Slashdot Mirror
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.
you are always going to pay for it. about time that we stopped the system of some people getting "insurance" only when they get sick
Congrats US citizens! You're on your way to a non-broken health care system!
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?
FYI, AHIP (insurance company reps) wrote the health care bill word for word. Do you actually believe this will help the common man?
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!
You're right in that it's not strictly face-value news of the geek type, but lets face it, it affects nerds too. It may well affect them in large ways. All the new tech that has to be put in place for this may well bring healthcare to headlines on /. more often.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
So the bill does a lot of good things. It stops insurance companies basically doing whatever they like, which was the main problem with the US health system. But it actually rewards those same insurance companies by delivering millions of new customers to them. A competitive public option would have pushed down insurance company margins and made them actually compete for business, instead of retaining their confusopoly. And then there's the issue that women will now be required to purchase abortion coverage separately because the government is forbidden to pay for that procedure. This is basically a regression, since lots of plans will probably stop covering abortion in order to be eligible for government subsidised customers. Overall though, lots more people who were unable to get coverage will now be able to get it. Imperfect as it is, this bill will save lives, and contrary to what Fox will tell you, it will not affect anyone who is currently happy with their insurance.
It was the "right to life" people that threatened to block life-saving medical care for millions.
People like to harp on Massachusetts as Taxachusetts, especially after Mitt Romney(R) forced the people of his state to buy insurance whether they wanted it or not, thus creating a new expense people had to pay, but now the federal government has seen fit to follow the Republicans down the social/fascist rabbit hole.
The biggest problem is no one has ever given me an answer as to why my money has to go to pay the medical bills of my neighbor who smokes half a pack a day, or my neighbor on the other side who thinks it's funny to drink a case of beer each weekend by themselves.
What about my coworkers who refuse to walk up one flight of stairs or drink a liter of Pepsi every day? Why should I have to pay for their medical expenses when they can't be bothered to take care of themselves?
Further, why should I have to buy something I don't want? Are you next going to force me to go to a store and buy something to keep the store alive?
The ONLY winners in this whole fiasco are the insurance companies who will reap huge profits from the influx of money and still, despite the wording of the bill, will not cover everyone or every procedure.
While the Republicans can try to claim they stood their ground on this bill, they shouldn't be too smug as their party started this nonsense.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
According to Wikipedia, Insurance is, "a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss".
But with the mandate for coverage of pre-existing conditions, I don't see how there is a contingent aspect of this anymore. It is like selling "fire insurance" coverage for houses that are already on fire. That is not really "insurance".
You can call the new health care legislation many things, but it is more in the nature of a new medical welfare program than any form of insurance as we know it, since it does not appear that costs are based on actuarial risks.
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?
How long until Americans figure out that it is much cheaper to pay the fines and pick up health insurance when you need it (now that insurers are required to sign people with preexisting conditions) than to pay premiums year-round?
Or was this the Democrats' intention? Bankrupt the insurance industry and come in as Mr. Government, Savior of All.
"would extend insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million Americans" No, it doesn't. It requires you to buy insurance. There's nothing in that bill that addresses health care costs. Insurance is not health care, those are two separate issues. It just mandates you buy insurance. If you can't afford it, which is the main reason most people don't have it at lower pay scales, it just creates a larger bureaucracy to shuffle money around from one person to the next, with the government taking a skim in the middle. Big fines if you don't go along with this idea.
It would have been better if they addressed three decades of job losses instead, and approached it from that angle, because with more and better jobs, more people could afford healthcare anyway.
This is another stealth subsidy bailout for huge corporations in the "financial services" arena, and they have the bulk of the Ds faked out this is "health care reform". It's no different from the big investment bank bailouts.
I may be wrong, but from the UK perspective this is not "NHS Lite" socialised healthcare, rather this is the wetware equivalent of compulsory motor insurance, now applied to human beings...
Nice civil liberties you have there citizen, shame if anything happened to them, better buy this here medical insurance, know what I mean?
Sounds like this bill has nothing whatsoever to do with medical treatment per se.
One small step from the RIAA et al doing the same thing.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Here's something funny: if everyone jointly pays for healthcare and everybody gets treated health costs go down. This is because no one puts off going to the doctor because of expense. Cancers are caught sooner, infections are treated before the victim starts coughing up blood. What selfish libertarians like yourself don't realise is that a persons health is mostly unrelated to their choices. No one chooses to get prostate cancer, no one chooses to get bitten by a rabid dog.
