Obama drops disputed vet medical plan

[Wickerman]

Source: Washington Post

The Obama administration dropped a proposal to require some disabled veterans to pay for medical treatments through their private insurance companies, heeding a chorus of outrage from veterans groups and Capitol Hill lawmakers who said the idea was immoral, unconscionable and un-American.

The White House decided to scrap the plan after meeting with a contingent of veterans and military advocacy groups on Wednesday for the second time this week.

"In considering the third-party billing issue, the administration was seeking to maximize the resources available for veterans," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. "However, the president listened to concerns raised by the that this might, under certain circumstances, affect veterans and their families' ability to access health care."

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/19/obama-drops-disputed-vet-medical-plan/

---

more at link

[daninthemoon]

1. good. that was assinine, and i hope this ebds a very bad idea.

President Obama needs to look for universal coverage and stop trying to find peace with the damn insurance companies. close em all down and let our money for health czre go entirely for health care.

[jmowreader]

42. Let's NOT close them down...

I see a "superpolicy" market in a single-payer environment. Single-payer is going to cover things like generic drugs. If you want name-brand drugs you'll have to pay an upcharge, so people who want branded drugs, private rooms and cost-sharing for gym memberships and ergonomic furniture will buy these superpolicies. The rest of us, who just want our broken legs set and curable diseases cured, will stick with the single-payer our taxes are already going for.

And the thing is, the insurance companies will be better off writing this kind of insurance instead of general healthcare--the things it will cover will be cheaper to cover than things like emergency surgery and pregnancy.

[Vanje]

2. Good!

Bad plan.
Horrible plan.
Reminded me of something the Bush-Cheney administration would come up with.

I'm happy that it was very short lived.

[DS1]

3. Great play!

Now the GOP can't complains about 'socialist medicine', because it's not good enough for our troops. Who is it good for?

[Wickerman]

4. exactly, sometimes you float stuff just to show how idiotic the idea

actually is. The other difference here is Bush never backed down on anything, this guy knows how to compromise.

[annabanana]

5. VERY good.. I'm glad that got slapped down quick...

I hope he gets the same kind of reaction if he tries to incorporate a new privatized version of a healthcare system.

[groundloop]

6. Source says Wash Post, link is to Wash Times

Am I the only one, or does the Washington Times seem a bit skewed in their stories? Some of the goodies they've got online now include:

"A lawyer for a whistleblower on the activist group ACORN is prepared to tell a House panel Thursday that the group provided liberal causes with protest-for-hire services and coerced donations from the targets of demonstrations..."

"The Obama administration and one of its key allies in Congress belatedly acknowledged Wednesday that they were responsible more than a month ago for clearing ..."

"As he empathized with recession-weary Americans, President Obama arranged in the days just before he took office to secure a $500,000 advance for a children's book project, a disclosure report shows."

I might be imagining things, but the Wash Times doesn't seem to be a journalistic powerhouse.

[juno jones]

10. The Washington Times is owned by the Moonies.

It is a right-wing propaganda rag.

[Tx4obama]

7. Maybe I'm dense

but could sometime tell me why having the rich insurance companies pick up the tab for some of the veterans medical bills instead of the taxpayers is such a bad idea ???

[cliffordu]

12. How do you think the insurance companies got rich???

By providing the minimal care for the dollar.

Do you REALLY want them shaving dollars off of the care needed by vets blown apart by IED's or shot through the chest by snipers??

[Tx4obama]

14. Well...

the way I heard it was the VA would bill the insurance companies instead of the government AFTER the care was provided.
So, I still do not understand what the big deal is.

[cliffordu]

15. I was switched to medicare part "d" or whatever the fuck bushy did to

privatize medicare drugs -

Now, I have to justify getting drugs covered I have taken for years and the drugs cost more....

Just so some fucking leech someplace can skim a little off the top.

insurance is a racket. Like the mob.

I say close them all down and go to sociaized medicine immediately.

[dysfunctional press]

16. i've avoided going for part D up to now...

most of my scripts, and there are 4 main ones- methadone, prednisone, cyclobenzaprine, and vicoprofen aren't all that expensive, and i don't take 'massive' amounts of any of them except the methadone
but i was recently put on cymbalta, and that bitch costs $140/month. i have until 3-31 to decide for sure.
up to now, i was hoping a better system would be in place by the time my meds got too pricey.

[orleans]

20. well, it might make your premiums go up or it might make the ins. co drop you. n/t

[Tx4obama]

22. hmmm....

I am sure there would be restrictions written into the bill saying the insurance company couldn't drop you because of the VA billing for services and couldn't raise your premium.
And if the insurance company paid more and the taxpayers less then perhaps our taxes would 'go down'.
I think that we should have at least listened to what the proposal was - if there had really been one.
--

We just need the option to have the same insurance that Congress has at a reasonable rate and a total reform of the healthcare system - everything is too screwed up as it is now.

