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Thread: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

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    Default Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    I have to start off by admitting that I have NOT read ALL of the 1000 plus pages but I have read a LOT of it. Leaving aside the cost ( over a $ trillion over the next decade )a few things quickly become clear. First is that at least 12 million illegal immigrants will get free health care under the plan. The second is that rationing is part of the plan.

    Under the "public option" there is absolutely no enforcement mechanism to stop illegals from getting free health care. Most already have enough phony documentation ( phony S.S. numbers and /or driver's licenses ) to get coverage. The public option is SUPPOSED to force private insurers to lower premiums. Primarily this will happen by having employers end their health plans forcing their employees into the public option.

    Other than controlling the rate of reimbursement from the "public option" a la Medicare there are NO COST CONTROLS. Afaik, there is no obligation on the part of doctors to see patients covered by the public option. Just as doctors today are NOT obligated to take Medicare or Medicaid. Most hospitals are which is why they have to charge the paying customers $5 for an aspirin tablet. That is the fast lane to RATIONING because for one thing there will be a limited number of doctors for everyone except the very rich, members of Congress and a few gold-plated health plans.

    There is nothing to promote better medicine; or smarter medicine or improve risk management. Nothing to weed out bad doctors or improve bad hospitals. No tort reform of any kind. That means doctors and hospitals are going to continue ordering the 50% of tests that are ordered SOLELY to avoid malpractice suits.

    There is NOT a single word about weaning America off prescription drugs. We have psychiatrists in this country prescribing anti-depressants for THREE YEAR OLDS ! I am NOT making this up. I wish I was.

    There is nothing that I have seen to promote WELLNESS. It was one of the very few commendable parts of Hillary-Care.

    Would someone who has READ the plan please explain HOW this plan will control costs ? Expand coverage ? Yes. A lot of people currently without coverage will be covered. Whether they want to be or not. Most of whom are completely healthy and do not and will not have any need for serious health care for the next ten, twenty or even thirty years. No. Obama and the Dems are saying the plan will do two things: expand coverage and control costs. I'll concede the first but I haven't seen anything to support the second.

    A final word about the so-called "death panels" i.e. "pulling the plug on Grannie". As the plan is written, there is only coverage for counseling about "end of life options". Common sense says that since 90 % of health care is rendered during the last year of life that eventually it will become a big bullseye for cost - cutting. At the risk of being called cold-hearted and a whole lot of other unpleasant things, if folks want to pay out their OWN money to keep someone hooked up to a respirator or to gamble on a one in a thousand chance of a miraculous cure, that's fine. I find it questionable now and I guarantee it's quickly going to become debatable, how much of this we all want to pay for. Britain, Canada, Scandinavia, other countries and Oregon have all found that they have to draw lines to maintain affordability. When public funds are involved, I'm not inclined to be very squeamish about recognizing some painful necessities. If you look at Medicaid programs that are bleeding billions ( N.Y. , N.J., California ) poor people get a very broad and deep menu of care. Often more than those covered by HMO's and private plans are able to receive.
    Last edited by Eric Stoner; 08-13-2009 at 12:20 PM.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    we have de facto rationing right now. in any case, obamacare at best will simply make the rationing explicit.

    i am against obamacare because it is useless and deceitful, but this sums up my objections to most political decisions.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Would you mind citing chapter and section, and possibly linking to the proposed bill and from which committee it is originating? There are 6 versions floating around right now, so this info would be helpful should a citizen wish to bring the topic up with his/her congressperson.

    I didn't think there was even a public option being discussed. I also am not clear about the issue with hospice care being covered- Why is that a problem? Hospice is such a comfort and relief to the terminally ill and their families, that it seems to be just plain old humanity that should dictate this kind of care be provided. Calling hospice care "death panels" is just so ugly that it defies words. What is wrong with these people? That's like calling a person that has been laid off from their job who now receives unemployment benefits as part of a "Lazy Low Life Panel". Ugly, ugly, ugly.
    Last edited by Paris; 08-13-2009 at 01:51 PM.


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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    I am a little slow and I only listen to AM radio for news... but is the Health Care Plan actually happening? Or is there still an acute chance that nation wide health care won't happen?

