Dems reach 60th vote on healthcare debate
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D_Smidley Smelliepits
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Ah, right. Ok, that makes sense...
Anyway, I completely agree that Obama could've done much better than he has. A couple of weeks ago, saw a pic of a demonstration in CA and there was a placard with the famous image of Obama and it read "HOPE is fading quickly", so there you go. From outside the US, people can see it as well...
You shouldn't get all excited. The House and Senate bills have to be reconciled. The Senate could easily be where the legislation gets killed. The house version contains provision for abortion, and the Senate only passed a bill when Reid allowed the restrictive abortion clauses. The house bill contains a clause whereby a government agency will determine the best course of care for you. It's still an uphill battle folks.
Neither of which have been finalized or signed.
If you want to think I'm backing you in your desperate need to be right then feel free to twist my statement into such. However, if the Government provided an alternative health care plan that also approved same sex domestic partnership, then our Government wouldn't have to push a bill to mandate it for every company out there. Private insurance companies and employers could then retain their rights to honor same sex domestic partnership or not, and civilians could have a choice to move to one that does. It also gives private insurance less excuses for raising their premiums, although I'm sure they'll find another reason to do it anyhow. You probably didn't think that one through in your continued bouts of yelling, screaming, and declarations of "political blindness".
I didn't deny anything. I'm just waiting for the final bill to be presented before I make my final judgement. You're the one getting worked up on two separate bills, forgetting that Obama is only signing ONE. It doesn't have to be either one of the two bills presented either... it could also be a merging of the two under a different act. Again, none of this sinking in your brain yet?
Nothing is ruining my argument here, much to your chagrin. That's because I'm not here to "win". But please continue.
Hmmmmm... under the word "debate", the dictionary doesn't provide any information about a person's assumptions, nor does it suggest that the information provided by one side is right while the other is "flawed". Merriam-Webster is not your friend. Perhaps you read that in HR 3200 and HR3600?
What usually happens in most "debates" on topics with no definitive answer is that two sides, both with interesting yet flawed information, clash heads. In a good debate, some form of middle ground is developed and a compromise of the two ideas is created. In this so-called debate you're trying to conduct, you've already taken the title of "middle ground" since you claimed to have read both bills. That doesn't make you "in the middle", nor does it make you more informed than anyone else... especially if your final arguments are extremely lopsided. I know plenty people who read but still calculate data worse than a chimp. A full comprehension of the entire scenario, is different. I have yet to make any real decisions or judgement calls on these bills since I know that there's still a lot more work to be done before we see the final one. I'll admit that I've read many things in the two bills and still don't understand everything in them 100%. I'll also admit that I'm willing to see what happens when both of these bills are presented to Obama and see the outcome of both before I make a final decision. I also know that whatever gets signed (if anything) is bound to have continued opposition, so I also expect many amendments to emerge to further change the bill in the future. What's sad is that you've yet to figure that out... what's even sadder is watching you frolic about on a penis site acting as if we should all be revolting over what's proposed in two bills when the whole process isn't even completed yet.
You really have a way to use these generalized statements that can be perceived in many different ways. The key word here is "some", as it's painfully obvious that many people in Congress haven't even read the bills. Either that, or they're merely voting down party lines as usual. Some are voting in their own financial interests. Let's not even try and position the naysayers of this bill under the same umbrella because they all have their own reasons for doing so and they're not all out of any ethical concern for the Nation.
I mean, we ARE talking about politicians... aren't we?
Actually, you're a product of it and don't even realize it. You've adamantly declared you "picked a side" when nobody knows what the final bill is going to look like, and chirp more bullet-pointed, political rhetoric than I do on this thread. If that's your definition of being on the "middle ground" and having an independent mind, then consider me slanted. Someone get me a V8.
Stop trying to "interpret" my words to fit your arguments. Yes, I have made up my mind that so far, it appears Congress is trying to take over the health insurance industry. And from that, so far you've drawn that I think: "the entire medical industry is being takenover"; "the sky is falling";"a product of political rhetoric";"we should revolt";"taxes are going to skyrocket";"the country will go broke" and on and on and on
Feel free to keep digressing from my intitial claim, and, I can't believe I have to say this again, I am in favor of government competition for insurance, but I'm pretty much done responding to your off-topic banter
To rephrase what sargon20 was saying, "My dear sir, the entire insurance industry does nothing to heal, cure, research, or rescue a patient. It is superfluous to the process of health care, adding nothing but a middleman with a profit motive. Were it to be removed, the effect would be to lower costs to the patients while not compromising care if it were to be replaced by a non-profit entity such as a government agency."
