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-- Opinions on Obama health care initiatives
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That is one of the scariest interviews I have ever seen and I'm glad I know who that guy is now.
But he's right...healthcare is not a commodity...it's a service. A service provided by willing doctors who are just trying to make a living like you and me. If insurance companies are so evil, why do people support them? Why do I pay $80/month for life insurance or $130/month for car insurance, or $1000/year for homeowners insurance? Insurance is something you buy for when/if you might need it. That's what it fucking is. It's not surprising that so many people voluntarily choose not to have it when you think about how it works, but the downside of that choice is that if you get sick or have an injury requiring medical attention, you will have to pay full-price out of your own pocket and it can be expensive. Insurance companies are not the problem here, imho, high prices are. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Why are healthcare costs so expensive and how can we get them under control? What causes prices to be so high? I don't think it's insurance companies--they merely respond to the high prices they must pay by charging higher and higher premiums.
I don't think insurance companies are the problem (though I have said many times in this forum that I'd support a system whereby insurance companies are run as non-profits, though I would stop short of having it be a government-run non-profit. Btw, a non-profit company doesn't mean an executive can't still make a shitload of money in compensation).
If this guy really thinks that simply making Medicare an option for everyone will somehow be able to maintain current quality of service, he is living in a dreamworld. Why not just let everybody get care in the VA Hospital! Yah!
since the lefties are is slowly showing their true colors and admitting they want something closer to a takeover rather than "reform", I doubt many will agree with suggestions for true reform, but this guy has a few interesting ideas. It's not a God-given government-guaranteed benefit, but these ideas should make insurance more affordable for many more people..
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| Fortune editor Shawn Tully suggests a solution to fixing the health-care system. Keep it simple and let the free-market decide the rest. Unlike the House bill that fills 1,100 pages, my proposed health-care plan can be expressed in four simple bullet points. The marketplace, with more than 100 million consumers writing their own checks, will take care of the rest. 1. Eliminate the tax break for employer health plans. About two in three Americans get health coverage through their employer. On the surface, the system appears to work well: Most people like their plans. The deductibles and co-pays are usually low, and they don't have to worry about shopping for insurance. But the employer plans also carry a heavy cost that's hidden from the employee. Workers don't realize it, but they're sacrificing a big part of their pay because their company is providing coverage. The employer is often offering extremely rich, expensive plans. That sounds good, until you realize that you're losing thousands of dollars in take-home pay, or tens of thousands, in exchange for coverage that you'd never buy if you had that money in your paycheck. The goal of a free-market plan is to channel the cash companies now spend to cover their employees back to the workers who really pay for it. That puts consumers in charge. Once in command, those consumers would typically receive bigger paychecks, and have plenty left over after buying perfectly serviceable insurance, chiefly for the unexpected illnesses that are extremely costly to treat. They would also pay for a lot more medical expenses out of their own pocket with the extra cash. That's a good thing, since it would encourage Americans to shop for best prices and highest quality. In other words, they would behave like normal consumers, a practice the current system discourages, and the Obama plan would discourage even more. So why do we have a system where employers, not employees, usually purchase health care? During World War II, strict wage controls prevented companies from attracting scarce workers by offering higher pay. So in 1943, Congress granted employers the right to offer tax-free health benefits in lieu of extra cash in their paychecks. Until then, Americans were buying policies with their own after-tax dollars. But the law transformed the system, and distorted the marketplace: Suddenly, companies could buy insurance for employees at a far lower cost than they could buy it for themselves, via a big tax subsidy. The goal now is to hand both the cash companies spend on health care, and the subsidy as well, back to consumers. Here's how the current system works, and a blueprint for fixing it. If an employee earns $110,000 a year, and the employer pays $9,000 towards the employee's $12,000 insurance plan, the worker only gets taxed on the $110,000 salary. The extra $9,000 is, in effect, tax-free income. Say the company dropped its plan and gave the employee $9,000 in extra pay. He or she would pocket just $6,000 after taxes. So companies can buy 50% more health care for employee than the employees could buy if they got the money directly. Of course, the government is making up the difference with a $3,000 subsidy. That money isn't free either. The health-care exclusion is the biggest tax break in the U.S. budget, even bigger than mortgage interest. It lowers revenues, and hence raises taxes, by $300 billion a year. So here's the best solution. Let's repeal the employer exclusion. In our example, the employer would give its workers the money it now spends on health care in extra pay -- in this case, the $9,000. Why? Because in a competitive labor market, companies need to provide the same total compensation or risk losing employees to rivals. That's just basic economics, and it would still happen even with today's high unemployment rate. Now, the employee has an extra $6,000 to pay for health care. That's the first part of the solution. Part two is to restore the subsidy, but this time give it directly to consumers. The government would collect an extra $300 billion in taxes. It could grant $2,500 a year to individuals, and $5,000 to families from that pot without raising taxes or increasing the deficit. So a family would have an extra $11,000 to spend on health care. So which plans would families purchase? That's impossible to predict with certainty. Many may choose expensive plans that cost as much as the ones their companies provide -- in our example a $12,000 