Nate Silver: Why Progressives Are Batshit Crazy to Oppose the Senate Bill

[jefferson_dem]

Why Progressives Are Batshit Crazy to Oppose the Senate Bill

Pick your subheadline:

a) It's time to stop being polite and start getting real.
b) Here's hoping a picture is worth 1,000 words.



<SNIP>

I understand that most of the liberal skepticism over the Senate bill is well intentioned. But it has become way, way off the mark. Where do you think the $800 billion goes? It goes to low-income families just like these. Where do you think it comes from? We won't know for sure until the Senate and House produce their conference bill, but it comes substantially from corporations and high-income earners, plus some efficiency gains.

Because this is primarily a political analysis blog, I think people tend to assume that I'm lost in the political forest and not seeing the policy trees. In fact, the opposite is true. For any "progressive" who is concerned about the inequality of wealth, income and opportunity in America, this bill would be an absolutely monumental achievement. The more compelling critique, rather, is that the bill would fail to significantly "bend the cost curve". I don't dismiss that criticism at all, and certainly the insertion of a public option would have helped at the margins. But fundamentally, that is a critique that would traditionally be associated with the conservative side of the debate, as it ultimately goes to mounting deficits in the wake of expanded government entitlements.

<SNIP>

Also, frankly, the individual mandate penalty is not very harsh, especially for lower-income people, so there's some potential for gaming the system in a way that isn't economically optimal but would give this particular family a better deal than suggested above.

Secondly, the critiques over the level of subsidies are rather tangential to where the locus of progressive energy has been -- on the public option. The presence of a watered-down public option would make very little difference in terms of this family's cost structure -- and yet, this same bill with a public option is one that most liberals would be head-over-heels for.

I happen to agree that the cost subsidies need to be improved somewhat for this type of family and indeed I wish that this is where more of the left's energy had been directed. Fortunately, I think this is something that really can (still) be improved in conference committee or on the floor. For instance, if you adopted the House bill's subsidies for families at under 250% of poverty, and the Senate's (which actually become more generous) for people at greater than 250% of poverty -- perhaps in exchange for a harsher (not weaker!) individual mandate penalty -- you'd have a pretty reasonable compromise.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/why-progressives-are-batshit-crazy-to.html

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Silver under the bus!

[jefferson_dem]

2. Well, if that's the case... The *facts* will go under there with him.

Emotional, cynical rants, such as common on DU lately, are good for a bit of fun, and blowing off steam. But that's about it. Truth is they often ignore reality.

[NYC_SKP]

26. Well, facts don't matter when people are on a personal mission...

...to declare the administration a failure.

:donut:

[treestar]

52. No kidding. Rational discourse is really lacking on this.

[NYC_SKP]

55. Did you see Skinner's Post on the matter of HCR? (link)

I might even recommend it!

:P

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7231194

.

.

[girl gone mad]

13. Which bus?

Is there another bus full of liberals that follows the Hope Mobile around? Cause your post makes no sense.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. LOL

Look at the wackadoos pretending that they don't throw people under the bus! Good for the goose,...

:rofl:

[girl gone mad]

29. Stay classy.

[spoony]

62. No shit, I hate it when they're too dumb to use "under the bus" correctly. nt

[backscatter712]

38. Then throw me under the bus with him. Nate's absolutely right.

Yes, I'm utterly fucking pissed off that the public option got killed, and I want to see Kapo Joe's head on a pike for it.

That said, we still need to get the health care bill to Obama's desk, for the reasons that Nate gives.

Reform and change is always an incremental process, and will always face opposition. If we take what we get now, we can build upon it in a few years, now that we finally have a little momentum. If we let this bill die, we get absolutely nothing, and Congress will not touch health care again for another generation. Is that what we want?

Remember what Ezra Klein said on Countdown last night about the bill, even without the public option:

150,000 lives saved over ten years.

That alone makes it absolutely necessary for us to swallow our pride and do what needs to be done. Afterwards, we get revenge on Kapo Joe.

[BlueMTexpat]

77. +1!!!

And I also want to see Kapo Joe's head on a pike ... the sooner the better. What a POS he is!

********
I just heard a very disappointed Sherrod Brown speak on NPR, but he plans to support this bill for many of the same reasons that Nate mentions. Brown also hasn't given up on making the bill better, either with the PO or the Medicare buy-in. The bill still has a ways to go and one phase is still conferencing with the House. But that sick FU Lieberman ultimately has to be shown the door ... and in no uncertain terms.

