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Health Care Reform
It appears that today might be the end of a very long road to health care reform. There's been a lot of debate on the subject really leading back before the election. The mainstream sounds like an echo chamber, so I'm hoping you guys have better insight. Will this bill do what the administration claims to do, or is it as bad for the future of America as Fox says?
Nothing is as bad for the future of America as Fox says.
BTW, I've seen thousands of comment trolls, but I think this is the first story submission troll I've seen.
If you really want to fix healthcare, do tort reform first. Then break up the AMA cartel. Then look at other things that may need to be changed.
Is there anything that the government runs that really functions correctly/efficiently?
It is a desperate grab for tax revenue to shore up a faltering budget.
Real health care reform would either include a single payer system or a rational free-market plan. Nether party is willing to do this, however. I wonder why...
But then everyone knew that already.
I expect it will at least mitigate my issues getting health insurance after getting kicked off my parents' plan, so there's that.
As for the Republicans' complaints, I'm not really clear on what there is in this bill the Republicans didn't argue for. If the left had written the bill, it would dismantle the insurance industry and set up single payer. The only thing it's missing is tort reform, and the fact is that tort reform is a red herring. It accounts for 1-2% of healthcare expenditures, and that sounds about right. There should be a process for handling legitimate malpractice claims, and it's never going to be free.
Slashdot is packed with the entitlement generation and you're asking if they approve of the government creating another entitlement? Might as well go to Hell and ask the Devil if sinning is bad.
The Americans really need a single payer system like the rest of the world, so no this is not the correct way. However it think it appears a lot better than the current mess they have.
It's nothing like the health care bill we should have had, something to create a health care system comparable to other modern countries. The Democrats have no backbone and kept watering it down and morphing it until it was only vaguely acceptable to just barely enough of them to possibly pass. This sort of thing leads to awful legislation.
The Republicans, of course, are chanting "wait, wait, this is being rushed," but the facts are that they had years in which they could have pushed through health care reform - years where it was clearly necessary. Despite what they say, your average Republican simply doesn't believe in health care reform, which is why it didn't happen under Clinton and wouldn't happen under Obama if they could figure out a way to delay it. So instead of pushing for a fiscally responsible and conservative health care reform, the Republicans are really pushing for the status quo, without trying to seem like they're doing that.
Both parties stink. I'm kind of hoping this passes, but then the Republicans come into power. It'll be impractical for them to repeal this, but perhaps they'll be smart enough to tinker with it to make it better. Past history is not encouraging, though.
As you might expect, this bill is heavy on the benefits and light on the necessary pain. There's virtually only one effective cost-control measure, the tax on high-cost health benefits, and that has been pushed off so far in the future that it will be killed before it sees the light of day. The bill recognizes that coverage of pre-existing conditions requires an individual mandate, but then implements it in a half-assed way that won't achieve the objective of forcing healthy people to get coverage. (It also puts a dual drag on job growth by both raising taxes on private investment and directly increasing the cost of employing people. Way to go.)
I would much prefer a bill that provided funds to the states to let them structure their own solutions to the health-care problem, as Massachusetts has done. But the top-down command-and-control midset in Washington is too strong for that.
It won't do anything. This will go down as the 2010 Health Insurance Bailout act. Few Americans who currently don't have insurance will be helped, and few who do will notice one iota of difference. The largest group of people who will see positive change from this is the top executives at our health insurance companies.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The evidence for the efficiency and quality of government-run healthcare in other countries is indisputable.
However, too many people have been making money hand over fist in the US to let any system where they would be the cut cost pass. Overall, it's an opportunity for the government to provide what the market cannot. Either affordable healthcare or writing into law corporate profits. I don't trust our congressmen to avoid the latter.
You know the AMA only represents about 20% of physicians right? And they are actually usually very conservative and have blocked health care reform in the past? Which is one of the reasons they don't have more doctors as members.
How has private industry done so far with american healthcare? Cost more, gets less. Yup, that is a sign of success.
Oh and how has private industry been managing the economy?
It kinda amazes me that people with a healthcare system that is useless in the middle of a global recession all under the management of private industry, then dare to ask whether government can run things.
Imagine a discussion in North Korea: "Can private industry be expected to handle food production?"
Answer: "Who knows, but the question is silly when the current system is such an obvious mess".
Sometimes you got to take a chance. Do anything because when you are nose deep in shit, chances are anything is an improvement.
Can the government do a better job? It would be hard to imagine how they can screw it up even more.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There's only one thing you need to know and the rest is pure diversion:
The taxes start now and the benefits start later.
The reason this bill is being shoved through against so much opposition is because the government is frantically trying to raise tax revenue before the debt black hole sucks them in. Too bad we've already crossed the event horizon.
Your supply is high. In the UK we have 1.5 doctors per 1,000 people, in the USA, 2.4. Of course, we treat our doctors like crap.
The USA spends more per head on medical care than the rest of the world but gets poorer service. Either your efficiency is really low, or too much is getting creamed off the top as profit.
Part of the efficiency problem is that due to your liability culture you throw too many tests and treatments at things.
Part of the profit problem is that your medical system is run like a business that considers 15% a low profit margin.
Political debate in the United States is *dead*.
Every number you have heard or will hear about health care is a lie. It used to be that the Congressional Budget Office put out good numbers, but politicians have gotten too good at manipulating the process. Now, even CBO numbers are untrustworthy.
The rate regulation in the Senate health care bill is a disaster. The first problem is that no one in their right mind would ever enter a market which is rate regulated. The bureaucratic red tape will keep newcomers out. The second problem is that rate regulation removes any incentive that health care insurers have to control costs. Why? Because under the Senate bill, 90% of total health care insurance revenue must be paid out for health care. So, total revenue is x. All profit must come from y, which includes profit and all non health related expenditures. The last variable is z, health expenditures. x = y + z. y = 10% of x. z = 90% of x. How do you increase your profit in such a system? Easy. Increase z.
If I ran a health insurance company, on day 1 of the new health care regulations, I would shut down my fraud department. Not only would I get rid of a nonhealth care expenditure that must be counted against y (and thus my profits), but it would also increase fraudulent health care expenditures, which will be included in z. If the feds want to stop fraud, let them spend *their* money to do so. I don't care anymore.
So my insurance premiums go up because I am spending more money on health care. Won't my customers just go to my competitors? Well, because of rate regulation, there won't be very many competitors. The few existing competitors will be very likely to do the exact same things I'm doing.
Aren't I afraid that my customers will just drop health insurance altogether? That's the beauty of it. The Senate bill requires everyone to buy insurance. They can either buy my ridiculously overpriced insurance or they can pay a fine. And guess what the fine is used for? That's right, subsidies for other people to buy my insurance, so one way or another, I get the money.
Even if you want european style health care (which many Americans do not), the Senate bill is not the way to do it.
From our perspective (I'm a health policy person based in Europe), US health care is staggeringly expensive, very variable, and very unfair. It's the single biggest cause of personal bankruptcy in the States.
Your health is poor, overall, especially you have poor child health, and relatively poor maternal and infant health.
A large part of your population have no access to good quality health care, and this imposes large costs on your society.
Your major companies find high health care costs for staff a major burden, and this sharply reduces the competitiveness of good US employers.
