Well, just goes to show that lefties will always lie and misrepresent to get their way. The bill actually contains provisions designed to specifically allow illegal aliens to buy into the public option insurance.
Good to know that our government has so much of our tax money that they can share it with people who have broken our laws and entered the country illegally.
Posted by: johnny on November 9, 2009 11:43 AMUmmm... those weren't parentheses.
I am not sure what reform is actually needed except to minimize government involvement and maybe tort reform to reduce the ability of ambulance chasing wordsmith lawyers from bring flakey lawsuits which cause malpractice insurance to climb, thus causing Dr. charges to increase as well.
I'm sorry... have you been asleep this entire time? Hello? Lack of coverage for preexisting conditions, recission, healthcare plans unaffordable for the working poor, folks having to hold raffles to pay medical bills (or declaring bankruptcy)... shall I go on?
I don't buy that there are any people who cannot get medical attention when needed.
So sayeth the person with insurance.
It is unlawful already to turn people away from an emergency room without at least stabilizing their condition.
For an acute, life-threatening illness... meaning that treating the heart disease is not covered, but treating the heart attack that may kill you is. That's not healthcare... that's deathcare.
If people want more coverage than that they need to plan for it themselves.
Again, so sayeth the person with insurance.
Maybe they could afford to buy insurance if the cost of living were lower, as driven up by government excess.
Wrong. Some of the places with statistically lower rates of uninsured? Connecticut, New York, DC, Washington, Illinois. Statistically higher rates? Arkansas, West Virginia, Georgia, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas.
Posted by: demo kid on November 9, 2009 12:02 PMSo ... who will be in charge of overseeing collection and compliance with the new system? The IRS. Known far and wide for its humanitarianism, right? How many equally sad stories are there of people who have been hounded into the ground by the IRS, whose lives are destroyed because they failed to pay taxes? Ironically, also, tax cheats who serve in the administration are given a pass. These are the same people who will also not have to play by the rules when it comes to paying for and receiving health services.
Posted by: PeggyU on November 9, 2009 12:03 PMIt is unconscionable that the guvmint healthcare tyranny of Chairman Maobama, Empress Pelosi and King Reid's families need not seccumb to what will cause untold death and suffering at the hands of government bureaucrats. Our relatively young and inexperienced President may be the only one still around to witness the plebeian third world quality of care.
Pray for Senate intervention.
Posted by: yaddacubed on November 9, 2009 12:27 PMI have a news flash for you. Your "need," no matter how legitimate, is not a blank check you can draw on my life.
F**k you and your fellow looters.
Posted by: john galt on November 9, 2009 12:30 PMYou would think that the people in charge of our government would actually want to solve problems and in doing so would look at a problem in a systematic way. But they don't. They play politics with it and try to ram a bill through that has no open analysis, is not systematic and has little to do with the actual problems in the system.
For that reason alone we should all be skeptical of such a huge monstrosity. Without a transparent and open discussion of the problems, anything the government "proposes" is pretty much garbage.
Of course, we do little better here or in any other blog because we are so wedded to ideology that we don't WANT to know the answers be already have them and the guy who disagrees is a communist or a racist or whatever. We don't want to be right, we just want to believe we are right.
/rant
Ok, so what do we really have to solve?
1. Over-spending on health care
Possible causes:
a. Liability insurance / law suits / defensive medicine.
b. Users demanding more services "build it and they will demand use of it."
c. Third party billing.
d. Others.
2. Denied services / dropped coverage / recission
3. Un-insured/under insured
a. Pre-existing conditions
b. Cost of insurance
c. lack of competition
d. regulation
e. other
4. Other
Here is just a start. Add your own topics or begin to develop the root causes of the ones listed.
Nancy Pelosi is holding a press conference TODAY at Swedish Medical Center on First Hill in Seattle, no doubt to crow over her ability to bypass the democratic process and pass the monstrous 2,000+ page health care DEform bill on Saturday night. Let' show her that even in a place like Seattle we do not want her garbage.
It is short notice because she wants it that way so that we have no time to organize! If you have a flexible schedule, work from home, are a stay-at-home mom, or a retiree or student, please try to get to the press conference to SHOW YOUR OPPOSITION!!
Details
Where: Swedish Medical Center, 747 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122-4307 (First Hill Campus)
Time: Press conference begins at 2:30 p.m. so if you can even get there before that, that would be great!
