MANDATORY health insurance
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Well, I'd say that that's a peripheral argument. I think that the opposition to public health care really comes down to a resistance to change.
Socialized medicine for me, but not for thee - Crunchy Con
"The death of morality," indeed.
corianderstem
Blue Crack Distributor
Well gee, fuck 'em if they can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make enough money to be able to afford coverage.
Work harder, kids!
Work harder, kids!
HyperU2
War Child
Amen.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
I know, right? I mean it's so easy to pull yourself out of poverty. Every conservative that has preached this to me, has done that very thing... Well at least... wait... um... ok... but they talk about it.
yes, because it's all really just that simple.
corianderstem
Blue Crack Distributor
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
yes, because it's all really just that simple.
I think the videos I posted show the cause and consequence of eating habits, mental habits, and exercise habits. Creating new habits is a simple decision but it is not an easy one to practice without effort over some time. It took a lot of effort for me but now it's a new habit and I'm glad I'm not going back to KFC and A&W anymore. I'm glad that food seems repulsive to me. I'm glad that my legs can handle longer runs because I kept at it over two years to change my health. If I can do it then so can others. I'm just being positive over something I've experienced myself and others who are more health conscious have as well. Even my secular Buddhist practice helped me remove some of my inhibitions so I was aware of more choices I could do and learning about neuroplasticity also helped me have more belief that I could rewire my habits and see health results which further created motivation to continue. If people didn't have neuroplasticity in adulthood then all adults would be zombies by now. Now I don't know how to create a health conscious culture like in Sweden or Okinawa in North America so I focus on doing it for myself and hopefully others around me will see the necessity of it. By the time I hit 40 I want to be on target for my weight and general health. That's part of the reason why I like U2 because they often make songs about addiction and know that those who escape it feel much happier than those who don't. There's something enjoyable about charting your own direction in life and being in control of your choices instead of going by impulse and old habits. It's one thing to try and think your way through problems but taking action is the real work.
People can bitch about imperfect health care systems and should try and improve them but if they are eating crap and smoking or taking drugs then what are they trying to prove whether they are conservative or liberal? It's like people having a conversation about dirty air and lighting up a cigar.
I could easily be the type that doesn't share this information and just have the benefits myself and be a narcissist looking down on people like a snob and feel good that I'm healthier than others but that's not who I am. I want to see more people get healthier.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
So only two posters, troganchick and maycocksean, can tell us why they support this legislation?
Ok, maybe this is too broad. Let's talk specifics.
Issue 1) Abortion
Current law bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Repeated attempts to carry this language over into the reform legislation have been blocked.
a) is abortion health care and if so shouldn't it be noted as such in the bill?
b) regardless of your views on abortion, would FYM'ers insist upon, in the spirit of bipartisanship and the need to move reform forward, language maintaining current federal law in regards to abortion funding?
Ok, maybe this is too broad. Let's talk specifics.
Issue 1) Abortion
Current law bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Repeated attempts to carry this language over into the reform legislation have been blocked.
a) is abortion health care and if so shouldn't it be noted as such in the bill?
b) regardless of your views on abortion, would FYM'ers insist upon, in the spirit of bipartisanship and the need to move reform forward, language maintaining current federal law in regards to abortion funding?
BoMac
Self-righteous bullshitter
I can never imagine you as being that type. Never. I mean, that's not the feeling I get by reading your posts. Noooo-ooo way.
indra
ONE love, blood, life
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maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
If I were in Congress, I might be open to such a compromise, but I can see where this would get sticky. A lot of private insurers cover abortion--that's my understanding. It would make sense for a public option to cover it as well, I would think. What I heard on the radio (NPR, not Rush) is that they're talking about different options within the public plan and you could choose an option that didn't cover abortion or you could choose an option that did cover it. I suppose you could say, hey if you're willing to pay into a public option to cover abortion fine, but the contentious part would be what happens to those who can't afford to pay full cost and have to receive subsidies--would they be able to have abortion covered. Now you're talking about "my tax money" and that's where things could get ugly.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
eh hmmm
Does insurance cover it now? How is this any different?
I think specific language would get tricky in the sense of what if a woman's life was on the line...
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
I really hope you are not serious with this part. Please tell me you are not serious!!!
purpleoscar
Rock n' Roll Doggie ALL ACCESS
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Federal funds can currently be used for medical (rape, life of the mother complications) abortions only. Let's make the wording clear, either way, so that the American people understand, beforehand, what the bill does and doesn't cover.
That's a good idea everyone can agree on right?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
So then how would you word it? There are many many many women that are raped and can't prove it.
What is the wording currently?
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
//
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
First, wouldn't you rather own your health insurance instead of being tied to your employer? Hopefully you are satisfied with your job but wouldn't it suck to have to cling to a lousy job you hate, simply for the health benefits. What kind of freedom is that?