Healthcare should not be a 'for profit' enterprise.
Drug companies shouldn't spend millions on TV ads.
Prescriptions should not cost more for Americans than for people overseas, in Canada, and in Mexico.
Heathcare should not be linked to our jobs.

[Sirveri]

27. The congress has VA health care.

VA health care is actually quite good. Or at least it has been to me. It's also totally free if you're disabled enough.

Frankly I'd rather see the health insurance companies get bought out and nationalised and merged into single payer. Cut defense spending to pay for it. Start up a civil service program similar to military service, start the draft, and then people can go into the military or into the civil service program to learn medical skills, which would cause a mass decrease in payroll costs for the entire system.

[Believing Is Art]

32. "Healthcare should not be a 'for profit' enterprise."

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. But the health insurance industry exists to make a profit.

"And if the insurance company paid more and the taxpayers less then perhaps our taxes would 'go down'."
The insurance companies would just raise the premiums on everyone else. We'd still be paying for vets' medical care, it would just be indirect. Given the track record of most insurance companies, we'd be paying a lot more in increased premiums than we would in taxes.

As far as how my tax money is spent, I am not going to complain about my money going to our veterans. AIG execs, yes. KBR and "Xe," yes. Veterans, not so much.

[Metatron]

8. Excellent news!

[Bonobo]

9. Can't drop something you never held.

Obama may have considered the idea among many others, but I have seen no compelling evidence that he ever tried to push the Legislators (remember them? The Congress, the group that actually proposes laws!?) to pick up this and write a bill.

It was all a hit piece and the proof of the pudding is that is has shown to have been empty of content.

But many of you all bought and consumed it as news, and LATE BREAKING NEWS, at that. Hope you enjoyed your snack.

[Egnever]

11. The feeding frenzy here is an amazing thing to watch

between this and the AIG thing its been a crazy week for chum.

[Wickerman]

13. Its been knocked around all week here on DU

seemed like a good idea to make sure folks new it was dead.

Guess next time I'll PM you and make sure it passes your sniff test.

[orleans]

21. are you aware that he's been having meetings about it?

you make it sound like the paper is totally full of shit.

maybe you should check it out more--

paul reikoff and 14 other vet groups have been meeting with obama to convince him to drop this idea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leZJ_Khw_P0

and btw--this was news.

[Bonobo]

24. I am aware that Riekhoff and Maddow called it a "proposal" and that some say it is "news"

But the way the country works, with the co-equal branches of the govt, is that the LEGISLATIVE branch proposes laws, so saying that the Obama administration "proposed" something that they may merely have been batting around with other ideas as a way of promoting dialog is nonsensical, misleading and thus, bullshit fodder for the news/entertainment fodder machine.

To put it another way, you were manipulated and sucked it up. I still have seen no credible evidence that Obama or his admin had done anything of the sort. Just a lot of blather from the chattering media and bloviating from, well, bloviators.

[cliffordu]

25. Yep. Corporate bloviators.

I laugh out loud every time I hear Mrs Greenspan try to talk money with anyone.

It makes it almost worth listen to her stammer through the 'questions'....

[orleans]

30. according to you the white house must be putting out a lot of manipulated press releases

just to kind of suck people up, right? damn that bloviating white house!

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
__________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 18, 2009

Statement from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the President’s Strong Commitment to America’s Veterans:


The President has consistently stated that he is committed to working with veterans on the details of the 2010 VA Budget Proposal. The President demonstrated his deep commitment to veterans by proposing the largest increase in the VA budget in 30 years and calling VSO and MSO leaders into the White House for an unprecedented meeting to discuss various aspects of the budget proposal. In considering the third party billing issue, the administration was seeking to maximize the resources available for veterans; however, the President listened to concerns raised by the VSOs that this might, under certain circumstances, affect veterans and their families’ ability to access health care. Therefore, the President has instructed that its consideration be dropped. The President wants to continue a constructive partnership with the VSOs and MSOs and is grateful to those VSOs and MSOs who have worked in good faith with him on the budget proposal.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-from-Press-Secretary-Robert-Gibbs-on-the-Presidents-Strong-Commitment-to-Americas-Veterans/

[Bonobo]

31. "Consideration" is a loooong way from "proposal".

Do I believe that the idea was tossed out among many as a way to improve and make more efficient health care to soldiers? Yes.

Do I believe, like you, that he was aggressively pushing a proposal to take away government care for our soldiers? No. Not for a second.

It is the SPIN that is the story. Sorry that you can't see that, but I can't help you.