Bring: Your signs and your spirit!
Parking: Swedish has a parking structure right underneath the hospital. I don't know if you have to pay, but otherwise it is street parking, which can be difficult in that area.
I don't know exactly where they will set up, but I'm sure we'll be able to see it once we get there. Spread the word!
LET'S SHOW SAN FRAN NAN THAT WE SAY NO TO HEALTH CARE DEFORM!
Ask her why the Republicans' bill didn't get any play as it only costs $61 billion and was only 230 pages long.
In liberty,
Liberty Belle
I mean, they have to criminalize it so that when people like me tell people like dumbo to f#$k off because I ain't buying your socialist medicine OR paying your fine, they can lock me up for 5 years and fine me $250,000.
And get this: the current bill starts collecting from us in 2011, but HAS NO BENEFITS UNTIL 2016!!!!
Clearly, to be a leftist is to be a blithering moron.
How fabulous can any plan be if you have to imprison those who, like me, will refuse to have anything to do with it?
1994 was a fender bender compared to the bloodbath coming in 2010.
Posted by: Hinton on November 9, 2009 01:20 PMIt's one thing to SAY you are trying to "fix" everything and a whole other thing to lay out the actual problems, the solutions and the pros and cons of such solutions.
Fines and imprisonment for not buying insurance?
Does the package address how people are forced to buy plans for coverage their neither want or need?
How about you start by showing HOW each problem is addressed in this legislation and the advantages of the solution.
I can come up with a package that covers all those issues too! But some might not like my solutions and be critical about how my numbers "add up".
I don't want 1900 pages of obscure language about how this law will cause changes to "chapter 3, paragraph 2 sub bullet iv which will now read "blah blah blah".
I want to see specific problem identification, and resolution more along the likes of "comprehensive study of procedures done, tests run and and diagnostics analyzed with approximately x% done as a result of consumer request exclusive of doctor recommendations." or "survey of 9000 doctors show that x% of procedures and diagnostics amounting to y% of medical billing is a result of 'defensive medicine' and would not be chosen by a doctor except for fear of malpractice law suits" or "on average medical insurance packages available to consumers contain x number of medical coverage options that are undesired by the consumer and represent y% of the total insurance cost."
I could go on and on. That is data that can be used to determine the real costs in health care and then legislation can be introduced that might help address true consumer-oriented solutions.
The current plan really is just a "government can do it cheaper and drive prices down like medicare does, so let's just do that" approach to problem solving.
I'm not buying it. No business would solve problems that way, and certainly trying to manage 1/6th of our economy that way is asinine.
Posted by: Eyago on November 9, 2009 01:51 PM@13: I mean, they have to criminalize it so that when people like me tell people like dumbo to f#$k off because I ain't buying your socialist medicine OR paying your fine, they can lock me up for 5 years and fine me $250,000.
What a crock.
First, if you have health insurance -- which I'm assuming you do given your excessive sympathy for the uninsured -- why would you need to pay anything?
Second, if you're proposing that you shouldn't pay your taxes out of protest... fine! Then I reserve the right not to pay for my share of the military budget. Sounds good? Would you support that?
Posted by: demo kid on November 9, 2009 01:56 PM#15. If my health insurance plan doesn't qualify, then what?
Thanks.
Translation: I don't want to sneak in funding for abortion; I want abortion funding coming in through the FRONT door but I want to SOUND like I'm somehow sympathetic to pro-lifers while actually doing nothing to stop federal funding for abortion."
Just more baffling the masses with B.S. Nothing new with this president.
As for the Bill itself, I did not read it, I doubt few in Congress actually read it. But if it has a Public Option in it, then that spells out 100% government controlled Healthcare in just a few short years. Here is how I see it going with Public Option. Just like Medicare, the government dictates the price they will pay. When you dictate a price that does not cover service, then the cost difference is passed on the other Health Care providers, which in turn increases what a company would have to pay for its employees Health Care. It will get to the point very quickly where said company would not opt to pay for the Health Care and would tell its employees to go get Government Health Care. In just a few years, 100% government run Health Care and just like Medicare, grossly under estimated the cost to the taxpayer. What did Obama want to stay under? $900 Billion and they came in at $894. I too have a calculator that can do that.
