On health care debate, GOP desperation has set in

This whole GOP-led debate about the evils of Obamacare reminds me of Christian apologists. Opponents are desperate to point to any possible deficiency in the law to support a repeal. When all of Christian believers’ stock arguments have long-since been debunked, apologists like Sye Ten Bruggencate, William Lane Craig and scores of others are just relegated to playing word games and rote sophism.

Similarly, the Obamacare legislation was passed by a democratically elected Congress, subsequently vetted and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. While the roll out of the health care bill’s website allowing people to register for the exchanges has been somewhat of a train wreck, people like Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., aren’t just satisfied in pointing out legitimate concerns about the site; they have to make up arguments too in order to continue railing against it.

Blackburn recently claimed that the website will jeopardize people’s medical record privacy, and thus, be in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This argument suffers from two unavoidable problems: First, the only health question on the form is, “Do you smoke?” The rest is just basic information that any insurance company would necessarily gather when signing up a new member. So, essentially, if Blackburn wants to take issue with the information the Obamacare website is gathering, she must also be prepared to take issue with the information nearly every insurance company in this nation requests from potential customers.

Second, and more importantly, HIPPA doesn’t even apply to insurance programs in which customers willingly enter their information. It only applies to health care providers and in some cases, business associates (human resource agents, etc.).

So, whatever personal information Blackburn is attempting to protect regarding the health care website might also apply to hundreds if not thousands of health insurance websites and, indeed, even retail sites across the nation.

Here is the full exchange from CNN, in which Blackburn could not name one question on the site that violates HIPPA:

Health care vote set for today

As of very early Sunday morning, 18 votes were still at play in the Sunday vote that is coming.

Of the five representatives who voted “No” on the November health care bill vote, two, Rick Boucher (Va.’s 9th) and Lincoln Davis (Tenn.’s 4th) are leaning toward the Democrat’s position, while Glenn Nye (Va.’s 2nd) and John Tanner (Tenn.’s 8th) are a tossup. Brian Baird (Wash.’s 3rd), who is not running for reelection is also a tossup. Here’s the full chart.

18 total are still undecided as of early Sunday morning. Here is an expanded look on how President Obama and the Democrats have been able to keep the bill above water.

As reported by another Times article, Obama made one last push in favor of the bill on Saturday at the Capitol:

Mr. Obama, in an emotional address at the Capitol, exhorted rank-and-file House Democrats to approve the bill, telling them they were on the edge of making history with a decisive vote scheduled for Sunday.

“Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country,” he said. “This is one of those moments.”

The president declared: “We have been debating health care for decades. It has now been debated for a year. It is in your hands.”

Health care bill information as vote nears

Health care vote tally (updated continuously)

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As I’m listening to President Obama’s speech on health care at George Mason University today, I’ve again come to realize how embarrassingly slow, not only this year’s attempts at health care reform has been, but nearly a century-long debate on the issue in this country. Even more so when compared to country’s like Germany and Great Britain, which enacted univeral health care more than a century ago and a half century ago, respectively.

The New York Times, which came out yesterday editorially in favor of passage (no secret there), has put together a historical timeline tracking America’s slow progress on reform.

A vote in the House will likely come Sunday, which would be one of the most historic pieces of legislation in history, and the single most important one regarding health care. Obama, who said at George Mason that he wasn’t sure how the vote would implicate his presidency, has, nonetheless, staked his career on it.

Here’s some resources to help you sort through the details of reconciliation bill:

Here’s my favorite chart, and the most enlightening regarding who’s pockets are lined by the health industry, a table mapping campaign contributions, how House members voted Nov. 7 and their current leaning:

Who’s in play: House health-care vote (Hint: check out Rep. Joe Barton)

Pre-2012, health care falsehoods afoot

Examples surface everyday to prove that folks not only can’t believe what they hear or read, but that the folks delivering the “message” don’t always, and rarely, know what they are talking about. Indeed, volumes of misinformation are swirling regarding the proposed health care reform bill.

From Karl Rove to Sean Hannity (and no doubt others), falsehoods are flying about what the health bill would and wouldn’t do. For instance, in his Wall Street Journal column today, Rove

claimed that the Senate health care bill has “abortion-funding language,” adds to the deficit and contains no immediate benefits.

according to Media Matters. Yet

the Senate bill prohibits federal funding of abortion, contains numerous immediate benefits, and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, reduces the deficit.

For his part, Hannity on March 3 claimed that the health care bill would not be implemented before we began having to pay for it. Which, again, isn’t true. Here’s a 12-part list by The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein detailing parts of the bill that are, indeed, implemented upon enaction:

To put it another way, in 2010 and 2012, when Republicans are saying that reform has done nothing despite the fact that it hasn’t yet gone into effect, what will Democrats be able to brag about? Here’s the list:

1) Eliminating lifetime limits, and cap annual limits, on health-care benefits. In other words, if you get an aggressive cancer and your treatment costs an extraordinary amount, your insurer can’t suddenly remind you that subparagraph 15 limited your yearly expenses to $30,000, and they’re not responsible for anything above that.

2) No more rescissions.

3) Some interim help for people who have preexisting conditions, though the bill does not instantly ban discrimination on preexisting conditions.

4) Requiring insurers to cover preventive care and immunizations.

5) Allowing young adults to stay on their parent’s insurance plan until age 26.

6) Developing uniform coverage documents so people can compare different insurance policies in an apples-to-apples fashion.

7) Forcing insurers to spend 80 percent of all premium dollars on medical care (75 percent in the individual market), thus capping the money that can go toward administration, profits, etc.

8. Creating an appeals process and consumer advocate for insurance customers.

9) Developing a temporary re-insurance program to help early retirees (folks over 55) afford coverage.

10) Creating an internet portal to help people shop for and compare coverage.

11) Miscellaneous administrative simplification stuff.

12) Banning discrimination based on salary (i.e., where a company that’s not self-insured makes only some full-time workers eligible for coverage.

And as Klein wittily concludes:

Given that we’re all going to die when the earth consumes itself in 2012, the effectiveness of these policies takes on a new level of importance.

Indeed, but I don’t think the rumor is that Earth is going to consume itself in 2012. I thought the rumor was that solar flares were going to consume Earth. Regardless, at least some folks will benefit from the health care plan before we are all singed by a wash of solar radiation. Maybe we won’t even have to worry about funding the health care bill after all!