Be aware of Obamacare

[August]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Repealing it IS an alternative - as in returning a private business sector to - oh I dunno - private businesses....

You see - it worked well for MOST people. Remember - 80% of people got health insurance through their employer or the government.

It didn't really work all that well with yearly double digit increases to the annual cost was well on it's way to making health care insurance unaffordable for a great many of that 80%.

I'm not saying the ACA is any better, and i'll grant you that it may even be worse but a simple repeal with no replacement for it is not going to help the situation one little bit.

[Armistead]

My wifes mother passed last night. Rather beautiful passing, surrounded by her 3 daughters, husband and grandchildren, everyone with their hands on her as she passed....

However, it should've never happened.....

[August]

Originally Posted by Armistead

My wifes mother passed last night. Rather beautiful passing, surrounded by her 3 daughters, husband and grandchildren, everyone with their hands on her as she passed....

However, it should've never happened.....

Sorry for your loss Armistead.

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by Armistead

My wifes mother passed last night. Rather beautiful passing, surrounded by her 3 daughters, husband and grandchildren, everyone with their hands on her as she passed....

May her soul find shelter in the hand of the Creator, and may her family find peace in this time of sorrow.

However, it should've never happened.....

Agreed.

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by August

It didn't really work all that well with yearly double digit increases to the annual cost was well on it's way to making health care insurance unaffordable for a great many of that 80%.

I'm not saying the ACA is any better, and i'll grant you that it may even be worse but a simple repeal with no replacement for it is not going to help the situation one little bit.

If you grant that the ACA is "worse" - then repeal is at the least a start to help the situation compared to what it is today. Maybe not help from where it was - but we don't live in the past - we live in today. Making tomorrow better than today is helping the situation.

Health Care reform is simple - its called common sense.
What should be done is the following...

1) Repeal the ACA and return Health Care insurance to the private sector.
2) Institute tort reform that negates the need for a Dr. to run every test under the sun just because you stubbed your big toe - simply because he doesn't want to get sued.
3) Get government out of all health care. Yes - get rid of Medicaid and Medicare. Why? Because by underpaying for the care of the poor and elderly - they are raising the costs on everyone else. That is right - the government is a huge reason why health care costs are skyrocketing.
4) Open up health insurance competition nationwide. Let Joe and Sally consumer shop across state lines for the best deal. Competition lowers prices - which is another reason the health exchanges are seeing costs increase - there is little to no competition in them.
5) Reform how patents are dealt with. Right now, if a company produced a miracle cancer cure in a pill - they could stop a generic from being produced for 7 years.
6) Allow for generic medications sooner - and allow for them to be purchased from specific foreign locations that agree and comly with meeting the necessary safety testing.
7) Stop demanding that people who can't (and often choose not to be able to) pay for their own care get it for free (or subsidized).

Yep - basically - your own personal doctor is not a human right - nor is it a defined constitutional right. If you can't pay for it - you shouldn't just get it for free.

[Wolferz]

My sincere condolences to your wife's family Armistead.

May your mother in law rest in peace and be accepted into the creator's loving care.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Armistead

My wifes mother passed last night. Rather beautiful passing, surrounded by her 3 daughters, husband and grandchildren, everyone with their hands on her as she passed....

However, it should've never happened.....

My condolences sir.

Condolences for your loss Armistead

[u crank]

Sorry for your loss Armistead.

God bless you all.

[August]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

If you grant that the ACA is "worse" - then repeal is at the least a start to help the situation compared to what it is today. Maybe not help from where it was - but we don't live in the past - we live in today. Making tomorrow better than today is helping the situation.

I didn't grant it was "worse", I just said it might not be "any better". The way I see it the previous system (or lack thereof) was just as unworkable if not more so. Just because the life boat (Obama-Boat?) is ill designed and taking on water that doesn't mean we should all jump into the raging sea. Repeal gets rid of the popular things about the ACA along with the unpopular.