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    I am moving to Canada, France, or England. They have their health care shit together and the citizens wont even consider traveling to America with out Travelers insurance. In fear that they will get stuck with an astronomical bill. I know people from the UK and Canada who have told me so personally. One family even turned down a better paying job a few years back because health care sucked and the school his children would be entering was so below the standards in England that they would be going back 2 grades essentially.

    Whats even more screwed up is if I were to go to any of those spots and become injured, the system there will pay for it. As I have been to England more than once and went to the hospital twice. Once for a sprained ankle, and the other time was over night with food poisoning. I have yet to receive the bill and I called several times in awe that I was not in debt for a grand or two. The phone charges were outragious!

    My Ex of a long term relationship had family in England whom we visited 3 times 2 of those times where shits and giggles the third family business, and they came here once for a wedding only because they where asked to be in it. The Canadian was a regular I had that would travel here for business.
    Last edited by sunnie86; 08-13-2009 at 02:44 PM.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Quote Originally Posted by TrixieFire View Post
    I am a little slow and I only listen to AM radio for news... but is the Health Care Plan actually happening? Or is there still an acute chance that nation wide health care won't happen?
    The White House has renamed the whole idea health insurance reform. Even without the government option, which Obama took off the table during his New Hampshire townhall, the program looks very expensive. The Congressional Budget Office has put the cost in the trillions of dollars with no real revenue added. Obama promised it would be revenue neutral. To my way of thinking, that looks like the idea will get scaled back significantly if it passes at all.

    HTH
    Z

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    france's healthcare system has been running in the red for 20 years. that doesn't sound like 'has their healthcare system together'.

    the uk and canada have similar funding issues, though not quite a 20 year accumulated deficit.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    consider the following ...


    (snip)"The AP is technically correct in stating that end-of-life counseling is not the same as a death panel. The New York Times is also correct to point out that the health care bill contains no provision setting up such a panel.

    What both outlets fail to point out is that the panel already exists.

    H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The Council is the brain child of former Health and Human Services Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle. Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council's purpose.

    Daschle's stated purpose (and therefore President Obama's purpose) for creating the Council is to empower an unelected bureaucracy to make the hard decisions about health care rationing that elected politicians are politically unable to make. The end result is to slow costly medical advancement and consumption. Daschle argues that Americans ought to be more like Europeans who passively accept "hopeless diagnoses."

    McCaughey goes on to explain:

    Daschle says health-care reform "will not be pain free." Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.

    Who is on the Council? One of its most prominent members is none other than Dr. Death himself Ezekiel Emanuel. Dr. Emanuel's views on care of the elderly should frighten anyone who is or ever plans on being old. He explains the logic behind his discriminatory views on elderly care as follows:

    Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.

    On average 25-year-olds require very few medical services. If they are to get the lion's share of the treatment, then those 65 and over can expect very little care. Dr. Emanuel's views on saving money on medical care are simple: don't provide any medical care. The loosely worded provisions in H.R 1 give him and his Council increasing power to push such recommendations.

    Similarly hazy language will no doubt be used in the health care bill. What may pass as a 1,000 page health care law will explode into perhaps many thousands of pages of regulatory codes. The deliberate vagueness will give regulators tremendous leverage to interpret its provisions. Thus Obama's Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein will play a major role in defining the government's role in controlling medical care.


    How does Sunstein approach end of life care? In 2003 he wrote a paper for the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies arguing that human life varies in value. Specifically he champions statistical methods that give preference to what the government rates as "quality-adjusted life years." Meaning, the government decides whether a person's life is worth living. If the government decides the life is not worth living, it is the individual's duty to die to free up welfare payments for the young and productive."(snip)

    from


    ... circling back to the topic of this thread, the point here is that while the provisions specifically 'enumerated' in whatever turns out to be a final version of a health care bill are reason enough for concern, the use of legal structures which provide unelected bureaucrats with the power to enact regulations after the fact is much MORE worrisome !

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    I'm against anything that Obama has anything to do with. With the direction this country is headed in I'm seriously thinking of selling off everything I have and moving to mexico.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    ^^^ go farther south like I did ... Mexico isn't exactly the best place for 'Gringos' OR their money !

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    "Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?"

