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essentialsaltesI've been pretty ambivalent about the whole health care thingy. Especially since it seems to be more about health insurance than health care, but nevermind my ranting. At 2000 pages of political shenanigans, the odds that I understand the situation have dwindled to zero and the odds that I (and the nation) are going to get screwed are asymptotically approaching certainty. One of the things that sounded good were promises that health care costs would be controlled. Krugman points out that this is the good side of the bargain: controlled costs in exchange for expansion of coverage at our (the collective we's) cost. But Time has published an article discussing how the cost-controlling provisions are being sliced away and watered down, tipping the scales toward the bad side of the bargain:
Of course they want a fucking seat at the table that decides whether the government will pay for the treatments they provide, you moron.
As I said, I don't understand the plan. I doubt anyone does. But I have a better grasp of money, politics and bullshit. And I see the balance tipping toward a bad bargain.
Informed and/or Ignorant opinions requested.
ETA: this is not to say that I am complacent with the status quo. I am not. I do not want things like this to happen. Yo, Congress, make it so.
The Senate version of the bill also requires that representatives of the drug industry, the diagnostic-equipment business and medical-device makers — all of which have a financial stake in the results of comparative-effectiveness research — hold seats on the governing board of the new agency in charge of it. The potential for conflict of interest has raised alarms among some in the research community. But Obama's top health adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle, contends that it's a sign that some of comparative effectiveness's most ardent foes have come around to the idea that technologies and treatments have to prove themselves. "Ten years ago, most of the industry was dead set against this," she says. "Now they are saying, 'We want a seat at the table.' "
Of course they want a fucking seat at the table that decides whether the government will pay for the treatments they provide, you moron.
As I said, I don't understand the plan. I doubt anyone does. But I have a better grasp of money, politics and bullshit. And I see the balance tipping toward a bad bargain.
Informed and/or Ignorant opinions requested.
ETA: this is not to say that I am complacent with the status quo. I am not. I do not want things like this to happen. Yo, Congress, make it so.
