On Message, Off Message

Reuters comes out cheerleading for Obama's promise to control health care costs by eliminating waste, then wanders off message:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. healthcare system is just as wasteful as President Barack Obama says it is, and proposed reforms could be paid for by fixing some of the most obvious inefficiencies, preventing mistakes and fighting fraud, according to a Thomson Reuters report released on Monday.

Obama is right!  He can do it! 

But after dithering with an example of the benefits of electronic forms (saving 6% per annum), the report heads south:

Some other findings in the report from Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters:

* Unnecessary care such as the overuse of antibiotics and lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure makes up 37 percent of healthcare waste or $200 to $300 billion a year.

As I recall his current dodge, Obama favors tort reform but won't lift a finger to make it happen, and the Democratic Congress is opposed.  That means defensive medicine, the single biggest cause of waste, is off the table.

I wonder whether Dems will trumpet this report while trying to ignore its main finding.

WHEN METAPHORS REBEL:  In a related story the WaPo writes about insurance mandates.  Their lead set me to banging my head so I missed whatever point they were trying for, which seemed to involve behavioral economics and people's tendency to make seemingly economic sub-optimal decisions:

People are more likely to buckle their seat belt than follow the speed limit, even though the penalties for speeding are higher.

Ahhhh!  The penalties for failing to buckle up are not limited to the probabilistic expense of a ticket; they also include the probabilistic price associated with smashing one's head but not shoulders through the front windshield, thereby rolling one's decapitated head down the street and leaving the EMT technicians with a bit of a puzzle.  The combined physical and financial danger of not buckling up may strike a rational driver as greater than the physical and financial risks of driving 72 in a 65 zone.

Which reminds me of a story!  I was driving with a friend, an outspoken conservative/libertarian/free market type, when we stopped to pick up his youngish daughter. He reminded her to buckle her seat belt and she asked why.

"Well", he replied, "It's the law".  But before I could direct my quizzical gaze his way he managed a mid-flight correction - "But that's not the main reason.  Really, you should buckle up because it's safer."

That's what I'm saying - buckle up, regardless of the law.  And don't be going 60 in a 25 zone either.

Comments

[PaulL]

I want to see the legislation that will prevent people from making mistakes.

[Jane]

WEll last night 60 Minutes profiled $60Billion on medicare fraud in Florida last year. Apparently no one sells drugs anymore because fraud is so much easier and more lucrative. So much so that I was thinking it might be time to expand....

I won't but I bet there will be an uptick after that report.

[Dave (in MA)]

Jane, 60 Min. also had a nice, touching story about the Axelrod family's struggle with their daughter's epilepsy and living with her irreversible brain damage.

Now let's see whether the Rightosphere gets even a fraction as whacked out over this as the cretins on the Left did about Sara Palin's child. I'm guessing not.

[matt]

we have Krugman and Rep.Raul Grijalva saying there will be a utopian, wonderful single payer system for all. We now know today's Journo-List talking part.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I wonder whether Dems will trumpet this report while trying to ignore its main finding.

I don't.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

...they also include the probabilistic price associated with smashing one's head but not shoulders through the front windshield, thereby rolling one's decapitated head down the street

Hemingway couldn't have said it better.

and leaving the EMT technicians with a bit of a puzzle.

Not that much; they carry bags in the truck.

[PD]

If the health care system is so rife with fraud and abuse, that is something that can be addressed separately from all the other "reforms" Obama and the Democratics propose to make.

But the only reason they care about it now is to use the "savings" as a way to help pay for those "reforms," which have a massive price tag.

[Rick Ballard]

Where does the airbag (mandated provision of health care through ERs) fit in the analogy?

[Thomas Collins]

This "health care" bill is shaping up as an exquisite combination of phony economic thinking, pork barrel subsidies, whopping tax increases (both explicit and under the guise of mandates), supposed cost cutting measures that won't cut any costs, and plenty of new jobs for bureaucrats within the government and in the insurance industry (to deal with the additional paperwork). What is very unlikely to happen is that anyone's health will actually be improved by the "health care" bill.

This is likely to turn out to be a fitting memorial to the vision of bloated government relentlessly propounded over the decades by the departed senior senator from Massachusetts.

[Fresh Air]

Someone recently asked, "So if healthcare reform doesn't pass, will they keep the $800 billion in waste and fraud just for spite."

[Neo]

I guess we must have misunderstood Obama

We thought it was "post partisan" and "recession".
Obama mangled that into "postpartum depression"

[caro]

from PD

But the only reason they care about it now is to use the "savings" as a way to help pay for those "reforms," which have a massive price tag.