policy. But given the choice, millions more Americans could go for far less expensive, high-deductible policies that cover the big-ticket essentials such as a stroke or heart attack. That's the way insurance is supposed to work -- not as an open-ended benefit, but as protection against unforeseen, catastrophic events. If your house burns down, the insurance company pays. If you wash the windows or fix the screens, you pay. Let's return to our example. A high-deductible family policy in Pennsylvania or Kentucky costs around $5,500. The employee would then have $5,500 left over to cover routine tests and physician visits. That would unleash the power of the American consumer in an epic way. Then, we'd see if the laws of supply and demand really work in health care. 2. Deregulate the three big inflators of health-care costs The Obama plan would take three regulations that vastly inflate costs on the state level, and enshrine them into federal law. It's young Americans who suffer most today from these laws and would suffer more under Obamacare. As we'll see, in many states they're already forced to pay far more than their actual cost, a major reason so many of the healthy twenty- and thirtysomethings have dropped their insurance. Under Obamacare, they'd be forced under threat of heavy fines to pay what amounts to a big tax to pay for other people's care, chiefly that of older Americans. The first of these regulations is the "standard benefits package." Twenty states -- including Maryland, Colorado, California, Florida, and New York -- require that dozens of specific benefits be covered in any insurance plan. A typical list encompasses hearing aids, chiropractic services, obesity treatments, autism care, and drug-abuse therapy. The Obama plan, for example, would require coverage for dependents until the age of 26. Many of these benefits are in the state plans not because they're essential to basic care, but because they're promoted by powerful lobbying groups. Obama wants to mandate these plans for all Americans. He then plans to heavily subsidize them. These mandated, rich packages are a major cause of health-care inflation in many states. Eliminating them would allow consumers to pick among a vast variety of plans. The second cost-raising regulation is "community rating." Under strict community rating, providers are forced to charge the same premiums for all patients, no matter what their actual costs. The restrictions are extremely strong in nine states, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, and Oregon. But young people cost far less to insure than older Americans for a simple reason: They require far less care. Yet in community-rating states, workers in their 20s are forced to pay close to, if not the same, premiums as people in their 50s and 60s whose medical expenses are three to four times larger. For the young, the problem is magnified by standard benefits packages, since they drive up the average cost of all policies in the state. And if any group wants basic policies (rather than extremely comprehensive, rich ones), it's young Americans. As a result, community rating has pushed millions of young people out of the insurance market. The third damaging regulation is called "guaranteed issue." It requires that insurers accept anyone who applies, including patients with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes and cancer. Once again, the laws undermine the whole concept of insurance. "The carriers want to insure you for insurable events -- stroke, heart attack, or an unexpected illness," John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health-care consulting and research firm. "What they worry about is patients who go to see their doctor, learn they have diabetes, and enroll to have the provider pay for their care." A major problem with guaranteed issue is that, once again, it punishes the young and healthy. If a lot of patients suffering from diabetes and heart conditions enroll in the plan, the average cost rises steeply. Once again, in states like New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, everyone has to pay the same, or nearly the same premiums. That's not such a problem for older people because they'll still pay less than what they really cost. But it's a burden on the healthy population, and especially the young. To be sure, America must help diabetes patients pay for their expensive care, and we'll tell you how in a minute. But the costs shouldn't be inordinately born by young Americans just starting their careers at relatively low salaries. The Obama plan would make all three of these big inflators the law of the land. The free-market solution is to let freedom ring by eliminating all three restrictions. Here's an elegant solution: Allow consumers to buy insurance across state lines -- a freedom that's now banned and would stay banned under Obamacare. Today, a 25-year-old in New York pays six times as much for coverage as someone the same age in Kentucky. [b]If the restriction on nationwide shopping were abolished, New Yorkers could buy their policies at a fraction of the current cost in Illinois or Pennsylvania. Business would flow to the least-regulated, lowest-cost markets. That would be a big victory for deregulation. 3. Protect people with pre-existing conditions Creating a true national market is essential to my proposal. But the free-market solution will work only if it overcomes a huge obstacle: protecting people with pre-existing conditions. The numbers are hard to get, but a good estimate is that several million Americans suffer from cancer, diabetes, or another chronic illness. Many of them are now insured by their employers. Those companies don't charge them any more for insurance than they do their younger colleagues. Remember, under my proposal, employers will drop their plans and put the money they now spend on health care into their workers' paychecks. So let's take a middle-income worker with diabetes. Today, in New York State, he or she would be covered, because the patient could enroll in a plan required to take all comers and could not be charged any more than a healthy 30-year-old. But once consumers can shop across state borders, the young people who subsidized those with pre-existing conditions will flee to low-cost plans offered in other states. Community rating would disappear. In theory, the diabetes sufferer would face a huge increase in premiums. America can't allow that to happen. It's clear that to make a mostly free-market plan work, those with chronic illnesses need to be protected. Fortunately, the template is already in place. About 30 states, usually those without requirements for community rating or guaranteed issue, have high-risk pools that automatically enroll people with pre-existing conditions. Their premiums generally can't exceed 150% of the average plan within the state, even though the patients may actually cost far more. The full costs of the high-risk pools are covered from state income- and sales-tax revenues. Under a free-market plan, states that don't now have high-risk pools would create them, modeled after the models that work best. The problem posed by pre-existing conditions would be temporary. As consumers start spending their own money on coverage, the market would explode with creative insurance plans. It's likely that carriers will offer plans like the ones in Europe that offer coverage for as much as 40 or 50 years. Under those policies, in exchange for making essentially a lifetime commitment to the insurer, the consumer pays a specified schedule of rates that cannot be changed. 