You have the highest administrative costs for heath care that I know of, now running over 30%, and at current rates of increase, in thirty years you will be spending 100% of your GDP on health services.
At the top end, there is no better health care anywhere for acute illnesses, but very few people can access this.
The proposed changes are a start, and only a start. With no public option, there is a real risk that the insurance companies will continue to combine together to rip you off. However, the current proposals will save a lot of money over the next decade, which is why the insurance companies are spending millions buying ads, and influencing politicians to stop the change.
I hope it passes!
-- Anthony Staines
I do not have anything of actual use to say about this bill, other than common talking points, unsourced blather about what this bill will accomplish, and vague appeals to antiauthoritarianism. But please mod me +5 Insightful like you're doing with everyone else, just to be fair.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
If the health care reform plan goes through then it signals the end of civilization as you know. Just look at where I am from, Canada, where we introduced universal health care in 1962. Since then, we've been living in barbaric fiefdoms, the likes of which have not been seen outside of the Hyborian kingdom.
Part of the problem is a McDonalds on every fucking street corner.
Living With a Nerd
If I take what you're stating correctly, then Article 10 would also be able to shoot down Medicare, Fannie/Freddie, the NEA, the DOL.... NASA. In other words, it sounds right, but ever since the Civil War, I don't think it's been enforced in the manner you describe. There are specific exceptions in case law when dealing with commerce, and with health care spending in the top 5, it's a pretty easy out for the SC. I think you need look no further than the DEA's position on medical marijuana laws to realize that the 10th isn't that powerful. I'm not arguing that the 10th shouldn't be the law of the land, just that it plainly isn't, and a court challenge on strict 10th amendment grounds would cause an upheaval to the federal government.
most of the time I pay CASH (about $200 a year), which means I deal *directly* with my doctor.
I live in a country that has government-run universal insurance, and I deal *directly* with my doctor, too. I'm not sure why you believe this isn't possible.
"Will this bill do what the administration claims to do"?
Yes it will. It claims to tax the households in the upper 5% much greater than it does today, it claims to increase insurance costs for a large percentage of folks, and it will re-distribute the wealth it collects into the medical industry to provide health care for the lowest percentage of folks who mostly don't have insurance because they would rather have multiple TV's, cars and luxury items rather than buy health insurance.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
As i understand it, the bill has 3 major parts
1) a whole bunch of programs to evaluate new ideas; basically grants to researchers of one sort or another
2) regulations to rein in the bad behaviour of insurance companies
3) provide insurance to 30 million people who now lack it
lets leave 1 aside and look at 2 and 3
Do you really think that this bill will stop the insurance companies ? For instance, there is a section (109 in HR3967) that bans lifetime benefit caps. and you can read it yourself, and it looks pretty straightforward. I don't know how the insurance companies will get around it, but htey have, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars to buy armies of lawyers and lobbyiest and politicians to overturn this over the next 5-10 years
So my conclusion is tthat at best, (2) will have some moderate effect over a few years
As to 3 - I think what will happen, based on the MA model(I live in MA) is that yes, there will be a lot of people who will get insurance, but we won't have the money to pay for it. So, to save money, we will make this new insurance cheap and not very good (eg, low payments to doctors and hospitals, so only really bad hospitals will take people on this plan), so what will wind up happening is that we will create a permanent underclasss of people who have "insurance' that doesn't really work - it is like poor people who get charged with a capital felony crime; we pretend to provide lawyers, but dont' do anything really effective
If you look at the down side, it is Huge.
Obama is instituting a new national policy - health care, a basic fundamental right ina civilized society, is providd by for profit companies, and the FED. Govt requires you to pay these for profit compnies its horrible
Another way to look at this is Obama's track record, say with the wall street bail out, where he made sure bankers got their million dollar bonuses - with tax dollars that came from your pocket.
how on earth could anyone trust this guy with a track record like that ??
higher insurance premiums and longer wait times in the emergency room
Read it for yourself. What I read is a wet dream for the insurance companies and penalizes anyone who is self-reliant.
I have catastrophic insurance, so if I get cancer and my bills go over $20,000 then THEY will cover the cost.
That's what they want you to think. Of course, fighting a lawsuit when you're the one who has cancer and five-figure bills to pay, while the other side has a large legal department specialized on just that kind of case, is going to be fun.
Catastrophic health insurance is a scam.
Other people have said it but essentially, a very LOOSE intepretation of allows for this kind of thing:
1) Wrap it up in tax code
2) Commerce Clause
3) General Welfare Clause
Do you remember when Sonia Sotomayor was being grilled during her confirmation hearings? It was either Diane Fienstien or some other person explicity asked about how loosely she interpreted the Commerce Clause because they use it as the basis for so many laws and that overly strict interpretation would make their job harder or somesuch nonsense.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
It amazes me that with the high percentage of negative public opinion on the health care bill that congress is still considering it. This is supposed to be government by the will of the people, right? To me, the will of the people is not being executed here.
Also, this is apparent in the back door manner in which they are trying to pass the bill by some trick of house/senate rules. This isn't some bill to appropriate a few million dollars for federal park support but a bill involving a trillion dollars of outlay. Given the current administration's massive spending and addition to the national debt with little to show for it, does anybody have any real confidence that this will work?
Some comments on health care industries making money hand over fist. Everybody seems to be in an outrage with doctors making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, but nobody bats an eye when some sports star signs a multi-million dollar contract. If you were going to the hospital for open heart surgery, would you want the lowest paid doctor that has no incentive for good performance cutting you open? I'd want the super-star doctor that drives the Porche. If he's good enough to earn that much money, he's got to be worth his salt.
If they were really serious about health care reform, why didn't they start with the biggest money issue in health care: tort reform. Why? Because Congress is made up with a bunch of lawyers that don't want to see their industry lose out on billions of dollars per year in fees brought about by the misery of other people. People are incensed about million dollar bonuses at financial firms, but nobody shines the light on lawyers that, for the amount of work put in, end up making thousands of dollars per hour in a settlement or ruling. Consider, also, that even though that doctor is making a quarter of a million dollars per year, he's paying 25 or 30 percent of that in malpractice insurance to protect himself from every Tom, Dick and Harry that decides to sue because they didn't follow instructions and ripped their stitches out.
Some lawyers are a blight on society, but unfortunately, their buddies are crawling all over Washington as lobbyists or in Congress/DoJ/White House/etc. The more I think about it, the more I agree with what Get Out of Our House is doing.
Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
Don't give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings! Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, coffee-nosed, malodorous, pervert!!!
Best Slashdot Co
And what part of your comment contradicts mine?
The number of physicians in the US is controlled, and kept artificially low. That was the point of my post. You said nothing to contradict that.
Obviously here in the states, this bill is a huge deal for us especially considering the price tag attached. I noticed several non-US based posters chiming in about how they don't care about this topic, etc. etc. Understandable since this is a widely read site across the globe. But instead of just posting a negative comment about our health care situation, how about helping us understand how health care works in your country. Pros...cons...whatever. Not being fully versed in what other countries offer and certainly not believing what the major news outlets spew, I figured this would be the best place to ask. Thanks.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
I know we're getting trolled, but it's too important an issue to ignore.