Wait, so people with chronic conditions will be able to get healthcare now? The horror!
patriotism, as in caring for the health of your nation, the welfare of your fellow man, belief in the common good, as opposed to the prophets of blind ultimately self-defeating selfishness: i don't know why that's "patriotism"
morality, as in standing up and saying that i don't believe in a society where a corporation takes care of its stockholders and denies middle class americans health benefits while gouging them with skyrocketing rates
freedom, from disease and sickness, as opposed to the false "freedom" to choose between paying for your broken arm, or depending upon society to pay for your broken arm because you can't afford it (while you rail about your "right" to "choose" to not have health insurance)
if you understand why you can't drive legally without car insurance, you understand why health insurance must be mandated. even the young and healthy break their arms. then, what happens? does the hospital turn them away for not having cash? can you live in a society that does that?
furthermore, what currently happens if they have no health insurance? hospitals have unpaid bills, and remains eternally on the verge of bankruptcy, eternally needing bailouts from the state and feds. in other words: you already pay for it, but now you pay for it in the most common sense way
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Bullshit. The insurance companies spent about $10 million on ads trying to stop just the latest health care bill. Why? Because it killed their main way of maximizing profits: denial of coverage. We have seen nothing but fear mongering, lies and distortions from the conservatives through this whole process -- what is wrong with you people?
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
"The biggest problem is no one has ever given me an answer as to why my money has to go to pay the medical bills of my neighbor who smokes half a pack a day, or my neighbor on the other side who thinks it's funny to drink a case of beer each weekend by themselves."
Because it's a liberal progressive mentality bordering on socialistic/marxist ideals.
What would you do to help your mother/brother/sister/father?
How about your next door neighbor you hang out with?
The guy in the next street, or the next town?
At what point do you draw the line and say that I am going to help these people and not those people?
I think that part of the US problem is more that in general this line is drawn closer to home compared to other people who draw it further out.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Because when you decide you don't want to buy insurance and subsequently get a ruptured appendix (which there is no way of reducing your risk for aside from possibly exposing yourself regularly to cholera and other digestive diseases), you're not about to lay down and die on principle. You're going to demand that the ER save your life, then demand they swallow the tens of thousands of dollars it cost (which gets passed on to everyone else in the end). Imperfectly "socializing" the worst case scenarios has roughly the same net effect as requiring everyone to buy health insurance, except that the status quo meant a reverse lottery where specific unlucky individuals go bankrupt and their hospitals lose money disproportionately. Yeah, it subsidizes the lazy and those with unhealthy habits, but I somehow doubt people are choosing to smoke so as to take greater advantage of their health care. Demanding that the guy with the ruptured appendix or the type I diabetes must die so the guy with the pack a day habit or the type II diabetes isn't "rewarded" is inhuman.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Not necessarily a bad thing. Similarly, if my house catches on fire, it is a good thing that the city sends a fire truck to put it out. But I don't call that "fire insurance". They are entirely different things.
However, I have one major issue... I know so many people in this country who try to game our systems of unemployment and welfare, and quite frankly its rather sad. I really am unsure if the government should take care of these people, as they are already a drain on our society to begin with...
Yup. Why not go all-out and line them up to be shot? I mean that's basically what you're talking about here isn't it? An elitism?
Typical private insurer: 15 to 30%
Of course, if you define "efficiency" by the ratio of things they decline to cover, sure, they're way more efficient.
Now they should try a health care bill.
Which is worse? People taking advantage of the welfare state, or people dying because of inadequate healthcare? You can't have a welfare system with cheaters. They can be prosecuted under fraud legislation. Of course some will slip by and get away with it, but this way is dramatically the lesser of two evils.
That intelligent people such as slashdotters have no knowledge of the United States Constitution. Nowhere in the constitution does it guarantee the citizens healthcare.
The only thing missing are the Tea Partiers calling congressmen niggers and faggots. But forget reality - what are CNN and Fox News saying?
CNN: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri, released a statement late Saturday saying he too was called the "N" word as he walked to the Capitol for a vote and that he was spat on by one protestor who was arrested by U.S. Capitol Police. Cleaver declined to press charges against the man, the statement said...
Protesters also hurled anti-gay comments at Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, who is openly gay, as he left the same health care meeting that Lewis attended in a House office building.
A CNN producer overheard the word "faggot" yelled at Frank several times in the lobby of the Longworth building. Frank said he heard someone yell "homo" at him.
FOX: Republican National Chairman Michael Steele and one of the organizers of Saturday's Tea Party rally strongly condemned the racial slurs that some black lawmakers alleged were yelled at them by some health care protesters as they headed for a procedural vote at Capitol Hill....
But black lawmakers weren't the only targets of the protesters' invective. Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., alleges some of the demonstrators also castigated Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay.
"I don't even want to repeat it," said Crowley when asked what they said to Frank.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Capitol Police said she was unaware of any law enforcement inquiry into the incidents.
Oh Fox... will you ever be more than a conservative mouthpiece?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
you understand the legal logic behind requiring people to have car insurance before driving, right?
so if you understand why you can't drive legally without car insurance, you understand why health insurance must be mandated. even the young and healthy break their arms. then, what happens? is everyone an upper middle class paragon of financial virtue with $200,000 in the bank for unforeseen health problems?
furthermore, does the hospital turn them away for not having cash? can you live in a society that does that? so what is the "choice" here? there is no choice: you need health insurance
furthermore, what currently happens if they have no health insurance? what happens is hospitals have unpaid bills, and remains eternally on the verge of bankruptcy... eternally needing bailouts from the state and feds
in other words: you already pay for all of the uninsured with your taxes!
but now you pay for it in the most common sense direct way
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Most of us have health insurance that we purchase through our employers, provided by insanely profitable corporations.