Section 7201 - "Felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years. (page 3)
Section 7203 - "Misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year".
So, by 2016 the lowest cost health family for non-group plan under HR 3862 would cost $15,000 by 2016" from recent analysis by the CBO.
Also buying Catastrophic insurance will not be adequate under the Obama bill. People will need to buy all inclusive insurance for a person or family to avoid penalties. The Healthcare People want you to buy this to pay for the program which starts in 2016 but will bill you in a little over a year if it passes the senate.
Here is the choice set out for you.
Pay steep premiums
or a fine of 2.5% of your income,
or go to jail.
How is this better? I grant you there needs to be action but this is not constitutional nor is it moral. There are some federal programs in place. How about fix Medicare, Medicaid and deal with tort reform and start the reform process.
We also know the insurance industry is mostly on board with the administration because they will gain millions of new policy holders but they are just part of the problem. This is a power grab by the fascist left couched in terms of compassion. You are being used and the rest of us will be bullied if it passes. The medical supplies companies didn't play ball with the current administration and they are being scorched with taxes and charges if this passes. Reagan warned us of all the hurdles the left wing nuts will use to guilt people into more public spending.
Also, in the case of Linder vs. United States 1925, the 9th District Court found: "Direct control of medical practice in the states is obviously beyond the power of Congress. P. 268 U. S. 18." The case is interesting to read. They knew the constraints of the constitution back then. Unfortunately the Federal Government and Progressives keep stepping on the Federal Constitution.
I hope this gets killed in the Senate. I think it will. The problem is that there is a healthcare problem. I think the states need to figure it out. Give Massachusetts credit in trying but that is over budget too!
Posted by: HMC Rich on November 9, 2009 03:29 PMLike with cap and trade, the Speaker may have "won" in the House, but we will not be surprised to see a much more difficult Senate grind away at it to no avail. Even if some version gets out of the Senate and back to the House, there's nowhere close to a guarantee that she'll be able to get enough votes together in the end for final passage.
In the meantime, the White House continues to breath down their necks, and the American voters prepare to reply. Far from victory, Reid and Pelosi are in a real bind, that's for sure.
Posted by: gonzagamaniac on November 9, 2009 03:41 PMI don't care if you think I'm not classy. What I said was the truth, which you won't address.
Again: you do not have a claim on my life or anyone else's. PERIOD.
Posted by: john galt on November 9, 2009 03:41 PMThey were probably called to audition for a Death Panel....but just seeing those three would make anyone want to die just to get away.
Posted by: Saltherring on November 9, 2009 03:54 PMIs this piece of liberal fascism not a mountain of laws about what they are teling you you have to buy for your body? And what will happen to it if you get sick, once you buy this trashy "public option" (that Nancy Pelosi exempted herself from)?
Posted by: Michele on November 9, 2009 04:00 PMSee the difference?
However, if you don't want to pay those taxes -- including those that you probably won't need to pay -- I think I might just refuse to pay the share of my taxes going to the military!
Posted by: demo kid on November 9, 2009 05:19 PMThe only problem with your position is that the Constitution allows the Federal goverernment to collect taxes to pay for the military. It does NOT allow them to use the tax code as a punishment for not buying government mandated health insurance.
Posted by: David on November 9, 2009 05:45 PMDeal? :-)
This bill represents the biggest violation of the Constitution ever. Bar none. All those people who said Bush should be impeached for ignoring treaties or not respecting habeas corpus or whatever else ... those violations, even if we assume they were all real and actual complaints, utterly pale in comparison to this.
I'm holding out hope that this type of reform does not come to pass, but would like to see some kind of reform.
Posted by: KDS on November 9, 2009 06:32 PM@30: So what you're saying is that I may unintentionally have some use for national defense at some point, and that I might be a free rider when I do?
Fine... then let me pay for the fraction devoted specifically to homeland defense, and I can save money by not paying for the occupation of two countries and massive amounts of unneeded hardware.
Posted by: demo kid on November 9, 2009 08:42 PMno one gets turned away from the Er...or maybe you do, coming in for those oxycontin scripts....the ERs are getting wise to that hoax...
so people without insurance can't get their viagra or their pain pills willy nilly???...so who the heck can?..even with insurance, there are co payments ....my spouse hasn't seen a doctor in two years, yet we pay hundreds of dollars a month for insurance for him...
running to the doctor is not something that people with insurance can do...why should people without insurance think they deserve that.....
