How is that hope and change thing working out for you?

[magley64]

I am an Atheist. I tolerate life because it's where I am, so I may as well try to do something useful with it.

It's the only life I got, I may as well enjoy it as much as possible.

[Disclaimer]

Why shouldn't it be for profit? Seriously. Is there something wrong with making a profit? Do you expect to make a profit in your chosen profession? Of course you do. Why should a doctor or an insurance company be any different?

I don't expect a service to be provided free, but I don't think insurance for the 'privilege' to just to ACCESS the health care system should be for profit. Doctors, nurses, etc - they deserve a fair wage and I think for the most part, they have lucrative careers and deserve what they make. Insurance companies do nothing but add bureaucracy to the channel... which, if that's by and large a non-value added service to the end user anyway, I'd rather have control over with my vote. That's the difference.

If you cant waste your breath to say it again, it must not have been very important. I'm not going to waste my time clicking around here to see more of your drivel.

Got it, you're too lazy to educate yourself. That's another difference. I don't just give opinions, I post links to information and data that back up my rationale and reasoning. Not my problem if you don't take the time to read them. You're just part of the problem because you refuse to be part of the solution.

You're right, they can't compete with those sectors because for the most part they're bad risks, and too many people are sheep and are happy with the government program. Or, they cant afford it. Not everyone can afford everything. Thats the way it goes in a market driven economy. Tough shit.

What's the point of having health insurance if you're healthy 24/7? Someone needs to take on the "bad risks" and the private market hasn't figured it out. So, they insure the healthy people - which basically means the rest of us are throwing our money away on nothing. Just wait until your "tough shit" comes back around to bite you in the ass and bankrupts you and your family because your private insurance drops you.

But hey, you're Mr. Big "I own my own" Business - I'm sure you're rich enough not to worry about it.

Of course they're worried that they can't compete - the government doesnt have any fiduciary responsibility to anyone.

Funny because the definition of fiduciary directly from dictionary.com mentions the PUBLIC sector:

fi⋅du⋅ci⋅ar⋅y

–noun 1. Law. a person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another.

–adjective 2. Law. of or pertaining to the relation between a fiduciary and his or her principal: a fiduciary capacity; a fiduciary duty. 3. of, based on, or in the nature of trust and confidence, as in public affairs: a fiduciary obligation of government employees. 4. depending on public confidence for value or currency, as fiat money.

So, I'd say you're wrong, based on definitions 3 and 4. WTG.

Yes, they do. The difference is at the end of the day they have a responsibility to make money. The government plans dont have that responsibility, therefore they don't compete.

That's my point. It's more economical for everyone.

UPS and FedEx dont deliver first class mail because they can't do it for the same price as the government does it for. The "public option" has lost $4.7 billion in the first 3/4 of the year. Oddly enough, it would seem that the government cant do it for that price either. No worries, they'll just dump more money at it. Private companies can't do that forever.

Wow, proved my point again. Private can't compete. How high do you think stamps could go before someone in the private sector steps in? I don't really want to pay $1.79 to mail a letter (if I ever did).

Oddly enough you CAN vote out a CEO of a publicly traded company. If you own stock you have a vote as a shareholder.

Ok, true. But, I'm not really looking to pad the pockets of my stock broker too when I change jobs and have to switch insurance plans.

If you're a customer you can vote with your wallet and choose not to patronize a certain company. If you think that you have more sway over what goes on in Washington with career polititcians you're more delusional than I thought. For those folks its all about the money too, and until we have REAL campaign finance reform and term limits for congress its never going to change. (That's a topic for another discussion though)

That's the issue with ALL insurance, you're paying for a service you hope to NEVER use. So, how do I know whether or not I want to patronize the business if I've never had to experience their service for repairing a broken bone, or stitching up a wound, or whatever?

And I guarantee the collective constituency has a lot more political sway than the customers of each insurance plan to the CEOs. Again, you're the delusional one if you think that CEO is looking out for your health over your wallet.

I don't know what kind of coverage you're getting for $70.00 per month. I own my own company. Health insurance for my employees costs me (on average) $350.00 per month for an individual and $795.00 per month for those with a family. If I could get it for $70.00 per month I'd do it in a heartbeat.

The numbers I used were facetious, but once again you proved my point. You'd take the cheaper alternative. What if it's the gov't sponsored plan? Apparently you're not one to back your own principles because you're not willing to put your money where your mouth is.

Take the alternative? Like I have with the post office? Oh wait, there is no other choice because private companies CAN'T COMPETE. Sadly, that's what will happen to the health care system. As time goes by, there will bet fewer and fewer "choices" until the government option is the only one. Then we'll all be stuck with the same shitty level of service.

