The_Pac_Mule
Refugee
No no, not in the photo, those people are all obviously racist. I meant the people at the teaparties today. Sorry for the miscommunication.
So we can sort of agree on something
MANDATORY health insurance, part 2
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No no, not in the photo, those people are all obviously racist. I meant the people at the teaparties today. Sorry for the miscommunication.
So we can sort of agree on something
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Ok. Well many at the tea parties are racist, there is no way around that, the signs and the words coming out of their mouths speak for themselves. The fact that no one on the right is calling these people out, also speaks volumes, to me and the rest of the country.
Yes, 'communism' has often been a term used by racists, so this isn't something without context.
When you have so many that don't even know what they are protesting, you have to ask then why all the hate? Why are you talking about czars when Reagan had them? Why are you talking about bail outs when Bush started them? Why are these things all of a sudden communists and worthy of protests? After you ask yourself that, just take a look around, and take a real hard look at who are surrounding you.
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
Michael Steele.
Sorry Massa Limbaugh.
Some people might call Michael Steel a derogatory phrase that starts with a 'h' and ends with an 'r'. Two words eleven letters. Not saying they're right.
Sorry Massa Limbaugh.
Some people might call Michael Steel a derogatory phrase that starts with a 'h' and ends with an 'r'. Two words eleven letters. Not saying they're right.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
I think that quotes like that are interesting, financeguy.
Is Limbaugh a political officebearer, or an entertainer? What would be the implications if the latter figleaf were stripped from him once and for all?
Is Limbaugh a political officebearer, or an entertainer? What would be the implications if the latter figleaf were stripped from him once and for all?
financeguy
ONE love, blood, life
Exactly. He isn't even elected. As for Glen Beck, my take on that character is that he is just stealing Alex Jones's shtick (as in, the 'ordinary Joe Six Pack against the cynical forces of political manipulation and Washington elitism' shtick) and repackaging it for Fox and, ultimately, subverting it.
Now, granted, Jones is a bit 'far out' but no-one has ever accused him of being a racist.
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
How 'bout we go just go with the less-offensive and equally accurate term, "Uncle Tom."
I was all set to admire Steele for having the guts to call Limbaugh out for what he is and then he goes and debases himself like that. . .
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
after paying $230 for an inhaler today, i really want my public fucking option.
and, yes, i am totally insured -- that's more than my premium.
and, yes, i am totally insured -- that's more than my premium.
holy shit.after paying $230 for an inhaler today, i really want my public fucking option.
and, yes, i am totally insured -- that's more than my premium.
Bluer White
New Yorker
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Well in the current structure this wouldn't change the price one bit. All they'll do is lobby with the insurance companies and change their R&D prices and everything will remain the same.
This has been tried.
Some of you don't understand, this is not a free market.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
It's not a free market because of third party payers.
No drug company would survive selling $230 inhalers if their only purchasers were cash customers. Proof. Prescription drugs that go over-the-counter, and are no longer covered by insurance, routinely sell for 1/4 to 1/3 of their prescription price. Why? Because they now have to compete for the dollar of a consumer looking for the best value. When you have a $10 copay you don't care how much a drug actually costs.
No drug company would survive selling $230 inhalers if their only purchasers were cash customers. Proof. Prescription drugs that go over-the-counter, and are no longer covered by insurance, routinely sell for 1/4 to 1/3 of their prescription price. Why? Because they now have to compete for the dollar of a consumer looking for the best value. When you have a $10 copay you don't care how much a drug actually costs.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Exactly, this is why I find it so absolutely ridiculous that conservatives are defending this system. It's downright laughable.
I'm glad you are finally seeing this. I've only been saying this for months.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Finally seeing this?
Who has argued from the beginning that we need to put purchasing power back in the hands of the individual and family? That would be me.
And who has said the answer is MORE THIRD PARTY PAYMENTS in the form of the government, already the largest third party payer. That would be just about everyone else here including you.
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
Last night on the House floor, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) spoke to Congress about "school based health clinics" (SBHC), labeling the clinics discussed in current House health care legislation as "sex clinics."