    Uh, no one.. Congress is writing the bill. Basic, simple, trivial facts are missed by the right on this one. Death panels, "government-run" hospitals/doctors, etc. I do think, though, the media is so inept and terrible at explaining anything more complicated than a 5s sound bite, that any eventual bill will keep private insurance companies fat & happy, which will keep the health care inflation rate at 20%, which will eventually bankrupt everyone... and the right will blame...

    Obama!

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    ^^^ please allow me to ask a stupid question. Exactly who are the 'people who need healthcare now' that you are referring to ?


    (snip)"To be clear, the statistic [ that 46 million Americans do not have health insurance - sic ] is not pulled out of thin air. It comes from an annual report by the Census Bureau, which most recently pegged the number of uninsured at 45.7 million for 2007. But the problem lies in the way the statistic is commonly cited and understood.

    For starters, the statistic does not mean that there are "46 million uninsured Americans," as the New York Times reported in a recent story on health care, and as is echoed throughout the media. Just a quick look inside the Census Bureau data shows that 9.7 million of the uninsured are not citizens of the United States. Liberals can argue that we still have a moral duty to cover non-citizens, but this doesn't change the fact that as a matter of accuracy, the Census data only tells us that 36 million Americans are uninsured.

    But this doesn't fully convey the problematic nature of the 46-million statistic. As even the authors of the Census Bureau report themselves acknowledge, "health insurance coverage is likely to be underreported" in the Current Population Survey from which the health insurance data is derived. The reason is that respondents are asked in February through April about their health coverage status in the previous calendar year. Some may answer the question as intended, but others may cite their current insurance status, and others may say they were without insurance even if they only spent a portion of the year without coverage.

    "[T]he estimate of the number of people without health insurance," according to the report, "more closely approximates the number of people who are uninsured at a specific point in time during the year than the number of people uninsured for the entire year."

    In reality, a person who goes without coverage for a few months while between jobs is in a completely different boat from somebody who is permanently without insurance. But the broad citation of the headline figure would have you believe that there are literally 46 million people who never, ever, have coverage.

    How many people actually spend the whole year without health insurance? It's difficult to say, and recent data is hard to come by. But in 2003, the Congressional Budget Office took a stab at answering the question, and looked at two studies from 1998 that conducted interviews multiple times over the course of the survey period. One study pegged the number of people who were uninsured for the entire year at 31 million, while another put it even lower, at 21 million. In either case, the number was significantly lower than it was in 1998's Current Population Survey, which found 43.9 million uninsured.

    Another problem with citing the 46-million figure is that many of those who are identified as uninsured are actually eligible for existing government programs but simply never bothered to enroll. In 2003, a BlueCross BlueShield Association study estimated that about 14 million of the uninsured were eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP. These people would be signed up for government insurance if they ever made it to the emergency room.

    In addition, some of the 46 million could theoretically afford health coverage, but chose not to purchase any. In 2007, 17.6 million of the uninsured had annual incomes of more than $50,000 and 9.1 million earned more than $75,000. In fact, as Sally Pipes notes in the Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen's Guide, those making more than $75,000 per year are part of the fastest growing segment of the uninsured population.

    The Census figures also show that 18.3 million of the uninsured were under 34. Some in this age group may have simply determined that they are young and healthy and thus can do without coverage.


    When all of these factors are put together, the 2003 BlueCross BlueShield study determined that 8.2 million Americans are actually without coverage for the long haul, because they are too poor to purchase health care but earn too much to qualify for government assistance. Even being without insurance still doesn't mean they won't have access to care, because federal law forbids hospitals from denying treatment to patients who show up at the emergency rooms.

    This exercise isn't about downplaying the problems facing the American health care system, but a necessary part of devising the proper remedies. Under current state laws, mandates force insurers to provide certain benefits, meaning that young and healthy Americans must choose between paying exorbitant premiums to cover treatments that they don't need or going without health insurance. Many of these so-called "young invincibles" who are included in the ranks of the uninsured could be wooed into the market were they allowed to purchase catastrophic insurance with lower monthly premiums."(snip)

    from


    ^^^ so if you actually sort through the statistic, here's what you actually find ...

    A. of the 46 million Americans who are allegedly without health insurance, 10 million are not American citizens

    B1. of the 36 million American citizens who are allegedly without health insurance, some are actually without health insurance for only a small portion of the year ( i.e. changing jobs, and choosing not to purchase 'gap' medical insurance coverage via COBRA before their new employer's insurance coverage kicks in )

    B2. but of that 36 million, 14 million Americans ARE ELIGIBLE to receive health insurance under an existing gov't program like SCHIP, and will be immediately signed up for such a program the minute they incur a major medical expense

    C. of the remaining 22 million American citizens, 18 million are young residents of states which 'mandate' that all health insurance policies sold in that state must cover a huge range of 'medical treatments', from mental health to substance abuse to in-vitro fertilization etc. - who CHOOSE to self-insure rather than being forced to pay for extremely expensive health insurance premiums for areas of state 'mandated' coverage that they do not want or need. They often do this via Health Savings Accounts, which is basically a tax-exempt form of self-insurance. But HSA self-insurance is not counted as a legitimate form of health insurance under the statistic. Put another way, if their particular state allowed the sale of 'catastrophic only' insurance coverage with a premium costing $60 a month these young people would probably buy it, but if their state only allows the sale of 'minimum coverage' insurance that is forced to cover mental illness treatments, substance abuse treatments, in-vitro fertilizations etc. at a cost of $200+ a month these young people would rather save the money and take their chances.

    D. the remaining 4 million American citizens who do not have health insurance are a mish-mash of different personal situations. But the largest one is probably (near) minimum wage workers whose employers cannot afford to provide them with health insurance but who earn too much money to qualify for MedicAid. However, if such (near) minimum wage persons were to actually develop expensive major health problems, they only need to quit their job to become eligible for MedicAid coverage ... and if the health problem is that serious / expensive odds are they would be unable to work anyhow.

    Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics ...

    !
    Last edited by Melonie; 08-16-2009 at 05:31 AM.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Your article doesn't include the millions of Americans that don't have insurance because they have pre-existing conditions. Also, just because someone earns $50,000 a year or more doesn't mean they are able to afford health insurance, especially if they have a wife and children to support.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Its a good plan as long as you don't plan on getting sick or old.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    the people who are longest lived do not consume very much health care, which is why i don't understand the hand-wringing over why the government should cut checks so people can go to the doctor 50x per year.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    If it was easier to immigrate those "aliens" would taxpaying citizens and the government wouldn't have to worry about it so much and complain about having no money.
    The problem of course is that unskilled low income 'aliens' and citizens alike consume far more tax revenues in the form of benefits than they will ever pay in ... with the costs of their health care being a major component ! Thus every additional unskilled low income 'alien' or citizen is a net 'drain' on the gov't coffers i.e. creates an additional tax burden on higher earning workers who actually pay income taxes which fund the health benefits ( and food stamp benefits, and subsidized rent / utility benefits etc) of their unskilled low income 'neighbors'.

    Like my family has health insurance through my mom's job, but she still had to pay over 500 dollars to pay for my little brother's throat surgery
    no offense intended, but having to pay $500 in deductible / co-payments for a surgery that cost well over $10,000 sounds pretty reasonable to me.

    Also, just because someone earns $50,000 a year or more doesn't mean they are able to afford health insurance, especially if they have a wife and children to support.
    Again, this depends heavily on state laws which 'mandate' that all health insurance within the state must cover mental illnesses, substance abuse, in-vitro fertilization and a host of other expensive stuff that is arguably not considered to be 'mainstream' health care. This causes everyone in the state to have to pay far higher insurance premiums than if the state allowed the writing of much more affordable 'minimal' health insurance i.e. treatment of physical illnesses / injuries.

    Also this depends heavily on the price of medical care ... which is also influenced by such issues as the cost of the malpractice insurance necessary to cover multi-million dollar malpractice suit awards.

    If your goal is to make health insurance more affordable for those earning $50,000 per year, it is suggested that one of the best ways to do that is to look into the above two cost components, as opposed to looking towards fellow American taxpayers to subsidize present costs ! Of course the trial lawyers and 'shrinks' won't be very happy ... and they are major contributors to the Democratic party that is heavily promoting national health care ( and thus increased future business for the trial lawyers and 'shrinks').

    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 08-17-2009 at 03:28 AM.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    One of my problems with Obama-care is the intellectual dishonesty. Afaic it is becoming clearer by the day that it is nothing more than step one in establishing a single payer system.Not necessarily the worst thing we could do so long as everyone understands what it will mean. Single payer means that everyone gets the same basic coverage and care. It should include members of Congress i.e. no more free trips to Walter Reed or Bethesda. Instead of premiums, it would be paid for by taxes. For some things it would mean longer waits e.g. MRI's; elective surgeries, colonoscopies.

    It will mean that private health insurers will go out of business or switch to writing car insurance.

    It means drug companies will be a poor investment = lower profits. So will medical equipment manufacturers. It probably will disincentivize medical innovation and progress. We'll still have some but less of it.

    It will create a medical "black market" and generate more medical tourism for those who can afford it. And as a result there will be moaning, bitching and gnashing of teeth by those who have conniptions because some people have more money and are able to do more and different things than they are.

    If they do it right, the trial lawyers will need to be sedated. Suits against doctors could come under the Federal Tort Claims Act and/or be heard in special courts.

    A lot of treatments will not be covered. A lot of people will NOT get a bypass or a new hip. Instead of the patient and doctor deciding, a board or panel will issue guidelines and regs. as to what will be administered to whom at what stage of life.

    Two statistical notes/questions : 1. Much is made of life expectancy in the U.S. not measuring up to many socialized medicine countries. Does anyone know if that stat is corrected for our high rate of violent and accidental deaths ? i.e. we have a LOT of teens and young adults who die well before their time. 2. Supposedly we do very poorly in child mortality. One chart I have seen shows that child mortality is clustered among Medicaid patients. What is the rate if that is corrected for ?
    Last edited by Eric Stoner; 08-17-2009 at 08:27 AM.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Everything doesn't have to come down to a buck all of the time. You folks in the U.S. have the means and the ingenuity to create a health care system that covers all your citizens...and even the new potential citizens coming to your country. Think of it as nurturing a newborn. They need a lot of community help starting out, and eventually will themselves contribute to society when they are able.

    Start out with the simple bottom line: everyone gets affordable healthcare at a minimum. The rich can go anywhere in the world to get the finest care money can buy. It's the poor you need to open your hearts to. Looking out for those least able to provide for themselves is the hallmark of a decent government, and a great country. You already do this in so many ways...and that is why you are a great, powerful, and admired country.

    I would like to see my country, Canada, go even further. My fantasy is that we set as our national goal to eliminate the national debt in ten years (about 500 billion currently) saving roughly 30 billion in interest payments. With the money we save in interest we could have national dental, vision care, drug care, and daycare plans. Maybe even subsidize to a greater extent higher education. This is a national goal that I believe people could really get behind and be proud of.

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Quote Originally Posted by hockeybobby View Post
    Everything doesn't have to come down to a buck all of the time. You folks in the U.S. have the means and the ingenuity to create a health care system that covers all your citizens...and even the new potential citizens coming to your country. Think of it as nurturing a newborn. They need a lot of community help starting out, and eventually will themselves contribute to society when they are able.

    Start out with the simple bottom line: everyone gets affordable healthcare at a minimum. The rich can go anywhere in the world to get the finest care money can buy. It's the poor you need to open your hearts to. Looking out for those least able to provide for themselves is the hallmark of a decent government, and a great country. You already do this in so many ways...and that is why you are a great, powerful, and admired country.

    I would like to see my country, Canada, go even further. My fantasy is that we set as our national goal to eliminate the national debt in ten years (about 500 billion currently) saving roughly 30 billion in interest payments. With the money we save in interest we could have national dental, vision care, drug care, and daycare plans. Maybe even subsidize to a greater extent higher education. This is a national goal that I believe people could really get behind and be proud of.
    We ALREADY give medical care to the "poor" and have been doing so since 1966.
    It's called MEDICAID. And they get dental, vision and drug coverage.

    It's NOT the poor who are going to be covered by Obama care. It's everybody; whether they want it and/or need it or not.

    Btw, how do you propose that Canada eliminate it's national debt ?

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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    We ALREADY give medical care to the "poor" and have been doing so since 1966.
    It's called MEDICAID. And they get dental, vision and drug coverage.
    That's for the indigent poor. What about people that, oh say, earn minimum wage?

