In all seriousness.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Well I guess we will put it to bed till tomorrow and see if someone can come up with an answer to our questions. Lets keep on BUMPIN FOLKS!

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Marc, maybe before this weeks outcome in MA, we would have had more of a response to your question. Today, the libs are regrouping and operatives are waiting for new talking points. Give it time. They will return with a new spin on a sad year in ** politics.

[Gary and Alla 3,696]

Why is it that you are so vehemently for the HC reform package (The one that none of us really knew what it had in it) that was put together by congress and the president?

Was it just a partisan thing? I know I will get a lot of BS but I will just take it as though you don't want to say cuz you dont want to expose yourself.

If someone came to your door and said "heres your HC plan" You would just take it and say "thanks"?

I don't get the reasoning! Please explain?

it is called..."the Camel's nose under the tent" Supporters of government control (which is what this was about...not health care) do not care about anything except getting the framework of control established. That is all. They will change it and modify it forever more. They do not care what it says or does NOW, they only need to establish existence. Like SS and income tax, they will change it, morph it, corrupt it as they see fit ONCE it is established. They DO NOT CARE what the plan says, they just want A PLAN so they can get started.

[Pooky 3,876]

I hated the "Healthcare" Reform Bill(s) currently under consideration, because they did nothing to resolve the inefficiency of the system. The US spends over 17% of GDP on healthcare that sucks for the majority. The European average is closer to 10% and that gets them workable (but not perfect) "Universal" healthcare. The disparity there should have fiscal conservatives taking note.

Now I don't have a completely fleshed-out plan, otherwise I would be making lots of money being bought off by the healthcare industry, but consider this:

Healthcare insurance is a built-in inefficiency in the system. The insurance companies are not in the business to facilitate healthcare, as that costs them money. So they are in the business of denying healthcare when possible and practicable (because they're not stupid). To this end, as the radio ads so quaintly put it "Healthcare Claims Specialist is one of the hottest careers in the healthcare field right now". Add to this that the insurance companies primary duty is to provide a dividend to their shareholders. So there we have 2 definitive drains on the money in the system.

The efficient response? Remove insurance companies from the first line of healthcare provision and go to a single-payer system. It eliminates the large financial drain from the system, removing what becomes completely unnecessary at the primary level of a Universal Healthcare System.

Does this mean insurance companies die completely? No. There will always be a market for additional, private healthcare. As a voluntary addition, there is nothing to prevent people taking up this option.

Medical professionals' insurance is out-of-hand, so tort reform would be a necessary measure. Medical professionals work overlong hours, often on schedules that would boggle the mind. Yet one mistake, at 4:30am after a 20 hour double shift can finish someone's career. It's unreasonable, in most cases. Tort reform, if it can bring sanity back to the system, can make it more affordable for medical professionals to be in and stay in the system, can reduce costs, reduce the battery of unnecessary and CYA testing that's done and drive down the cost of healthcare. Again, it's an efficient response.

Bulk buying and the market. There should not be any restriction on the medical market to buying drugs where they can find them. If this means dragging the US pharmaceutical industry into the free market, a rather capitalist term, then so be it. I understand that these companies are in it for the money and need at least some of that money for further research, but a free market economy what would do the US population at large the most good here. It would again drive down costs, increase competition and allow a single-payer system to bring healthcare to all, while overall costing less in terms of GDP.

Done right, a single payer system, probably run at State level to exclude the idiots at the Federal level, could bring down the cost of healthcare, provide Universal coverage, and prevent the medical bankruptcy scenario being repeated over and again in this country, the only country it occurs in.

The Liberals should look at this as providing Universal healthcare. The Conservatives should look at it as the efficient way to cut costs. The rest of the country, the 95% of us not way out there in the political boonies, should look at this as the way to fix a broken system.

[NickD 203]

Before Reagan, we had a policy where anyone would pay the same premiums, large corporation or an individual would pay the same rates and was no such thing as a pre-condition. That changed overnight. If an individual say accumulated 24,000 bucks of medical expenses in a year, their premiums would be that plus another 10% for the next year to keep that policy up. Or 2,200 bucks per month, even though for the next year, their medical expenses were zero. Rates would never go down, only up. And if they did have some condition or precondition, would be kicked off their policy and would be effectively uninsured, with all companies.

If you really want to make cash, become a claims adjuster, the more you can screw the doctors, hospitals, and the patient, the larger will be your bonus. Met some that couldn't do that anymore, realized they had a conscious. With some of my kids as doctors, a constant fight with the insurance companies, typically they have to settle for 50% of their bill. Since they have expenses, the trick is to charge twice as much.