Except for the 35-50 million who don't and can't get health insurance. Never mind that losing your job has meant a double whammy of losing your health insurance too. Happened to me. It also matters for those who can't get coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Has happened to members of my immediate family.
Does this bill cure everything? Of course not. But it does change things for a lot of people, hopefully for the better. If you have been lucky not to be affected by the broken parts of the US healthcare system, consider yourself lucky.
Cool. Government mandating that people buy PRIVATE health insurance (never been done...and no car insurance is not the same as you don't have to buy a car and many people don't own one). Private health insurance stock is going to skyrocket! Profit!
I predict a good chance it will be knocked down by the Supremes since the court is Majority conservative. Their justification will be the one I put above.
Can we please stop calling it health 'insurance' now, since with this legislation it has nothing to do whatsoever with the term?
Here's how we do it: 23% of your paycheck is ripped from you. For that you get: As many sick days (with pay) as you have to get (of course they come check on you if you're sick too long), full accident and sickness insurance, including medication (albeit with a small fee, around 5 bucks, per prescription), hospital of your choice if you need one, pretty much all checkups your doc deems sensible, any life saving (or ability-saving) operation, hospital stay as long as you need to (iirc with a nominal per-day fee of a few bucks, unless you either absolutely HAVE to stay there or are needy, which also eliminates all other fees you'd have to pay) and a few other nifty things.
On the downside, you get the doc that happens to be available, you get crammed into a room with 12 other people, the food is pretty much ... well, let's say it doesn't instantly kill you and no TV, internet or other perks. You can of course invest in a private "additional" insurance that covers these expenses, or you pay for them directly when you need/want them.
I don't know about you, but somehow I like that system. Yes, it's anything but cheap (hey, it costs me a fourth of my income), but it means that I get any operation, any medication and any treatment I could possibly require to stay healthy (or return to that state as well as medically possible). I'd say it's worth it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I guess that's why health insurance stock went UP.
Our government is one of Mercantile Corporatism. Who do you think wrote the bill? The insurance lobby was right there with congressional staffers. This bill gives them a guaranteed profit stream.
The text of the bill:
:)
http://www.opencongress.org/senate_health_care_bill
The economy of the bill:
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=508
Congrats from Europe
The apocalypse comes when the Chinese decide not to loan us any more money.
> about time that we stopped the system of some people getting "insurance" only when they get sick
On the contrary, we've made doing it easier than ever before. Because insurance companies are no longer allowed to "discriminate" against me for preexisting conditions, it is actually better for me to not buy insurance until I get sick. The uninsured fee will only be $700 and there's a pretty high income threshold (~$80000? I think) before you have to pay it. Insurance costs on average $6400/year, so if you are buying insurance yourself, it's TEN TIMES more expensive to buy insurance now than it would be to wait until you need it. I predict that this is exactly what I and most other the uninsured are going to do. In fact, even those that have insurance now, might consider getting rid of it for the enormous financial gain that provides. How would you like to have and extra SIX THOUSAND dollars of disposable income every year?
But with the mandate for coverage of pre-existing conditions, I don't see how there is a contingent aspect of this anymore. It is like selling "fire insurance" coverage for houses that are already on fire. That is not really "insurance".
You forgot the important qualifier. "a form of risk management PRIMARILY used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss". Insurance can be to hedge against gains, it can be to share risk, it can be to shift risk to another party. It's not so simple as a single sentence quoted from wikipedia. You cannot cover pre-existing conditions unless you force everyone to have coverage, otherwise the smart play is to buy insurance only after you get sick which destroys the financial structure of insurance (no premiums being paid in).
The Democrats ran on the platform of healthcare reforms. And they won! By a sizeable margin! This is what we call a mandate.
I'm not from the US, but, imho, what is currently wrong with the US health care is:
1) It costs more than needed in the US, and most money goes to administration/lawyers/patents/... instead of going to the actual production of medicine and the actual work done by doctors. Health care of the same or better quality can be provided much cheaper.
2) In the insurance system, people are excluded based on the current status of their body. Nobody should be excluded based on that.
I'm not sure if the new system now voted for, improves the above points, but the old one scores very bad at least.
Whatever one may think of the health insurance changes brought about by this bill, it is essentially a new tax on all Americans to pay for those who cannot afford it on their own. I think it will, long term, contribute to unemployment and higher budget deficits across the country.
Although there are provisions to protect the middle and lower income classes from higher taxation, there are also huge tax increases on higher income groups, and the effects will be felt by all Americans.
A high earning physician told me his tax load will increase by $100,000 per year when this bill is fully implemented. That has a nice populist sound to it--tax the rich, give it to the poor. But the people who won't see that money will be master carpenters and their assistants, automobile factory workers, boat builders, waiters and bus boys, and all those businesses that he would have spent the money on. Also, the money won't be invested into the stock market. Instead, it will go to a new bulked up government bureaucracy which will then redistribute some fraction of it to this new policy purpose.
