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End the confusion about affordable healthcare among those who need it most.
I grow weary of middle, working class and poor people who don't know enough about...
Or WORSE... who are against it either because they listen to the Wing-nuts or they're just... sorry.... stupid!
Or, read the bill for yourself. I can post a link to some site as well I have read the bill and know what is in it. While there are a few points in the bill that are good, overall the bill does nothing about what is wrong with the US healthcare system.
AntwortenLöschenjim, the point is unless you are somebody like Steve Jobs and can afford to pay whatever it costs there already ARE death panels, the insurance companies run them. Now I am not saying it is any better for the government to do it, but if you think it is not happening you are fooling yourself. The insurance industry calls it "Utilization Review" and they can deny coverage for procedures which effectively is a death panel. You have the right to appeal it, but of course that is rather difficult if you are what is known as "dead".
AntwortenLöschenOnce an insurance company is prevented from assessing risk and charging accordingly, it ceases to be an insurance company. It is merely a government administrator. As is the case with drive-by agricultural claims. I can elaborate on that if you like.
AntwortenLöschenYou make your bet when you choose a policy. The insurance company is betting you are not going to get sick and you are betting you are.
You decide what will be paid and how it will be paid.
Here's the rub, or, at least one of them. The insurance companies market in such a way that the average customer does not have a complete understanding of the terms and conditions. There is indeed a role for government in forcing clear and complete disclosure.
Zer0bamacare is no different which is why AARP is predicting huge profits and staffing at a commensurate rate with the IRS. Their gap insurance coverage business is going to expand exponentially.
The government is in the same practice as the insurance companies. They are delivering a convoluted policy, that is not readable and they are covering up the gaps.
Even with the gaps, the cost analysis goes up every time it is done.
There must be a point at which Zer0bamacare will drop off in coverage. The panel will make a determination base on your personal value and projected life-sustaining care. Without that, it won't make it to 2016 before inslovency and that is only true if you forget about the fact that it is already being funded with money that presently does not exist, must be borrowed and subject to astronomical, permanent debt service.
I'm not debating that. I'm just saying there are "death panels" in both places. There has to be by the nature of the thing. Modern medical science has gotten too good at keeping borderline cases alive, the question is at what cost? And who makes that decision?
AntwortenLöschenAdded to that the fact that the general public really doesn't want to hear that that kind of decision could take place with them.
The only reason Steve Jobs lasted 10 years with Pancreatic Cancer is he could afford any treatment. The only reason he was able to get a liver transplant as a cancer patient was the same - everybody else is routinely denied those because the cost exceeds the additional life expectancy. Those are cold hard facts.
The only real question is whether the government will do any better a job at "Utilization Review" than private insurance. And which one is capable of sustaining the highest levels of health care for the most people.
Ah yes.
AntwortenLöschenHere we arrive at the crux of the matter.
We would have to look at positive outcomes as the result of government management as opposed to private management.
None come to mind.
Got this in my Twitter timeline the other day:
AntwortenLöschen"Only in America would so many overweight, diabetic people with heart disease be upset that they're gonna have healthcare."
Link and/or video please.
AntwortenLöschenNo one's contending that the law is a great thing. But it's a DAMN sight better than anything the Republicans have come up with... which, with the exception of Romneycare that they ALL are running away form... is ..NOTHING!
LOL!
AntwortenLöschenThat about sums up Americans, Steve.... or too many of them.
Why don't we look at the vast number of civilized nations who've figured out some basic systems of caring for its citizenry.
AntwortenLöschenNot saying they're all hunky dory, but at least people there don't go bankrupt if they have an illness in the family.
Why not ask Steve here, or any number of our members from Europe, Canada, Germany, Australia, etc how it's working where they live?
And YES... i know how there are huge problems because of the horrible economy of the past few years, but by and large it was working and is, in some, still working quite well.
And the problems there can give us even more to work on seeing the pitfalls and figuring out a way around them, wouldn't you think?
Why aren't Americans in all their "exceptional" glory able to cobble together the best ideas from all the plans out there and tweak them to fit out needs?
I'm guessing there's not enough PROFIT in it.
Sad and oh so typical! And pathetic!
So, you are convinced that Obamacare is better than the Ryan plan or, haven't you heard about that 'come-up-with'?
AntwortenLöschenRyan? LMAO!
AntwortenLöschenAfter his budget plan i'd be surprised if he didn't have firing squads, much less "death panels" for the old and sick!
I wouldn't be satisfied with anything less that Single Payer.
Unless Ryan's plan is better than Obamacare, meaning Single Payer, i'm not interested.
There is one very important reason why government management is superior: government answers to US, and private enterprise does not.
AntwortenLöschenGovernment, essentially, IS us. In every case where it is not, it is because of private interests seeking advantage by corrupting government officials.
Whenever a service is essential, it should be administered, or at least closely regulated by the people via their government.
Cosmic, if you think the government bureaucracy answers to the US you obviously haven't had any dealings with Social Security Disability. I don't think our current system works worth a damn, but I don't see the government being accountable for anything in my experience. If it was we wouldn't have so much trouble with private interests corrupting government officials now would we? Public health may or may not be working in other countries, with our history, I am highly doubtful it would work well here.
AntwortenLöschenDoubtful, but not sure...
AntwortenLöschenSo we leave things as is because it's doubtful it would work?
We already KNOW the private/corporate providers are corrupt. What have we got to lose trying something new?
Even Obamacare at least tries something different.
Trusting the government with their questionable competency, or trusting the corporate providers with their profit motives..... hmmmm...
I'm ready to make a switch.
I think limiting insurance companies to 85% of premiums going to medical expenses is a step in the right direction. I would be happier if non-profits were doing it rather than corporations for obvious reasons. The affordable health care act was going to help set up non-profits, that money got gutted by you-know-which-party.
AntwortenLöschenI think tighter control of malpractice suits is going to be essential, as well as fully funding the agencies responsible for prosecuting fraud.
What I am not sold on is single payer. Frankly I don't trust our government that much.
Fair points. But i've worked for doctors trying to get reimbursed from insurance companies. They're bastards!
AntwortenLöschenAnd i've dealt with them as a patient....UGH!
I'm ready to try the government.
If they manage to get this through i'd feel better about it. I just have a visceral loathing of insurance companies... from personal experience.
AntwortenLöschenHave to say, I don`t understand you Mercans aversion to this. OK, it`s not perfect in the UK; cuts are seeing to that. But it`s better than nothing, which it looks like you Americans currently get if you have no money.
AntwortenLöschenYou're mostly right, Steve.
AntwortenLöschenIf you're REALLY poor there are provisions made... i suppose. I don't know how well it works... and even they have to pay something from what i've seen. Once when i was in the ER people who had no insurance were told they'd have to pay $50 up front.
The rest of us get whatever we have through our employment usually. Those unemployed can buy their own... if they can afford it.
It's really pathetic.
I don't see how anyone can defend this system, especially in the face of what you all have, even with the problems.
I"m American and i don't get it, so i'm sure you all are totally confused.
What I don't get is conservative disdain for personal mandate. They are supposedly against welfare, and personal mandate cuts down on that. There are very few people who can survive a medical emergency without insurance without going bankrupt, and we all end up paying for that one way or another. That, in any other terms, is called "welfare". All personal mandate says is if you can afford insurance you need to buy it, because if you don't we are going to charge you for your medical care now while you can pay it, rather than after, when you can't.
AntwortenLöschenEither you are against welfare and want everybody who can to pay their share. Or you are for it, and don't mind paying somebody else's medical bills, which probably means you should be for single payer. If you are rich enough it will not bother you either way, you'll pay for what added services you want. It's the rest of us....
I didn't say government works perfectly. No organization of human beings does. My point is, in whose interest are the administrators obliged to act? A private company acts in the interest of its owners or stockholders, which is profit. Government is accountable to the people. If it fails in doing this properly, the people have the right to change who is in charge.
AntwortenLöschenThere do indeed need to be more effective ways of removing private wealth from its undue influence on government. The answer to corruption, however, should never be "just give up and let the corporations run it all".
What do we have to loose?????......Approximately $12 Trillion over 10 years or the equivalent of all the other agencies combined over 1 year.
AntwortenLöschenThe AMA and Kaiser Family both said that the most serious and looming health care issue was emergency room overcrowding with the uninsured.
They said it cost $10 billion annually.
That would be just over $120 billion over 10 years allowing for medical industry specific inflation.
Only the US government could conceive of a plan to solve a $120 billion problem with $12 Trillion.
Zer0bamacare is the scaffolding upon which US Socialism will be constructed (assuming that the US is not already a Socialist Country).
With that in mind, what we have to loose is EVERYTHING!
You're providing the argument FOR personal mandate you know. Think about it.
AntwortenLöschenWho's interest? As usual, they are motivated by a need to solidify their positions as politicians/administrators/hacks in perpetuity.
AntwortenLöschenThey act in their own interest. Hardly a headline here Cosmo.
Stockholders? Who are the stockholders? The lion's share of them are average citizens.
If you have a retirement plan, it is heavily invested in all sorts of insurance companies. Medical insurance companies are the only insurance companies not presently on the financial ropes and they have all been operating on a paltry 4% margin.
Yes, they are large and piles of money go through their hands but, their profits are marginal.
Unions heavily invest their strike fund accounts in medical insurance companies. Once insurance companies are no longer permitted to be insurance companies, what will these unions do without that investment utility?
Will they have to divest and move more of the portfolio into Oil companies?
Spoken like a true and loyal corporatist!
AntwortenLöschenYou've represented your overlords well, Sir.
Too bad there's little to show for it as far as US health care delivery to ALL is concerned.
Call it what you like, but the typical Conservative fear mongering around the term "socialism" is of little interest to poor and working class people who just want the stability and freedom FROM fear of bankruptcy due to illness or injury... the same freedom realized by more enlightened nations than this one.
I can't understand (well i can, but it gives me agita) or support anyone who does not believe healthcare and education to be rights not privileges reserved for those with money.
Just for your reference, I doubt that I would be allowed in the 'conservative' club and "corporatist" isn't even a word, just a talking point. OK, let me make up a word. I'm a neo-isolationist-free-marketist. No economy ever failed without government intervention. Conservatives don't like isolationists.
AntwortenLöschenRegarding bankruptcy: The poor are already bankrupt, if they weren't, they wouldn't be "poor". They aren't refused care unless you're talking about designer care which is not available to most of us. Canadians for example, have to come to the US to get it. The same can be said of most of the rest of the developed world under NHC as well.
Bankruptcy comes as a result of not being able to work and pay all the other bills while you're sick or injured. Zer0bamacare isn't going to take care of that either. AARP will yield huge profits with products to cover it but, the poor and working class still won't be able to afford it.
The truly poor, never pay anything and the poor in the US are the wealthiest poor in the world.
As it turns out, most of the 11 to 22 million that the left said were un-insured elected to not be full participants in society in a number of ways, thus the mandate.
Should we stop at health care as far as mandates go? What about all the other services they receive? Don't they benefit from the defense of a free society? Don't they benefit from municipal services like police, fire and sanitation? If they are paying for all of that and now paying for insurance, are they poor now where they might not have met the criteria before? In a population of 300+ million, is the addition of 11-22 million payers enough to keep this massive program solvent? That should be some interesting mathematics.
You tell me comrade: Where does it end? Why doesn't this mandate/tax/penalty set a precedent for all other mandates/taxes/penalties????
At what point are you fully contributing to the collective and who is exempt??
You seem to be adept at missing the point here. The personal mandate is NOT about paying for somebody else's healthcare, it is about paying for your own. And yes, for some bizarre reason people refuse to do it, possibly because they are all for taking a "risk" until it comes time for paying for it.
AntwortenLöschenThere is nothing socialistic about personal mandate, in fact, it is about as non-socialist an idea as you can come up with. Unless of course you are into letting somebody die of something stupid like appendicitis because they "took" the risk...
What personal mandate does is tell you no, you can't take that risk because we aren't paying for it when you lose the bet.
Semantics.
AntwortenLöschenNo, the point is not lost on me.
It's not about paying for YOUR health care, it's about paying a premium whether you like it or not.
INDIVIDUAL premiums rarely if ever represent PAYING for INDIVIDUAL services rendered.
That would be a Health Savings Account.
If you lived to be 200 years old there wouldn't be enough money from 'premiums' if you got seriously ill particularly in the case of disease.
(The definition of a disease is that there is no cure. You have it forever.)
Premiums, again, is a gamble. You are betting you are going to get sick and the insurance company is betting you won't.
