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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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There's Death Panels already, my brother died at 46 with a new baby, because some group of doctors decided someone else would be better served. Yet the rich will always get the care(Steve Jobs) etc. Also my sister in law died 3 months after her gall bladder was removed because she had cancer instead and they didn't want to do more test! You watch, like tech support for computers, doctors
will punch in your symptoms and tell you what's wrong with you!
I'm with Locker, "Your going to die"
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Wierd/Lois said; "I mean, we not stupid."
How apparent.
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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The Chinese will pay mightily to keep the US healthy ,to work to buy more Chinese goods--and THAT you can bank on.
Why do you worry so much about paying for Health care, Howie?
Is there ANY "grandiose" plan/scheme/project/war that we HAVEN'T somehow raised the fundage/debt for?
edit: your last post as Howie was weak sauce and ladylike, Lois--you signed into the avatar now?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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The only public plan that Obama proposed ... He said straight up it would be covered by premiums charged to the participants. ..Period. Weren't you guys listening?
Chaz, would you think it appropriate if DEM senators yelled out "Liar" every time Bush told an untruth comparable to what you think Obama said? He'd never get a speech finished.
BS..The GOP has stooped to unprecedented lows in lowering public discourse into pro wrestling levels of integrity
PEace
Karl
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Karl,
I'd like to see the President heckled along the lines of the way the British Parliment does it to their P.M.s on Mondays (or is it Tuesdays?)
Builds character.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Out of the fukin park. Way better than I hoped for.
You my commence with your crybaby butthurt we lost an election Obama bashing. The rest of the country is moving on. ;-)
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Karl wrote: The only public plan that Obama proposed ... He said straight up it would be covered by premiums charged to the participants. ..Period. Weren't you guys listening?
No they are not listening...I said that at least 3,000 post ago...the public option is not free.
Smoke and mirrors the republicans...say and do anything so you won't see what is true.
Howie/Lois...who do you think is paying for your mother or father social security and medicare??
Think real hard now.
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apogee
climber
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I have been sifting through what I think I heard about Obama's plan, and it sounds pretty nuanced and attempting to serve a lot of interests in this issue. (Obviously, he has little choice but to serve many interests.) To help digest it better, here's a link to the full transcript- for those who have an open mind, it will help bring clarity- for you Repugs, well, I'm sure you won't bother, and will continue to make up whatever BS lies you can and try to spin them to truth.
A link to the full transcripts of the speech:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/09/politics/main5299229.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody
And here's an excerpt that outlines the plan:
Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.
The plan I'm announcing tonight would meet three basic goals:
It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. It's a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge - not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals. And it's a plan that incorporates ideas from Senators and Congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans - and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election.
Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan:
First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.
What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.
That's what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan - more security and stability.
Now, if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who don't currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange - a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It's how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it's time to give every American the same opportunity that we've given ourselves.
For those individuals and small businesses who still cannot afford the lower-priced insurance available in the exchange, we will provide tax credits, the size of which will be based on your need. And all insurance companies that want access to this new marketplace will have to abide by the consumer protections I already mentioned. This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right. In the meantime, for those Americans who can't get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill. This was a good idea when Senator John McCain proposed it in the campaign, it's a good idea now, and we should embrace it.
Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those - particularly the young and healthy - who still want to take the risk and go without coverage. There may still be companies that refuse to do right by their workers. The problem is, such irresponsible behavior costs all the rest of us money. If there are affordable options and people still don't sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for those people's expensive emergency room visits. If some businesses don't provide workers health care, it forces the rest of us to pick up the tab when their workers get sick, and gives those businesses an unfair advantage over their competitors. And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek - especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions - just can't be achieved.
That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still cannot afford coverage, and 95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements. But we cannot have large businesses and individuals who can afford coverage game the system by avoiding responsibility to themselves or their employees. Improving our health care system only works if everybody does their part.
While there remain some significant details to be ironed out, I believe a broad consensus exists for the aspects of the plan I just outlined: consumer protections for those with insurance, an exchange that allows individuals and small businesses to purchase affordable coverage, and a requirement that people who can afford insurance get insurance.
And I have no doubt that these reforms would greatly benefit Americans from all walks of life, as well as the economy as a whole. Still, given all the misinformation that's been spread over the past few months, I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform. So tonight I'd like to address some of the key controversies that are still out there.
Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.
There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up - under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
My health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a "government takeover" of the entire health care system. As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly-sponsored insurance option, administered by the government just like Medicaid or Medicare.
So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly - by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Just one 'uh-oh': if the illegals do not have to buy a $3800 policy
for health care how will they get health care?
No sane person would stand at the emergency room entrance checking
policies and turning away those without them. Your face would be
on every TV around the world in about 2hours as 'The Evil One'.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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How did we pay for the unjustified war?
What does that have to do with healthcare, other than adding to more debt?
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apogee
climber
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cchopper, did you listen to the speech? Did you read the transcripts?