Health Care reform is simple - its called common sense.
What should be done is the following...

1) The same private sector that has caused costs to rise by leaps and bounds every year? The same market where it's more profitable to treat the symptoms instead of curing the disease? The ACA is a response to a problem, a real problem, a problem that the American people want addressed. It's flawed for sure but so far I am not convinced that it is any worse than what we had before.

2) Might be a good idea though I can see how it would end up with patients unable to get adequately compensated for bad medical care.

3) So instead of underfunding them you prefer the poor and elderly go completely without medical care? Maybe we should just set them out on ice floes and be done with it.

4) A good idea that should be implemented whether or not the ACA is repealed.

5) 6) Sounds like you're asking drug companies to spend gobs of money on research and development but then let anyone who can mix chemicals in some foreign sweatshop steal all their profits. What would be the motivation to come up with these wonder drugs in the first place? What is the likely market response to taking the profit out of something but none of the liability or risk?

7) Problem here is you don't differentiate between can't and won't. While I might sympathize (to a point) with your feelings about the latter, I think a nation that would not do it's duty to care for the former should be ashamed of itself.

[Kixa]

Sorry for your loss Armistead.
" Rather beautiful passing, surrounded by her 3 daughters, husband and grandchildren, everyone with their hands on her as she passed...."

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by August

I'm not saying the ACA is any better, and i'll grant you that it may even be worse but a simple repeal with no replacement for it is not going to help the situation one little bit.

Originally Posted by August

I didn't grant it was "worse",

Yea, you pretty much did.

Repeal gets rid of the popular things about the ACA along with the unpopular.

Which is what, exactly? The no more pre-existing condition clause? What else?

1) The same private sector that has caused costs to rise by leaps and bounds every year?

So instituting a system where the prices go up faster is the right course of action? No. If your complaining about the rise in costs - how can you justify making costs rise faster - which is what the ACA has done? A repeal won't "fix" rising costs - but is sure won't mean cost increases accelerate faster. What your doing is saying that we were headed for a cliff at 50 miles an hour - now we are headed there at 100 miles and hour and we shouldn't slow back down to 50.... Makes no sense to me.

The same market where it's more profitable to treat the symptoms instead of curing the disease? The ACA is a response to a problem, a real problem, a problem that the American people want addressed. It's flawed for sure but so far I am not convinced that it is any worse than what we had before.

OK - lets look at that. Your saying that the free market benefits from treating the symptom instead of curing the disease. I agree. However - show me one way - other than the so called "death panels" (Independent Payment Advisory board) that will determine what treatment is available - leading to symptom treatment - or death - how exactly does the ACA actually change our health care system into one having an interest in curing the patient?

Sure - death is technically a "cure" - but not one most patients want to undergo. So the ACA does nothing to "fix" the problem you say it should be kept for. I can (and have) listed a number of reasons to repeal it - I have yet to hear a single one that holds water to keep it.

2) Might be a good idea though I can see how it would end up with patients unable to get adequately compensated for bad medical care.

I don't propose making a malpractice suit impossible - just reform the system to where every doctor can spend time helping the patient instead of covering his/her ass.

3) So instead of underfunding them you prefer the poor and elderly go completely without medical care? Maybe we should just set them out on ice floes and be done with it.

Personal responsibility is somehow a bad thing? When you say the poor do you mean the teatsuckers that live in housing paid for by the working man's taxes, watching a big screen tv purchased with taxpayer funded welfare and eating steaks bought with food stamps? Let me turn your question around - why should I have to pay for my medical care when others don't? And why should I have to pay for theirs - when they don't pay for their own or mine? The question you asked is worded to pull heart strings - its emotion based - yet strangely skips the "fairness" question.

4) A good idea that should be implemented whether or not the ACA is repealed.