Yup. It is like immigration. Fix the fraud before we expand the system makes sense just like stopping the influx before new amnesty laws makes sense.

[glasater]

Where does the airbag (mandated provision of health care through ERs) fit in the analogy?

Or safety glass for that matter.....

[Gregory Koster]

The airbag is inflated by the windbags in Congress who take care not to be in the car when it blows up. "We're all right, Jack," is their motto...

Safety glass is the gang of wistful dolts who voted for The Once because it would be racist not to. Now they are in little pieces all over the road...

[Rick Ballard]

Glasater,

At least the impact from the safety glass, seat belt, collapsible steering column and airbag mandates had a measurable impact. You can actually work out a 'years saved per million miles driven' ratio to match against the cost imposed. The current cost shifting BS being contemplated by the Parliament of Whores wrt insurance mandates has precisely zero to do with improvements in health care and everything to do with "improving" Blue Hell budget disasters.

[Neo]

Meanwhile he [Moamer Kadhafi] said US President Barack Obama merited winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but had been given it too soon.

"I do believe he deserves it, but to be given right now I think it is some sort of hypocrisy, sycophancy, and I think it is premature. It is not due yet," he said.

[Tim]

If $200B annually can be saved, let's start doing that tomorrow. Everyone agrees on that. However, there is no reason why such savings should be represented as part of the revenue neutrality of a new federal health insurance scheme. The latter need not occur for the former to take place.

[glasater]

....insurance mandates has precisely zero to do with improvements in health care

Precisely!

Now they are in little pieces all over the road...

Guess my point was with safety glass--decapitation from a head going through a windshield is unusual anymore--however, I may have to rethink and research...

[Roux]

The best way to cut costs in health care is to hype the H1N1 Flu and declare a national emergency so that people will panic and use the health care system more. .... NOT!!!

[bad]

Isn't it racist to refer to the prezidebt as a ditherer?

[sookie]

I wonder whether Dems will trumpet this report while trying to ignore its main finding.

Of course they will....

[peter]

It is ditherist to refer to the Presentdent as a racer.

[daddy]

Talk about Off Message,

Here are the new circulation numbers of the top 25 US Daily Newspapers from ">http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004030296"> Editor and Publisher.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL -- 2,024,269 -- 0.61%
USA TODAY -- 1,900,116 -- (-17.15%)
THE NEW YORK TIMES -- 927,851 -- (-7.28%)
LOS ANGELES TIMES -- 657,467 -- (-11.05%)
THE WASHINGTON POST -- 582,844 -- (-6.40%)

DAILY NEWS (NEW YORK) -- 544,167 -- (-13.98%)
NEW YORK POST -- 508,042 -- (-18.77%)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE -- 465,892 -- (-9.72%)
HOUSTON CHRONICLE -- 384,419 -- (-14.24%)
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER -- 361,480 -- N/A

NEWSDAY -- 357,124 -- (-5.40%)
THE DENVER POST -- 340,949 -- N/A
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC -- 316,874 -- (-12.30%)
STAR TRIBUNE, MINNEAPOLIS -- 304,543 -- (-5.53%)
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES -- 275,641 -- (-11.98%)

The PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND -- 271,180 -- (-11.24%)
DETROIT FREE PRESS (e) -- 269,729 -- (-9.56%)
THE BOSTON GLOBE -- 264,105 -- (-18.48%)
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS -- 263,810 -- (-22.16%)
THE SEATTLE TIMES -- 263,588 -- N/A

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE -- 251,782 -- (-25.82%)
THE OREGONIAN -- 249,163 -- (-12.06%)
THE STAR-LEDGER, NEWARK -- 246,006 -- (-22.22%)
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE -- 242,705 -- (-10.05%)
ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES -- 240,147 -- (-10.70%)

Every one in negative territory except The Wall Street Journal.

[The overall trend is unmistakable and important.]

Yes, daddy, that is cool news about the dead tree press, but the top two were jiggered by the decision of some big hotel chain to start offering customers a choice of papers rather than automatically delivering USA Today. As a consequence, WSJ rose, and USAT fell.
======================================

[Read all about it.]

Also the Sunday NYT has 1.4 million copies; the WSJ none.
=================================

[aundrester]

model result stance major began brightness

[keltyncanf]

release browser http://www.entrepreneur.com natural http://www.rigzone.com http://earth-policy.org

[garnetteco]

running points total natural least twentieth