In an ideal world, we would tackle the problem properly by decoupling health insurance from employment. Linking health care to employment was the worst mistake ever made in health care in America. There are probably too many powerful lobbyist in Washington to hope for that to ever change. So we're left with imperfect alternatives. Such is politics, such is life.
And yes, this is an imperfect bill, but it's a first step towards badly needed reform. Is going to hurt? There's no way health care reform can NOT hurt some interests, while helping others. That's why leadership - political or otherwise - is supposed to take courage. Too bad we don't get that from our leaders.
See: Comedy Central.
As a Brit, the "quality" of TV news in the US depresses me no end; I'm amazed that anyone has been able to hold even vaguely rational debates about the Healthcare reform bill given the utter bollocks spewing from all sides of the media. At least The Daily Show doesn't pretend to be a serious news organisation.
The only conclusion I can draw from the coverage I've seen is that the Healthcare reform bill will either cure cancer or mandate the killing of anyone over 40, it could go either way.
The healthcare bill is so huge and complex that it is difficult to have any intelligent debate over it. People mostly make simple, sound bite sized remarks. Very few people seem to understand the bill. I don't understand it myself.
That said, the conventional wisdom states that the bill will be extremely expensive, on the scale of Social Security or Medicare. While I agree the current health care system leaves a lot to be desired, I think the timing is terrible. Our financial house is not in order and the economy seems to be in the middle of a long term case of fatigue. In short, I don't think we can afford it. I'm worried it could be the straw, or bale, that breaks the camel's back.
I'm still reading and wondering HOW this applies or even belongs in this forum. This accomplishes nothing but to start the much-heated bantering again.
This is a hot-button POLITICAL issue that *supposedly* bears no value here unless we find there is hidden wording (what? in over 2000 pages of legislation from OUR congress? I must be off my rocker!) pertaining to the way data or information or privacy will be (ab)used in the future whether this pork-laden by-product passes or not.
In the end isn't this OP trolling??
The reality is that the government doesn't seem to get anything done. I recall Arlen Spector saying that the patriot act was flaws, but he would vote for it as is and fix it later... Well as you can see, no one has really changed it to fix it. In 1992/1993 when Bill Clinton tried to make health care, no one agreed with him and he couldn't pass the bill. The republicans that later got in control of congress failed to make another health care bill. I think it will be similar with this bill. The republicans are calling to scrap the bill and start over, or why the hurry. But pretty much they (and the democrats who vote no) will forget about it.
Still a lot of provisions I don't like. For example if you get cancer you are screwed with a 5 million per year benefits cap. But then again my insurance at work has a 5 million dollar lifetime cap, so I am even more screwed. People like my brother who didn't go to college and work at hourly jobs without benefits need this bill. He doesn't make enough money to afford health insurance, and the company does not provide it. So there's really nothing he can do. If he gets poison ivy, even real bad, he has to sit at home and suffer rather than visiting a doctor to get a prescription for a cortico steroid that could cure it. That's not right.....
Also an awful lot of personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills. There was a time when I graduated college and I was unemployed for almost a year before finding a job. If I got into a traffic accident or I broke my foot jogging, I would have been in deep trouble. Sometimes surgeries go into the hundred thousands or even millions.... I don't have that kind of money. Even now, if I got cancer and went over that 5 million lifetime cap on my company's insurance, I'd have to somehow borrow massive amounts of money that I would never pay back, or just die... Any system that doesn't value human life over all else is broken....
This bill pretty much sucks. The more provisions I see of it, the more I hate it. Also the parties are busy taking pot shots about things like abortion funding instead of fixing the bill. I don't really care about abortion funding. Most Americans don't give a damn either except for a few religious right nuts. I just want a bill that gives me some security that if I lose my job and get sick, I'm not going to have to declare bankruptcy or suffer with my illness until it gets better or I die......
Considering the Trillions we spend on wars, I think one trillion for health insurance is worth it. It is an investment in the american people... And unfortunately if this shitty bill doesn't pass, the same thing that happened in 1992-1993 will happen again, people will scream it is the other party's fault, and then it will go away..... But it's a shitty Bill for sure. It is overly complicated, probably on purpose so that no one can read/understand the whole thing before voting on it. I'm sure there are lots of special interest payments in here......
It also does nothing to address the over charging on medical supplies. Ie the $500 paperclip. Not only that but when you don't have insurance all the rates are way higher than the rates negotiated with insurance companies. So not only is it harder to pay, it is even more expensive without insurance. Because those companies have people to say $500 for a paperclip, you're full of shit, we'll give you $1 and the hospital will be like okay, we still make $.95. And the people doing the billing try to double/triple charge me all the time. The insurance company and hospital billing often fight for 6 or 7 months before they get the entire bill properly worked out........ The hospital will bill twice, the insurance company will see two bills and reject all the bills, etc... Then you have to act as mediator to teach the hospital how to code the bill....And the insurance company to be ready for a payment....it wastes a long time.... By yourself you don't have a chance.... The rates are crazy too. I was well over $1,0
The morality issue that the health insurance industry is set up to rape its "customers" at the cost of their health?
There's a reason why every other civilized nation has publicly funded, universal health care - the government of a state, no matter how inept it may be, is in place to serve the needs of its citizens.
Private health care, no matter how competent, is in place to generate profit for the private corporation operating it.
The primary lever operating on a public-run system is voter outrage. This tends to apply pressure on the government to improve the system for the benefit of customers.
The primary lever operating on a private system is the generation of profit. This tends to apply pressure towards raising costs and reducing services.
The current American system is defective by design and is ruining the health of your citizens. And the shills of the insurance companies have convinced a large portion of you that it is immoral to try and fix the system. THAT is what you should be outraged about - that you have been successfully PSYOPed into believing that universal public healthcare is somehow immoral and wrong.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Study after study has completely debunked the myth that high malpractice insurance is due to frivolous lawsuits. High malpractice insurance is for the same reason their is high medical insurance. The insurance companies made bad investments and lost their shirts now they're raking everyone over the coals while still pulling down 20 to 40% profits.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
The "truth" is, the same people that want anything the Obama Administration does to fail are the same people that created the Third Largest Government Agency.
How has that worked out? And where was their outrage over its creation and its current status of operation?
Try sending a letter or small package through the USPS, UPS and FedEx and let me know which one was more cost effective.
Now try building a straw man and knocking him down.
I like microcars
The major lawsuit-related driver of medical costs is not frivolous suits. It is jackpot verdicts, where someone with no lasting harm or even short-term disability can be awarded tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive and other special damages. Because the number is big, jurors think that this sends the right message, and because a faceless insurance company will pay most or all of it, they're not afraid of the costs it will incur for the doctor. That's why tort reform usually tries to impose caps on damages, and that in turn is why courts usually throw the laws out (because the laws are seen as a legislative infringement on the judicial function).
One specific beef. One of the tax proposals is to extend the Medicare tax to unearned income for anyone who makes more than $200,000 ($250,000 if filing jointly). Specifically, it means that if you make $199,999 you're not taxed on any investment income or capital gains, but if you make another dollar then the tax applies retroactively to any capital gains you have whatsoever, possibly costing you hundreds of dollars.