5) 6) Sounds like you're asking drug companies to spend gobs of money on research and development but then let anyone who can mix chemicals in some foreign sweatshop steal all their profits. What would be the motivation to come up with these wonder drugs in the first place? What is the likely market response to taking the profit out of something but none of the liability or risk?

It doesn't remove profit. Still - kind of ironic that you ask this after complaining about how the profit motive is to treat the symptom and not cure the disease. A company that develops a "wonder drug" for whatever ill makes its money back a lot sooner than 7 years. Simply shorten it to 3 or 4 years. How long is too long?

7) Problem here is you don't differentiate between can't and won't. While I might sympathize (to a point) with your feelings about the latter, I think a nation that would not do it's duty to care for the former should be ashamed of itself.

Again - why "can't" they - or why "won't" they? Yes - can I see us providing health care for a quadriplegic? Sure. They truly can't. Can I see us doing it for a person suffering from dementia? Yes.

Can I see us doing it for a 75 yr old who chose not to plan ahead? Yes - but only because that man or woman was promised it decades ago.

But the guy who is 60 and has been looking at a system that has been falling apart and expects to still ride the gravy train because he gives nay damn and screw everyone else as long as he gets his? Nope.

Personal responsibility.

I am 40. I have been promised social security and medicare when I am older too. I sure as heck am not banking on that - because the ills have been foreseeable and I have not put all my eggs in a basket I could see was falling apart. And yes - I have little sympathy for those who chose to abrogate their own personal responsibility to the government and the future generations just so they could "get theirs".

[Armistead]

When it comes to healthcare, seems for every action, law or regulation, you end up with several unknowns and counter reactions. For instance, this crappy "Observation Status" That started because the govt felt hospitals were not giving people proper care and possibly releasing them too early, so if a hospital releases someone and they're readmitted in 30 days, the hospital has to pay a big fine. The counter to this and regulations allow it was instead of admitting people, they're placed on observation status, often placed in a regular room, but many hospitals now have observation wings. In observation, since you're not admitted, you'll pay a larger chunk of the bill. More than likely you wont see the specialist needed and studies show you'll get lower care and often they miss stuff.....it's actually caused quite a stink, because people are dying.
Simply, the plan was "better" treatment, but passing more cost to the sick person and imposing fines on hospitals. Doctors aren't treating patients, but meeting strict regulations so they don't get fined. It's the same crap as education, teacers spend more time teaching how to pass state and federal test, than teaching.

When my mother-in-law was admitted, it was clear she had a minor stroke, her face was sagged on the left, left side body not working, couldn't talk much. She was given a CT that showed no damage, common for a minor stroke. Typically a neurologist would come and do neuro test and if a minor stroke start clot busting meds...she didn't see one. The next day they said it was a possible bladder infection gone to the brain and put on meds for infection....she got up and walked that day.. The third day she had a major stoke, simply the clot that was there busted. We sent her to a big city hospital with a stroke team and they confirmed she had a minor stroke that finally busted 3 days later. They decided the damage was too much and per her will, family had to let her go. Note, it was medicare auditors 700 miles away deciding what treatment she could get the entire time.

Sadly, we didn't know, but all she had was medicare, had she a supplement or other insurance, she probably would've been admitted instead of being observed...maybe.....Sad, at the hospice center, the hospice nurse asked what happened, when I told her she was placed in observation, she just rolled her eyes and shook her head and said she sees it everyday.

Course, it is a good way to save cost, kill the elderly and others on medicare, fine hospitals and let govt auditors decide your treatment over your Doctors...

[soopaman2]

I never ever rooted for a Tea Partier. But considering a conservative supreme court approved of a Liberal "tax", they might be the only thing to save us from our own government.

I always laughed at TP'S, But I kinda get it now.

I am so disappointed by Obama. (still better than Romney or Palin, so keep your pants on)

Chris Christie 2016, moderate republican, not into your wifes womb or what she does with it, but fiscally smart.

