The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
#241
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Joined: Jul 2007
Location: North Norfolk and northern New York State
Posts: 14,543
#242
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
Yep. And I want the insurance companies out of the way. They are acting like death panels on their own, with monetary incentives. I suppose people don't realise that.
#243
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 12,865
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
Excellent. That's what they get for being succesful when there are people who haven't been. Bastards.
Giantaxe, I'm being serious, how much more would you pay? Would you happily pay 75% of your gross income? I'm just wondering at what point you would begin to wonder if it was worth it.
Giantaxe, I'm being serious, how much more would you pay? Would you happily pay 75% of your gross income? I'm just wondering at what point you would begin to wonder if it was worth it.
Another question to the experts. To me those new benefits seem as though they would put quite a burden on ins. companies. Yet I have been reading that their stock rose after the vote and that they were actually in on designing the deal itself. Those two things don't seem to mesh. What's the truth?
Last edited by Giantaxe; Mar 24th 2010 at 4:17 pm.
#244
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
A democracy with corporate citizens who do most of the lobbying, and an electorate who are largely informed by misinformation and driven by fear.
#246
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
At least the Supreme Court had the balls to rule in favour of the obvious: corporations are de facto citizens and spend as much as they like on politics. Might as well call the spade a spade and not waste time trying to bury the dirt.
#247
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
It could also be a clever plot to allow the insurance/medical industry to hang itself by doing the obvious and keep increasing costs so that when the system has become too expensive for most to afford, a single-payer system will look very attractive to the electorate. It also puts the Republicans in a corner because they back private healthcare over the public option.
#249
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
That's not the way to get my "wish" - that'll just waste money in another bailout. End it now and go single payer.
#250
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
From an economic point of view, two major things about the US system doesn't make much sense. First the vast majority of medical bill defaults occur on the 2nd quartile of the population (families making between $25k-$50k per year). They are too rich to get medicaid and too unfortunate to not have employer provided medical insurance. They also typically have a net worth of less than $5,000. When they get large medical bills, they default. Many of the medical bills are for expensive emergency medical care treatment. The total defaults on medical bills in the US per year is around $150 billion. Someone has to pay for those defaults and it is the rest of us in higher health insurance premiums or more expensive medical treatment if we are paying our own medical bills. The current health care reform bill attempts to alleviate part of that problem by subsidizing health care for those families. It seems to me that it is better to get 25% of a families health care paid by the family instead of near nothing as is currently the case.
The second issue is that about 30% of medicare costs are for end of life care. When was the last time you brought your 20 year old car with 300,000 miles to a garage and said fix everything that is wrong with the car and left not worrying what they are going to repair and how much it will cost. Of course if you did that, then everything will be checked and replaced and you will be billed for unnecessary repairs, the bill will be padded, and the car may still not work when it was returned to you. The same occurs with end of life care. For terminal patients, there are typically 46 specialists that are sent to see the patient. The hospital is there to make money and of course they are going to send every staff doctor to visit the patient. Medicare has received bills for 85 year old terminal patients for procedures such as pap smears.
The democrats have proposed that medicare pay for end of life consultations to try to reduce some of those unnecessary procedures but the republicans accused the democrats of "death panels" or they are going to "pull the plug on grandma".
The second issue is that about 30% of medicare costs are for end of life care. When was the last time you brought your 20 year old car with 300,000 miles to a garage and said fix everything that is wrong with the car and left not worrying what they are going to repair and how much it will cost. Of course if you did that, then everything will be checked and replaced and you will be billed for unnecessary repairs, the bill will be padded, and the car may still not work when it was returned to you. The same occurs with end of life care. For terminal patients, there are typically 46 specialists that are sent to see the patient. The hospital is there to make money and of course they are going to send every staff doctor to visit the patient. Medicare has received bills for 85 year old terminal patients for procedures such as pap smears.
The democrats have proposed that medicare pay for end of life consultations to try to reduce some of those unnecessary procedures but the republicans accused the democrats of "death panels" or they are going to "pull the plug on grandma".
Last edited by Michael; Mar 24th 2010 at 6:03 pm.
#251
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Joined: Jan 2006
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Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
The irony is that the Republicans made similar proposals for Medicare back in 2003.
#252
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
The issue has never been does our system need to be reformed. It does.
Now it seems we've gotten something that we'll be paying the bill for long after Obama and gang are out of office. How nice for them.
Something like 14 states have plans to opt out of it - the governor of my own state told our congressman prior to the vote that we cannot afford it either. My stupid congressman voted for it - meaning I won't be voting for him when he's up for re-election in the fall.
This idea of 'it's a place to start' is just the ultimate example of underachieving. What - we couldn't be bothered to sit down and REALLY hash out something that will be sustainable and also fix what's so badly broken? That's what it seems like to me.
Now it seems we've gotten something that we'll be paying the bill for long after Obama and gang are out of office. How nice for them.
Something like 14 states have plans to opt out of it - the governor of my own state told our congressman prior to the vote that we cannot afford it either. My stupid congressman voted for it - meaning I won't be voting for him when he's up for re-election in the fall.
This idea of 'it's a place to start' is just the ultimate example of underachieving. What - we couldn't be bothered to sit down and REALLY hash out something that will be sustainable and also fix what's so badly broken? That's what it seems like to me.
#253
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
The issue has never been does our system need to be reformed. It does.
Now it seems we've gotten something that we'll be paying the bill for long after Obama and gang are out of office. How nice for them.
Something like 14 states have plans to opt out of it - the governor of my own state told our congressman prior to the vote that we cannot afford it either. My stupid congressman voted for it - meaning I won't be voting for him when he's up for re-election in the fall.
This idea of 'it's a place to start' is just the ultimate example of underachieving. What - we couldn't be bothered to sit down and REALLY hash out something that will be sustainable and also fix what's so badly broken? That's what it seems like to me.
Now it seems we've gotten something that we'll be paying the bill for long after Obama and gang are out of office. How nice for them.
Something like 14 states have plans to opt out of it - the governor of my own state told our congressman prior to the vote that we cannot afford it either. My stupid congressman voted for it - meaning I won't be voting for him when he's up for re-election in the fall.
This idea of 'it's a place to start' is just the ultimate example of underachieving. What - we couldn't be bothered to sit down and REALLY hash out something that will be sustainable and also fix what's so badly broken? That's what it seems like to me.
Also what is the difference between paying more expensive health insurance premiums (whether by you or an employer) due to mewdical bill defaults or paying the same amount in increased taxes? Many Americans oppose health care reform because they get "free" health care from their employer.
#254
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 12,865
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
It's difficult to negotiate with people who merely scream "death panels" and "socialism" at any attempt to change the status quo. Let's be realistic here: the Republicans saw this as their way of bringing down Obama's domestic agenda (just as they did with Clinton in the '90's) and had little or no interest in entering into rational debate. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of republican senators who negotiated in good faith. Actually, I wouldn't even need that many fingers.
#255
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Joined: Jul 2007
Location: North Norfolk and northern New York State
Posts: 14,543
Re: The health care bill is past by just 7 votes!
But I thought the CBO estimated that the new plan would actually save money in relation to the existing system?