After a busy-but definitely interesting week!
Cleaning up the post-ex things now. Travel vouchers, reports, and otherwised justifying the expense of your tax dollars. Thanks to the American taxpayer for feeding my travel bug-I’ll be requesting another installment next week-thank you very much.
In the mean time-I think its important for you take a look at why it matters. Read the whole thing here:
As the fierce debate on President Obama’s plan for health care reform comes to a head, Americans should be thinking carefully about what happens if Congress fails to enact legislation. Are they really satisfied with the status quo? And is the status quo really sustainable?
HOW REFORM WOULD WORK: … Under the new system, all people would be required to have health insurance or pay a penalty. If you are poor or middle class you would also get significant help through Medicaid coverage or tax credits to pay the premiums.
The legislation would create exchanges on which small businesses and people who buy their own coverage directly from insurers could choose from an array of private plans that would compete for their business. It would also require insurance companies to accept all applicants, even those with a pre-existing condition. And it would make a start at reforming the medical care system to improve quality and lower costs.
46 MILLION AND RISING: If nothing is done, the number of uninsured people — 46 million in 2008 — is sure to spike upward as rising medical costs and soaring premiums make policies less affordable and employers continue to drop coverage to save money.
…It should be no surprise that people without insurance often postpone needed care, and many get much sicker as a result. That is morally unsustainable. It is also fiscally unsustainable for safety net hospitals — which foist much of the cost on the American taxpayer when the uninsured end up in the emergency room. As the number of uninsured rises, that bill will rise.
The Senate’s reform bill would reduce the number of uninsured by an estimated 31 million in 2019. The Republicans’ paltry proposals would cut the number by only three million.
BUT I HAVE INSURANCE: While most Americans have insurance, many pay exorbitant rates because they have no bargaining power with insurers. That includes many of the tens of millions who buy their own insurance — the unemployed, the self-employed, and those whose employers do not offer insurance…
…BUT I LIKE MY INSURANCE: Most Americans get their insurance through large companies, with large group bargaining power. While they complain about premiums and paperwork, most seem satisfied with their coverage…
For this group, the real advantage of reform is security. If they get laid off, decide to be self-employed or switch to a smaller employer that offers no insurance, they will still be guaranteed coverage — even if they are a cancer survivor or have heart trouble or any other pre-existing condition. And they will be able to buy insurance on the exchanges.
I’M JUST WORRIED ABOUT COSTS: You should be. The cost of medical care is rising far faster than wages or inflation… Many reforms that people instinctively believe should cut costs — computerization of medical records, paying doctors for quality not quantity of services, and prevention programs to promote healthy living and head off costly illnesses — cannot yet be shown to lower costs.
Pending reform legislation, specifically the Senate bill, would launch an array of pilot projects to test reforms in delivering and paying for care. It would also create a special board to accelerate the adoption of anything that seemed to work. That seems a reasonable way to go and a lot better than standing by as costs continue to spiral out of control. The Republicans’ proposals — including their call to cap malpractice awards — would make only a small dent in the problem.
WHAT ABOUT THE DEFICIT?: Republican critics of health care reform have done an especially good job of frightening Americans with their talk of bankrupting the Treasury. The truth of the matter is that the pending reform legislation has been designed to generate enough revenue and savings to more than offset the substantial cost of expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies to the middle class.
…Any change as big as this is bound to cause anxiety. Republicans have happily fanned those fears with talk of “dangerous experiments” on the “best health care system in the world.” The fact is that the health care system is broken for far too many Americans. And the country cannot afford the status quo.
Too bad my shit-head stupid Congressional Representative cannot realize that as he caters to his teabagging friends. I’m wish them the joy of their stupidity while it lasts.
Parker I will be writing you another letter tonight-you won’t like it better than the first one. And, yes, I will use the F-word again.
Still have a huge problem with the government forcing, under penalty of law, citizens to purchase health insurance, or purchase anything, for that matter.
Why can’t we start with real tort reform (looser pays), payout caps and cross state purchasing of insurance, and how about allowing me as a male with no possibilty of birthing a child a cheaper rate than a 25 year old female. Or Just drop the pregnancy coverage all together, before you get pregnant perhaps you should be able to pay for the delivery, not require me to subsidize same.
The 48 million number needs to be scrubbed, daily I see 20-30 year olds with good jobs who are uninsured because they chose not to buy into their companies policy, in order to by the BMW instead of the Nissen.
“Morally unstainable” is not the government call, I want no moral judgements coming from the Congress.
The best health care system in the world may be broken in the opinion of some, but Obama care or any version of same is NOT the fix.
Healthcare has always been socialized to a greater or lesser extent. In early human cultures, the shaman was kept around to chant over the sick, in later times town doctors were supported by the community and now, the young and healthy pay premiums so the old or sick can be taken care of. The only real question now is, how much waste, inefficiency and dividends for insurance companies, are we willing to tolerate and pay for. Margins at health insurance companies run at over 20%, and they’re incredibly inefficient – I know, I work at one of the largest health insurance companies in the country.
Stein,
Neither are the bandaid fixes of the Republicans because they don’t attack the key issue-making good health care independent of income or employement status.
1) Insurance across state lines? Fine-but only if the government enacts minimum standards to keep the insurance companies from racing to the bottom to sell the easiest insurance with the least amount of protection.
2) Tort reform-needed, but that will do nothing about the two largest issues: portability and pre-existing conditions. But by touting that tired old canard, it makes it easy to mask the fact that insurance companies are dropping customers everyday for the fact that actually had to pay out on a claim.