[JTFrog]

3. K&R

[54anickel]

4. Game the system and some could get even more! Woo-hoo!! Nice message there. n/t

[depakid]

5. What Nate doesn't get in his geekiness is that human nature can't be quatified

One might expect that- as a poker player, he would get this fairly simple deal.

[rudy23]

41. Yep, he's a typical left-brained numbers guy in this regard.

I love a lot of what he has to say, but this is his main shortcoming. Human nature has its own unique qualities.

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. The "good deal" above is still 20% of the family's income.

Good has to get better than that. This reform has to get much better than it is, in order to work at all.

And mandates have to go. Period. Persuasion is better than force. Make a program that people feel is WORTH IT to them, and they will buy it.

[pnwmom]

8. Mandates are essential. Otherwise the only sensible thing would be for everyone to go

without insurance until they were facing seriously high medical costs. And then no one would be able to afford it.

[eridani]

11. Fuck that straght to hell

Mandates are acceptable only if they are to pay for actual health CARE, as in single payer. Or even as in buying Dutch-style mandated private insurance, the costs and benefits of which are dictated directly by the government. Forcing people to deal with useless shitstain murdering sociopaths is not sensible at all.

[pnwmom]

16. Strategy is essential. Step 1, pass these industry reforms, most of which could NOT

be included in a reconciliation bill because they have nothing to do with the federal budget.

Then, when people scream about the rising costs of medical care, introduce a Medicare/single payer option -- by itself -- which COULD be handled through reconciliation, since it would put Medicare on a more solid financial footing. And watch while the Rethugs try to justify being against cost control.

[eridani]

18. If that were at all plausible, single payer would have been on the table from the start

The industry reforms are useless at any rate. No pre-existing conditions? They can still charge you any damn thing they want. And they can turn you down for having a bad credit record. There is no practical way to verify loss ratios, and if there were, the lag time in forcing a correction is far too great to be useful. No sane universal care system working through private insurance operates this way--medical care and insurance prices are set by the government. Recission is still OK for "fraud," which of course gets defined by insurance companies. And they still get to dictate who your doctor can be and what you will have to pay.

[pnwmom]

23. The rates would not be allowed to be higher based on preexisting conditions. n/t

[eridani]

24. So? You're thrilled about letting them jack everyones' rates sky-high?

And if you lose income and can't pay for your insurance, what happens to you?

[pnwmom]

27. You realize there are subsidies in both bills, right? n/t

[eilen]

30. Have you seen the post in which the Fed is lowering the poverty line? nt

[eridani]

35. Which are useless if you are over 50

You are forgetting the legally mandated second class citizenship of old people who are not old enough for Medicare.

[pnwmom]

63. I wasn't aware of that. Could you please explain? And does it apply to both

House and Senate bills?

[eridani]

91. The House bill allows insurance to charge older people twice as much

--not sure what the senate final version is, but Baucus had 4 times as much.

[karynnj]

34. NICE!!!

[treestar]

53. Your language

You've gotten yourself riled up. Have you never paid an insurance premium? Apparently you believe 100% of claims are denied. I know it is popular to hate insurance companies for being insurance companies, but your last sentence is ridiculous.

[eridani]

97. About 21% of claims are denied

And yes, I pay those useless shitstains to hire people to give me the runaround. I hate insurance companies because they kill and bankrupt people for profit.

[alcibiades_mystery]

22. They want universal coverage without the universal part

[eridani]

25. No, we want it without shitstain murdering sociopaths between us and our providers n/t

[backscatter712]

48. How dare you use logic and economics on this board!

How are we supposed to have a circular firing squad if you're not firing off half-baked emotional temper-tantrums? ;)

[karynnj]

33. Reread the last paragraph in the op

He is saying that this is where the liberal focus should have been. He is completely right that making the penalties higher is the way that the subsidies could be increased - bringing the cost down from 20%. The question is what is the percent likely to be now - the status quo?

It is likely that the family is uninsured and they need to pay high rates to see a doctor. The cost is risking bankruptcy and risking losing their health for things that could have been treated.

Because the public option could lower government as well as family cost, if it is not included, I would bet under a different name that it might be added in a stand alone bill a few years in the future.