One way to work around all this would be to gather say a thousand people together with an agreement, you all would share the medical expenses, plus have some buying power to boot to get fair medical rates. That is basically what insurance is all about.

One thing none of us do, is to get an estimate like we do when our vehicles go haywire. I was put in that position for that crazy meaningless I-693 USCIS medical form. Says at the end even if the person that has every known communicable disease listed in the form, all they have to do is to agree to consoling. So I went shopping for the best rates to fill that form with quotes of anywhere from 750 to 5,500 bucks per person by all approved USCIS doctors. This form was not covered by my health insurance plan. And was worth taking a 300 mile one way trip to save 9,500 bucks, I had two of them for this form. Led me to contact dentists for a quote first.

Deregulation according to Reagan was to promote fair competition, but he did another nasty thing killing our anti-trust laws. Larger insurance companies ate up the smaller ones, by two methods, buying them out or undercutting them to force them out of business. With them out of the picture, could and did whatever they wanted to. You know the rest of the story. And would be no Bill Gates today if those anti-trust laws were in effect, he put over 4,000 smaller software firms out of business.

Not one administration since Reagan made any attempts to correct this misjustice to the American people, give Obama at least credit for trying, but not easy with a corporation paid congress that really is not representing us. And lots of lies.

As I said, all they have to do is go before Reagan, look up the regulation laws and reinstate them, now a bunch of BS about abortions, government taking over, and so forth. Before Reagan, healthcare was not an issue.

[Joseph & Ana 0]

Before Reagan, healthcare was not an issue.

Actually it was. He talked about it in multiple speeches about the libs wanting to take over healthcare.

[lostinblue 1,989]

I'm a nurse and health care reform is absolutely essential. There are too many horrible things with the way it is now...I have a friend who graduated from college and was able to get a job in this recession, about 6 months after graduation. She had no money for healthcare before then and had these awful stomachaches and vomiting that wouldn't go away for weeks and I kept telling her to go to the emergency room to have a doctor take a look, but she said that she couldn't do it until she got her job with healthcare in place because if she got a diagnosis before she got a job, then the insurance wouldn't cover it as a preexisting condition. But if she waited to be diagnosed, then she would be covered.

Turns out she has inflammatory bowel disease. She's having some surgery later this month because her condition had worsened, whereas the docs told her if she had come in earlier, it could have been prevented. The insurance company will pay for the surgery (tens of thousands of dollars), but they wouldn't have paid for the meds had she come in with the diagnosis.

How is that right in anyone's mind? Morally, fiscally, all of that?

I'm so thankful that my patients (sick infants) are always covered under at least Medicaid, but I've heard so many awful stories of other friends in nursing who work with adults.

[NickD 203]

Actually it was. He talked about it in multiple speeches about the libs wanting to take over healthcare.

Do you work for Rush?

[lostinblue 1,989]

People always say they don't have money for health care.....Here in NY state is what you can get under healthy ny

http://www.ins.state.ny.us/website2/hny/rates/xml/albany.xml

Empire HealthChoice, Inc. d/b/a Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield

HMO Member Services

PO Box 1407

Church Street Station

New York, NY 10008

1-800-261-5962

What You Pay Per Month

Plan Type w/ drugs w/o drugs HDHP w/ drugs HDHP w/o drugs

Individual $285.40 $251.60 $241.28 $196.14 =

Two adult $570.80 $503.20 $482.56 $392.28

Parent & Child(ren) $513.72 $452.88 $434.30 $353.05

Family $856.20 $754.80 $723.84 $588.42

So the cheapest for someone making under 22,000 maybe per year is $196/month maybe.... $50/week brought to you by the taxpayers of NY state. You can get a job at a fast food place and afford this. If your friend was a student and she is borrowing money to go to school then you budget the cost of medical care in the whole bill. If you care about your health that is. I just looked at the cost of medical insurance at a university and it is like $1800/year. Not too bad really.

The sad fact is people want to live a certain lifestyle that they had under their parents wages and not what they can make. I have a friend who owns 2 homes and a late model car. She claims she cannot afford health insurance . On her last vacation a few months ago she went to europe for 3 weeks. Go really look at the lifestyle of a person who says they cannot afford insurance and you see cable tv, cell phones,internet,texting bills and the list goes on and on and on. The real question is not the right to have insurance rather, I have the right to have a lifestyle I feel I am entitled to. I as a student feel I am entitled to a lifestyle that my two working parents can afford.So please we need health care reform so I can make other people pay for my lifestyle .

