Obamacare
 

i know plenty of you here LOVE obama. personally, i think he could be a one term dude and i'd be happy with that. rail me if you want but you will not "change" my views. however, healthcare has been an issue for decades. this "forced" healthcare program he is trying to do is not right.

i can afford insurance now. 6 months ago i could not. since i returned from my hiatus from society i could not. not until i got a decent paying job. so basically he's saying that if i cannot afford healthcare then it's going to be taken from my tax return. gee. really.

oh and here's another thing....i had to be taken to the emergency room about a year and a half ago. i chose the "free" hospital because i did not have insurance. i still get bills to this day for their sorry ass service.

i never saw such things. i'm white. i will never see that.

yeah i said that. rip me one. i'm not gonna care. i am jaded. very. and i usually stick to my own self but every now and then i've had enough and have to voice my opinion.

now back on subject:

ok lets see here. insurance companies. yyyyyeah. they are in it for what people? your best interest? i think not. money. they want to turn a profit for their shareholders. they could give a rats ass whether you die or live tomorrow. unless you are on their policy. then they care.

i understand obama's interest in making sure everyone has insurance but lets be real. in america.......snot gonna happen.

and this is the dude that took my first return in as many years but i agree with him here: (and on taking my tax return actually)

ETA: for the states fuck up in my child support payments when they didn't take enough out

wow. they're stating the obvious now:

I'm on Fred's side on this. The Congress has been abusing the heck out of the commerce clause ever since Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Back then, the Supreme Court sharply limited the government's power. Since then, every President has packed the Court with as many appointees as he could, tilting the Court ever more toward an activist Court which has granted more and more power to the Congress and President. There is an excellent article on this subject here.

I, too, want everyone to have health insurance. But I would much rather see everyone get it through their job, rather than forced upon them. Unlike Fred, I have to pay for mine every month but I have a really low bill and a decent company stemming from my days in the service. So, unless I am REALLY broke, I will always have it. It isn't perfect but it does what we need it to do most of the time so I cannot complain.

The thing is, it's the principle, darnit! Giving the government such broad powers is foolish in the extreme. They can do much more than take a penalty out of your tax return. They can reach into your bank account and take money out, too. Think of what a $500 bite would do to your household budget. Or even $100. They could also monitor your spending. There are many things to dislike about that bill. But there is no guarantee on how the Court will rule.

I strongly suspect the Supreme Court will rule only narrowly on the Individual Mandate portion and leave stand the rest of the bill. I might be wrong but this Court is not the Court of a century ago. It is rare that the SC does NOT cede more power to the government.

I certainly hope, for America's sake, that the entire bill is struck down.

My brother in law is in his early 40s and has never had medical insurance in his adult life. Last year, he was in a bicycle accident and went to the emergency room for treatment. He never paid a penny for that, but the cost was in the thousands of dollars. I'm sure he continues to get bills from them, but knowing his financial situation, those bills are unpaid.

He's probably never going to voluntarily buy insurance, and we taxpayers are going to continue to pay for his sporadic emergency room visits.

I'd like to see him forced to chip into the pot. I'm in favor of a mandate. especially since going hand in had with a mandate is the elimination of pre-exisiting conditions exclusions.

By brother in law is a good guy, and I wish him well. But he's the kind of guy who is a drag on the system. He should pull his weight.

Why do you want to burden businesses with paying for health insurance costs? Think of the small business owners who will be bankrupted. If a business can't or won't provide healthcare insurance for their employees, what happens?

I don't view this as a power grab by the government. It's an attempt to fix an unfair system that is broken, and to help Americans when they are unwell. It's certainly not perfect (that would be a system like the UK's or Canada's, IMHO), because it had to pass through congress, and Democrats wanted bipartisan approval. Remember, this plan is similar to the plan put forth by republicans in the early nineties.

Fred, you need to do some more research, and be less racist.

Single payer, baby. I'm not sure a socialized medicine system like the UK's would work in the US, but I know single-payer would.

