One reason digby is always my first blog stop every day is because she so very often finds something far more important to examine than the conventional wisdom - even the conventional progressive wisdom - chooses to expend its energy on. And so again today. While much of the media, including wwwland, is focused on Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's wretched interview with Chris Matthews in which he was unwilling to say whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be President, digby found something a good deal more to the point than the current obsession with the Quitta from Wasilla.
Matthews: You've had both houses under Bush, you've had both houses and the Presidency. You had plenty of chances to get a really good health care bill using taxes or whatever to serve the country that's not being served by health care. But yet you wait around, like a troll under the bridge, waiting for the Democrats to do it and then you come out and bite their leg. Who don't you walk across that bridge, why don't you have a health-care bill when you're in power?
Barbour: We trolls who are hiding under the bridge, candidly, a lot of Republicans, including me, believe it would be much better to let the states do some things like we've done in Mississippi where we've had serious tort reform and our medical liability reform has brought down insurance premiums by 60% in four years, we have reformed medicaid so that we are saving the taxpayers money. We think let the states go for a while, see what works see what doesn't and then come together with a rational bill at the federal level is a better approach.
That might not be a bad idea in theory - some terrific ideas do come from the states. But flaunting Mississippi as an innovator when it ranks 51st out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in health care puts the lie to Barbour's cheer leading. Indeed, when the facts are examined, what he said counts as grotesquely obscene.
The Commonwealth Fund linked above has a terrific feature that shows how Mississippi (and any state) would improve if it did as good a job in health care as the best-performing state. (That state happens to be Vermont.)
Insured Adults: 297,552 more adults (ages 18-64) would be covered by health insurance (public or private), and therefore would be more likely to receive health care when needed.
Insured Children: 74,308 more children (ages 0-17) would be covered by health insurance (public or private), and therefore would be more likely to receive health care when needed.
Adult Preventive Care: 145,277 more adults (ages 50 and older) would receive recommended preventive care, such as colon cancer screenings, mammograms, pap smears, and flu shots at appropriate ages.
Diabetes Care: 80,492 more adults (ages 18 and older) with diabetes would receive three recommended services (eye exam, foot exam, and hemoglobin A1c test) to help prevent or delay disease complications.
Childhood Vaccinations: 8,456 more children (ages 19-35 months) would be up-to-date on all recommended doses of five key vaccines.
Adults with a Usual Source of Care: 237,036 more adults (ages 18 and older) would have a usual source of care to help ensure that care is coordinated and accessible when needed.
Children with a Medical Home: 135,603 more children (ages 0-17) would have a medical home to help ensure that care is coordinated and accessible when needed.
Preventable Hospital Admissions: 12,046 fewer preventable hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions would occur among Medicare beneficiaries (age 65 and older) and $67,451,446 ... would be saved from the reduction in hospitalizations.
Hospital Readmissions: 2,178 fewer hospital readmissions would occur among Medicare beneficiaries (age 65 and older) and $24,016,832 ... would be saved from the reduction in readmissions.
Hospitalization of Nursing Home Residents: 2,659 fewer long-stay nursing home residents would be hospitalized and
$17,704,944 ... would be saved from the reduction in hospitalizations.
Mortality Amenable to Health Care: 2,018 fewer premature deaths (before age 75) might occur from causes that are potentially treatable or preventable with timely and appropriate health care.
As digby says in her bullseye takedown of Barbour:
The state is a disaster when it comes to health care on every front. But they have reduced their premiums and now nobody can expect restitution if a drunk doctor cuts off the wrong limb, so everything's just ducky in Haley's world. In fact the whole country should "experiment" with Mississippi's great successes.
In case you were wondering, number one is Vermont, followed by Hawaii and Iowa. If Barbour and his buddies were willing to take the lead of the states that actually deliver pretty good health care his words wouldn't ring so hollow. But all he cares about is destroying trial lawyers on behalf of his rich friends and throwing poor people off Medicaid. I don't think that's a serious solution to the problem so there's no reason to listen to anything he or any other Republican says on this subject.
The confederacy of dunces that runs the Republican Party has zero to brag about when it comes to any social policy, and certainly not health care. But having nothing worthwhile to say, or nothing but lies, has yet to shut them up.