The states that are doing things right, relatively speaking, will be punished and the states that are screwed up will be rewarded. That is, the states like Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and California, where overregulation has driven insurance costs sky high, will accrue the greatest benefits from this redistribution effort, while states that have allowed relatively free markets for high deductible, basic plans (Arizona health insurance premiums start at about $60 a month) will have to pay more.
The companies that exceed 50 employees on the full time payroll will be forced to pay a fine per employee for lack of health insurance coverage. Will this cause millions of small to medium businesses to budget for health insurance, if they don't already have it? I suppose those who can afford it may, but the incentive will obviously be to keep the payroll to under 50, and perhaps contract out when they need the extra help. We'll probably see an uptick in contracting and temp agencies, and we'll probably see less of a commitment to salaried career positions within medium companies. The incentive will be to stay under 50 head count, plain and simple. I would expect to see unemployment stay at a permanently high rate for the next few decades, probably in the 8-10% range, up from the 4-5% range it has been for about the past 15 years up until 2008.
Will this bill actually reform health care? One of the principles underlying this legislation is that physicians should work in larger offices in order to afford the required electronic medical record systems and other changes that favor hospitals and larger practices. Internists and family practice docs will find it much harder going forward to open a private or small practice. Does this benefit the patient? I doubt it. Larger practices do have economies of scale, and of course they can afford the large staff necessary to deal with expanded Medicaid and other funding systems. But the freedom to practice medicine independently will be lost, and I think we will see less connection between physicians and individual patients. Add to this the plan to mandate "best treatments" nationally, and the system will become more faceless, more cookie-cutter, and less flexible to the needs of each unique individual. Probably we'll see a lot more midlevels like physicians assistants and nurse practitioners playing the front line diagnostic role, and physicians with their much longer and more expensive training will retreat to specialties and consultative roles.
I don't see this as the best move for our nation, but then I could be wrong. It'll be interesting to watch what happens, anyway.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Here's a link if you would like to read the health care bill (PDF). It is 1,990 pages.
Legally required car insurance is insurance for other people/property you injure/damage.
You are not required to insure your car against theft, you are not required to insure your car against the damage done to it when you crash it.
Health insurance is not for other people that you might harm in some way, it is for yourself. And hence is nothing like mandatory car insurance.
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.
It actually is, in many ways. Every infection is a potential health hazard for others.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Do you extend this argument to the fire service? Or the police? Or schools? Why is health care any different? And the idea that all people's injuries are their own fault is wrong. Being genetically pre-disposed to leukaemia isn't a choice.
you understand the legal logic behind requiring people to have car insurance before driving, right?
Yes, but do you? You are only required to have liability insurance not repair insurance. It is up to you whether you want insurance to help repair your car. The requirement is only to ensure you are solvent if you cause someone else harm. (Technically liability insurance isn't even a requirement as long as you can post a bond ($30,000 IIRC) showing that you are solvent.)
FALSE
I (and no other members) of the public are under NO OBLIGATION to pay for your sickness. There is no constitutional right to health care of any kind. That the people now pay (for some) of these incidents is thanks to legislation passed in the 60s and 70s, ie MEDICARE.
The only relation to auto insurance would be a requirement to pay damages for any communicable disease which you passed on to somebody else without their consent, similar to an auto accident. The reason you have auto insurance is because the potential costs to the injured party are very large and the ability of you to pay are very low - compounded by the fact that a significant portion of the population is exposed to that risk.
If a certain segment of the population feels that strongly about providing medical coverage to those they deem "needy" then they should do so by setting up a charitable trust to provide that care. Not by forcing those who do not need or want coverage to buy it.
The Democrats ran on the platform of healthcare reforms. And they won! By a sizeable margin! This is what we call a mandate.
Yes they did run on a platform of "healthcare" reform. At the same time, over 60% of people did NOT want THIS legislation to become law. THAT is a mandate, and the Democrats did not listen to their constituency ... there will be hell to pay in November.
Just watch the Senate get bogged down by the "reconciliation" bill that was passed by the House, it'll never get passed as-is, and the House Democrats will be left out to hang.
Found this. Decent quick summary of what's in the final bill going to the presidents desk: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000846-503544.html
The Democrats ran after 8 years of a very unpopular administration with a major economic collapse against an opponent who was over 100 years old with a veep whose main qualification was that she could see Russia from her house. Healthcare reform isn't what got the Dems into power.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
"The biggest problem is no one has ever given me an answer as to why my money has to go to pay the medical bills of my neighbor who smokes half a pack a day, or my neighbor on the other side who thinks it's funny to drink a case of beer each weekend by themselves."
Because it's a liberal progressive mentality bordering on socialistic/marxist ideals.
What would you do to help your mother/brother/sister/father?
Yes, they are my family
How about your next door neighbor you hang out with?
Perhaps. They are not my responsibility.
The guy in the next street, or the next town?
At what point do you draw the line and say that I am going to help these people and not those people?
