The Top Ten Reasons We Must Oppose ObamaCare
1. ObamaCare’s centerpiece, a Medicare-like “public option,” would cause millions of Americans to lose their employer-provided health insurance.
Millions of employers would choose this new “option” for their employees. The Lewin Group, a prominent consulting firm, estimates that under a widespread, Medicare-like “public option,” 118 million Americans would lose their private health insurance and be switched onto government-run care.
2. Government-run health care would lead to rationing.
President Obama wants to control health care’s rising costs. In the free market, that goal can be met through increased competition and choice. With the government in charge, there’s only one path to that end: rationing care.
3. ObamaCare would cost a fortune, and we’re already running higher deficits than during the Great Depression.
ObamaCare would cost a fortune, and we’re already running higher deficits than during the Great Depression — even when expressed as a percentage of our gross domestic product. Our GDP is now about 250x higher than during the Great Depression. Incredibly, our federal deficit is now about 400x higher (from $4.5 billion to $1.8 trillion). In inflation-adjusted dollars, we are now running the highest deficits in our nation’s entire history, higher even than during the Civil War or WWII. Only 55 percent of this year’s budget ($2.2 of $4.0 trillion) is coming from tax revenues; the rest is being borrowed.
White House budget director Peter Orszag says that every other federal program’s effect on future deficits will be “swamped” by Medicare and Medicaid. The last thing we need is a new Medicare-like program and an expansion of Medicaid.
4. ObamaCare would ruin private insurance.
When competing with FedEx and UPS, the Post Office has to provide an actual service. But the “public option” would merely use government’s coercive powers to dictate the prices of services provided by others — by doctors, nurses, and hospitals. Private insurance, which can’t do this and doesn’t get taxpayer financing, would be ruined.
5. ObamaCare would encourage people to leave the medical profession.
Medicare pays about 75 cents on the dollar for care. As private insurers dwindle, fewer costs could be shifted to them, medical professionals would take the hit, and fewer people would choose that profession. Do those who doubt this also doubt that higher pay attracts teachers?
Neither the President nor Congress are my “partner” in matters of life and death.
If I choose to “partner” with my doctor and/or my insurance company, that is my choice.
I have a very big problem with the government so deeply insinuating itself into these decisions.
As an American working in Europe for an American corporation, I can absolutely confirm point number 8 and the rest are true too. I’m in Italy and if you have a health problem you go through your doctor and the public system with very long waiting periods OR you go to a modern private clinic and get immediate care (at a cost). SO you end up paying twice (if you can afford it) in taxes and the direct invoice cost which is only partially deductable. To keep all this system standing everything here in Europe is taxed like crazy and it still isn’t enough. Seven dollar a gallon gasoline, with over 60% of the price made up of taxes, sound nice? Twenty percent value added tax on all you purchase sound nice? BEWARE AMERICA !
A related article of note. Please see especially the graph/chart:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676.html
Right on Ed Wallis, the government is not my “partner” either in life and death (since I’m not in the military or in prison). Heck, I’m not even married, I’m not to keen on partnerships in general.
Tort reform and increasing competition between insurance companies is the way to go. I do not support a plan that will result in rationing and/or denying care to the elderly to give more to illegal aliens.
Indeed, public option will lead to rationing. I´m from Germany were 80 % of people are forced into a public option, the effects being the following:
- rationing to cut exploding costs (artfully hidden in the laws so as not to upset people)
- driving up the price of work, resulting in higher unemployment
- docors leaving the country to work abroad
- money lost in bureaucracy (for one insurance agent in private sector they need 6 bureaucrats in public sector)
- two class medicine (shorter wait times and better treatment for those who still can get a private insurance).
Do you really want that for your own country?
It’s just time to Drown KennedyCare!
On a lighter note…but just as true:
http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=3927
The 10th reason for opposing Obamacare is the No. 1 reason the President and his minions are pushing it: To increase the federal government’s scope and power. For 70 years, we’ve had a one-way cession of power to Washington, weakening state and local government and depriving Americans of their freedom. Government-controlled health care – whatever lipstick is put on it – is the culmination of the expansion of federal power and control. Once the government can make life and death decisions for virtually every American, what freedom will remain?
You can come up with lists of tens; like this one, or other lists with hundreds of similar, valid reasons to defeat Obamacare, but there is one extremely important item that needs to be considered.
Obama doesn’t give a damn what you want. He and the rulers in Congress have decided that Obamacare; now called Kennedycare will be passed.
That way we can move on to quickly forcing passage of Cap & Trade, amnesty for illegal Hispanics and increased wealth redistribution (welfare) to the black race in accordance with the articles of Black Liberation Theology’s teachings.
Think not?
Stay tuned.
I’d like to bring the last Guy Sorman’s article on Cityjournal “Paying for Le Treatment: Nothing is free–certainly not French health care”
http://bit.ly/73UQo
When Obama talks about healthcare “savings”, this is analagous to “profits” in the private sector. The main reason to protect our current healthcare system is because the claim that government can run healthcare more “profitably” (if you will) is so obviously ridiculous. In fact they will wreck it.
We are not obstructionists. We seek to protect and to save the world’s greatest healthcare system from the world’s greatest empty suit fraud.
When Obama talks about healthcare “savings”, this is analagous to “profits” in the private sector. The main reason to protect our current healthcare system is because the claim that government can run healthcare more “profitably” (if you will) is so obviously ridiculous. In fact they will wreck it.
We are not obstructionists. We seek to protect and to save the world’s greatest healthcare system from the world’s greatest empty suit fraud.
Gee, now the Democrats have a rallying cry, “Pass this bill for Ted!”. It’s not going to work. People are on a roll now, and it’s not just Conservatives fighting this thing.
Socialized health care is great if you’re young and healthy.
But who are you gonna call when the government decides its not gonna pay? Ghostbusters! …err, Lawyers. Suing the Federal Government to get cancer treatment for a 60 year-old person might not be the most fun thing.
People,
I’m Korean… South. Now I live here in california.
I agree that current system in this country is good for healthy people or those who work in a big company with a group plan. I am ‘fortunately’ one of them and I am enjoying the benefit. But I think it’s really a nightmare for people with pre-existing conditions and without decent jobs.
I don’t know all the numbers, costs. But I think medical care should be approached from redistribution point of view rather than a business.
I will just tell you about Korean system. I am not saying it’s better than US. Just to let you consider something else…
All people should be registered for a public medical insurance. Premium is different by their income. Coverage is all the same. There are private insurances but people usually buy them only for some additional coverage, like accidents or deseases that need exceptionally high cost. Actually people usually use only the public insurance.
Lines in the hospital?… Usually faster than here. There are many many many doctors and hospitals. Price? About $2 per visit. It’s about $3 per visit when I consider the prices difference between here and there. The Average level of doctors and hospitals? Very good. They are one of the people with the highest income. So, usually the smartest students become doctors and their training is for around 10 years.
Problems: In high cost treatments, there are too many things without coverage. The deficit is getting bigger every year. People go to doctor too much!! Doctors see the patients too fast!
Overall, Korean system is great with common deseases. Fast and cheap. But it’s not good for cancer because it costs too much.
I know that I am not qualified for the US medical system dispute. But … hmmm… I just wanted to say something.
Here’s my point-by-point reply:
1. ObamaCare’s centerpiece, a Medicare-like “public option,” would cause millions of Americans to lose their employer-provided health insurance.
Millions of Americans have already lost, or never had, employer-provided health insurance. Moreover, those who lose their employer-provided health insurance will be able to get insurance, regardless of their income or pre-existing conditions. A “public option” might cause some reduction in employer provided health care, but the figure cited (118 million) from the Lewin Group is absurdly high. Perhaps a consequence of the Lewin Group’s status as a wholly-owned arm of the health care industry?
2. Government-run health care would lead to rationing.
Private health care has already led to rationing, but not on a rational basis. Denying care is the primary method of reducing costs practiced by private insurers. Right now, care is rationed based on ability to pay, and the decisions of insurance executives. Increased competition and choice does not preclude a public option, and a public option does not require a reduction in care to reduce costs – just a reduction in the profit motive as the primary driver of health care.
3. ObamaCare would cost a fortune, and we’re already running higher deficits than during the Great Depression.
ObamaCare would “bend the curve” in the long term, and make it possible for health care to survive the retiring boomers who would otherwise break it. We are running higher deficits than ever because the last eight years were a non-stop assault on the US economy and government. It takes a lot of money to repair the kind of damage done by the Bush administration.
Even so, ObamaCare will expand health coverage, reduce health care expenditures, and remove the long-term risk of insolvency in Medicare. Arbitrarily reducing deficits in the midst of a financial crisis is a proven loser.
4. ObamaCare would ruin private insurance.
ObamaCare does not ruin private insurance. It simply gives consumers another choice, and prevents gaps in coverage due to job loss or pre-existing conditions. The “public option” uses government to efficiently cover care for millions of Americans, as is currently done by Medicare. There is no evidence that a public option would reduce the quality of private care – it is much more likely that private competition will motivate improvements in care as private companies work to compete.
5. ObamaCare would encourage people to leave the medical profession.
This is absurd. People do not go into the medical profession as a way to make themselves rich – and if they do, they should not be encouraged. It is much more likely that employment in the health sector would be much higher, because with more people covered by insurance, there would be more people with access to care. There is no reason to believe that improved and expanded insurance coverage would be a deterrent to those interested in practicing medicine.
6. In addition to increasing deficits, ObamaCare would increase overall health costs.
Your “study” shows nothing about the overall costs of health care. You do not address any of the collateral benefits of having health coverage, and do not recognize the impact of demographics on program costs.
In short, you have no evidence. Your supposed evidence simply shows how private insurers can make a bigger profit by denying care to millions of Americans. That’s not evidence of anything about overall health costs.
7. Based on Medicare’s track record, ObamaCare’s costs would almost certainly exceed estimates.
ObamaCare could exceed cost estimates by a very large margin and still be much more cost-effective than our current system.
8. ObamaCare would create a two-tiered health-care system, to the detriment of the middle class.
We already have a two-tiered health-care system, to the detriment of the middle and lower classes. The rich will always get whatever care they want, but for the middle class health reform would at least preserve access to care that is often jeopardized in our current system. There is again, no evidence that the middle class would suffer worse health under a public system, but plenty of evidence from overseas that public health care is more effective and efficient than our private system.
9. ObamaCare would kill the prospects for real reform.
No real reform has been forthcoming for some time – now is the best chance we will ever have. ObamaCare ends unfair practices that impact the uninsured, and encourages a more vibrant free market in which consumers can shop for value – for the best care, at the best prices. Rather than being excluded from care due to pre-existing conditions, or compelled to join the plan of an employer, under ObamaCare the choice would be restored to each of us.
ObamaCare is real reform.
10. The centralization of power in Washington saps the strength of our citizenry and slowly deprives us of liberty.
This is just a tag line to get folks interested in your “think-tank”. Liberty without life is not very valuable – health care reform serves the general welfare, very much in keeping with the spirit of the founders. ObamaCare is about balancing the strength of the citizenry against the strength of private interests that currently are not serving the public interest.
Corporations have an obligation to be good citizens – if they cannot do so voluntarily, it is the place of government to set them straight. We the People grant the corporate charter, and have every right to revoke it.
We need ObamaCare.
Peace.
DS
Almost everyone still misses the point.
If the government controls half your retirement-
social security-
30 million,
20 million disabled etc. 2009.
78 million baby boomers near future.
Your health care-
280 million dependents.
The POTUS will be the most powerful democrat in the world and Bambie knows it.
(and you thought he was stupid?)
Democrats would never have to leave office.
Voters afraid they would lose their government benefits-
(think- Obama plans to cut Medicare 500 billion dollars to sponsor ‘Ted Care’)
would have ACORN volunteers drive or take their votes to the polls.
Just think-
Nancy Pelosi in power for the next 35 years.
Probably serve as Democrat President for 12 of those years.
Reason #11 . . . Because Republicans didn’t do squat for the last decade to mend the rotten ways of healthcare, and if Obama succeeds in even moderate change for the better the Republicans will look like the disengaged elitists that they are.
“The centralization of power in Washington saps the strength of our citizenry and slowly deprives us of liberty.”
Yes, every time I have to hassle with my insurance company about coverage, I feel stronger and freer.
#9: “…amnesty for illegal Hispanics and increased wealth redistribution (welfare) to the black race….”
Congratulations, Dev! You’ve just won today’s White Trash Award.
Give us all Ted’s insurance plan and coverage options–THEN they can call it Kennedy Care. Ted Care for everyone!
At least consider that the driving force of all of these government initiatives (“healthcare” et al.) is…
Mandated Egalitarianism ? Class war ideology ? Lasting institutional change ?
I suggest the Iranian people to leave Islam, and change to another religion, that would be a silent revolution without violence!
Religion is only something one believe.
Another reason: defeating Obamacare will deal a decisive blow to the Left, likely causing their entire agenda to unravel and discrediting and dismepowering them for a generation–especially if they also prosecute some CIA interrogators.
19. Meryl:
You want Ted’s insurance . . . GO BUY SOME!
Corporations have an obligation to be good citizens – if they cannot do so voluntarily, it is the place of government to set them straight.
Why stop at corporations?
A corporation is just one form of business, and a business is just one type of organization.
Shouldn’t government control the behavior of ALL organizations, as well?
And really, all organizations are populated by individuals. Should it not be the role of government to make good citizens of these individuals, as well? (that is, to ‘set them straight’).
All for the greater good, of course (and the children … don’t forget about the children).
Maybe you should look up the difference between eutopia and utopia. Or perhaps read a book on the ideological origins of Mussolini’s fasciti.
I am surprised that people keep missing the Constitutional violations in HB3200. It violates the 14th and 4th Amendments and can not likely survive scrutiny under the Article 1, Section 8 Commerce clause. The bill will have to survive Strict Scrutiny analysis. A number of Constitutional scholars see little hope of that.
Pajamas would do its readers a service to publish a piece containing a Constitutional review of the legislation.
Corporations have an obligation to be good citizens – if they cannot do so voluntarily, it is the place of government to set them straight.
Oh yeah, PEACE GUY David S. Barack Obama, Timmy Geithner, sundry Czars like John Holdren and Van Jones, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, his brother (ohmygod, if you’re old, we don’t wanna service your “health”) Ezekiel…this is definitely the crowd of individuals I’d be looking to to set anything on the planet “straight”.
Not to mention that nowhere in our founding documents is there any mention or allusion to such a “place” for government that you so blithely claim.
“ObamaCare will expand health coverage, reduce health care expenditures, and remove the long-term risk of insolvency in Medicare.”
I expect you respond to a lot of investment e-mails from Nigeria.
Expand coverage while reducing costs, all without increasing taxes or borrowing. Mm-hm. Yeah. Oh, yes, all this magic is supposed to happen by ‘removing profit’ from the system (never mind all the nonprofits like Blue Cross/Blue Shield). Riiiight. Because Medicare has done such a wonderful job of controlling costs- after all, the tab is only 10 times what LBJ claimed it was going to be.
Or perhaps like Massachusetts, Tennessee and Maine: such success stories.
——————-
Yes, the public “option” will crush out private coverage. It’s designed to, as the more honest leftists (Frank, Krugman, and its originator Hacker) freely admit. It’s not so much a Trojan horse as a cuckoo in the nest.
