Health care (argue here)

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I don't know what to think about this. those lame commercials are pretty convincing.

I'm pretty impressionable concerning this topic, plz persuade me either way. and this is in the Pigsty, so you can be mean.
 
the Republicans are just trying to stop healthcare reform b/c if it works that means Obama get an A, and they want him to fail. its all very selfish. if they think private is so much better than public, then why are they worried that public will eventually stamp out private. they say they dont want government deciding our healthcare, but its cool that insurance companies do? shouldnt a doctor decide is you need surgery, not an insurance company?


I wasnt gonna comment but i couldnt help it. damn you osci. :cool:
 
Glenn Beck is very passionate about healthcare apparently

skip to 3:25 for major lulz

 
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Any countries greatest asset is it's people. You can wave all the flags you want but if you don't care about the general health and well-being of your fellow human beings then it's all pretty pointless.

I can't think of ANY good argument for the present system in America and people should riot for the right of Universal healthcare.
 
I'm on the fence about it. I don't have health insurance so it would benefit me.

Most countries have it these days and the US should get it as well.

Does that mean if you die hun, there will be a re-election for Solo President?...:lbf:
 
Most countries have it these days and the US should get it as well.

Does that mean if you die hun, there will be a re-election for Solo President?...:lbf:

I think I'm on the fence about it because I (admittedly) don't know very much about it, having grown up in a country with private insurance. Want to inform me more about it? :)

And no, if something were to happen to me then fellow Obama groupie and my VP nugz will take over.
 
I have a tax credit card so it's all free for me.:guitar::p
 
single payer healthcare!!!!

you shouldn't have to get sick just because you're poor.

Not on the table.

When people went to congress to be heard they were arrested for disruption of congress. That was the first 8. The next day 5 new people went down and also got arrested.

Obama said he was for single payer a few years ago but now he's not.

As an independent I am ok with single payer. I do not support any tax structure that penalizes me for going to college and getting a good job.

People speak about opportunities as if I had some advantage. In fact, being a white male makes me the least likely candidate for free money. Additionally, I worked 2 jobs while in school so I could pay for school. In Rhode Island, if you are unemployed, you can attend any state college for free. There are plenty of people who have the opportunity and do not take it.

My only real desire for this bill to be passed is because there are children who have no insurance and they were not given any say in the matter. They have yet to make choices. I would support something that gave children free health care.

Here is a link regarding the first paragraph of what I wrote... http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=670
 
Health Reform Can Pay for Itself
The task isn't as difficult as you may have heard.
By Timothy Noah

Barack ObamaAlarmism is setting in about the health reform bill. "Alliances In Health Debate Splinter," says the Washington Post. "House healthcare plan to add to deficit: analysts," says Reuters, echoing earlier stories about Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf's congressional testimony last week that health reform would be a budget-buster. President Obama's approval ratings are slipping, and public approval of his handling of the health care issue has for the first time dropped below 50 percent. Slate warns readers on its home page, "We're About To Make a Huge Mistake on Health Care." Or maybe health reform is already dead because the Senate finance committee is dithering and six moderate senators are urging the Democratic leadership to slow things down further. Bill Kristol, who helped strangle Hillarycare in its crib, smells blood.


Never mind that the health reform bill last week cleared three congressional committees (two more to go!) and that the House bill, which is more liberal than the bill approved by Sen. Ted Kennedy's health, education, labor and pensions committee, was endorsed unexpectedly last week by the American Medical Association. While it would certainly be more convenient for health reform to clear Congress before the August recess, a failure to do so, which is looking increasingly likely, will hardly be the devastating setback that's widely supposed. The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn worries that the recess will provide "four long weeks in which special interests can bang away at legislation, running ads and ginning up grassroots opposition." But it will also provide four long weeks in which supporters of health care reform, whose numbers and union backing are not inconsiderable, can bang away at legislators who aren't supporting health reform.

It would also provide four long weeks for Congress to figure out how to pay for the bill. The high cost of health care reform has emerged as the principal political argument against it. But this is an eminently solvable problem—and one that Congress has already solved to a much greater extent than many realize.

The Senate bill, as passed last week by the health committee, would cost about $600 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office's most recent calculation. The health committee proposed no offsetting taxes. But that's because the health committee can't propose any taxes: Taxation lies outside its jurisdiction. The Senate finance committee is giving serious consideration to offsetting health reform's cost by taxing employer-provided health benefits, which currently are not taxed. The exclusion costs the Treasury $250 billion per year. Unions hate the idea of limiting the exclusion, and during the 2008 campaign Obama attacked Sen. John McCain's proposal to eliminate it. But more recently, Obama has signaled that he might support scaling it back.