I think that part of the US problem is more that in general this line is drawn closer to home compared to other people who draw it further out.
No. My family is my primary responsibility. I do not have the means to help anyone else at this point.
If I did have the means, I would make the decision of my own accord, and fight tooth and nail any attempt for someone else to make it for me, and enforce it at the point of a gun.
You people seem to think this is all some reasonable trade-off - it isn't. It is a direct assault on personal liberty, and the very ideas that this country was founded upon. To quote Patrick Henry:
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
You underestimate the importance many American place on that simple concept - the idea that the individual has a God-given right to work for themselves, provide for their family, and dispose of their own possessions as they see fit.
Learn about Photography Basics.
selfish libertarians
You, sir, are too kind. Compliments such as this truly lighten a dark day.
Learn about Photography Basics.
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.
Your lifestyle is a huge factor in determining your health. Alcoholism, cigarette addiction, poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle are all practically guaranteed to cause health problems later in life (and most Americans do more than one). Incidental injuries like the ones you've listed are relatively inexpensive to treat compared to the medical conditions caused by the things I've listed above. The only major exception is cancer, which is often associated with lifestyle too.
I am not a libertarian, but let me ask you:
Who is more selfish: someone who refuses to pay for your care, or someone who demands that you pay for their care?
As a society, we seem to have lost all respect for other people's boundaries. And to be sure, our boundaries are what define us. That means that we have lost all respect for each other. It is never appropriate to compel or demand that someone do something. We are human beings and we need more respect than that. I am not a beast of burden, I am a human being.
The $6400 is just an average I saw somewhere. I can't find that article; however, here's a breakdown on employer provided plan costs. Your employer pays $4824 for just you, or $13375 for a family plan. Since individuals buying health insurance don't have as good a bargaining position, I would expect the premiums to be much higher, and $6400 sounds about right. Note the $13375 figure for the family plan, which is what most people will be buying.
AFAICT, all the provisions in this bill relate to Health Insurance not Health Care. How it this magically going to reduce the 15+% GDP spent on health care? (Well, OK, it does expand MedicAid and cut MediCare which I guess counts as Health Care.)
The best I can see this bill doing for Health Care costs is making the currently uninsured seek preventative care rather than putting it off until it results in an expensive emergency room visit. But even that theory doesn't work if they all buy the cheapest insurance which will likely have a $25,000 deductible, which means they will still put off preventative care.
So I ask again, what does this bill do to reduce Health Care costs?
I love it when someone forgets the "hidden" stuff.
If you are paying for Health Insurance yourself, on an individual plan or through COBRA, $6400 is a steal. If your employer is providing it, with you paying some part of the premium, $6400 is about average. If you have a very large employer, they may be getting a break but $6400 (employer part plus employee part) is still within the norm.
Back in '96, when I got laid off at Lam Research, my COBRA was just at $585 per month as a single guy. Undoubtedly, it's gone up.
If you shop around for individual coverage, it's going to be more.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
so what is the "choice" here? there is no choice: you need health insurance
Before yesterday, you could choose to live "off the grid". You could grab some stuff, head out for the mountains, build a shack, and provide for yourself. While you were still technically supposed to file taxes, etc., no one really cared if you didn't apply for the tax credits and social programs you'd almost certainly be eligible for.
Today is different. As of now, you are officially a tax cheating criminal if you choose to wander off alone. You can bet the government will be interested that you're not filing returns that certify that you owe money for being uninsured.
The world is changed this morning, and I awake to applause. This is not the country I grew up to love and swore to protect.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Did you read my post? In your selfish system people don't get things checked out until they end up in the emergency room and then the government pays anyway, because no civilised nation lets hospitals turn away people in critical condition. Ill health is punishment enough for bad life choices. Getting lung cancer from smoking will often still kill you. Getting leukaemia and then going bankrupt from medical bills? The illness is awful, and the bankruptcy is a fucking travesty.
Wait, so if someone came at the hospital bleeding to death but didn't have insurance, you'd let him die off? Seriously, what the hell? You may not have a legal obligation to heal the person, but you have a moral obligation to do so (and if you don't, you have other issues).
You seem to be forgetting that the US military does not act autonomously, they take orders from POTUS.
If you want to moan about the actions of the military, at least place the blame where it belongs.
BTW, if you were to bother actually researching, you'd quickly discover than the U.S. military is far more efficient than almost any in history, and also the most 'well behaved'.
This is, in my opinion, the worst part of American conservative fiscal policy - it seems like we are deathly afraid of someone, somewhere, potentially getting something they don't "deserve". It's almost pathological; we have ridiculous amounts of bureaucracy centered around making sure that nobody gets a benefit they don't deserve, when it would be more effective to just remove a lot of the bureaucracy and use the savings to loosen the criteria.