That's bad tax design, and it will probably bite a bunch of middle-class/upper-middle-class types who have sudden large expenses and need to liquidate something to pay for them.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Good luck on getting them to pay the bills because most of them deny over half of the claims if not more. Go Google your provider, I'll wait here.
I have heard nothing but bad things about catastrophic insurance from college students I know who used it to register for classes and you should pry read your policy right now to see if you can even litigate them if they deny you coverage, I doubt it. Who is going to end up paying your health care costs if you get sick? Oh yeah, that's right everyone but you. You are no better than the welfare moms you bitch about.
Your paranoid delusions about this being some left-wing conspiracy to force you into some politically correct lifestyle would be funny if it was not so pitiful.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
This is not a 'health care reform'.
This is not even an 'insurance reform'.
What is going to pass is a few regulations that are supposedly going to make it not possible for an insurance company to drop coverage, to do rescission and a few more items. - This is good.
Here is what you are not going to get:
1. No optional public insurance against private insurance, the prices will not go down. Worse than that, what is happening is private insurance is raising prices to offset any of the new changes that will be coming with this 'reform'. Does not look good.
2. You probably are going to get a mandate, which is unfortunate given that you will have no public option. You will be forced to buy into expensive private insurance, there will be no choice or it looks like you will get some sort of a fine. Does not look good.
3. No cheaper drugs imported from other countries. The bill was introduced earlier this fall, but Obama actually killed it very very personally because he signed a deal with the manufacturers to do this: no competition from cheaper imported drugs AND the patents are to be extended from 5 years to something like 12 years. Does not look good.
4. Looks like US is one of the backwards countries that will try to limit women's access to health care they need. You going to get the 'reform' that will prevent any private insurance coverage for women that includes abortion. This is no joke, even for those who have coverage today, looks like they will actually lose it with this 'reform'. Does not look good.
The other part of it, the cost of it, that's a moot point. It was calculated that if Medicare was provided as a buy in for anyone at all, at cost (at cost - means whatever it costs, but no money is made for profit), or if there was a public option, then the reform could even save money. The way it is going to happen with no public negotiations with hospitals, no public negotiations with drug manufacturers, no import of cheaper drugs, no generics because the patents will be extended, well, I don't know if this will be cost neutral. It does not matter really, if US just cut its WAR cost, it's defense contractors costs they could probably fund the entire reform in health insurance and there would be enough money for the public education reform. Of-course that's not going to happen.
Anyway, Pelosi and Obama and the rest of them are lying sacks of shit. They do not want to take a vote on the public option, they will not take a vote on Grayson's proposal to just allow anyone to buy into Medicare at cost. This is not a health reform, this is just a little chunk of 'change' you were promised. Take it and be happy, cause you are not going to get anything better at all.
You can't handle the truth.
Links? Why bother, I'm sure there aren't any. I've read over and over again exactly the opposite of what you are claiming. I could dig up links for you but I'm too busy making money and paying ridiculously taxes to pay for the health care for you and all the other socialist bums on this site.
I just can't help but think this bill isn't going to do it. I'm sad about the lack of a public option and I'm disappointed in the Democrats for their lack of solidarity. The GOP is a stubborn bunch but they remain effective in their unity.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
You'll change your tune once you have a family, assuming you're not gay. You're obviously not having any annual checkups or medical tests if you only pay $200/year. More often than not, doctors will charge double what they do with insurance companies for cash / self-pay people. It would appear you are avoiding health services, because just walking into a door will give you at least a $100 for a 3 minute consultation. Had your eyes checked lately? Dental care? Don't be fooled into thinking because you don't feel anything you are in great health.
The point of this article is to discuss the reform in a constructive manner, not to bash entire ideologies just because they are not your own.
Obviously, you've never seen a single hour of Fox. Imagine several schizophrenic paranoid white men, who are afraid of gays, Mexicans, muslims, the poor (that's code for minorities), hate equality, love war, and instead of using a values system as a starting point for their worldview, they start out with a worldview and then selectively apply their values system in nonsensical rants. Give them an audience and editors and producers that only care about ratings and pushing ideology handed directly to them from GOP and other ultra-conservative sources.
Now pretend that it's news so people think they are using journalistic standards, when in fact they are simply opinion shows.
All of the media outlets are rather stupid. Fox News is dangerously delusional.
This isnt communism. Read the bill.
Its more fascism. This isnt a government run health care program, its a mandate that buy private insurance from the insurance industry.
Thats not quite communism.
And Single Payer, Universal health care wouldnt be communism either, anymore than the military would be. Not that this bill is Single Payer. The democrats failed to bring real health care reform. What we are left with is a corporate welfare bill, that the democrats will praise like the republicans praised no child left behind and the patriot act. This not to say I support the republicans in anyway. More so that the democrats are just as lame and bought out by the corporations we ask them to regulate.
For some reason SOME people are ok with spending all of our money on military defense, but when it comes to spending it on health defense... certain people cry communism.
Brain-washing and indoctrination.
Listen. Just because the person you meet and discuss intimate details with at the "doctor's" office is wearing a lab coat and a stethescope, it doesn't mean he or she is a doctor. They are actually just civil servants who have hidden microphones and very discrete ear pieces, that allows what you're telling them to be heard by a 13-person death-panel, who will then instruct the "doctor" what to do.
The death-panel consists of:
This is how socialized "medicine" works. The only medicine involved with it, is making sure your body is sold off in parts to raise money for the party leaders! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROSES! Actually, those aren't roses but the perfumes used to cover up the stench of rotting corpses in the streets.
</sarcasm>
universal healthcare is a form of investment in your society that pays dividends
if you don't pay for it overtly, you pay for the lack of universal healthcare in terms of easily preventable heart conditions complicating into more expensive conditions, breadwinners out of work because they can't treat their diabetes leading to their children to become street criminals, mumps and whooping cough outbreaks because vaccination is too complicated for the poor, people out sick more often because of inadequate healthcare, personal bankruptcies leading to losses at financial institutions due to sudden and expensive healthcare, etc.
in other words, you pay for healthcare, one way or another, no matter what your policy is
its just that universal healthcare is the CHEAPEST way to pay for it. but since the cost is overt and in your face, you reject it. but this simply means you don't understand the roundabout MORE EXPENSIVE and hidden ways you pay for it if you DON'T have universal healthcare
in other words, libertarian and tea bagger rejection of universal healthcare is based on a lack of ability to understand that life is complicated. what happens if you DON'T pay for healthcare as a society? people who get sick just disappear off the face of the earth? they are all paragons of personal financial virtue and never need aid? you yourself never need a helping hand? think about reality, then form an opinion
there are PLENTY of areas of life that should NEVER be public, and should always be private, for a number of reasons. capitalism, in fact, is the most useful engine for the creation of wealth ever invented by man. the point is, for SOME sectors of life, not all, making some thing run by the government actually is the CHEAPEST AND MOST EFFICIENT way for that sector to function
in other words, simplistic, fundamentalist adherence to the idea of free markets does NOT answer all questions in life, JUST AS TRUE as a simplistic, fundamentalist adherence to communist ideas does not work. but socialism, as understood by the rest of the first world, is simple the concept that SOME, not ALL, sectors of life require the government to run it for MAXIMUM FINANCIAL EFFICIENCY
a society with a capitalist engine, with socialist safety nets grafted on, is SUPERIOR and MORE EFFICIENT than a purely capitalist society. this really is the objective financially solid truth, not an opinion. lose your utopianism please: in life, simplistic absolutist philosophies, such as a fanatic devotion to individual reliance, DOES NOT WORK IN ALL FORMS. you are part of a society. as such, you contribute financially to it so that SOME functions in your life. by doing that some functions in your life are simply handled MORE CHEAPLY than if you handled them yourself. life is complicated, and requires a moderation between competing needs. understand this about the world, and drop your extremist ideologies
there is such a concept as the common good. there is such a concept as personal reliance. both are paragons of virtue that, in the real world, exist in tension in how they work. the idea is to find a BALANCE between the two ideals, not to simplemindedly adhere to one or the other polar extreme
teabaggers and libertarians: in SOME avenues of life, not all, the government is good, and works for you. you reject it at the price of your own impoverishment. that's the simple obvious truth
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You clearly don't know what "entitlement" means, so don't waste your breath ranting about it.
