Michael Steele On Medicare
By Gordonskene Friday Aug 28, 2009 5:00pm
(Michael Steele - Talk Fast, Talk Loud - pray nobody notices)
If Michael Steele is the best the Republicans can do in explaining their somewhat maladroit attempts at shooting down Health Care reform - they're in much more trouble than anyone thought.
On NPR's Morning Edition today, Steele was asked by host Steve Inskeep about where the Republicans stood on the question of Medicare. It didn't take anytime for that particular train to skid off the tracks.
Steve Inskeep: “You warn that some of the health care proposals out there would , quote ‘create government boards that would decide what treatments would and would not be funded’, and you ‘want that decision to be between the doctor and the patient’. When a private insurance company pays now, what is your impression of who decides what that private insurance company is going to cover? Is that purely between the doctor and the patient now . . ?
Steele: “Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. It depends on the type of treatement and the medicines that are at stake and I’ve had this same experience my own self, where I needed a certain type of . .you know, medication and . .you know, the insurance company is like well, you can have it, but we’ll only pay for this amount or this portion. I don’t like that anymore than I like the government doing it. And my point is . . you know the governments gonna do it, they’ll do it ten times worse and it’s gonna be more pronounced than the private insurers. And I think that’s a feature we can fix right now. And sure, there are issues in the insurance market that we can regulate a little bit better and we can control better to maximize the benefits to the consumers. That’s something we can rightly reform and fix.
Inskeep: “ wait a minute . .you would trust the government to look into that?”
Steele: “No . .I’m talkin’ about the . . .talking about . . .
Inskeep: “Who . . .you said that’s something to be looked into. Who should look into that?
Steele: “Well . . who regulates the insurance markets?
Inskeep: “The government . . .”
Steele: “Wait a minute – hold up . . You’re doing a wonderful little dance here – you’re trying to be cute. But the reality of this is very simple; I’m not saying the government doesn’t have a role to play. I’ve never said that . . . the government has a role to play, the government has a very limited role to play . .
Iskeep: “Mister Chairman, I respect that you feel I’m doing a dance here, I just want you to know, as a citizen I’m a little confused by the positions you take, because you’re giving me a very nice, nuanced position here . .”
Steele: “It’s not nice and nuanced. I’m being very clear”.
It's pretty clear to everyone but the Republicans that the Republicans don't have a leg to stand on in the Health Care debate. But rather than attempt any kind of . . .dare I say it, bi-partisan approach, they are trotting out confusion, fear, hysteria and arrogance in rapid succession, hoping some words stick and no one will notice the others.
Hell of a way to run a barbecue.
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The photo is on the money-Steele is nothing but a clown. It also reminds me of when the late and sorely missed Steve Gilliard posted the clown photo parody of Steele. Steve had to take it down, but he made his point.
edit: nevermind... it's covered in the comments below
Been listening to Inskeep for the past four years on my drive to work. Swear to god, I thought he was some aging late 60 year old. He's some young guy? He pretty good too.
http://media.npr.org/about/people/bios/biopho...
I'm not sure why radio personalities never, ever look like how I imagine them either.
Was a nice interview.
Steele is white, finally he's a Republican!
than killing the evil. The man is a genius. Psyche! The man is a fool. The minute you hear someone in public office, so to speak, say, "my own self," you know you're dealing with an ignorant being who got kicked upstairs.
Douchebag of Steele
Is that picture the great white hope the Republicans were talking about for a new direction?
What;s the difference between bailing out Medicare and Amtrak and bailing out the Big 3, big oil, the big insurance companies and the big banks?
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For the CEOs. Not for us the taxpayer who's bailing them out that's for sure.
worker bees. The drones. We get just what we need to keep working.
Trickle up economics.
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When its a taxpayer funded ballot to the tune of billions it's a firehose of taxpayer cash to the CEO's pockets, not a trickle.
as the decline in the bee population shows. I want to see them reap what they sow. After they ruin everything, where are they going to go? Pay back is a bitch. Mother Nature told me to say that.
baby Jesus told me the same thing. He also told me that hate preacher Anderson was going to get his ass kicked in the name of the Lord and that happened too.
this is the image that should be used
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/steelesmeared...
created by my idol, steve gilliard, may he rest in peace
steele is an old time minstrel
cant wait till he breaks out in a round of "mammy"
btw, am i wrong, or does steele not know the definition of "nuance"
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Asking Steele to talk intelligently on the subject brings the phrase "don't bring a knife to a gunfight" to mind...
except he seems only to have brought his peashooter and spitwads.
What an IDIOT! He's the PERFECT spokesman for today's GOP!
<
in white-knuckled, light-to-light "commute". Needless to say, it was not a good soundtrack for rapid motion on surface streets...