"I'd rather live in a society that lets people die in the street (and I don't want that at all) than one that demands they pay for health care."
it is not possible for a moral human being or a moral human society to do this (walk by someone dying in the street)
therefore, you've made a choice that is reprehensible: you'd rather be immoral
forcing someone to pay for their healthcare IS FAR LESS FREEDOM DESTROYING than letting them die in the street. you don't have any freedom when you're dead
what you see before you is a forcing, a compelling: to render aid and then demand repayment. you examine this compulsion against someone's will in a vacuum of other choices. but in reality, the other choice is to leave them dead or permanently disfigured, which is far more freedom destroying
so your argument has two logical fallacies:
1. that freedoms exist in a vacuum. in reality, freedoms exist in tension with other freedoms, and your job is to pick the more freedom affirming avenue
2. only society and government impose on your freedom. reality: simple hunger or sickness destroys more of your freedom than a totalitarian government ever could
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Except that in the case of health insurance, there is no "repair" insurance. If you do not have insurance and you have any medical procedure provided, the cost of that procedure is offset by those who do have insurance. Even more so if you declare bankruptcy or use other debt settling means to get out of paying for the bill.
So if you don't have insurance you are effectively taxing everyone else for your care. Sure, maybe they should add a solvency test, but what would the dollar amount be? $10,000 won't cover a torn ACL. $50,000 won't cover open heart surgery. $100,000 won't cover a muti-year battle with cancer. So what, maybe a quarter of a million dollars? How many people can front a quarter of a million dollars for a bond? Anyone with the brain power to have those kinds of resources laying around is going to have the intelligence to get the insurance they want or will just pay the annual penalty.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
There's no filibuster with reconciliation, and amendments and debate are limited by a strict timeline. The bill and it's reconciliation amendments will be signed into law within a week. Those that oppose health care legislation typically come from Republican stronghold districts, which should be no surprise. I'm not sure it's the Democrat's constituency that is going to be in an unproar come November. However, as much "damage" as health care reform may pose to incubment Democrats, Republicans shot themselves in the foot by using the filibuster an unprecedented number of times, even on legislation that THEY introduced. Democrats would be foolish not to use this to their advantage.
...with more personal freedom.
Have you had your morning coffee yet? Did'ja eplace it with crack?
I wrote about this before, but the biggest problem with this bill is that it doesn't meet the original aims of fixing healthcare. During the election, the proposal was to reduce the cost of healthcare, thereby extending coverage to uninsured Americans. Many of the cost-saving measures originally proposed were dropped and now we have a bill that only extends coverage, but doesn't fundamentally reduce the costs in a meaningful way. Democratic and Republican ideologies prevented this from becoming a true overhaul of our healthcare. It's depressing that something this important became cannon-fodder for midterm elections. My fear is that we missed our only opportunity to get this right and will have to bear the consequences of what's been passed today. I think back to the architect of the Social Security Act, who's name I can't recall and I don't have time to google, stated from it's inception that it was not durable long-term solution, yet almost 75 years later we still haven't done anything to prevent it's insolvency. We saw something like this on a smaller scale when the Bush administration expanded Medicare to part D, but underestimated the costs of the program (and publicly accused heathcare providers for "stealing" from the government). I'm afraid that the assumptions that the Democrats are making about how this will be paid for in the future are grossly off the mark, and our generation and that of our children (for those readers in their forties) will be paying the penalty.
That sounds like more than health insurance would normally cost
Specifically, a 30yo. male non-smoker living in Austin, Texas with Blue Cross/Blue Shield:
(All plans include prescription coverage but no dental. And are the no frills hook-em-with-low-cost-then-upsell-them-with-addons plans.)
You're going to need a cite for that, it's universally acknowledged as not true. Medicare has lower administrative costs then any insurance company. It does have relatively high costs, but that's because it only covers people over 65, who require considerably more care. I can't find the paper off-hand, but I recall a study that compared the spending of 64 year olds covered by private insurance vs Medicare on 65 year olds, and the difference was enormous and in Medicare's favor.
You haven't really thought about what it means, have you? The youngest (and healthiest) in the population WON'T BUY INSURANCE, they'll just pay the fine, which is cheaper. Then, the overall costs to the insurance companies to cover the people who have insurance will rise on a per capita basis, so they'll raise rates. Oh, and when those young, healthy people suddenly develop expensive cancer, they'll go buy insurance at some absurdly-low rate and cost the insurance company millions of dollars for treatments. Which means the company will have to raise rates on everybody else to make up for their losses. Which means more healthy people will drop their coverage and wait until they get really sick before buying in again. Rinse, repeat.
The only way you can make something like this work is if insurance companies can look at people without insurance and say "Hmm, you've gone this long without it, guess you don't need it now, either." That would be a much stronger incentive for healthy people to maintain coverage than the stupid fine they have now.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
If someone feels a religious obligation to feed, clothe and house those in need. That's great. I don't oppose that at all.
Why can't you get it through your head that it's fine to use your resources to do this but wrong to to break into your neighbor's house, take his food and clothing and give it to some third party?
Don't try to hide the behind the government. If you support forcible wealth distribution then morally you're still the one holding the gun.
This is something everyone loves to clobber the US with, but it is a case of "statistics" - as in "lies, damn lies, and statistics".