I met this guy once...he had a brand new cell phone...and a brand new lap top...he had just been diagosed with diabetes in the ER...you guessed it....he had made the conscious choice NOT to buy insurance....instead, he decided he needed the fancy stuff....
Posted by: lee on November 9, 2009 08:52 PMThere are those in our society that believe equality of opportunity is insufficient to realizing economic justice, particularly as it relates to health care. They do not see how an economic system based on an incentive to better oneself provides a positive forcing function for the economy of the entire social order. Furthermore, they fail to see how subsidized support in any aspect of an economy inhibits incentive and suppresses motivation to better oneself to a large segment of society. The only way in which their system can function without increasing disparity between classes is to force participation, mandate control on individuals, and thus decrease liberty and freedom of choice for all.
At the end of the depression and during WW ll, large industry found it beneficial to their hiring demands to provide health insurance to employees. Government then provided tax incentives to industry to provide this service but provided nothing comparable for an individual to provide his own insurance. For some totally incomprehensible reason, we then let government further into the act by allowing mandates on insurance companies for coverage of routine health services (birth control, child birth, doctor office visits, etc.). Industry, buying insurance for their employees, began to see exponentially increasing costs as consumers, with no perception of how heath care services were being paid out of their potential wages from their employers, exploited these benefits. Insurance companies can not operate with built in losses in their business model but are then excoriated for passing mandated costs on to consumers through their employers.
At the same time as industry provided insurance grew in scope, the health service industry became subject to excessive malpractice litigation. To cover potential uncapped malpractice judgements, health care providers were forced to buy extremely expensive malpractice insurance. Doctors, clinics, and hospitals all are legitimately forced to increase cost of services to pay for this insurance. Insurance companies are again excoriated for passing the costs of uncapped judgements to the health care providers.
Technology has advanced the quality of health care services. Health care providers freely exploit costly technology for clients covered by insurance as a hedge against potential malpractice litigation and, because this technology use is usually being paid by the insurance industry, without regard for the ultimate effect a potential overuse or misuse of these services might have on the economy.
Insurance companies generally cap the cost payable for any given service. For some inexplicable reason, health care providers charge for services at rates much greater than insurance companies will permit. An uninsured individual is forced to pay full service charge while insurance companies get off at their cap rate. An individual could possibly negotiate lower costs but this is not generally viable to anyone but those specifically trained in the field.
Health care providers are mandated to provide emergency coverage to every person regardless of their ability to pay. It is not clear in any of the arguments for changes to health care how these services are currently compensated. If the providers are not otherwise compensated, these costs are then past on as a tax to all other patients capable of paying for what ever service they might need. In this case, only the sick inequitably absorb the total cost of health care for the uninsured.
Insurance companies in the past have maliciously dropped coverage to individuals requiring long term treatments. This is a correctable problem without large scale change to the health care system. Uninsured individuals who suddenly require long term health services, however, need some compassionate means for being provided care. Incentives for buying insurance including both tax breaks and punitive measures for non compliance should be considered.
Special interests have had and are having excessive influence in formulating health care policy at state and federal levels. Individuals have bestowed power to collectives to represent their interests. Once established, like any bureaucracy, a collective's only interest is to preserve or increase the power of the managing elite. The insurance industry buys influence at all levels through political contributions. The AMA leadership similarly buys influence to preserve the AMA leadership over the interests of their membership. The AARP is no different. Political parties find it easier dealing with the elite authority of collectives rather than individuals within the collective.
For us that have been forced into medicare the problems are greater. We have paid our entire careers into a system supposedly designed to provide medical care after retirement during our golden years. This system, designed by government, has no viable business model on which to sustain itself. Our contributions have not been invested to grow as would be required in private industry. Government had determined that private insurance could operate more efficiently and thus permitted the creation of privately run advantage programs and HMO's to reduce government management expenses. Government can't do it cheaper but the thought of an insurance company making a profit is abhorrent to the socialists currently taking control. Rules have changed forcing some companies to quit participation. Wholesale restructuring of the current health care system will further reduce incentive for private insurance participation and eliminate options we have been promised. Unlike regulations that might be placed on industry to control how they function, government is incapable of controlling itself. Promises that we would be able to keep the insurance we currently have have already been broken.
