President Obama Losing Support

A new poll out today from the Washington Post and ABC News shows that 49 percent of Americans express confidence that Obama will make the right decisions for the country, down from 60-percent at the 100-day mark in his presidency. We speak with Rick Klein, senior political reporter for ABC News and author of the ABC Blog, The Note.

Long-Term Care

What’s America’s most urgent health care crisis? Our guest, journalist Howard Gleckman says it’s the one we aren’t talking about–the 10 million Americans in long term care today, with 44 million family members, friends, neighbors, and medical personnel helping them. And the numbers will go up sharply in the next generation. Gleckman learned about it when both his father and his wife’s father became too sick to care for themselves. Gleckman’s new book is “Caring For Our Parents: Inspiring Stories of Families Seeking New Solutions to America’s Most Urgent Health Crisis.”

Violence in Iraq

Men carry the coffin of a relative, killed in Wednesday's bombing, in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009. A string of blasts killed at least 100 people in Baghdad on Wednesday. More than 500 people also were wounded when nearly simultaneous truck bombs struck Iraq's Foreign and Finance ministries on Wednesday _ the deadliest day of coordinated bombings in more than a year. (AP)

Men carry the coffin of a relative, killed in Wednesday's bombing, in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009. (AP)

At least two more people were killed in Baghdad today after bombings earlier this week killed more than 90. We check in on a deadly week in Bagdad with Ernesto Londono, Iraq coorespondent for the Washington Post.

A Doctor in the House

Texas Republican Congressman Michael Burgess believes that putting health care spending decisions in the hands of patients through health savings accounts is the prescription for health care reform, rather than centralizing it under the federal government as he believes the Democrats want to do. Burgess is the chairman of the House GOP’s healthcare caucus.

The Heartless Bastards

This Austin-based rock group has had a big summer, touring with Wilco, Jenny Lewis and the Decemberists. And the band’s leader, Erika Wennerstrom, even found time to work on a side project that includes a new recording of the classic song, “If I Were A Carpenter.” Today, we revisit a conversation we had with Wennerstrom earlier this year, on the heels of the release of The Heartless Bastards CD “The Mountain.”

Music from the show

Freddie Hubbard, “Little Sunflower”
Thelonius Monk, “Caravan”
The Lickets, “A Crowd of Pimps in the Rain”
Talking Heads, “This Must Be the Place”
Medeski, Martin and Wood, “Bloody Oil”
Sweet Tea, “If I Were A Carpenter”
The Heartless Bastards, “Be So Happy”
The Heartless Bastards, “Hold Your Head High”
The Heartless Bastards, “Early in the Morning”
The Heartless Bastards, “Out At Sea”
The Heartless Bastards, “Nothing Seems the Same”
The Heartless Bastards, “Sway”

Greg Vaut

My mother purchased a long term care (LTC) policy with a premium of ca $9000/year when she was about 80. It has turned out to be a great deal! At 89, she moved into a assisted care home which costs $5100 per month. Her LTC policy is now reimbursing $3700/month and in the first year she recouped more than half of the total cost of the policy. The LTC policy stopped charging premiums when she qualified to collect benefits (reimbursed her the full premium for the year she qualified), so the 10 year policy cost will be fully reimbursed in under 24 months. This is a New York Life LTC policy. the Qualification process took about 4-5 weeks, including arranging a nurse inspection and interview with my mother and qualification of the facility.
Sandra Mahaniah

Re Michael Burgess: First, an entire body of research has shown that people cannot distinguish between necessary and unnecessary care. They’ll cut back, all right, but, lacking medical expertise, a consumer will cut down indiscriminately, or will cut the most expensive care whether it’s necessary or not.

Second, in terms of supply and demand,which might decrease costs, there will always be excess demand for health care, because it is so expensive to set up and maintain a clinic, hospital, home health agency, etc.

Many factors influence the cost of health care. Congressman Burgess’ position is inaccurately simplistic.
Edward Siciliano

At the age of 50 (11 years ago), I started paying (GE now Genworth) ~ $550/yr for long-term care insurance. I’m a single man with no immediate family, and this was something I reasoned at the time was a prudent investment in caring for myself in the even I could no longer do it. This is a form of term insurance that I thought was going to remained fixed in cost–and it was over the past decade. But just this year the cost went up to ~$620/yr, and I’ve been debating on reducing the cost by changing the benefits. Hearing this program has changed my mind, and I’m going to pay the full amount today! Half the reason of having insurance is peace of mind, hoping you will never need to use it.
BHA

Dr. Burgess: The reason a patient asks if a procedure recommended by their doctor is covered by insurance is because they CAN NOT AFFORD IT if it is NOT covered by insurance. If they could afford it, they would not ask.
http://www.Jellogum.com Jeremy Baker

I like the sound of Heartless Bastards, and hope to hear more…
The band should check out kunaki, it might help the band make money from their album sales.
Kevin

Sandra and BHA, you both are spot on in your responses to the interview with Congressman Burgess. I might have to go on anti-anxiety medication myself if I hear another Republican extolling the virtues of health savings accounts…which are nothing more than a shell of true health insurance. They also live in fantasy land where they believe if there were more of them (health savings accounts) employers would be paying less in employee benefits so they’d raise wages. Giuliani even said such when he was running for the GOP Presidential nomination. Sure they would…just like deregulation creates competition and lowers prices…ask states like TX and MD how deregulation helped them with the utilities industry…both deregulated…then voila! Record prices! Amazing how that works out…it’s okay though…I’m sure the lawmakers had stock in the companies.