4. Don't forget the supply side Many elements of this free-market model are included in two excellent plans. One is Sen. John McCain's proposal as a candidate. But McCain didn't take on the problem of pre-existing conditions that's a linchpin of any reform package. Today, the best solution is the one proposed by a group of Congressmen, including Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican. It would include most of the elements I've recommended. But what the Ryan plan misses -- as did the McCain platform -- is the importance of reforming laws that limit the supply of medical services. Indeed, giving health-care consumers control over their own money -- the money employers now spend for them -- would create a true market where bargain prices and high quality should reign. That's "should." But deregulating the demand side isn't enough. Health care is rife with more monopolistic restrictions than any other industry: certificate-of-need laws that restrict the number of hospitals in states from California to New York, medical-licensing restrictions that prevent nurses and other practitioners from providing basic care, and limitations on the number of physician specialists. Believe it or not, it has practically become gospel in medical circles that shrinking the doctor supply is a way to save money. At best, it's extremely dubious economics to think that shrinking the supply of anything can reduce costs! Deregulating the supply side isn't even part of the health-care debate at the moment, yet it's crucial to our free-market model. The Obama plan does nothing to ease these restrictions and, in fact, is offering the providers more monopolistic protections to support the plan. |
Maybe a bit conspiratorial for my blood, but I just read this Cloward-Piven thing this morning.
Strategy for political change through orchestrated chaos
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First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called "crisis strategy" or "Cloward-Piven Strategy," as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect. In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when "the rest of society is afraid of them," Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would "the rest of society" accept their demands. The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven's early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. "Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare -- about 8 million, at the time -- probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a "massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls." Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces � for major economic reform at the national level." Their article called for "cadres of aggressive organizers" to use "demonstrations to create a climate of militancy." Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of "a federal program of income redistribution," in the form of a guaranteed living income for all -- working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act. This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements -- mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown -- providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory. Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven's article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States -- often violently -- bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law "entitled" them. By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation. Regarding Wiley's tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, "There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests - and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones."These methods proved effective. "The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley's wildest dreams," writes Sol Stern in the City Journal. "From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city's private economy."As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it. The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness. The Cloward-Piven strategy depended on surprise. Once society recovered from the initial shock, the backlash began. New York's welfare crisis horrified America, giving rise to a reform movement which culminated in "the end of welfare as we know it" -- the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which imposed time limits on federal welfare, along with strict eligibility and work requirements. Both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing of the bill as guests of President Clinton. Most Americans to this day have never heard of Cloward and Piven. But New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to expose them in the late 1990s. As his drive for welfare reform gained momentum, Giuliani accused the militant scholars by name, citing their 1966 manifesto as evidence that they had engaged in deliberate economic sabotage. "This wasn't an accident," Giuliani charged in a 1997 speech. "It wasn't an atmospheric thing, it wasn't supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare." Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness. In 1982, partisans of the Cloward-Piven strategy founded a new "voting rights movement," which purported to take up the unfinished work of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Like ACORN, the organization that spear-headed this campaign, the new "voting rights" movement was led by veterans of George Wiley's welfare rights crusade. Its flagship organizations were Project Vote and Human SERVE, both founded in 1982. Project Vote is an ACORN front group, launched by former NWRO organizer and ACORN co-founder Zach Polett. Human SERVE was founded by Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, along with a former NWRO organizer named Hulbert James. All three of these organizations -- ACORN, Project Vote and Human SERVE -- set to work lobbying energetically for the so-called Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton ultimately signed in 1993. The Motor-Voter bill is largely responsible for swamping the voter rolls with "dead wood" -- invalid registrations signed in the name of deceased, ineligible or non-existent people -- thus opening the door to the unprecedented levels of voter fraud and "voter disenfranchisement" claims that followed in subsequent elections. The new "voting rights" coalition combines mass voter registration drives -- typically featuring high levels of fraud -- with systematic intimidation of election officials in the form of frivolous lawsuits, unfounded charges of "racism" and "disenfranchisement," and "direct action" (street protests, violent or otherwise). Just as they swamped America's welfare offices in the 1960s, Cloward-Piven devotees now seek to overwhelm the nation's understaffed and poorly policed electoral system. Their tactics set the stage for the Florida recount crisis of 2000, and have introduced a level of fear, tension and foreboding to U.S. elections heretofore encountered mainly in Third World countries. Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros's Open Society Institute and his "Shadow Party," through whose support the Cloward-Piven strategy continues to provide a blueprint for some of the Left's most ambitious campaigns. |
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| Originally posted by Krypton Actually, Obama realizes the sorry state of our healthcare system. While other civilized countries with functional universal healthcare system watch us with amusement, the right wing is doing all they can stop any reform from being done. In the meantime, our country grows closer to being bankrupted by the costliest healthcare system in the world. A system which you want to stay the same. Shame. |
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| It is in this country's best interest to have universal healthcare coverage just as it is in this country's best interest to have universal education. |
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| Then let's see some proposals. All I ever hear about is how Republicans are doing all they can to stop any reform. And I know why. Because the Democrats are in power and the Republicans cannot accept that under a Democrat government, healthcare was fixed. Of course led by the usual suspects. Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck. |
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| Government takeover? Absolutely not. You will get to choose your doctor and your doctor will be the one who treats you. Healthcare decisions in the hands of bureaucrats? LOL...As if the private insurance companies aren't already denying people for existing illnesses and watering down coverage. Under this bill, that would be stopped. |
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| Yea, I have. Both my parents are/were in the military. I'v been treated in a military hospital inside military bases. These are people who must be prepared to treat war wounded. They better be a damn good hospital. And they are. |
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| I'v bought into a Harvard study which found the number 1 reason for bankruptcy in America was healthcare costs. What's even more despicable is that a huge number of these people had health insurance. |
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| Guess what? Drugs companies are on board with healthcare reform. When it comes to healthcare insurance, they shouldn't be making profits to the detriment of their policy holders. You know that's their SOLE purpose right? It isn't to help anyone. It's simply profiting, an unempathetic endeavor, where in a select few areas, shouldn't be allowed. Healthcare coverage is one area. |
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| Did you read this part? "A compromise approved by a House committee last week attempted to balance questions of federal funding, personal choice and the conscience rights of clinicians. It would allow the public plan to cover abortion but without using federal funds, only dollars from beneficiary premiums. Likewise, private plans in the new insurance exchange could opt to cover abortion, but no federal subsidies would be used to pay for the procedure." |
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| "It's a sham," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life. "It's a bookkeeping scheme. The plan pays for abortion, and the government subsidizes the plan." |
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| HOWARD: You know that rights and access and rights and ability have to go hand in hand and we know that health care reform is an important part of your agenda. Could you talk and give us some specifics about how reproductive health care and women's health care is going to fit into and be part of primary care for women in your plan, and how Planned Parenthood, as a safety net provider can you tell us how we are going to be a part of your safety net for women and families across the country? OBAMA: In my mind, uh, reproductive care is essential care. It is basic care. And so it is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I propose. Essentially what we are doing is to say that we're going to set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don't have health insurance. It will be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services. We also will subsidize those who prefer to stay in the private insurance market, except the insurers are going to have to abide by the same rules in terms of providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care. |
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| Nowhere did that say it was mandatory. |
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| Profit would dictate denying coverage and other tactics detrimental to the patient. I know two doctors (one being my mom), who tell me the insurance companies routinely delay payment all the way up to the 90 day deadline to make a payment by continually asking for proof of this or that, test results, x-rays, etc. You send them the x-ray, then they ask, "well, we need a blood test." You give them the blood test..."oh we also need a second opinion." The only incentive to do well is for the insurance company to do well for themselves. This bill would put an end to a lot of this. |
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| Congressman aren't poor so they afford private insurance. Sometimes, you read far more into things than is logical. They and the people will still have a choice. |
this backwards ass government cant even run the f*cking post office, I question how good they'll be at managing health care for 300 million people.
