"A Brave New World" Was Too Goddamn Patronizing

In between your seat and the snack car on the Train of Stupidity that is politics in general is the boxcar full of shit that is McCain's Health Care Plan, as developed by Pfizer (Motto: Singhandedly keeping McCain's love life alive since '98)

Initially I can tell you without really reading the plans, that I trust Barack Obama's much more than McCain's. Look how much shorter in description each plank of McCain's plan is compared to Obamas. How about all that absurd rhetoric on McCain's page, militarizing/romanticizing about health care, with his "Call to Action", his "Vision", his "Plan of Action". You can't win by leading the charge on Health Insurance Hill - its going to take a lot of nerds working late nights in broom closets with calculators to figure this one out. Which leads me to my next quick thing: mentions of cold hard numbers. I counted 4 numbers in McCain's plan. There are 26 in Obama's. Instead of numbers? McCain uses the word "should" eleven times in his plan; Obama twice.

It's comparable statements about the same ideas which really demonstrate my point:

McCain:
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Greater Use Of Information Technology To Reduce Costs. We should promote the rapid deployment of 21st century information systems and technology that allows doctors to practice across state lines.

Obama:
Lowering Costs Through Investment in Electronic Health Information Technology Systems: Most medical records are still stored on paper, which makes it hard to coordinate care, measure quality or reduce medical errors and which costs twice as much as electronic claims. Obama will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health care system to broad adoption of standards-based
electronic health information systems, including electronic health records, and will phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT. Obama will ensure that patients' privacy is protected.

Here's another one:

McCain:
TRANSPARENCY: Bringing Transparency To Health Care Costs. We must make public more information on treatment options and doctor records, and require transparency regarding medical outcomes, quality of care, costs and prices. We must also facilitate the development of national standards for measuring and recording treatments and outcomes.

Obama:
Require full transparency about quality and costs. Obama will require hospitals and providers to collect and publicly report measures of health care costs and quality, including data on preventable medical errors, nurse staffing ratios, hospital-acquired infections, and disparities in care. Health plans will also be required to disclose the percentage of premiums that go to patient care as opposed to administrative costs.

And here's something which just flat out demonstrates how Obama's take on the world trumps McCain's:

McCain (this is under "Lowering Health Care Costs"):
TORT REFORM: Passing Medical Liability Reform. We must pass medical liability reform that eliminates lawsuits directed at doctors who follow clinical guidelines and adhere to safety protocols. Every patient should have access to legal remedies in cases of bad medical practice but that should not be an invitation to endless, frivolous lawsuits.

Obama (this is under "Lower Costs"):
Insurance reform. Obama will strengthen antitrust laws to prevent insurers from overcharging physicians for their malpractice insurance and will promote new models for addressing errors that improve patient safety, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship and reduce the need for malpractice suits.

Obama comes at this problem from two directions: The direct cost of the lawsuits themselves, and the indirect cost of covering the possibilities of the lawsuits (insurance). McCain only comes the problem in the former (and not the latter) way. Most importantly: Obama's plan is concerned with the prevention of malpractice; McCain's plan is concerned with the prevention of malpractice lawsuits.

Imagine a world under McCain's plan: Your doctor screws up while following procedure (since this seems to be the viable scenario for sueing in McCain's plan). Either the screw up was the doctor's fault, in which case you can't sue her/him because he was following procedure, or god forbid, the procedure was wrong in the first place. If the procedure was wrong either a) better luck next time, b) sue whoever developed the procedure. And voila, the blame shifting game goes on. McCain's plan could be: don't sue the doctor, sue big pharma/the hospitals! Great way to keep costs down...

Yes, Obama's plan is more touchy-feely, but also yes a good doctor patient relationship is crucial. What better way to keep a doctor from screwing up then by giving him an emotional investment in her/his patient. Obviously you people want some kind of "evidence".
Well here you go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/health/29well.html

Obama's plan is also much more adaptable - if the procedure is wrong, there are already people "addressing errors", and a reason to sue (force a change in the system) has been taken out of circulation. Plus I really like the bit about keeping malpractice insurance down - from what I know it's mandatory that doctors have it
most places, so it's probably really increasing overhead costs just about everywhere/is probably a noncompetitive market just about everywhere.
Annnnd here's some evidence:
http://insurance-reform.org/StableLosses2007.pdf
and ahahahahaha some more:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/02/eveningnews/consumer/main610102.shtml
(this one even goes so far as to refute even the existence of all those "frivolous" lawsuits)

The bottom line with regards to McCain's plan is this: it is like a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. I know I pay about 1500 dollars a year for health insurance, and that my employer coughs up the other 3/4s of the cost, so insuring me costs about 6000 dollars a year. McCain would give me a 2500 dollar tax credit (5000 for families, but god knows how much insuring a family costs, I don't even want to
know).

McCain: is that 2500 dollars in cold cash, or is that a write-down on my income, meaning that instead of getting the money I actually just don't pay the government 2500 dollars times my tax rate. Which in my case, making what I do (which is much more than an actually "poor" person according to the government) would be max about 250 bucks. Two months worth of employer-subsidized health insurance. Great.

Assuming it's actually 2500 dollars, good luck trying to buy insurance with that money if your employer doesn't provide any kind of plan (remember my plan is 6000 dollars). And how many people work for employers who don't offer a plan? 8 in 10 uninsured people (that's from http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml). That's 38 out of the 47 million unemployed. Mean McCain has the balls to tell people he's offering them this money "While still having the option of employer-based coverage". 38 million people in the US don't have that option. They can't do a damn thing with that 2500/5000 dollar check. Except that they can't do a damn thing with it anyway because McCain also says:

"...the money would be sent directly to the insurance provider". So I'm not even in the loop for that cash. I, along with the rest of America, would never even see it. So McCain's plan is: every year the U.S. Government would write a 500 billion dollar check (approx. 100 million households in the US times 5000) to the insurance companies.
Shit.

Obama: Mandatory insurance for children. Bam, that's 9 million of the uninsured insured right then and there. No checks to private companies, no "Health Savings Accounts", no mucking about with taxes. Just the Government stepping in and insuring our children. One step program: uninsured --> insured. Obama would also directly provide an option for insurance through the U.S. Government for the remaining uninsured. Instead of just mailing the insurance industry a gigantic check each year, he would create a competitive atmosphere across the public/private divide. Obama's plan would give us (we, the people) leverage over big pharma and the insurance industry, badly needed leverage. Pharmaceutical and insurance companies are profit-oriented, not people oriented. These industries need to remember - they provide a critical service; they do not exist merely to enrich themselves. Pharma and insurance should probably be non-profit - Obama gets us closer, McCain just momentarily satiates their lust for cash.

Sources:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm
href="http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

By the way, finding the sources of evidence for the things I write about is so blindingly easy I feel almost useless typing this stuff up. It took me four google searches to find everything I needed. I don't understand how people can quibble about facts so often, but never look shit up for themselves (not directed at you CH). It's the internet people! It's simpler than a dick in a box.