Round 2: Air America's Sam Seder returned to my show on 1420 WBSM  New Bedford, Massachusetts on Wednesday June 24 after agreeing to discuss the health care issue. I was and remain skeptical of the government encroachment into health insurance for every American who isn't independently wealthy while Sam thinks this should have been the case long ago.

I think we had some common ground in that we both want what is best for American's and our general well being. The road split soon after take-off though as I took the offensive right away with the fact that President Obama is redirecting his campaign promise that once told American voters that if they liked their health care plan they would be free to keep it.
Now he is forced to alter the language to, "The government won't take it from you."

Well the "play or pay" strategy that will encompass all employers in this plan will undoubtedly remove a huge number of plans from Americans if their employer is forced to either provide coverage or pay a tax to the government so the employee can be covered under a new nationalized plan. Given the scenario, most Americans will soon belong to a program they didn't belong to. Keep in mind that, while Mr. Seder was correct in pointing out that 76% of Americans seem convinced that there is a need for a government option, 80% seem to also want to keep their current plan. (ABC/ Washington Post poll)

There is one campaign promise broken.

My next point was one Seder seemed to have no problem agreeing with. There is no equation where Obama's plan will work without taxing the middle class. Cuts to Medicare and taxing the rich will simply not fund the new entitlement of health care for the impoverished. The middle class must be taxed higher as well.

There is the second campaign promise broken.

Sam then agreed with me that the current plan by Democrats is not just for Americans but for anyone in America. Illegal immigrants would have full access to this plan as an entitled right. He then insisted that Americans would find great savings as a result of this inclusion! While it is true that we do pay for all emergency care for anyone that needs it and it is expensive to do this, expanding the coverage to every medical need for everyone would be catastrophic to whoever has to pay for it, aka the taxpayers.

Sam kept explaining how nationalized plans would use "peer reviews" for all of the serious medical decisions that would lead to treatments, tests, diagnosis etc. I'm not sure where we create all of these doctors out of thin air and I don't know if Mr. Seder has ever tried to get a second opinion by other doctors for anything but this takes great effort and most doctors do not like to correct their colleagues nor do they like the idea of others breathing down their own necks. Perhaps this "peer reviewing" is in part why nations with nationalized health care take many months for simple tests and procedures? We should prefer doctors treating patients instead of taking them out of the exam rooms to review what a doctor has already studied and decided as a course of action. There is already a great shortage of doctors.

Mr. Seder brought up Medicare which was a pleasure for me since I had planned on doing it first. Mr. Obama has been parroting Families USA talking points for months now and one of his favorites is, "Health care premiums have doubled in the last nine years." So? Isn't it incumbent upon him to then explain how and why the government alternative would be less expensive and slower in cost growth?

I invited Sam to let me compare. I pointed out that Medicare, which was founded in 1965 began with a $3 billion dollar budget and cost recipients about $435 annually. Just 45 years later in 2009 the budget has swelled to $454 billion (about twice the rate of private health insurance) and the average cost to recipients is over $6,000.

Mr. Seder then insisted that Medicare is far superior in efficiency compared to private insurance companies by stating that Medicare only spends "3% in administrative costs while private insurance companies spend about 20-25%." With all due respect, I informed him that I would be fact checking that point..and I did:

Apparently there are some hidden administrative costs in Medicare according to Merrill Matthews Ph.D. who is the executive director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance and a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation and writes for the Wall Street Journal.


"The primary problem is that private sector
insurers must track and divulge their administrative costs, while most of Medicare’s
administrative costs are hidden or completely ignored by the complex and bureaucratic
reporting and tracking systems used by the government.
This study, based in part on a technical paper by Mark Litow of Milliman, Inc., finds
that Medicare’s actual administrative costs are 5.2 percent, when the hidden costs are
included.
In addition, the technical paper shows that average private sector administrative costs,
about 8.9 percent – and 16.7 percent when commission, premium tax, and profit are
included – are significantly lower than the numbers frequently cited. But even though
the private sector’s administrative costs are higher than Medicare’s, that isn’t “wasted
money” that could go to insuring the uninsured. In fact, consumers receive significant
value for those additional dollars.
We also raise an important, although heretofore unrecognized, issue that gives
Medicare an inherent advantage on administrative costs. Because of the higher cost per
beneficiary, Medicare administrative costs appear lower than they really are. If the
numbers were adequately “handicapped” for comparison with the private sector, they
would be in the 6 to 8 percent range.
Finally, like the private sector, Medicare also has to obtain funds to pay claims. But the
cost of raising that money, or borrowing it if the government doesn’t collect it from
taxpayers, is excluded from Medicare administrative cost calculations. While we don’t
in this paper draw any conclusions about what we shall call the “cost of capital” and its
impact on Medicare’s administrative costs, we do want to highlight that those costs
exist and that taxpayers, both today and in the future, must bear those costs."


On Wednesday night, the President was able to attempt to make his argument over this important issue by broadcasting an infomercial after ABC News acquiesced and aired it. I think the fact that he couldn't answer the question as to whether or not he would pledge to stay in the same program he would have most Americans believe they should belong to. Play the video below and you'll see and hear this non sequitur garble about what's wrong with current plans but HE WON'T ANSWER THE DOCTOR: