Michael Steele is Definitely Missing Something
I think it’s safe to say that RNC Chairman Michael Steele doesn’t have a great grasp of the health care system. In his guise as guest host of Bill Bennett radio show, Steele repeatedly denounced government involvement in health care and then suggested that an alternative approach to the problems of cost and access is to wave a magic wand and say “do the deal” a lot. Check it out:
STEELE: So if it’s a cost problem, it’s easy: Get the people in a room who have the most and the most direct impact on cost, and do the deal. Do the deal. It’s not that complicated.
If it’s an access question, people don’t have access to health care, then figure out who they are, and give them access! Hello?! Am I missing something here? If my friend Trevor has access to health care, and I don’t, why do I need to overhaul the entire system so I can get access he already has? why don’t you just focus on me and get me access?
In the real world, it’s hard to broaden access without reducing costs and it’s hard to reduce costs without some kind of systemic change. A publicly-run plan, for example, would cut costs and set the stage to broaden access. But that would involve the dread government.
24 Responses to “Michael Steele is Definitely Missing Something”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
June 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Fix it!
(Couldn’t Steele at least rip off GOOD Saturday Night Live bits?)
June 19th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
The GOP has selected a singularly idiotic individual to be its chair. Steele rarely says anything that evinces he has the most rudimentary grasp of our nation’s most pressing public policy issues.
Hell, that unctuous segregationist Katon Dawson is a MENSA-member compared to the Man of Steele.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Yes but he’s kind of lovable isn’t he? The dazed – almost glossy – expression. The bumbling sentences. The bewildered reasoning. Gotta love it.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
He’s the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t he?
June 19th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I love this:
“Get the people in a room who have the most and the most direct impact on cost, and do the deal. Do the deal. It’s not that complicated.”
Uh who exactly is getting the people in the room? Woudln’t that be the government? And the “deal” is exactly what the various proposals on the table are.
If The Dems we’re proposing some sort of national, government run health care ala the VA then the various porposals in the Senate would be the type of alternatives that Steele is saying we need. Since those are what the Dems are already proposing then what is Steele really saying?
June 19th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
It’s unfashionable to accuse a black person of being stupid (unless, ironically, you’re a Republican), but obvious Steele is pretty stupid and his elevation to RNC Chair is like a Putney Swope story for the Right.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
WHAT ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS MATT? WHAT ABOUT FUCKING MASSACHUSETTS?
June 19th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Apparently, there is an IQ test to be head of the GOP. You have to fail it to get the job. On the plus side, Steele does make Jon Stewart’s job easier.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Re: Public Option — This piece by Josh Greenman in the Daily News is terrific:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/06/19/2009-06-19_whos_afraid_of_a_public_option_health_care_debate_is_stuck_on_a_strawman.html
A MUST forward to anybody who doesn’t follow the healthcare reform debate clearly…
June 19th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Let’s be fair, this is just the normal solution Republicans suggest for resolving intractable problems. Remember John McCain promising to solve the Israeli/Palestinian issue by getting them to sit together at a table and “knock this shit off”?
June 20th, 2009 at 12:23 am
I’m concerned about Bill Bennett taking time off from work. Is he back playing the slots?
June 20th, 2009 at 5:01 am
I thought this used to be the Ross Perot / “The Room” approach: he’d say you just needed to get all the such and suches in “the room” and “fix it”, and that would be about the depth of it.
June 20th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I thought this used to be the Ross Perot / “The Room” approach: he’d say you just needed to get all the such and suches in “the room” and “fix it”, and that would be about the depth of it.
From what I can tell that is a bit of Obama’s strategy on this and other things. He’s going let Congress and the lobbyists slug it out over the summer until they have something that approaches to being agreeable, then wade in and fine tune the details for a bill he can pass.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Go with the republican healthcare plan. You know the one the republicans in congress get.
Thank you republicans.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
And how, exactly, does this differ from the actual Republican “health care plan?”
June 20th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
[...] 20, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: universal health care RNC Chairman Michael Steele dazzled radio listeners with his brilliance today. It’s really not that complicated after all. So if it’s a cost [...]
June 21st, 2009 at 5:53 am
to bad steel, you tried to bring change to your party but you will not finish out the year, your time is almost up. you are in the sara palin class with your lack of knowledge and commom sense about subject matters.
June 21st, 2009 at 7:36 am
Steele is in the mainstream of the GOP’s distain for policy.
June 21st, 2009 at 12:54 pm
This sounds like the recent SNL character of the economist whose sage advice on the economic downtown is simply “FIX IT!” Maybe Steele thought there was something to that.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Lol ironically enough, Michael Steele appears to be arguing for a public plan. “If it’s an access question, people don’t have access to health care, then figure out who they are, and give them access! Hello?! Am I missing something here?”
…am I missing something here?
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:10 pm
That’s the first thing I thought of when I read this — it’s Ross Perot all over again. Just round up the major players, put them in a room and tell them to “work under the hood,” as Perot liked to say, and just fix it.
As I recall, John McCain proposed a similar solution to the Iraq problem: just put the Sunnis and Shiites in a room and tell them to “stop the bullshit.” Or maybe it was a table. Sometimes with these guys it’s a room and sometimes it’s just a table.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 am
The worst thing about fiscal conservatives is their failure to recognize and appreciate the ways government services make life better (health care for elderly/poor, fire departments, police departments, NASA, schools, roads, bridges, military, research, international diplomacy, public spaces & parks, a judicial and legislative system, etc.), but only focus on how it makes life worse (pay taxes!).
Likewise, their desire to oversimplify (I call it laziness) also explains their love for the oh-so-simple concept of the “invisible hand,” allowing them to ignore the many economic, social, and moral failures of a purely free market.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I think things can be that simple! Look at the piece on NPR’s Fresh Air (”Spend More, Get Less? The Health Care ‘Conundrum’”). In it Dr. Dr. Atul Gawande examines the costs of two demographically similar Texas towns, where one town’s per person cost is about double the other. Determining the largest areas of $ outlay is a key component to reducing health care costs. Also, a quick phone call to a professional organizations insurance provider shows that a family of 4 can be covered in a major medical plan (doc visits, broken bones, regular checkup, well-kid care, etc.) for $2,400/year. This plan has a $5,000 deductible (clearly a lot) at which point coverage is 80%, after a second threshold ($10k comes to mine) coverage is 100%. This is a good plan, but high deductible.
Let’s say the government did nothing more than cover the 45 million people without coverage with this plan (which remember was for a family of 4). The yearly cost would be around $29.7 billion (not including the deductible). If some of the folks are healthy that year the $5000 deductible would not be spent and would roll over to help pay next years cost. However, let’s say all 45 million uninsured were terribly sick that year and every family spend their $5000 deductible (paid by the government!). If the 45 million people divided into 12 million family units then an additional $60 billion would be needed that year, for a total of about $90 billion outlay by the government for that year. This is a heck of a lot less than the trillion dollar amounts you hear being bantered about and not the first thing has been done to address cost reduction!
Wow! Maybe when you stare at the devil in the details things just might be that simple!
June 24th, 2009 at 3:29 am
It’s incredibly reassuring to understand that the most intractable domestic public policy problem in a generation can be solved by simply “doing the deal”. Steele aims to transform the Republican party into a modern day Monte Hall — “Let’s Make a Deal!”
http://axisreason.blogspot.com/2009/06/steeles-solipsism-syndrome.html