It seems the Representative Paul Ryan has been in the news a lot lately.  I had the opportunity to catch one of his interviews recently and in those few, stolen minutes heard a lot of things I liked - enough to download a copy of his roadmap.  Over the last couple evenings I took some time to read it in more detail and I am impressed.

What impresses me the most is that it truly is a roadmap.  In other words, he just doesn’t say we need to fix healthcare or lower our debt, he actually has a well thought out plan for how to get from where we are today to where he is proposing.  This is in stark contrast to the ‘feel good’ sound bites we get from so many of our current, elected leaders today.

Two great examples where he provides a solid, concrete path forward is with Medicare and Social Security reform.  Both entitlements are in trouble financially and clearly are on an unsustainable path.   What makes them particularly difficult to fix is that so many Americans are in position where they are counting on the benefits already promised to them in those programs.  What Rep. Ryan proposes is that we guarantee the benefits in both cases for those individuals who are already 55 years or older but for those under 55 changes are necessary – and he outlines what those changes would be.  He doesn’t blow up either system but gradually puts them back on track and in a way that future generations can adjust to what those changes will be before they also have to rely on them.  As someone well shy of 55, I never have believed those programs would be solvent by time I was old enough to qualify them and think many people in my generation have been planning for their retirement with that in mind anyway  The changes proposes by Rep. Ryan would only be a pleasant surprise to those of us who never planned on receiving anything.

The “Roadmap for America’s Future 2.0” is about a 100 page document and I’m not going to do it justice to try and summarize it here.  I would recommend though that you check out the website and at least read the opening summary.  Representative Ryan’s plan is well thought out, available for public review, and bold reminder that the President just isn’t being honest when he says the Republicans aren’t bringing alternatives to the table.

I was recently taken to task as to why tort reform is more important to healthcare reform debate than public transit options, or, as I was corrected, just getting people out of their cars.  I am not going to rehash the public transit portion of that discussion – an informed reader can make their own judgment as to the relevancy of that – but in the course of that discussion an interesting Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on tort reform came to my attention.

As way of background, tort law deals with resolving damages from injury arising from negligence or other wrongful acts.  In the context of healthcare, this could be a physician who is accussed of injuring a patient under their care in some way that is considered negligent.   Tort reform refers to legislation that would seek to put limits and additional rules around the types of lawsuits that could be brought in those situations as well as the amount of compensation that could be won.

According to this specific CBO report, the CBO found that if the most common reforms were enacted, this would result in about $11 billion in savings.  Not the silver bullet to our problem but it would help.  However, what I found more fascinating was that it would also save an additional $41 billion from the federal budget over the next 10 years because it would reduce spending in Medicare and other government-run healthcare plans.   The reason?  The CBO says:

“One possible explanation for that disparity is that the bulk of Medicare’s spending is on a fee-for-service basis, whereas most private health care spending occurs through plans that manage care to some degree.  Such plans limit the use of services that have marginal or no benefit to the patients (some of which might otherwise be provided as “defensive” medicine); in that way, plans control costs and keep premiums lower than they otherwise would be.”

Essentially, government run health care plans spend money on healthcare as it's delivered whether it's needed or not - folks get paid for the more procedures performed period.  Private plans on the other hand need evaluate the cost versus the effectiveness and provide quality care within a budget.    The first approach could work if you have unlimited money and unlimited resources (which we have neither of) and the second approach works by rewarding effective healthcare.  Food for thought when we debate whether or not the solution to out-of-control healthcare costs is based fundamentally around private insurance or government.

It’s not surprising the Capital Times is rushing in to support Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla) after his recent remarks saying Republicans want sick Americans to die quickly. As they eloquently put it, we have a “healthcare holocaust” in the United States.  I guess Tammy wasn't available for comment - this is her issue after all isn't it?

Unfortunately, the rhetoric doesn’t quite match up with the facts. Republicans have indeed offered up numerous plans for healthcare – for whatever that is worth, after all they don’t control the House, the Senate, or the Presidency. It is laughable to blame the lack of real healthcare reform on the Republicans when the Democrats can pass anything they like at any time.

Republicans have offered up real alternatives – things like tort reform that cut the costs introduced in healthcare by out of control lawsuits or allowing portability of insurance across state lines and true competition in the private sector. We can solve the problems in our healthcare system without socializing the whole system – unfortunately the Democrats are too beholden to their special interests to do what is needed.

Even as the CapTimes quotes a Harvard study that says 44,000 Americans die annually because of a lack of healthcare coverage, how does the Democrat plan help this? Far too often we look at the situation as if it’s static. In other words, if we can somehow spend trillions of dollars to cover those people then everything will be right with the world, right? Unfortunately the world we live in is not static and when we rearrange our healthcare system to cover those folks, someone else has to give something up. Just look to England and Canada. When everyone has coverage, everyone’s coverage is rationed. It’s like trying to stretch a blanket that just isn’t big enough. When you cover your toes, your shoulders aren’t covered. Pull it up and your toes pop out. That’s just reality.