The way it will work is simple: employers will be forced to offer the public plan to their employees, or face a hefty fine higher than the cost. They are in theory free to offer private plans as well- *but* how many employers except the very largest offer health plans from more than one carrier? Close to none: it’s not worth the hassle and drain on the HR and accounting departments to deal with multiple carriers. Result: employers will offer the government plan perforce and solely, dropping private health plans. Add to this predatory pricing: the public “option” will (I promise) offer below-recoup premiums because it can freely operate in the red, just like Amtrak.
Don’t believe me? Then look at Hawaii’s ill-fated scheme, on which the plug was pulled after only nine months because that’s exactly what happened.
I’m afraid we all need to stop wasting time on blogs (preaching to the choir) and start spending time getting the truth out to those who *think* they support this monstrous and disastrous plan!
None of the European or Canadian models are working and there is absolutely NO way their models will work here – they even have the benefit of WAY less obesity and WAY more exercise and they still cannot sustain healthcare for their people.
This is a power play by the federal government pure and simple. It needs to stop.
No public official or member of congress would ever be restricted by some federal bureaucrat telling them what they could and could not get in the way of healthcare.
When teddy kennedy was diagnosed about 1 1/2 years ago, he, literally scoured the country for the best advice on glioma and found a surgeon who would operate, for better or worse.
2 of his children (at least) have had cancers, somewhat interesting in and of itself, genetically. Their care was addressed in the same fanatical and no holds barred fashion as his own.
All Congresscritters have consistently and doggedly insisted that they would never (as in never ever !) be subject to what they would impose on you.
Here’s my point-by-point reply to David S.’s point-by-point reply (you can go back to his original post):
1. Yes, while millions of Americans lost healthcare insurance, they got it back when they changed jobs. As far as that mythical 47 million uninsured Americans, the real number is only between 8.2 million and 13.9 million, according to the LIBERAL Kaiser Family Foundation. In addition, the CBO states 45% of those uninsured are so only for four months or less, and quickly reacquire insurance with their next job.
On a personal note, I have a family member who works for Walmart. In a recent managers meeting at the store where he was assigned, he was told in no uncertain terms that if Øbamacare passes, Walmart would immediately make all associates go the public option route. When asked what that meant, the manager who made the announcement stated “Don’t you watch Fox News?”
2. Just like a liberal to divert attention. Whatever supposed ‘rationing’ private insurance does, it would pale in comparison to the rationing that takes place under Øbamacare. Simply reducing Medicare payments to physicians would trigger Richter scale style reductions in physicians offering Medicare-based care. The big lie is that Øbamacare will not cut benefits. No, it only will cut payments for procedures.
3. “Even so, ObamaCare will expand health coverage, reduce health care expenditures, and remove the long-term risk of insolvency in Medicare. Arbitrarily reducing deficits in the midst of a financial crisis is a proven loser.”
Says who? Not the non-partisan CBO. It hasn’t worked for Social Security, VA hospital care, and Medicare (unfortunately, we’re too deep in Medicare to change now). What makes anyone with a sane mind think Øbamacare would be any different?
4. Øbamacare will ruin private insurance. See my response #1 above. Where Walmart goes, others will follow quickly.
5. Øbamacare will cause many to stop practicing medicine. This is already proven true in Canada, Germany, the UK, and who knows where else where medical demand outpaces supply, especially for specialized care.
6. I have to quote the inane response here, “You have no evidence.” In criminal jargon, that is the defense of a guilty person. You show no evidence either. You consistently raise the straw man argument that private insurers “deny” care. It happens far less often than you intimate, plus the fact that there is an appeal process for denial of care, where far more often than not, the patient will win out simply because of their tenacity. There will be no such appeal process for Øbamacare. In other words, Øbamacare will kill Betty White faster than any private insurance will.
7. Øbamacare’s cost will exceed estimates. Look at the recent deficit adjustment, where the WH admitted it was almost ONE-THIRD off its deficit projections. Medicare costs are 10x of original projections. Let’s face it, liberals cannot forecast their way out of a paper bag.
8. Another inane quote: “There is again, no evidence that the middle class would suffer worse health under a public system, but plenty of evidence from overseas that public health care is more effective and efficient than our private system.”
Tell this to your typical Italian who has to suffer under their two-tiered system. Waits for the public sector could be months while the rich have their private systems. While there is overlap currently in the US system, there is no such overlap in Italy.
9. Real reform? Øbamacare ain’t it. It’s not about healthcare. It’s about federal government seizing power. Also, there are Constitutional questions about forcing individuals to purchase government healthcare. If by some chance this passes and is signed, wait for the court challenges. Why would we court challenge? Why, we’re only doing what liberals would do.
10. You state “health care reform serves the general welfare.” The Constitution does not state that we “serve” general welfare. The preamble states “PROMOTE the general welfare.” There is a difference. I daresay the resultant healthcare rationing that Øbamacare will cause does not promote the general welfare.
Three nails are on the Republic’s coffin already with two stimulus bills and cap-and-tax. Øbamacare will put a nail in the fourth corner.
Cheers, Frank
I have the cure for healthcare in America . . . outlaw cigarettes. Problem solved. What, you should be able to smoke if you want to? Fine, then legalize weed. What, weed alters perception and is therefore a danger to public safety? Fine, then outlaw liquor. Forget the contradictions and robotic deference to the holy document . . . if you want to fix healthcare, outlaw cigarettes.
Let’s go over the changing carousel of reasons President Obama & the other Democrats are parroting like brainless automatons:
1) The public option is meant to decrease cost, yet Obama wants to add an estimated 47 million people to the coverage. Now, half of this number are illegal aliens while the other are people who could be insured by private insurance, but choose to remain uninsured.
2) President Obama, after some polling, changed it from Health reform to Health Insurance Reform. As a result, the private health insurance companies are being demonized as evil. Again, this does not make any sense.
3) After the first two have failed, Nancy Pelosi says Universal Socialized rationed health care must be passed for Senator Ted Kennedy. However, if Ted Kennedy was on the public option, he would have died last year. He chose his own private insurance to live another year. Ted Kennedy can be used as a reason for private insurance & a means against the Universal Health Care.
The Democrats are desperate, flailing like a bird with its wing cut. Keep up the pressure people. It’s not over until all the bills are dead. No compromise.
Now and Then
You are an idiot, you know that, right? Ted’s insurance or let me say this plainly, the health insurance of every Senator,Congressman/woman, the President, Vice President and govt appointed officials and their families have an insurance coverage is not available to anyone else, period. Their insurance is private, but their premiums are being paid by for tax-payers and they don’t pay a single cent for hospitalization. All hospitals honor their insurance and they get to choose all of their doctors, who are the top-tier in their respective specialties, to take care of them and they can get them right away in a moment’s notice. If they choose to have experimental treatments, their insurance covers it a 100%. Now you know why the elected officials and especially Obama don’t want to give up their gold-plated private insurance for the Obama Health care plan.
This is Michael Steele at his comedy best. Government shouldn’t have a role to play, unless I say it has a role to play. Save medicare. For now, but I want to cut it after Obama’s plan fails. It really is hard to believe that he is your party’s leader. Until you come here and read the writing and comments, then it makes perfect sense.
http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=112281170&m=112281154&t=audio” height=”383″ wmode=”opaque” width=”400″ base=”http://www.npr.org”
Now and Then
Really, ask Obama if he wants to give up one of his vices for the sake of his health?? Weed, wow, it kills the lungs much faster than cigarettes especially if you smoke it like you smoke cigarettes. Outlaw,Liquor? . It’s been tried before. Remember the Prohibition? Speakeasies?? Elliot Ness and the Untouchables?
How about this,be responsible for your own health?? Every goes back to the person, Now and Then. It’s all up to you.
31 – Now and Then:
Actually, if we’re intellectually consistent, we should outlaw cigarettes since they’re a pure death hazard. However, that will never happen because the gov’t is too addicted to the steep tax revenue from them. And if you think that tax revenue is going towards funding health care/smoking cessation, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I think you might be interested in buying.
This is Michael Steele at his comedy best.
Racist.
We really only need one reason: Everything the federal goverment touches turns to excrement.
Cigarettes are a huge source of federal revenues. Under Barack, there has been something like an additional $1/pack tax.
I think some of this additional tax money is being used to fund the CHIP program for children. How ironic is that, tax revenues from ciggs being used to fund children’s “health” ?
The failure to outlaw ciggs is an indication that the federal gov’t is more interested in revenues than “health”, n’est-ce pas ?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, your HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, is running around the country holding conferences on “obesity”, big ole charts, mapping numbers of fat people from state to state. That is, when she and the rest of the federal crowd isn’t trying to scare you (into submission) over imminent FLU DOOM.
No one in your federal government is telling you that in trials of the H1N1 vaccine, some of the same issues (as in destruction of nerve pathways) are presenting themselves as they did with the vaccine used in the 1970′s swine flu.
I am seriously ashamed of everything going on at the federal level these days.
Hilarious how Now and Then is telling us to go buy some Ted’s insurance when on the other hand he’s promoting Obama’s plan which will TAKE THAT OPTION AWAY.
Yet another instance of a liberal shooting off his mouth without thinking.
Yes Now and Then, the rest of America already PAYS for their own insurance. It’s subhumans like you that are BEGGING for a government handout for your insurance.
Get a job. Get a life. Pay your own way in this world for once. Quit expecting to suck off the government teat. Self-reliance Now and Then. It’s a shame your mommy didn’t teach you that.
MOHO-Yes, Michael Steele Sucks. Now Lets talk about your Messiah. He swallows. He swallowed for 15 years and received more than a million dollars for his talents. And Got his slumlord boss millions in the process.
It is not health care, it is medical insurance. This lie is firmly fixed into our language, and the entire argument is hinged (or unhinged) on that lie.
It is government run. There is no such thing as a deficit neutral government program. There would be massive bureaucracy entrenched forever, or until the end of the republic.
The Health care crisis has never been fully diagnosed, with only cost and controls issued for a cure. The main crisis seems to be the cost of premiums.
The medical care control issues are to be in the hands of the politicians and the bean counters. The medical profession becomes a mere commodity.
There would be a mandatory 2.5% tax on income as a penality for those who do not want the public option. That is about being forced to pay the premium at the point of a bayonet.
The electronic records includes an entire medical profile of everyone. That can never be secured. That violates everyone’s civil rights and rights to privacy. The doctor-patient confidentiality is breached. That kills the medical process of disclosure and discovery history which is 80% of diagnosis.
Quoting a WSJ 8/26/09 editorial on the $9T deficit:”Obamanomics has turned into an unprecedented experiment in runaway government with no plan to pay for it.” High crimes and misdomeanors enter the equation.
Cradle to grave security puts us in the Matrix.
The illegals are to be funded for what gain, compassion or political demographics?
David S (15):
People keep talking about “employer-provided health insurance” as if it were a law of nature. It’s part of the problem. I don’t lose my auto, home, or life insurance when I leave my job, why should I lose my health insurance? The answer is that health insurance was coupled to employment in the 30′s by the unions in an effort to keep down job mobility (and increase their own power).
The basic problem stems from the fact that for health insurance the “pool” is made up of just the employees of that company, while for all other insurance it is all of the customers of the insurance company. If you try to purchase a new auto insurance policy after having an accident your rates will be higher than otherwise; if you try to purchase life insurance after having had a heart attack then the premiums will be higher. Why should health insurance be any different? The proper solution is to purchase early and hold the policy for a long time.
Remember, this money is not in reality “employer-provided.” It is really part of your salary and could very well be paid to you as part of your normal pay for you to purchase your own insurance with. Make health-insurance premiums tax-free if you want to encourage people to purchase health insurance.
NOW AND THEN-I think you need to stop making sense. You’re scaring me. Legalizing weed is a great idea! THAT SAID (you were doing so well!) Your Messiah turned tricks for years for a slumlord, a criminal parasite who enriched himself on tax dollars that were supposed to go to housing for Obama’s own constituents. You did so well when you said pot should be legalized. That’s a free man talking! Now dump the self hating liberal BS and you’re really on the road.
15. David S: “Liberty without life is not very valuable…”
Nor is life without liberty.
@30. Frank:
Here’s my point-by-point rebuttal to your reply (see above):
1. Your source, the Kaiser Family Foundation clearly says: 45 million people under the age of 65 had no health insurance coverage in 2007. Your talking points are hollow.
According to the Census Bureau’s 2005 Current Population Survey (CPS), there were 45.8 million uninsured individuals in 2004, or 15.7% of the civilian non-institutionalized population.
Watching Fox News does not constitute being informed.
2. Apocalyptic scenarios are great for scaring people, but the Medicare system was also supposed to be a terrible curse, and has proven to be one of the most important and beloved federal programs. The plain fact is that government coverage works for seniors, and it can work for the rest of us. Paying inflated prices to cover excessive overhead and profits at private insurance companies is a waste of national resources.
3. The CBO is not the last word on health care reform. There are others that take a broader view. Social security is a very successful program because it works, and the same can be said of Medicare. 45% of health care in this country is already provided under some kind of public program. Opening these programs to all simply makes sense.
4. Man employers don’t offer any health coverage at all right now, so I see a mandate as a very direct way to expand coverage. Most legislation I have seen includes portability, so there would be no need to rely on the employer to offer a specific private plan – the choice would be in the hands of consumers, where it belongs.
5. It is incredibly unlikely that doctors will stop training and practicing medicine. Public health care provides the ultimate job security and payment reliability that makes cost effective care possible in other countries. It would be no different here.
6. Patients do not generally win against insurance companies because of ‘tenacity’ – usually it requires a competent attorney, and enough time that you might die in the process. The plain fact is that millions don’t even have the luxury of being denied care by an insurance company because they can’t afford or obtain insurance. Public care is the answer to health care security.
7. Economic forecasting is an art, and not a science – inevitably there are going to be adjustments. But the current state of affairs is not sustainable, and must be made so while the budget is still salvageable. in 2000 we were on course for this, but after eight years of profligate spending, ill-advised tax cuts, and loose money, we are in a much tougher spot. Without health reform, there is no way to square this circle.
8. I would rather be an Italian waiting in line than an American dying with no care at all. Gladly.
9. Health care reform is likely to pass all court challenges with flying colors. The easiest way to ensure this would be to simply expand eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid, but I really don’t see this as a credible reason not to pursue reform.
10. Improving access to health care for the People is promoting the general welfare in the most direct and palpable way possible. There is little the Congress could do that would do more to promote the health and well being of Americans. Coverage for all promotes the general welfare, as proven by dozens of our fellow nations. Now is the time – Ted’s passing will make this inevitable. It would be a disgrace if our nation were to abandon this opportunity to achieve the fundamental purposes of health reform.
It is not only the American thing to do, it is the right thing to do.
Peace.
DS
@42. JED: – It is not health care, it is medical insurance. This lie is firmly fixed into our language, and the entire argument is hinged (or unhinged) on that lie.
BRAVO, JED!! I wish more people would recognize the false choice the entire public health care “debate” is based on. All discussion involves how to “cover the rising costs”, “the x-million ‘uninsured’”, blah, blah, blah. No one seems to recognize that the goal here is affordable routine health care for all, not cost-ratcheting comprehensive insurance for all.
NOWHERE in the Democrats’ so-called “plan” is there a single facet aimed at encouraging the health care market (note: NOT the health care insurance market) to bring routine health care costs back down into equilibrium with other routine costs of living. This is the tell.
Skyrocketing health care costs work to everyone’s benefit except the consumer and taxpayer. Increasing costs work especially to the advantage of the government, which is using the increased costs as an excuse to seize control over yet another sector of the economy.