Second, ask your employer, if they don't already, to estimate the value of your health benefits and then calculate that as a percentage of your total pay. Then be alert to the proposed penalty that Congress would impose on employers that fail to offer their employees health coverage. 8% is the figure I've heard thrown around most often.
The Trojan horse that many of us fear in a public option is this. What will happen to employer provided insurance if congress mandates mandatory coverage that is more expensive than the penalty not to provide insurance?
What would you do if you were an employer?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
How many do this now? A very small percentage, and it's usually because they have to...
Most employers would love the idea of not having to provide insurance. I'm not exactly sure what you are asking here...
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
I'm asking, how can the president assures us that we can keep our insurance if we so choose, if financial incentives and a process for employers to stop providing health insurance to their employees are possibly being put into place?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Employer provided insurance wan't always common place, it's funny that conservatives are trying to defend it now seeing as they fought against it at first, it was the unions that made insurance common place and you had to provide it in order to be competitive.
I once again find it very strange that you want profit seekers who know nothing about health care deciding costs and if you are worth being covered in the first place yet a government that wants to cover you scares you...
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
INDY you never did answer my other question...
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
This is the situation many people are in right now. Privately owned insurance is nice except its expensive compared to employee provided coverage and sometimes you aren't even allowed to buy it if the insurance company doesn't want to cover you. How would the new plan make this situation worse?
I'm not clear on what the current regs are. Are some companies required to provide insurance for their employees? I know some aren't which is why they want to require all employers to provide insurance, but then doesn't that mean that right now for some companies the choice is between providing health benefits and not providing them (with the second one being cheaper). How is that better than the choice between providing coverage or paying a penalty?
And isn't the whole point of the public option to provide a cheaper alternative to private companies, so why would you think that the public option would be more expensive thus leading employers to pay the penalty rather than provide coverage? Isn't this why insurance companies are opposed to a public option because they fear it will drive down costs (and thus profits?)
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
That's not correct.
It was an unintended consequence of WWII government wage and price controls and has been cemented into place over the years by the tax code.
Just to make myself clear, I wish to see that relationship ended with Americans free to buy their own insurance, which they can take from job to job, without the tax penalties they now suffer.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
The tax code must be changed to end the exemption for employer-based insurance and give a credit to those that buy insurance themselves. McCain got pilloried by the Obama campaign for proposing this but of course now democrats are floating the idea of taxing health benefits.
The public option becomes your insurance by default. If reform provisions state through mandates that all insurance policies must provide X, and the penalty not to do so is Y. What would you do, as an employer, if X is greater than Y? And as an employee, if your employer drops coverage you then have no other choice, other than looking for a another job, but to sign up for the public option.
Is that freedom?
Bluer White
New Yorker
The public option will be cheaper...the government can tax or print more money to subsidize an individual's public option premium. Or simply short pay your doctor.
Not to mention that under the Health Insurance Exchange the government will have complete control over who its competitors will be. At least that's how I read the legislation. Seems to be a stacked deck
Jeannieco
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Ed Stein was the cartoonist at the (dearly departed) Rocky Mountain News. He has his own website now, EdSteinInk.com, and his cartoons are as brilliant as ever. He always writes something brief to go with them, but today he dedicated his time and space to this column. It's spot-on.
The Speech I Want Obama To GiveBy Ed Stein | August 12th, 2009
My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you today from the Oval Office on a subject of great importance to all of us. The past few weeks have seen the debate over health care reform turn into an ugly, angry, divisive shouting match. Senators and Congressmen have been shouted down, insulted, even threatened at town hall meeting all across the country, meetings designed to help inform the people of this country about the complex issues confronting us. I am ashamed and embarrassed by the behavior of Americans who should know better. I call upon the American people to stop the shouting, to restrain your anger, and to engage instead in a respectful conversation. I ask my colleagues in the Republican Party, the television and radio commentators and others who have stoked the anger and encouraged the mob mentality that has taken over this debate to appeal for calm and for a restoration of a civil dialogue.
So much misinformation has been disseminated, so much fear has been spread, that it is difficult to even know where to begin. A final health care plan has not been submitted to me. The details of the plans working their way through Congress are still being negotiated. It is my hope that a bipartisan agreement can still be achieved for a comprehensive reform of America’s health care system. So let us not debate the details of a program which has yet to be made final.
The real debate is about what kind of country we want to live in. I ask all Americans, whatever your political leanings, whatever your profession, whatever your income, to ask yourself these fundamental questions. Do you want to live in a country where almost 50 million of your fellow Americans are without health insurance? Do you want to live in a country where 20,000 people a year die of preventable or curable illnesses because the don’t have access to adequate health care? Do you want to live in a country where 2 million people a year go bankrupt because of medical costs, where 1.5 million homes are foreclosed because people have run out of money paying for medical care, where if you lose your job you lose your health insurance, a country where you can be denied health insurance because you have a pre-existing medical condition? A country where a sudden illness can destroy your economic future, even if you have a job and health insurance?
