MANDATORY health insurance, part 2

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ALL words are empty if they don't have action backing them up... Have you read the Republican's version of the healthcare bill? It's the opposite of freedom.
Really? The opposite of freedom is tyranny, limitation and servitude. Contrast the Republican Bill:
Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.
Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.
Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.
Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

With the 2000 page Democratic Bill which increases the size, power and scope of government in our lives (tyranny) -- has price controls, centralized planning, less choices and more mandates (limitation) -- and will burden us with higher taxes (servitude).

Yesterday you celebrated the fact that you denied gay people the freedom to marry, you are one of thse empty worded Republicans as well.
Not that I checked into it but I'm guessing Indiana residents aren't allowed to vote in Maine.
 
With the 2000 page Democratic Bill which increases the size, power and scope of government in our lives (tyranny) -- has price controls, centralized planning, less choices and more mandates (limitation) -- and will burden us with higher taxes (servitude).



this is a good summation of being a modern conservative.
 
The opposite of freedom is tyranny, limitation and servitude. Contrast the Republican Bill:

Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.
This is such a non-issue. I live in TX my insurance is from Illinois. Yes there are limitations, because the definition of what podiatry is or what emergency is differ from state lines. It's a non-issue that you have been sold. It's bascially a lie.

Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.
Doesn't sound like freedom for people who are already sick. This won't work with individuals, small businesses and trades are already doing this in some states.

Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.
So states can now deny gay people or black people in order to lower costs? This is the most open ended bullshit answer I've ever seen.

Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.
This doesn't belong in healthcare reform, this belongs in a seperate tort reform. And for the most part it's made up by the Republicans that love insurance companies but hate lawyers.

I can't believe there are educated people falling for this crap!!! This is freedom for insurance companies, the ones that screwed the health care system to where it is...

With the 2000 page Democratic Bill which increases the size, power and scope of government in our lives (tyranny) -- has price controls, centralized planning, less choices and more mandates (limitation) -- and will burden us with higher taxes (servitude).
You really have no understanding of the healthcare system now, I've tried to show you over and over but it's useless. Price controls, central planning, less choices, and more mandates is what we have now but with profit driven suits in control rather than the government. At least with the government you will have less denying of coverage and the Pharma companies won't be pulling the strings, so maybe now all those drugs that can solve your problem in one pill may actually become legal soon rather than illegal becuase you can't profit off of one life saving pill like you can a lifetime of pills. So spare me your "freedom" speech you do not know how this works. I'm tired of empty words.
 
"This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio told the crowd gathered on the lawn near the West Front of the Capitol.

Really?

The greatest threat you've ever seen? Really? So terrorism, less of a threat than this bill? Chinese repression of dissidents, a cake walk compared to this bill? Really?


Among the signs in the crowd was one reading, . . . "Vote no to government-run health care." The crowd included a significant number of older Americans.

:doh:
 
This is such a non-issue. I live in TX my insurance is from Illinois. Yes there are limitations, because the definition of what podiatry is or what emergency is differ from state lines. It's a non-issue that you have been sold. It's bascially a lie.
Doesn't seem to be a problem with car, home or life insurance. Only an issue because current law prohibits it. So we change the law.

Doesn't sound like freedom for people who are already sick. This won't work with individuals, small businesses and trades are already doing this in some states.
Would work for individuals if given the same tax-breaks as companies. But that would mean allowing people to keep more of their money and allowing them to decide how best to spend it to meet their needs. Can't have that can we?
So states can now deny gay people or black people in order to lower costs? This is the most open ended bullshit answer I've ever seen.
Aren't you the little champion of federalism.
This doesn't belong in healthcare reform, this belongs in a seperate tort reform. And for the most part it's made up by the Republicans that love insurance companies but hate lawyers.
Why not do this first since Republicans would eagerly support it? I think we know the answer to that.
I can't believe there are educated people falling for this crap!!! This is freedom for insurance companies, the ones that screwed the health care system to where it is...
That's one theory I guess.
You really have no understanding of the healthcare system now, I've tried to show you over and over but it's useless.
Yup, I'm clueless.
Price controls, central planning, less choices, and more mandates is what we have now but with profit driven suits in control rather than the government. At least with the government you will have less denying of coverage...
Guess you haven't seen all those commercials for Medigap or Medicare supplemental insurance. One wouldn't need those if Medicare covered everything would you? Even so, Medicare still faces an unfunded liability of 60 Trillion dollars -- private insurance companies can't function like that.
and the Pharma companies won't be pulling the strings, so maybe now all those drugs that can solve your problem in one pill may actually become legal soon rather than illegal because you can't profit off of one life saving pill like you can a lifetime of pills.
Is the formula for this miracle drug locked up with the carburetor that Big Oil stole that gets 100 miles per gallon?
So spare me your "freedom" speech you do not know how this works. I'm tired of empty words.