This program will create a permanent segment of the population that is utterly dependent on the government for health care.
This program will create a permanent – and, if the NHS is any indication, gargantuan – voting bloc dedicated to the perpetuation of this monstrosity.
This program will add federal bureaucracy to an already broken system.
Who in their right mind could believe that this would ever improve access to health care? Medicare is bankrupt. Social Security is bankrupt. “Cash for Clunkers” went bankrupt in a matter of weeks. Very soon – thanks to Obama’s unsustainable spending-spree budgets, which have quadrupled the deficit – America will be bankrupt. How can ANYONE trust the government to handle millions of different health care claims when they can’t even process a SINGLE type of claim – for “Clunkers” – efficiently?
To get his Spendulus passed, Obama predicted that unemployment would not go over 8%. Unemployment is now at twice that level – 16%.
Obama predicted a 10-year deficit of $7.1T. We now learn that it’s at least $9T – and that’s without all the additional spending programs this administration is set to push through.
The fact that anyone can put faith in this Congress and this administration after 7 months of utterly inept, nation-destroying, unconstitutional misfeasance is a testament to the ignorance of the majority of Americans. Sad but true.
The health care debate should be about affordable routine HEALTH CARE, not Ponzi schemes that pretend to cover the skyrocketing costs while funneling more and more billion$ into the programs that make the political elites’ lifetime incumbencies possible.
According to the Census Bureau’s 2005 Current Population Survey (CPS), there were 45.8 million uninsured individuals in 2004, or 15.7% of the civilian non-institutionalized population.
Watching Fox News does not constitute being informed.
Don’t be an idiot. That 45.8 million number includes illegals, most of whom are Mexican nationals. Note the use of the word ‘individuals’ and not ‘citizens’ or ‘Americans’.
It also includes individuals who make over $75,000 a year, of whom most can afford some form of insurance, and those who make over $50,000 a year, of whom most can afford some form of insurance.
It also includes Americans in their late teens and early twenties who do not choose to purchase insurance but whose insurance would be extremely low due to their age, and thus quite affordable to most of them.
And it includes individuals who qualify for federal and state programs but who do not apply for them.
And it includes individuals who lack insurance only temporarily, meaning they can buy it but choose not to because they’ll get it when they get a new job.
This sort of information is common knowledge now. Those who pay attention to politics and the issues have known all this for some time, and now that the nation is having a debate about healthcare, more and more people are becoming aware of what nonsense that 45.8 million figure really is.
(Funny how a debate doesn’t always end up the way you want it to, eh?)
Finally: How is it that you’re not aware of any of those factors I just listed?
Are you badly informed, a disingenuous liar, or both?
I’d address the rest of your ‘points’, but if you can’t even get this correct, it’s obvious you haven’t thought anything through, are incapable of thinking it through, or are being intentionally misleading.
Watching Jon Stewart, Charlie Gibson, or ambulance-chasing local news broadcasts does not constitute being informed.
@46. David S: – 45 million people under the age of 65 had no health insurance coverage.
Irrelevant. The issue is access to affordable health care. Insurance is not health care. Buy a dictionary.
- … the Medicare system was …
Medicare is bankrupt. Next?
- The CBO is not the last word on health care reform.
They are the last word on what the government spends. Next?
- Man[y] employers don’t offer any health coverage at all right now, …
Nor should they. You insist on missing the point. Routine health care doesn’t pose a financial risk to an employed person. Therefore there is no justification to mandate such an entitlement. Next?
- It is incredibly unlikely that doctors will stop training and practicing medicine.
Irrelevant and unsupportable. If wage and price controls are implemented – which is the only way the government can force prices down – this is exactly the trend we’ll see. A reduction in the quality of care will result. Next?
- Patients do not generally win against insurance companies …
Irrelevant. This issue is about affordable routine health care, not insurance. Next?
- Economic forecasting is an art, …
An art woefully lacking in this administration, whose prediction of 8% unemployment has turned out to be 16%, and whose prediction of a $7T deficit has turned out – so far – to be at least $9T. This administration can’t be trusted to understand anything about forecasting. Next?
- I would rather be an Italian waiting in line …
Go to Italy. Next?
- Health care reform is likely to pass all court challenges …
That’s what FDR thought. He lost. Medicare is bankrupt. Using an unconstitutional, bankrupt system as a ‘precedent’ isn’t going to fly. Also, Medicare applies only to a small percentage of the population, not all 300+ Million Americans plus all illegal aliens. Congress has no Constitutional authority to mandate health care insurance and no authority to provide “free” health care for all these people at the taxpayers’ expense. Next?
- Improving access to health care for the People…
An insurance policy – especially one mismanaged by an inept, corrupt, wholly unaccountable government – does not improve access to health care for anyone.
Here’s another one:
Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data
And, one may presume, ACORN.
Oh yeah, bring on the Health Choices Commissioner (aka the death panel guy)
Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”
Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data
David S.
- It is incredibly unlikely that doctors will stop training and practicing medicine.
I think this is a misrepresentation of the issue. From what I understand and have been to told by a DOCTOR (oncologist) is that the threat is a mass exodus of specialists being forced onto a cash only basis. One practice I know of in Houston will be relocating to mexico city if this happens.
The other issue is that a LARGE amount of doctors in the US are from India and China. If the profit motive is removed, the supposition is that they will go back home.
So we are already looking at TWO groups of doctors leaving.
Yes, and to maintain the snarkiness quotient, watching MSNBS does not constitute being informed either.
7. Ed Wallis,
You may laugh, but “the price of bread” was always a Soviet talking point and propaganda touchstone, to the point where it was subsidized to ridiculously low prices. I remember in Romania in the ’80s, people buying bread for 5¢ per loaf, and raising pigs and chickens with it.
Efficient, no?
From David S. # 15 – Point 5
“…People do not go into the medical profession as a way to make themselves rich…”
It is official. David S. has no grasp on reality.
I believe that there WAS a time when one entered the medical profession for no other reason than to help their fellow man. This is no longer the case. I say this with no ill feelings towards these “capitalists” as David S. would probably have. For the most part, these young doctors will have graduated with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to be re-paid. Regardless if they entered the field to “become rich” or not, THEY NEED TO MAKE MONEY.
Most people closely aligned with David S. would refer to these people as greedy capitalists who need to be reigned in by the government.
@54. Right as well as Correct: – David S. has no grasp on reality.
True dat.
And like all trolls he proves it daily, using statements that are every bit as believable as Pelosi’s lie – now documented – attacking the CIA:
Dear Calvin #53,
Why would I laugh? I experienced exactly the same in Prague (then-Czechoslovakia)then. The salt sticks were deeeeelicious…and dirt cheap.
Oleg and crew are fantastic.
Obamacare? Same old, scary old.
I’ll keep the PIVO.
Jeffrey,
You sure went to a lot of trouble to spread your myths and lies.
However the fact remains that every other modern country in the world uses some sort of single payer/public option.
And they deliver the same level of care.
And they cover everyone.
And they spend 1/2 of we spend.
Now Lets talk about your Messiah. He swallows. He swallowed for 15 years and received more than a million dollars for his talents. And Got his slumlord boss millions in the process.
Hmm. I don’t recall every saying anything favorable about Obama here. You must be using this as yet another excuse to pleasure your little fantasy about oral/anal relations with Obama. And apparently, Steele too, in the mix. I really would rather here no more; you’re oversharing Bill.
“Social security is a very successful program because it works”
??????????????????? One just can’t respond to a person who makes this statement. They do not live in our world.
Far from ensuring the passage of Obamacare, Ted Kennedy’s death ensures that this bill will NOT pass, at least for several months. Without Kennedy’s vote, the Democrats need a Republican in order to pass anything- not gonna happen. This bill is DOA in the Senate, and the Democrats wouldn’t be able to muster even 50 votes if they tried the nuclear option.
Thanks to goy and billslayer to put the lie to David S.’s talking points.
He can cherry-pick as much as he wants. The grass roots are opposed to ØbamaCare, while the astroturf lemmings can do no better than union mercenaries.
“Allocation by age is not insidious discrimination.” Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel… so there won’t be rationing? Fat chance.
It needs to be opposed because it is not about improving health care. ‘Health care’ – like ‘Cap and Trade’ – is merely a means to the same nefarious end – power and control.
A little more expansion on Rahm’s charming brother, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, Obama’s point man on “health care” thinking…
Move over, Dr. Mengele!
#47 Goy:
Every time I hear this lie about “Health Care”, even from the Fox News crew, I have to think that that trick phrase is telling us, “If we buy into this scheme we will all be more healthy.”
Lies, damn lies, statistics, and politicians; Dante condemned those folks to hell where the panderers, liars, flatterers, and seducers must wallow in a sea of human excrement for all eternity. The rewrite would include politicians.
You sure went to a lot of trouble to spread your myths and lies.
And this from someone who still posts those idiotic infant mortality numbers, knowing that the methodologies used to arrive at those numbers vary from nation to nation (and don’t account for cultural differences that result in disparate medical outcomes). They are essentially a meaningless comparison, and you are either too dumb to understand it (unlikely), or know it and post such nonsense anyway (highly likely). Either way, the fact that you continuously trot out debunked data means everything else you post is suspect, and can be ignored.
‘Argument by Bookmarked HTML Link’ is the sign of an inferior mind.
However the fact remains that every other modern country in the world uses some sort of single payer/public option.
And this is relevant, how? There are no ‘modern’ nations that have 233 years of continuous experience as a constitutional republic, as does our society. We’re better at maintaining a republic than they are. I wouldn’t use them as an example of anything to which we should aspire. Frankly, they stink when it comes to balancing government control and freedom. Most were totalitarian dictatorships/monarchies until very recently.
And they deliver the same level of care. And they cover everyone.
Their care is delayed and therefore deadly, and we, too, provide care for everyone. We do not, however, provide insurance to everyone.
You understand the distinction, and yet you still, as you put it, spread your ‘myths and lies’.
And they spend 1/2 of we spend.
And they get what they pay for.
Ok course, Jeffery is right on the money. The Marxist wing of the Democratic party could care less about the cost or the inevitable decline in the quality of life for all Americans under this plan.
There is much we can do to improve health care financing in America without doing so much unnecessary damage. Either way, we will have to stop the leftists now or undo a disaster later.
@57. jharp: – every other modern country in the world uses some sort of single payer/public option.
That’s stretching it. But giving you the benefit of the doubt – fix the market first. Insurance company monopolies – facilitated by special interest lobbies – have caused skyrocketing cost.
Insurance is not affordable routine health care. Insurance is a tool for managing financial risk. A federal mandate for insurance will not ensure access to routine health care, which poses no significant financial risk.
In your spare time, get a Constitutional Amendment passed that gives Congress the authority to mandate health care insurance and to run a health insurance operation for all 300 Million+ American citizens, plus 10-20 illegal aliens, using the taxpayers’ money – like all these other socialist countries – and then let’s discuss the options.
They arent fantasies bud, your messiah got his start in politics turning tricks, I didn’t say anything about his being the recipient of any back door cash, but if you’ve got a videotape of the One, I’m sure the guys at girls gone wild will buy it.
jharp:
“And they spend 1/2 of we spend.”
Aureliano:
“And they get what they pay for.”
Congrats buddy. You got one right. 1 out of 4 ain’t bad. They pay 1/2 for the same level of care that American’s get.
It is we that aren’t getting what we pay for.
@63. tanstaafl: – A little more expansion on Rahm’s charming brother, Dr. Zeke Emanuel…
The following proves Emanuel is either mentally defective or a paid leftist shill:
“… Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the ‘overuse’ of medical care.”
Health care over-consumption is driven by two things:
1. Comprehensive health care plan members have an “insurance will cover it” mentality. They have no concept of the cost of their care, nor do they show any interest in learning. When “insurance will cover it”, all sorts of otherwise unnecessary health care consumption is encouraged. The Rand Study demonstrated that consumers who use high-deductible, low-cost insurance for catastrophic health care expenses, and who paid directly for routine medical care, consumed far less health care with no difference in health outcomes.
2. Since – once again – “insurance will cover it”, physicians’ tort liability encourages doctors to over-test and often over-treat, in the hope that they can cover their ass and limit their financial exposure. They are also far more inclined to test and treat a patient’s every complaint regardless of the complaint’s validity, on the statistical basis that even an unrelated clinical event could be tied by a wily ambulance chaser like John Edwards to a decision that could either lead to an expensive liability insurance claim, ruin them financially and/or destroy their entire career.
These are the two primary factors leading to over-consumption of health care, which helps drive up demand artificially and, in turn, drives up the cost artificially.
jharp:
“However the fact remains that every other modern country in the world uses some sort of single payer/public option”.
Name them. Please, tell me exactly which “modern” (as opposed to what – antique? – obsolete – primitive?) countries are we talking about here? Cuba? Vietnam? Zimbabwe? Russia? China, for God’s sake?
Or just France (lowest industrial productivity in western Europe), Germany (acute Doctor shortage leading to extensive service cutbacks [i.e. rationing??]), England (how exactly is England “modern” again?), or Sweden (70% income tax, and the world’s highest suicide rates – no thanks)?
And why should we give half a shit about emulating any of them anyway? It’s apples and oranges.
Are you one of those people who thinks everything “European” is somehow blessed by angels? Europe sucks. It’s polluted beyond belief, it’s so cold and dark that they’ve been slaughtering each other there for longer than humans have been able to write about it – apparently, just for something to do to keep warm.
Maybe your grandpa or his friends neglected to tell you about us (yeah that’s right, America) having to referree their last several genocide fests. I know that’s “too last century”, for you, but really why exactly are they so noble? You watch too many Michael Moore movies. Have you ever had an original thought?
“And they deliver the same level of care”.
Then why do foreign doctors and nurses flock to our “overpriced” hospitals by the thousands for treatment? Probably because they know they will actually survive treatment in our hospitals. I don’t know of a lot of Americans heading to “modern” countries to get their chemo. No one from my oncologist’s office was heading to China for treatment (he’s a Turkish Doctor who loves it here. Why? Because he can actually make a living doing good medicine and saving lives [mine included, thank you very much]).
“And they cover everyone”.
Yet remarkably, not “everyone” contributes to paying for thier coverage. Sounds a whole lot like “income redistribution” to me. Sounds like welfare to me. How much of your paycheck are you willing to give up so some lazy-assed welfare deadbeat can get his ingrown toenails clipped?
“And they spend 1/2 of we spend”.
As they should – for half the quality, half the technology, half the service, twice the wait, twice the risk, and twice the taxes.
You want health insurance? Then do what normal people do. Get a job and buy your own. Too expensive? Then get a good job … and buy your own. Can’t get a good job? Maybe you should have stayed in school.
So go upstairs, finish your homework, and tell your mom I’ll stop by after you kids are asleep.
If FatTeddyCare doesn’t pass, what will we do with all those inner city ACORN folks who have been promised high paying government jobs? Most would wind up running death panels judging white, middle class geezers and ensuring they get what they deserved. The GOOD part about this is that these death panelists almost certainly will be willing to modify their terminal judgments for modest payments.
@69. jharp: – It is we that aren’t getting what we pay for.
This is where you’re absolutely wrong. The vast majority of those using the current system getting what they pay for – IF they consume health care paid for by insurance benefits.
The problem is that an enormous number of people are getting what *I* and millions of other taxpayers and plan members pay for. Obama wants to turn this into a federal mandate. That’s the problem you refuse to acknowledge. Health care is not a “right” and the government has no authority to force me to pay for someone else’s care.