In 1999, administration cost $1,059 per capita in the US, versus $307 per capita in Canada, per New England Journal of Medicine. So much for private businesses being better than the government. I've lived in Cyprus, UK, Canada, USA, Australia and China, and my experience, the UK has the most encompassing system, and Canada (Ontario at least) the most proactive and efficient. I totally hated the American system, and I can't say I'm much of a fan of what I saw in Melbourne. China was great as an expat because it was so bloody affordable, but that's not what we're discussing here.
Don't worry, IT will get regulated. Our industry has far too much power that, quite frankly, scares the shit out politicians. They can't leave well enough alone. Never have, never will.
Life is not for the lazy.
Not entirely true. The legislative actions (ending recissions, forcing insurance companies to cover everyone, etc) take effect immediately. Only the benefits that cost money have been delayed. There will be a big, positive effect right away.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Its worse, its not that they fine you, THEY CAN THROW YOU INTO JAIL FOR FIVE YEARS
[citation needed]
There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking care of fellow humans, with loving and cherising their lives as much as your own, and with giving them your money so they can live longer and healthier lives. Except that this bill is not about that. It's about forcing you to do these things at gunpoint (and yes, a gunpoint is somewhere in your future if you stop paying your taxes) by raising taxes (by 3.8%) and by forcing you to buy health insurance when you don't want to do so. This is the core problem of socialism: it's not that we should hate helping our fellow man, it's that we should hate being forced to do so. It's that we should hate not being able to choose whom to help with our efforts, and so to not be able to value the lives of the people we love more than the people we don't.
Here's the graph. Health Care expenditures, as a percentage of US GDP, have increased pretty significantly over the last 40 years. Keep in mind that health care costs are PART of GDP (so when WellPoint raises insurance rates, it actually shows up as an increase in GDP, which helps illustrate why GDP might not be the best indicator of our national economic health). That means that the expenditures in the health care sector have been growing much faster than those in most other sectors of the economy - if they were all growing equally, the portion of the GDP associated with health care would stay flat.
I have my own opinions about how to solve this mess, but I'm not in congress and I have trouble making my fish agree with me, let alone other people. So I won't talk about those, just about the facts of the situation.
Here's an idea, instead of forcing everyone to GET expensive health care, lets try lowering it's cost first. You realize that with the government paying for healthcare, the cost of that care is just going to go up? Prices that companies charge individuals are generally cheap. Prices they charge companies are high and prices they charge goverments are INSANE? We're all going to be getting $800 toilet seats.
So, instead of the current plan, lets try this first.
1. Buy insurance across state lines. This gives people the opportunity to search for cheap insurance. Right now you can only get insurance in your state... Imagine if you couldn't buy anything over the internet across state lines.
2. Limit lawsuit payouts. The lawyers (sharks with lasers) are making a KILLING on lawsuits. Reduce the payouts and the sharks will have less to feed on, there will be fewer ambulance chasers because the $$$ will become reasonable.
3. Reduce the FDA requirements. Wow, meds sure are expensive. Oh, they aren't in canada? Oh, and canada sells the same meds for much less and they don't have such a stringent approval process? Hmmm
4. Promote Savings Health Accounts (see 1. first) - If you put in $xxx dollars tax free into an account that's YOUR money. Once you cap it at a certain level you just pay the maintenance (the insurance part in case something catastrophic happens) Now, it's your task to shop around for an affordable healthcare provider. You'll think twice before paying $300 for a checkup.
5. This topic wasn't designed to discuss immigration, but guess what, that's a major cost in health care. The country will fail if the people paying into healthcare are expected to support every ILLEGAL immigrant that wants healthcare. Especially if the hospitals are charging those goverment rates for it ($30 for an aspirin anyone?) I'm just going to say, if you can't reasonably prove your an american, you don't get american health care, unless you can pay cash.
Exercise: Call 3 local providers and tell them that you have some common malady and tell them that you have Blue Cross insurance, ask them what it will cost you, and what they will bill BC. The next day, call them all back, same malady and tell them you're paying out of pocket. If day 2 isn't a third of day 1 I will eat my shoe.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Have to say "ditto", as an Australian who spends ~6 months a year in the US. Two main observations with US news:
- It's quite partisan. You tend to hear one side of the argument from one channel, and the other from another. Rarely do you hear a well-balanced story out of a single source. I think the lack of a well funded public broadcaster (ala BBC or Australian ABC) is most of the reason behind this.
- The emphasis placed on local, national, international is almost completely the opposite of what I'm used to in Australia. Generally in Australia, an international story or major domestic (but never local) story would be first in the bulletin. From my trips to the UK it appears to be similar there. Local stuff would be relegated to 2/3rds through the news, with sport and weather at the end. In the US it seems to be mostly local/domestic, then maybe if you're lucky one international story near the end (and only if its really major ... you never hear 'interesting but not that important' stories from overseas like you do elsewhere).
The other odd thing (to me at least), is that even if you compared a US local news with an Australian local news bulletin, the type of stories they run are quite different. In the US they have local stories like "the mall is getting extended" or "they are putting traffic lights in on this intersection". That'd never get reported at home ... the local stories are more along the lines of what the local/State govt. is doing, or any major crime incidents etc.
On the other hand, the US does one thing way better than anyone else - weather. Even little local stations in small towns have their own meteorologist and often their own Doppler radar, and they actually know what they are talking about! In Australia you just get some vacant blonde chick who knows NOTHING about weather, reading the script sent to her by the weather bureau. :)
I live in a country that has government-run universal insurance, and I deal *directly* with my doctor, too. I'm not sure why you believe this isn't possible.
Brain-washing and indoctrination.
The funny thing is, your tongue-in-cheek post spoofing the right-wing mentality in the US actually answers the question quite factually right there.
I'm American. I've lived most of my life in the United States, but have lived numerous times, for a number of years, outside of the United States (Germany, France, Japan, Hong Kong, and currently the United Kingdom) and had occasion to use the healthcare system myself, or have one in my family use it, in nearly all those locations (to be pedantic: I did not need to use the healthcare system in Japan).
