Replacing Tom Daschle: Another Idea

"I want to get it across that there's this big discovery on Safeway's part — which is still undiscovered by most of America, including most policymakers but not all: Behavior really matters. And we just changed the design of our health-care plan and said, “You've got to take some personal responsibility. If you smoke, you should pay more. If you have a large body mass index, that's largely your fault. If you have uncontrolled high cholesterol or high blood pressure, you're responsible for that.”
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So Jessica Simpson has to pay more?

Karen: why is this person Deputy at State if he has his credentials in Health Care? Deputy is a high rank, is it not?

And Burd already has the support of at least one Senator!
BURD, STEVEN
ALAMO, CA
94507 SAFEWAY INC./CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT & $2,000 03/28/2008 G TEXANS FOR SENATOR JOHN CORNYN INC - Republican

How Burd handled Vons healthcare costs might be an issue.

Again.
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Health care reform is not the purview of the Sec HHS. That's the health care "czar."
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The Sec HHS needs to KNOW SOMETHING about health services and public health. He'll be appointing people to head up the CDC, the EIS, MCH bureau. Responsible for medicare and medicaid services. The FDA. HRSA. The NIH network. Aging. Mental health.
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There is an entire body of research on health care systems by people with advanced degrees who have spent their entire academic and professional careers looking at health care systems and how they work and don't work. It is not a political issue. There is serious, nonpolitical research on this.
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Instead, we are faced with these Frankenstein models that must appeal to everything political. Models of health care systems designed by political strategists instead of people with expertise and back by a body of research is doomed to failure from the beginning.
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But it's all reduced to an amusing little game, isn't it, for political journos, who don't *pretend* to know something about health care systems, but *believe* they know something about how they work. And so they throw out preposterous notions of who can accomplish this including people wo are explicitly against programs to expand health care coverage to low income children, and ex-CEO's of friggin' GROCERY stores instead of my colleagues whose life work has been the serious study of health care systems.
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It is a cancer upon our country that political journos are in charge of the discussion of how health care reform should be conducted and who should be conducting it. Every time someone like KT takes to the airwaves to expound on this topic, she is taking the seat of a serious expert who *should* be the one offering their knowledge and expertise. I don't mean to be hurtful, Karen, but I do mean to be stern. Please think about whether your musings and those of your political colleagues are very constructive. You may not mean any harm, but think about whether you might be *doing* harm in your little game.
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And so health care "reform" I predict is going to be one more trainwreck visited upon this country.
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Pnnto - glad you're in there vetting our candidates for us. No thanks on Burd, KT. That's a scary simplification of health care problems, isn't it. I wonder what health problems he'll decide are not the fault of the ill or their parents who were foolish enough to have children.
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"one of the boldest advocates for health care reform." ha ha. That's bold all right.
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And can we please pull back on naming more and more Republicans? We voted for change.

Yikes, Time Warner down 16 billion. That merger with AOL worked out real well.

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Karen advocating for various Republicans to head up health care "reform" is like Cokie Roberts advocating for Republican economic models of "reform." Both Roberts and Tumulty are very respected experts in the field in question. (cough)
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What exactly are they getting for their advocacy?
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How about Rush Limbaugh? I mean he knows a lot about drugs, probably has the Rolls Royce of health care plans.

Or the Roadrunner, God knows he must have a great understanding of health care based on all of his injuries.

Point is... there is no point. Let's all just stop speculating It's trivial and wastes TIME!

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My hypothesis is that they (Roberts and Tumulty) are getting both amusement and warm fuzzy gratitude from Republicans. Both very important.
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They both have at least six-figure incomes, probably make about a half-million a year (including pension costs) and their families don't want for health care. That puts them up in what? the top 5%? They can go anywhere they want to obtain health care whenever they want or need it. Can change providers at will to obtain only the very top quality care. So they have no concept of the notion that even people with health care coverage can't always get healthcare, and certainly not quality health care. The challenges that the lower 95% face in maintaining their own and their families' health just doesn't compute.
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So it amuses them and benefits Republicans that political journos believe they are thinking "outside the box" continue to advocate for extremely wealthy Republicans to tackle an issue as critical as health care "reform." Oh, sure, it's cute and clever to suggest the Mittster and a rich grocery store executive, and it certainly earns the warm fuzzies among the political and social elite of the beltway. But it certainly isn't doing the country any good.
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There have been competent Sec HHS and incompetent Sec HHS. (And again. Not in charge of health care "reform.") Shalala was a good one. She has/had a background in public service and health and human services issues going back to the 70's. Okay? Not the same thing as a rich Republican grocery store executive. I really don't get your advocacy of Republicans, Karen. It is harming your credibility as a journo and your judgment as well.
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I'm glad you gleaned 250 comments yesterday. very commendable. I can't say the discussion itself was very constructive though. Not your major aim, I gather.
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Ezra Klein is floating Podesta, which sounds good to me.

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I am interested in new approaches as well. Which to me means getting away from the political. I'm glad that my passion about this subject amuses you, I make my living at it. I wish I could be as amused at the cancer upon the country that is your profession.
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Yikes, Time Warner down 16 billion. That merger with AOL worked out real well.
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And, hence, Richard Parsons should be in charge of a flailing money center bank.

Here's an idea for a bold choice -- someone who doesn't impose their pre-existing biases toward the failed "free market" approach to health care.
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Seriously, Karen, just about every developed nation has single payer health care that works. The US free-market approach is at "epic fail" status. We know what does work -- single payer. We know what doesn't work -- "market based" health care. So why do you insist on coming up with people who are against what we know works?
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This is a PERFECT example of what people are talking about when they complain about villagers like yourself "framing" the debate, and limiting the bounds of acceptable opinion.
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Bund doesn't give a flying **** about health care reform --- he's a greedhead who runs a company in a highly competitive, labor intensive industry not known for its high wages, and he's looking for ways to lower his costs ONLY.

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Yeah the name calling became kind of amusing. Heck, five pages of comments. That's the most I've seen since the new WordPress model.
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You have blogged about it,yes, but Karen, you don't know anything about health care systems except the politics. To quote Zbigniew Brzezinski, "you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."
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KT, I've thought many times that the goal for some posts is to generate comments, not to share content. Young Michael Scherer relentlessly seeks correction and even Mr. Klein seems to clank one from time to time to generate comments. But you? I can't believe it.
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Why not (Dr.) Howard Dean? From afar it seems like the perfect pick. The 2008 election was an undeniably great executive performance and there are no subject matter expertise issues. Why not?