Do I need to ask these questions?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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I agree with Chaz about the heckling House member. We need more of that along the line of the British House.
"Liar"
Did you see Pelosi and Biden? Priceless!!!!
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
Arkansas, I suppose
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"How did we pay for the unjustified war?
What does that have to do with healthcare, other than adding to more debt? "
Bluey,
I suppose the point is, what were you saying for the last eight years?
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shut up and pull
climber
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From Powerline blog tonight:
Only last month In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, President Obama declared: "I don't have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don't have health insurance coverage today. In the wealthiest nation on Earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage."
Tonight Obama declared that "[t]here are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.he number of our fellow citizens who have no coverage is 30 million."
These statements can be reconciled. "Nearly 46 million" is "more than 30 million[.]" But this is obviously not what Obama meant. It would be a mistake to reconcile the statements in this way. In any event, both numbers are bogus. It would be a mistake to take either of them seriously.
What can we learn from the malleable, missing millions who provide the pretext for Obama's proposed takeover of the health care system? He willfully misrepresents the magnitude of the problem. He is not to be trusted with numbers. He does not fear being called out on the obvious discrepancies on the fundamental rationale he presents to support his program, whatever it is.
He will say whatever he deems necessary to seek to persuade his audience. A man who refuses to get this issue right cannot be trusted with the more important facts, figures and propositions with which his speech was larded.
UPDATE: Byron York: "Obama: I used to say 47 million uninsured. Now, it's 30 million." At this rate, if we can wait until November, the problem may resolve itself.
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shut up and pull
climber
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More analysis of Obama's speech tonight, from Powerline:
From a policy standpoint, there was nothing new in President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tonight. It can only be assessed, therefore, in political terms. I read the transcript rather than watching it, but the speech struck me as reasonably effective. I assume the delivery was standard Obama--smooth, generally flat, occasionally a bit whiny.
One striking aspect of the speech was that Obama kept talking about the "plan" that he "announced" tonight--but there is no plan; not in writing, anyway. Not unless Obama meant Nancy Pelosi's House bill, but he didn't seem to, since he made a point of saying that details remain to be filled in, referred to work still going on in committee, and said that "his plan" is open to alternatives to the public option. This vagueness gives him a sort of deniability: what he was describing was more his concept of the qualities health care legislation should have, rather than a specific bill. Whether that was politically smart remains to be seen. So far, vagueness hasn't seemed to be the President's friend on this issue.
Here are some excerpts from the speech that I thought were noteworthy:
Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.
Then, a few minutes later:
Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.
By far the biggest scaremonger on this issue has been Obama himself.
Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed.
I'm not sure whether Obama and his handlers understand how this sort of talk grates on those of us who are not liberal Democrats (a large majority of the country). Debating public policy issues is not "bickering." Disagreeing with a proposal to radically change one of the largest sectors of our economy is not a "game." This kind of gratuitous insult--something we never heard from President Bush, for example--is one of the reasons why many consider Obama to be mean-spirited.
I assume most people noticed how, in tonight's speech, Obama's assurance that we will not lose our present insurance coverage has been scaled back. This was after thousands of critics pointed out that under the Democrats' proposals, many people (more than 100 million according to some estimates) will in fact lose the insurance coverage they now have:
f you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.
That's true, of course. No one ever said it did. What the Democrats' plan does do, however, is give employers the opportunity and, depending on pricing, the incentive to terminate their employees' plans and dump them into the public system. And whether private insurance companies can compete with the public "option" depends on whether Obama keeps his pledge that the public program won't be subsidized.
nsurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.
How does that work? Better coverage for more people at less cost. Does anyone actually believe that is possible? I don't think so.
Obama described his plan for an insurance exchange where those who are not part of a larger plan will be able to buy coverage. He then added:
This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right.
But wait! Aren't people dying? The Democrats tried to ram their bill through Congress before the August recess, with essentially no debate and with virtually no one having read it. Their theory was that we are facing such a dire emergency that there is not a moment to lose. If, in fact, we have four years to spare, could we maybe stop trying to cram the bill down Americans' throats?
Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those - particularly the young and healthy - who still want to take the risk and go without coverage.
That's true, of course. There are millions of people, mostly young and single, who choose not to buy health insurance or take a job where compensation comes largely in the form of benefits (same thing) because they have made a rational decision that for them, health insurance isn't worth the money. As Americans, they should have that right. The problem is that, in the unlikely event they do get sick, they know they will be treated anyway.
That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.
Traditionally, it was liability insurance that drivers were required to carry, not to protect themselves, but to protect others from their possible negligence. It is only because of no-fault laws that most states now require drivers to carry insurance that includes first-party coverage. There are some similarities, but many differences, between automobile and health insurance.
nless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek - especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions - just can't be achieved.
This is a key point that many will overlook. One of the central purposes of nearly all health care "reform" proposals is to force young people into the system to help pay older peoples' bills. Why is it that you can't force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions--i.e., "insure" against something that has already happened, a logical impossibility--unless you force young people to "do their part"? Insurance companies, and, eventually, the government as single payer, need young people to pay premiums that far exceed any actual risk to subsidize the known losses that will come from being forced to "insure" people whose medical conditions are not risks but certainties.