During his speech yesterday evening, the President made the argument early that allowing individuals greater freedom to buy their own insurance is as extreme of a position as wanting the government to take over with single payer. This is designed to make us feel that if we believe in the free market then we are being as unreasonable as those that want to tear the entire system down. These are not equivalent positions and it’s intellectually dishonest to say so. One approach moves the government further out of the way, perhaps allowing portability of coverage across states, tort reform, and aspects of the current system that artificially raise rates (things you could argue the government put in place that caused part of the current problem). The other approach has the government taking over the healthcare industry, rationing care, and making decisions for us – the ultimate nanny state.

Moving on to dispel those horrible “myths” about his plan, the President then said nothing in the bill requires your coverage to change. The language is important here, he uses the word “requires”. Previously he said you’d “absolutely” be able to keep your coverage if you’re happy with it. The change is significant as many people realized he wasn’t being truthful. Using the word “require” may be technically true but this is, again, being intellectually dishonest. If the government puts an alternative in place that is lower cost to employers, the employees will have no choice when they’re moved to the government plan. Is this a requirement? No. Is it something that an honest, reasonable person can see is a probably outcome of the bill? Yes.

On the topic of “improving” the coverage we already have, the President said that insurance companies won’t be allowed to place ‘arbitrary’ limits on what they’ll pay and they will be limited in what they can charge for that insurance. Let that one sink in - it is something that only big government can dream up. Sure it sounds wonderful and utopian but what is that really practical? Unlimited expenses and limited income for all private insurance companies means there won’t be any left in business under the President’s plan. Good thing we’re not “required” to take the government plan.

It's in this context we should consider the President’s stated desire to keep the long term goal of his healthcare reform in mind. Talks of short term compromise should throw up red flags. He won’t “require” you to switch into the government plan but he wants to mandate everyone buys insurance and put private insurance out of business. Just what is the long term goal then? Everything points back to single payer.

Not content to just call mainstream Wisconsinites names, the CapTimes then goes on to question the motives and funding behind those opposed as being paid by big oil and big gas but the activists... well, maybe, just maybe, there is a little bit of money behind them... but let's not dwell on that. Again, I shouldn't be surprised, this is part of the CapTimes template and, I suspect, why they no longer are in daily print.

I realize that it may sound harsh to accuse the President or Representative Baldwin of lying about healthcare reform.  Supporters say that no one has a crystal ball and when they say if you you’re your current coverage you can keep it, they really, really, really mean it.  However, multiple news sources and people who have actually read the legislation in the House right now say that statement isn’t “entirely true” or “not literally true” and that's just the liberal, friendly media.  When something is not true, I consider it a lie.  Is that overly harsh?  For any parent with a three year old, I think they’d see it the same way. 

 According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the act of lying is:

1: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive

2: to create a false or misleading impression

Isn’t what the President and Tammy are doing is creating a “false or misleading impression” on their plans for healthcare?  To be fair to the President, he technically has never shared any details of “his” healthcare reform, the only plan we can judge right now is the plan in the House.  However, it is completely fair to judge Tammy on that content of that bill and with that bill it is completely false to be making the claims she and her colleagues are making.  In my book then it’s absolutely fair to say Tammy is lying about healthcare.

On occasion I will check out CNN for a different perspective.  Usually I don’t find much that I would want to comment on or it’s just not that surprising what their take is on an issue.  However I recently read an article called “Rumors influencing health care debate” and, even expecting CNN’s slant, I was still shocked by what I read.  There was no attempt to even appear balanced in the reporting and the use of a “CNN Truth Squad” to question the honesty of health care reform critics was particularly appalling.  Yes, they have a truth squad.  That sounds scary all by itself.  Not willing to trust the “CNN Truth Squad” I downloaded a copy of the plan and read the applicable sections for myself (you can simply Google “HR 3200” to find it or read it here.

The very first claim they “debunk” is that the current House plan forces people to let the government have access to their bank accounts.  In fact, pages 58 and 59 of the bill specifically address real-time electronic handling of a variety of financial-related aspects of the health care plan.  Specifically it says “the real-time (or near real-time) determination of an individual’s financial responsibility at the point of service” (emphasis added).  In reading these pages I frankly admit they could mean a lot of things and certainly could be interpreted that they can require access to your individual finances to determine what you can pay.  It also could mean something more akin to the electronic insurance checks that already routinely occur today.  The problem is that the language is just written so vaguely that it really could mean just about anything and it’s fair to question just where will a bureaucrat take this vaguely worded language in the future – into your own bank account doesn’t sound so farfetched to me.

The next thing they “debunk” is the “death panel” claim.  While it’s true that a politician would be insane to write legislation that uses the term “death panel”, there is a “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” that will be created to determine what benefits are appropriate.  This is on page 30.  Ultimately this panel will be setting standards of care and coverage in the government plan (and remember the goal is single payer so this is what they want for all of us).  Based on individuals the President has appointed to other roles and their publicly stated views on rationing and taking a person’s age and future contributions to society into account when determining the level of care they receive, is it so hard to envision this committee determining that additional costs just aren’t justified for grandma?

