So the RNC is hiring. Via YouTube. Behold one applicant, a young man from Georgia who believes that Obama supporters are predisposed to murder:
I always thought my feelings of murderous rage were caused by Bush’s failed policies. Go figure.
Now Hiring
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16 responses to “Now Hiring”
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http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/03/ahip_proposes_health_care_commission.php
This is interesting to me. AHIP has been a bit too excited about the new Administration and what’s going forward on healthcare.
I think they understand the danger of going all “Harry and Louise” versus a popular President. They’d rather be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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“The only problem to me is if we just automatically enrolled everyone in Medicare the costs would go tumbling down a lot faster than if we simply made it an option and let it grow over time.”
Here’s the thing, though. Cost reduction (after the first big smashes of getting rid of the most wasteful and self-serving aspects of the for-profits) is going to be the product of a series of discrete improvements in both physical technologies (drugs, devices, whatever) and social technologies (organization, evidence-based medicine or other techniques to improve efficacy on the first try). At some point, I still see competition as important to that. Both amongst the providers (device makers, doctors) and the organizers, who will experiment with those social technologies. The trick is to make sure that the only avenues for advantage available are legitimate ones.
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I’m hiring a facebook scrabble foe.
You know how to reach me.
lol wut.
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The only problem to me is if we just automatically enrolled everyone in Medicare the costs would go tumbling down a lot faster than if we simply made it an option and let it grow over time. It also would ensure that no more tax dollars are used to subsidize private insurance plans. Either way, I see single payer as the top of the barrel to argue for and a Medicare option for all being the bare minimum advocates will accept before walking away from the table.
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“almost every doctor there said their solution would be based on medicare and expanding it.”
I’m totally cool with that, given a few preconditions:
1) Community rating – no skimming the top with offers of lower rates, except perhaps for voluntary measures such as regular consults with a dietitian.
2) All come, all served – again, no pre-existing condition screening.
3) Public Option / Medicare / whatever is offered to all.
At that point, if the private insurers can compete with the public option, I wish them luck. Kind of like the Post Office competing with FedEx and UPS. Everyone seems to be able to keep each other relatively honest in that world.
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Case in point: Though single payer advocates like Oliver Fein and John Conyers got last minute invitations to the Health Summit only after threatening to picket outside the White House (having hundreds of doctors outside the white house picketing you during a health summit is a PR nightmare), the actual panels during the health summit, almost every doctor there said their solution would be based on medicare and expanding it.
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I do kinda feel it’s a step down from HHS. But Obama took a hell of a lot of HMO cash during the campaign and I didn’t expect him to be very serious about healthcare, to try to cobble out some solution that basically throws taxpayer money at private insurance companies, which is exactly what Daschle had in mind, but I do think with real leadership in Congress we can get something that would make single payer a long term feasible goal (like opening Medicare up as an option to everyone, if enough people buy in bye bye HMO’s and cost inflation).
I’d like to see him advise the Progressive caucus. For a caucus much larger than either the Blue Dogs or New Democrats, they really have to work on their outreach and clout-building.
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That’s kind of like making Al Gore the head of the EPA, though. He’d certainly be good at the job, but you start to get the feeling that he has bigger fish to fry.
I wouldn’t have said that as the case for HHS, but down to SG and you’d think his time is better spent doing campaign consulting with liberal parties in other countries. Or trashing the few remaining New England Republicans.
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I think a convenient spot for Dr. Dean just opened up…
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Doesn’t anyone like to hire CPA’s anymore? They’re nice people, really.
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I’m betting on a Gupta income tax issue.
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Some rumblings about why Gupta didn’t want the job:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/05/sanjay-gupta-may-be-out-o_n_172311.html
“According to Farrell, Gupta had misgivings about both the pay cut he would have to take and the fact that he could be reporting to two high-level bosses: both the health secretary and health reform office director.”
The health industry flack didn’t want a pay cut for the honor in serving his country…hmm….how surprising.
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Stewart’s send-up was awesome.
It actually made me think of Letterman going off on McCain when he got stood up.
Regardless of the political persuasion of your host, it’s just plain stupid to leave someone in the lurch who can spend a half hour on national (albeit basic cable in Jon’s case) television trashing you.
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And Gupta dropped from the SG position.
Somewhere John Conyers and Paul Krugman are smiling.
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And it looks like Rick Santelli won’t be going anywhere in the Party either after this pwnage:
http://ugaliberal.blogspot.com/2009/03/jon-stewart-decimates-cnbc.html
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It seems that across the board the GOP response to losing every branch of government to the Democrats is to get even more extreme, more divisive, and less willing to compromise.
Well, whatever works for them.
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