but she could not hear. Carper says his mom had one and explains how this works — that you are making your end of life choices now, when you are clear thinking and not leaving the decision to family of doctors or nurses. Says that death panels are CRAZY.
16th from New Castle from C. Whitfield re: the military in this process. She sells insurance. She thinks that we need tort reform first. Says that there are enough doctors in the military system, 2 months to get a prescription refilled, have to go to other bases at expense of time to get to doctors and services. Walter Reed problems.
Carper — Walter Reed not a VA but nothing to make anyone proud. Do not have enough primary care doctors anywhere including the military. Continues to talk about how good the VA is — electronic health record. Goes back to talk about his mom — she had 5 doctors providing various services and the absence of an electronic health care would have let her have much better coordinate d care. Gates has ordered electronic health records for active military ASAP. Not so good of an answer.
17 C. Pruitt from Milton — wants to know about uninsured people crowding emergency rooms. She has TriCare and VA and she is happy with it. Wants to reduce the number of people going to emergency rooms since everyone with insurance pay for the people in emergency rooms because they have no insurance. Carper says this is true. That people with insurance pay about 1K per year to cover uninsured costs. Talks about the Insurance Exchange again.
18 R. Henry in Smyrna This may be the last question. How can this new coverage be deficit neutral. Carper says that the President says we cannot increase the deficit so they have been working on this. Carper won’t vote for this if it increases the deficit or if it does not begin to control costs.
He is wrapping up. Says that he is trying to share the correct info and get past the misinformation. Says there are about 1000 people on this call. Thinks that he may do this again within the week.
Says that everyone will not be happy, but he wants to pass something that will be of the greatest use to the most number of people.
OK it is over and I am exhausted. This is hard work! Anyway, I left a voicemeail message to ask about whether he would commit to voting for the public option. I should have asked that, but I really want to know how he thinks that a health exchange would provide the competition needed to start bringing down insurance costs.
Thank you for liveblogging this!
You rock.
Ooh! How exciting! I can’t wait to hear what you’re asking and Carper’s answer. So far, I’m not hating his answers though I think he’s a bipartisan fetishist.
I have to say I don’t understand that answer.
He likes the “lions den of Faux News”, but not the Lions Den of holding a real town hall with the people of Delawre. what stupidity.
The President has a bill? Really Tom?
Coops…you havw no choice for your doctor. you have to use the doctors who joined the co op…..gee thanks Tom. No choice there.
Pudget Sound is unregulated, untested and unlicensed. Does he actually know the facts. VA is a true socialized program Tom, Doctors and nurses are paid for by the government, arent you supporting real socialized medicine, Tommy. So is he telling us he doesnt want us to have the right to choose our Doctor…but be forced to use the doctors who are in that pool? Great thinkin Lincoln.
Why dont you ask the Congressional Budget office to SCOR single payer Tom? Lets have the figures on single payer as opposed to these models which have no track record. Actually the Lewin Group did SCOR single payer and when they saw the savings they refused to make it public. However, some doctors who worked for Lewin Group delivered the document to Physicans for National Care!
I’m really tired of hearing this bit of misinformation, so I am going to hijack this thread temporarily —
The Group Heath Cooperative of Puget Sound has been around for mare than a half century and certainly is very regulated, licenced and tested. It is even affiliated with Kaiser Permenente. It is a respected and growing health provider and I wish I had this as a health care choice. There is another coop doing well too — in Minneapolis (can’t remember the name). One of the things that is true about these coops is that they are quite old — and no longer have the kind of barriers to entry that the new coops would. Within their regions, these coops are decently competitive which is the real challenge for any new ones. Local coops would need to capture a fairly large audience quickly, which would be tough when you compete in areas that may include BCBS and Aetna as the major choices.
So stop with the disinformation about the current co-ops. As a part of the proposals to fix health insurance it is a lame idea, but not because there aren’t any working models.
“A bipartisan fetishist”. That’s a great turn of phrase!
Maybe DL should do a Rashomon version of who is the real Tom Carper. Everyone writing their thoughts independently, and trying to make some sense out of it. Not jumping to conclusions, but the Carper as Robot meme has still not been discredited.
Someone tell the Carpetbagger….his fav United Health Care made $5 billion in PROFIT last year. How many died from putting their profits over people.
Hey Cassandra: you know who reported that Puget was unregulated, untested and unlicensed…huh that would be Senator Rockefeller. Argue the facts with him. He stated that when the issue of co ops came up, they tried to find some. They found that Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas started theirs in 1995 and went bankrupt in 2000. The only one they could find was Puget Sound. Take the issue up with the Senator.
It costs $12 MILLION to start a co-op Cassandra. The misinformation would be on you. Co ops have doctors who are part of their group, there is no choice, you join the co op you take their doctors. You cant go outside the co op either. Dont put out misinformation.
Haha: Kaiser…check how many lawsuits that bunch have had. Kaiser was big in California and were caught dumping patients in the street. Yeah great reporting…
I forgot more about health care than you will ever know. When you have worked on an issue for ten years as I have every day, not just in the last 2 months, you might find that there is a lot of dis information out there.
Cass: try your google: kaiser permanete + lawsuits. See the horror stories.