I want a fiscally smart man. I want to be off of China....

[August]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Yea, you pretty much did.

"may" not "will". It's too early to see how bad the ACA will be and how the health care situation would be today had the ACA never been enacted cannot be proven.

Which is what, exactly? The no more pre-existing condition clause? What else?

Preventative care, kids on parents policies until 26, you know, all the things that are popular with the electorate. The same electorate that will punish the party that takes those things away without installing suitable substitutes.

So instituting a system where the prices go up faster is the right course of action? No. If your complaining about the rise in costs - how can you justify making costs rise faster - which is what the ACA has done? A repeal won't "fix" rising costs - but is sure won't mean cost increases accelerate faster. What your doing is saying that we were headed for a cliff at 50 miles an hour - now we are headed there at 100 miles and hour and we shouldn't slow back down to 50.... Makes no sense to me.

You're assuming that costs have indeed risen faster and if so will continue to do so. The jury is still out on that. For all we know what you think will slow things down might actually cause this proverbial car to accelerate up to 200mph.

OK - lets look at that. Your saying that the free market benefits from treating the symptom instead of curing the disease. I agree. However - show me one way - other than the so called "death panels" (Independent Payment Advisory board) that will determine what treatment is available - leading to symptom treatment - or death - how exactly does the ACA actually change our health care system into one having an interest in curing the patient?

Maybe it doesn't but then again the government, unlike the market, isn't driven purely by monetary greed. I may not trust the Feds but I trust the corporate world even less.

Sure - death is technically a "cure" - but not one most patients want to undergo. So the ACA does nothing to "fix" the problem you say it should be kept for. I can (and have) listed a number of reasons to repeal it - I have yet to hear a single one that holds water to keep it.

Your reasoning may hold water or it may be just as flawed as that of the Democrats who promoted the ACA. I'm just saying that arguing for repeal without a realistic substitution is not a winning political strategy.

I don't propose making a malpractice suit impossible - just reform the system to where every doctor can spend time helping the patient instead of covering his/her ass.

Sounds a lot easier said than done.

Personal responsibility is somehow a bad thing? When you say the poor do you mean the teatsuckers that live in housing paid for by the working man's taxes, watching a big screen tv purchased with taxpayer funded welfare and eating steaks bought with food stamps? Let me turn your question around - why should I have to pay for my medical care when others don't? And why should I have to pay for theirs - when they don't pay for their own or mine? The question you asked is worded to pull heart strings - its emotion based - yet strangely skips the "fairness" question.

Obviously emotion based appeals are useless to a guy who thinks that being poor means being a "teatsucker".

It doesn't remove profit. Still - kind of ironic that you ask this after complaining about how the profit motive is to treat the symptom and not cure the disease. A company that develops a "wonder drug" for whatever ill makes its money back a lot sooner than 7 years. Simply shorten it to 3 or 4 years. How long is too long?

There are armies of lawyers to address that issue. Who are you to say it's too long?

Again - why "can't" they - or why "won't" they? Yes - can I see us providing health care for a quadriplegic? Sure. They truly can't. Can I see us doing it for a person suffering from dementia? Yes.

Can I see us doing it for a 75 yr old who chose not to plan ahead? Yes - but only because that man or woman was promised it decades ago.

But the guy who is 60 and has been looking at a system that has been falling apart and expects to still ride the gravy train because he gives nay damn and screw everyone else as long as he gets his? Nope.

Personal responsibility.

I am 40. I have been promised social security and medicare when I am older too. I sure as heck am not banking on that - because the ills have been foreseeable and I have not put all my eggs in a basket I could see was falling apart. And yes - I have little sympathy for those who chose to abrogate their own personal responsibility to the government and the future generations just so they could "get theirs".

I guess I'm just not as cold hearted as you. I believe that basic healthcare should be provided to all of our citizens regardless of their ability to pay. I also think i'm on the eventual winning side of the issue too.