    Listen, Eric, I'm glad you have superb health care. I understand that you are afraid that by expanding coverage to all citizens that the quality of care will suffer. But the crazy thing about the United States is that the more prolific a thing becomes, the better the quality and affordability of that thing also becomes.

    Just think about anything throughout American history. When cars were first invented they were outrageously expensive. Only the very wealthy could afford one, and those people had to create their own roadways to accommodate. Then the government got involved and paved roads and highways, and now any American that wants a car can have one. Oh, and the quality of automobiles is amazingly good today, thanks to the government making sure we had roads to drive on.

    All this health care bill is going to do is create something like the federal highway system did for cars, but for the health care system. Why do you think it is so many pages? Because this will usher in the next economic boom, it has to be done right and described in precise detail.

    If I had to describe in precise detail how to make a pb&j sandwich, it would take me a dozen pages, so just imagine what our leaders are trying to accomplish and the difficulty of this task.


    Promote yourself and earn more money! This is a business that is owned by strippers for strippers. Let's make that money!


  23. #21
    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    It would appear that Canadian national health care has some naysayers ...



    (snip)""We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

    "We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."

    The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

    His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."

    In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

    He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said."(snip)

    (snip)""(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable," said Doig.

    "They have to look at the evidence that's being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada's doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you're getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it."(snip)



    On the subject of Canada extending health care to 'poor' immigrants, Canada is much more diligent about deporting 'poor' would-be immigrants than America is. A driving reason for this is that the social welfare / national health care costs of providing these would-be 'poor' immigrants versus their lack of tax payments are a bank-breaker for gov't treasuries in Canada as well as in the USA. Canada enacted the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in 2002, and under that act has made extensive use of incarceration and deportation to strictly limit the number of 'poor' immigrants who are allowed to remain in Canada.

  24. #22
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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    There are naysayers for ice cream, rainbows, and sunny days.

  25. #23
    Banned Eric Stoner's Avatar
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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Paris View Post
    That's for the indigent poor. What about people that, oh say, earn minimum wage?

    Listen, Eric, I'm glad you have superb health care. I understand that you are afraid that by expanding coverage to all citizens that the quality of care will suffer. But the crazy thing about the United States is that the more prolific a thing becomes, the better the quality and affordability of that thing also becomes.

    Just think about anything throughout American history. When cars were first invented they were outrageously expensive. Only the very wealthy could afford one, and those people had to create their own roadways to accommodate. Then the government got involved and paved roads and highways, and now any American that wants a car can have one. Oh, and the quality of automobiles is amazingly good today, thanks to the government making sure we had roads to drive on.

    All this health care bill is going to do is create something like the federal highway system did for cars, but for the health care system. Why do you think it is so many pages? Because this will usher in the next economic boom, it has to be done right and described in precise detail.

    If I had to describe in precise detail how to make a pb&j sandwich, it would take me a dozen pages, so just imagine what our leaders are trying to accomplish and the difficulty of this task.
    Take two slices of your favorite bread and lay flat. Open jar of peanut butter. insert knife and cover with desired amount of peanut butter. Spread evenly on each slice. Open jelly jar and repeat process. Turn one slice over and place atop the other. Enjoy ! Repeat as necessary. See. You never know what your're really capable of until you try. Bet you could do it in even fewer words.

    First of all, I am in favor of expanding coverage to CITIZENS. We can easily cover the 12 to 15 million AMERICANS and LEGAL residents who want and need care by giving them vouchers to pay for PRIVATE insurance. Or we can let them deduct the value of the voucher to pay directly for care and if there is anything left over at the end of the year they can pocket it or carry it forward to have even more money available in the future.

    We can and should let private insurers compete across state lines.

    We can and ought to convert Medicare to a defined contribution plan like Federal employees have.

    There are lots of things we can and should do to broaden coverage and control costs.

    One reason cars came down in cost was competition among car companies.

  26. #24
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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    Quote Originally Posted by hockeybobby View Post
    There are naysayers for ice cream, rainbows, and sunny days.
    Ice cream is too fattening, rainbows mean rain, and sunny days are too hot in the summer.

  27. #25
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    Default Re: Who has actually read Obama's Health Plan ?

    I rest my case.

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