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Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich — R) stands up for American freedoms

on Oct 15 2009 at 12:45 pm | Filed under: Health

In a lucid 3:48 long speech, Rep. Rogers tears about the health care plan, and talks about American freedom and initiative:

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Although the camera didn’t show it, I’m pretty sure many of the Democrats were sitting there with their fingers in their ears, singing “la, la, la” in an effort to ignore him.

Hat tip:  Zhombre

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7 Responses to “Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich — R) stands up for American freedoms”

  1. on 15 Oct 2009 at 6:58 pm 1Zhombre

    Rogers is in contrast to a loon and demagogue like Alan Grayson, D-Florida, who has got a lot of attention and is now the Tribune of the People for the Progressives, who talk about him challenging Bill Nelson for the Senate in 2010.

  2. on 16 Oct 2009 at 10:06 am 2BrianE

    It seems the leftists were playing rope-a-dope during the summer recess, hoping opponents would wear themselves out in a flurry of protest. They’re back at it, and nothing has changed except an increased level of obfuscation.
    This is from a Price-Waterhouse Cooper analysis:

    In the Senate Finance proposal, the rate band restrictions would result in a maximum spread in rates by age to a 4-to-1 ratio. This ratio would further increase costs for younger individuals while reducing costs for older individuals. However, this reduction in costs for older individuals in underwritten states would be more than offset by the 41% to 54% increase in average premiums mentioned above. In the underwritten states, the combined impact of guarantee issue and rate band restrictions could be expected to result in an increase in premiums of 59% to 63% for 18-24 year olds while older individuals aged 60-64 could be expected to see increases in the 33% to 37% range assuming a low or weak mandate and a maximum 4-to-1 rate band ratio.

    Estimated Change in Market Premium by Age Band in Underwritten States Assuming Low or Weak Mandate and a Maximum 4-to-1 Rate Band Ratio
    Age 18-24 – 59-63%
    Age 40-44 – 48-52%
    Age 60-64 – 33-37%

    Once again, older persons will be subsidized by the young. The liberals assume they can continue to get away with this, since young people are liberal by indoctrination and not particularly poticially aware.
    This report confirms what we already suspected, increasing insurance coverage, forcing coverage of pre-existing conditons without any premium adjustment, and adding coverage of extraneous procedures can’t happen without increased costs to someone.
    Since liberals know the public would revolt to the increased level of taxation this would require, they’re going through the back door, by mandating all this, then being shocked when the increased cost of insurance is borne by mostly middle-Americans.
    When Americans revolt at these premium increases (think $25,900 a year for family coverage by 2019) the government will be more than happy to welcome everyone in a government insurance program. Like Medicaid they capping medical payments will be the cost control of choice. Once the government has driven private insurance into the dustbin where capitalism will also be relegated, the medical community will have no choice but to accept these new lower reimbursements. Some doctors will opt out to provide cash only care, but since most doctors have huge expenses leaving college, they will accept their fate as the new blue collar technocrat.
    Rationing will be an inevtiable consequence, and we’ll be offered the blue pill during the final days of our demise.

    http://www.politico.com/static/PPM116_pwc2.html

  3. on 16 Oct 2009 at 10:10 am 3BrianE

    This piece at NRO should be required reading:

    The Baucus Death Spiral [James C. Capretta]

    Full disclosure: I do consulting work for private health insurers, but I had no prior knowledge of the PriceWaterhouseCoopers study before it was released. Having said that, its conclusions were not at all surprising, nor was the heated reaction of the Obama White House. Democrats understand how dangerous the PwC study is to their effort to pass a health-care bill because it exposes a crucial and irrefutable flaw in the health-care plan approved this week by the Senate Finance Committee.

    And what is that flaw? In short, the plan sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus would almost certainly lead to a death spiral in many private health insurance markets.

    Insurance death spirals occur when regulators force insurers to offer coverage (“guaranteed issue”) at premiums below the known risk of those they are insuring, without any assurance that the shortfall can be made up elsewhere. When insurers comply with these rules and offer relatively low cost health insurance policies to all comers, quite predictably, many sick people step forward to sign up. When the insurers then try to turn around and charge higher premiums to the relatively healthy to cover their costs, the healthy, also quite predictably, are more reluctant to enroll because they can see the premiums they would have to pay would very likely exceed their health-care costs. So they often say “no thanks” to the insurance and decide to take their chances by going without coverage instead. As more and more healthy people exit the marketplace, insurers are then forced to raise premiums for everyone who remains, which only further encourages the lower risks to opt out. This vicious cycle of rising premiums and an increasingly unhealthy risk pool is called a ‘death spiral’ because it eventually forces the insurer to terminate the plan.

    The rest of it here.
    http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODA4ZmI2YTI0Yzk2OTkyMzczYTRjYjViODgxODA1OGE

  4. on 16 Oct 2009 at 10:19 am 4BrianE

    This blog post does a good job describing the Price Waterhouse Cooper study if you don’t want to wade through the 26 page report.
    Criticisms of the report in the comments section are a good reality check including this one:

    Time for a reality check on all those who have posted. Please examine the Massachusetts experience. People pay a weak excise tax if they don’t buy coverage. One of the major insurers did a study (due to a rumor that they heard). About half of all new policies are canceled within 5 months. The loss ratio on those policies is 6x normal. Some people have figured out that you only buy insurance when you need it. There are no pre-ex and you can’t be turned down. Will everyone do this? No. Will a lot of people do this? You bet. Will it drive up the costs of insurance? (There is only one door on this choice). Bob is essentially right on this one.

    http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2009/10/senate-finance-health-bill-has-no.html

  5. on 16 Oct 2009 at 10:26 am 5Bookworm

    Re BrianE (#2): “Once again, older persons will be subsidized by the young.” And we’ve seen how well that works with Social Security.

  6. on 16 Oct 2009 at 10:37 am 6suek

    >>young people are liberal by indoctrination and not particularly politically aware.>>

    Education is always expensive. No matter how or where you get it – it’s always expensive.

    They’ll learn. They’ll pay for the education, but they’ll learn.

    Question then will be what they’ll do about it.

  7. on 16 Oct 2009 at 11:09 am 7BrianE

    It’s with much difficulty that I defend doctors, since there is nothing even remotely resembling a free market that can be ascribed to the medical community.

    The AMA has done its best to control the doctor market, with the willing participation of the government and its cadre of prescient planners more than willing to pass off their ignorance as standard deviation. I think they’re now on the umpteenth reprint of “The Great Leap Forward”. Another feather for collectivism.

    I would prefer private capitalism, since it offers the best know human devised system (assuming the given that the whole duty of Man is to “glorify God and enjoy him forever”), much preferable to the corporate capitalism we have drifted toward and the state capitalism the current crop of leftists would like to move us toward.

    I hadn’t thought much about the whole notion of ‘state’ capitalism until the events of the last year and the understanding that pure socialists consider all these quasi-socialists as mere state captalists (facists?) which I suppose represents a great insult. Kind of an inside joke kind of thing.

    Putting it in perspective of human contrived systems, one may need to acquire a renewed appreciation of Mao as expressed in the green movement. To what extent it premeates the current administration may surprise us. They may not even realize they are the reincarnation of his principles, with the exception of Anita Dunn, but of course, her adulation was merely a joke.

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