Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

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  2. No one does context better than she does. Other reporters would have just done a he-said-she-said on whether the debate over the debates re: Vicky Kennedy was fair, but she made it clear that Brown was radically out of line with the past and hypocritical in this very own election with the Dan Rhea proposal.

    The interview itself was great. I wish it could have been longer. My dream would be to have her do an Up with Chris Hayes show and really get into the nitty gritty (and no one does nitty-gritty better than Hayes). Alas, she’ll probably have to get elected before she’d agree to that.

  3. I listened the his broadcast with Brown, and his questions were tame, at best. He would have asked about her claim to be Native American. Out of the interview with Dan Rea, I found most interesting was:

    1. Brown said Warren is Not Native American
    2. Brown praised Menino. I think Menino may endorse Brown which is the kiss of death if that were to occur.

  4. It will be interesting to see how she will spin the Supreme Court’s decision on the health care law being a tax. You have to remember she has been saying she is for the middle class.
    The middle class will bear the brunt of the tax increases with this law. So, Mrs. Warren how are you going to explain how you are in favor of raising taxes on the middle class?

    • what’s the tax for those who carry insurance? (hint: zero)

      Are you arguing that we should pay for health care expenses with our tax dollars for someone who doesn’t have insurance?

      Or are you arguing that those how are self-employed can now get a 35% credit (not deduction) to better afford insurance, which goes up to 50% in 2014?

      What is interesting is too hear Scott Brown not sound like a damn fool in his response.

  5. …which many in the middle class do, plus it’s unenforceable anyway. Nice try, retired veteran!

    • I have long viewed the entire bill– as well as the Romneycare bill from which it sprang– as, in effect, a VERY large tax increase on the middle class. The largest of my adult lifetime, to be sure.

      This is because the bills have significantly– even vastly– increased the cost of health insurance premiums. Ten years ago, my family chose the most expansive policies available. Co-pay of $5, all prescriptions covered, all specialists covered. $50 co-pay for emergency room.

      Since then, the cost of that insurance has doubled, and then doubled again. But the policies, having become so much more expensive, cover far less. Now, the co-pay is $25, but only becomes applicable after a $4000 deductible. The net effect of the premium increase and the decreased coverage is an increase in “health care” cost of more than ten grand a year.

      It is certainly nice that our state has decreased its rate of uninsured so well. I understand that non-emergency trips to the emergency room have declined. These are certainly good things. But I don’t thnk that it can be denied that they have been paid for almost entirely by people that already had health insurance– in the form of significantly higher premiums and decreased coverage.

      • Long before Romneycare, h/c costs were Jumping 10%-20% annually, and this increase occurred after employers opted for higher deductibles and more out-of-pocket expenses.

        • Yes, there were “steep” increases in the 5-10% range, annually. But the 25%+ increases did not hit until 2007, and the coverage decreases began in 2009.

          My youngest was born in 2006. Pre-natal care through discharge from labor and delivery, total co-pay was $10. A colleague of mine had a child this spring– we have had the same coverage all along, and after deductibles and co-pays will spend over $10K, because her pregnancy spanned two coverage years.

          How could it be otherwise? We caused the number of people purchasing health insurance– and presumably consuming health care– to increase dramatically, without increasing the supply of providers. Of course costs went up.

      • Health insurance premiums, and the health care costs they cover (or fail to cover) have been skyrocketing far longer than ACA has existed. They were a driver, not an effect, of RomneyCare as well as the ACA. I therefore don’t see how you can correctly attribute these increases to ACA. I do think that ACA amounts to a lifeline tossed to the private health insurance industry — this has been my objection to it (in comparison to government-sponsored single-payer health care) all along.

        If non-emergency trips to the ER have declined, then their cost is (by construction) reduced. That cost has always been born by those who carry health insurance. If those cost savings have not been reflected in lower health insurance premiums, then the fault surely lies in the health insurance companies who are pocketing the savings rather than in the government action that caused non-emergency trips to the ER to decline.

        I agree with you that health care costs (for both care and insurance) are out of control. In my view, ACA limits these to less than they would be in its absence. I think President Obama will make that case during this campaign (he should have made it earlier).

        The ACA is the FIRST, rather than the last, step towards getting health care costs in the US under control. The alternatives offered by the GOP will make those costs even higher.

        At the end of the day, only government-sponsored single-payer health care will solve the problem. The question is how long the health insurance industry (and the GOP) will delay that solution while they continue to pocket their exorbitant premiums.

        • I don’t even necessarily think that this is a flaw; people need health insurance. But I cannot say that the bills are not a big driver of increased costs since their enactment.

          We used to buy pizza for 10; now we buy pizza for 20. Feeding, or covering, more people costs more. It may be that all of this coverage to those who did not have it previously will prove to save money, system wide, the initial investment to achieve these savings is coming directly from those who already had insurance, in the form of steep price increases and tough coverage reductions.

          I cannot in good conscience call this unfair. But I am also aware that the hit to achieve this progress isn’t being shared generally, it is coming fairly directly at people like me. I suspect that this is the reason that the bill has not achieved anything like popularity among the polity.

          In my view, imposing these costs through a tax (and single payer) would be more palatable, and seem more fair, than imposing these costs through ever more private payments to BCBS.

          • I think the reason this bill is deeply unpopular, even if constitutional, is because it is an incredibly inefficient solution to a real problem. Forcing everyone to pay into a dysfunctional system, and help insurance company executives his their big bonuses is, maybe, one quarter of one half step forward. Obama should have pushed for a public option, as he promised he would in his campaign.

          • It seems to me that the economics of health care are different from pizza. Buying pizza for 20 requires twice as much pizza, and therefore cost, as for 10. Health insurance is different. Adding 10 extra healthy people to the insurance plan would add NO extra costs. The per-person insurance cost should therefore go down.

            Covering healthy people with insurance causes the PER PERSON insurance cost to go down, not up. Most of the uninsured today are (poor) young people who are mostly healthy. I think you are therefore mistaken in your analysis that ACA drives costs up.

            I agree enthusiastically that single-payer is the only approach that really solves the problem.

            • Getting coverage to more people earlier in life means less debilitating illness down the road. Health care costs will go down as better health outcomes begin early – preventative care costs vastly less than treatment.

  7. The Healthcare Bill has 500 billion in new taxes to pay for it. Who is going to pay for this? The 1%? The burden will be placed on the middle class to pay the new taxes. So I will once again ask, Mrs. Warren how are you going to explain how you are in favor of raising taxes on the middle class?

  8. …because I’m pretty sure I recall hearing that there are net tax credits in this law.

  9. What I want to know is, when is she going to stop this too-nice “people are sick of politicians” talk and actually hammer Brown for being the lying, cowardly sack of excrement that he is? Is it that hard to say “Brown is a coward who is afraid of facing the issues that are important to the state, and is trying to hide in order to uphold his false image of being a moderate?”

    If anybody here is connected to Warren’s campaign, could someone please tell her to step it up? Once she does, this thing will be in the bag for Team Blue!

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