But the entire reason we have health insurance is because the costs without it are too high for most citizens. Therefore, it adds financial value and stability to the customer (most of the time) in the event of unforseen circumstances. Yes, universal healthcare can achieve the same effect, but why replace an entire system? It would be much more efficient, and advantageous IMO, to improve upon the system that is currently in place while adding on a government supported non-profit to increase competition. I see absolutely no reason to replace a system that is currently working for at least half of the population. Besides, insurance reform does nothing to address the actual healthcare crisis of incredibly high prescription, equipment, and admin costs
D_Smidley Smelliepits
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But the individual cost of universal healthcare is less than health insurance, since there is no profit involved. Of course, the problems you mentioned would be similar, but it would be cheaper for people. Why are we covering only over half of the population when universal healthcare could cover the entire population?
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True. The larger problem appears to be the foreseen circumstance of insurance premiums rising faster than employers and independents can afford. In more and more cases, insurance is becoming a shackle to employees as much as it is employers. Benefits decrease, premiums rise, net compensation drops, and those who might otherwise strike out on their own to form new businesses find they can't afford to do so without risking losing the ability to pay for insurance. This system stifles competition for businesses at all levels because it eats into their ability to be formed, compensate employees in a tangible manner, and compete using American employees. With policy costs outstripping inflation, compensation, average corporate earnings increases (such as they may be), and even taxation, the current model is becoming more and more untenable.
That might prove to be too efficient. The very real question employers will ask then becomes, 'what incentive is there to provide any health insurance at all?' When faced with a non-profit, health insurers suddenly become a poor bet. Their costs will be higher and they will seek to deny coverage whenever they can whether by contesting physician care or dropping non-group policy holders who present bad risk; group health employers already look for any reason to fire high-insurance cost employees. Why stand for that when the non-profit government entity prevents all these things? When freed from the cost of providing the single most expensive (and rising) benefit, employers have decreased operating costs (as do health care providers who pay for staff to do nothing but manage various insurance billing and compliance practices); employees with major health issues, whether themselves or family, face greater security; control of care returns to physicians and patients; and far greater numbers of people (the 30-40 million we keep hearing of) will be prevented from spending their last penny on health care, declaring bankruptcy, and then forced into Medicaid and welfare where they may likely be for the rest of their lives, unable to ever recover economically again because pre-existing condition exclusions make returning to work nearly impossible while private policies are impossible to purchase. It makes far greater economic sense to keep these folks employed or, at least, allow them to retain their wealth to stay net contributors to the economy rather than net debtors.
Where insurers do have a role is in providing supplementary policies as they do in other countries where they are a much-welcomed low-cost benefit many companies offer. These policies cover things like dental, vision correction, orthodontia, access to non-single payer-participating private physicians and hospitals for routine or emergency care, optional non-covered procedures, and, on occasion, cosmetic procedures.
Naturally, tort reform is part of this model as is allowing insurance companies to compete amongst each other in every state and territory of the US.
It does if you eliminate the insurers from the picture because costs drop automatically for health care providers, patients, employers, and employees. Rather than dealing with multiple bureaucracies, they only deal with one. Rather than adding to the profit of an entity which does not provide nor consume health care, a middleman is removed from the system.
Equipment costs are indeed high but economies of scale work quite well once a procedure requiring high-cost equipment becomes standard medical practice. Insurers don't like exotic or high-cost procedures even if they are the most effective treatment so they exclude them from their policies. By placing control of treatment back into the hands of the doctor/patient team, the best medical practice quickly becomes standard and so costs drop more rapidly while increasing best medical practices among the population.
The prescription drug issue is one which simply requires balls. As we've just seen, when a provision in the current health care bill to allow importation of generic and patent drugs into the country was proposed, congress shut it down at the behest of drug company lobbyists essentially creating a legal drug cartel. This is yet another example of why we, as citizens, need to hold our lawmakers' feet to the fire.
Without some kind of single-payer system in place, the US faces a dread burden as our health costs continually out-strip those of other developed nations who spend less than we do as a percentage of GDP, have lower cost increases than we do, provide better coverage, and provide better quality of care. This ever-increasing drag hurts American competition at a point where we need to be most competitive. It hurts patients and employers and employees across the board and, most unethically, places health care decisions in the hands of insurance companies who have every legal fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit by any legal means possible including denying coverage for care or outright dropping high-cost insureds without warning.
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B_VinylBoy
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Don't kid yourself. You don't even know what my argument is, never mind whether or not what I'm truly interpreting in your statements.