If you find those conditions acceptable, then we need do nothing, because that’s the country you live in now. Alone in the industrialized world, America, the wealthiest nation on earth, is the only country which allows these things to happen. Our current system of health care is broken, fatally broken, and when I took the job as President, I made it my first priority to fix it. I do not, I cannot believe, that Americans want the status quo to continue.
Now ask yourselves another question. What do the shouting mobs who are drowning out the debate offer in place of what we are proposing? What do the angry opponents want, other than the status quo? Do they have a plan for solving the problems? They offer you nothing but opposition to fixing what is broken. Some for political reasons; they simply want to hand my administration a defeat. Some because they fear that any change will affect their corporate bottom line. Those who have accumulated fabulous wealth from a system that impoverishes millions want to keep the money flowing. Some oppose change because they are ideologically opposed to anything that government might propose. Some because they fear any change. No wonder they are shouting. They cannot offer you a genuine solution to our broken health care system, so they drown out the voices of hope and change instead.
My fellow Americans, we are better than this. We are a nation which has always found a way to solve our most vexing problems. Even when the issues were the most divisive, we have pulled together in the darkest of hours and forged solutions to the most difficult of issues. Today I call upon all Americans to lower our voices, to listen to each other, to speak calmly and respectfully, and to work together to build a health care system that will provide excellent, affordable medical care to every citizen of this great country.
Thank you, and may God bless America.
The Speech I Want Obama To GiveBy Ed Stein | August 12th, 2009
My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you today from the Oval Office on a subject of great importance to all of us. The past few weeks have seen the debate over health care reform turn into an ugly, angry, divisive shouting match. Senators and Congressmen have been shouted down, insulted, even threatened at town hall meeting all across the country, meetings designed to help inform the people of this country about the complex issues confronting us. I am ashamed and embarrassed by the behavior of Americans who should know better. I call upon the American people to stop the shouting, to restrain your anger, and to engage instead in a respectful conversation. I ask my colleagues in the Republican Party, the television and radio commentators and others who have stoked the anger and encouraged the mob mentality that has taken over this debate to appeal for calm and for a restoration of a civil dialogue.
So much misinformation has been disseminated, so much fear has been spread, that it is difficult to even know where to begin. A final health care plan has not been submitted to me. The details of the plans working their way through Congress are still being negotiated. It is my hope that a bipartisan agreement can still be achieved for a comprehensive reform of America’s health care system. So let us not debate the details of a program which has yet to be made final.
The real debate is about what kind of country we want to live in. I ask all Americans, whatever your political leanings, whatever your profession, whatever your income, to ask yourself these fundamental questions. Do you want to live in a country where almost 50 million of your fellow Americans are without health insurance? Do you want to live in a country where 20,000 people a year die of preventable or curable illnesses because the don’t have access to adequate health care? Do you want to live in a country where 2 million people a year go bankrupt because of medical costs, where 1.5 million homes are foreclosed because people have run out of money paying for medical care, where if you lose your job you lose your health insurance, a country where you can be denied health insurance because you have a pre-existing medical condition? A country where a sudden illness can destroy your economic future, even if you have a job and health insurance?
If you find those conditions acceptable, then we need do nothing, because that’s the country you live in now. Alone in the industrialized world, America, the wealthiest nation on earth, is the only country which allows these things to happen. Our current system of health care is broken, fatally broken, and when I took the job as President, I made it my first priority to fix it. I do not, I cannot believe, that Americans want the status quo to continue.
Now ask yourselves another question. What do the shouting mobs who are drowning out the debate offer in place of what we are proposing? What do the angry opponents want, other than the status quo? Do they have a plan for solving the problems? They offer you nothing but opposition to fixing what is broken. Some for political reasons; they simply want to hand my administration a defeat. Some because they fear that any change will affect their corporate bottom line. Those who have accumulated fabulous wealth from a system that impoverishes millions want to keep the money flowing. Some oppose change because they are ideologically opposed to anything that government might propose. Some because they fear any change. No wonder they are shouting. They cannot offer you a genuine solution to our broken health care system, so they drown out the voices of hope and change instead.
My fellow Americans, we are better than this. We are a nation which has always found a way to solve our most vexing problems. Even when the issues were the most divisive, we have pulled together in the darkest of hours and forged solutions to the most difficult of issues. Today I call upon all Americans to lower our voices, to listen to each other, to speak calmly and respectfully, and to work together to build a health care system that will provide excellent, affordable medical care to every citizen of this great country.
Thank you, and may God bless America.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
The public option will be cheaper...the government can tax or print more money to subsidize an individual's public option premium. Or simply short pay your doctor.
Not to mention that under the Health Insurance Exchange the government will have complete control over who its competitors will be. At least that's how I read the legislation. Seems to be a stacked deck
Good points.
Important to remember that this legislation is being drafted, and is being endorsed all by a president, who all favor single payer insurance... even "if we can't get there right away."
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