The US system is by far the worst system I have used, in terms of delivery of service, cost, and effeciency. The healthcare (when provided) was adequate most of the time, but subpar more often than you might imagine (my wife got a staff infection from a routine vaccination that nearly killed her...mainly because the hospitical couldn't figure out how to diagnose such an obvious problem for an indordinate amount of time. And don't get me started on the weeks-long waiting lists for critical tests like angiograms, and the lab test results that show up months late, the lack of follow-through by doctores, and the billing mistakes that are perpetual to the point of absurdity, and always favor the hospital).
In contrast, we've had no trouble whatsoever with the medical system in Germany, France, or Hong Kong (though this was back when Hong Kong was a part of the British Empire, so YMMV these days), and with the NHS in England, only the occasional hassle of having to follow up on getting test results (but at least when you do follow up, they show up within a couple of weeks, unlike Northwestern, where they routinely go AWOL for 6 months or longer).
But try telling that to any of my fellow Americans. They simply will refuse to believe it (and most likely label you a liar for daring to reveal such uncomfortable truths that challenge their world-view of us having the best system in the world). Why? Years of rhetoric and brainwashing, founded on absolutely no facts.
Want another datapoint? Guess where the richest (non-American) people in the world tend to travel to for their private medical treatment. And I'm talking about Richer-Than-God, I can fly in my gold-plated jet anywhere in the world I like (including the US) and spend more than the GDP of a small country on my medical care people.
It isn't the US. Not most of the time, anyway.
The US is a distant fourth, behind France, the UK, and Germany? Why? Because a lot of the leading-edge research Americans (like one who has posted here) think only happens in the US, and excuse our rediculously lousy price/performance ratio on, actually take place and is funded by those countries that are paying 25-50% of what we pay for our substandard medical care.
But then, we're the best in the world. We don't need to learn anything from anyone else, do we? (cue patriotic music and refrains of "God Bless America" here)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
As long as you don't mind the difference of about an order of magnitude in population and GDP, yes. FYI: Population of Virginia: about 8 million, population of France: about 60 million. GDP of Virginia: about $400B, GDP of France: over $2T.
Just one, I'm sure there are more: http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-obamas-health-care-myths-exposed/19402359 [aolnews.com]
Umm, that linked article is an opinion piece that says it would "threaten people with jail time" but provides no citation. He doesn't even use the correct term since jail would be for a local offense and prison for a federal crime. You'll have to do a lot better than that, like a citation in the bill, perhaps. I searched the text of it and there were no matches for "prison," "imprisonment," or "jail". I can give you a hundred references and cite the portion of the bill where is says you can be fined up to $750 per uninsured adult in a household. I can't find anything about a prison sentence. I'm calling bullshit on this one, unless you can provide a real citation.
The whole insurance industry for healthcare is based on a flawed premise that normal care need insurance.
Here's the car analogy... if our cars were done like healthcare:
1. Gas would cost 10$/gal at the pump for cash/credit.
2. You would pay 25$ for every time you fueled up and your car insurance company would actually pay them 3.75$/gal for the gas
3. You would pay 150$/month for this "wonderfully cheaper gas"
4. Ohh... and if you need roadside assistance you have to pay for the first 5 fully before the insurance company starts picking up the tab.
So let's go back to why health insurance is flawed. Normal healthy individuals may make 3 (annual plus 2 cold/flu) trips to the doctor in a year. I pay 218$ per month for insurance through my employer (not counting the portion they pay). This means that I am effectively paying 872$ per trip to my doctor... ok... lets let that sink in... even if you count a nurse, doctor and receptionist out front splitting it and them only seeing 3 patients per hour (rough cases might take that long) we are still talking they would be making 1.74 MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR EACH! Now if you have any friends that are medical professionals I bet you know that there are VERY few that are making that much per year... especially receptionists :)
Now the argument is that "well this money helps balance out all the catastrophic claims"... fine then why are we using insurance for non-catastrophic claims? I have home owners insurance in case a tornado takes my house out but I don't run my water-softener salt or home improvement projects through the insurance company.
Why when it comes to health insurance do we loose the common sense that the more people that touch the money the more we have to pay for the same service.
Leave insurance for catastrophic claims and lets get rid of the day-to-day shenanigans. This should quell a lot of the issues in the industry and make it so that people could pay for what they need instead of padding peoples pockets for day-to-day necessities.
Telcos have alot of dark fibre in the States. Most people assume that's optical fibre...but it's actually moral fibre.
The fundamental problem with the American healthcare system is its high cost. That's why so many people don't have coverage, and that's why attempting universal coverage right now is going to cost so much more than it should. Universal access is a noble goal, but far better to lower costs first. This report does an excellent job of breaking down exactly where we spend more money than the rest of the world. My platform is based around lowering costs in four areas: administrative costs, prescription drugs, malpractice insurance, and practitioner conflict of interest. Based on that report, my proposals would lower the average American's health care costs by over $1000 per year, without requiring any new federal spending or expansion of government power.
If I can figure all this out in my spare time, you know Congress has to know it too. Which means either A) I'm horribly wrong, or B) both parties define the problem differently than I do. Which raises the question, exactly what do they see as the problem?
Former US House candidate, TN-5
Actually, there are provisions in place to keep them from just charging whatever they want: they have to pay out at least 85% of revenues on actual medical care. Given that insurance companies have their own staff that they have to pay, this puts pretty strict limits on how much they can actually profit.
1) Virtually every Western democracy has public health care (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care).
2) By some miracle, they manage to pay for it.
3) By and large, if you read the blogs of people actually living in those countries, they appear reasonably happy with their imperfect but functioning health systems (http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/international/).
So, the opponents are essentially claiming that America is too "special" (i.e. lame) to do what virtually every other country can do. That may not be what they say, but that's what they imply.
Any questions?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In fact, per the bill, insurers have to pay out 85% of their revenues in actual medical care, which means it's more or less impossible for them to just charge whatever they want. Yes, a public option would be better, and single-payer would be better still... but this bill is still a huge improvement on the status quo.
I don't know much about fox news (not being a resident in the US), so I can't comment much about that but what I don't understand it is people are so against this reform. Yes it is a 'socialist' policy but the lives of so many people will be helped by this policy. I know a number of people who have had there lives saved or dramatically improved due to the intervention of the NHS here in the UK. yes the NHS has problems, but rarely is there anything that doesnt. The bill isn't communism, you don't have to have government run healthcare, go private if it bothers you. Granting cheap/free healthcare to those who can't afford insurance isn't a bad thing it would help the US become a better nation I've used the NHS many a time and never had a problem, In fact I've only used my medical isurance for minor little problems that are more annoying than serious. Don't slam government run healthcare. It's a good thing
Just declare a war on high healthcare costs, wrap the american flag around it & yourself and commit a $700b/yr budget to bomb the problem to the stone age.
Just run healthcare like the military! Big bloated budgets, heavy fist shaking, and pour in a whole lot of flag wrapped mccarthyism and BINGO!
G.W. Bush advocated no nation building and humble foreign policy when campaigning for pres in 2000, and previous stated formula worked wonders to turn the republicans around 180 degrees.
Thank goodness it worked in catching Binny and boys!
Don't listen to this guy, it's just random spew of talking points emailed to him from the DNC.
The biggest push that Marxism or socialism in general has is the 'right to health care'. So when people are concerned about government run health care and socialism their fears are based in reality.