These are the problems as I see them in health care. Tax deductible medical savings accounts augmented with tax incentivized high deductible insurance by individuals provides the best mechanism for controlling escalating health care costs. Individuals having to pay routine medical expenses out of their own savings ensures prudent use of health care resources. As the MSA grows through successive years, the deductible can increase and insurance costs decrease. The creation of millions of MSA's provides a legitimate competition to insurance companies. If insurance company's high deductible programs rise in costs, individuals have the freedom to increase their contribution to their MSA to further increase their deductible, thus disincentivizing the rise in insurance costs. At the same time, all restrictions preventing viable company participation across state lines must be removed to further increase competition.
Posted by: Geoff on November 9, 2009 08:56 PMFine, as long as I don't have to be forced into the new health care bill. Deal?
Maybe there's something on his mind?
Posted by: mykela on November 9, 2009 09:43 PMand then we wake up on Sunday December 27th and find out a 'bill' was signed into 'law' at 4:30 am eastern standard time as the Senate 'voted' on it at 1:30am and the conference committee managed to resolve all the differences in 30 minutes and the changes to the now 6,666 page bill was reprinted for 'study' about 3:45 am was affirmed by a voice vote and signed by OBAMA ASAP because he had a golf game at 8:30 that day.
Demo Kid grew excited at the thought that finally his enemies could be legally eliminated in hospitals no less!!! A Solution-Finally he gasped!
The Civil War broke out 3 days later and Demo Kid busily filed lawsuits, blogged about the racists in the Freedom movement, called the Restore America crowd backwater hicks less sophisticated than his starbucks order and demanded Congress pass a law against freedom itself for the sake of the world. Next he called the UN and asked for the blue hats to rape the Freedom movement women and explained that this Freedom movement would incite non-Christians to acting up and killing people.
John Jensen was never to be found publicly as New America was carved from the landscape. He was still working on his manuscript for the movie the 'Ultimate Conspiracy' where George Bush would be shown to even have crucified Christ and accidentally let Him go to heaven there by releasing all the nonsense that slowed down the march of a world governement that we all have needed since well about 33 AD.
Liberal Liberty as the Anti Freedom fighter 'Old Americans' would become to be know fought valiantly with lawyers, 'new laws', Keith Oberman's thoughts, Dan Rather's secret ability to divine truth from made up documents, hate emails to Michelle Malkin, Prius Tanks (they fired Recycled Plastic bullets) and requirements that all bullets by 'green' but in the end they 'lost' and were left to tax themselves for their healthcare...the New America basically went east from LA encompassing most of Arizona, parts of Colorado, all of NM, Texas, Oklahoma, N+S Dakota, the rest of the tornado states and the gulf coast. Jensen and Kid finally organized the Taliban and Putin with support from Chavez, Castro and Ortega to counter attack from Oregon but were defeated near Albuquerque as their coalition collapsed because of the lack of cash created by margin call by the Chinese on the trillions of dollars of debt Obama ran up implementing a Solution-Finally. Even as the civil war raged HE pondered whether or not to send in more UN troops as Matthew's tinkled on his leg. There were great tragedies on both sides but none was greater than the minds wasted in the run up to war of those faithfully believing in the inalienable right to impose a version of life, liberty and happiness that as proven in Canada, UK, France et. al. leads to politicized heath care that leads to death straight in the face of circumstances that life should have prevailed. Demo and Jensen realizing the futility in the face of a loss of ChiComm funding, thinking of Red Dawn, instantly try and remake the classic retitled as 'Blue Dawn' go to Medical Rock and write the names of Pelosi and Reid and their own set off to town entering the local field hospital and massacre their own 'blue patriots' in an effort to save the money for who they are not quite sure but they know that the Cuban doctor running the place was not going to get rich and it was all good.
So sorry, SPFA, Centrifuge John, and the rest of you sorry Marxists, I won't be participating in your little takeover... I'm exempt!
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on November 10, 2009 04:50 AMThe interesting part about the "Supreme Court overturning the portions of Pelosicare or Obamalosicare that have been judged to be unconstitutional" is that it's an all-or-nothing process.
If any part of a law is unconstitutional, the whole thing is.