If I'm using the term properly, single-payer would be superior to the mandate. Guaranteeing insurance companies a profit and forcing their products on people seems the greater sin. I don't think severing insurance from work does any great harm to peoples motivation. It may in fact make people more willing to risk starting businesses.

spexx, i'm not racist. far from it actually. that comment came from experience. the lady next to me when i was leaving just got her food stamps approved and she was all happy, don't blame her, but lo and behold she got in her 2009 Escalade and trucked it on down the road. i was denied stamps due to the fact that i'd cashed in a 401k recently and lived with someone who was retired and "deemed fit to support me" is i believe what the lady told me? anyway, point/counterpoint, we could go back and forth all day with quotes and quips and still not get anywhere. just saying. having been on both sides of the spectrum rich/poor to damn near broken, it's been my experience that unless you know how to "work the system" you won't get what is supposedly there to help you. government needs to fix what it fouled up in the first place. President Nixon, John Erlichman and Edgar Kaiser are the ones to blame. i remember my father talking with fellow doctors in the doctors lounge about how their proposal was going to throw a monkey wrench in the healthcare system.

i do hope it gets fixed. will it? no. unfortunately not. there are too many executives and shareholders out there with insurance companies to allow it to happen. change? not gonna happen here.

once again, sorry if i sounded racist. i'm not.

1.) Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional
2.) Obama wins a second term
3.) With nothing to lose, and proof that compromises just implode on themselves, the Democrats are now able to say "Fuck bipartisan support" and force a single-payer system through Congress.

That's what I'm hoping, anyway. Hooray!

Let's face it. Free markets are the best way. If you cannot pay in the hospital or Wal-Mart, you do not get the service or product. That is fair. It is unfair and illegal to require any hospital to serve you if you cannot pay. Constitutionally they have the right to put you out on the sidewalk if you cannot provide proof of payment.

These wacko extremists who want all costs dumped on hospitals must be drinking from Limbaugh's Oxycotin cup.

If free markets are best, and "it's unfair and illegal to require hospitals to serve you",
is there agreement to removing their non-profit status so they pay a fair share
of property taxes, and income taxes, and they stop being reimbursed by Medicare ?

And, maybe reconsider their legal rights to put a lien on the patient's home for whatever unpaid bill
the patient incurs out of services and supplies priced at the hospital's discretion of "regular and customary rates"

We might just see how many would survive in the "free market".

In reality, most hospitals and physicians and their medical aides are given a special place in society,
and are not simple retail businesses subject to fair-market competition, freedoms, and restraints.
As such, they have other responsibilities to their community.

So sayth this wacko extermist. ;)

In my opinion, all health care and medical costs are a complete and utter ripoff. There is NO reason to charge $129 for a box of Kleenex in the hospital or $86 for an Ace bandage. A prescription that cost $3 to manufacture should not cost $180 per month. A broken ankle should not cost $5,000 to fix. Of course, if expenses like these were reasonable, insurance policy costs would not be through the roof and just maybe your average Joe could afford to buy it.

Wait. Where is this "free hospital" filthy speaks of? I need to
check that out.

Americans feel they are entitled to excellent healthcare whether
they csn pay or not. Like Glatt's example. If everyone had to
bear some cost it would be a better system.

Part of the cost issue is that you are paying for your band-aid
and the band-aid of the guy who doesn't have insurance...
and part of the cost for the band-aid of the person who is covered by medicare or medicaid. :/

"We might just see how many would survive in the "free market"."
 

Of course, Lamp, you understand you're confusing 'free market' (unrestrained, unrestricted, transactions between, among, of, individuals) with 'capitalism' (the free market's stunted, retarded, drooling, shitting itself, lil brother, the one that mates with its sister, socialism, spawning even more horrific monsters in the manner of Lilith)...you 'do' get the difference between the two, yes?

Probably not...*shrug*

Wait, if you don't have a decent paying job, you won't be paying any taxes and so no tax return. No?

Also, pay less tax then there's no tax return for them to take. Aim for a $0 tax return. Why are you giving the government a free loan? Especially if you don't support its policies? As long as you don't end up owing tax you're good.

