Deconstructing the wingnut view of health care reform

It's interesting sometimes, in limited doses, to see what the other side thinks about certain issues. Of course, usually it's very clear and you don't have to read any of the hate-driven garbage: you know, "Sotomayor bad, Buchanan good" or "Where's the birth certificate?" or "Don't tax me, bro!" But on an issue as complex as health care reform, even though it has the wingnuts in a tizzy, it's important to show them just where they are wrong in their analysis. And, naturally, they're wrong a lot.

I don't even mean this in terms of the standard GOP "I've got mine, screw you" mentality, the endemic selfishness that ultimately drives nearly all American conservatives today. Rather, I want to point out the inherent flaws in the argument from the Right, and to do so, I'll go to a part of Florida Blast Off! rarely covers: the largely wealthy, über-Republican southwest -- specifically Naples.

Today's example of wingnuttery from southwest Florida comes from Naples Daily News columnist Ed Farmer (left), who is trying to show us that he really doesn't agree with the fringe nutjobs who, driven nearly insane by the idea of a black president!!!!1!!eleven!!, are shouting down members of Congress at all these health care town halls -- honest, he doesn't! But, naturally, he's not very convincing.

They’re not throwing rotten vegetables at those town meetings about health care, are they?

They’re not throwing punches like members of the Japanese parliament, are they?

They’re not carrying swastikas, as the ever-embarrassing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed, are they?

And they’re not breaking the noses of town meeting moderators, the way a guy throwing a folding chair did to Geraldo Rivera on his TV talk show 20 years ago, are they? OK, forget this example.

Better yet, let's forget all those examples, Ed, because they all suck and they all miss the point. For starters, just because they're not throwing rotten vegetables or punches yet doesn't mean they won't. For Jeebus' sake, Ed, a guy in New Hampshire was openly carrying a pistol outside the president's town hall meeting just this week! Rotten vegetables are a convenient strawman, sure, but they kind of pale in comparison to bullets.

And as for your statement about Speaker Pelosi, Ed, well, you're just flat out wrong (nice respect for the speaker, by the way ... shouldn't you be embarrassed about your mistake?). Do you even do the slightest amount of fact-checking? Nazi imagery has been spotted at numerous town hall meetings, including swastikas. And even if you say, well, that one swastika (in Fort Collins, Colo.) had a circle and line through it, as if to say "No Nazis," first, the image was still there, and second, think less literally about swastikas -- maybe you'd prefer the picture (shown here, as seen on CNN) of President Obama with a Hitler mustache, displayed at a Michigan town hall. Face it, Ed: you blew it.

I have neither the time nor the energy to take apart the entire column, although it would be remarkably easy to do so. But I'll just make a couple of other points, Ed. You say:

Many Americans fear having the federal government making life-changing health care decisions rather than their own doctors. When the president made a reference to an elderly person just being given a pain pill rather than a state-of-the-art treatment, the remark scared some people. Their blood pressures rise when Pelosi talks about mobs and labels big insurance companies as immoral villains.

Ah, yes, a variation on the old "Many people say ..." canard. "Many people" (like, maybe, seven) also say that Ashton Kutcher is the greatest actor who ever lived, but that doesn't make it true.

Anyway, first of all, big insurance companies are immoral villains, Ed. We can argue about that another time, because I suppose that's a matter of opinion. But your first sentence there, about "the federal government making life-changing health care decisions rather than their own doctors," well, again, it's just flat out wrong. Doctors aren't making those decisions now, Ed -- insurance companies are! Surely you're not so naïve that you didn't know that?! And they're doing a piss-poor job of it, too. Under the president's plan, the government will have no more say in health care decisions than insurance companies have now, and indeed, it's likely to be a lot less. Get your facts straight, Ed, because until you do, you're just embarrassing yourself and your newspaper.

And finally, the whole idea of that frightening, big, scary federal government taking over, well, that just chaps you and your fellow wingnuts, doesn't it, Ed? But look at it this way: the government can't possibly do health care (or, really, anything else) worse than the private sector has. Let me be blunt: you had your chance with privatization when the Bush crime syndicate was in charge. And it was a colossal failure. The subprime mess, skyrocketing government spending, damage to the environment, and, yes, shitty health care all were results of deregulation under Drunky McStagger, and we're paying the price for it today. Hell, yes, I trust the government more than I do a bunch of insurance companies to make decisions on funding health care, and you know what else? I would be willing to pay more in taxes, even though I have health insurance, to let those less fortunate have health coverage as well. But I know you wingnuts don't do compassion ....

Anyway, Ed, thanks for the entertainment, but if you're going to come to the ballpark (to extend the metaphor in your column) on health care reform, you need to bring more than a Wiffle bat.

Democrats ♥ Charlie Crist

You know, I've got mixed feelings about this Crist fella. He sure sounds like a Democrat sometimes, and he definitely has a lot of Democratic fans ...

First off, Gov. Crist has a proposal for creating a broad-based, low-cost health insurance program that significantly would expand coverage for children. And you know it's probably a good proposal, because the insurers don't like it.