I actaully encouraged by what I read here. You finally are admitting the “death panels” are blatant lie to frighten the elderly by the vile scum Palin.
And are back you your old losing positions.
Rationing… insurance companies already ration and ration for profit and you can’t vote them out or change insurers.
Too expensive… also false. What we have today is the model that’s too expensive.
And don’t forget the classic teabagger protest. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare”
jharp:
“However the fact remains that every other modern country in the world uses some sort of single payer/public option”.
Even if that were true, does that imply that you would jump off the cliff if all the other little lemmings did too?
Modest proposal for the pundits:
just call it
CHAPPAQUIDDICK-care
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
PS Yes, it is meant to drown Americans into communist poverty, hence the name would be appropriate.
(Or just France (lowest industrial productivity in western Europe)
you need to reverse your glasses LMAO
I’m sorry to disappoint you, we are the most productives workers in world wide
see :
http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8
Based on another poster’s comment, why isn’t the fact that the federal government has no constitutional authority to establish a healthcare program emphasized in the top ten list? (Reason 10 merely skirts the issue.) The Constitution’s silence about public healthcare makes healthcare a state power issue.
In fact, note that a pro-Obamacare Democratic member of Congress has unthinkingly admitted that the Constitution says nothing about healthcare.
http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/08/democrat-congresswoman-justifies-obama.html
So Obamacare is just another example of the corrupt federal government wrongly usurping state powers.
And speaking of state powers, the following link should give people a good idea how state sovereignty-ignorant US voters have shot themselves in the foot with big, corrupt federal government.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=199792
Liberals = cannot accept anything but a government handout
Liberals = cannot take care of themselves
Liberals = cannot think past their next shipment of government cheese
Liberals = believe any info the MSM pumps into their empty heads
Liberals = have no pride or self-reliance
Liberals = believe anything from any source if it’s anti-American in nature
Liberals = cannot think past themselves to the next generation
Liberals = write comments containing thousands of words to say one thing…
“THE GOVERNMENT MUST PROVIDE FOR ME BECAUSE I CANNOT DO SO FOR MYSELF.”~liberal proverb
JHARP IS HERE: First, Jharp, I just wanted to put the picture in your head of your Messiah, Sweet Little Barry going downtown on Big Daddy Toney Rezko, picture him diligently working up and down, giving his sugar daddy every his every dime’s worth. To heck with his constituents, he’s gotta get PAID!
Second I wanted to thank you, Whole Foods roasted asparagus was delicious! Far superior to Central Market.
jharp:
“the government has no authority to force me to pay for someone else’s care.”
Utter nonsense. The government has every right to. Just as they have the right to “force” you to pay for the uninsured today, to feed the hungry, build roads, operate national parks, build dams, pay into social security, and so forth.
There is no question of the legality of the program. Medicare anyone? And even the most ignorant teabagger is aware of that.
Sherab Zangpo, I like the Health Care Bill being called Chappaquiddick Care for this reason: The government will take of you just like Ted Kennedy took care of Mary Jo Kapachne. It’s the truth. Big government will let you drown in an addled, wrecked car in order to save money. This is also why the the Sleeping Giant is wide awake & demanding the bills to die.
B. Johnson:
“Based on another poster’s comment, why isn’t the fact that the federal government has no constitutional authority to establish a healthcare program emphasized in the top ten list?”
Because there is no question the government has the constitutional authority to establish a health care program.
On what planet do you spend most of your time? Medicare? Medicaid?
IN HONOR OF JHARP, NOWANDTHEN and MOHO: Go shopping at Whole Foods Today!
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, we are the most productives workers in world wide”
Could be, but that absurd article doesn’t support that contention.
Teabaggers = after Obama cut taxes protest taxes
Teabaggers = keep your government hands off my medicare
Teabaggers = education is elitist and disqualifies your opinion
Teabaggers = only ignorant rednecks like Palin should be considered for office
Teabaggers = warrantless wiretaps are OK as long as a republican does it
Teabaggers = torture is good
Teabaggers = if Rush said it it’s true
Teabaggers = redstate welfare recipients
Teabaggers = the only way to pick up a few crumbs is to give the wealthiest monopoly power and cut their taxes
@81. jharp: – The government has every right to.
Demonstrating how clueless you are, again. The federal governments doesn’t have any “rights” per the Constitution. It has enumerated powers. None of them include mandating health care or forcing one citizen to pay for the health maintenance of another.
- There is no question of the legality of the program.
I’m sure that’s just what FDR said the week before most of the so-called “New Deal” was repealed due to its unconstitutional nature. I’m sure he blurted it again the week before he tried to pack the Supreme Court with justices sympathetic to socialism – and failed.
- Medicare anyone?
Medicare is bankrupt. It covers a small percentage of the nation’s citizens. Medicare is not the precedent you’re looking for.
If the government has the authority to mandate auto insurance, how the **** can you argue that it has no authority to mandate health insurance?
Morons, the lot of you.
Fascinating.
I just wrote a short 700 word missive in the comments section offering my thoughts about the good Dr. Hanson’s titled article, “Obama vs Obama.
As I remember, Rachel and the good doctor pretty much agreed Obama was a Capitol building sized hypocrite, whining about everything from a press that wasn’t being biased enough anymore to patriotic dissent that seemingly wasn’t on his side anymore.
“Bah humbug”
Rachel can almost hear Obama’s unmistakable voice echoing down the halls of the “draped in midnight’s gloom” White House.
Night thoughts of Obama.
“Wrinkled old Republicans (and many young’ns too, walk into town meetings like sheep and pick up microphones to reveal themselves as wolves at my door.”
Obama continues, “Why can’t I sleep?” … “a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato”. …
“Do my people not hear me call it by name? “Health Care Reform”. Women used to faint at my amplified words. The velvety texture of my voice sent tingles up the leg of anchors. Now too many reporters are just covering my words.
“Okay, if they don’t want to call it “Health Care Reform” I’ll make good use of Ted even before the body’s cold. I’ll call it KennedyCare.
“Yes. That’s brilliant. Who would dare bollix up that idea?
“Government run health care will see the light of day yet, throwing private medical insurance companies out of business, bringing back rationing like it’s 1943, running up deficits like it’s 1933, sending doctors into government work. And that’s just an off the top of my head list.
“KennedyCare.
“Yes, I’ve got it. By George, I’ve got it. Now isn’t that just loverly.
“Now to just take the devil’s advocate (as if I believed in God, hee, hee, hee). What might Hannity or Beck or that skinny peasant, Ann Coulter say to shoot down these best laid plans?
They love to throw my words in my face.
Curses, what if they throw those lesbian women’s libbers words against me.
” I don’t want the government to tell me what I can do with my body.
“Whoops. A chink in the logic armor. A fly in the ointment. A monkey wrench in my toolbox of tricks.
“A retort. What’s the retort? Don’t panic, Barack. Your lawyers will think of one.
“In the meantime, though, let my sleepless mind think. What else might be said in the light of day to hold KenneyCare up to ridicule?
“Calm down. Let me ponder this.
“Let’s see, what was Kennedy’s biggest weakness, where was his fault line? Drinking like a fish? No, that’s old news. Everybody’s had one too many. Look at Bush. Never hurt him, though we tried to rub his nose in it. Even made up stuff about his using drugs. Bush was the Teflon drug user.
Let’s see, Ted lied hatefully about Bork, but who cares about a conservative black man? Actually Ted told a lot of fibs, but none that would draw the ire of the general Republican unwashed.
So, yesiree, it’s clear sailing with “KennedyCare”. And I thought of it.
“Barack, you are amazing. Are those tingles up my own legs? Obama worship is titillating.
Clear sailing.
That old Ted. He sure did like to sail. Loved the water. Was a great swimmer.
“Barack, old boy, I think you’ve done your work for the evening. I think the President deserves some shuteye.
“The water, Ted certainly did love the waaaa, what?
Drinking, partying, womanizing, drunk driving.
The chink in the armor. They’ll remember Chappaquiddick in July. Heavens to betsy.
Those hateful evil conservative conspiratorial grunts won’t call it, “KennedyCare. They’ll call it…would they dare….yes, they’d dare….they have no sense of decency.
They’ll call it KopechneCare.
Michelle, Michelle, I can’t sleep. I have this tingle that won’t go away.
85,
come on, is it because it doesn’t fit your dream it’s absurd ?
last year we got the same score and the year before, in economical pers though !
goy:
@81. jharp: – The government has every right to.
“Demonstrating how clueless you are, again. The federal governments doesn’t have any “rights” per the Constitution.”
Wrong, it most clearly has the authority to provide for the general welfare of it’s citizens. Social Security?
“- There is no question of the legality of the program.
I’m sure that’s just what FDR said the week before most of the so-called “New Deal” was repealed due to its unconstitutional nature.”
I had no idea. The “New Deal” never happened? Put the crack pipe away.
“- Medicare anyone?
Medicare is bankrupt. It covers a small percentage of the nation’s citizens. Medicare is not the precedent you’re looking for.”
Medicare is bankrupt? Really? My parents just were treated the other day under Medicare coverage. Does this mean they have to pay for the care they received?
Medicare is exactly the precedent. As a matter of fact it’s perfect.
And Medicare accounts for 35% of all health care spending.
You are an incredibly ignorant person.
Jharp: Your “Utter nonsense” is utter nonsense. There is are a great many question of legality of the federal government pushing this crap on us.
You cannot even cite, in any legal sense why you opinions are correct.
Stop pretending that you have any grasp at all of the law, morality or even reality.
You are just a little kid.
You lump together all sorts of cases, federal,state and municipal cases, Construction bonds, patment agreements, etc. and imagine that this is an argument. It is not. It just shows that ou do not know how the real world works and that you are not understanding what people are saying to you. And it does not seem to occur to you that a good many programs of the Democrats are in fact of questionable constitutionally.
Is precedence your argument? I will remind you that slavery was once considered constitutionally protected. As a matter of fact the left has been abusing the constitution since FDR. It is high time we call them in it.
Spare us your tantrums. You just a just a poorly educated, 20-something slacker on a dead end road. You have this intensity about all of this because you cannot face the reality of your own life. You would be better served to focus on that than all this shilling for traitors like you now do. Stop pretending that your opinions matter. Stop pretending because you think something is so, it is so. You cannot even think for yourself. You canot even understand what the whole business of the “death panels” is about, and yet you are going around insulting people because they do not agree with you loony logic, your regurgitation of Left-wing talking points and your self-importance. Grow up. Good out and get a real life. Get married, have some kids. The worl will look different them
Boy, I would love to run your behavior by your parents–that would put a different look on your face. I am sure that they would be ashamed of you. I dare you, connect me with them. Let me run your vileness by them. I mean your so smart and politically correct, right? But you know I am right. You hide what you are from them.
Why do you come here? Everyone has contempt for you here. Almost everyone here is your father’s age. They do real things. They are not losers like you. They have done something in life. Why don’t you go out there and earn something for yourself. Time is running out.
You might even get enough self-respect (and money) together to get a date. We might never hear form you again.
Although I oppose banning the trolls, I still think that you Folks shouldn’t feed them.
The job of a troll is extremely easy:
for EACH SINGLE truth there are INFINITE possible lies to tell about it, and the trolls do just that: they spit out lies ad infinitum and ad hominem attacks without end.
Let them rot.
When they will grow up and they will reflect on the evils created by the nihilist-subversive Bewegung (I call the “movement” with the same word that hitler liked for his own “movement”)they will change their mind and possibly repent.
if not, they will just waste their lives in the service of the dark forces of murder and chaos(one reason more to let them rot).
Thank you for the opportunity to comment
SAY NO TO THE CHAPPAQUIDDICK-CARE !
Ph Jharp. A good case could be made that Medicade and Medicare is in fact unconstitutional.
It is certainly an anomaly in our hstory. But in any event. it is a voluntary program.
Try to think things through before you post. I know that is hard for you, but try.
Who knows, with a little work you might find that you could actually get a so so job.
Only so so one, I am afraid. But that is better than what you have now, right?
JHARP
(Dr. Zeke’s death panel guy, the Health Choices Commissioner, has already declared jharp ineligible for Obamacare)
@91. jharp: – You are an incredibly ignorant person.
You’re the one who thinks the federal government has “rights”, Zippy.
- Wrong, it most clearly has the authority to provide for the general welfare of it’s citizens.
Changing your story now? Before it was “rights”. The “general Welfare” clause doesn’t give Congress any more powers than those specifically enumerated in the remainder of the Constitution. If it did – as both Madison and Jefferson have opined – it would effectively give the government a blank check to do whatever it wanted. Sorry – the “general Welfare” clause is not the government “right” you’re looking for.
- Social Security?
Bankrupt. One of the few remaining vestiges of FDR’s unconstitutional “New Deal”. Social Security is not the precedent you’re looking for.
- I had no idea.
A fact that you cheerfully demonstrate daily.
- The “New Deal” never happened?
Read a book. Much of the so-called “New Deal” was repealed through judicial review as the unconstitutional mess it was. FDR responded to this by trying to pack the SCOTUS bench with justices hey could buy. Another hallmark of the left: when you lose, cheat; when you lose, cheating, airbrush it from history so lemmings like jharp can remain stupid.
- Medicare is bankrupt? Really?
Yes. Really. Bankruptcy doesn’t mean an enterprise ceases to function, Zippy.
- Medicare accounts for 35% of all health care spending.
Which is part of the reason it’s bankrupt. Medicare is not the precedent you’re looking for.
Has anyone else noticed since TED died the democrats are begging us to come together-
Republicans and Democrats for TED-
pass this wonderful bill for TEDDY.
We have them in a rope a dope.
Without TEDDY they no longer have the 60 Senate seat majority.
There is a God in Heaven!
jharpisajoke:
Thank you for the rant. Very flattering. I must be getting somewhere.
You are wrong about me in every sense.
I’m a 48 year old business man, married, with two children. Have worked for myself for 25 years.
Just as you are wrong about health reform being unconstitutional.
Just as you are wrong about “death panels”.
Painfully ignorantly wrong. On both issues.
In comments here and there, I keep reading the claim that people are being denied, in particular, life saving treatments. Actually, hospitals that accept federal funds under a number of programs that include Medicare and Medicaid are required as a matter of federal law to provide treatment to anyone presenting even potential life-threatening, limb-threatening, or organ-threatening symptoms, without regard to ability to pay or regard to citizenship. The law is called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, was passed in 1986, and remains in force. I might add that the act applies to ambulance services as well.
Given the perilous state of the public option and the health care reform bills in general. I would expect to see a stream of horror stories promoted in media by allies of various reform proposals detailing deaths due to treatment denial thus arguing for the absolute need for a public option. I mean, there are numerous examples, aren’t there?
david s:”This is absurd. People do not go into the medical profession as a way to make themselves rich – and if they do, they should not be encouraged”
it depends,do you consider your body a yugo or a porsche?
#88 Anonymous:
If the government has the authority to mandate auto insurance, how the **** can you argue that it has no authority to mandate health insurance?
Morons, the lot of you.
How about we compare apples to apples, Anonymous? Car insurance covers property damage inflicted on another. Health insurance is the domain of the individual. And, yes, car insurance has medical-cost provisions because of said inflicted property and personal damage through negligence.