The military is not a business. I don't know how that is even an argument. Our constitution requires the government to have a military to protect our citizens.
Ignoring the George Bush comments, that's just name that's invoked to gain acceptance of other like minded liberals/socialists.
I agree with the change to metric, although the reason we don't switch over is the huge cost associated with such a large country.
"In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
The case of Texas is instructive - they strictly limited damage payouts for medical malpractice cases... and their medical malpractice insurance premiums continued to escalate at exactly the same rate as the rest of the country. Nor was there any particular change in overall health-care cost escalation. So I think we can safely ignore this particular line of argument.
About 3 or 4 hectomegaseconds ago, we started gradually phasing that in, starting with NASA. Probe crashed. Stupid government. We need private industry metricism!!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
That's the problem, and it is a real problem. However this bill is not the answer. The answer is regulation at the state level.
The US health insurance industry is currently regulated by individual states. Different states have different rules. However, one element to the current system is that the state government (which is more responsive to the needs of citizens usually than the federal government) tends to have offices for dealing with these sorts of complaints. Additionally, the same offices take complaints from doctors about lack of authorization for procedures. While this means that some states have better health insurance requirements than others, it means there is a clear point of contact when a problem exists that needs to be resolved quickly.
The problem with this bill is it entirely supplants the state health insurance regulation structures and replaces them with a shiny new federal system. There is no way that the main protections that the states offer against insurance abuses will work right away in the federal system. By pre-empting a fairly mature system of state regulation, this bill will not save lives but rather cost them.
The secondary problem is that the bill has inadequate cost control provisions. In Massachussets, after they passed a similar bill, health insurance rates went up. We can expect the same here. Quite frankly, I have no idea how I will afford it when the rates go up. Right now, when insurance companies raise their rates, I can drop off until they lower them again. This bill makes me part of a captive market.
The real underlying problem left unresolved is that we have inadequate consumer protections in the areas of health care and health insurance. While this bill purports to improve these conditions, it fixes, IMO, the wrong problems and leaves major issues unresolved. Why is it that I have more consumer protections when getting my car repaired than in obtaining non-emergency medical care?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I always hear this knee-jerk Fox bashing.
Guess what? All news sources have a slant, and bashing Fox just shows your bias.
Right Slant
----------------
Fox
Left Slant
--------------
CNN
MSNBC
ABC
CBS
Comedy-f'king-Central
So watch your TV with your brain turned on at all times, I would think.
FUNK!
Current support for the bill is running about even - around 45-45, with the remainder undecided. And if you ask people whether they're in favor of what's actually in the bill, they're overwhelmingly in favor. It's just that the Republicans (and their benefactors, the insurance companies) have done a good job of making the bill look bad in the public eye.
The republican house in 2005-06 used the same "back door manner" to pass almost a third of all the legislation they passed, and no one said a word. This argument is just dumb. The house is just going to vote on the original bill and the reconciliation fix at the same time. There's nothing "back-door" about it.
With respect to tort reform - this is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by the Republican party to get back at a group of people that traditionally gives more money to the other party (lawyers). Study after study has shown that tort reform would have a negligible effect on medical costs.
The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract.
So then all laws requiring motor vehicle insurance are unconstitutional? That would be interesting.
The kings of inefficiency.
We spend 17% of our GDP on health care right now. Other nations get the same or better overall results spending less than half of this. Yes you might have to wait for some services but there is clearly huge inefficiencies in the current system, so much so that it is easy to argue that even a government run program would be better.
Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada who are waiting 6 months for a CT scan, where here in the U.S. it's unusual to wait for more than a few days.
There is quite a bit of evidence that the US has a huge and expensive overcapacity in exotic medical devices brought about by our current insurance system. We also clearly pay far more for the same drugs than people in other countries.
We supposedly pay 17% now, and we live longer lives
People in Canada, France, Germany, UK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy all have longer life expectancies than Americans and pay far less than 17% of their GDP for that life span.
Your article is full of factual errors. Try doing some research next time.
"We have to pass this bill so you can find out what's in it..."
To quote Eugene Volokh, "It's going to be very, very exciting!"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I'm a conservative. Sucks sometimes, but that's the way it is. Fox news is evil.
Needless to say, I was against health care reform from the start. But, I listened, and thought about it. At some point it occurred to me that it would be nice to separate my health insurance from my employer; changing jobs should not impact the coverage I provide for my family and myself. My current job is with a DoD contractor, which provides plenty of evidence that I wouldn't be happy with the government in charge of health care. If there were a free and open insurance market, one where price levels could be tied to services provided, and costs were not hidden, then buying medical insurance would be similar to buying auto or home insurance. Oh well, it didn't happen.
I think this bill will help, some. I also think more is needed. Getting rid of the pre-existing condition cop out is a big gain. But, we've just provided the insurance companies with millions of new customers, some of whom are young and healthy and won't use their insurance, and we haven't significantly changed the way they do business.
It's because people here are stupid. They are so desperate to avoid any trappings of Socialism that they'd rather die because they can't get medical care than to let Big Evil Government help them out.
So, I'm stupid because I have a world view that I, not Obaman, own my body. Thank you, Mr. Sheep, but, yes, I would rather die than let "Big Evil Government" help me out. You see, in order to let BEG help me out, I will have to turn control of my life over to them...a fate worse than death.
The truth is that we desperately need a single-payer system, just like every industrialized country in the world that realized a long time ago that health care is a basic infrastructure need for a productive, thriving population.
Yes, because people are dropping dead left and right around me. It's a picture straight out of "Zombieland"
But the American people are collectively so scared, stupid, and easily swayed, even by outright lies ("Death panels! Federally funded abortion! Rampant costs! Elderly care cuts!") posted on bumper stickers, they they would literally show up with torches and pitchforks in Washington if Congress actually did what is right.
Only half of us are scared of that. The other half run screaming for their mothers if you whisper "Pay your own damn way" in their ears.
The funny thing to me is that these stupid people who are so quick to bash Socialism are usually fanboys of one of the most huge, expensive Socialist organizations in the entire world: the U.S. military.
When we set up this country, you know, with that silly "Constitution" and all, they enumerated some things that the government would be responsible for. Things that made sense. A federal military to protect the federation made sense. A federal bureaucracy to direct individual health care is nonsense in an American context.
Now, I'm not bashing the military, I have a lot of respect for it, Socialist as it is and everything. But it's just kind of funny how when George Bush sunk trillions of dollars into it, you didn't see these idiots showing up in Washington with caricatures of him as Hitler.
Ahem....http://semiskimmed.net/bushhitler.html...now you have.
But consider this. The U.S. is the only country, other than Myanmar, that still has not converted to the metric system. If this country is so stubborn and stupid as to not do things the right way just to spite those damn commies in Europe (and not have to buy a new set of wrenches), seriously, what hope do we ever have of really moving to a single-payer health care system?