The health insurance exclusion is regressive, since people making more money tend to receive the most generous health benefits. On the other hand, eliminating the exclusion entirely would increase the tax liability of people earning less than $50,000, as a percentage of income, much more than it would people earning more than $200,000, assuming both groups received health insurance through their employers. A reasonable compromise, therefore, would be to maintain the exclusion for people earning below a certain amount (say, $50,000) and reduce it for people earning more. In the March 17 New Republic ("Tax My Health Benefits, Please"), Cohn noted that a tax scheme along these lines, proposed by Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, would raise "more than $700 billion over ten years." If included in health reform, such a plan would net the feds a $100 billion surplus during the next decade. As a side benefit, it would exert some pressure on health insurers to lower premiums.

The House bill, as passed last week by the ways and means and education and labor committees, would cost about $1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office's most recent calculation. But this doesn't take into account the bill's sliding surtax on incomes above $350,000, which (according to the joint committee on taxation) would raise an offsetting $544 billion during the same period. (As liberal think tank Citizens for Tax Justice points out, $544 billion is a lot less than what this crowd got during the last 10 years from George W. Bush's tax cuts.) Other taxes in the bill and projected savings in Medicare and Medicaid further reduce the House bill's cost to $239 billion over 10 years. Congressional Quarterly gasps that this is "larger than the [deficit] run by the government for all of fiscal 2007."

But it comes to about $24 billion annually, a manageable amount that could be eliminated by adding in a much more modest scale-back of the health insurance exclusion than the one envisioned by Gruber. Further savings could be achieved if Congress were to adopt the Obama administration's proposal to create a Fed-like Medicare Advisory Council that could set rates for Medicare providers while being somewhat shielded from congressional meddling.

I won't even bother to suggest paying for health reform with a progressive Medicare payroll tax rather than the flat 1.45 percent tax on individuals that we have now. This would be the most sensible way to pay for health reform. Citizens for Tax Justice has a very modest proposal here; note that the top rate would be all of 2.5 percent. But Congress would never approve it. That's a shame, because it would raise $500 billion over 10 years.

"Let's pass [health care] reform by the end of this year," President Obama said today. His language would seem to signal that he's reconciled to waiting for a decent, fiscally responsible bill. It's possible he won't get it. But achieving it isn't all that hard, and it just may be that Congress gives him one.
 
I worry that the AMA approves of it... they are a private entity and like any group of people with a financial interest in something, they are going to approve of it if it helps them.

I'd rather see something the AMA didn't like. Then I would think perhaps the bill had some merit.

I don't want to be taxed on the health benefits that I'm receiving in order to subsidize people who do not have benefits. I like Ralph Nader's plan the best. Cut military spending dramatically and use the money saved for Single Payer, Everyone In, Choice of Doctor, Choice of Hospital.
 
He can take his "free" healthcare and shove it. I'll take care of myself. I work for an insurance company and this crap will put me on the street. I work with a lady from Canada and she tells me the horror stories about their government run system. It scares the crap out of me. We sell polocies to a lot of Canadians that bring their arses down here to get "quality" healthcare.

We need tort reform and some tweaks to the current system, but not the government to step in. Our goverment generally does a lousy job at pretty much everything it tries to run. It usually costs way more than they could ever dream of and is usually completely over run with fraud. No thanks.
 
I worry that the AMA approves of it... they are a private entity and like any group of people with a financial interest in something, they are going to approve of it if it helps them.

I'd rather see something the AMA didn't like. Then I would think perhaps the bill had some merit.

I understand the concept but then we have to go further and ask why they approve. Doctors, in my limited experience, like to be in charge, and currently the insurance companies are making health care decisions for them. I was involved with my grandmother's care and treatment and I saw the way that hospitals and doctors must fit the treatment they give to standardized rules. I don't have an idealized view of doctors but I think that at some point most of them must have been driven by their own ideals and it must be difficult for them to release patients that are not ready to be released, and to determine the care they give according to statistical guidelines.

Now, if the insurance companies were endorsing this bill I think your reasoning would be more sound.

I don't want to be taxed on the health benefits that I'm receiving in order to subsidize people who do not have benefits. I like Ralph Nader's plan the best. Cut military spending dramatically and use the money saved for Single Payer, Everyone In, Choice of Doctor, Choice of Hospital.

This sounds good. So much of our military spending goes straight to the private sector. As long as the money cut is not making our troops less safe or taking away from veterans benefits, which is often where the cuts come from, this would be great.

He can take his "free" healthcare and shove it. I'll take care of myself. I work for an insurance company and this crap will put me on the street. I work with a lady from Canada and she tells me the horror stories about their government run system. It scares the crap out of me. We sell polocies to a lot of Canadians that bring their arses down here to get "quality" healthcare.

We need tort reform and some tweaks to the current system, but not the government to step in. Our goverment generally does a lousy job at pretty much everything it tries to run. It usually costs way more than they could ever dream of and is usually completely over run with fraud. No thanks.

And at the same time, I can't really disagree with what you are saying. I have heard that it is common in countries with socialized medicine for those that can afford it to choose to pay more for quality care.

And the government IS grossly inefficient and corrupt in most areas I have ever dealt with. But insurance companies play a sort of gambling game, where they must take in more than they pay out in order to survive, let alone profit, and the bottom line is that it's about money and they don't have the same responsibility to the public, in my opinion, as a government agency.