The problem with the inflated health care costs over the years is a multi-faceted problem. Skyrocketing malpractice insurance rates resulting from Obama’s “trial lawyer” constituency; the government licensing arm and QA/QC regulator’s abject refusal to publish the names of inept physicians who would find themselves unemployed in a free market; government-forced pharmaceutical R&D that must be re-cooped by Big Pharma in said free market (i.e., AIDS research costs passed on in your antibiotic Rx); and hospitals losing billions every year through government-mandated treatment of illegal aliens. And these are just a few of the issues.
At the end of the day, the young Marine who took Representative Baird to task is absolutely correct: The “Brown Shirts” of the National SOCIALIST Party (Nazis) began with government-seized banks, nationalization of the auto industry, and then health care. Can you say, “One, two, three, I want to be, a Nazi, just like Pelosi!”?
The only “morons” currently residing in the political landscape of this country are the ones who (1) voted for Obama and (2) still support Obama’s policies, because they cannot accept that (1) Obama lied to them during the campaign and (2) it’s not about health care per se, it’s about government control of our lives. As the young Marine made clear, the federal government needs to keep their hands off of his children (and that includes passing life-long deficits onto them) and Washington needs to keep its corrupt hands off of us and our rights as Americans. And it doesn’t matter if the Republicans don’t have a plan, there shouldn’t be any plan besides fixing what the government is currently screwing up with its meddling — period.
ON JHARP: I don’t think jharp is a twentysomething kid in the regular sense. My theory is that he is either a paid troll or a 400 lb shut in.
It is possible that he is an ultra bitter twenty something…but that’s less likely he’s clearly never had sex with a woman, which is obvious from his monolithic self hatred and inferiority complex….I’m leaning towards the 400 lb shut in.
96. goy:
“- Medicare accounts for 35% of all health care spending.
Which is part of the reason it’s bankrupt. Medicare is not the precedent you’re looking for.”
Medicare is not bankrupt you birdbrain. Do you even know what the work bankrupt means?
Obviously not.
goy:
“- Wrong, it most clearly has the authority to provide for the general welfare of it’s citizens.”
“Changing your story now? Before it was “rights”. The “general Welfare” clause doesn’t give Congress any more powers than those specifically enumerated in the remainder of the Constitution.”
Let me provide a list of programs provided for, or paid for, or managed by the federal government.
Interstate highways, Medicare, Social Security, National Parks, Air Traffic Controllers, Food and Drug Administration, Consumer Products Safety Commission, Center for Disease Control, NASA, EPA… need more?
All of them, somehow in your pea sized brain, are unconstitutional.
Today’s GOP. The party of ignorance.
I’m a 48 year old business man, married, with two children. Have worked for myself for 25 years.
Also, you live near East Washington In Indianapolis, and you frequent the Maple Creek Country Club, or the Morningstar Golf Club.
You had trouble with your insurance company getting a cochlear implant for your daughter, and in a fit of emotional pique against insurance companies you now think that a system that will result in rationed, government-run healthcare, which will eventually eliminate the private insurance industry you so despise, is the best way to drive them out of business. You think this is a good idea mostly based upon your vicarious experiences with the healthcare system of Hong Kong (a city system which you somehow think is going to work similarly in a geographically large, truly multicultural nation of 309 million).
(It’s always so funny when plodding accountant-types fumble around with real-world issues. They have such gigantic gaps in their cognitive abilities, and yet they never, ever realize it ….)
Hey, how did your support of John Edwards work out? You picked a real winner there, didn’t you, fella? A trial lawyer doinking hotties on the side while his wife suffered with cancer — and here you are on a thread about healthcare. Oh the irony! (or something)
Anything else you want to reveal yourself, smart guy?
Or do you want me to do it for you ….
Kiss your parents goodbye. Under Obama-care, over 65, under the bus. 75 y/o who has worked all his life, paid his taxes, social security, etc, etc, raised a family, …..vs ……a 33 y/o drugged out hepatitis c infected, HIV + scuzzball… guess who gets priority?? The young worthless scumbag leech is favored because he has more ‘productivity potential’. Sorry mom. sorry dad. Find this hard to believe? E-Mail Ezekiel Emmanuel, the Wiz’s main healthcare advisor. Message: no tort reform—drop dead. Congress doesn’t participate in the same plan—drop dead. Prez, you want to change the rules?? You live by those same rules.
“You had trouble with your insurance company getting a cochlear implant for your daughter”
Yes. And since have been denied equal access to insurance.
And believe me, what I went through with my daughter was nothing compared to the suffering of others that I personally witnessed in getting my daughter treated.
And ever since I have studied and taken up the cause of reforming our health care system.
The rest of your post is not accurate though I do live in Indiana.
“Hey, how did your support of John Edwards work out?”
Not well. Nor with my second choice Hillary. Yet I’m happy with the third option.
How’d you do with McCain and Palin?
And if you are so interested in me by all means go for it. I have nothing to hide.
One can not argue health care with a liberal. It is always “what it aught to be” and ignoring how it has really worked in the states that have tired something like it. It is a belief system that “I’m from the governemnt and I’m here to help”. That last is great in an emergency and horrific as a regular diet.
Conservatives believe in the minimum regulation required to foster competition and restrain monopolies.
Liberals believe in government control. Buisness is evil. Citizens are too stupid to make their own desicions.
@104. jharp:
“Let me provide a list of programs provided for, or paid for, or managed by the federal government.”
Now demonstrate how each of those are “rights” under the “general welfare” clause.
“Today’s GOP. The party of ignorance.”
Today’s Democrats. The party of Stalin.
This comment relates to item 10 in the article under discussion. Those “who seek to extend the prerogatives of social power” do so “for themselves.” They want to run the show, to make rules which apply to everyone but themselves. Consider the increasing corruption in Congress. Self interest guides too many representatives although each will assure his constituents that he/she is acting in their interest, not his/hers. The longer someone is in Congress the more self interested one becomes. Congressmen and Senators fly all over the world at our expense and live in luxury while away also at our expense; they have medical care superior to any provided in the pending legislation, whatever its terms may prove to be. They have aides ad infinitum. Once elected any representative in Congress will have access to campaign funds beyond the reach of most potential challengers. Hence we have an ever increasing number of Congressmen and Senators who deem themselves infallible and invincible.
Good list, but you missed one:
11. Obamacare would dramatically slow medical progress.
I have no doubt they can lean on the pharmaceutical industry and bring prices and profits down, but the tradeoff is deep cuts in money available for research. The US produces most of the world’s advances in drugs and medicine, but if we adopt the socialized economies of the European nations we’ll be producing advances at their sluggish rate as well.
@jharp
So you claim to be a businessperson (btw, holding a garage sale every Sunday in your front yard is stretch to businessperson, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt). I would also be curious whether or not you have any employees in your business, and if so, what benefits you provide for them.
One of you big claims in support of the current reform is that you will get to keep your current insurance. Okay, lets do some math:
you have 10 employees and you pay them each $60,000 per year. As a benefit, you provide them with family health insurance coverage costing you $9,000/year/employee for a total cost of $90,000. Now comes along “reform”, and IF your current provider is around, you now have the option of continuing to pay the $90,000 premium, or pay $48,000 ($60,000*10*8%) into the National Program. Which one are you going to do? Which one do you think the majority of companies will do?
Here Here!!! #’s 31 & 106
I found another talking point for the teabaggers.
Never mind it’s absurdity and the fact is an outright lie. It hasn’t stopped you so far.
The Republican National Committee has sent out a “2009 Future of American Health Survey.” Question #4 reads:
“It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person’s political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?”
Please, please run with it. You are losing more of the little credibilty you had each day.
Metz:
“you have 10 employees and you pay them each $60,000 per year. As a benefit, you provide them with family health insurance coverage costing you $9,000/year/employee for a total cost of $90,000. Now comes along “reform”, and IF your current provider is around, you now have the option of continuing to pay the $90,000 premium, or pay $48,000 ($60,000*10*8%) into the National Program. Which one are you going to do? Which one do you think the majority of companies will do?”
If I had good employees that I felt I’d lose by discontinuing coverage I’d continue to maintain their coverage. If they’d stay regardless of the coverage I offered it’s a no brainer. Obama care here we come. It’s kind of how the free market works.
And I have no idea nor do I care what the majority of companies will. It’s simply another choice. And it will get everyone insured. And will provide the competition to drive down costs.
I’m starting to get the idea that all of you losers work for someone else and are scared to death your employer will pull the rug on you.
Clue. They will anyways if you aren’t making them money. Do you honestly believe they offer health care coverage out of the kindness of their heart?
How’d you do with McCain and Palin?
Odds are, about as well as you’ll do in 2012.
And if you are so interested in me by all means go for it. I have nothing to hide.
Oh, I think you have plenty to hide. You see, jharp, a man of your age and professed ‘accomplishments’ rarely behaves as you do — spending YEARS leaving hit-and-run ad hominem doodies all over the internet, particularly on the Websites of those with whom he does not agree, never engaging in a discussion beyond the surface (even about business or finance, even though you claim to be a successful businessman), and posting the same undistinguished, not particularly insightful bookmarked articles and datum ad nauseum, even when they are shown to be inaccurate. The fact that you behave this way means there is something wrong with you, and I don’t just mean that you have a plodding, gap-ridden intellect. All I’m trying to do is to save a little time and determine how you’re damaged goods. Scratch a gibbering liberal, reveal a pathology, I always say …. Your trollish behavior is just too strange to be addressed rationally, especially for a man in his late 40s.
The rest of your post is not accurate though I do live in Indiana.
If you say so. I’d claim the same, as well, regardless of the truth. Still, it doesn’t matter, there are only a few possibilities, and if you’re going to get nasty on the Internet you REALLY need to be more careful about how much you reveal. It can develop into a personal and/or professional problem ….
And ever since I have studied and taken up the cause of reforming our health care system.
Apparently best accomplished by name-calling, foul-mouthed attacks, and on Lefty Websites, utterly forgettable sycophantic hug-sessions and complaint-fests about mean ol’ Republicans.
Sure kiddo, you’re a real knight in shining medical armor, a regular titan in the field of healthcare advocacy, I’m sure.
And you garner no points claiming to have witnessed suffering. That is irrelevant to the debate, particularly since ALL of us have friends and relatives who have suffered from illness, injury, or disease. Leave the smarmy school-girl emotionalism to the childish. If you’re going to engage in that then become a nurse or hospice-care worker, but leave the difficult, hard choices to those who have the capacity to make them — well-adjusted adults.
@114
Link to the survey?
jharp: Just sum up your point already. Geez, are you up to 1000 comments today yet?
Here, I’ll help: jharp wants his government handouts OR ELSE.
Go get a job.
86. jharp:
Teabaggers = after Obama cut taxes protest taxes
Obama cut taxes? LOL! You really are an idiot! LOL!
A bit o’reality for jharp: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2-Obama-officials-No-apf-2491158742.html?x=0&.v=7
Yet more reality for jharp (from the Daily Beast no less!):http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-06/obamas-bad-debt/
jharp is reading the polls upside down. It’s Obama who is losing credibility (and even faster than I had imagined).
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
C’mon jharp…candycoat these bad poll numbers for us (it must be all teabaggers being polled right? LOL!).
“I would also be curious whether or not you have any employees in your business, and if so, what benefits you provide for them.”
I have no employees. I had one about 15 years ago but computers made her obsolete. Oh, and about 12 years ago I was a partner with a guy and we shared an employee.
Neither one were provided benefits. There was no reason to. In both cases it was a choice of which one of the twenty qualified applicants we thought would do the best job. Benefits were never even mentioned.
Aureliano:
“if you’re going to get nasty on the Internet you REALLY need to be more careful about how much you reveal. It can develop into a personal and/or professional problem …”
Really?
You can take you’re veiled threats and stick them you know where.
Or as one of our past leaders put so well.
Bring. It. On.
I have nothing to hide. I post the truth. And I will call you liars out when you post a lie just as I will call you out when you post stupidity.
And I will continue as long as I have the opportunity.
Wow! What a cool survey question from ten RNC:
“It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person’s political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?”
Keep it up, a**holes, and we just might do it.
Aureliano:
And if you are so interested in me by all means go for it. I have nothing to hide.
“Oh, I think you have plenty to hide.”
I missed this. Really? What would make you think so?
You have no idea, the same as you have no idea on the rest of the ignorant drivel you post.
jharp, you still ahven’t provided the link. You should have done that when you first posted the “survey”.
What’s the matter, too busy looking for someone to teabag you?
Aureliano:
How’d you do with McCain and Palin?
Odds are, about as well as you’ll do in 2012.
________________________________________________
Really. Odds are? Is that right?
You are as uninformed about odds equal to your being uninformed about every other bit of nonsense you post.
Tell me. Just what are the odds? The only thing I could find is Obama 65% Others 35%.
http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/contractSearch/#
jharp: You talk about all those countries that have better heralthcare than the US. Have you ever lived in any of those countries. I lived in Japan and England, and as an athlete I was scared to death to go to the hospitals in both. In the US I have never received anything but the best care, and done timely. After a shoulder injury in Japan, I flew back to the US to get treated rather than risk my shoulder to the doctors in Japan. Another note. In both Japan and England, when I did go to the hospitals, they were packed to the gills with people waiting in the lobbies. In England it was explained that people from all over the EU came to get free care, so the hospitals were always packed. In Japan, most were lonely elderly who had nothing else to do, so since the care was free, they just came in all the time for something to do. Sounds like a winning idea for you socialists.
While I am at it. Why is it that you think conservatives are stupid, when we are the ones who are able to take care of our own responsibilities, while your socialist (or should I say “Progressive”) buddies all need the gov’t to handle all there problems? So in your dictionary it goes like this:
Strong, independent people who take responsibility for their own lives = Moron/Conservatives
Weak, pathetic people who need total governament control = Intellectual/Progressives
jharp,
OK, you win. An utterly doltish accountant-type living in or near Indianapolis posting drive-by doodies all over the Internet is actually a monumentally effective juggernaut of healthcare advocacy, a titanic intellect laying waste to all he surveys, a titan of industry (but without a single employee) known from sea to shining sea, a renowned world traveler to … Hong Kong — yes indeed, who, pray tell, could EVER have achieved so much in so short a time, and who therefore could EVER question the conclusions of A Chosen One who voted for The One. Why, you’re almost on the intellectual level of noted historian and scholar Jon Stewart (who you’re missing by the way, given your time zone and posting times).
Oh, and you own a boat.
Kiddo, you just go ahead and tell yourself you’re somehow scathingly effective, and honestly, why would ANYBODY wonder what a 48-year-old industrial juggernaut-titan with two kids is doing streaking ideologically through cyberspace buck-nekkid in all his flaccid, flabby, cheesy second-rate intellect’s shame?
What could possibly be wrong?
Meanwhile, your single-payer healthcare plans are losing support, and in danger of going down in flames completely, as is Dear Leader himself.
What could possibly be wrong?
Why respond or debate the trolls? If you believe in the Constitution’s provisions it makes no sense. They, as a group, are not prepared to acknowledge the constraints imposed on government by the document. They are governed by other documents that were written by relativists like Alinsky, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che, Hitler, etc.
It took me a while to understand the reality that you can not reason, and therefore, converse with the trollkins. I trust over time other Americans who visit this excellent web site will come to understand the futility of debate with these intellectually challenged people. Their north star requires that their fundamentals of debate include deception and fraud. They are anti Constitution, anti founding fathers, and anti capitalist. What’s left; (except their ideology)?
There is no reasoning with them.
malclave:
jharp, you still haven’t provided the link. You should have done that when you first posted the “survey”.