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| Originally posted by Max Thomson this backwards ass government cant even run the f*cking post office, I question how good they'll be at managing health care for 300 million people. |
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| Originally posted by Max Thomson this backwards ass government cant even run the f*cking post office, I question how good they'll be at managing health care for 300 million people. |
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| STUPID NATION by Rich Lowry The Obama team is saddled with a foundering health-care strategy. But it has a fallback plan � relying on the sheer dimwitted gullibility of the American public. How stupid do they think we are? Stupid enough to think that a new $1 trillion health-care entitlement is just the thing to restore the country to fiscal health. Stupid enough not to know that almost every entitlement known to man has cost more than originally estimated, with a congressional committee in 1967 underestimating by a factor of ten Medicare�s cost by 1990. Stupid enough not to realize that it is through budget trickery � the taxes begin immediately, the spending is put off for a few years � that the program in the House shows �only� a $239 billion deficit over the first ten years. Stupid enough not to focus on how the gap between the House plan�s revenue and spending steadily grows after the first ten years, making it a long-term budget buster. Stupid enough to think increased preventive care will save the government money, just because Pres. Barack Obama constantly repeats it, despite all the independent studies to the contrary. Stupid enough to believe that a program with no cost controls that can be discerned by the Congressional Budget Office will control costs. Stupid enough not to worry that Obama�s proposed superteam of technocrats operating outside normal political controls � the so-called Independent Medicare Advisory Council � will resort to rationing when costs continue to spiral upward. Stupid enough to consider it wise to use several billion dollars in cuts from Medicare to create a new entitlement rather than to forestall Medicare�s own looming insolvency, currently projected for 2017. Stupid enough not to notice that the �public option� was explicitly designed by the Left as a stealthy path to single-payer, even as liberals continue to talk and write about its ultimate purpose openly. Stupid enough to believe that we�ll be able to keep our current health-care arrangements if we like them, even though the public option could throw tens of millions of people out of private insurance. Stupid enough to trust the same people who came up with the public option as stealth single-payer to craft a co-op provision that isn�t a stealth public option. Stupid enough to credit Obama�s assurances that the Democrats� reform isn�t about government intervention in the health-care system when � even without the public option � it all-but-nationalizes health insurance. Stupid enough not to see through Obama�s sudden insistence on calling his plan �health-insurance reform� as empty poll-tested phrase-making. Stupid enough to consider Obama�s reform a good deal when its insurance regulations would increase premiums for most healthy people. Stupid enough to think that the very real problem of people with pre-existing conditions locked out of the insurance market can�t be alleviated short of a 1,000-page bill reordering the entire health-care system. Stupid enough to buy Obama�s cockamamie stories about unnecessary tonsillectomies and amputations � undertaken by greedy doctors to pad their profits � driving health-care costs. Stupid enough to get gulled by rhetoric attacking special interests when almost all the special interests are backing Obama�s plan for cowardly and self-interested reasons. Stupid enough to consider new taxes on employment � imposed by the so-called employer mandate � a good idea during a weak economy with a 9.4 percent unemployment rate. Stupid enough to condemn ordinary people angry and frightened enough to show up at town-hall meetings in every corner of the country as the product of an �astroturfing� conspiracy. Stupid enough to blame nefarious Republicans for the faltering public support for an expensive, ungainly and contradictory health-care program passed out of four congressional committees on strict party-line votes. Stupid enough to trust the good faith and public-spiritedness of an administration operating on Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel�s ram-it-through-now credo that a crisis should never go to waste. And stupid enough not to be offended at how contemptibly stupid they think we are. |
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| Originally posted by Max Thomson this backwards ass government cant even run the f*cking post office, I question how good they'll be at managing health care for 300 million people. |
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| Originally posted by The17sss Easy.... they think you're stupid. http://article.nationalreview.com/?...NWJjYjI=&w=MA== |
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| Originally posted by Krypton Stupid indeed. They believe the government is trying to take over the healthcare sector which is a flat out lie. |
You're not right, but let's say you were. GM has gotten out of bankruptcy and now has to hire back more workers to meet unexpected demand.