So I don't mean to offend you, and I'm sure you know more about it than I do, but generally, I think that I might trust the government more on this issue.
 
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I don't know what to think about this. those lame commercials are pretty convincing.

I don't know what lame commercials you speak of, but I suspect you're referring to the recent move for health care reform. In that regard, it seems that all parties basically agree that reform is needed. Democrats want a public plan to supplement the current set up. Republicans on the other hand want tax credits and so forth to give more money to those in need to pay for their own health insurance. The health industry is also conceding that reform is needed, but it looks like that's mostly because they want in on the discussion since they're bottom line is largely at stake.

So, everyone seems to agree on reform, but what's the best way? In that regard, I don't think people in general realize how many different ways health care can be administered. Usually, I think people believe this to be an all or nothing proposition. To wit, let the private sector dominate like in the US or let the central gov't dominate like in Canada or the UK. But there are different health care management models out there. For instance, there's Japan where it's employee based so to speak. Certain employees get full coverage through their work, certain employees get their employee coverage supplemented by the gov't, some self-employed people pay special taxes for their type of coverage, some get full coverage through the gov't, e.g., elderly. There are also other types of universal care where it's very market oriented. There's Spain where, iirc, it's guaranteed by the central gov't, but run by the provinces. And in some of these models, individuals can opt out, and get private insurance, or can rely on them as a supplement. I think these are important alternatives that must be considered.

In addition to the different models, there are so many different levers that affect the health care machinery. Health of the population, e.g., obesity, mortality rate, population growths in general, e.g., baby boom generation, and on and on. Apart from those numerous considerations, it seems to be a point of fact that health care is extremely expensive, and will severely tax any nation regardless of the health care model. Deficits are the rule, not the exception. I don't envy the lawmakers at all in this herculean task that they're up against.

So what do I personally think? Quite frankly, I'm not all too sure. But there are several factors that I'm just flat out puzzled by. In the 'richest country in the world', there are 45 million uninsured people in the US. There are also about 25 more underinsured people in the US. In other words, one significant medical issue will likely severely hamper an un/underinsured individual's ability to keep his/head above water. That just doesn't make sense to me. It seems a bit uncivilized to be honest.

To that end, it seems that the Republican model isn't really realistic in filling in that gap. And to be even more frank, I'm not altogether sure that I can trust the Republicans considering that they're often times bedfellows of the health care industry, which desperately wants to do everything they can to protect their $2.5 trillion dollar industry. See e.g., Medicare Act of 2003.

I think we can learn a thing or two from the different models from Germany and Japan for example. And I would enact a law that addressed costs and access at the outset, not after the fact.
 
We need tort reform and some tweaks to the current system, but not the government to step in.

Reposts from before about "tort reform":

GE Medical Protective, the largest insurer for medical malpractice in the US, relied on their own well funded research, and then admitted in court filings that damage awards have little to no effect on insurance premiums for physicians.

Also, caps have already been in place in several states like California and Texas. Insurance companies have been pleading with the public for years that this was necessary to reduce premiums. Yet somehow, insurance premiums in those states have increased substantially (this was even before the recent downward spiral in the economy). GEMP’s own admission is correct: caps on damage awards have virtually no effect on insurance premiums.

Contrast that with a state like Washington that has no caps on damage awards. Somehow, not too long ago, Washington's largest provider of medical malpractice insurance actually decreased insurance premiums.

Then, there's the nonprofit nonpartisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights whose research indicated that increases in premiums were not intended to cover claims, but instead were used to increase profits for the insurance companies. Yet another collateral evidence that supports GEMP's own admissions in court that court awards hardly register as blips on the screen.

If there are caps in your jurisdiction, this means that your right to legitimate recovery has been potentially significantly diminished because of the scare tactics employed by the insurance companies, which they now admit are false. Should there be tort reform? I think it's always prudent to engage in analysis and reformation should they become necessary, but it shouldn't be dictated by the terms of the insurance companies.


That's a distinction without a difference because defensive medicine is also a red herring. Indeed, studies by, for instance, the Congressional Budget Office concludes that defensive medicine is more motivated by maximizing profits rather than preventing lawsuits. This is one of several congressional studies that conclude that the notion of defensive medicine has a very small impact on the cost of healthcare in the US.

Lawsuits, damage awards and so forth constitute about 1% of the overall cost of health care. So, let's say that we get rid of all those lawsuits. Then, the MRI that you need will cost $990 instead of $1,000. I think it stands to reason that that is not a fair return on the evisceration of your legal rights.

There are numerous reasons why health care costs are so high in the US. But blaming it on trial lawyers and award damages is like worrying about the wallpaper when the house is on fire.


And for the record, I don't necessarily advocate socialized medicine either. That's not the one and only model just like the current model isn't the one and only model either. My concern is for the millions of Americans who are uninsured or underinsured, and whose lives are turned upside down because of an onset of significant medical problems. Personally, in this day and age, I find that quite bizarre to say the least.
 
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