A little biased perhaps, but made me smile (not saying this is you, philthy)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...19415750_n.jpg

Nonsense. Hospitals have gone bankrupt and closed. Hospitals have even conducted massive firings of surgeons due to insufficient funds. At least one of those doctors I know (a heart surgeon) was applying for jobs just like everyone else.

We must decide whether we want socialized medicine (ie UK's National Health Service) or a working free market medicine (ie Affordable Health Care currently being implemented). Otherwise the best solution is to let people die in the streets if they cannot pay.

The current system is why a box of Kleenex must cost maybe $125. Due to a perverted and disfuctional system, openly advocated by many with a poltical agenda. Medical services must charge excessively so that the few pay for all others. And to pay for a bloated bureacracy necessary to make cost redirection work. This is the system that extremists want to protect.

Medicine is not a charity. It is a business. A service just like any other business whose purpose is the advancement of mankind. Even non-profits must balance the books.

what do you have against single payer?

Medicare for all!!!!

Where did I say I was against (or for) any solution? Defined was only the problem with multiple directions that can be taken. Your quote did not include all directions.

your phrasing, "we need to X or Y. otherwise, Z." seems to me to imply just those two options... Sorry if I assumed too much?

Putting people who cannot pay on the street to die is a reasonable option. I don't understand why those who advocate free markets ignore that option. Only other viable solutions define how the hospital can be assured of payment.

No way around it. Either a hospital knows it will be paid. Or can refuse service. 'Refuse service' is only 'not an option' when one is entertaining emotions. Refusing service is a viable option considered when one is actually confronting the problem That option should be default should we choose to ignore the problem.

No other business would offer services that cannot be paid for. Nor should any business be expected to. Especially when all other options are viable and proven. That means I stated no preference for any. I even think leaving people to die on the street is a viable option. Because it solves the problem.

no,no, now i have a good paying job. six months ago i did not. i paid taxes while on that assignment (QA/QC of panel fabrication and wiring, see the gnomie thread beginning, he went to work with me while i worked there. it was a stepping stone back into engineering) so i did get a tax return. granted it was taken by the government for a government mistake when child ransom, errr support, was re-organized and mis-calculated.....by who? mhm. the gubbmint.

as far as aiming for a zero tax return, yeah, i see that approach. i like it actually, however having dealt with the IRS in the past, it's better to feed the mafia and get a return than to wind up owing it.

ETA - good comic monie, loved it!

you think maybe we could all chip in and buy an island to ship these people to?


i'm kidding!!!!!!

seriously, now i know we've had our differences before and i want to keep this as civil as possible. if you, for example, had a great job but now you're either unemployed or underemployed and you get sick -no insurance anymore - and could die from your ailment .....you're basically saying put me out in the street for "bring out your dead" instead of help me? nah man, i get what you mean, a darwinism effect if you will, but dude, really. humane.

i remind you of the hippocratic oath:

so i hope you don't contract herpigonnasyphillaids. the end result could be painful. just sayin.

I think tw is being hyperbolic to satirize conservatives who really DO believe that if you get sick and can't pay for it you SHOULD just die.
edit: i take that back. I hope that. I have no idea what sort of android or savant or whatever tw is... i can NEVER tell when he's being facetious or if he even ever is.

"Nonsense" is nonsense. Hospitals and medicine are businesses,
but have special supports and advantages that other forms of business do not have.
Medicine, and especially hospitals, survive in part, on the charity of the public.
As such, they have advantages because certain things (obligations) are expected of them.

What other free-market, service-business gets tax-free properties,
donations from the public, support by religious organizations, volunteers,
governmental reimbursement at rates that vary by location,
grants to employees for working in relatively isolated communities,
county- or volunteer-provided supplemental assistance such as ambulance services, etc.
And in some communities are allowed monopolistic business practices.

Likewise, there is state-support Schools of Medicine and Nursing to train hospital employees
that cause the tax payers far more than what the tuition and student loans.