Well, let's see... here are some of the many statements you've made on this very thread:
After a while, a pattern starts to form and one's true opinion becomes apparent. All one has to do is just sit back and let people perjure themselves, because the loudest mouths always eventually do. If you don't want anyone to assume that you're not screaming a bunch of Chicken Little "sky is falling" rhetoric, the same nonsense that has been spewed from the conservative right since the very beginning, then you should try not to repeat similar statements 4 TIMES IN ONE THREAD. It conveys a message to me that you may have "read" both bills, but there's a good chance you haven't comprehended every single word of it.
I never strayed from the topic once. You're the one trying to tell people to "wake up and smell the coffee", meanwhile you're drowning in a pitcher of Kool-Aid. If there's one thing I get really sick of is a person who is ill-informed and paranoid about what the Government is supposedly planning to take from you, preach to others about how they know the truth and everyone should listen to them. You don't even realize that your own actions are just as smarmy and untrustworthy as the ones you're denouncing in Congress. So what makes your opinions anymore believable than others?
Notice I haven't resorted to similar, opposing rhetoric in this thread. Not once did I bounce back with the equally inane, "The government will go bankrupt if we don't pass health care". Obama said that a few days ago, and even I know that's a bunch of bullshit. So really, whose eyes are really open here? Yours, just because you read the bills? Yours, because you made up your mind before the battle was won and want everyone to rally behind your phony cry for revolution against the Government? Spare yourself the embarrassment, acting as if you're above it all. You haven't told me anything that I haven't heard since August.
I understand a LOT more than you realize. Again, I understand that there are two bills that may have similar language but can easily be misinterpreted. I also understand that only one bill will be signed, and we don't know if Obama is picking one and going with it, or combining the two in order to make a bill that takes the best from both sides, or even if he vetoes both and tells everyone to start over. WE HAVE NO IDEA what is going to happen next, so it doesn't matter how anything is written right now. Ironically, there are a number of things you've said that I agree with, but that constantly gets overshadowed with these fake-ass cry of Government espionage. Take some deep breaths, put down your picket signs and your rifle already.
B_VinylBoy
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Ericsson1228d
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Once again, the collective voice of America is dismissed as "clucking" by those who choose to ignore anything that disagrees with a socialist agenda.
visit: www.givebentheboot.org and Fire Harry Reid!
well you can call it clucking but I'm not sure how you can sit back and relax:
as much as i hate this bill and think it's a joke, i'm not sure hoping for the defeat of it renders any better outcome.
if this bill gets killed, obama's presidency goes down in flames after only 1 year, he'll never get another piece of legislation or reform passed and the republicans will crow victory, and it won't be anybody's fault but his own:
his for going "all in" on healthcare to begin with when the bigger fire was the ecomony and jobs, and that writing was on the wall long before he took the reins.
and his for passing the buck to congress to write the damn bill in the first place.
joyboytoy79
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Well, he doesn't have a choice on that. The executive branch does not have the constitutional power to write laws. The constitution explicitly gives that responsibility to congress.
Also, Obama tackled the economy and jobs first. Remember the billions spent on the "stimulus?" Yeah, we're still hearing how that's going to cause the end of the world in... **checks doomsday clock** damn, it's stopped ticking again. You know, really soon!
D_Gunther Snotpole
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I guess I need a U.S. Civics 101 lecture.
Who normally writes such bills?
EDIT: Just saw this:
That was my impression. Now who's actually right?
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no, the president can't actually write the bill but he can get the damn bill he wants by: influencing public opinion, creating a public demand for reform, strongarm assholes like lieberman by threatening to jerk federal money out of his state (he really is acting like bambi ,he sure ain't playin hardball, instead of backroom deals with drug companies, he needs to be takin some republicans into the back room and puttin their junk in a vise) ......if the executive branch wants to get things done there are ways.
instead he tossed the whole job over to the legislative branch and went hands off...."hey u guys handle that, i'll be over here talkin to oprah, lobbying for the olympics, and pickin up my nobel".
D_Gunther Snotpole
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You're talking a Lyndon Johnson.
Obama is no such creature, I'm beginning to realize.
ur right, he's not. but he doesn't have to go that far, he's supposed to be the great communicator, all he had to do was go out and get people to realize that theyve been getting ass-fucked by private insurance cos. and he would have had a coutry that demanded a single payer bill. the sleazeballs in congress will do anything to keep their jobs.
the way he handled it makes him look like he's in bed with pharma, insurance and AMA.
right on the heels of his work on the economy which makes it look like he's in bed with wall st too.
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D_Gunther Snotpole
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Well, he speaks (somewhat) loudly and carries a small stick.
Assbackwards, Teddy R. would have said.