Recently in Health care reform Category

Not mammograms themselves, but what they symbolize in this week's news. You've read the story about how the expert panel recommends women delaying regular mammograms till 50, instead of starting them at 40. There's been an uproar over that, and now it looks like doctors and patients alike are saying no way. Maybe that's the right answer, I dunno. But this story reminds me of something I heard on two recent This American Life podcasts in which they tried to explain why our health care system is in such a mess. In one of the stories, doctors and others explained that Americans are generally manic about getting procedures they don't really need, just in case. Some doctors, perhaps fearing lawsuits, or perhaps being greedy, are eager to overprescribe diagnostic testing. The U.S. government, said TAL, estimates that a full one-third of all medical spending in this country is for unnecessary procedures.

The "just in case" mentality, no matter from where it comes, is costing us plenty.

UPDATE: I recalled after I posted this that This American Life interviewed a San Francisco doctor who once co-authored a newspaper op-ed saying that men don't need to have as many prostate exams as they do. He said he and his co-author were deluged by hate mail and phone calls from people accusing them of "male genocide" and suchlike.

Will Saletan notes a pretty savage irony in the House health care bill fight. Excerpt:

I don't mean to exaggerate the House and Senate bills. They don't nationalize medicine or set up a single-payer system. As socialism goes, they're modest. But they do mandate, standardize, and subsidize health insurance. They mix public with private. And when you do that, you invite public-sector problems into matters that used to be nobody's business.

One of these problems is that people don't like their tax money being used for procedures that offend them. You may think that's stupid. You may point out that your tax money is used for wars you don't like. But you don't have two or three dozen swing votes in the House. Pro-life Democrats do. They don't have the clout to ban abortion, but they have the clout to keep tax money from paying for it.

Until health care reform came along, this wasn't your problem. It was a problem for women who depended on public programs like Medicaid. But you wanted a better world. You wanted health insurance for everyone, and you wanted the government to help pay for it. Congratulations. You've brought the tax moralists into your life.

And, supremely:

There's something poignant about the last-minute outrage of the pro-choice groups. The complaints they're leveling--that people had more choices in the private market, that the House bill radically upsets this market, and that it violates Obama's promise not to deprive anyone of their existing coverage--are hardly novel. Republicans have issued such warnings all year. But liberals didn't pay attention until the coverage in jeopardy was abortion.

UPDATE: TMatt writes about how the media completely missed the reality of pro-life Democrats, and why they matter. I love this bit from the WSJ Terry quotes at the end of his entry:

... Democrats now have to make some decisions that may anger their Planned Parenthood wing. The fight itself will be interesting, judging from a claim by Diana DeGette (D., Col.) in yesterday's Washington Post that 40 Democrats will vote against a final bill unless the Stupak amendment is stripped out. Of course, if it is stripped out, that will put even more pressure on those 64 Democrats who voted for the amendment.

"We won because [the Democrats] need us," says Mr. Stupak. "If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don't say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won't vote with them the next time they need us -- and that could be the final version of this bill."

I find it non-shocking, but still amazing, that for more than a few Democrats -- including the president, it appears -- it's more important to have federal funding for abortion than a health care reform bill that passes. I am puzzled and dismayed, though, by the line taken by Jody Bottum at First Things, to wit:

That the House of Representatives managed not to fund abortions while passing the new health-care bill is the good news. That it managed to pass the health-care bill without funding abortion is the bad news, too. In an odd way, it's maybe even worse news than if the leading Democrats in the House had succeeded at including abortion funding, which is clearly what they wanted to do.

If I'm reading the rest of his post correctly, for Bottum it was worse for the pro-life Stupak Amendment to pass because it made it easier for Democrats to get a health-care bill passed? That's a depressing conclusion from that source. I mean, I understand not wanting to vote for the health care bill for whatever reason, but for the editor of a conservative religious (as distinct from political) journal to take the position that stopping health care reform is more important than establishing protections for unborn life in any health care reform that passes shows a regrettable level of political partisanship.

Lord have mercy, Mark Shea has found 100 percent uncut Beck bait: video of a liberal church liturgy for health care in which the congregation chants a litany to Barack Obama (e.g., "Hear our prayer, Obama"). [UPDATE: Okay, I got that wrong; it's "Hear our cry, Obama" and "Deliver us, Obama" -- the exact language churches use for liturgical petition to God, e.g., "Hear our cry, O Lord," "Deliver us, O Lord"] It's not a fake; it's from the Gamaliel Foundation.
Ah, the Religious Left at prayer.

This is sacrilegious, yes, but it's also asinine. And it's the kind of thing guaranteed to drive far-right paranoia over Obama-as-messiah. In a way, it's like ACORN: with people like this, right-wing paranoids don't even have to break a sweat. Like Mark says, you have to see this to believe it. Poor Obama. With friends like this, who needs enemies?:

UPDATE: A commenter mentioned that he watched the same video on the Gamaliel website, and it sounds to him like they're saying "Hear our cry, O God" and "Deliver us, O God." I listened to it there as well, and I had to play it several times, because it sounds to me like they're saying "Obama" in the first few petitions. But if you listen on, it sounds like they're indeed saying "O God." I can't imagine that they'd say "Obama" for some but in some others "God." So perhaps I heard wrong. Or perhaps they're petitioning both God and Obama, in a misguided way. Anyway, I thank the reader for drawing my attention to the Gamaliel video, because the captions on the other video, as well as the garbled congregational response, really does sound like they're "praying" to Obama. I'm not exactly sure what they're saying here, but watch the Gamaliel version, and judge for yourself. If I've wrongly accused these folks, I do apologize. I think they're mixing both God and Obama up in their litany:

UPDATE.2: Last night, this post appeared in this thread:

I was the organizer for Gamaliel for this action - we were trying to get the attention of a large insurance comapny (UHC). I voted for Obama, and most us in Hawaii like him - but praying to him would be crazy, not to mention sacrilegious.

Here's the liturgy we used for the record:

With the prophet Jeremiah, we cry out, Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?
Hear our cry, oh God!

With the prophet Martin Luther King Jr., we cry out, Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
Hear our cry, oh God!

From health care systems and industries that place profit over people,
Deliver us, oh God!

I still can't make out all of the soundtrack with clarity, even on the Gamaliel video, but I will take this commenter at his word, and say that I believe him, and am sorry I heard wrong and posted the initial video.

Stephen Chapman says the Republicans really do have some good ideas on health care reform ... but they had them back when the GOP was in power, and could have enacted them. But they didn't. Excerpt:

The truth is Republicans just can't muster an interest in the subject until a Democratic president comes along and offers legislation, which is their cue to wake up and scream in horror. They solemnly agree the existing system has a host of serious flaws. But they can never get excited about fixing them--only about making sure Democrats don't get to.

More:

Stuart Butler, a veteran health care expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, shares her frustration. When I asked him whether he blamed Republicans for not adopting sensible innovations when they held power, he replied, "Absolutely! They just don't get it. They just feel that it's not something they do, somehow. Republicans missed a tremendous opportunity."

Actually, they did worse than miss an opportunity. They stimulated the public appetite for lavish federal spending on health care while catering to the illusion that it can be provided painlessly.

"They put in prescription drug coverage for Medicare," Butler complains, "the biggest entitlement since the Johnson administration." That program is projected to cost nearly $1 trillion in federal outlays over the next decade, most of which will be paid for by sending the bill to our children.

So now we have the GOP railing against Obama because he rejects their good ideas, busts the budget and enlarges the government's role in our lives. No wonder they're mad. Heck, if that's what the American people wanted, they could have left Republicans in power.