After about two minutes of listening to Steele try to bullshit the host, I wanted to drive my truck into a pole or tree. Unfortunately, I don't have (medical) insurance...
Just answer the question. Just one time:
If you think the government option is going to be such a horrible, dysfunctional, mismanaged thing, why do you believe it is going to outcompete the private sector?
Headline:
OREO GETS DUNKED!!!!
or
REPUBLICANS...ARE THEY REALLY THAT STUPID????
of course.
and
of course.
I apologize to any cookies who may have been offended by the preceding remarks..... ;-)
because they are not "sound byte" type of programs, they can't just say their rehearsed sound byte and leave it at that.
It is long enough for follow up questions, to force them to intelligently defend their positions, which is tough to do when you don't have an intelligent position.
Way to lower yourself to repub standards with the joker caricuture.
Well, that was certainly white of you.
!
I was just watching Bill Moyer's Journal for the first time in a month without Dallas PBS preempting it for a pledge drive, and big band era music. The show was again about how medicine has become excessively profit driven with CEO's of hospitals in competition with each other, instead of trading information that can save lives, and often being not medical doctors but business school graduates.
They also mentioned among other things the over-reliance on high technology in medicine. Now that made me wonder about the impact on medical costs of high technology. For the hospitals getting the gadgets it makes sense if it gives them a competitive edge, but don't they have to justify the costs to their stock holders and CEO's probably by over-use? Then republicans can claim doctors order too many tests for insurance to pay for. And yet who do you suspect the insurance companies, the medical technology corporations, the hospital CEO's and other major medical stock holders support in our current health care debate?
Their controversy is a sham.
YS, subscribe to itunes. Bill is there every week. Much as I love PBS, I really hate pledge drive month, even though they always convince me to give, which is a good thing.
order unnecessary tests because of lawyers. In order to protect themselves from medical malpractice suits, it is put forth by the insurance companies/GOP that doctors overcompensate by ordering too many tests to cover their asses. Blaming it on lawyers allows the insurance companies to charge some doctors over a million dollars a year in premiums for malpractice insurance. The insurance companies rarely pay out anything, and like with health insurance, if a doctor does file a claim, he or she can kiss their coverage good-bye. Same scam, different angle. This is why they want "tort reform." This is why they won't get it. Best not to screw with a room full of lawyers. They know where all the bodies are buried.
That was my last comment for the night, but I did think of just what you said after I signed off.
It could very well be the same corporations that owns insurance companies that sells malpractice insurance to doctors and then sells the rest of us medical insurance, that owns the for-profit hospitals that "over-tests" us and possibly owns the pharmaceutical and high-tech medical testing equipment companies, that besides malpractice, is driving up the cost for everyone
To their profit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jng4TnKqy6A
That is a good simple explanation.
Meanwhile tort reform is not a path to take since payouts have been flat for about 15 years.
Tort reform is to make claiming disability on the job less of a financial burden for employers who risk the worker's life and safety at the job site.
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and should be taken down....if you want to put a picture of him up as a clown fine...but dont take the black man and paint him up to be a white man....it offends me as a black man....
if you really want to be offended
My point exactly. What's the point of being as shitty as they are? Take it down. Now.
was created by steve gilliard during the steele for gov campaign
if you dont know who steve is...google his name
steve despised steele....and he wouldve loved the above pic
why would who made the picture change how offensive it is...
Don't you get it Uncle Joe? That picture is cannon fodder for the right wing, which can be used to NO END to justify the stupid "Obama with the Hitler mustache" posters, the "Obama as the Joker posters". Fuck, we're supposed to be better than that. I am extremely disappointed with C&L right now.
i agree...the picture should be removed...
Now.
Part of me agrees with you.
But to be honest, I see a clown. Race has nothing to do with it.
Unless you want it to.
But I do agree with the Hitler mustache thing.
its not the clown...the man is ridiculous...but painting him up in white or black face is offensive....paint him up like a clown without the white face...
And that's appropriate clown make up.
Hey, it's not like he's the 1st African American Prez.
He's the 1st token..........................bozo.
and you don't think conservatives think obama is a clown / joker? how old are you that your comprehensive ability is so low? do me a favor and read up on white privilege and why people of color find this liberal dancing so frustrating. you don't give a shit about how low your side sinks as long as you're "right".
aint clowns
Gonna git my hizzy fizzy fo da jizzy hizzy. VOTE GOP!
That is not the point Mud. Yes, he certainly is a clown, but my point is why lower our standards to those of the immature right wing assholes?
So, it's in context.
I see what you're sayin marcella.
Big diff between Obama with a hitler stache.
And This bozo in clown face.