[pnwmom]

7. Thanks for posting this. K & R. n/t

[eridani]

9. What unmitigated horseshit. Not one single dime goes to low income families

It goes to the insurance companies they are forced to patronize directly.

[Inuca]

12. patronize = get health insurance

don't you see ANYTHING positive in this?

[eridani]

14. No. Fuck it straight to hell

Insurance means that some useless shitstain sociopaths get to choose my doctor and to decide on the basis of stockholder whims whether or not they will pay for any actual treatment I need.

[treestar]

54. Get to choose your doctor?

Where have I heard that before?

isn't that the right wing's fear about single payer or any type of reform?

[eridani]

92. Single payer is the ONLY way you get to choose any doctor

The useless parasitic shitstains stick you with their preferred provider lists.

[Richardo]

71. Wow, you're totally ignorant

Don't let that stop you from your insightful, eloquent posts though. :thumbsup:

[eridani]

96. And you are a fan of useless sociopathic shitstains that run insurance companies

If you want to be their slave, fine. Leave the rest of us out of it.

[jefferson_dem]

15. Yay for the status quo.

Amazing hubris from so many "progressives".

[girl gone mad]

17. Sorry, but..

I don't think the "centrist" vote will be enough carry Dems in 2010.

[eridani]

19. The bill is nothing but reinforecement of the status quo

--along with forcing people to buy useless shit.

[zulchzulu]

32. Have the link where Medicaid is taken away?

Thanks in advance.

[eridani]

36. You haven't been reading the headlines? In return for ditching the public option

--people over 55 were supposed to get a chance to buy into Medicare.

[backscatter712]

39. HELLO MCFLY!!! MEDICAID EXPANSION!!!

133% of FPL!

C'mon. Stop using your reptile brain and get those frontal lobes online already!

[PDittie]

10. I'll go with Burt in the comments ...

Sorry, Nate, but your entire rebuttal proceeds from a false premise - namely, the premise that health insurance, purchased from a private, for-profit insurance company, is the same thing as health care.

It's not, for the simple reason that the insurance companies will happily take people's premium money for as long as they are healthy, and then deny their claims as soon as they get sick. The Senate bill (as well as the House bill, for that matter) does absolutely nothing to prevent this.

Also, as if that wasn't enough, rescission will continue. Read the bill - it says no rescission except in the case of fraud. So the insurance company will just claim fraud and you will have to go to court to fight that, which will take years to resolve. And all the while you'll be going without health care.

So no, it's not crazy to oppose this bill. It's crazy to support it.

[fasttense]

21. It's too f'ing complicated. How is anyone going to know they are

getting the correct amount of subsidy? How is anyone going to know if their insurance corporation king, I mean CEO, is overcharging them? When their circumstances change, how would anyone know what they are suppose to get and pay out?

It's complicated because now insurance corporation kings can con people out of more of their money by making it all seems so utterly confusing.

Not to mention, the corporation king can threaten you. If you don't pay up your health insurance, the government will fine you and put you in jail. Yeah, I know it's a lie but since when did that stop any health insurance corporation?

The whole convoluted, piece meal, useless bill is designed that way to make health insurance corporation kings happy. And they are very happy. Just look at the stock market going up and up, all the while the congress is supposedly going to cut into the profits from their con.

It's just another con being played out so that the status quo can look like change.

[Bullet1987]

28. People don't understand that yet. They're not reading the writing on the wall

Nate Silver is sounding more and more like a shill. But people will realize sooner or later how sh*tty this bill is.

[zulchzulu]

31. Well... I heard Nate Silver hangs out with Tiger Woods!

:sarcasm:

K&R...

[high density]

37. I don't see a check on the costs?

That is my big problem here. Obama sold us on HCR telling us that costs would go down, thanks to competition from a public option, co-ops, whatever. Now we have none of that. Instead I just see the cost going up and up and up and the government subsidizing more of it. What freaking good is that? Plus people should not have to be poverty level or even 250% poverty level to get some assistance. Nearly everybody needs help in this regard. People should not have to put a month or two or more of their annual earnings every year into health insurance. And we shouldn't add additional money transfers from the government to private insurance companies simply because Obama wants a bill at any cost and Lieberman is throwing a hissy fit.

[Clio the Leo]

40. If Nat likes it, I like it.

I'm putting him on my list (my progressive opinion litmus test list.)