[Jay & Beverly 0]

Maybe I'm the person FOR health care that you were seeking.

I'm never 100% for... nor am I ever 100% against anything. Someone posed the question early along the lines of whether or not a person would be happy if they were forced into having one health care plan. It made me think of my own plan through work and from what I can tell, I'm one of the really lucky people in the world. I work for a corporation of 80,000 people and we have 5 various plans offered to us. I happen to pay into the most expense of the five, while others of my peers have gone with a pay-as-you-go plan. They contribute a certain amount and if and when something happens they pay extremely large co-pays, however, if nothing goes wrong through they year the money goes into a savings plan that they can withdraw from or use in future years. There's also a HMO (Kaiser) plan that people pay the least co-pay, but don't have their own primary care physician. My plan has moderate co-pays, no shared savings, but I do have my own primary care physician which offers me piece of mind.

Why I was FOR heath care is because I have family and high school friends that either can't afford there current health care plans or aren't employed due to the economy and are without insurance.

First case: My sister. Roughly 8 years ago she had both hips replaced to correct a condition she's had where both hips were outside of her sockets. My parents were told she would never be able to walk; but she did by the time she was 3 and learned to cope and move around. Other than a little waddle and wider hips than normal, most people would never know she suffered from her condition. Her husband was in construction and was the last employee laid off from his former company last April and as bad luck would have it, one of the titanium rods in her left hip joint broke 3 weeks later. They were without health insurance and couldn't afford the pain medication, let alone the surgery until he found a new job in mid-November. My sister had her replacement hip surgery last week and is still convalescing in the hospital after some complications. In the time between the breaking her artifical hip and surgery she was constantly in pain, unable to put weight on the associated leg, and had to get by in a scooter that someone was kind enough to donate to her since they couldn't afford one and were without insurance to provide one for her. So you bet your ####, I'm in favor of heath care and thank goodness my brother-in-law's new insurance covered a pre-existing condition.

Second case: One of my best friends from high school and her husband. She's and RN and he is a chiropractor. Together w/ 2 children they pay $1400 a month for health care. That's obscene for a couple in their mid-30's, let alone 2 people both in the medical field that probably take better care of themselves and their children than 95% of the world. You bet your sweet derrier I'm for reform.

Third case: My high school sweetheart and her husband. She's a high school science teacher and he is a mechanic. They have a daughter in first grade. In November they received a letter from the school district that stating that in March their insurance premium was going to triple from $600 to $1800. The only history of medical issues was during her pregnancy 7 years, my friend nearly lost their child and was on bed rest for the last 6 weeks of their pregnancy. Their daughter has no health concerns nor do she and her husband have previous health conditions. Can you imagine having such a huge increase in expense in such a short time where you have nothing like a new house or several new vehicles to show for it? You bet your ####, I'm in favor of health care for all at reasonable standards.

Thinking outside the box...

... When I served in the military, my health care was provided and paid for by the government. I didn't have a choice in one plan or another. Quite frankly it was really great care for the few times I needed to make us of it. I don't think I waited any longer for care at the ER than when I've had issues requiring the same care in the civilian world. Further, I had required annual check-ups in the military that I don't have in the civilian world. So if you think the government doesn't have a system or model to provide healthcare, you are in correct. Additionally, I'm not aware of spouses or children of military members being turned away due to pre-existing conditions.

More thinking outside the box...

... I find most people are against the heath care issue because of the proposed cost. And quite frankly, that is a HUGE number not to be taken lightly. If I have to pay more in taxes for peace of mind that loved ones not blessed with the opportunity I have for health care can be provided for, then I'm willing to open my wallet. There are a number of public services that I pay for and do not get a benefit from, but I know it makes a difference in the lives of others and it is morally the right thing to do -- let me stress, I'm not a religious person and it was hard for me to find a world better than morally.

I'm a home owner and have been for the last 15 years. I don't have children but for the last 15 years a large portion of my property tax has gone to providing education for other people's children. Why do I have to pay for some other couple's children to get an education? Because it is the RIGHT thing to do. It is how society helps give people opportunity to help themselves up. So I don't see a big deal for society to help cover the cost of health care for those unable to help themselves.