I was a bit suprised at the picture. And if this was Obama painted up like that, posted by some right-winger, we all here would throw a hissy. I get the point about said picture, but it does cross the line....like the Obama as witch-doctor picture, this is highly inappropriate.
and the joker, and hitler, and etc....
its disgusting, because it doesnt fit
steele in clown makeup does
steele in blackface fits too...man...i gotta find the article steve wrote about steele...it was brilliant
Manners have no place in war.
"its disgusting, because it doesnt fit"
Oh come on... you know about perspective. What the right wing is doing fits perfectly with their perceived reality. That's what all the people who were calling everyone racist didn't see... Even though they're wrong and rather ignorant for the most part, they actually think Obama is a socialist (and they don't understand the distinctions between Nazi germany and real socialism).
I think the distinction is Obama's made up to look like Heath Ledger's Joker, a threatening figure, whereas steal looks more like Bozo, a more endearing figure.
you don't get to speak for people of color unless you are one. something tells me you aren't and you really just don't get it.
they reamed him for being a racist....cuz none of them knew that steve was black
steele is a fucking stepandfetchit (my apologies to the actor, who was more of a man than steele is)
he doesnt believe a thing he says...which is why it comes out sounding so absurd
he is an entertainer...playing to the white folks
fine...take down the pic
and replace it with the one steve made....that is much more apropo
who made the picture is not relevant...the image is the problem...not the artist....
http://www.noooz.com/Homey%20the%20Clown.png
would the above have been better?
yes...or this one
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh178/dred...
the man is a serious musician who created a persona for a specific hip hop band
you owe the man an apology
digital underground rules
michael steele sux ass
"who made the picture is not relevant...the image is the problem...not the artist...."
Exactly... It's humorous/irritating watching some people try to accuse everyone else of being racist and then they see something that's nearly identical to what they said was racist before... but this time it's not because a `minority` made it - or it just coincides with their beliefs - so it's impossible for it to be racist... lol... such a limited view on race most people have.
The deal is too many people are too eager to throw the racist card out there. This site in particular has its finger on the trigger ready to shoot at the littlest things. Racism is not cut and dry (contrary to what so many here want to believe). It's very nuanced, takes many shapes and forms, isn't always actually "racism" (bigotry seems to be much more prevalent, yet people here lump that in with racist for some reason) and doesn't only come in one color.
ah, the standard white liberal response of "reverse racism" makes me laugh. seriously.
Although I agree if you get offended by the Obama picture as joker, then this should be offensive too... Why exactly does clown make up offend you? Are black people not allowed to be clowns? Or do black clowns have to wear black makeup? (I think it would look a whole lot worse if the white makeup were replaced with black makeup... don't you?)
Did the movie "White Girls" offend you? Did Eddie Murphy's skit on SNL when he put makeup on to "infiltrate" the white race offend you? I'm hoping it did in the "poor taste" sense, but not in the "I'm going to go on strike" sense.
That's a bit silly to me.
Why does it offend you so much?
it doesn't offend you because you're white and apparently too young to remember minstrel shows and how offensive they were. putting a person of color in whiteface is the equivalent of blackface except you're also covering the color of their skin and replacing it with your preferred skin color, white. i'm sure tom metzger would like you to do that to all people of color.
stop telling people of color how they should feel about race and what they should and shouldn't find offensive. you don't have a clue.
in talking about their "fix" for medicare being so complicated that it took an atty and a doctor to explain it?
and my god....steeles parents are fucking socialists
burn them at the stake
I just got this from them.
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Republicans' rundown is a mix of false, true and misleading claims.
August 26, 2009
Summary
The Republican National Committee this week posted a “Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors,” which RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others have taken to the airwaves to publicize. It contains a number of claims we’ve seen and criticized before, but also contains one new one that has some truth to it, and another fresh one that has very little.
* The RNC says that cuts proposed by Democrats "threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage plans." That’s certainly possible. Ratcheting down payments to the private insurance plans in Medicare Advantage would likely cause them to reduce benefits or even withdraw from the market. That might force an unknown number of beneficiaries to find new plans or go back to the traditional system, which still covers 78 percent of the Medicare population.
* Another new wrinkle in the RNC’s "Bill of Rights" is a claim that Democrats have proposed raising TRICARE insurance costs for retired military and their families. This one is false. It was actually the Bush administration that most recently proposed changes in TRICARE, which the hospital industry said would cost hospitals $458 million in its first year.