its so terrible 
Obama slams 'outrageous myths' about health care
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Facing a recent erosion of public support for health-care overhaul, President Obama lashed out at his opponents Saturday for spreading "outrageous myths" on the Internet, television, and at town hall forums. President Obama talks about health care reform Thursday in Washington. Republican leaders, in turn, said it was Obama who is guilty of playing "fast and loose with the facts." They repeated their assertion that the president's proposed government-funded public health insurance option would destroy the current private insurance-based system. "I'm glad that so many are engaged," Obama said in his weekly radio address. But it should "be an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions, spread by the very folks who would benefit the most by keeping things exactly as they are." Obama emphasized that, contrary to the assertions of many, illegal immigrants will not get health insurance under a reform plan. "That idea has never even been on the table," he said. He said the charge that funding for abortions would be mandated is false, as is the notion that federal "death panels" would be established to discourage care for the sick and elderly. Watch as the president debunks what he calls the myths about health care � The health-care bill advanced in the House of Representatives would include coverage of end-of-life counseling for Medicare beneficiaries who want it. The provision was recently dropped, however, by Senate negotiators. Obama asserted that his plan would not lead to "a government takeover of health care," and said the proposed public option is just "one idea among many to provide more competition and choice." Don't Miss Divided Democrats put Obama in health care bind Commentary: Democrats may kill health care overhaul In Depth: Health care in America "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," he said. "If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period." Republican Rep. Tom Price of Georgia had a different take. Watch Rep. Price outline his opinions � "The plan being promoted by the White House would give Washington the power to make highly personal medical decisions on behalf of patients -- on behalf of you," Price, a former physician, said in the weekly GOP address. Obama "has also said that he thinks the government should compete with your current health care plan. "But we all know that when the government is setting the rules and is backed by tax dollars, it will destroy -- not compete -- with the private sector. The reality is, whether or not you get to keep your plan, or your doctor, is very much in question under the president's proposal," Price said. Price also argued that under Obama's plan "every health care plan will have to meet a new federal definition for coverage -- one that your current plan might not match, even if you like it." Price urged a "bipartisan solution that puts patients in charge" and rejects "a government-centered approach." The latest charges and countercharges came after another week of highly publicized arguments among congressional Democrats over the political viability of a public health option. One of the top Senate negotiators, Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, has insisted that a public option cannot get the 60 votes required to overcome a Senate filibuster. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asserted Thursday that a bill cannot pass the House of Representatives if it does not include a public option. The No. 2 Democrat in the House, however, seemed less definitive. Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, told reporters Friday on a conference call, "As I've said in the past, I'm for a public option but I'm also for passing a bill. ... But, you know, we'll have to see because there are many other aspects of the bill as well." After Hoyer's conference call, an aide told CNN that the majority leader is in full agreement with the speaker over the need for a public option, and that it will be hard to pass the House without one. What he was acknowledging, the aide said, was the reality that a public option will be hard to pass in the Senate and therefore in Congress as a whole. The public option has been cleared by three committees in the House as well as by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. But a bipartisan group of six negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee -- the last committee that needs to clear health-care legislation before it can be taken up on the Senate floor -- is considering dropping a public option in favor of nonprofit cooperatives that would negotiate collective polices for members. Some top Democrats have responded in recent days by hinting that they may instead try to short-circuit the traditional Senate legislative process by passing a health-care bill through an obscure tactic known as reconciliation, a type of budget maneuver that requires only a simple majority -- 51 votes -- to pass. Such a maneuver would boost the prospects for Senate passage of a public health option. But Republicans have equated such a move to legislative warfare. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated Friday that the president remains committed to crafting a bipartisan bill. |
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| Originally posted by The17sss A flat out lie huh. LOL! Just like how Obama had "no interest" in running GM, yet that's exactly what the government is doing. there are a lot of things in there "certain people" are falling for. |
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| Read the Stupid Nation post above... |
you know, the rest of the developed world - the majority of which provide healthcare to ALL of their citizens - are sitting back right now and observing this ridiculous fiasco in the USA.
The "haves" are putting up such a fight to essentially fuck over their fellow "have not" Americans over the basic right to healthcare.
The American Empire has truly peaked. It's all downhill from here folks.