[backscatter712]

42. Nate's absolutely right. Turn on your frontal lobes, stop thinking with your reptile brain.

Change and reform is always incremental.

We're not going to get all of what we want, but part of what we want is better than taking nothing. We use this bill as a stepping stone, and get single payer on the next round.

Killing the bill is idiotic. We'll lose all our political power, Congress won't touch health care reform for yet another generation, and millions of Americans will die as a result.

[Pisces]

43. You are being too rational for most on this board. Pragmatism and realism are in short supply.

The mode du jour is irrational outrage and rock throwing at Pres. Obama.

[backscatter712]

46. Yeah, the purity trolls are having fun right now. n/t

[depakid]

72. Enjoy your epic losses in 2010

The so called "purity trolls" are your base- and they also represent in this instance sound public policy.

Reading posts like yours gives me some small solace though- in the sense that there are those who richly deserve to lose.

[Armstead]

45. "Keep your powder dry" yet again huh? That powder's getting dessicated.

[backscatter712]

47. Got a real rebuttal, or are you going to spew the same worn out one-liners? n/t

[GreenArrow]

64. "are you going to spew the same worn out one-liners"

You mean like "purity trolls?"

[Honeycombe8]

84. This country will never accept single payer. Stop saying that! That is NOT an option!

There may be room for something else...something more...down the line. But single payer IT WILL NOT BE.

America's independence, wild west background, coupled with a go it alone attitude is just not conducive to giving everyone health care for "free." It just won't happen. Not gonna happen. Will never be.

Get it out of your head.

Expect or ask for other things, yes. But not something that will never happen.

Have you EVER known any politician who backed single payer, and was in a position to make it happen, be elected to a national position? (No, Kucinich is not in a position to "make it happen." Which is why he talks a lot but doesn't actually "reform" anything.)

[eridani]

93. Bullshit. 2/3 of the population supports goverment financed health care

Not that most are aware of single payer policy minutiae

[Phx_Dem]

44. Sadly, some of them are batshit crazy. Kuchinich, he's talking to you!

And Kos, Arianna, Jane, Big Ed and the rest of you whiners.

[mcablue]

66. And that lunatic Howard Dean n/t

[jenmito]

49. K&R. Nate Silver knows what he's talking about. n/t

[grantcart]

58. Not this time

With no Public Option there will be no cost containment and the increased revenue will go to the insurance companies.

He also neglects to address those that have just enough not to get a subsidy but will still be mandated to buy insurance from a private company.

Finally all the problems in the plan in the next 5 years will tagged to Democrats.

[quiller4]

70. Yes. He does. I've already emailed both of my Senators and

quoted Silver when I asked them to continue their support. I also unsubscribed to Act Blue today.

[Tigermoose]

50. K & R

[treestar]

51. True, this is politics and one can't get all one wants

48% of the country still thinks nothing should be done, let the market take care of it.

Progress is progress.

[budkin]

56. He's wrong.

[CoffinEd]

57. Be careful Nate

You continue this line of reasoning and analysis, and you'll become the next "breaking story" on TMZ.com.

[NJmaverick]

59. thanks!

[Cowpunk]

60. The football's right there, Charlie Brown, all you have to do is kick it.

I think Nate is assuming that the HC insurers will keep to the deal, lower their premiums in response to an influx of new customers, and quietly submit to new regulations. Why the hell should they? If we reward the health insurers with massive subsidies and a coverage mandate after all they've done up 'til now, why won't they assume that they can get away with virtually anything? I have to assume the behavior of the insurance companies will become worse, not better, if the bill goes through like this.

Remember, the goal of the public option was to keep insurers honest in their pricing. What's to keep them honest now?

[Prism]

67. And what's to keep them honest in their coverage?

Insurance companies are really quite good at denying claims when there's a profit motive for them to do so. They will have a thousand attorneys working over time to manipulate loopholes that will allowed them to invent new reasons for denying coverage.

So we now have mandates that will put pressure on an already struggling middle and working class, we have billions going into the insurance companies, and people are still not guaranteed full care.

They are merely guaranteed insurance, which they may or may not be able to pay for, which may or may not actually approve the treatments they need, and which definitely will not come anywhere near controlling costs.

This bill is a disaster. And as a poster noted above, insurance is not the same thing as care. Silver is comparing apples and oranges.

[saltpoint]

89. There are some Charlie Brown Democrats. There are also some Jim Brown

Democrats.