There is no link.
It was sent out in mail survey.
And again. This is exactly what it said.
The Republican National Committee has sent out a “2009 Future of American Health Survey.” Question #4 reads:
“It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person’s political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?”
http://columbian.com/article/20090825/NEWS02/708259961/-1/NEWS
It was nothing more than a ploy to separate the ignorant from their dollars. And with a mailing list like the RNC? Wow. I can’t imagine how many poor ignorant souls believed it and sent money.
JHarp & Aureliano:
Do both of you REALLY want to turn your debate into a truly personal grudgematch? This is ony politics. Even dear departed Teddy Kennedy managed to stay collegial with his ideological opposite, Orin Hatch (though I personally couldn’t stand either one of them).
David S 15
David, i was engaged in your arguements, but as soon as you lop the deficit on the Bush Administration I stopped reading.
@104. jharp: – All of them, somehow in your pea sized brain, are unconstitutional.
Ah, so you’re the one who taught N&T everything s/he knows about straw man arguments. I knew it had to come from somewhere.
As usual, jharp completely misses the point. Since he’s convinced that the health insurance in the public option would be equal to what is available in the private market, why would anyone agree to pay for the more expensive private insurance? But the only reason it would be cheaper is because the government would kneecap private insurers with regulations while subsidizing its own plan with taxpayer money. Nobody can compete with that.
What is odd is that jharp, who is self-employed and should know better, would support policies that will drive him into bankruptcy if allowed to come to fruition.
jharp: you complained about Bush spying on us with the Patriot Act. Name one person whose rights were infringed with the wiretapping?
On the other hand, you are perfectly okay with the government having full access to our tax information so they can judge if we qualify for medical. I can name whose rights will be infringed on with this- ALL OF US.
H.R. 3200 … Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and other information as is prescribed by regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for ‘affordability credits
I post #3 I mention this article in the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676.html
I add – with hesitation – a shocking addendum, it’s a comment from a German acquaintence:
Ezekiel Emmanuel (spelling?) would have been safe under Hitler because, although he is a Jew, he shares Hitler’s view/opinion on WORTHLESS LIVES (“unwertes Leben”)!
Aureliano (65):
Good rebuttal.
Another point here, which everybody seems to forget, is that the US does the vast majority of the medical R&D for the planet. This is primarily due to the fact that we pay for it. If you look at the drug and medical equipment companies in Canada and Europe, they do very little innovation; they just make licensed (or even unlicensed) copies of what we’ve developed.
jharp (74):
Funny, I didn’t see anybody posting above about “death panels”.
In any event, it is a very real fear. In every state-run single-payer system there is some bureaucracy that determines who will receive treatement and who will not.
Your comment re insurance companies is also irrelevent. See the article at American Thinker: Death Panels and Decision Makers, By Joseph Ashby.
See also, BTW, Government healthcare horror by Danny Huddleston for some fun details on some problems encountered with the UK health-care system.
Anonymous (88):
Careful here. The federal government doesn’t mandeate auto insurance. The State governments do. The 10th Amendment specifically says: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The states can actually do many things that are not allowed to the federal government.
jharp (107):
My sympathies.
However: 1) did you purchase your health insurance policy before it was determined that she needed the implant or after? 2) If the former, did the insurance policy that your purchased specify that it would cover cochlear implants?
Your auto insurance doesn’t cover damage from accidents that occured before you purchased the insurance; your home insurance doesn’t cover damage from floods (unless you have a very specific rider) nor does it cover pre-existing damage; your life insurance doesn’t cover pre-existing medical problems (unless specified in the policy). Why should your health insurance cover a pre-existing condition?
You are, of course, quite free to pay for your daughter’s implant yourself. Indeed, if you are a loving father you would do so – even if it meant mortgaging the house. In addition, I’m sure that there are charities out there that are willing to help. What you should not do is expect me and other tax payers (and insurance premium payers) to pay for it.
123. jharp:
“I would also be curious whether or not you have any employees in your business, and if so, what benefits you provide for them.”
I have no employees. I had one about 15 years ago but computers made her obsolete. Oh, and about 12 years ago I was a partner with a guy and we shared an employee.
Neither one were provided benefits. There was no reason to. In both cases it was a choice of which one of the twenty qualified applicants we thought would do the best job. Benefits were never even mentioned.
Right on I agree with the OP
If you want to bring now the cost of insurance do tort reform.
If you want to increase, competition and choice let people buy insurance from any state they want.
If you want to help the poor get insurance give them a tax credit.
If you want people to be able to keep their insurance if they lose their job let them, buy their own insurance by changing the tax code to help them do that.
If you want to help bring down what people in the USA spend on Health care then move to a system with Health Savings Accounts where people have more power over the money they spend on Health Care.
If you to give the government more power over you
do the Obama plan.
Please read and comment my blog
jharp (123):
LOL. You might be able to get away with that for a single receptionist. You can’t get away with that if you’re employing professionals (e.g. engineers such as myself). Believe me, that example of Metz’ is conservative; try it for 20 engineers and technicians earning an average of $75k and you start getting pretty close to your profit margin.
In any event, it’s irrelevent. The issue is one of government control.
Gharp: more projection. You cannot open your mouth but to rant.
Quite fantasy you are giving us. What are you really describing here, your father? I bet that is it. You are pretending to be your father. Is that because he is ashamed of you? Do you think if you pretend to be your father that you will not suffer his shame? Will not work, you know.
And I’d wager that even this is not quite right. Come on now, Daddy worked for another man, right? He never managed to work for himself, right? Not enough courage?
AND AGAIN YOU FAIL TO RATIONALLY ADDRESS ANY POINTS.
Let me make it clear to you: Merely repeating you point is not rational, adult argumentation.
You have to back it up. But you know that you cannot do this. You do not even know how think for yourself. How can you do anything but regurgitate the talking points of others.
And, yet again, when you are faced with truth we get your childish tantrums and little insults, as if anyone had enough respect for you to be insulted by you.
It is just childish of you.
You have to prove your assertions, that is how adults act. That is how the real world works. Again you have not the capacity to do it. You just stamp your feet, have a little tantrum, throw out your insults and repeat yourself.
What sort of business do your run, a floral shop? Seems like it, Maybe you sub-contract as a janitor or something like that. Bartender? Those two would make more sense. What schedules do you file there Mr. businessman? How do your handle depreciations? What is your cash flow model?
Too funny.
I do not believe that you are who you say you are. jharp, not for one second. You are lying. You just made all that up. It is the fantasy of a very immature person. I see your nonsense all over the political internet. No business owner has the time to spend on harassing decent people like you do, or would want too, for that matter. We have seen you loae control here over and over again, and over the tiniest things, like some little boy. No middle aged, small business owner behaves like you do. No man does. And very few SMB owners spew Marxist crap like you do. Small business owners are almost entirely Republicans or independents. I stand by my first assessment. I truly doubt that you could even run a hot dog stand, or raise a child. You couldn’t sell noodles to a Chinaman. You are lying. I do not think that you and been near a women in years, if ever.
And how can you can find it “flattering”? What a nincompoop.
You are a liar. I am calling you out. Prove it.
If you are who you say you are you are pitiful. I feel sorry for your kids.
They will surely come to be disappointed in you–probably are already.
But i do not believe your claims in the first place.
You are just a confused and angry little boy.
If the “public option” is such an option, why does the bill fine for non-participation?
Also, if public health systems are so great, why don’t we see more innovation when it comes to cures coming out of the state-run systems? When was the last time we imported treatments developed in Cuba?
The whole bloody lot of you should be ashamed of yourselves for the ill-tempered points-scoring and ranting that is dominating this thread.
I’m posting this from the UK, home of the National Health Service that has been dragged into the US debate, usually quite libellously.
So I am going to tell you, calmly and rationally, why and how the NHS is good, and why and how it is bad. It won’t take up much of your time. I have myself experienced it both at its brilliant best and its dismal worst. I have also some intimate knowledge of the French system, which is better but not as much better as it likes to believe. Also the Italian, which is frighteningly patchy but can be very good indeed.
It’s quite simple.
Good things:
First, our NHS really does deliver health-care free at the point of need, up to and including intensive care.
Second, everybody loves it.
Bad things:
Everybody loves it, which is why it has more people on its payroll than any other organization on Planet Earth bar the Chinese army and Indian National Railways. This gives the NHS the kind of inertial resistance to change that makes a 250,000-ton supertanker look like a speedboat.
It also makes it politically sacrosanct: it’s a sacred cow. As soon as any politician mutters anything about “reform” he is at once accused by his opponents of wishing to sack doctors and nurses by the gazillion, and at the very least selling the organs of babies to international dope dealers.
“Obamacare” — please note, I do not presume to advise Americans on the subject; Americans in my experience are at least as capable of giving each other bad advice as anyone else — could finish the same way. Most people will end up loving it, and nobody will be able to change it.
You guys do need to reform something, though, given the amount you spend and what you get out of it.
But even without an NHS, the hysteria on this thread does not encourage optimism as far as a sensible outcome is concerned. Good luck.
Why respond or debate the trolls? … It took me a while to understand the reality that you can not reason, and therefore, converse with the trollkins.
I know. However, since there is no reasoning with them, one is left only to goad them into revealing their psycho-social pathologies, and in so doing it becomes (at the very least) easier to ignore them.
jharp is just an accountant neo cum cheesy salesy dude fumbling around with politics and ideas. It’s why his default position is political tribalism and attack — as you would expect from a rather shallow, cheesy businessdude. He thinks he ‘wins’ this way, as if politics is a golf game or some other form of sport. He is what politics would look like if used car salesmen were having a debate. And since he has an IQ somewhere near the median, a complex subject like healthcare is beyond him, so he bookmarks and regurgitates, and thinks this is argumentation and equivalent to making an effective case. He simply has no experience constructing an argument, testing it before revealing it, then putting it out there for critique or criticism, to be modified later when flaws in your argument are revealed (which inevitably happens). Any negative criticism he takes personally, as you would expect from a cheesy dude (who tend to have fragile egos) trying to fold his politics into his identity. He can’t help it; he simply has no ability to modify his positions rationally (he thinks it’s ‘losing’).
And of course he never realizes how ineffective he is, and how immature his behavior is for a man his age (I don’t think he’s lying about it). Again, he thinks any response whatsoever is equivalent to scoring points and ‘winning’ the ‘match’, and of course implementing government-rationed healthcare is how he ‘wins’ against the private insurance industry. It is his primary motive.
I find it useful, though. Again, if his behavior is irrational, I don’t bother with a discussion: I just want to dissect his psychology. He falls under the mindless Cheese category of Left-liberal — a born apparatchik — along with other major caucasian categories like Toker and Smoker, Gay Liberal, Leftover Baby Boomer, Ditzy TV Watcher (rarely seen on the Internet), etc.
Anyway, I’m done with him for now.
They are governed by other documents that were written by relativists like Alinsky, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che, Hitler, etc.
Well, they do exhibit derivative tendencies traceable to all sorts of utopian and collectivist thinking, but it’s been my experience that jharp and other forms of Democrat really engage in just one thing, and one thing only:
They add up their household expenses. Anything that is expensive and/or a struggle to pay, they want the government (somebody else) to pay for it, be it health insurance, the mortgage, or day care. It’s not any more complicated than that. However, they need a reason to have other people pay their household expenses, so they grasp at whatever excuse happens to float by amorphously, usually gleaned from television and movies. They cling to cheap slogans, conspiracy theories, historical inaccuracies that ‘feel’ right, cheaply adopted labels (‘progressive’, ‘social justice’, ‘for the children’, etc.), whatever.
It’s why they are simultaneously the most obtuse and easily manipulated demographic in the electorate, and utterly incoherent/inconsistent.
#149 Nice take down A. We could be grateful to a point, for the likes of jharp et el. though. I mean who else could offer up pearls of wisdom like “medicare should be the precednet” and “medicare is perfect” and of course for the courtesy of telling us how ignorant we are for disagreeing. I am not sure which is more troubling that he could actually believe this or the passion with which he does. If nothing else he enhances our browsing efficiency by bogarting a comment thread like this, we save a lot of time skipping over his inane comments.
A couple guys above disagreed:
“Corporations have an obligation to be good citizens – if they cannot do so voluntarily, it is the place of government to set them straight.”
–and response…
“Why stop at corporations? A corporation is just one form of business, and a business is just one type of organization.”
Me — I’m a libertarian-conservative and corporations *are* a bit of a dilemma for a true, honest free-marketeer.
Why? The whole notion of incorporation, the corporation as a ‘legal person’ (with limited liability for the owners) is based on *government* blessing. As a result they are powerful in a way that a sole proprietorship is not — regardless of size. By definition they have some immunity to market forces. It’s a problem because they have also been instrumental in unleashing human productivity on a large scale. So if you’re not going to abolish them (in the name of ideological purity) there most likely needs to be at least some compensating regulation.
BTW, look how many big corps are willing to screw the customers (ex. many of the power companies on cap’n'trade — a guy at Southern Co was telling me about this yesterday — they oppose it) to hop in bed with the leftists and get preferred treatment rather than fighting. Also, the corruption in parts of banking, finance and elsewhere is in part due to the incestuous nature of overlapping boards of directors and relative powerlessness of shareholders (which area is my preferred point of reform versus bureaucratic strangulation). Libertarians and conservatives have GOT to be honest about this, or otherwise it is hard to defend themselves against being apologists for corporations.
On a side note, I get more and more pissed anyone automatically assumes that ‘not for profit’ is better. Although perhaps not as large in sheer scale, I’m becoming more convinced the non-profits are *more* corrupt: they have less oversight (no pesky shareholders), and most people forget that lavish salaries, bonuses and perks these guys give themselves are not ‘profit’.
I’ve unfortunately had a lot of experience with the healthcare system these last few months: a few minor things myself (where going sometimes to a for-profit ‘doc in a box’ open 8-to-8 7 days a week when my regular doc at the big hospital affiliated LLC wasn’t open was a real eye opener — it’s been great) and some more serious things with my father-in-law and my own mother (two hospitals and a nursing home).
Here’s my undeniable experience — at the nursing home (dominated by govt $$) and the public hospital, quality of care was really dragged down at the lower levels (aides, LPNs, etc) by people just watching the clock and sitting on their asses, slow to get moving and help. In particular these were for the most part minority women (often on the heavy side) who apparently knew they were virtually impossible to fire or discipline due to the govt EEOC-induced paralysis of their supervisors and HR departments.
*That* is what all health care will begin to be like.
One last tidbit and I’ll shut up for now.
I was in an online discussion where someone from the UK was denying there was any ‘rationing’ while simultaneously admitting that availability of beds was an issue. Apparently it wasn’t ‘rationing’ when there simply was no room to treat you.
Head->desk.
In a govt system, beds become a cost, whereas in a for-profit system a bed becomes an opportunity for profit — which just might have something to do with the fact that there are usually plenty of beds in the US.
FYI, check out Obama’s Road to Healthcare Serfdom, by Andrew Foy and Brenton Stransky, at American Thinker.
A quote from F.A. Hayek sets the tone of the piece: “What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.”
(I apologize for #143, I hit the wrong key. #145 is the proper post).
jharp is just an accountant neo cum cheesy salesy dude fumbling around with politics and ideas.