Hey, if you want "freedom" from the responsibility of making your own decisions about your families healthcare then by all means, I urge you to support the Democratic Health Care Reform Bill.
 
Doesn't seem to be a problem with car, home or life insurance. Only an issue because current law prohibits it. So we change the law.

:doh: :banghead: I've explained this one to you so many times... First of all, read my last post: I LIVE IN TX AND HAVE INSURANCE FROM THE STATE OF IL. So this blanket line about it's illegal is bullshit. BUT if you buy medical insurance in Ohio it WILL NOT cover certain procedures. In Ohio podiatry procedures are defined to the midfoot, TX to the ankle, so if you need an ankle surgery you are screwed. And the other way around the insurance company is screwed. So that's why there are limitations. Republicans are morons if they think this helps anyone. The medical industry laughs at this idea of being any kind of solution.

Would work for individuals if given the same tax-breaks as companies. But that would mean allowing people to keep more of their money and allowing them to decide how best to spend it to meet their needs. Can't have that can we?
Yes it works great for those that are fairly healthy, but if one person has a severe lifelong disease you're screwed. And what are you going to do if you pooled in with the Johnson's next store and it's she who's driving up and draining your money? You're not thinking this through.

Aren't you the little champion of federalism.
WHAT? :huh: Read that line I commented on and show me how I'm wrong.

Why not do this first since Republicans would eagerly support it? I think we know the answer to that.
BECAUSE IT DOESN'T BELONG IN HEALTHCARE!!! And who is going to define the paremeters? You? :doh:


Guess you haven't seen all those commercials for Medigap or Medicare supplemental insurance. One wouldn't need those if Medicare covered everything would you? Even so, Medicare still faces an unfunded liability of 60 Trillion dollars -- private insurance companies can't function like that.
This really has nothing to with what I said, but nice deflection...


Is the formula for this miracle drug locked up with the carburetor that Big Oil stole that gets 100 miles per gallon?

I've worked for these companies, I know first hand that certain drugs have not been introduced to the US because they worked "too well". Coincidentally there was an episode of Law & Order on last night about a drug that is 80%(the show claimed it was 91 and they changed the name) effective in ending opiate addicition within 48 hours, but drug companies have blocked the testing so it's illegal in the U.S.
 
:doh: :banghead: I've explained this one to you so many times... First of all, read my last post: I LIVE IN TX AND HAVE INSURANCE FROM THE STATE OF IL. So this blanket line about it's illegal is bullshit.

Only because the company you work for is based out of state I'm assuming. Don't you realize it's the health insurance companies that are against opening up competion across state lines?

BECAUSE IT DOESN'T BELONG IN HEALTHCARE!!! And who is going to define the paremeters? You? :doh:
As a primary factor in driving healthcare costs upward it must be part of reform. But who's going to initiate such reform, the party that is in the silk-lined pocket of the trial lawyer lobby?

This really has nothing to with what I said, but nice deflection...
It's not a deflection. Private companies can't balance their books like our spending-like-there's-no-tomorrow government does.

I've worked for these companies, I know first hand that certain drugs have not been introduced to the US because they worked "too well". Coincidentally there was an episode of Law & Order on last night about a drug that is 80%(the show claimed it was 91 and they changed the name) effective in ending opiate addicition within 48 hours, but drug companies have blocked the testing so it's illegal in the U.S.

What names do these miracle drugs go under in other countries? Or is this a [cue spooky music] world-wide-con-spir-a-cy?
 
Only because the company you work for is based out of state I'm assuming. Don't you realize it's the health insurance companies that are against opening up competion across state lines?
Not exactly... The company I work for is based here, but it's complicated.

And yes, I've spoke to you about this, the insurance companies were the ones lobbying for the ban on across the state sales. That's why I laugh when Republicans are defending them yet acting like they can pull off something like this, it won't work unless there are federal mandates in medical licensing.

As a primary factor in driving healthcare costs upward it must be part of reform. But who's going to initiate such reform, the party that is in the silk-lined pocket of the trial lawyer lobby?
But those in pocket with the insurance companies will be able to pull off the things you speak of? Nice try. Tort reform has to be seperate, plain and simple, and yes I agree it needs to be done. But the lines are going to be next to impossible to define. This really is a completely different topic.