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| Originally posted by Dj Smitty20 you know, the rest of the developed world - the majority of which provide healthcare to ALL of their citizens - are sitting back right now and observing this ridiculous fiasco in the USA. The "haves" are putting up such a fight to essentially fuck over their fellow "have not" Americans over the basic right to healthcare. The American Empire has truly peaked. It's all downhill from here folks. |
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt the things produced and provided by the labor of other men |
damn pk you responded before my ninja edit delete.. I really didn't feel like starting a debate..since the socialists are obviously going to win in the end. Yes my point was that any finite resource, product, or service (including healthcare) can not be considered an "entitlement" in any free society. Healthcare/housing/food/transportation etc might be necessary for one to survive..but you can't make these things "entitlements" without forcing others to provide them in one way or another. None of the things mentioned above is unlimited in supply..so the only way to ensure every "entitled" person in society gets their freebies is to force others to sacrifice their time, energy, and property to provide them..to increase government taxation and compel others to furnish these goods against their will. It's really pointless to make moral arguments against this type of "compassionate" slavery when the whole world is embracing it..so I've decided to go with it. Rome is falling, but not because of opposition to UHC..but because some version of it passing is inevitable. Our country is already beyond bankrupt and we will be $22 trillion in debt within 10 years by our government's own rosy numbers. The prescription drug benefit passed a few years ago under Bush has already exceeded triple it's promised cost, and if that is anything to go by a new healthcare entitlement will do much the same. This can only hasten the collapse of the US dollar (and eventually the global financial system). We are long past the point of no return, so I say bring it on. Borrow borrow borrow...spend spend spend...inflate inflate inflate...kill the goose that laid the golden egg...control, regulate, nationalize...fuck yeah...yeeeeeeehaaaaaaa!
^ re: prescription drug benefit...
Why isn't this program being reviewed? I would have thought that doctors were clearly prescribing way too many prescription meds, and these all come at a cost to either the tax payer or other insured parties who don't go to their doctor asking for pills for everything that might ail them.
So many high profile cases have come to light recently including Rush Limbaugh where they were getting these powerful meds when they really didn't need them because they were addicted to them.
Why doesn't anyone declare a war on these drugs? [/dumb rhetorical question] Clearly there's too much money to be made from it.
Prevention doesn't make money lol
i get a kick out of how people are using canada as an example of how horrible socialized healthcare is....
despite the US systems 0 wait time, overpriced care, overpriced medication and unnessary procedures and testing..... canada still has a longer life expectancy and lower death rate.... funny how that works....
yes we have shortage of doctors and nurses here but the system still works, and has worked for decades.
i'll admit i'm indecisive on this topic. i agree and disagree with certain aspects of both sides, mainly because there is so much information and misinformation being dished out from both ends that someone who isn't a designated republican or democrat such as myself is left trying to sort out what is BS and what are the real risks.
i haven't dedicated enough time to this topic to know it very well, but based on what i've read about it i am in support of it. there's so much talk about $1 trillion dollar this and that. well maybe if more money were tossed towards universal healthcare then it wouldn't cause any additional funding to be paid by current companies that use private health insurance or its employees. where would this money come from? how about reclaiming it from overfunded wasteful bullshit like the war on drugs, the war overseas, and i'm sure thousands of expenditures that we don't even know about, just pissing away our money. but our power-mongering government isn't ready to sacrifice their "power" over stupid things like education and healthcare. our government has a spending problem and universal healthcare is right up there with education as far as what we SHOULD be spending money on. i have good private health insurance through my company and i'd hate for them to drop our coverage and be forced onto universal healthcare. however i'm willing to take a few lumps on the head and put up with the difficult transition that may happen while healthcare re-finds its balance/equilibrium (as if it has one now?!) for the betterment of everyone. i'm also not buying the "government takeover" scare tactic that's being tossed back and forth. it almost worked until i realized just how ridiculous it sounded.
anyway what i'm getting at is simple: stop pissing away money towards BULLSHIT and you'll have more money for IMPORTANT SHIT. refocus on a higher level of education and health for EVERY LEGAL AMERICAN.