The conservative congresswoman suggested that if health care reform passes, the nation's schools might begin offering abortions to students. Bachman's interpretation of the health care reform bill holds that the legislation is designed to bring Planned Parenthood into educational facilities. According to Bachmann,
The bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.
Section 2511 of the health care bill referred to by Bachmann, makes no mention of abortion and stipulates,
(i) "SBHC services will be provides in accordance with Federal, State, and local laws governing-- (I) obtaining parental or guardian consent; and (II) patient privacy and student records, including section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and section 444 of the General Education Provision Act;
The concept of "school based health care clinics" was introduced under the notion that students achieve higher academic performance when they are healthy and receive adequate medical attention. According to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, if implemented SBHCs would give schools access to physicians "so students avoid health-related absense and get support to succeed in the classroom."
YouTube - Rep. Bachmann Warns of Abortion Field Trips
The conservative congresswoman suggested that if health care reform passes, the nation's schools might begin offering abortions to students. Bachman's interpretation of the health care reform bill holds that the legislation is designed to bring Planned Parenthood into educational facilities. According to Bachmann,
The bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.
Section 2511 of the health care bill referred to by Bachmann, makes no mention of abortion and stipulates,
(i) "SBHC services will be provides in accordance with Federal, State, and local laws governing-- (I) obtaining parental or guardian consent; and (II) patient privacy and student records, including section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and section 444 of the General Education Provision Act;
The concept of "school based health care clinics" was introduced under the notion that students achieve higher academic performance when they are healthy and receive adequate medical attention. According to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, if implemented SBHCs would give schools access to physicians "so students avoid health-related absense and get support to succeed in the classroom."
YouTube - Rep. Bachmann Warns of Abortion Field Trips
OP
OP
And how would you go about doing this?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Yes you did after finally no longer defending the current system and being asked for an alternative. But you've yet to address how your alternative helps those that aren't healthy, get sick a couple of months into their "savings", have lifelong diseases, pre-existing diseases, or those that still can't afford. Other than that it's perfect.
The difference is that it's not a third party working in cohoots with all the others and pretending to be competitive, it's not profit over health, it's a third party that will require existing third parties to truly become competitive.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Giving individuals the same tax breaks that employer based insurance policies receive. Discouraging "first dollar" policies that encourage overuse in favor of HSA's (Heath Savings Accounts) and high deductible major-medical policies that encourage thrifty shopping as in other goods and services.
That's the short answer. In so many words can you explain why this isn't the answer and more government is?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
Because it really only helps the healthy that have been putting into that account for a long time.
In so many words can you explain how it doesn't?
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
I didn't expect an answer...
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
but if i need a certain inhaler, and i do, and my doctor prescribes it for me, and he does, then i'm stuck with the $230.
it's not like i can just go without it or comparison shop and find a nicer color.
HyperU2
War Child
Seems like we're getting closer to mandatory insurance, not free health care.
Medical premiums could still be a 'heavy lift' - Yahoo! News
Medical premiums could still be a 'heavy lift' - Yahoo! News
The_Pac_Mule
Refugee
greatttttt.
bigjohn2441
Refugee
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2008
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- 1,593
after paying $230 for an inhaler today, i really want my public fucking option.
and, yes, i am totally insured -- that's more than my premium.
nothing like the good ol' red, white, & blue dick being jammed in your ass.
INDY500
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
I understand your frustration and anger, really I do as I deal with it daily. It's why no one in health care is saying reform is not necessary. But believe it or not the problem CAN be made worse with the wrong reform. So let's not do that just to say we did something.
PS, be sure and check with your insurance to see if there is a formulary, bioequivalent or alternative drug they WILL pay for.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
i agree on the above point, but i think that's pretty vague. we all want the right reform, i just don't see any alternatives being put forth by the GOP. the point seems to be the make health care "Obama's Waterloo" as they wanted, and to a degree, they have succeeded.
i do need to call my insurance company. it's my usual inhaler, i am baffled as to why the cost has skyrocketed.
but i'm lucky. yes, it sucks to pay $230, but i do have the money to cover that. i don't know what other people do.