It's not a deflection. Private companies can't balance their books like our spending-like-there's-no-tomorrow government does.
It's a deflection because you ignore the collectivism of insurance companies, you have since day one of this debate.

What names do these miracle drugs go under in other countries? Or is this a [cue spooky music] world-wide-con-spir-a-cy?
Well the ones that I worked for, never got distributed overseas. But the addiction drug that I was talking about was not developed by one of the companies I worked for, just something I did a lot of research about when I did short stint in dependency programs. A_Wanderer you mentioned Ibogaine, which I think is a naturally occurring drug, this was a synthetic, but from what I remember may be derived from...
 
After going to the Indiana vs Wisconsin football game and winterizing our lawn, it was Buffalo Wings & Cspan time.

My favorite part of the debate was the final reading of the bill by the clerk.

"The bill is to provide affordable and quality healthcare for all Americans and reduce the growth in healthcare spending and for other purposes."

Only in Washington D.C. does it make sense to SPEND 1.2 Trillion dollars to "reduce" the growth in spending.

No surprise that it squeaked by in the House.

And IT IS MANDATORY !!, whether or not you want or need it, under penalty of fine or imprisonment. Ummmm, that's change for sure.
 
Only in Washington D.C. does it make sense to SPEND 1.2 Trillion dollars to "reduce" the growth in spending.

.
it passed on a bi-partisan vote, too :up:



you do realize that is a ten year projection.

I guess when the 'mark up' a bill they are required to do this.

why not say it cost 120 billion a year?


did you complain about the cost of Bush's Irag mis-adventure?

COSTOFWAR.COM - The Cost of War
 
Huffington Post

According to a study released by the Harvard Medical School, 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died last year as a result of not having health insurance. Researchers emphasize that "that figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911 as of Oct. 31) since the war began in 2001."

The 1.46 million working-age veterans that did not have health insurance last year all experienced reduced access to care as a consequence, leading to "six preventable deaths a day."

Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at Harvard Medical School. [...]


Dr. David Himmelstein, the co-author of the report and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, commented, "On this Veterans Day we should not only honor the nearly 500 soldiers who have died this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the more than 2,200 veterans who were killed by our broken health insurance system. That's six preventable deaths a day."

The study's authors warn that the health care legislation "would do virtually nothing for the uninsured until 2013" and would "leave at least 17 million uninsured over the long run when reform kicks in," leaving many veterans still without care.
 
2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died last year as a result of not having health insurance.
Really? That's the cause listed on the death certificate?

Add this factoid to the other false or misleading stats trumpeted by supporters of a big government takeover of healthcare.

47 million uninsured Americans -- phony

Half of all bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical costs -- phony

More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care -- phony
 
Really? That's the cause listed on the death certificate?

Add this factoid to the other false or misleading stats trumpeted by supporters of a big government takeover of healthcare.

47 million uninsured Americans -- phony

Half of all bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical costs -- phony

More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care -- phony



could you cite sources? am curious.
 
Obama himself used 30 million in his speech to Congress. 47 million can be stripped down to maybe 10 million uninsurable Americans. The rest are illegal residents, choose not to buy insurance, choose not to apply for current govt assistance or have no insurance for only a short period of time. Hardly a number requiring a 2000+ page bill.

The insurance bankruptcy claim is shotdown here:
Medical Bankruptcy Claims Are Biased and Grossly Exaggerated - by Greg Scandlen - Health Care News
But the greatest flaw in the study is the way it defines medical bankruptcy.

The authors define it as meaning anyone who declared bankruptcy and had at least $1,000 in "medical debts" or were off work for two weeks due to illness. These conditions didn't have to cause the bankruptcy or even contribute to it. They could be merely incidental to someone declaring bankruptcy.

No one denies that healthcare costs are soaring along with insurance premiums.
No one denies that pre-existing conditions limit the insurance choices of many Americans.
No one denies that some families have been swamped by medical costs.
No one denies that the system we currently use to pay for health care is in need of reform.

This is, however, a problem 40 years in the making, not a crisis. Americans are not dying in the street due to a lack of health care.
This is, as well, an opportunity to make improvements or... to make things worse vis-a-vis unintended consequences or just dumb ideas (public option, price controls, excessive mandates).
 
shot down?