His proposal for cheap health insurance would eliminate all of the 50-plus mandates now required, such as including chiropractors and acupuncturists in any coverage. The plans would be required to guarantee coverage to all uninsured Floridians age 19 to 64. Crist said the cost would be $150 a month.

Insurers disagree. Randy Kammer, a government relations expert for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, said, "We applaud the opportunity to have that flexibility" of eliminating mandates, but she feared only the sick who couldn't get other coverage would buy into the plan, creating a high-risk pool that the cheap premiums couldn't cover.

Crist also proposed spending $63.9 million over the next three years to create a pilot partnership with hospitals, county health departments and healthcare providers to support primary care services in neighborhoods with high rates of uninsured.

Coverage of children would be expanded in two ways:

• By removing the "full-pay cap" in the Florida KidCare program, all uninsured children in the state, regardless of family income level, could become eligible for insurance through the state program, with parents paying a sliding scale premium based on income level.

• The state would require insurers to allow nonstudent dependents, who generally lose coverage at 19, to stay on their parents' policies until they are 30.

This is a decent start. It's too bad it's just lip service, since the likelihood of any even marginally positive insurance proposal passing the wingnut-dominated Florida legislature is roughly equal to that of Mike Huckabee admitting that humans didn't co-exist with dinosaurs. Moreover, it's certainly not ideal (which, in my opinion, is a single-payer system that insures everyone), as some health care experts point out:

Becky Cherney, president of the Florida Health Care Coalition, a Central and South Florida employer health group, had another reaction to the governor's plan. "Everyone needs a good laugh once in a while," said Cherney. She said the governor deserves credit for trying. But she's skeptical that without state funding the plan will make a big dent in the numbers of uninsured Floridians.

For one thing, skimpy health insurance policies rarely attract many buyers because they don't think the coverage is valuable, said Paul Gionfriddo, a national expert on the uninsured and CEO of the West Palm Beach-based Quantum Foundation. "Stripped-down plans that don't cover the things people need most often are of limited value to people with chronic health conditions who have greater needs," he said.

But I guess for now, we'll take what we can get.

Meanwhile, a lot of Democrats really, really like Gov. Crist (have they forgotten about his zealous support of Amendment 1 and of Huggy Bear?) ...

"I'm looking forward to working with you well into the future in whatever level of politics you attain," said state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres. Aronberg, who gave one of the speeches introducing Crist, called him "the nicest man in politics."

"I'm a big fan of Charlie," U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Delray Beach, said in a prerecorded introduction. "He has kept his promise to put the people of Florida first and politics second. ... The civility that Charlie Crist brings to politics in Florida is a model to the nation."

The taped Wexler was introduced by freshman U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Palm Beach Gardens, who appeared in person.

Okay, I'll admit that Crist is much better than his predecessor. Then again, so is anal leakage.

Look, I'm more than willing to give Crist credit for his efforts to be less doctrinaire about his conservatism ... but as long as he ties himself to Warmonger McCain and as long as he keeps that "R" beside his name, I'm going to resist smooching his ass for now.

Hitting Floridians in the wallet -- again

And people wonder why I keep saying Florida is on the verge of economic disaster ...

USAA, Florida's fourth-largest insurer of homeowners, has filed a request for a statewide average rate increase of 53.9 percent, another indication that the plan to bring rate relief to hard-pressed policyholders by lawmakers and Gov. Charlie Crist is not working.

USAA, which filed the request Friday, becomes the 36th insurer to seek a rate increase in its so-called "true-up" filing. The true-ups were supposed to reflect the final tally of rate cuts resulting from changes in the property insurance law in January, once costs of reinsurance - insurance for insurance companies - were factored in.

The filing is likely to heat up the battle between state Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty and insurers over changes lawmakers made during a special session in January. Those changes were expected to result in rate cuts averaging 24 percent.
McCarty's office revealed Monday that it has served subpoenas on top officials of Florida's second-largest insurer, State Farm Florida Insurance Co., which recently announced plans to drop the policies of 50,000 homeowners. The subpoenas ask State Farm to explain why its approved rate increases shouldn't be reduced, among other issues addressed.

I've already ranted about how Rubio and Crist's precious tax cuts actually hurt Floridians severely. Now we find that the insurers, unsurprisingly, don't give a rat's ass about the Legislature's alleged attempts to lower insurance rates.

Insurance companies are, you know, for-profit enterprises. They lost their collective shirts in Florida during 2004 and 2005 and, being shrewd and intelligent business people, they have to recoup their losses somewhere, plus recognize that the risk of further losses is still significant, if not increasing. The Florida Legislature's pie-in-the-sky attitude that they can mandate cuts in insurance rates is not only foolhardy, it may be an unconstitutional restriction on the companies' freedom to do business under the Commerce Clause.

Despite Gov. Crist's moderate-to-liberal stands on social issues, he's falling flat on his face with his economic policy, and the GOP-dominated Legislature is only too happy to go along with the scheme. Mark my words: one more catastrophe -- probably a hurricane, but even a tornado outbreak or a terrorist strike -- will decimate Florida's economy in a way that we can't even comprehend now. I wish the governor and the Legislature would worry less about giving us our $100 and $200 tax breaks and, instead, protect the state ... for all of us.