The proposed health care bill thread (merged)

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by donut

Words

That's already been debunked.

It amazes me that people forward on these distortions, half truths and out and out fabrications. Absolutely amazes me. At least we know why the politicians are opposed to health care refrorm - they're getting campaign contributions by the insurance companies. But everyday Americans who forward this garbage on and act as insurance company shills...let me tell you something: they are screwing us. They do not care about us. Are you really married to the party line so much that you'll repeat "healthcare reform is bad" because your paid-for lord and masters in Washington do it? Even when it's in such clear opposition to your own well being?

I'm sure the executives at Aetna, Wellpoint and the rest are having a good laugh at the rubes who help them spread their message. It reminds me of the battered wife who protects her husband and won't press charges or leave him because "he's not so bad, and it's not his fault."

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

they're getting campaign contributions by the insurance companies. But everyday Americans who forward this garbage on and act as insurance company shills...

The bill passed in the house yesterday.

Off to the senate it goes.

So much for that theory.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

The bill passed in the house yesterday.

Off to the senate it goes.

So much for that theory.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

The bill didn't pass in the House. It just got through committee. It won't hit the floor of the House until September.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Aramike

The bill didn't pass in the House. It just got through committee. It won't hit the floor of the House until September.

You are correct sorry about that. Well now they have a summer reading project

[mookiemookie]

Hey this guy sounds like he's got a future here in GT:

What’s Not to Like?

Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.
By Jonathan Alter | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jul 31, 2009

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I'm just a regular guy and definitely deserve less.

I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition."

I like the absence of catastrophic insurance today. It meant that my health-insurance plan (one of the better ones, by the way) only covered about 75 percent of the cost of my cutting-edge treatment. That's as it should be—face cancer and shell out huge amounts of money at the same time. Nice.

I like the "lifetime limits" that many policies have today. Missed the fine print on that one, did you? It means that after you exceed a certain amount of reimbursement, you don't get anything more from the insurance company. That's fair.

Speaking of fair, it seems fair to me that cost-cutting bureaucrats at the insurance companies—not doctors—decide what's reimbursable. After all, the insurance companies know best.

Yes, the insurance company status quo rocks. I learned recently about something called the "loading fees" of insurance companies. That's how much of every health-care dollar gets spent by insurance companies on things other than the medical care—paperwork, marketing, profits, etc. According to a University of Minnesota study, up to 47 percent of all the money going into the health-insurance system is consumed in "loading fees." Even good insurance companies spend close to 30 percent on nonmedical stuff. Sweet.

The good news is that the $8,000 a year per family that Americans pay for their employer-based health insurance is heading up! According to the Council of Economic Advisers, it will hit $25,000 per family by 2025. The sourpusses who want health-care reform say that's "unsustainable." Au contraire.

And how could the supporters of these reform bills believe in anything as stupid as a "public option"? Do they really believe that the health-insurance cartel deserves a little competition to keep them honest? Back in the day, they had a word for competition. A bad word. They called it capitalism. FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, CNN versus PBS—just because it's government-backed doesn't mean you can't compete against it. If they believed in capitalism, the insurance companies would join the fray and compete.

I'm glad they don't. I prefer the status quo, where the for-profit insurance companies suck at the teat of the federal government. Corporate welfare's what we've got, and it's a damn good system. Through a wonderful program called Medicare Advantage, the insurance companies receive hundreds of billions of dollars in fees to administer a program that the government is already running. Don't touch that baby. You'd be messing with the handiwork of some fine lobbyists.

You know what part of the status quo I like best? It's a longstanding system for paying doctors called "fee for service." That's where doctors get paid for each procedure they perform, as if my auto dealer got paid separately for the steering wheel, brakes, and horn instead of for the car. Fee-for-service is why the medical care at that doc-in-a-box at my mall is so superior to the Mayo Clinic or Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where the doctors are on salary. Who would want to mess with that?

OK, if you really press me, I'm for one change. It's the one that Republicans trot out to prove they're "reformers," too. We could save our whole system if we just capped malpractice awards. Two of our biggest states—California and Texas—did it a few years ago and nothing has changed there, but who cares? It sounds good.

So tell your congressmen and senators when they're home for the summer recess that it's too soon to address this issue. We've only been debating it for 97 years, since Theodore Roosevelt put national health insurance in the Bull Moose Party platform of 1912. We've only had 745 congressional hearings on the subject (I made that number up, but it's got to be close). That's not enough! Let's study this problem more before we do anything about it.

Did I say "problem"? Who said there was a problem? Not me. I like the status quo.
Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/209817

Do you want this......really?



Thanks for the merge!!

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by August

That means it's dead. Too much time for the insurance industry to sway public opinion against it. The same thing that happened to Hillarycare.

Speaking of insurance industry, how did I miss this?

The president and his party have received more money from private insurers and the for-profit health care industry than even Republicans, with the president alone taking $19 million in the 2008 election cycle alone, more than all his Repubican, Democratic and independent rivals combined.

Now, how does one square that?

Quote lifted from:
Top Ten Ways To Tell Your President & His Party Aren't Fighting For Health Care For Everybody

[Steel_Tomb]

I think everyone is entitled to free health care, whoever and wherever they are. I think its sickening that you have to pay for health care over there to be honest. "I'm sorry Mrs Jones, but your son passed away on the operating table... that'll be $5000 please".

If your fortunate to be able to afford private insurance, great... good for you. But what about the poor sod and his family who has no job, lost there home and now one of them is suffering from a serious illness... you think its right for them to simply be left to suffer whilst the fortunate few get great care...

Its wrong... no matter how you morally try to justify it.

I think it would be an amazing achievement for the USA to create something resembling the NHS over here in the UK (just preferably one that works and is funded properly). The US has the money and the capability to make this work... and work very well... I will follow this with interest.

[Onkel Neal]

Entitled? No. Quite honestly, there's no future in that.

[AVGWarhawk]

Entitlement should never be part of the equation in this or any instance.

[mookiemookie]

Neither should people having to die because a Wall Street investor demands year over year EPS growth.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Neither should people having to die because a Wall Street investor demands year over year EPS growth.

Can you show me the correllation between Wall Street and health care? I do not see any to be honest. The drug companies have a play on Wall Street but there is much more to the equation than just drug companies.

[Tchocky]

Yep, HMO's are nice mom-and pop places.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Can you show me the correllation between Wall Street and health care? I do not see any to be honest.

"[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter said during a hearing on health insurance today before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Potter, who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop seriously ill policyholders so they can meet "Wall Street's relentless profit expectations."

"They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment," Potter said. "…(D)umping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line."

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Healt...7911195&page=1

[AVGWarhawk]

Potter has some hard evidence of this? I would suspect if this was found to be true said insurance company that was practicing this would be in a crap load of trouble. No? There is so much more than just insurance companies involved when it comes to the high cost of healthcare. There is malpractice insurance that do to people looking to retire early on tort cases involving doctors or a hospital. We have to remember, some of this is brought on by the patient and not just the hospitals/drug companies. All can not be pinned on Wall Street. The ENTIRE system needs an overhaul to be honest Mookie. Wall Street is just part of that overhaul.