If service is THAT bad, private companies will compete. If you're so 'market forces' driven, then the market will decide that $30/mo for shitty health care isn't worth it and they'll pay the $70/mo for better health care.

If you want the Cadillac of health care because you think it's worth it - fine. If you want the Kia of health care - fine. Cadillac and Kia still coexist, and just because there's a cheaper alternative, EVERYONE isn't buying Kias. By your logic, Kia will be the only brand left in a few years. So, you're talking in circles... either you believe in the 'market' or not. If health insurance through the gov't is SOOOO shitty, no one will use it and it'll be abandoned.

Finally, the private companies DON'T FUCKING COMPETE WITH THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT DOESNT HAVE TO PLAY BY THE SAME RULES AS PRIVATE COMPANIES. They're not forced (by market conditions) to offer a quality product. With the government you get what you get. Period. If that's what you want, good for you. I don't want it.

You're wrong. Flat. Out. Wrong. The gov't HAS to compete. You can ship boxes through, USPS, UPS, DHL, or FedEx... people still use the $4.95 flat rate box, so apparently there is still value-add for the customer to use that service. If the health INSURANCE process through the gov't is sooo shitty, people will abandon it in droves and go back to private insurance. Or, if the gov't plan is $30/mo and the next costly alternative is $70/mo - people will vote with their money and CHOICE on if they think they're getting 2x the value over their $30/mo plan. Funny thing is... if you see the same doctor in each plan, then I don't see what the value is in the $70/mo plan. Econ 101.

We're not talking about gov't health CARE, we're talking gov't health INSURANCE.

Edited August 26, 2009 by JRMMiii

[chevysoldier]

:popcorn:

[magley64]

If you want the Cadillac of health care because you think it's worth it - fine. If you want the Kia of health care - fine. Cadillac and Kia still coexist, and just because there's a cheaper alternative, EVERYONE isn't buying Kias. By your logic, Kia will be the only brand left in a few years. So, you're talking in circles... either you believe in the 'market' or not. If health insurance through the gov't is SOOOO shitty, no one will use it and it'll be abandoned.

If the market were allowed to drive the consumer, I'd agree.

Here is the caveaut where my problem comes in...

The $1000 "fine" for non coverage will drive many people who were previously uninsured to purchase this imaginary super-cheap insurance from the government, artificially bolstering their numbers...

would you rather pay $1000 a year in a lump sum for a fine, or $70 a month ($840/yr) in payments to avoid a fine?

[Mr Anderson]

This thread is very interesting but I will read once I get off work.

[Todd#43]

I don't expect a service to be provided

blah....blah....

blah.....blah....

health INSURANCE.

And this is why I don't talk politics here with people like you.

Sometimes a big part of me really wants this shit to go through just so I can say "told you so" somewhere down there road.

Carry on.

[Disclaimer]

I don't think you'll live that long 'cause it'll be an awful long wait.

[Todd#43]

I don't think you'll live that long 'cause it'll be an awful long wait.

I've got 20 years left, give or take. It wont take that long.

[SAMBUSA]

Fear mongers

[Disclaimer]

[robhawk]

I hope it does not turn out like the Military hospitals I had to attend while on active duty. I took my 4yr old daughter to the ER for a laceration on her head and waited 3 hours to be seen. That is one example of many visits to the hospital or clinics where myself, or my family, was treated badly or just received poor service.

It was the worst medical care ever at Reynolds Army Community Hospital on Fort Sill in OK. Govt run medical is a bad idea in my opinion, based on the experience I have had in the military. Which I am assuming that the low cost insurance option will allow individuals to attend similar clinics to the military ones.

[kreator]

The phone rings and the lady of the house answers, "Hello?"

"Mrs. Sanders, please."

"Speaking."

"Mrs. Sanders, this is Dr. Jones at St. Agnes Laboratory. When your husband's doctor sent his biopsy to the lab last week, a biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well. We are now uncertain which one belongs to your husband. Frankly, either way the results are not too good."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.

"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other one tested positive for HIV. We can't tell which is which."

"That's dreadful! Can you do the test again?" questioned Mrs. Sanders.

"Normally we can, but the new health care system will only pay for these expensive tests just one time."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"The folks at CDC recommend that you drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him."

[Disclaimer]

That's funny. Baseless, but funny.

Look what the rep fairy left for me:

How is that hope and... 08-29-2009 12:40 AM eh, your arguments are uneducated and invalid

[chevysoldier]

I hope it does not turn out like the Military hospitals I had to attend while on active duty. I took my 4yr old daughter to the ER for a laceration on her head and waited 3 hours to be seen. That is one example of many visits to the hospital or clinics where myself, or my family, was treated badly or just received poor service.