Perhaps a book suggestion might get you started though. Here is a quote from Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death"

"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

[Egnever]

41. "the centrifugal bumblepuppy"

Where do I get one of these?

[progressoid]

40. Hannity was all over it yesterday

He and his buddies also made it an Obama thing.

[riverdeep]

43. Not true.

This wasn't just a hit job set up by the right wing media. For example, here's Jon Stewart quite angry at this proposal:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/63227/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-that-cant-be-right---veterans-health-insurance#s-p2-st-i1

Look, it's not like the right wing needs anything substantial to beat Obama over the head with, they call him a socialist for crying out loud, when the first bailout was proposed by the Republican administration. But Obama IS going to stumble from time to time, every President does. And when he does, he needs to be called out on it.

[antimatter98]

17. What is WRONG with this White House to even propose such a thing?

This is BushCO stuff, not what I'd expect from a "Change We Can Believe In"
president.

President Obama has to start showing Americans he's for them, not for the
banks, the insurance companies, etc. Or, maybe he's FOR the banks and
insurance companies, and not for the American people. All I see is
help for the banks and corporations. Visit a tent city lately?

[cliffordu]

18. They didn't propose it.

And although I know all the tent cities in 'Murka have shown up in the last 8 weeks, please give the Pres'nit a break..

He isn't from here, after all...

:sarcasm:

[babylonsister]

26. You could search DU to find the truth if you cared but you have to

donate maybe $5. DID the WH propose this, or did someone else? Hell, that you can google.

[Mz Pip]

19. I don't know if this is a valid comparison

but I'll throw it out anyway. I have private insurance which I am quite happy with. A few years ago I had an accident walking to my job on the property of my employer. I wasn't seriously injured, broke a bone in my hand, sprained a wrist and smashed up my knee a bit.

I wanted to go to my regular doctor but they wouldn't let me. I had to go through the whole 'workman's comp' bureaucracy. Endless paperwork, trips to specialists, more paperwork. I only missed one day of work and didn't want to be bothered with all the paperwork. My regular doctor would have been fine for this, but they insisited.

Perhaps this came up because some people might have thought that veterans might get better and more efficient care if they were able to go to their regular health care providers rather than have to deal with the government bureaucracy.

I don't think this was intended to be a foisting off of veterans to private insurance, just an alternate to having to deal with government bureaucracy which hasn't done all that well by our veterans the past few years.

[WhiteTara]

23. this gives me hope. It didn't seem as though

he would change course once he started on something. I still freak out that we have Monsanto Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture.

[bobburgster]

28. Can't believe yesterday was the first I heard about it....

Where the hell have I been? I totally missed this new "idea" they floated until yesterday when news coverage was discussing all the negative responses to it.

[Bonobo]

29. WASHINGTON TIMES, NOT WASHINGTON POST. MOONIE PAPER.

This is mistakenly (or not?) attributes the the Washington Post when it is in fact from the Washington Times.

That makes this, in my mind at least, in violation of the rules of LBN and should be deleted.

It is misleading since there is enough space between the two papers to drive a truck through.

[Judi Lynn]

33. Who would read the Washington Times? This article is NOT from the Washington Post.

Washington Times Wikipedia:

The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon. The Times is known for its conservative stance on political and social issues. As of March 31, 2007, it had an average daily circulation of 102,351,<2> about one-seventh that of its chief competitor in Washington, The Washington Post.

Founding

The Washington Times was founded by the direction of Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon in 1982. Bo Hi Pak, called Moon's "right-hand man", was the founding president and the founding chairman of the board.<3> In 2002, during the 20th anniversary party for the Times, Moon said, "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."<4>

At the time of the Times' founding Washington had only one major newspaper, the Washington Post. The Post had been one of the leading critics of Moon's anti-communist political activism. Massimo Introvigne, in his book on the Unification Church, said that the Post was "the most anti-Unificationist paper in the United States."<5> However, Moon granted the Times editorial independence.<6>

By 2002, the Unification Church had spent about $1.7 billion in subsidies for the Times. The paper has lost money every year that it has been in business.<7> In 2003, The New Yorker reported that a billion dollars had been spent since the paper's inception, as Moon himself had noted in a 1991 speech, "Literally nine hundred million to one billion dollars has been spent to activate and run the Washington Times"<8>. In 2002, Columbia Journalism Review suggested Moon had spent nearly $2 billion on the Times<9> In 2008, Thomas F. Roeser of the Chicago Daily Observer mentioned competition from the Times as a factor moving the Washington Post to the right, and said that Moon had "announced he will spend as many future billions as is needed to keep the paper competitive."<10>

~snip~
Political leanings
Times dispenser

Both liberals and conservatives often refer to the Times as politically conservative.<16><17> Critics have cited it along with, among others, the Wall Street Journal, the Fox News Channel and talk radio, as epitomizing conservative media bias.<9><18><19><20> Salon.com<21><22> and the The Daily Howler<23><24><25><26> have published analyses of what they believe are serious factual errors and examples of bias in the paper's news coverage.