TW, As you said in another post, "I never said...."
I too never said anything like "no hospital has gone bankrupt".
Of course some have, and physicians and hospital staff have been fired.
I too can give a specific examples of a hospital that fired it's entire
janitorial staff so aides and voluteers would do that work,
and in the same month increased the CEO's salary by $100,000.

I agree with you that Medicine is not a charity, but it can not be a free-market business either.
Of course, they have to balance their books.
But if when a hospital is in the red at the end of the fiscal year,
they can have a campaign asking for public donations to balance their books.
And, they can go to state and federal agencies asking for "emergency funds"
How many truly free-market businesses can compete on such unequal playing fields ?

As said before, hospitals have a special place in society, and as such,
have some special (non-emotional) expectations and obligations to serve the public.

ETA: I forgot to mention "training hospitals"
Some hospitals get special compensations from governments
by providing "training" to medical personnel.
As such, they are often (very often) getting high-trained employees
for below-market salaries.

Reality is facetious. All medicine must cease - the Hypocratic oath must be violated - if medical facilities cannot pay their bills. All businesses including non-profits and even the Catholic Church must pay their bills. Otherwise they must cease to exist. Denying that is facetious.

Does not matter if the building is tax free. It is still a business. It must pay its bills. It must pay its employees. Or it must cease to exist even if desperately needed. Why are so many churches closing? As with any business, even if needed. It must cease to exist if the bills are not paid.

Without a system where customers can pay, then a hospital should be expected to refuse service. Otherwise medicine gets denied to so many more. Free market is the American way in any and every business. But to not fix the system only perverts a free market. Customers did not die because hospitals are evil. They died because we did not fix what is obviously a worst system in the world. Adversarial politicians caused those deaths by wanting bad economics and a political agenda.

Americans pay double what anyone else in the world pays because we think it is fair to seek medical services without paying. Foolishly think charity is a permanent solution. How to guarantee no medical services? Americans are somewhere down between 25 and 50 on the list of successful medicine. American medicine is that poor. Costs twice as much as any other nation. Deaths directly traceable to economic mismanagement. Facetious is that reality if it also was not so sad.

If we do not have a workable solution, then the most honest and decent people have no other option. Deny service to anyone who cannot pay. That is free markets gone bad because so many leaders would exercise a political agenda rather than address a problem. People are already dying because bills cannot be paid.

If our system cannot guarantee payment, then the Hypocratic oath is violated. Nothing works if the bills are not paid.

That solution is better than many promoted in our Congress. It is a reasonable option considering the political agendas currently promoted.
First, the most humane attitude is to be blunt, logical, and unemotional. People die because so many would entertain their emotions like a child rather than ruthlessly deal with a reality like an adult.

You deserve death if our leaders could not bother to fix a world's worst medical system. If you end up dead, well, bad economics killed you. Being humane or charitable solves nothing. Emotions and charity do nothing to fix bad economics.

No acceptable reason for an ‘unemployed person unable to pay’. Every working system (so many different and working systems exist) means unemployed people can always pay their medical bills. You cannot pay only because our leaders worry more about their political agendas rather than fix the problem. When leaders cannot compromise, then you become an example of what must happen. People must die.

Why does America have some of the highest infant mortality rates? Because our economics are defective. Too many people entertain empathy, sympathy, games of liberal vs conservative, and humane conclusions rather than deal ruthlessly like an adult to fix what is only an economic problem. People stop dying when the ruthless finally want a solution. When people stop entertaining their feelings (also called a political agenda).

Highest infant mortality rates? Site please.

More on infant mortality rates.

Someone still has to explain to me how we let it come to the point that Canada can purchase medicines from U.S. companies cheaper than the U.S. government can, because the U.S. government has been deliberately denied the ability to consolidate and negotiate better prices.

So that we must spend more of our tax dollars than is necessary.

Oh wait, I do know. It's called bribery.