When I mentioned the University of Chicago approach to economics and the number of Nobel Prizes (yes, I know the Economics prize is not really a Nobel), all the of trolls seemed completely oblivious to its very existence. Moho the other day asserted that one of the core assumptions of free-market thinking is that people are good and responsible by nature, thus proving that he’d never read Smith’s famous passage, which basically forms the core of the argument why free markets are the most efficient form of economic organization, i.e. that they are the form that best exploits humanity’s tendency toward self-interest:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
So, yeah, we’re not exactly dealing with “idea people” here.
Alan Lothian (148):
You – like most other people, especially jharp – are confusing the care that patients get with the ability of a patient to pay for that care. Quality of care is one thing. Providing “free” health care (which, of course, is no such thing) for the poor and impoverished is another. Providing subsidized health care for the entire population is another.
There is no doubt that U.S. private health care is the best in the world. The issue here is whether that health care will improve – or even stay the same – if payment for that care is removed from the private economic market and taken over by the federal government. The answer is – as demonstrated throughout this blog and others – no.
@156. venividivici: – So, yeah, we’re not exactly dealing with “idea people” here.
Precisely. Mofo in particular has self-described as being functionally illiterate when it comes to higher education – which would include basic history, economics, math and civics.
For someone who claims to have been around long enough to have been arrested in Manilatown with Van Jones, this would certainly represent a long life not very thoughtfully lived. This is the rank-and-file of the left’s online Squadristi today. Enjoy them – they have nothing else to live for and nothing else to do.
jharp (91)
See the above mentioned Obama’s Road to Healthcare Serfdom.
Note: the issue isn’t whether your parents received care, the issue is the ability of Medicare to pay for itself from its intended revenue stream without additional infusions of tax dollars. It can’t. Please don’t confuse the issue.
152. newscaper: “Here’s my undeniable experience — at the nursing home (dominated by govt $$) and the public hospital, quality of care was really dragged down at the lower levels (aides, LPNs, etc) by people just watching the clock and sitting on their asses, slow to get moving and help. In particular these were for the most part minority women (often on the heavy side) who apparently knew they were virtually impossible to fire or discipline due to the govt EEOC-induced paralysis of their supervisors and HR departments.
*That* is what all health care will begin to be like.”
WAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Minorities are going to keep me from getting health care because they move too slowly!
Maybe if you gave them a smile and showed them a modicum of respect they’d move it for you. I know, a lot to ask, but it’s important to remember that non-whites are people too.
Paul of Alexandria:
“Note: the issue isn’t whether your parents received care, the issue is the ability of Medicare to pay for itself from its intended revenue stream without additional infusions of tax dollars. It can’t. Please don’t confuse the issue.”
Exactly. I’m not the one confusing the issue.
That’s be the guy who claimed “Medicare is Bankrupt”.
WAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Minorities are going to keep me from getting health care because they move too slowly!
This sort of willful misreading of what was posted is EXACTLY why people in the middle are abandoning the Dems in droves. The Dems have to be THE sorest winners in the history of f*cking politics. Christ you people are immature. I’m sure the poster of the above comment would descry any finding showing that, e.g. white police officers responded more slowly to reports of crimes in progress in black neighborhoods. Hypocritical douchebags to a man.
A great experiment would be to take a roomful of truly undecided adults and show them posts from the pro-government health care side and the anti-government health care side and see which one made its case best. Any real moderate would be appalled at the guttural level of discussion from the (more) government intervention advocates. The exception is the foreigners who defend their systems, who at least speak with some semblance of rationality.
That’s be the guy who claimed “Medicare is Bankrupt”.
Medicare isn’t technically bankrupt, but its forecasted assets versus forecasted liabilities reveal a gap of over $40 trillion dollars, the equivalent of 3 years of current GDP. Are you prepared to work 3 years JUST to pay off the Medicare funding gap, with nothing left over for yourself and your family? I sure as hell am not. Screw them.
@163. venividivici: – Medicare isn’t technically bankrupt…
Medicare is both fiscally and “technically” bankrupt.
Any government program that is not self-sustaining, and which must draw more and more funding from the general fund each year in order to provide entitlements the government is not authorized to provide, is – by any definition – bankrupt.
#11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc
venividivici:
“A great experiment would be to take a roomful of truly undecided adults and show them posts from the pro-government health care side and the anti-government health care side and see which one made its case best.”
Better yet take a roomful of undecideds and lay out the facts and see which side has the best case.
That’s all I am trying to do. No “death panels”, no “socialized medicine”, no “there are waiting times in Canada”, no “this is a power grab”, no “it’s a loss of our freedom”, or any of theta nonsense. Just the facts.
And the fact is we have the most expensive health system in the world by double, and get the same level of care, and are the only country that doesn’t cover everyone. And we are the only ones without a single payer/public plan.
There are plenty of other models to “borrow” what we think will work. It’s long past time we tried.
And that is what Obama Care’s public option does.
goy,
I meant more along the lines of a government program not being subject to bankruptcy laws. I know that your facts are accurate.
Of course, the Left will claim that we can “fix” Medicare yet again by just raising payroll taxes.
Geez, Give it up. Medicare isn’t bankrupt.
Funding shortfalls? Yes. And it needs to be addressed. However Medicare covers all of our seniors and many of the disabled. No easy feat.
What do you suggest we do to fix it? Get rid of it and dump the seniors and disabled out to fend for themselves? Cut benefits? Increase payroll taxes?
It kinda has to do with our heath care system being the most expensive in the world. It’s causing a lot of problems.
What do you suggest we do to fix it? Get rid of it and dump the seniors and disabled out to fend for themselves? Cut benefits? Increase payroll taxes?
I would suggest that we give every baby born in this country a private account that they can’t touch. Have the government “seed” it with, e.g., $5K when the baby is born, but only to invest in an broad-based equity index fund. At age 65, assuming a nominal 7% return, that account would be worth ~$400K, which would then be the individual’s money to pay for his/her health care. There could be additional contributions up to a certain level of pre-tax income, but no withdrawals would be permitted and the only withdrawals allowed after age 65 would be for allowable medical expenses. The account would be the individual’s property and could be left to heirs, but also only for allowable health expenses. For those who run out of funds, they could get subsidies, so long as they had below a certain level of assets.
This BS Medicare system needs to go.
Better yet take a roomful of undecideds and lay out the facts and see which side has the best case.
Yes, let’s. I am trembling at the prospect. We already know from Obama that the closest analogy to the “public option” is the Postal Service. Please, lay out the facts that make that analogy apropos and see if people get excited about signing on and would trade in their private insurance for that kind of spectacular service.
Your own guy did you in. That’s what you get when you send a boy to do a man’s job. Not that you have any men on your side.
@168. jharp: – Medicare isn’t bankrupt.
Yes – as already demonstrated – Medicare is bankrupt. Typing “Geez” or “Give it up” or typing over and over again that it’s not, while ignoring the actual budget facts that determine the truth, will not change that.
- Funding shortfalls? Yes.
Ever run a business? I didn’t think so. Funding shortfalls are part of what leads to bankruptcy. Extended funding shortfalls, that require constant year-to-year borrowing (i.e., from the general fund, in the case of Medicare) in amounts that increase every year, are not possible in ANY other venue besides government, where Congress can make up the difference by stealing money from taxpayers. Medicare is bankrupt. It continues to operate through the theft of taxpayer dollars taken from the general fund to cover the EVER-INCREASING shortfalls.
At the rate it’s failing as a public program, by about 2012 Medicare will require more money than can be stolen from the general fund in order to support it. At that point it will be funded by deficit spending.
Again – Medicare is NOT the precedent you’re looking for. It’s THE perfect argument AGAINST socialized medicine.
- What do you suggest we do to fix it?
Well, none of your straw man / false choice suggestions will work, that’s for sure.
Again, like vivo (and anyone else who thinks unconstitutional government entitlement programs are the ONLY answer to economic problems) you purposely ignore the fact that elderly care is only an issue because the cost of routine health care is so wildly inflated.
Just like the housing price bubble that was inflated by the Democrats’ “affordable mortgage” social engineering program, and just like the oil price bubble that inflated until President Bush popped it last year on July 14, the health care cost bubble is growing constantly because NO ONE is working to bring costs back down into equilibrium with other routine cost-of-living expenses.
Stop pretending costs have a mind of their own and do something to get them under control.
This is a market problem, not a governance problem – at least outside the enforcement required to eliminate the insurance company monopoly that controls virtually ALL prices, cash flow and access to health care.
Instead of throwing your hands in the air and pretending there’s nothing we can do about skyrocketing routine health care costs, try a little pro-active – real – reform that will bring costs back down in line with other commodities. Once you’ve done THAT, then take stock and see if we need more unconstitutional entitlement programs designed solely to funnel more billion$ through the federal treasury, to pay off the community organizations who support the social democrats and fund the lifetime incumbencies of the inept, corrupt, wholly unaccountable scumbags running Congress.
.
@167. venividivici: – the Left will claim that we can “fix” Medicare yet again by just raising payroll taxes.
That will be political suicide for a President who based his entire platform on things like promising not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250k. The top 1%, or 5% or 10% of earners aren’t going to just sit back and let the government simply take more and more of what they earn in order to fund a system that is demonstrably broken, irrational and fundamentally unconstitutional. Eventually, they will stop striving, leave, find new ways to hide their earnings, or whatever, and the feds will have to find other patsies to steal from in order to finance their lifetime right to rule.
venividivici:
What do you suggest we do to fix it?
“I would suggest that we give every baby born in this country a private account that they can’t touch. Have the government “seed” it with, e.g., $5K when the baby is born, but only to invest in an broad-based equity index fund.”
Good one. Give everyone $5,000? Are you a socialist?
And be sure to immediately turn the funds over to Wall Street. That have shown without question that we can trust them with our money. Even for 65 years.
You post made no sense.
And most importantly it offered nothing to address the high costs. Nothing. And that is what the problem is.
You plan is nothing but a handout to the medical and health insurance industry. And Wall Street.
Eventually, they will stop striving, leave, find new ways to hide their earnings, or whatever, and the feds will have to find other patsies to steal from in order to finance their lifetime right to rule.
I agree. As money becomes more and more “cyber”, I expect lots of hiding of wealth in encrypted accounts to occur. The decline of Swiss bank secrecy only opens the doors for newer competitors. Governments can’t tax what they can’t see.
goy:
“Ever run a business? I didn’t think so. Funding shortfalls are part of what leads to bankruptcy. Extended funding shortfalls, that require constant year-to-year borrowing (i.e., from the general fund, in the case of Medicare) in amounts that increase every year, are not possible in ANY other venue besides government, where Congress can make up the difference by stealing money from taxpayers. Medicare is bankrupt.”
Yes, I have run a business. For 25 years. And done pretty well at it.
And yes, I’ve had funding shortfalls and it didn’t lead to bankruptcy. You’ve got three options. Cut expenses. Increase revenues. Or borrow.
I’ve done all three.
Medicare isn’t bankrupt, fool.
And still waiting for your solution to fix it. VVV made a fifth grade attempt. Lets’ see if you can top it.
DNFTT
[rolling eyes...]
And be sure to immediately turn the funds over to Wall Street. That have shown without question that we can trust them with our money. Even for 65 years.
That’s why I explicitly said it could only be invested in an index fund, not an actively managed fund. You do know the difference, right? You are familiar with the long-term equity market returns, right? I mean, I doubt a man of your intellectual heft and integrity would be unfamiliar with something so well-known.
And most importantly it offered nothing to address the high costs. Nothing. And that is what the problem is.
Yeah, I don’t see that as a real problem. It’s an “iatrogenic” problem, just like every other problem the Left sees. Go ahead, look up that word. I’ll wait. Anyway, if the reason costs are higher is because we get a different product mix here in the US, that’s fine. Your cost argument is akin to saying that a country that has 50% Ferraris and 50% Yugos is has car costs that are “too high” compared to a country with 100% Yugos. You are familiar with the distinction between cost and value, right?
Yes, I have run a business. For 25 years. And done pretty well at it.
Dude, you admitted up above that you’ve only had ONE employee in all that time. That’s not “doing pretty well”, it’s pathetic. My former employer, Arthur Andersen, went from one man to the largest global accounting firm in 25 years. Are you not even as good an accountant as Arthur Andersen was? Why am I even talking to you? Man, you are a loser. I can’t believe the barrel of a shotgun hasn’t found your mouth yet.
jharp (168):
Geez, Give it up. Medicare isn’t bankrupt.
Please pay attention to the definitions given.
Funding shortfalls? Yes. And it needs to be addressed. However Medicare covers all of our seniors and many of the disabled. No easy feat.
Addressed how? We’re saying that there is fundamental problem inherent in the system – it cannot be patched or fixed.
What do you suggest we do to fix it? Get rid of it and dump the seniors and disabled out to fend for themselves? Cut benefits? Increase payroll taxes?
Are those the only options? Please do us all a favor and actually read the other posts. According to you the only option for a person with a broken down clunker is to either pour money into fixing it or walk. Sometimes it’s better to get a new car.
It kinda has to do with our heath care system being the most expensive in the world. It’s causing a lot of problems.
goy (171):
Very well said, thank you.
jharp (174):
And for how long did you have to do these things? You defeat your own argument. Sooner or later you have to have a stable situation.
Medicare/Medicaid can’t cut expenses unless it cuts patients or benefits. Increasing revenues means raising taxes. Right now they are borrowing, but that will only work for so long (2012, to be precise, as goy pointed out.)
How do you propose to make Medicare/Medicaid stable over the long-term, given its inherent problems? Add to them the rest of the United States population and matters can only get worse.
venividivici:
“That’s why I explicitly said it could only be invested in an index fund, not an actively managed fund.”
Index funds can be pilfered just as easy and managed fund.
“You are familiar with the long-term equity market returns, right?”
Yes and prior results are in no way indicative of future performance. Take a look at 1929.
“And most importantly it offered nothing to address the high costs. Nothing. And that is what the problem is.
“Yeah, I don’t see that as a real problem.”
That is exactly the problem. I’m going to give a time out and not respond until you come out of your stupor.
Yes, I have run a business. For 25 years. And done pretty well at it.
Dude, you admitted up above that you’ve only had ONE employee in all that time. That’s not “doing pretty well”, it’s pathetic. My former employer, Arthur Andersen, went from one man to the largest global accounting firm in 25 years. Are you not even as good an accountant as Arthur Andersen was? Why am I even talking to you? Man, you are a loser. I can’t believe the barrel of a shotgun hasn’t found your mouth yet.
Though I have an accounting degree I am not an accountant.
And that’s a new one one me. I always felt that the bottom line (profit) was a good gauge of success. I had no idea it was how many people you had working for you.
Wow. General Motors is the most successful company in the world according to VVV.
Paul of Alexandria:
“Medicare/Medicaid can’t cut expenses unless it cuts patients or benefits.”
Utter nonsense. How about studying what treatments are effective and which ones aren’t and stop paying for ineffective treatment.
“Increasing revenues means raising taxes.”
And here I thought in the land of Wingnuttia lowering taxes increases revenue. Which is it?
“How do you propose to make Medicare/Medicaid stable over the long-term, given its inherent problems?”
Increase the max out on payroll taxes. If someone can pay 7.6 % on their first 120K it shouldn’t be too much of a burden to pay it the next 10 or 20K.
And the folks who max out on payroll has hit record numbers.
Did you know that Warren Buffet and myself both pay the same amount of payroll taxes?
Index funds can be pilfered just as easy and managed fund.