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Sad, but I think you're probably right. My prediction is everyone gets coverage of some sort (the mandated part will make it through--in insurance company lobbyists will see to that). The gov. will be forced to pick up the tab for those that can't afford to buy their own. In the end it will costs the taxpayers more, health care costs in general will not decrease, the Republicans will blame Obama (as if THIS was what he wanted all along) and hope to coast that blame back into the majority in next years elections?
Who wins? Nobody. Well except for the insurance companies.
Se7en
Rock n' Roll Doggie
BVS
Blue Crack Supplier
MrsSpringsteen
Blue Crack Addict
NY Times
October 4, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Dad’s Life or Yours? You Choose
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
So what would you do if your mom or dad, or perhaps your sister or brother, needed a kidney donation and you were the one best positioned to donate?
Most of us would worry a little and then step forward. But not so fast. Because of our dysfunctional health insurance system, a disgrace that nearly half of all members of Congress seem determined to cling to, stepping up to save a loved one can ruin your own chance of ever getting health insurance.
That wrenching trade-off is another reminder of the moral bankruptcy of our existing insurance system. It’s one more reason to pass robust reform this year.
Over the last week I’ve been speaking to David Waddington, a 58-year-old wine retailer in Dallas, along with his wife and two sons. I’d love to know what the opponents of health reform think families like this should do.
Mr. Waddington has polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, a genetic disorder that leads to kidney failure. First he lost one kidney, and then the other. A year ago, he was on dialysis and desperately needed a new kidney. Doctors explained that the best match — the one least likely to be rejected — would perhaps come from Travis or Michael, his two sons, then ages 29 and 27.
Travis and Michael each had a 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD. And if pre-donation testing revealed that one of them had the disorder, that brother might never be able to get health insurance. As a result, their doctors had advised not getting tested. After all, new research suggests that lack of insurance increases a working-age person’s risk of dying in any given year by 40 percent.
“At the time David needed a transplant, the people closest to him couldn’t even offer a lifesaving donation — for insurance reasons,” said Mr. Waddington’s wife, Susan.
Travis, who is living in New York and working toward a math doctorate, is anguished at having to weigh insurance obstacles against the chance to save his dad.
“Can you put a price on your father’s life?” he asked. “My brother and I talked it over privately, and agreed that we should both go ahead and get tested anyway. It seemed like the only course of action. We presented our plan to our parents, and of course Mom immediately shot it down, with Dad firmly behind her.
“We had to respect their right to want to protect us. But it was enraging to be in that situation, and to be completely impotent to do anything to help. I told myself a number of times that we would reconsider the issue of testing if Dad’s dialysis stopped working before he got a transplant.”
David Waddington finally got that transplant when a kidney from a deceased donor became available. But our insurance system has had other excruciating consequences for the Waddingtons. Though PKD has no cure as such, there are experimental medications that may delay kidney problems. To get access to the medications, a patient must be tested — and since Travis and Michael Waddington don’t dare get tested, they don’t have access to these medications.
“The only way to do it is to lie about your name during testing, to use a fictitious name,” Susan Waddington said. “That was the advice we got from a major person in the field. We didn’t do that.”
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, passed last year, should eventually help people get access to health insurance even if they have a genetic predisposition to a disease. But insurance companies will still be free to discriminate against people who show symptoms of those diseases.
That’s what’s happening now with Michael. For years, he and Travis were afraid to mention to physicians their 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD, but recently Michael began suffering pains and went to the emergency room. After examining him and ordering tests, the doctor asked him, “Have you ever heard of PKD?”
“I felt the jig was up, and I could disclose my knowledge,” Michael said, so he told the doctor about his father.
The broader problem is this: Our broken system leads Americans to spend 16 percent of our national income on health care, twice as much as in parts of Europe, yet with maternal mortality rates and child mortality rates twice those of the best-performing countries. Lack of insurance is linked to nearly 45,000 unnecessary deaths a year, according to a peer-reviewed study to be published in the December issue of The American Journal of Public Health.