:D

TW, Congratulations, that was great GMT timing in New Zealand

.

already posted in the "impeding changes" thread:

Spending more on health care increases the infant mortality rate

And infant mortality rates are measured by percentage of live births, not percentage of people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mortality_rate

And the question typically posed isn't "Why is the US worst?" it's "Why is the US 48th and apparently all other first-world countries better?"

Infant mortality as a benchmark of quality of health care for a nation made sense in the 1950s, before fertility treatment.

Today the benchmark is only used to bash the US system.

Its Bush's fault. no, really it is.

As long as it is overturned it matters not who is at fault.

SCOTUS decision today - WOW !

President Obama came on national TV this morning and spoke about the SCOTUS decision.
I've not yet found a video source to post here.

Once again, he identified the politics of the situation, but for perhaps the first time,
he laid out the specifics of the law in layman terms.

Atlanta Journal Constitution
Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Associated Press

Obama response to Supreme Court on health care
His presentation of the specifics in the law and the remainder
of his speech are in the link... I highly recommend it to everyone.
.
.
.

Here ya go...

There is a chart circulating of what the ruling means

Thank's Classic, for finding the video...

It will probably go unnoticed in the grande scheme of things, but I thought he gave a great speech.


...and you're welcome.

Here is the latest (new) issue coming up for Oregonians... and the US.
The headline is a little misleading about the real issue...

IMO, the Illinois law mentioned below seems a very good start.

The Oregonian
Nick Budnick,
11/3/12
Hospital charity care in Oregon sinks as debate over standards grows

I really don't understand all this crap. But I pay about $99 bucks a month for medicare. Also folks who make $80,000.00 pay the same. Hey I get about, now 18,000. So I never use mine, because I'm a vet. WHERE does my part go????

NY Times
ROBERT PEAR
November 20, 2012

Administration Defines Benefits That Must Be Offered Under the Health Law

.

On the face this seems great, but in reality, those who were paying less will be paying more to compensate.
Women historically paid more because they used more. Maternity coverage, for example.
Those who are sick used it more also when compared to those who were not. And also older people typically had more AND more expensive treatments than their younger healthier counterparts.
The gross cost will remain the same, now those who were healthier will pay more to compensate for the lost premiums because of this.
Its like car insurance - Should the person with 5 accidents and 2 DUI's pay the same as the person with a clean record?

Maybe we should debate this some more. :)

I don't think the gross costs will remain the same. I think the gross costs will go down.

If you have no money and no health insurance now and are having a health crisis, you go to the ER and get treated there. You can't pay the bill, so the rest of us pay for it with higher hospital prices. Under Obamacare, you will have health insurance and go to a doctor instead. Maybe even sooner, where you will get it treated for a lower cost. Gross costs will go down.

Plus, getting people paying into the system who have not been in the system before will be an extra source of revenue. It's not a bad thing to have everyone paying in. Sure, for that healthy 27 year old, it will seem like a waste of money, but what they are buying is the promise that they will be taken care of when they get older and are sick. It's kind of like a forced savings account (where your money is given to other people now and then later, other people's money is given to you.)

But in that analogy, it's the health problems that are due to irresponsible choices (poor driving) that should be the determining factor, not whether someone is a woman, or old (which would be more like getting hit when it's not your fault.) So smokers and the obese should be paying more for health insurance in that scenario, not the old lady.

Agreed, but they won't be.

In theory, yes. We shall see.

Yeah. We won't know if Obamacare works until it's fully phased in in 2018. That's a hell of a long time to wait.

Another POV ...

If Obamacare is successful, the cost of Medicare may go down.

If Obamacare is not successful and the Republicans have their way
with Medicare (and other entitlements), there will be a lot of hurt to go around... not just $.

Thats two presidential elections away and it will likely look very different than it does today by then.

"If Obamacare is successful, the cost of Medicare may go down."

"If Obamacare is not successful, the cost of Medicare may go up."

Actually, they have been.

As a former smoker and former obese individual who pays for insurance, I can testify to this. I no longer smoke, drink, or am obese, and my costs have gone down.

Insurance penalized

Stormie - not sure I get your point. Are you saying that smokers are going to be surcharged under the PPACA?