It was the worst medical care ever at Reynolds Army Community Hospital on Fort Sill in OK. Govt run medical is a bad idea in my opinion, based on the experience I have had in the military. Which I am assuming that the low cost insurance option will allow individuals to attend similar clinics to the military ones.

I knew a guy that went to sick call for coughing up blood. They told him to take ibruprofen and drink water.

[Disclaimer]

The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate

http://www.newsweek.com/id/214254/output/print

The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate

By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK

Published Aug 29, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Sep 7, 2009

To the credit of opponents of health-care reform, the lies and exaggerations they're spreading are not made up out of whole cloth—which makes the misinformation that much more credible. Instead, because opponents demand that everyone within earshot (or e-mail range) look, say, "at page 425 of the House bill!," the lies take on a patina of credibility. Take the claim in one chain e-mail that the government will have electronic access to everyone's bank account, implying that the Feds will rob you blind. The 1,017-page bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee does call for electronic fund transfers—but from insurers to doctors and other providers. There is zero provision to include patients in any such system. Five other myths that won't die:

You'll have no choice in what health benefits you receive.

The myth that a "health choices commissioner" will decide what benefits you get seems to have originated in a july 19 post at blog.flecksoflife.com, whose homepage features an image of Obama looking like heath ledger's joker. In fact, the house bill sets up a health-care exchange—essentially a list of private insurers and one government plan—where people who do not have health insurance through their employer or some other source (including small businesses) can shop for a plan, much as seniors shop for a drug plan under medicare part d. The government will indeed require that participating plans not refuse people with preexisting conditions and offer at least minimum coverage, just as it does now with employer-provided insurance plans and part d. The requirements will be floors, not ceilings, however, in that the feds will have no say in how generous private insurance can be.

No chemo for older medicare patients.

The threat that medicare will give cancer patients over 70 only end-of-life counseling and not chemotherapy—as a nurse at a hospital told a roomful of chemo patients, including the uncle of a NEWSWEEK reporter—has zero basis in fact. It's just a vicious form of the rationing scare. The house bill does not use the word "ration." Nor does it call for cost-effectiveness research, much less implementation—the idea that "it isn't cost-effective to give a 90-year-old a hip replacement."

The general claim that care will be rationed under health-care reform is less a lie and more of a non-disprovable projection (as is Howard Dean's assertion that health-care reform will not lead to rationing, ever). What we can say is that there is de facto rationing under the current system, by both medicare and private insurance. No plan covers everything, but coverage decisions "are now made in opaque ways by insurance companies," says dr. Donald Berwick of the institute for healthcare improvement.

A related myth is that health-care reform will be financed through $500 billion in medicare cuts. This refers to proposed decreases in medicare increases. That is, spending is on track to reach $803 billion in 2019 from today's $422 billion, and that would be dialed back. Even the $560 billion in reductions (which would be spread over 10 years and come from reducing payments to private medicare advantage plans, reducing annual increases in payments to hospitals and other providers, and improving care so seniors are not readmitted to a hospital) is misleading: the house bill also gives medicare $340 billion more over a decade. The money would pay docs more for office visits, eliminate copays and deductibles for preventive care, and help close the "doughnut hole" in the medicare drug benefit, explains medicare expert Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance

The house bill doesn't give anyone free health care (though under a 1986 law illegals who can't pay do get free emergency care now, courtesy of all us premiumpaying customers or of hospitals that have to eat the cost). Will they be eligible for subsidies to buy health insurance? The house bill says that "individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States" will not be allowed to receive subsidies.

The claim that taxpayers will wind up subsidizing health insurance for illegal immigrants has its origins in the defeat of an amendment, offered in July by republican rep. Dean Heller of Nevada, to require those enrolling in a public plan or seeking subsidies to purchase private insurance to have their citizenship verified. Flecksoflife.com claimed on july 19 that "hc [health care] will be provided 2 all non us citizens, illegal or otherwise." Rep. Steve king of Iowa spread the claim in a usa today op-ed on aug. 20, calling the explicit prohibition on such coverage "functionally meaningless" absent mandatory citizenship checks, and it's now gone viral. Can we say that none of the estimated 11.9 million illegal immigrants will ever wangle insurance subsidies through identity fraud, pretending to be a citizen? You can't prove a negative, but experts say that medicare—the closest thing to the proposals in the house bill—has no such problem.

Death panels will decide who lives.

On July 16 Betsy Mccaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York and darling of the right, said on Fred Thompson's radio show that "on page 425," "congress would make it mandatory … That every five years, people in medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition." Sarah Palin coined "death panels" in an Aug. 7 facebook post.