You are a complete imbecile. But, you already know that, so I’m just preaching to the choir here. Look at the major asset management companies out there (Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, etc.). Tell me how many cases of managers embezzling funds there have been in the past few decades? Do you even have any idea the amount of compliance that an asset manager has to go through? Even sending an e-mail kicks off a process that probably generates 10 reports to various regulatory bodies. In that environment, how is anyone going to “pilfer” money?
Yes and prior results are in no way indicative of future performance. Take a look at 1929.
The 7% nominal annual return includes the years of the Great Depression, moron.
And that’s a new one one me. I always felt that the bottom line (profit) was a good gauge of success. I had no idea it was how many people you had working for you.
Wow. General Motors is the most successful company in the world according to VVV.
Arthur Andersen had the largest and most profitable firm. At one point, GM was the most profitable auto manufacturing firm. You, on the other hand, are a loser. I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ve got 90% margins, right? Even that wouldn’t justify not growing beyond a one-man or two-man operation. Even Apply, which is one of the better profit margin firms out there, has thousands of people working for it and keeps its margins high. So, if you’re not a loser, you’ve got little or no personal ambition, which is hardly any better.
That is exactly the problem. I’m going to give a time out and not respond until you come out of your stupor.
Come on, enlighten me you little turd. Tell me why cost is a real problem and not a primarily byproduct of product/service mix. Come on, do it or shut your mouth. Want to lower health care costs? Do what Chris Rock says in one of his bits and just use Robitussin to “cure” everything. If you want the latest and greatest technology, you have to pay for it.
@174. jharp: – I’ve had funding shortfalls and it didn’t lead to bankruptcy. You’ve got three options. Cut expenses. Increase revenues. Or borrow.
There’s no way you could have run a solvent, self-supporting business for 25 years by being this deliberately obtuse.
But let’s use your three options in the context of Medicare’s history.
1. Overall, Medicare hasn’t cut expenses. Look at the chart of Medicare outlays, not what you WISH they were. Expenses have constantly increased. Despite the fact that they constantly cut benefits – to the point where many doctors are getting ready to stop accepting it because it’s not worth the hassle – expenses have constantly increased because the number of beneficiaries has increased while the cost of health care has increased – at astronomical rates that far exceed any increases in revenue.
2. Medicare increases revenue by soaking up every increase in social security benefits. But that’s ultimately a wash in terms of federal income and outlay. That and other premium increases has not helped to cover the shortfall. Again, look at the chart.
3. What Medicare has done is borrow. And borrow. And borrow. And borrow. From the general fund. It will continue to borrow into the foreseeable future until – as the trends clearly show anyone with a grasp of reality – even that borrowing won’t be enough, and after about 2012, Medicare will have to be funded by deficit spending.
No actual business can operate like this. The ONLY way an enterprise can get away with this is if it’s run by the federal government, where “borrowing” is actually theft of taxpayer money sitting in the general fund. None of those “borrowed” funds will EVER be paid back, so it’s not borrowing in the conventional sense you may have used it above.
If you’re too obtuse to grasp this – whether naturally, or facetiously because you’re a troll intent on being a nuisance – then that explains why you fail to see that Medicare is clearly bankrupt, by any fiscal definition you can come up with.
- Medicare isn’t bankrupt, fool.
Again, typing shit like “fool” doesn’t help make your case, it only demonstrates that you have no case because all you keep doing is repeating the same lie over and over. This would indicate you’re really only posting here in a desperate plea for help.
goy:
“1. Overall, Medicare hasn’t cut expenses.”
No but Medicare costs have increased quite a bit less than private insurance and over all health care costs.
And a significant part of Obama Care is to study the effectiveness of treatments and stop paying for treatments that do any good.
When was the last time that happened?
And I’m still waiting for your solution.
Oh, and Medicare isn’t bankrupt by any definition of the term.
VVV,
“Look at the major asset management companies out there (Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, etc.). Tell me how many cases of managers embezzling funds there have been in the past few decades? Do you even have any idea the amount of compliance that an asset manager has to go through?”
Yes and you clearly don’t get it.
Were Bear Stearns, Enron, Lehman, Washington Mutual, Countrywide, K Mart, Circuit City, Indygo, World Com, Global Crossing, United Airlines, etc, etc. a component of any index funds?
It doesn’t take a crooked index fund manger to steal.
And still haven’t heard how you plan to address the spiraling costs of our health care system.
jharp (181):
And you think that they haven’t done this? You can only increase efficiency just so much before you run into the law of diminishing returns.
Again, one of the main points that has been made here is that the government is very, very bad at doing things efficiently. I doubt very much that Medicare/Medicaid – and Obamacare – could be done much more efficiently than it is. Indeed, as many people pointed out, the government isn’t interested in increasing efficiency.
jharp (181):
Sigh. Are you really that stupid? Decreasing taxes generally increases overall government revenue, yes. It’s called the Laffer curve. However, it only goes so far!
We’re talking specifically about the portion of the government revenues going into Medicare/Medicaid (and Obamacare). Take a look at the chart at Obama’s Road to Healthcare Serfdom. If you run the numbers, we’re approaching the point where Medicare/Medicaid take up most, if not all, of the Federal Budget.
Paul of Alexandria:
“If you run the numbers, we’re approaching the point where Medicare/Medicaid take up most, if not all, of the Federal Budget.”
I certainly got a big laugh out of this one. Are you kidding or have you been in the ganja?
I’ve gotta run but thanks. You’ve all made me feel very smart today. And I have no doubt my son will do well in business with ignorant folks like the posters here in such good supply.
@184. jharp: – No but Medicare costs have increased quite a bit less than private insurance and over all health care costs.
This statement is meaningless. Medicare costs have STILL increased. Look. At. The. Facts. The only reason they’ve increased “less” is because it reimburses at rates 20% less than private insurers. And the only reason they get away with THAT is by outright extortion: the elderly are forbidden to enroll in any alternative to Medicare or they lose their Social Security benefits.
So we have Medicare stealing more each year from taxpayers and we see that even those who don’t want it can’t reallocate the expense of paying for it to an alternative – competing – plan because the government will cut off their Social Security. Yeah, that’s a workable enterprise.
- a significant part of Obama Care is to study the effectiveness of treatments and stop paying for treatments that do any good.
LOL!!!! He doesn’t need steal taxpayers’ money and hand out “free” health care to do that. He doesn’t need a bogus, Trojan Horse “public option” to do that. He doesn’t even need to pass legislation to do that. Studies are commissioned all the time to assess effectiveness. This is not a justification of any sort.
- And I’m still waiting for your solution.
No you’re not. You’re ignoring the one’s I’ve posted because you can’t address them. I’m down with that. It’s clear you don’t even understand the “solution” you’re pushing, so it’s no wonder you’ve been non-responsive to the alternatives.
- Oh, and Medicare isn’t bankrupt by any definition of the term.
Ah, so you are just trolling after all. Thanks for the confirmation.
Paul of Alexandria:
I wrote:
You guys do need to reform something, though, given the amount you spend and what you get out of it.
You wrote:
You – like most other people, especially jharp – are confusing the care that patients get with the ability of a patient to pay for that care. Quality of care is one thing. Providing “free” health care (which, of course, is no such thing) for the poor and impoverished is another. Providing subsidized health care for the entire population is another.
I make no such confusion, and you have missed my main point, which I won’t bother repeating since everyone else will probably miss it too. Of course you’re right that there is no such thing as free health care, or indeed free anything else. It’s how you pay for it that counts.
The US spends an astonishing amount on health, about twice as much as anyone else in the West (call me on this and I’ll check out the statistics; IIRC it’s about 16% GDP compared with 8% in France, but I haven’t looked it up) but is what you’re doing now the best way? You’d be crazy, in 2009, to adopt anything resembling our 1948 UK National Health Service, but I’d seriously recommend a good, cool look around the world. The big problem is keeping screaming, raging politics out of it, which I hoped was the point I was making.
Were Bear Stearns, Enron, Lehman, Washington Mutual, Countrywide, K Mart, Circuit City, Indygo, World Com, Global Crossing, United Airlines, etc, etc. a component of any index funds?
It doesn’t take a crooked index fund manger to steal.
Of all the things you’ve posted, this ranks up their with the least-informed. Even if they were part of the index fund in question, and some of these companies would have been in the S&P 500, which is the most common index fund, there are 490 other companies in the fund, too! That’s what diversification is. You could even make the index fund more diversified and use something like the Russell 3000 (guess how many companies are in that one). Seriously, that someone can be a business man for 25 years and not know about diversification and portfolio theory boggles the mind.
And still haven’t heard how you plan to address the spiraling costs of our health care system.
I like goy’s idea of getting rid of insurance as a middle-man for non-catastrophic care.
You don’t seem to understand my point. I do not think costs rising, or even “spiraling”, is indicative of a problem. Medical care, broadly defined, is an area where innovation dominates, and has to dominate, making prior methods of treatment obsolete. Innovation costs money. That means costs go up.
If consumers were willing to use “last generation” technology for health care, costs would be flat to down, just like they are in every other industry. It is the unique characteristics of medical care that make costs go up.
Go here and look at the second item, with the chart comparing human and pet health care costs.
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/07/the_price_of_innovation.php
The only thing a rational human being can conclude is that rising health care spending is a non-issue. One thing the chart and commentary doesn’t address is that innovations have patent-protected monopoly pricing, which also means that costs will rise faster than costs in other areas of the market where pricing is not monopolistic. This is the price we pay as a society to enable inventors to protect their inventions.
For those who can’t afford the latest and greatest, there should be policies that cover “last year’s” technology, in the same way that those who can’t afford to by this year’s fashion designs can by last year’s at TJ Maxx or something.
Again, this is why “rising costs” is an iatrogenic problem. It is perceived as a problem by those who don’t think through the cost drivers. You just see a headline number of costs increasing by X% and arbitrarily decide it’s too high. That’s not economics.
I’ve gotta run but thanks. You’ve all made me feel very smart today. And I have no doubt my son will do well in business with ignorant folks like the posters here in such good supply.
Yeah, maybe in 25 years he’ll be able to hire TWO people!
Man, you are deluded.
I bet your kid’s name is “Biff”.
71. lololeme:
well done.
Every discussion I’ve engaged in regarding Obutwaitcare can be sorted into two camps: the resistance, those who work, have spent their lives learning a trade (so to speak), are active in their communities, ie, church, charity, sports, hobbies, and the other camp: deadbeats, whiners, people who spend their time complaining that the world isn’t fair.
Guess which ones support the Obutwaitcare option and those who prefer to leave government out of the loop?
Venividivici wrote: “You don’t seem to understand my point. I do not think costs rising, or even ‘spiraling’, is indicative of a problem. Medical care, broadly defined, is an area where innovation dominates, and has to dominate, making prior methods of treatment obsolete. Innovation costs money. That means costs go up.”
Let’s see, what’s wrong with this….
1) Innovation does not “dominate” Medical Care — most of the treatments for the most common injuries and ailments have not changed for decades, and in some cases centuries. There have been scientific bursts here and there, like for genetic treatments, better understanding the role of bacteria for things like ulcers, and such, and steady improvements in vaccines, early detection, and treating heart disease, and “sports medicine, but for the average person’s most common medical problems, there’s been little real “innovation” per se. Progress overall has proceeded at a snail’s pace. While life expectancy has steadily risen the past century, the reasons for that has as much or more to do with better nutrition and healthier lifestyles, as it does with better overall medical treatments.
Indeed, compared to almost any industry — automotive, tech, farming, whatever — the medical industry has lagged far, far behind in the pace of real advancement and innovation.
2) Real innovation would have reduced costs, not raised them, as product improved. You can walk into a Staples and come away for a complete computer system not only vastly more powerful than one from 20 years ago, but far, far less expensive. Look at how TV sets, cars, the building industry, the financial industry (even if “innovation” has been grossly misused there) have changed compared over the past couple of decades compared the health care industry. Then main difference between going into a hospital now as opposed to 20 years ago is that there is now major infection problems and hence a lot more in the use of face masks, gloves and disposable items, and your monitoring equipment is more digitized. Big whoop.
3) Health care costs very slowly started to increment faster than the overall CPI around 1960, but didn’t start their skyrocketing curves until the 80′s when Reagan and his people screwed around with the system. There is no connection whatsoever between these cost curves and “innovation”. Whatever forces are at work in driving up health care costs are doing so completely outside of any measurable corresponding benefit.
194.bc:”most of the treatments for the most common injuries and ailments have not changed for decades, and in some cases centuries. ”
you’re nuts,there are constant innovations in all levels of care.
“come on, is it because it doesn’t fit your dream it’s absurd ?”
It’s absurd for several reason. For one thing they’re trying to equate per capita GDP with worker productivity…and they’re not the same thing.
They’re also implying that if worker A produces 15 widgets in 10 hours, and worker B produces 20 widets in 20 hours then worker A is more productive, which is total nonsense. Whoever produces more widgets is more productive. More productive per hour is not the same thin as more productive.
The claim made in the headline “French: The Most Productive People In The World”, could well be true, but the data they present doesn’t support that claim.
To frank grimes: No. Smallpox vaccines are from the 1700′s, radiation therapy is from turn late 1800′s/early 1900′s, Band-Aids are from the 1920′s, Polio vaccines and Bactine are from 50′s, and the biggest drops in infant mortality rates occurred before 1960. There is no correlation whatsoever between the cost escalations of the past few decades and improvement in overall health care treatment, especially when they are compared to health care costs before 1960, which managed to stay in line with the CPI regardless of whatever innovations came into wide use.
197 “There is no correlation whatsoever between the cost escalations of the past few decades and improvement in overall health care treatment…”
Then who paid for all the great advances in medicine since 1960? Santa Claus? This makes as much sense as blaming Reagan and Bush for rising costs. BC’s thoughts are neural impairment exemplified.
Do the feds have the right to implement national government health insurance? I cannot find this federal power in the Constitution, it is clearly reserved to the States and People. The often-misunderstood welfare clause regards federal powers already described in the Constitution, it is not an additional granted power to use public money in enriching certain individuals lives. We need to remove those in Washington who disregard our law. We want them to leave us alone. Get out of our faces. Stop strangling us. Keep your oath.
If the people so decide, health services will be provided at a local or state level to those who are truly in need. It’s the law of the land. Why is it not being followed? FIGHT!
This assessment of “Obamacare,” as some out there like to call it (when they’re not shouting in public meetings like a kindergartener in need of his afternoon nap) is categorically incorrect on several fronts…to hear a real story about how a family with FULL COVERAGE under our current system has been adversely affected, go to “The Joyful Left”: http://thejoyfulleft.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-letter-to-president-obama-for.html
We all know that effective changes are necessary to ensure the long term viability of the system…public option or not, it’s obvious the current system isn’t working, so some sort of intervention /overhaul is neccessary.
To quote an excerpt from my blog, in my letter to the President, Congressman, and Senators: “We all deserve to pursue the American Dream built on our own will and efforts; one that won’t be torpedoed by the health insurance machinations and its complex web of cloaked tiger traps. My parents were on track for a solid retirement before having the rug yanked from under their feet by such devices. They deserved better. This is why I write to you today…so that other families don’t experience the horrors with health insurance that mine went through. As a small business owner (I included a couple cards for you) I’ve followed the example my parents set, and needless to say I am concerned about my own coverage when the cards are on the table (in a situation similar to my father’s, heaven forbid) and scenarios to that effect that could wreck my family’s financial future.”
So there ya are.
I’m all for healthcare reform but not the way Obama is doing it. Does our current system need to be fixed? Yes, but not in this way. The government has no constitutional right to impose this on us.