The terms and conditions are based on YOUR assessed risk.
The mandate/penalty/tax will be based on the risk represented by the average in the entire collective, regardless of your health habits.
What's in it for me to live a healthy life-style with that in mind?
Like the mandate/penalty/tax, for the math to work, a healthy life-style would also have to be mandated.
Again, I ask the question; Where do the mandates end?????
Let me answer my own question.
AntwortenLöschenIn the face of the Supreme Court's precedent that the mandate is not a mandate but a tax, there is nothing limiting the government from modeling after it and extending taxes to every move you make that might not be considered healthy by the AHRQ.
This is tantamount to the socialization of every industry you can think of.
Keep in mind that the HHS now has it's own legislative branch that can pass law over a Presidential Veto.
So now private insurance is now a socialist plot? My how you do go on. Yes, it is about paying for your own health care since anything major that happens will always bankrupt you. You can't save enough to cover it. So people pretend it is never going to happen to them even though there is a 100% chance of a health crisis happening during their lifetime. That isn't a risk, it is a certainty. The only question is how it is going to happen.
AntwortenLöschenAnd as soon as that crisis happens they get their butts to the emergency room expecting to be treated. Guess on who's dime?
Yes, it IS all about paying for YOUR OWN health care rather than expecting somebody else to pick up the tab.
Or were you under the impressionism you are immortal or invulnerable?
Then congress has to get off its collective butt, do the job we elected it to do, and fix that, doesn't it? That doesn't mean dig in your heals, and refuse to work with others. They taught that in Kindergarten.
AntwortenLöschenPrecisely my point.
AntwortenLöschenThere is NO difference other than mandatory participation.
This is NOT reform. This is simply a government takeover.
Let's use the social security ponzi scheme as an example.
Social Security is the only Ponzi scheme in history that could actually work.
Why? Because it is MANDATORY.
Social Security was a sure thing yet, the government still managed it into insolvency.
This is quite literally the US Government fucking up a free lunch.
Do you really think they are going to succeed at something as complex as healthcare for 300 million people with no money?
I'm still trying to figure out your contention that making private insurance mandatory is a government takeover. Mandating insurance and regulating insurance are two different things, and yes, the affordable health care act does both. But making insurance mandatory does cut down on your bill because your bill presently includes paying for the schmuck that refuses to pay. So leave personal mandate and work on the parts of the law where the government is trying to control insurance. We all know what those points are. Pick the ones that are needed and throw out the rest.
AntwortenLöschen22 million people with no healthcare. They have to pay for it now by law. This assumes that they can actually afford it.
AntwortenLöschen(In one day, my healthcare costs went up, with private insurance, $2,500 in the form of increased deductibles)
9% of the nation is out of work. = about 27 million people.
Where is all this money coming from?
Everybody is getting some kind of healthcare now. Where is all that money coming from? And is it being effectively spent?
AntwortenLöschenLet's use Zer0bama's words.
AntwortenLöschen"You can keep your insurance."
"You can keep your doctor."
Here's what he left out; "IF you can afford it".
All this assumes that the private price won't go up as a result of Zer0bamacare.
It already has gone up.
What is the incentive for private industry to offer health care while the government is already doing it?
It's not like industry is competing for employees and have a need to sweeten the pot. We are in a depression.
They just won't offer it and the employees will use what they were contributing to insurance at the workplace to pay the Health Care Tax.
Voila: Nancy and Barry get what they wanted all along. Single Payer.
AKA, Government takeover.
I would be very interested to see your examples of the US government effectively spending money.
AntwortenLöschenIt was going up long before the Affordable Healthcare act, so you have no argument there.
AntwortenLöschenI left employment in 2006 due to illness. My insurance at the time was something on the order of $50 a month. I was COBRA for 18 months at $350, that was me paying the full rate under a group health policy. When COBRA eventually ran out I had to get individual insurance which ran $500. That same insurance cost me $950 two years later. I am currently back at work and pay around $350 a month.
In the meantime I have a stroke. If I didn't have insurance the bill would have been $140,000. With insurance they paid $14,000, I paid $3000 and the rest was written off. I never would have been able to pay off that $140,000 bill.