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| Originally posted by The17sss lol... wonder if you read the story from the other day about Canada's new president of the Canadian Medical Association who said, in regards to their wonderful universal health care system: "We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize. We know that there must be change. We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands." The proposed answer? BRINGING BACK PRIVATE HEALTH CARE. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ca...D335rGu_Z3KXoQw ANd if you have a complaint regarding cost issues with our current system, read this from the other day... about the hospital system in Las Vegas having their main cost overrun problem being illegal immigrants sucking the life blood from it: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ca...D335rGu_Z3KXoQw Boy, our broken sub-par health care system must suck, since the CDC just raised our life expectancy again. http://www.mydesert.com/article/200...t+all-time+high |
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| It is in the best interest to allow the system to operate by free market principles like any other industry, which by definition will lower prices for service and improve quality. I noticed you followed Obama's lead with your Post Office vs. Fed Ex and UPS thing somewhere back in this thread to justify the public option as competition. Let's apply that to healthcare. The post office lost $2 billion last year, and its just been announced that they are going to lose $7 billion this year... yet they are still allowed to operate because they don't have to show a profit. This is good? Hilarious though, that Obama was off teleprompter and made that comparison saying the public option will be like the Post Office compared to Fed Ex. LOL! |
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| Edit: wait a second... I just realized the other half of what you said. Sure, the utopian idea of universal education sounds great as does universal healthcare, but look at how our government currently manages our education system! These are the same people you want running healthcare? Wow. |
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| let's stick to elected Republicans. The problem is, they have been shut out of most discussions in regards to crafting this legislation. It was farmed out to Pelosi and Reid, then to their minions to craft it. The problem is within the democrat party... the Democrats can't stop whining about the GOP's stance against the bill, yet they have more then enough votes to pass it by party line. Krypton, please- look at the DMV, Social Security, Medicare, Public Schools, etc... everything government run. TELL me that you think, when they can't even manage a $3 billion cash for clunkers program that they will "fix" our healthcare system by passing this thing. |
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| No man, you're wrong. People will become budget items, nothing more. It absolutely IS a government takeover of the health industry because the public option will force employers to drop their coverage, including taxing the balls off them through IRS mandate. Individuals will also be taxed by health care mandate (which Obama said he was against during the campaign- another lie) through IRS monitoring. How can you say denying people for existing illneses would be stopped under universal coverage, when the only way to control costs is to ration coverage? People will get denied all the time for things. Plus a looming Obamacare disaster will be a shortage of doctors... which is (shockingly) reported by the USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health...-shortage_N.htm |
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| Well, I've had family on both sides deal with VA hospitals as well as regular ones, and there is simply no comparison in terms of efficiency and quality. |
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HAHAHA!! How did you miss this one? From my earlier discussion with Opus, explaining WHY they are on board (while reading, keep in mind the screams from your side regarding Halliburton-Cheney): Are you aware that Obama accepted $150 million from pharmaceutical companies in exchange to go easy on them with drug pricing? Are you also aware he executed a back room deal in private (where are those promises to show all health care negotiations on C-SPAN?)where Pharma would committ to $80 billion in savings if Obama agreed to not let Medicare set drug prices? Sounds like a mix of extortion and our president getting in bed with big business to shape legislation.... another broken promise. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...9081102810.html |
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| haha... yeah and then right after that part, it says this: And that's correct- did you read further about the Hyde Ammendment? The Democrats are basically trying to get around it... either way, tax dollars will fund them. But take it a step further. Obama lied again, saying such claims are a "distraction", a "fabrication", and "untrue". If Planned Parenthood is supporting this legislation, do you seriously think goverment funded abortions aren't part of it? You gotta wake up dude. From 2007, Obama speaking to Planned Parenthood was asked by their CEO Brian Howard: Bam. What you do think the "safety net" is that Howard was talking about? And what you you think "all essential services including reproductive care" means? If he was going back on it, Planned Parenthood wouldn't be supporting the House bill right now. Obama is a fucking liar man... people keep finding clips of him in his own words saying the opposite thing now compared to what he said 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years ago. |
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| Right but the point is, what business do they even have in the first place to enter a private home and instruct parents on who to be parents, based on values THEY deem appropriate? And, what on earth does that provision have to do with universal health care? |
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| Again, you think government intervention is the answer when time and time again it proves not to be. I see what you're saying, but if you think it's going to change for the better if the government is running it.... dude, use the Cash for Clunkers program again. The exact same thing is happening- dealerships are now rejecting the program because some of them are out millions of dollars that the government hasn't reimbursed them in the alloted time they promised. Their excuse? "We didn't forsee this problem and haven't hired enough people to handle all the applications." And they don't have to be held accountable. Imagine 1/6 of the economy being handled by the same entity... efficiency can't possibly increase. |
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| No, they won't. Not when the public option destroys the private industry... which Obama, Barney Frank, and several others have STATED on the record is the ultimate goal of the public option. Page 16 of the bill... when your current coverage expires, or you make a single change on it before it expires, you will not be able to get private insurance again. Read it for yourself: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArt...332548165656854 |
I don't know why the public option wouldn't pass, wouldn't pass. All the feeds I'm getting show that it's passing.
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| Originally posted by thedoggyworld I don't know why the public option wouldn't pass, wouldn't pass. All the feeds I'm getting show that it's passing. |
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| Originally posted by Krypton Republicans and a number of Democrats wouldn't vote for it. I particularly wouldn't want government run insurance. The best solution is non-profit cooperative insurance companies just like every other country with a functional healthcare system. In some countries, it is illegal to profit from health insurance. Wish that would be the norm here. Only in America is health insurance for-profit. |
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| Originally posted by thedoggyworld Well the White House and most Democratcs are for it. All this talk about it not passing is obstruction. |
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