Every insurance group has lawsuits — and Kaiser is a non-profit, not a co-op.
Speaking of google — try finding the transcript of what Senator Rockefeller had to say on the Ed Show about those coops:
Except for those two — and you can spend time at their websites and at their facilities to see that they aren’t much different than other facilities. When I lived in Minnesota, the co-op there was a choice for many of the big employers there. And no employer is going to pay for something that isn’t regulated or licensed.
So stop pretending that you have all of the information — you don’t. You routinely misremember and re-cococt data to suit whatever today’s jihad is. There is plenty to criticize here, plenty to discuss without making shit up.
So what does our Lt. Gov (former insurance commissioner) Matt Denn have so say about health insurance reform? Hmm, I tried to end recissions, but that would have raised premiums? Nope, he didn’t try that. So what exactly were we expecting???
cassandra
FYI 15th caller was in fact Reverend Cherry who runs a very successful alternative school program just south of Dover that is used by Capital, CR and Milford school districts with great success. She is something of a Democratic Party stalwart in that area.
Thank you! Carper definitely seemed to know her and seemed genuinely disappointed that she could talk more.
Cassandra: you are disingenous. Rockefeller was speaking on one of the talk shows…he stated exactly what I reported. We tried to find some? We found about 2, and they were unlicensed, unregisters and untested. You dont have the facts on this issue.
You seem to think you can make statements without having any real knowledge on the issue. I didnt just fall off the turnip truck on this issue, I have been researching, involved with national groups, for more than 10 years.
So get off your high horse trying to make yourself sounnd like an expert…you are very newcomer to this issue.
For someone who said that they’d never come back to Delaware Liberal you are persistently here and persistently wrong. Especially since you haven’t any idea how long I’ve been working on this issue.
I actually pointed to a transcript plus video of Senator Rockefeller with his exact words — which quite contradicts what you’ve “reported”. And until you come up with a better transcript (which you’d think you’d be able to do, yes?), you are wrong on this thing.
There is plenty here of Carper’s position to be dealt with — if you want to be here with a less than credible assertion, that is your right but do not be surprised when you get called on it.
ps. The Minneapolis co-op is Health Partners — been around since the late 50s or so and still a competitive choice in the Twin Cities area.
Cass: you are one of those at DL who makes people want to throw up. Your attempts at “one upmanship” and attempts to discredit people make you a hypocrite. I believe it was on Hardball when Kent Conrad came up with the faulty idea of co-ops that Matthews had Rockefeller on. All these co-ops and for profits you are talking about shows how little you know. If you believe in having a choice in Doctors, these co-ops PREVENT that. Co-ops have to not only try to get citizens to sign up they have to get doctors to sign up. If your doctor isnt in that co-op you must take one of theirs. Where is the choice there Cass. Or dont you believe in picking your own doctor.
Get over high handed self. You are a liberal, therein lies the problem. You are ready to believe anything these corrupted politicans say without doing any research. Carper is a liar and a fraud. He knows all about these co-ops, but will do anything possible to stop real reform, because he has taken $1.8m from these for profit corporate whores. Liberals believe in compromise, and stand for nothing.
As I recall my support for single payer on this blog was laughed at and ridiculed. Why because you listened to another corporate so called liberal who not only lied about the issue, but ran on the issue to win the election against the candidate who was 100% in favor of single payer. Once elected this person showed her true colors…never believed in and only said so to win the election.
Do one more google Cass: minneapolis+healthpartners+lawsuits. See how many malpractice suits filed. Why? Because you have to take their doctors? There is no standard for exposing doctors who should have been thrown out of the system. Single Payer would do that.
Cass: try this: google Rockefeller + coops! Sorry it was Andrea Mitchell’s show….and thanks for giving us all the facts you got from Kos. Do you think they cover every friggin story. I see you did not respond to the truth about Kaiser either. Keep thinkin Lincoln, you have the facts.
From the Hill: Senator Rockefeller said: :There are real concerns about the healthcare coops for consumers and we cannot afford to hang our hat on any UNPROVEN, UNREGLUATED, or UNRELIABLE model for health care”.
To illustrate his feelings, he wrote letters to the Dept. of Ag, General Accounting Office, and National Co-operative Business Assoc, requesting information about how co ops work. “I did a lot of reading on the history of co-ops, its not nice reading. I believe the inclusion of a strong public option for health care reform is the only PROVEN way to guarantee ALL consumers have affordable, meaningful and accountable options in the health care market”.
Theres more….so tell me Cass what, where did I mispeak the facts?
Hey genius — google Mayo Clinc + lawsuits and see what you find. Lawsuits are not the sole problem of co-ops — they are found filed against the for-profits, the non-profits and the co-ops.
And if you can link to the exact data requested (like I did for you) you can consider that your data is faulty. The thing about the dKos link I provided? You don’t have to rely on their transcript — they provided the actual video too!
The only high-handed person here is you — who wants to just come over here with your usual gibberish and you expect that people will just take that gibberish at face value. If you don’t want people checking on what you say, stop posting it. Or post better data.
Get over yourself.
How about this for a start Anon2:
Which what started this whole treadjack. Please point out how your statement is true.