Liberal Bias

Woolhandler and Himmelstein are cofounders of Physicians for a National Health Program, so it is not surprising they should conclude we need a national insurance plan.

Their news release reads, "According to study co-author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard and primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts: 'We need to rethink health reform. Covering the uninsured isn't enough. We must also upgrade and guarantee continuous coverage for those who have insurance.

"Only national health insurance can do that. But we're headed in the wrong direction. An increasing number of employers and politicians are peddling phony insurance--stripped-down plans so riddled with co-payments, deductibles and exclusions that serious illness leads straight to bankruptcy. We need real health security, not counterfeit coverage.'"

But putting everyone on Medicare clearly is not the solution, since the authors themselves conclude Medicare enrollment is no protection against bankruptcy.

Enabling people to own their own insurance plan would help. That would allow people to keep their coverage even when they become too ill to work and thus lose their job and the health insurance that may have come with it.


Need for Market-Based Solution

The best remedy might be widespread adoption of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). People who are able to save money in an HSA while they are healthy will have a nest egg to fall back on when they become ill and incur extraordinary medical expenses, or when they lose their job and have to pay their own insurance premiums.

President George W. Bush's proposal to create refundable tax credits to help lower-income people afford health insurance coverage would help, too. Those people who can no longer work and enjoy the benefit of an employer subsidy would be able to get help from the federal government instead.

We can be grateful Health Affairs published this article. Though it is grossly exaggerated, it does call attention to a need ... for which consumer-driven health care is the best solution.



do you have sources that aren't from websites with politically motivated agendas?

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i will say that after dealing with my health issue, the only reason that i'm not bankrupt is because i have insurance (with skyrocketing premiums, and more importantly, i don't have children, a mortgage, and i make a very healthy salary.

if i had 3 kids and was living on $55K a year, i'd be ruined.
 
Obama himself used 30 million in his speech to Congress. 47 million can be stripped down to maybe 10 million uninsurable Americans. The rest are illegal residents, choose not to buy insurance, choose not to apply for current govt assistance or have no insurance for only a short period of time. Hardly a number requiring a 2000+ page bill.
The "choose not to" and "only a short period" are pretty hard to prove exact numbers as well, and are also very big problems to the system overall.

No one denies that healthcare costs are soaring along with insurance premiums.
No one denies that pre-existing conditions limit the insurance choices of many Americans.
No one denies that some families have been swamped by medical costs.
No one denies that the system we currently use to pay for health care is in need of reform.
Actually there where many denying this just a year ago, take a look at our last universal healthcare thread, the AM guys and many conservative politicians have been shown to have changed their positions from what they had just a year ago. i.e. at least wanting to provide healthcare for those that truly can't afford it, something they were against in the past. So, one good thing has come out of this, the slow are learning :up:
This is, however, a problem 40 years in the making, not a crisis. Americans are not dying in the street due to a lack of health care.
This is, as well, an opportunity to make improvements or... to make things worse vis-a-vis unintended consequences or just dumb ideas (public option, price controls, excessive mandates).

So you need people dying in the streets before you actually start looking at real reform and not just saving accounts?
 
So you need people dying in the streets before you actually start looking at real reform and not just saving accounts?

No, but I'd be more apt to believe that "this is a crisis because people are dying in the streets" if indeed people were actually dying in the streets.

I think it's fair to say that both sides embellish their arguments with a dash of hyperbole.
 
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do you have sources that aren't from websites with politically motivated agendas?
Like the Huffington Post !! where mrsspringsteen found her article?
Like the AMA or AARP? Or "mainstream news" sources such as Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post or New York Times?
Let's just say I'm not waiting.

I did visit one website without a politically motivated agenda, however I couldn't find a healthcare reform fact-checker at Girlsgonewild.com.


Here, again, is why the bankruptcy study is misleading.
But the greatest flaw in the study is the way it defines medical bankruptcy.

The authors define it as meaning anyone who declared bankruptcy and had at least $1,000 in "medical debts" or were off work for two weeks due to illness. These conditions didn't have to cause the bankruptcy or even contribute to it. They could be merely incidental to someone declaring bankruptcy.

Here's a factoid:
Over 2 million Americans with healthcare coverage die every year. How does that happen?
 
Camille Paglia - Salon.com
Obama's healthcare horror

By Camille Paglia

excerpt
And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.

But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.
 
oh, Camille, thou doest loveth attention.

she's a hoot to read, but i wouldn't advise taking talking points from her.
 
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