Before comparing the mortality rates of different countries, it is helpful to know just what the numbers actually represent. For example, in the US, an infant born at 28 weeks (two months premature) who then dies soon after birth is counted as an infant mortality. This is not the case in countries with "better" child mortality rates.
As to the bill itself, it might make some folks feel good, but it does not address the cturcural problems with the healthcare industry. I understand it will take 4 years before it really kicks in - for good or bad, but:
1> many docors have stated their intent to cease practicing under the new law for economic reasons
2> medical school takes 8 years and considerable money (and generally massive debt)
3> We already have a shortage of doctors (and nurses as well)
That is an example of a stuctural problem.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Now it is mandatory to pay for this shit? We have a system for paying for federally provided services, it is called income tax. It is already designed to use a fair and progressive system to spread costs.
Grow a damn pair of balls and provide no premium insurance and fund it 100% via the existing tax system.
Yes, brain cancer is a real learning experience. Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you? Frankly, yes, I believe everyone should be entitled to good health, or at least the best shot at that goal.
and when you broke your arm off the grid, and wandered in bleeding to the emergency room 50 miles away, you gratefully accepted the aid of a society you rejected
i do weep for american society too. that so many people are so blindly selfish and irresponsible that they think aggressively defying what is obviously just common sense fiscal policy is somehow being patriotic or american
just admit you have no interest in american society, and leave social policy to those who actually care about american society
after all you are the one championing going off grid!
don't you see the simple logical fallacy in your attitude?:
"i am declaring myself apart from american society in the name of american society!"
pfffffffft
logic fail
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Can we stop with that? It's not like anyone would normally read the whole thing anyway. Have you gone and read any of the other millions of pages of laws that already apply to you? Or thanks to case-law, all those decisions rendered in random cases that might, if brought up by opposing counsel, be construed to apply to you as well? No. You didn't. And you won't.
So how about you let legislators do what they're paid and elected to do, which is write legislation, not fortune cookies or hallmark cards. The goal isn't to be short, nor even particularly readable -- it's to be comprehensive and precise, because it'd suck to be the victim of the activist-judge boogieman or the loophole scam artist. There's really no reason to think that the more important some legislation is considered to be, the shorter and more accessible it ought to be, and there's nothing new about this.
For fuck's sake, the whole point of the republican system of government (as opposed to a direct democracy) was that the common people were too busy, uneducated, disconnected and uninformed to be handling this complex stuff themselves. Complaining about this is like having your clueless customer butt in every few seconds while you try to write complex code to solve their problems, or seal a joint, or do whatever professional work it is you do, telling you that you need to do it in a way they understand.
So, seriously. Let's stop this. It does nothing to advance the overall debate.
So if you get cancer and end up with $2 million in hospital debt and no way to pay it (because in the US hospitals must do life saving procedures regardless of your ability to pay) who do you think pays for that now? Everyone else who uses that hospital system and everyone's taxes already subsidize the uninsured because the uninsured are guaranteed care if they need it (which incidentally is the care that tends to be the most expensive). Nothing has changed except that now maybe the people who would have been uninsured otherwise will go to the doctor for that weird mole on their leg instead of waiting until they're coughing up blood and treatment is two orders of magnitude more expensive than it would have been earlier.
The damage of you not paying your impossible to pay medical bill is done to all of society. Forcing you to pay for some minimum amount of insurance protects society from that damage.
"the U.S. military is far more efficient than almost any in history, and also the most 'well behaved'."
You are correct with the rest of your statement but this is a little far fetched.
Most efficiency metrics are highly debatable but in the one that isn't, cost, the US military is the LEAST efficient. As for 'well behaved' the answer to that would depend on who you ask. Are you gauging 'well behaved' by actual unreported and unpunished behavior or just the above board/official policy stuff?
It's funny so many are complaining how HMOs are one of the biggest problems, then pass this health care bill with nods to Edward Kennedy, crusader of health care for the people.
They forget it's Kennedy who championed the creation of HMOs in the first place.
Yes, HMOs, a Democrat creation.
Will they do better this time?
The funny thing about health insurance is that it's only insurance if you're young; when you're old it is a payment plan. Of course, we try not to pretend this is true, thinking that everybody can live forever and that these health "events" are randomly spread out through life; it's not true to any degree. Insurance, used broadly, is something one uses to protect oneself from catastrophic events (e.g.: hit by a bus) that are unlikely to happen. It is a way of hedging one's bets by pooling money with people of similar risk factors. Unfortunately, health insurance does not pool people of similar risk factors -- the old don't pay a rate representing their actual risk; this makes health insurance a poor bet for anybody young.
Compounding problems is the idea that people with preexisting conditions must be insured, and at the same rate; this brings up two groups of people, and while neither shouldn't be denied medical care outright, they ought to be willing to pay for it. The first group of people are those that simply didn't buy insurance until they became sick. These people are completely dishonest and the people paying into the insurance pool should not have to assume the risk someone took by not purchasing health insurance beforehand. In the second group is someone who has perhaps has had a lifelong illness and could never obtain coverage. Should they pay the same rate as everyone else? Absolutely not. Should they be able to obtain insurance for things OTHER than their illness? Certainly; however, nobody really knows how to distinguish between the two.