I'm a Jim Brown Democrat.

[Arkana]

61. Nate Silver, I think, will be the premier political commentator in a few years.

[gkhouston]

65. See post #60. Cowpunk has the right of it. Nate is great at crunching numbers,

but seems to have fallen short in his prediction of human behavior.

[Arkana]

76. That's what Chuck Todd was good at, and they still ask him for his retarded

political opinions.

[gkhouston]

80. Except I've often had the feeling that Chuck's Todd's opinions were scripted by others

and I think Nate's merely being naive.

[mcablue]

68. Unrecommended for calling Howard Dean batzhit crazy n/t

[karynnj]

69. He wrote this before Dean spoke - my comment "if the shoe fits, wear it"

The other question to Dean is whether he would now agree to passing his own 2004 plan - which did not have a public option, in the sense he now speaks of - none of them did - the first description of it was by Hacker in 2006.

[quiller4]

73. Frankly, the current Senate plan is an improovement on his 2004 package.

[karynnj]

78. I think so too - but was simply noting the hypocriscy

In 2003, I initially went back and forth between Dean and Kerry, before solidly siding with the man I still believe is far better.

I think that Dean did a very good job as DNC head - especially in building up the local parties. He did not succeed, and it is possible no one could, in heading off the FL and MI fiasco. On healthcare, he has scrambled to have a role. I have had a problem with his reduction of the issue to PO, good; no public option, bad for months.

I think Nate Silver has a much clearer, less rhetoric driven approach here - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/15/4024/7653

[jefferson_dem]

74. Well, seems this crop of freaks is teamed up with Dean to "kill the bill"...

And they most certainly are "batshit crazy."



http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/15/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5983501.shtml

[jefferson_dem]

75. Self-delete.

Sorry.

[Hekate]

79. KnR for Nate Silver on one helluva gloomy day. nt

[Popular Front]

81. If you are against the bill YOU ARE AGAINST UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

I just don't get it.

[eridani]

94. No, we are against shitstains taking our money and refusing to give us care n/t

[NC_Nurse]

82. I think they should pass it. You have to start somewhere. nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

83. No, what is batshit crazy is ...

to think that Big Insurance hasn't already figured out how to circumvent the weak provisions in the "compromise" bill. Sure they will cover pre-existing conditions, but good luck actually receiving the care. The fact is that I have every confidence that the insurance companies will NEVER abide by the so-called positives in this abomination of a bill.

For all you doubters that disbelieve what I write here is true, bookmark this post and let's talk again in a few years.

You incrementalists are being conned.

[eridani]

95. No, they won't cover pre-existing conditions

They won't call it that, though. They'll just deny you because you have a bad credit record.

[RoyGBiv]

85. You know what bothers me ...

I read this earlier today via a link on one of the blogs I read, and after a short bit of consideration, I decided not to post it here, nor the half dozen other similar articles I saw this morning from people more liberal than Nate.

To be clear, what bothers me is that I felt this way, and it made me start examining why and by what mechanism I've become so cynical about the utility of continuing to express my opinion of things. I'll be pondering this for awhile, I imagine.

In any case, I'm glad to see I was wrong that the post received more positive than negative recommendations and that it has appeared on the Greatest page.

[HughMoran]

87. I hope you weren't cowed into not posting

It seems like you didn't want to catch the flack that posting something against the "popular" sentiment at DU would entail.

Please post alternative viewpoints - don't let the rageaholics intimidate you. (I apologize for assuming your motivations, but I thought it needed to be said anyway as I know there are many who are intimidated by the "populars".

[RoyGBiv]

88. That's the thing ...

I don't really understand my motivation, or lack thereof.

I mean, I got into a knock-down, drag out with someone just two days ago, so it's not exactly that. The week before that I was scanning economics blogs daily, purposefully, looking for things to post here and did so without really caring about those I knew would come along behind screaming about this, that, or the other thing and obviously not even reading it.

Anyway, I was serious that I'll be examining what's behind my behavior for awhile. I do appreciate your input and agree with the sentiment.

[saltpoint]

86. I fear for Nate Silver! Someone get poor Nate some attack dogs because

if he keeps doing this kind of analysis the socialist wingnuts here on DU will hunt him down and take him out.

Get him some sturdy, loyal dogs. Nate deserves it.

[firedupdem]

90. Rec'd n/t