None of this seems to move members of Congress who oppose health reform. They have first-rate health care for themselves and so perhaps don’t appreciate how their posturing forces people like the Waddingtons into impossible situations. Let’s hope they find it in their hearts to overhaul an existing insurance system that is the disgrace of the industrialized world.
October 4, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Dad’s Life or Yours? You Choose
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
So what would you do if your mom or dad, or perhaps your sister or brother, needed a kidney donation and you were the one best positioned to donate?
Most of us would worry a little and then step forward. But not so fast. Because of our dysfunctional health insurance system, a disgrace that nearly half of all members of Congress seem determined to cling to, stepping up to save a loved one can ruin your own chance of ever getting health insurance.
That wrenching trade-off is another reminder of the moral bankruptcy of our existing insurance system. It’s one more reason to pass robust reform this year.
Over the last week I’ve been speaking to David Waddington, a 58-year-old wine retailer in Dallas, along with his wife and two sons. I’d love to know what the opponents of health reform think families like this should do.
Mr. Waddington has polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, a genetic disorder that leads to kidney failure. First he lost one kidney, and then the other. A year ago, he was on dialysis and desperately needed a new kidney. Doctors explained that the best match — the one least likely to be rejected — would perhaps come from Travis or Michael, his two sons, then ages 29 and 27.
Travis and Michael each had a 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD. And if pre-donation testing revealed that one of them had the disorder, that brother might never be able to get health insurance. As a result, their doctors had advised not getting tested. After all, new research suggests that lack of insurance increases a working-age person’s risk of dying in any given year by 40 percent.
“At the time David needed a transplant, the people closest to him couldn’t even offer a lifesaving donation — for insurance reasons,” said Mr. Waddington’s wife, Susan.
Travis, who is living in New York and working toward a math doctorate, is anguished at having to weigh insurance obstacles against the chance to save his dad.
“Can you put a price on your father’s life?” he asked. “My brother and I talked it over privately, and agreed that we should both go ahead and get tested anyway. It seemed like the only course of action. We presented our plan to our parents, and of course Mom immediately shot it down, with Dad firmly behind her.
“We had to respect their right to want to protect us. But it was enraging to be in that situation, and to be completely impotent to do anything to help. I told myself a number of times that we would reconsider the issue of testing if Dad’s dialysis stopped working before he got a transplant.”
David Waddington finally got that transplant when a kidney from a deceased donor became available. But our insurance system has had other excruciating consequences for the Waddingtons. Though PKD has no cure as such, there are experimental medications that may delay kidney problems. To get access to the medications, a patient must be tested — and since Travis and Michael Waddington don’t dare get tested, they don’t have access to these medications.
“The only way to do it is to lie about your name during testing, to use a fictitious name,” Susan Waddington said. “That was the advice we got from a major person in the field. We didn’t do that.”
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, passed last year, should eventually help people get access to health insurance even if they have a genetic predisposition to a disease. But insurance companies will still be free to discriminate against people who show symptoms of those diseases.
That’s what’s happening now with Michael. For years, he and Travis were afraid to mention to physicians their 50 percent chance of inheriting PKD, but recently Michael began suffering pains and went to the emergency room. After examining him and ordering tests, the doctor asked him, “Have you ever heard of PKD?”
“I felt the jig was up, and I could disclose my knowledge,” Michael said, so he told the doctor about his father.
The broader problem is this: Our broken system leads Americans to spend 16 percent of our national income on health care, twice as much as in parts of Europe, yet with maternal mortality rates and child mortality rates twice those of the best-performing countries. Lack of insurance is linked to nearly 45,000 unnecessary deaths a year, according to a peer-reviewed study to be published in the December issue of The American Journal of Public Health.
None of this seems to move members of Congress who oppose health reform. They have first-rate health care for themselves and so perhaps don’t appreciate how their posturing forces people like the Waddingtons into impossible situations. Let’s hope they find it in their hearts to overhaul an existing insurance system that is the disgrace of the industrialized world.
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