The SCOTUS cannot line edit the law to make it constitutional. The whole thing gets sent back and Congress has to start over.
Posted by: Douglas Aldrich on November 10, 2009 07:30 AMThanks for the laugh! It's nice to know that you can self-parody like that. :)
Posted by: demo kid on November 10, 2009 08:39 AMNone of them can even justify their authority to pass this monstrosity.
Posted by: Palouse on November 10, 2009 09:52 AMThat isn't how it works, actually. You're right that by default, this is the case, because as you say, the Court cannot write legislation, and cannot assume that removing one portion of the law will not create law that wasn't intended.
However, most legislation today has a severability clause. This bill, of course, is no exception. "SEC. 255. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act, or any application of such provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of the provisions of this Act and the application of the provision to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected."
Well, that takes the fun out of it!
Posted by: Douglas Aldrich on November 10, 2009 10:01 AMI am a small business. Just me. I can't afford health insurance during the Obama depression, and chances are, thanks to that empty suited, anti-American racist bigot you spend so much time on your knees in front of and the unfathomable debt he's buried us under, I don't anticipate being able to do so any time before I die.
So, I'm one of the great unwashed. Now that I've hopped out of your fricking box, I go back to what I said:
I WILL NOT BUY INSURANCE THAT'S MANDATED.
I WILL GO TO FRICKING JAIL BEFORE I PAY THAT IDIOT A DAMNED DIME IN FEES OR FINES.
The very IDEA of paying into a program for FIVE FRICKING YEARS before the program even STARTS is the kind of moronic idiocy so TYPICAL of the fringe left like you.
As for you failing to pay your portion of taxes going to the military (as if you made enough money to PAY taxes) then GOOD FOR YOU.
Just one of the MANY differences between us is *I WILL* fricking go to jail before I pay for this, and YOU WON'T.
But then, I have principles that I actually live by.
You and your ilk?
Not so much.
Posted by: Hinton on November 10, 2009 04:41 PMThe change you wanted???
Posted by: Michele on November 10, 2009 05:07 PMIt may not happen overnight but the US medical care and service will eventually be like that in Britain or Canada and no one will have the will or the money to change it. Even the people in those countries will suffer because they'll no longer be able to travel to the US for good care.
It seems like it would be so much easier to provide medicaid to the uninsured, work on tort reform and allow insurance sales anywhere in the US. I guess that's just too simple and doesn't give the Democrats control of a huge section of the US economy.
Sad, sad time for US medicine.
Posted by: Clean House on November 10, 2009 08:26 PM"As for the actual content of the House healthcare bill, horrors! Where to begin? That there are serious deficiencies and injustices in the U.S. healthcare system has been obvious for decades. To bring the poor and vulnerable into the fold has been a high ideal and an urgent goal for most Democrats. But this rigid, intrusive and grotesquely expensive bill is a nightmare. Holy Hygeia, why can't my fellow Democrats see that the creation of another huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy would slow and disrupt the delivery of basic healthcare and subject us all to a labyrinthine mass of incompetent, unaccountable petty dictators? Massively expanding the number of healthcare consumers without making due provision for the production of more healthcare providers means that we're hurtling toward a staggering logjam of de facto rationing. Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors' offices. They'll probably try to hire Caribbean nannies as ringers to do the waiting for them.
A second issue souring me on this bill is its failure to include the most common-sense clause to increase competition and drive down prices: portability of health insurance across state lines. What covert business interests is the Democratic leadership protecting by stopping consumers from shopping for policies nationwide? Finally, no healthcare bill is worth the paper it's printed on when the authors ostentatiously exempt themselves from its rules. The solipsistic members of Congress want us peons to be ground up in the communal machine, while they themselves gambol on in the flowering meadow of their own lavish federal health plan. Hypocrites!
And why are we even considering so gargantuan a social experiment when the nation is struggling to emerge from a severe recession? It's as if liberals are starry-eyed dreamers lacking the elementary ability to project or predict the chaotic and destabilizing practical consequences of their utopian fantasies. Republicans, on the other hand, have basically sat on their asses about healthcare reform for the past 20 years and have shown little interest in crafting legislative solutions to social inequities. The usual GOP floater about private medical savings accounts is a crock -- something that, given the astronomical costs of major medical crises, would be utterly unworkable for families of even average household income.