And now, you demonstrate what a simpleton you are. It isn't just some lone mechanic having to buy a new set of wrenches. It is about replacing trillions of dollars worth of machine tools, trillions of dollars worth of machines, and trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of supporting infrastructure. You're willingness to slur others over your academic concept of replacing a massively entrenched system overnight with something that works better in your mind belies your inexperience and ignorance. Come back and talk to us when you grow up.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Similarly, the overall level of health might be improved if the feds stopped subsidizing meat, dairy, and corn (as in high fructose corn syrup). But not only is that not something being done outside of a healthcare reform bill, that's not even in this bill. You would think if the problem is how much it costs to make fat people not die, the first step would be to stop spending money that helps make them so fat in the first place.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Mass here. Self-employed, using the state mandated marketplace. - Costs were up 38% last year, year over year (not to mention the obvious, but on top of already having the highest cost in the nation...)
"We supposedly pay 17% now, and we live longer lives, have better medical care, and are generally heather than our contemporaries in other countries" Except you're not and you're just making shit up: The US is 38th in life expectancy. Even Cuba does better than the States. Almost every other 'European' nation (plus Japan) does better : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy Your infant mortality is higher also and you're *much* more likely to die before you're 60. http://www.who.int/countries/usa/en/ vs http://www.who.int/countries/gbr/en/ And to get that inferior level of healthcare you spend about 3x per capita as a comparable European nation. Good job.
a politician, for example, cannot afford to call people teabagger morons
however, i am not a politician. i am not trying to appeal to anyone. i traffic in ugly truths, not serene lies
i am simply stating the facts. and the simple facts are, plain as day evident to anyone except themselves, the tea party philosophy is the philosophy of the low iq
you won't find those words on any lips of any politician, at least in public. either those politicians gleefully courting their easily manipulated votes, or those politicians loathe to deal with the cesspool of mental filth that they are, or both, at the same time
so: thank you for the advice. at the moment i become a politician (meaning, never), i will begin to worry about offending teabagger retards
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract. By anyone.
Which is why you can receive a subsidy to purchase insurance if you can not afford it or "opt out" by paying a fine. Moving on...
Do some simple math! If you have a system that's already out of money, and you take more money from it to start a similar system, more than triple the number of people receiving benefits, it's going to cost more not less!
Unless you are simultaneously reducing costs for Medicare by similar amounts or funding the proposals in other ways (i.e. the "Cadillac" plan tax and Medicare tax increase.) Please read the CBO report, which is party-neutral and sanctioned by both parties to do its analysis.
Keep in mind that in 1965 lawmakers* predicted...
*(not professional governmental accountants or the CBO) Your point? Long distance forecasts are entirely less than accurate. Which is why they call them "official estimates." There are also provisions within the bill to take steps to meet the necessary reductions should the plan not work as intended. Next?
Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada...
Who have a single payer, government run system entirely unlike what is proposed in the bill?
The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that a full 1/3 of doctors will "QUIT PRACTICING MEDICINE" if the bill passes...
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201003190027 The "estimates" you refer to were not "conducted, commissioned or published" by the NEJM.
We will have a government panel deciding who is worth said liver transplant and deciding who gets to live and die, instead of your doctor or a panel of your doctors. A healthy 19 yr/old kid, who hasn't put a dime into the system will be placed higher on the list than say a 60 yr/old man who has paid into the system his whole life. In essence the 60 yr/old man worked his whole life paying into a system that will deem him unworthy and spend his money on someone whom he has never met while he suffers and dies while younger "more economically viable" people will get treatment first. In the existing system, the same 60 yr/old man would be able to do whatever it takes for him to get his liver (insurance,debt,sell car/house etc.)
Really? Your example truly shows the lack of understanding and confusion perpetrated about this bill. Please cite to me the section within either bill that states a government panel will hear cases on liver transplants and decide their validity, expediency, etc.
...the feigned outrage at %3/yr is totally false when the alternative they suggest is higher.
Comprehensive Medicare reform is not the core of this bill. However, cost-saving measures that will affect Medicare are included in its provisions. Will it solve the Medicare crisis? No. Will it provide health insurance to the uninsured? Yes.
It actually wouldn't be like what you describe, because all of the insurance companies would set up shop exclusively in the states with the least regulation. So in your example, you'd only have the choice to buy your policy from New Jersey. And remember that most people don't actually choose their insurer--their employer chooses it for them.
The whole "buy insurance across state lines" is a health insurer proposal to crassly deregulate the market in their favor, turned into a Republican talking point by a flimsy claim that it would lower costs. (Which it easily would, by reducing the insurers' operating costs while further enabling them to not pay your claims.)
Are you adequate?
1) You get to deal with the IRS and they get to know you much better.
2) You pay now and it doesn't take effect until 2014
3) It's called the biggest deficit reduction bill ever signed!
4) Your money will as safe as your social security payments are(their locked away awaiting our retirement aren't they).
5) Clerical error never happen in government agencies and they always care about the captive^h^h^h^h^h^ustomer.
It has the feeling of a tax passed to keep the Federal government afloat so it can continue to operate, but with some health care tacked on. Basically, they lost me at IRS.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Well, you have to foregive my brevity. It was written for ADD-enhanced Slashdotters. I avoid the detailed discussion.
While I won't run down the list exactly, but the general principal is that:
Personal choice that increases risk will have to be judged accordingly. If a behavior marginally increases cancer rates then it should be covered. If a behavior markedly increases rates then it should not be covered in the national coverage. What this is exactly, but 5% seems a good cut-off. Also to be balanced with this is by how many people are engaging in the behavior. If we all do it as Americans, then monetarily it makes sense to include it in the national policy.
Then your questions dive into gunshots crashes. These are not medical conditions. These are discrete unpredictable events requiring medial treatment. The insurance industry has already made the actuarial tables and decided what factors are statistically relevant to the premium. We can simply re-use these.
Yes, over time the plan will change. The government will try to reduce coverage, but it also will be balanced by keeping the costs low. If the government sheds responsibility, then we transition back closer to where we are today. But remember, the insurance companies don't want to pay out, so they will push coverage back on the government. I expect that we would be informed by people crusading for coverages to be added to the plan that "Coverage for XXX will save $YYYM by including it in the national plan". And I expect that the hallmark of the national plan is that it would provide the widest services at a lower premium than the insurance companies can provide today.
There will never be an end to the debate of what the national plan covers, and that is just how it is. It will allow it to change to meet the needs of Americans, as those needs change over time.
There is no "perfect" plan, and I don't for an instant think this is perfect. But it is a compromise that will be effective. If you read the current bill, and compare with what I describe here, which do you want to vote for?
But look at what this sets up - some framework for government coverage, which is competitive and expandable, while capturing the best of both sides.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
One? You're joking.
How about the Rural Electrification Administration, without which much of the US would still be in the nineteenth century because electrical utilities companies weren't expanding beyond cities? Or the federal prison system? The government runs that. There's also the Eisenhower Interstate System, which believe it or not was created by the government and not some "Eisenhower Interstate Corporation."
If you care more about healthcare specifically, Medicare is the reason our elderly and disabled have medical coverage, particularly useful to the elderly if their personal savings were invested in Enron or MCI or one of the many companies that were walloped over the past few years (particularly in 2008). Medicare is a great example because it provides healthcare coverage more cheaply than private insurance companies do. So does the VA system, which covers our veterans. They do excellent cost control according to the CBO.
Or was the point of your comment that it "has worked as planned?" That's a tall order. Name some private company initiatives that have worked as planned. Most don't. I've worked for private companies most of my adult life and I see the same waste and errors people complain about in government.