The RNC "Bill of Rights" document also recycles claims that Democrats are proposing $500 million in Medicare cuts without mentioning that much of that is offset by proposed Medicare increases. It falsely says that a comparative effectiveness research panel set up earlier this year could limit care based on a patient’s age, when in fact the law expressly prohibits the council from issuing such mandates. And the RNC implies, wrongly, that seniors who meet with their doctors to discuss end-of-life care could have their treatment cut off involuntarily. In fact, these discussions would be voluntary and any directives limiting treatment would have to come from the patient.
medicare for all
after the bill passes....all state, city, county and employer based programs cease
in their stead....one single fed system...an expanded medicare
in one fell swoop, the ecomomy changes and improves as employers, no longer burdened by health care costs can increase the employee rolls...local governments no longer have to spend tax dollars on health care for employees, allowing them to spend tax dollars elsewhere....millions of people are relieved of the burden of paying 100s of dollars a month on worthless health insurance premiums
the ceos from the insurance companies all end up in front of my 7/11 begging for quarters....and i shall piss on all of them
Their elimination can only improve the price and quality of care for all seniors. Get rid of Medicare Part D, prescription "coverage," too. What a farce. Plain Medicare is sufficient. If the BHO administration is not going to prosecute the Bush thieves and war criminals, they can at least undo the damage they did. I don't see that in anyone's future. Anyone else see it? All I see is mandatory purchase of lousy health insurance policies from private insurance companies. And when I say lousy, I mean even worse than they are now.
But i just don't understand how anyone of color, even the cubans although i kind of understand their feeble rationale, could be in the Republican stronghold. Don't they know that the republicans will use them, abuse them, and then toss them to the side once they are finished. "Bush hates Black people." what's so hard to understand about that? yet these pseudointellectuals happily support that party, the party that would trade on their skin color and then step on them. I just don't understand. thank god for all the economically poor people of color who see through this charade.
Steele seems to hate black people or at least consider them all to have "a place" in society. Some women in power also think this way.
Inskeep, wasn't dancing he was watching a dance. A dumb dance by Steele.
What a shame.
original about Chuck Todd on Maher last week and that statement he made about his reputation being sullied. Never mind that it was the truth, he was concerned about his reputation. Does anyone recall that? Anyway, I wrote him and man did I get a nasty fucking reply from him. I'm tempted to post it here but don't know if that falls within the TOU.
Anyway, yes mikey is a clown and a sell out. They'll show him to the hangin' tree when he's served his purpose. He knows it too.
Sometimes he's right and sometimes he's not right but he's never right, or something.
And it will work this time, too:
Create fear, confusion, uncertainty, and doubt. Spread it thickly via the captive SCUM. Deny everything. Sit back and watch it all fall down.
It has worked every time. There is NO reason to believe it won't work again.
In fact, I'd give long odds right now that NO meaningful reform will occur in health coverage in this country for another 30-40 years, or until the white "majority" ceases to exist.
Michael, let us in on your secret ambition. Is it to become a black conservative host on another fox opinion show??? pseudointellectual, don't you have a brain in your head or any moral fibre. look at those you betray. you get me physically sick.
I just wrote a pretty nasty letter to Mr. Steele yesterday. I was so appalled and disgusted and furious about a survey I received from the RNC. They started sending these to me a few months ago and I can only presume they don't read or digest what I've written in my letters/emails to them because if they did, they would know I'm a rabid Social Democrat. Anyway, I keep getting their surveys. The latest one was the "Future of American Health Care Survey". Here are a couple of the questions:
3. Does it concern you that the liberal media has gone to unprecedented levels to only give Obama's views of health care reform and no one else's?
4. It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person's political affiliation, prompting fears that BOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?
5. Do you believe it is justified to ration health care regardless of whether an individual has contributed to the cost of treatment?
6. Do you believe that your health care decisions should be made by you and your doctor, and not government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?
9. Rationing of health care in countries with socialized medicine has led to patients dying because they were forced to wait too long to receive treatment. Are you concerned that this would be inevitable in the U.S. under the Democrats' plan?
And so on. I'm sure you can all see how the very wording of these questions is designed to scare people. It's despicable.
These people must be stopped from spreading these lies. I have forwarded this survey to my 2 Senators in Illinois.
Michael Steele: "If you can't dazzle 'em with your nuance, baffle 'em with your bullshit."
Way to go, Steve Inskeep. I've had my issues with NPR (stopped giving for a couple of years) but reporters like Inskeep is what made me give a few bucks this year.
By the way I travelled Amtrak cross-country and back in 2004 and found a totally pleasant travel experience, and every Amtrak employee I ran into was pleasant and helpful.
I'm a 41-year railroad man myself, and when I talked with the train staff, the only complaints they had is that the equipment was getting older and harder to maintain, due to the Bush years of neglect. They made do, and when Steele tries to use that as a bad example of a government-run program, I can totally refute that he is wrong.
If this country had put the one-tenth money into the passenger rail system that Bush wasted in Iraq, we would have a passenger rail system that would lead the world.
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