Even our local liberal newspaper, the Isthmus is jumping on the lies being spread.  In an article just posted just today they point out that Tammy’s claim (and the President has said this too for what seems like a million times) that you can keep your current coverage if you like it is “not entirely true”.  That’s a polite way to say they are lying.  They even quote the New York Times to back this up!   Although the New York Times says the statement "may not be literally true".  No wonder the President has changed his tune to you’ll “more than likely” be able to keep it – Tammy must have missed that memo.    

I could go on (after all, the bill is over 1,000 pages long) but the point is that CNN is clearly aligning itself as a propaganda machine for one political viewpoint over another.  It’s events like this that scare me even more than the government proposing to take over our healthcare.  If, after open and honest debate that is what the American people really want then so be it.  However when our media begins to repeat lies and propaganda vilifying honest Americans who disagree with the plan – that reminds me more of the propaganda machines in the old Soviet Union than the United States of America. 

Tammy still hasn’t seen fit to schedule any listening sessions with people she represents.  It appears in lieu of actually talking to anyone she has sent out an electronic survey.  The survey hits on a variety of topics, one of which is the plan for government to take-over our healthcare.  On this survery Tammy attempts to boil down complex issues to “Yes/No/Unsure/No opinion” with no opportunity to elaborate in our feedback.  Of course many people would like to see us improve our healthcare system in the US.  That can take a variety of forms though and there are many, legitimate ideas on the table to do just that.  To boil it down to a yes or no question is dishonest and just feeds her propaganda machine since if you’re not for it, you must be against it right?

You also have to wonder how much weight this online survey will carry.  Not to get too philosophical, it has the same problem of that tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it.  Does it really make a sound?  Likewise, with no public forum, it makes you wonder if you express your opinion online and Tammy is the only one to see, does it really count (at least to her)?   The other significant problem this has is since it’s an online survey that would mean that anyone, from anywhere in the world, can answer and fill it out on our behalf – multiple times I bet.  Will it really be a shock when the results come back and the Wisconsin 2^nd Congressional District voted a billion to none for this bill?  It probably won’t be that obvious but I will wager a guess that we’ll find out that we support her bill.

Lastly, I wanted to share a useful site that I’ve come across recently.  Americans for Prosperity have put a couple great sites and one of them is www.fightbackwisconsin.com.  In additional to good, general information about local events, it also has links to listening sessions scheduled in Wisconsin.  Unfortunately as I wrote, Tammy has yet to schedule any so her part on this page is kind of blank.  On interesting thing is that Republican representatives in our state have scheduled three for every one of their Democrat counterparts while the Democrats outnumber the Republicans five to three.  I guess that answers my question in the previous paragraph about whether our opinion really matters to Tammy and her colleagues.   

Now the Democrats that control Congress and the White House are claiming that anyone who might disagree with them taking over our healthcare is an angry mob.  The hypocrisy is almost unbelievable except this is all too familiar of a tactic.  Remember “the debate is over” with respect to global warming?  Judging from the forums I subscribe many people are lining to be counted in that “angry mob”.  Well they can count me in too; I don’t believe the government should be running our healthcare either.  Too bad our local “representatives” don’t see fit to have an in person town hall or listening session on this issue.  This is Madison though.  Shouldn’t this be the place to go if they want feel good, photo-op crowds and this plan is so well supported by Democrats?  If Tammy doesn’t feel like having a town hall in the Madison area that’s saying something.

Tammy did however make an appearance on talk radio the other day to spread some of her talking points.  She was predictably elusive when the callers I heard asked her real questions.  She completely dodged the question of whether she would stand by this public health plan for members of Congress.  Her response was that she wanted all Americans to have the choices.  Choices?!?  How does creating a bill to drive out competition and put us on the path to single-payer create choice?  Furthermore, if it is so great, why explicitly exempt Congress from this?  Any time Congress exempts itself from the legislation they’re passing for the rest us then we know we are in trouble.    

Talking about choices sure makes for a great sound bite but it’s a lie.  There is a commercial on TV now where they ask two girls if they want a pony and both say yes.  One gets a little toy pony and the other a real live pony.  When the one with the toy pony asks why she didn’t get the real pony, the answer is: read the fine print, you didn’t ask.  Similarly, in another variation, a boy gets an awesome new bike but the “fine print” says he can only ride it in rectangular area not much bigger than the bike.  Both kids know they’ve been taken for a ride.  This is how I feel when Tammy and other Democratic leaders in Congress are talking to us.  They tell us “you’ll have choices” but if you read the bill you’ll see that you only have choices until something changes in your current plan – then you have to move to the public option.  A lie?  Maybe not technically but I suppose but even a child would know it’s wrong.

Side Note

Remember dissent was the highest form of patriotism only a couple years ago?  Now if you don’t like the idea of government-run healthcare then the White House is asking your neighbors to report you to them.   I’m generally not one for conspiracy theories and overblown rhetoric but that sounds eerie to say the least.  Frankly it sounds more like Nazi Germany and Communist Russia than the United States.