3)Mandatory insurance is not wrong-anymore than focing me to have liabilty insurance on my car is wrong. I might support your argument if there were reasonable alternatives able-like decent train service and cheap cab fares-but there is not. I have a right to be able to be mobile and participate in society. And unlike what the Tea Baggers say I have right to access to quality health care that is independent of income.
Any other position is morally indefensible-like it not.
We already have insurance monitoring so I have no problem with some oversight, and consumer protections for preexisting conditions.
Can’t find where in the Constitution it states that the federal govt has any right to require any citizen to purchase anything. Your driver’s license is issued by the state, and your right to “be mobile and participate in society” doesn’t guarantee you a free car, so in my view, car insurance is no different than having a car payment, oil changes and repairs, it’s all part of the privilege of driving.
If some body wants to self insure then let them, without penalty, if the need surgery then they can pay for it by themselves.
Of course we don’t have to worry TRICARE is untouched, per James Webb.
Also, where does it say anywhere that I have to subsidize other peoples poor choices. Drug addicts, alcoholics, multiple pregnancies with no income.
Based on my simpleton view of the world we can’t pay the bill.
You coming around to Norfolk for a visit?
Failed to read.
How about the slaves just keep their hands out of my pocket?
Stein,
One of the central themes running through Tea bagger orthodoxy these days is that certain people “deserve” to suffer. American politics is haunted by the specter of undeserving poor and working class Americans living beyond their means on someone else’s dime. It’s not just strapping young bucks buying t-bone steaks with food stamps, it’s strapping young bucks buying flat-screen tvs with credit cards they can’t pay off, strapping young bucks gorging themselves at the Applebee’s salad bar with their inflated union wages, strapping young bucks buying houses with CRA-mandated subprime loans, strapping young bucks suing doctors with lawyers on retainer, strapping young bucks getting elective surgery with their taxpayer-subsidized health care. It’s an all-purpose paradigm—it explains why welfare and single-payer health care are bad, why we need “tort reform” rather than health care reform, why the bankruptcy bill was good, and why we had a recession even with Galtian geniuses like Greenspan and Rubin in charge of everything.
It would seem no one likes the idea of American working people being able to improve their standard of living, but that is what is supposed to happen. Even the undeserving ones.That is the only thing that makes America different from the rest of the world. The day we stop believing in that-well hang it up, we are done for.
SYB can go fuck themselves.
Undeserving poor should articulate as well as whossname in My Fair Lady or Pygmalion.
Unchecked liberalism may be found by any fool in Zaire, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Ethiopia et al. Done wonders with infant mortality only to see the little nippers starve to death 2 years later. I’ll bet everybody feels better about that!
Sorry, meant to leave you alone.
Skippy, Skippy, Skippy! It really is shameful of you to buy into the ad hominem silliness of those who are really beneath you (or least should be) and throw out puerile pejoratives like “Teabagger.” It really does call into question your intelligence and sensibility.
As for the sustainability of the present regime in medical insurance (and that’s really what it’s all about, not “health care”) it will last longer than what the wunwhowon is trying to force down our unwilling throats. The Obamnation’s push will bury us quickly. FedGov doesn’t have the money to sustain Medicare and Medicaid, for Pete’s sake, and what he is pushing will accelerate the rot.
This garbage has already been tried in most of Europe. The Germans had the sense God gave a rock to back off, but then they had to live through the Weimar inflation and have no desire to go back there again. The Left in this country? They don’t have the sense God gave a rock, and utterly no historical awareness. But, that’s OK. If they get their way, they will get the lesson good and hard. Just watch Skippy. it won’t be fun and the universe has a bad habit of punishing the intentionally ignorant.
I am always amazed how upset people who like the Tea Party idiots get by the word Teabagger. Yet they have no heartburn about throwing around similar insults in the other direction. I use the term as one of derision because Tea Party folks deserve to be derided for being selfish.
I will again, for the 100th time, point you to TR Reid’s book The Healing of America. The idea that universal coverage has failed everywhere is sheer rubbish, as well as the idea that it has to be government run-another teabagger shibboleth that Reid very ably disproves in his book. Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, France-all have made it work, Switzerland with totally private insurance. So too does Singapore.
The difference is that Singapore doesn’t pussy foot around about their citizens “right” to be selfish-it doesn’t exist. They basically tell businesses and individuals “if you want to play here-these are the ground rules you will play by”. Forced deposits into the CPF and Medisave accounts are required by both employer and employee. Period. End of statement.
The Germans have universal coverage now. The S.O. when she was laid off by her heartless American company moved effortlessly between private insurance and Japan’s equivalent of the public option. I went with her several times when she went to the doctor without and appointment in the latter regime-got seen with 30 minutes, no questions asked.
The biggest problem with the health care debate now-is that people don’t have the complete truth. Thanks to the Fox News /Tea bag noise machine as well as their own reluctance to research-they don’t know what they don’t know.
Ask people if they favor “health care reform” and the reaction is negative. Ask them if they favor indivdually, the things that are in the bill-its a totally different story. Especially kicking insurance companies in the nuts for banning people for any other reason but non payment of premimums.
I submit it is the teabag nation that does not have the sense God gave a rock. Otherwise they would stop claiming to support fiscal responsibility while at the same time supporting wars for worthless Muslims that do nothing to better our own citizenry.
FTB!