You keep talking about the US government effectively spending money when the personal mandate has nothing to do with the Federal Government spending money which is why your argument just doesn't wash.
Works for me!
AntwortenLöschenSo we are going to dig in our heels, and hold our breath until we turn blue making sure personal mandate doesn't work, then claim a plot when the only other solution is single payer.
AntwortenLöschenSounds like a plan jim, I think you should stick with it.
I think it's a bit late for that.
AntwortenLöschenThe politicians have bestowed it on us and it's here to stay.
There won't be a need to MAKE it not work, the Math is simply unsustainable and the Socialist know it. It will have to expand just like EVERY other 'government program'.
That is the plan.
MY plan is to seek another, already established, socialist country with better weather.
Plan ---> http://processmediainc.com/press/mini_sites/getting_out/
I knew it would comrade.
AntwortenLöschen;-)
AntwortenLöschenBon voyage, bon chance, et bon vie.
Just getting you prepared... many of the Socialist countries speak French... or so we're told.
WHAT?
AntwortenLöschenWhat are you saying? The government is going to collect this tax and not spend it on health care?
Are you suggesting that, faced with this tax, the uninsured are going to go scrambling to the nearest insurance broker to avoid it?
WHAT?
Nicaragua is on my short list.
AntwortenLöschenNot much French being used there.
They do have "FREE" Spanish immersion training though. All I have to do is re-certify my coaching and teaching credentials and I can work for, who else, the government, teaching English.
I'm also planning to open a surfing school for surfin' safari yankees, with a requirement to build a playground for local kids which, I would have done anyway.
Since I have always been insured that change isn't going to effect me. From past performance though I doubt the government is going to earmark those funds for healthcare - unless it is in the bill already, who the hell knows? If it isn't there, and I suspect it isn't that's rather telling isn't it? Which also makes it a penalty, not a tax.
AntwortenLöschenAnd if someone prefers to pay the penalty rather than get health insurance I guess there are people out there pigheaded enough to do that. They are probably also overweight, diabetic smokers who don't want the government telling them how to live but do want someone else to pay for their emergency room visits.
Bully for you!
AntwortenLöschenYou could have done so anyway... why wait to be chased away from America in a huff?
So it's fine to suck off the "Socialist" teat in another country... just not this one?
Interesting.....
NO, it's not fine but, it looks as if I won't have a choice.
AntwortenLöschenI look at it this way: If I have to live under socialism, why would I do it in a cold, wet, dark, dangerous US city when I can do it someplace with better weather??
Besides, isn't one-world-government your goal miss 'single-payer'????
So, I'm really not going that far, right?
I'll still be under the umbrella of the collective and lots of the wealth is already being re-distributed to Nicaragua.
I'm just getting in on the ground floor, comrade.
...or...they are capable of doing simple arithmetic.
AntwortenLöschen...or...they are working for a small business that won't be able to compete with the government option or afford a group plan and opted to pay the mandate/tax/penalty instead.
Don't give me that, I gave you the arithmetic. You tell me how you plan to pay a $140,000 bill.
AntwortenLöschena huff? Certainly not. I don't make emotional decisions.
AntwortenLöschenI know that this Healthcare thing is still hugely un-popular but, that's not the entire picture.
I prefer to make my observations from the 35,000 foot level with the benefit of calm reflection, not 'huffs'.
Regardless of the healthcare debacle. 49% and growing think that Zer0bama, the most liberal, leftist, Senator/President in our history, is still a good idea.
That speaks volumes about what this country has become. It is a socialist country. I don't agree with it but, I would be a fool to sit and wretch over it. I have made my peace with the reality, have to take steps to protect myself from the deleterious affects and continue to provide for myself independently.
All Socialists societies have been accompanied by a vibrant black market. People want what they are forbidden by socialism so, I will provide it.
This is why leftist governments always come at the point of a gun....they know the average citizen will eventually not like it.
By either buying insurance coverage or not and paying the tax. Whichever is less.
AntwortenLöschenHow much would you cats pay for table salt on the black market if conventional sales were forbidden?
AntwortenLöschenBTW, we're almost there you know.
Even if paying the "tax" doesn't get you any coverage? Nobody is claiming it does you know. You still have to qualify for Medicaid to get on it. Have one medical emergency like that and you will qualify for it though, because it will cost you everything you have first.