This lie springs from a provision in the house bill to have medicare cover optional counseling on end-of-life care for any senior who requests it. This means that any patient, terminally ill or not, can request a special consultation with his or her physician about ventilators, feeding tubes, and other measures. Thus the house bill expands medicare coverage, but without forcing anyone into end-of-life counseling.

The death-panels claim nevertheless got a new lease on life when Jim Towey, director of the White House office of faith-based initiatives under George W. Bush, claimed in an Aug. 18 Wall Street Journal op-ed that a 1997 workbook from the department of veterans affairs pushes vets to "hurry up and die." In fact, the thrust of the 51-page book, which the va pulled from circulation in 2007, is letting "loved ones" and "health care providers" "know your wishes." Readers are asked to decide what they believe, including that "life is sacred and has meaning, no matter what its quality," and that "my life should be prolonged as long as it can...using any means possible." But the workbook also asks if readers "believe there are some situations in which I would not want treatments to keep me alive." Opponents of health-care reform have selectively cited this passage as evidence the government wants to kill the old and the sick.

The government will set doctors' wages.

This, too, seems to have originated on the Flecksoflife blog on July 19. But while page 127 of the House bill says that physicians who choose to accept patients in the public insurance plan would receive 5 percent more than Medicare pays for a given service, doctors can refuse to accept such patients, and, even if they participate in a public plan, they are not salaried employees of it any more than your doctor today is an employee of, say, Aetna. "Nobody is saying we want the doctors working for the government; that's completely false," says Amitabh Chandra, professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

To be sure, there are also honest and principled objections to health-care reform. Some oppose a requirement that everyone have health insurance as an erosion of individual liberty. That's a debatable position, but an honest one. And many are simply scared out of their wits about what health-care reform will mean for them. But when fear and loathing hijack the brain, anything becomes believable—even that health-care reform is unconstitutional. To disprove that, check the commerce clause: Article I, Section 8.

With Katie Connolly, Claudia Kalb, and Ian Yarett

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/214254

© 2009

[Strictly Street]

The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate

http://www.newsweek.com/id/214254/output/print

In just the last paragraph, not even doing a point on point comparison. The authors bias is clearly visible. At the very least it show how un-informed she is at the very worst it shows she is a shill.

Quoting the commerce clause to define constitutionality?

Isn't that like quoting the puctuation to define the sentance?

Saying that the Govt will not set doctors wages? Um... isn't that done right now by the insurance companies?

Isn't the Govt trying to be the insurance company for everybody?

Ergo....

Look at the first sentence, the point of her article, it's very reason to exist.

I quote: "To the credit of opponents of health-care reform, the lies and exaggerations they're spreading are not made up out of whole cloth—which makes the misinformation that much more credible."

Ok then, lets say it another way. "All those other guys are lying"

Sentence two:

"Instead, because opponents demand that everyone within earshot (or e-mail range) look, say, "at page 425 of the House bill!," the lies take on a patina of credibility."

Lets say it another way. "The liars quote the source document."

I don't have to rip this article up any more, it falls on to the fail pile without any effort on my part.

JRMMiii, I respect your opinion but I've got to say this time you brought some weak editorialized opinions to the table.

Just because it's printed somewhere does not make it credible or even believable.

Perhaps some reason why it's a good idea?

Instead of a rambling rant from one of the political corners of the 'debate' if it can even be called that at this point.

Hmmm...

[redkow97]

so this is a healthcare debate now? or is the thread still trying to suggest that Americans allow Obama to get away with things they would have crucified Bush for? (and no, i'm not even remotely suggested Bush was Jesus - it's just a figure of speech).

Frankly, I think Obama does get away with a lot of things:

1) because the majority of Americans WANT so badly for him to be right, regardless of whether he or his policies are.

2) because a lot of people (media included) are timid about criticizing a black president, lest they be accused of racism.

3) because George W. had the reputation (deserved or undeserved is irrelevant) that ANYONE would be better than him.

Frankly, I'm not an Obama fan, nor am I a die-hard Republican. I can get on board with being called a "conservative" in fiscal discussions, but my views align most completely with the Libertarian party.

Love Obama, or hate him - voting for him doesn't mean that you automatically have to agree with, defend, or count yourself responsible for every single policy he signs or (mis)step he takes! The fact remains, he IS our President for at least three more years. Go ahead and voice all the opinions you want, but choose yoru battles. if you're going to stifle National Healthcare reform, let's make sure that's the most pressing issue, and debate with a purpose. It's going to pass eventually. Change focus from outright objection to damage control. Realism goes a long way in politics. Idealism just breeds frustration.

Bob Barr 2012!