Conservative-turned-liberal writer David Brock, who worked for the Times' sister publication Insight on the News, said in his book Blinded by the Right that the news writers at the Times were encouraged and rewarded for giving news stories a conservative slant. In Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, Brock wrote "the Washington Times was governed by a calculatedly unfair political bias and that its journalistic ethics were close to nil."<27>

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, "Because of its history of a seemingly ideological approach to the news, the paper has always faced questions about its credibility."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times

[Bonobo]

34. Indeed, I wonder of the misappropriation was inadvertent.

Wickerman, any comment?

[Wickerman]

36. Yes, the misapproriation of Post v. Times was an unfortunate mistake

Was it a Freudian slip? Perhaps. I heard Rachel on MSNBC say something about it being discarded, I went to search for it, saw the Moonie Times as sole source, figured the fact that it had been bantered around all week here; it would be welcome to the general population to know that even the Times saw it as dead.

That I called the source the Post is inexcusable, must have been an unconscious reaction to having used the Times as a source.

I see the denial of this avenue as a positive, and the fact that even this crap paper calls it dead is a greater positive.

[Bonobo]

38. Understood. Thanks for owning up to the mistake and for the clarification of your POV. nt

[Yo_Mama]

37. Well, Here's A CBSNews Article

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/18/politics/washingtonpost/main4873963.shtml

It's not updated with the retraction, because it's from about a day ago. But it says pretty much the same thing:

An Obama administration proposal to bill veterans' private insurance companies for treatment of combat-related injuries has prompted veterans groups to condemn the idea as unethical and powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill to promise their opposition.

Nevertheless, the White House confirmed yesterday that the idea remains under consideration, and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and leaders of veterans groups are scheduled to meet tomorrow to discuss it further.

The proposal -- intended to save the Department of Veterans Affairs $530 million a year -- would authorize VA to bill private insurance companies for the treatment of injuries and medical conditions related to military service, such as amputations, post-traumatic stress disorder and other battle wounds. VA already pursues such third-party billing for conditions that are not service-related.
...

[jody]

35. Looks like unrelenting pressure by every major veterans organization in the country forced Obama to

take his stupid proposal off the table, at least for now.

http://www.dav.org/news/documents/LettertoPresidentObama.pdf

The American Legion
1608 K Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
[phone]
www.legion.org

AMVETS (American Veterans)
4647 Forbes Blvd.
Lanham, MD 20706
[phone]
www.amvets.org

Blinded Veterans Association
477 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20001
[phone]
www.bva.org
Disabled American Veterans
807 Maine Avenue, S.W.
Washington, DC 20024
[phone]
www.dav.org

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
308 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington, DC 20002
[phone]
www.iava.org

Jewish War Veterans of the USA
1811 R Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20009
[phone]
www.jwv.org

Military Officers Association of America
201 N. Washington Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
[phone]
www.moaa.org

Military Order of the Purple Heart
of the U.S.A., Inc.
5413-B Backlick Road
Springfield, VA 22151
[phone]
www.purpleheart.org

Paralyzed Veterans of America
801 18th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
[phone]
www.pva.org

Veterans of Foreign Wars
of the United States
200 Maryland Avenue, N.E.
Washington, DC 20002
[phone]
www.vfw.org

Vietnam Veterans of America, Inc.
8605 Cameron Street, Suite 400
Silver Spring, MD 20910
[phone]
www.vva.org

[RamboLiberal]

39. For those not believing cause it came from Moonie Times

New York Times: Insurance Change for Veterans Is Scrapped

Under withering criticism from veterans and Congress, President Obama on Wednesday abandoned a proposal that would have required veterans to use their private health insurance to pay for the treatment of combat-related injuries.

David K. Rehbein, national commander of the American Legion, said the president had indicated at a meeting on Monday that he “intended to move forward” with the proposal, which could have saved the government more than $500 million a year.

But on Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said Mr. Obama had scrapped the idea.

“The president has instructed that its consideration be dropped,” Mr. Gibbs said.

The press secretary said Mr. Obama had heeded the concerns of veterans’ organizations that feared the proposal could make it more difficult for some of their members to obtain care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/politics/19vets.html?_r=1

[marshall]

44. The plan had some merit, but the fight is not worth it

It had some merit, or Obama wouldn't have considered it in the first place. It would have saved the taxpayer a few bucks and helped eliminate some doubling of resources.

[Vidar]

45. At least Obama backs down from his mistakes.