AntwortenLöschen$0. I don't use any salt.
AntwortenLöschenWhoa there pardner?
AntwortenLöschenYou mean to tell me that even if you pay the tax/penalty/mandate you're not covered? WTF?
So, you will be relieving the burden for everyone else's coverage and you don't get any of your own?
What about the 'exchanges'????
I thought Barry said (and still says) it's a mandate! Not a tax so, you pay and you must get the insurance? Right?
22 million un-insured are now insured, right?
That was the plan, right?
After all this we will still have un-insured people? WTF?
Do you ever notice how the supporters of Obamacare never talk about how it will improve patient outcomes and provide better quality of care? Never.
AntwortenLöschenThe whole argument is basically the same as a car dealer saying to it's customers "We no longer offer Rolls Royce, BMW or Mercedes. We only offer the Ford Fiesta but everyone gets one now so don't worry."
The supporters have dutifully not read the bill or studied the ramification evidence that exists all over the world and is staring them right in the face.
AntwortenLöschenThe exchanges are a way for you to pool risk. Essentially if you are an individual now there is no way for you to get in a group plan without going through an employer. Which means you pay through the nose if you have any kind of a history of health risks... like for example a stroke. What the exchanges do is allow you to get into a state group. You are still buying private insurance.
AntwortenLöschenThe penalty is just that: If it actually gave you something in return it would be a tax, not a penalty, hence all the discussion of what it is exactly. If you pay it, you get nothing, which is why it is not a straight mathematical calculation. Presumably that money would go to providers who cover uninsured patients, but again, I have no idea.
No Randy, they do talk about that. It's all about preventive care. Now whether it actually accomplishes that is something else again, but they do talk about it.
AntwortenLöschenWhat you just described already exists in the states so, what does Zer0bamacare bring to the table?
AntwortenLöschenDoes Zer0bamacare have a budget and does that budget forecast "Penalty" revenue?
BTW diogenese19348, your $140,000 medical bill was just $20K short of the death panel zone.
AntwortenLöschenIncidentally, I don't mean to exploit your misfortune. I'm truly sorry for that. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I am a shared-time caregiver, and I have had several serious injuries so I know how illness and injury can affect people.
You did bring the subject up for reference though.
It does? Funny I never noticed that. What state did it reside in? It sure as hell isn't Virginia. Nor Pennsylvania.
AntwortenLöschen"Does Zer0bamacare have a budget and does that budget forecast "Penalty" revenue?"
Probably not. Look the issue here is this: When people are young they do stupid things. They don't eat right, they do drugs, drink, smoke, are overweight, and because all these things take a number of years to take their toll of you, they don't bother paying insurance. It actually used to not help, the insurance companies were known to take your premiums up until you came down with a health condition, then find a loophole to get you off their policy when you did.
So we needed two things: (1) To get people to pay for their own future health care needs when they can afford to do so, and (2) To make it so insurance companies cannot welch out of supplying coverage when they do.
You can't have one without the other, if you demand insurance companies cover per-existing conditions, you need to make it mandatory for people to pay in ahead of time or the insurance companies will go broke. On the other hand, if you demand people pay in, then let the insurance companies can them, then all you get is insurance companies getting rich.
The Affordable Health care act is an attempt to deal with this problem WITHOUT resorting to socialized medicine. And you are right, if it doesn't work, socialized medicine is all you're left with.
So let's get the damned thing fixed so it works. It isn't perfect by any means, but it is not socialized medicine either.
Keep in mind nobody got $140,000. The way the current system works, it is what I would have been stuck with if I didn't have insurance. What actually got paid, between my insurer and me, was $17,000. I paid roughly $10,000 that year for my coverage, and $3000 towards the bill, so essentially the insurance company (Antham) was out around $4,000 for the year.
AntwortenLöschenCan you see something wrong with that? I can.
Sure do.
AntwortenLöschenI've been paying medical bills for myself and family members for years.
I have always received an invoice from the provider broken down with the original charge, co-pays, deductibles, etc.
Each time the provider was paid in full.
All my pay-outs were in-line with the original T's and C's that I agreed to and paid for.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
If I wanted to pay less going forward, I could change the coverage every year.
I have never been denied.
