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House Passes Massive Medical Insurance Bill, 219-212
The votes are in: yesterday evening, after a last-minute compromise over abortion payments, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill effecting major changes in American medical finance. From the BBC's coverage: "The president is expected to sign the House-passed Senate bill as early as Tuesday, after which it will be officially enacted into law. However, it will contain some very unpopular measures that Democratic senators have agreed to amend. The Senate will be able to make the required changes in a separate bill using a procedure known as reconciliation, which allows budget provisions to be approved with 51 votes - rather than the 60 needed to overcome blocking tactics." No Republican voted in favor of the bill; 34 Democrats voted against. As law, the system set forth would extend insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million Americans, impose new taxes on high-income earners as well as provide some tax breaks and subsidies for others, and considerably toughen the regulatory regime under which insurance companies operate. The anticipated insurance regime phases in (starting with children, and expanding to adults in 2014) a requirement that insurance providers accept those with preexisting conditions, and creates a system of fines, expected to be administered by the IRS, for those who fail or refuse to obtain health insurance.
Not being a USA citizen, I can't think of any reason why this bill is controversial.
What exactly are the pro's and cons?
It's a 4 page bill that basically proposes to extend Medicare benefits to everyone from age 0 to age 64 with a simple 'buy-in.' You buy in at cost and you're covered.
That means no Cigna Corporation sitting around denying you a liver transplant - which cost at least one girl her life.
Spread the word. This bill got 50 sponsors in 2 days.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h4789/show
http://www.open.salon.com/blog/brinna_nanda/2010/03/10/a_public_option_we_can_all_love_hr_4789
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Not really a total troll here, but I have heard that people like Rush Limbaugh have stated that they would leave the US if this bill was passed. Not that he will be missed by me, but are there people who are now seriously considering emigrating because they believe the government has failed them? I know that there have been a lot of trash talk from right leaning people along the lines of "if you don't like it here then leave", but I am curious to know what will happen now that the boot is on the other foot. Maybe it could be a good poll?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
When I was on unemployment I got $550 a week. That's equivalent to a $15/hour job, and I thought to myself: "This is a pretty sweet deal. I get paid the same amount as my brother, but while he's truck driving and delivering goods, I'm just sitting here watching TV and playing games."
I'm back to work again, because I'm honest and took the first job offered to me, but it got me to thinking:
According to various studies, the benefits paid for being jobless (free housing, free food, free healthcare, and a government check) are equivalent to $10-15 hour. I didn't used to believe those studies but now having experienced it myself, I can see how it would be true.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I'm confused about this bill... Some honest questions:
1) What is in it to stop the premiums going up as the money from subsidies comes in? In other words, will the basic laws of supply and demand in a free market not still apply? This bill does not seem to limit the dynamics of the free market.
2) What will stop the insurance companies from making their own rules that slowly erode the value of coverage by limiting the treatments that they pay for?
3) How will someone who is poor be ensured the same treatments as someone who is wealthy?
From what I have been reading, these have been the biggest issues with US health care, does the bill do anything about this? Making sure 'everyone has something' seems to be a drop in the bucket to me; or am I missing something?
Please don't label me a troll for these questions.. I think they are important questions.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The biggest problem I see with this bill is that it doesn't take effect until 2014. That gives Republicans/Insurance plenty of time to repeal it long before anyone gets to see *any* benefit from it. By 2014 we could well have already had a year of complete Republican rule (White House and Congress), and you know if they retook the White House and Congress, repealing this would be number 1 on their agenda.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
What are you talking about? This totally looks sustainable.
I remember when I used to live in Holland and Mandatory Health Insurance came into effect: almost instantly my Health Insurance Premium went up by 30% (with no extra coverage being provided): checking with price-comparisson sites showed that the increase was all across the industry.
in my experience, Mandatory Insurance of any kind is just a form of tax payed directly to the Insurance companies.