The problem we have isn't health care... The problem we have is wealth care. The people not wanting to pay whatever may be necessary to cover the costs of health care probably have really good health care. They probably don't think anything of paying $5 a day for coffee at Starbucks. They probably have one or more large screen TV's in their homes. They probably have homes larger than what the need to live in... because they can. They probably buy a lot of name brand items to project a a grandiose image to their peers. They probably have one more more large or relatively expensive vehicles. As I write this, I'm realizing that I fit every metric listed, with the exception of the coffee. The point is... those that have... "have". They have the ability to afford help shoulder the burden for those that do not have the ability and genuinely need health care. I'm not trying to go all John Lennon here, but can you imagine what a great country this would be if people stepped up and gave more to others and took less for themselves?

So that's my two-bits on the soapbox. And yes... I'm still in favor of health care reform.

/rant

[Fandango 1,440]

Love the concept of this thread.....I think everyone can agree that paying $30 for one pill in the hospital when you're insured is a bit of a rip-off. But instead of floating around the all encompassing 'healthcare reform' tag and saying 'yes, I am for hc reform'....what is it about the actual proposed reform that you all agree with?

IMO, the emperor has no clothes!

Edited January 22, 2010 by Happy Bunny

[Joseph & Ana 0]

Do you work for Rush?

Just listen to Reagan's August 1961 speech and he talks about socialized medicine plain as day. Obviously it was an issue pre-reagan.

[Susita 175]

OK so here's the breakdown of what I do / do not agree with in the house healthcare bill (that's the one I've read up on the most):

Agree:

* eliminating medicare donut hole.

If any of you care for your parents / grandparents or are on medicare yourselves, you'll know this is essential.

* prohibits funds for covering abortions.

I am one of the few liberals who agrees with this. You know why? The insurance will cover prescription birth control.

* no pre-existing condition nonsense

* public option

creating a non-profit competition for these big insurance companies who profit at the expense of others suffering or not receiving the care they need - although I'm not 100% sure that the way they want to set it up is the right way, it needs to be done.

* subsidies for low income individuals

Disagree:

* health insurance mandate.

Sorry but I don't think forcing anyone to buy insurance is constitutional.

* allows people to stay on their parents insurance until they're 27???

I mean really, 27? Let's give the kids more reason never to move out! hahaha thanks Mom & Dad

Also, I don't see what they plan on doing about doctors astronomical malpractice insurance premiums... I wonder how they're going to fix that.

[Dan J 277]

Medical professionals' insurance is out-of-hand, so tort reform would be a necessary measure. Medical professionals work overlong hours, often on schedules that would boggle the mind. Yet one mistake, at 4:30am after a 20 hour double shift can finish someone's career. It's unreasonable, in most cases. Tort reform, if it can bring sanity back to the system, can make it more affordable for medical professionals to be in and stay in the system, can reduce costs, reduce the battery of unnecessary and CYA testing that's done and drive down the cost of healthcare. Again, it's an efficient response.

This is one thing that, while an issue in some places, would not have much effect in other places.

Malpractice insurance rates vary widely for risky disciplines like OB/GYN. States like Minnesota pay way below average, around 20,000-30,000. While places like Florida have rates in the 500,000 to 750,000 range. But that doesn't make insurance in Minnesota any cheaper, in fact insurance rates in Minnesota are above average. Most estimates I've seen have tort reform maybe reducing health care costs by 1%. While everything is helpful, its not as high priority as other reforms.

This chart is pretty cool:

[Nikita2Charles 33]

The Dems brought it all upon themselves by being too WISHY WASHY

They got a mandate from the people to go and make changes and they just blow it by playing SAME OLD POLITICS.

The party of NO NO has no interest to work with the Dems, from Day one they were calling out for the president to FAIL( hmmm that's really Patriotic)

Instead of having some BALLS to do what the people sent them to do, they keep flirting with the republican when they should have put their act together as a team, As Democrats, they fell for that same old divided to conquer strategy, DIVIDE TO CONQUER- BLUE DOG DEMOCRATS, REGULAR DEMOCRATS< SOFT DEMOCRAT

all a bunch of #######.

HAVE SOME BALLS< the repub didn't want to join the debate then follow through and HAVE A UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Instead of worrying about the next election when you haven't done your job yet.

Now those lobbyist will have even more power to control the people after the supreme court decision yesterday, Companies can BUY AMERICA, they can spend as much as they want on any candidate

Welcome to the new world or

UNITED CORPORATION OF AMERICA where we are all little puppets, at least know it's not being down under the table.

I am switching INDEPENDENT