International models of socialized medicine have been developed for nations and populations that are usually vastly smaller than our own. There are positives and negatives in their system as in ours. So what's the point of this trade? The plight of the uninsured (whose number is far less than claimed) should be directly addressed without co-opting and destroying the entire U.S. medical infrastructure. Limited, targeted reforms can ban gouging and unfair practices and can streamline communications now wastefully encumbered by red tape. But insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry are not the sole cause of mounting healthcare costs, and constantly demonizing them is a demagogic evasion.
How dare anyone claim humane aims for this bill anyhow when its funding is based on a slashing of Medicare by over $400 billion? The brutal abandonment of the elderly here is unconscionable. One would have expected a Democratic proposal to include an expansion of Medicare, certainly not its gutting. The passive acquiescence of liberal commentators to this vandalism simply demonstrates how partisan ideology ultimately desensitizes the mind."
Posted by: KDS on November 10, 2009 10:04 PMThanks.
This bill isn't about giving poor people the access that the middle and upper classes have.
This bill is about giving the upper and middle classes the medical care that they get in the name of equality.
It used to be only the poor would wait in long lines at government run clinics for healthcare. In the future we ALL will.
It used to be that the poor were the last to benefit from innovation. Now none of us will because this program effectively cuts off the motivation for medical companies to innovate as well as the profits to invest in such R&D.
Wow Dems. Great move toward equality there.
Posted by: johnny on November 11, 2009 06:46 AMI agree even on her assessment that the Republicans have consistently failed to attempt to resolve this issue, so they are at least as responsible for the fiasco we have today in this bill as the Democrats.
The main point is, each problem can be addressed systematically without this huge monstrosity whose only purpose is to be a government power grab using the "health care crisis" mantra as an excuse.
"Never let a good crisis go to waste."
After all, a crisis is one thing, but if you really want to screw something up, give it to the government.
Posted by: Eyago on November 11, 2009 07:32 AMIf they wanted real reform, instead of lip service, they would have offered medicaid to the uninsured, voted for tort reform, and allowed insurance companies to sell policies across state lines.
Posted by: Clean House on November 11, 2009 09:51 AMRe: House Bill
Parts are nice, parts are not good. I haven't analyzed in depth (who could), but from what has been written up, I question whether it meets all of Obama's stated benchmark goals, like people getting to keep their current insurance. Let's see if the Senate can do better. I holding out hope for a Snowe finale with the trigger option being what comes out in the end for the Senate bill. Let the insurance companies first demonstrate they can get costs down before hitting them with the hammer. Poor Texas, they will have a lot of work to do (i.e., with the highest rate of uninsured -- 24%).
I hope that means you're against it. Surely you can't be in favor of our legislature blindly passing such as massive bill?
I question whether it meets all of Obama's stated benchmark goals, like people getting to keep their current insurance
There's nothing to doubt, really: we know for a fact it doesn't. People who have insurance that doesn't meet the requirements of the mandate, or that don't qualify for the health insurance exchange after five years, will be forced to change their insurance.
I holding out hope for a Snowe finale with the trigger option being what comes out in the end for the Senate bill.
The "trigger" is idiotic. Everyone knows it will eventually pass if there's a trigger. The point of the trigger is to just delay the public option, not to give us a chance to avoid it (unless by "avoid," of course, one means "elect representatives who will repeal the trigger before it takes effect").
Let the insurance companies first demonstrate they can get costs down before hitting them with the hammer.
Yeah, that makes no sense. This legislation would force all insurance -- including private group insurance -- into the government system, and so it will force the insurers to rise or fall based on the government's rules, which are not even defined in the legislation.
If you really think the people in charge won't rig the game to get the public option -- since they want a public option and will control all the rules of the game -- then you're a fool.
But then again, there are some people who apparently believe that a multi-trillion-dollar bill will lower the deficit, so ...
Let the insurance companies first demonstrate they can get costs down before hitting them with the hammer.
Except the private insurance companies have lower per-patient administrative costs than Government health insurance. So they're already keeping the costs down (since they cannot arbitrarily demand that doctors only get "paid XX%" since that would be racketeering).
How about the Government show that it can pay a competitive rate that will entice ALL doctors into their plans, and keep the administrative per-patient costs as low as private insurance?
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on November 13, 2009 03:06 PM