That said, although I do believe the US desperatelly needs a big overhaul of it's Healthcare system [*], what ended up being passed only solves one of the problems (lack of Universal Coverage) without significantly improving the efficiency of the whole system [**] while introducing measures which, given the lack of restructuring of the way the Insurance Industry works in this area and the lack of Tort Reform, have the potential to make the Healthcare costs higher, not lower.
* The US spends twice as much as a percentage of GDP in Healthcare than everybody else and yet comes out very bad in things like child mortality rates
** Universal Coverage does help a bit on the efficiency front due to things like "Herd Immunity"
Bankruptcy. U.S. is on the verge of it, especially with talk of it being downgraded from AAA to AA status, as if it were a second world nation.
That is particularly interesting as the "Three world" philosophy was not about wealth or who was superior to everybody else, but simply enumerating the three major worlds:
1) Western Democracies
2) Communist Bloc
3) Everybody else
If the USA is becoming a second world nation, that would imply that the USA "won" the cold war by becoming communist. Arguably, it could be said that the USA has moved into the communist bloc of countries with this legislation.
Somehow I don't think that is what you intended, but I think it fits too.
In the state of New York, I had to purchase health insurance for my mother at one point in time. She was 52 years old, and based solely on that fact, I had to pay about $9000 a year for Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage for her. That was back in the early '90s.
Just looked up the current rates. As of mid-2009, the Direct Pay HMO rates are $1110 per month and the Direct Pay POS plan rates are $1400 per month. That is in the range of $13,000 to $17,000 per year, for an individual plan, if you live in New York City.
A family plan is $3500-$4500 per month.
Think this is crazy? See here. Individual health insurance plans have increased by an insane amount in the last 10-15 years. The cheapest, crappiest HMO plan where you have limited doctor choice, etc. is $750-$800 a month, more than $9,000 per year. And if you go with the cheapest possible option, you know it will suck.
So basically, you don't know what you are talking about.
Ummmm.... Have you ever dealt with a hospital's debt collection system? Going to a hospital and getting treated without insurance for something major will drive you into bankruptcy by the time the hospital is done with you. They will take you to court, then garnishee enough of your wages so that you can't pay for food and shelter, thus forcing you into bankruptcy which is a major negative.
I've had hospitals come after me when I wasn't even the one responsible for the bill. Once a hospital came after me for a niece's bill. It took months of fighting with them to get them to back off.
Another time an employer who was self-insured rather than pay for Workman's Comp sent me to a hospital for testing in a labor dispute over retraining after I became ill due to working conditions and had to change occupations. The employer went bankrupt two years later and never paid the hospital bill. The hospital came after me 5 years later and I finally had to hire a lawyer to stop them from collecting not only the original bill, but interest, fees, and penalties that more than doubled the bill. Even that didn't stop them. They came after me again 2 years later with an even larger bill and I had to go through all the same shit all over again.
This horseshit that anyone can just go to the hospital and get treated for free is ridiculous. If you don't pay there are major consequences in your life and hospitals will make sure you pay those consequences.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
I'm not convinced the person/people who yelled that stuff and spat were actually real Tea Party members/protesters against health care. It seems *awfully* convenient that one of the people in with the protesters did probably the one thing that would most discredit the protest in the eyes of the nation and would be guaranteed to get a lot of news coverage. It would be an awfully effective tactic for somebody who actually supports the bill to go out there, pretend to be a protester, and then spit and yell racial slurs to discredit the protesters. It's not like that sort of thing hasn't happened before...
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
You're right - Nature IS callous - everybody dies.
I used to be just like you. Survival of the fittest, I'll fight whatever or whomever to pass my genes on. Dog eat dog...
And, while most of that is still very relevant today, it's fucking 2010. We have the means, we have the technology to at least start thinking differently.
Even as a liberal pussy, I will completely back up the assertion that socialism is at least some form of theft.
But we don't live in caves anymore, or shit ourselves when lightning strikes. Maybe there's some other things we should look a doing differently too.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!