The problem with the current system is the rates are unrealistic if you don't have insurance. I could have paid $17 K out of pocket, essentially I did. What I couldn't pay would have been $140 K. And there would have been no way to get that reduced short of bankruptcy.
AntwortenLöschenThe problem with the current system is that if you are uninsured and run into a medical emergency, you are bankrupt and end up on Medicaid. I know I would have. I'd prefer a system where I can get the insurance I need at $500 a month rather than $1,000+ which is what individual policies cost. And part of that is requiring everybody to be adult and do that also for themselves.
It's all about personal responsibility, not socialized medicine.
You're rationalizing your way around the broader realities.
AntwortenLöschenThat's exactly how communism/socialism has been able to murder over 100 million people and still garner some favor today.
Whenever you hear someone say: "..but, Socialism does have some good stuff....". I suggest you immediately find good cover and concealment.
One of us is. The status quo was not working. It needed replacing. What it got replaced with is not socialized medicine. Unless you can explain to me how getting people to pay for their own medical care with a private insurer somehow morphs into single payer government insurance I can't see how you aren't rationalizing your dislike of Obama as a reason to dislike what is at its core a conservative answer to the health care mess.
AntwortenLöschenYeah, the Democrats snuck some big government items into that 2,000 page bill. But the insurance exchanges and personal mandate are not among them. Those aren't big government answers.
Zer0bama discontinued a program to replace the Presidential Helicopter fleet with a nearly completely European product.
AntwortenLöschenI Liked that. By your logic, I should start "liking" Zer0bama.
I'll make my judgement on the larger body of work without hanging my hat on Zer0bamacare alone, if you don't mind.
Again, my observation is on the character of the American people. Zer0bama is a symptom. He's too inexperienced, and intellectually weak to be the problem.
Sure we needed Healthcare reform.
Our Enterprise is at a distinct disadvantage because of out-of-control costs. But, to say those costs are the result of the number of un-insured is not credible. The introduction or sales pitch was predicated on that and it was a lie.
We could have cut costs first with overhauling Medicare/Medicaid to root out fraud, allow insurance companies to compete over state lines and take on the Tort lawyers.
Relatively speaking, that would have cost next to nothing.
Even Nancy Pelosi said: "...just squeezing fraud in Medicaid a little bit would pay for the whole thing..." Really?
This multi-trillion-dollar monstrosity is an octopus that will reach its tentacles into every facet of your life. You're already seeing signs of it now and there are lots of people cheering the arrival.
To characterize it any other way is stunningly naive.
And therein lies the crux of this entire debate.
AntwortenLöschenIndeed. This is the scaffolding or skeleton upon which socialism will be constructed.
AntwortenLöschenThere will be a host of rules, regulations, mandates, exclusions and barring that will all come based on the needs of the Zer0bamacare milieu in concert with the EPA, the UN and the global warming scam.
The cry will be: '..if we don't do it, people will die...the whole planet will cease to exist'.
They won't ever get around to telling us what our reason to go on living will be.
Well...
AntwortenLöschenI can only wish you well in your temperate zoned Socialist state.... exploiting the misfortunes of others as it were.
Meanwhile, my 24 year old son can enjoy 3 more years under our coverage.
And should i have to buy another plan, the fact that i gave birth, once via cesarian section...and had a suspicious lump removed from my breast more recently won't keep me from getting coverage... and should something worse happen i can't be dropped because i forgot to cross the T on a claim at some point in 1987.
Obama... an extreme leftist? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA......
Would that it were so!
Don't think your untruths about Social Security have gone unnoticed. The "Ponzi scheme" epithet is meaningless, of course, since it obviously isn't one, but it is also not insolovent, and the need to make adjustments for changing population age groups has nothing to do with any government management problem. Social Security has been an extremely successful program and will continue to be.
AntwortenLöschenTo claim that a health care reform providing universal healthcare can't work in the US implies that Americans are significantly less competent in management compared with Europeans, Canadians, Australians, --and those of all other nations who have better and lower cost health care than we have had here.
While it is true that the US has fallen behind many other advanced countries in things like education and income disparity, I do not believe that it is because we lack intelligence or motivation as a nation.
It may be that the advocacy of greed and selfishness as "virtues" more widespread here than elsewhere, have confused the values of a number of people and made cooperation to achieve common goals more difficult.