As an example of how new healthcare legislation is a complete failure, look into Massachusetts. The state mandated that every person must purchase health insurance or pay a fine, and that nobody could be turned down for preexisting conditions. The price of insurance has skyrocketed: the fine is low enough that people pay it until they get sick, buy premium insurance, get cured, then stop paying insurance. It rewards the dishonest and punishes those who actually pay for their insurance.
Naw. If you're off the grid and not earning any money, you don't owe the penalty. There is a minimum income to require it, and it's pretty high.
Before yesterday, you could choose to live "off the grid". You could grab some stuff, head out for the mountains, build a shack, and provide for yourself.
Whose mountain land would you be building that shack on? Scavenging and/or farming on? fishing/hunting on?
if the oh so friendly Republicans and some rather conservative Democrats would have agreed to it. The initial suggestion included a public insurance but got shot down.
Of course, this works great for healthy people. It absolutely sucks ass for people with chronic conditions. That's the problem with a health insurance that isn't mandatory: someone will game the system, regardless of the rules. Either healthy people make out like bandits, or insurance companies make out like bandits. The only solution to this is health care where everyone pays.
The choices are really rather simple:
* allow healthy people to save money by letting them sign up for insurance only when they need it.
* allow companies to guarantee profits by allowing them to cover only people who are profitable to them on a quarter-by-quarter basis.
* drop the notion that a society can function without common sacrifices and make everyone pay into a pot, all the time.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
You sir, and everyone else of the same mind have an option. Move out of the country, don't worry we wont miss you
It was the "free health care for everyone" people who choose fund a procedure that ends a baby's life. What is your point?
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
you already were "officially a tax cheating criminal if you choose to wander off alone" Now there is just one more thing your not paying.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
This looks like a job for selective quoting!
"While you were still technically supposed to file taxes, etc., no one really cared..."
"As of now, you are officially a tax cheating criminal if you choose to wander off alone."
"This is not the country I grew up to love and swore to protect."
You mean the country that was too lazy to chase you down if you cheated the law yesterday, and probably doesn't actually care one iota more today? The country that likely wouldn't criminalize this activity anyway, since by your description you wouldn't have an actual income and would be exempt?
Hilarious. Go get your gun, move into your shack in the Appalachians, kill some possums, and get "off the grid". Since this freedom is so precious to you, maybe you should exercise it and see how it goes.
It works in countless other countries. Why shouldn't it work in the U.S.?
Am I the only one that finds that financial implications shouldn't really matter when health and life are in danger?
You guys burn billions on weird wars because some thousand people died in a terrorist attack but you don't want to spend a few hundred million to make sure that 1/6 of your population doesn't die of everyday diseases?
That sounds pretty strange to me to put it polite.
You should be so lucky as to have Canadian health care. We spend around 60% of what is spent in the U.S., proportionally (either per capita or as a portion of GDP), and have better outcomes by almost any measure: life expectancy, infant mortality...
Personally, I feel lucky to have it because I'm an independent businessman. I'd never have been able to take the risks I took up here, down in the U.S., because I'd never have been able to afford insurance. Ask yourself how much entrepeneurialism your (now previous) fucked up situation squashed.
It's continually shocking to me how delusional Americans are about health care: You think you've got the best system in the world, when it's actually the worst in the first world; you think you get better service when you get worse (ask my brother, living in Ohio and with an executive health plan); and you think you pay less when you pay far, far more. It's like fucking bizarro-world down there.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
And if you can't? Medical bills for unexpected and unpreventable ailments can cost as much as a new car, or even as much as a new house. If you can't pay, should they let you die? Enslave you to pay off your debt? What if you die before you pay off the debt? And since the surgery could not be prevented in any way (short of letting them die), you've just decided that anyone too poor for insurance (or between jobs) should be wiped out by an unexpected medical bill. I've got enough money in my bank account to cover a relatively small surgery, but if I need a bone marrow transplant tomorrow, the anticipated expense would be nearly $200,000 dollars. I've got good insurance, so I'd be fine, but it's simply not practical to "prepare" for a $200,000 expense on a low income. If you can't afford to pay for health insurance, you damn sure can't set aside $200,000. This bill isn't perfect, but it covers more of the poor, subsidizes the lower middle class, and requires a perfectly reasonable level of insurance that prevents the upper middle class from bankrupting themselves in the event of an unlucky break.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
with mandated insurance, the freeloaders are outlawed.
No they aren’t. They’re still freeloaders. The government just steps in and pays their bill.
furthermore, since everyone is on insurance, premiums drop because the pool now includes the healthy as well.
Supply and demand don’t work like that. Please re-take Economics 101.
Alternatively, just wait and see.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
No way. You only have to look at a graph to see how absurd the difference is.
In Europe 24% of your income did not go to social healthcare. STFU. It may have been your taxes, but it wasn't all for social healthcare. That, plus your evidence is anecdotal and irrelevant at best.