Consider the analogy to life insurance: could a dying, 90-year-old person expect an insurance company to issue him a million dollar life insurance policy? Maybe, but it would cost close to a million dollars. Why can life insurance companies sell policies at rates that people consider reasonable? Only because they are insuring against premature death, and the insured has been paying premiums for many years, during most of which time there was little risk of his dying. The same principle applies, pretty closely, to health insurance.
Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.
No, it isn't. The Democrats' bill doesn't call the agencies it sets up "death panels," it says they will decide on "best practices." But any socialized medicine scheme saves money by rationing care. Who gets shorted, the politically powerful? No, of course not; the elderly and those who are otherwise helpless. In the United Kingdom, the death panel goes by the Orwellian acronym "NICE."
There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false - the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
This is an outright lie, as Congressman Joe Wilson couldn't resist blurting out during Obama's speech. The Democrats defeated Republican-sponsored amendments that would have attempted, at least, to prevent illegals from being treated under the House version of Obama's plan. I think everyone expects that if Obamacare becomes law, illegals will receive benefits on an equal basis with citizens.
And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up - under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
More oily language from the master of the half-truth. Under Obama's plan, it won't be necessary for federal dollars to fund abortions, at least not until socialized medicine actually arrives. Insurance dollars will fund abortions. The House bill sets up a nameless, unaccountable committee that will decide what coverages must be included in any approved private insurance policy. Those required coverages, you can be 100 percent certain, will include the costs of abortions. But Obama will take no responsibility; those are just "best practices."
This seems to me to be the most critical moment in Obama's speech:
My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down.
In fact, Obama and Congressional Democrats have zero interest in increasing choice and competition. If they did, there is an easy solution. There are over 1,000 health insurance companies in the United States; why do you think it is that in Alabama, one company has 90 percent of the business? It is because there are major legal obstacles to insurance companies operating across state lines. State legislatures, and lots of the companies, like it this way. Competition is hard. But if Obama really wanted to expand "choice and competition" in health care, all he would have to do is go along with the Republican proposal to allow health insurance companies to sell on a national basis. Like, say, computer companies, beer companies, automobile companies, law firms, and pretty much everyone else. The Democrats' refusal to allow existing health insurance companies to compete against each other nationwide, more than anything else, puts the lie to their nonsense about "choice and competition."
Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business.
Really? We've all seen the YouTube video where Obama says that under his plan, private health insurance will be driven into extinction over a period of ten to twenty years. Has he changed his mind? When? Why? Does President Obama fail to understand the ubiquity of YouTube? Does he not understand that many millions of Americans consider him a liar when he says things like this?
President Obama talked about the "public option" and assured listeners that it would not be subsidized by the government:
I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects. But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers.
Is it churlish to point out that profits are not overhead? It might be if this were just a slip of the tongue on the stump. But this was a speech that was carefully crafted by Obama and his top advisers. They really do not know the first thing about business or economics. So why should we put them in charge of our economy?
I want to speak directly to America's seniors for a moment, because Medicare is another issue that's been subjected to demagoguery and distortion during the course of this debate.
Actually, the administration has said that around half the cost of the plan, $500 billion, would be paid for by cuts in Medicare. So it isn't exactly "demagoguery and distortion" to suggest that there might be cuts in Medicare.
[N]ot a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan.
I should hope not, since there isn't any Medicare trust fund, just like there isn't any Social Security trust fund.
The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud...Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.
But wait! If we can identify hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid and we know how to eliminate it, why haven't we done so already? Why don't we do so--right now!--regardless of the administration's highly controversial health care bill?
There is no possible answer to these questions. The Obama plan--whatever it is, once reduced to writing--depends for most of its financing on the bare assertion that we are currently wasting hundreds of billions of dollars, and that we will stop wasting that money only if taxpayers knuckle under to Obamacare.
This was not, to put it kindly, a speech that was directed at thinking people.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Dude, between the wars (I believe Dems agreed with Afghanistan), Bush's bailout, and Obama's bailout, we should stop spending!!!!!
At least until a war ends, we recind a bailout, or start massive gov't program cutting.
We cannot keep spending!
It's be nice if the f*#king Iraqi's gave us some oil contracts too! You know, to pay for their liberation and our dead to achieve that goal. F*#k!
And Cap/trade hasn't even come yet...
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apogee
climber
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Nevermindthat, noshoes- Obama's in office now, and it's all his fault. bluering and his Repug buddies (which he says he's not one of, but that's about as true as HWD is not LEB) were staunchly silent as they were f*cked up the wazoo by their own party, completely sold down the river, and yet they stood by their man. They thought they were being loyal, but everyone else knows they had completely compromised their conservative core principles, and had a giant 'sucker' painted on their backs.
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dirtbag
climber
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"I agree with Chaz about the heckling House member. We need more of that along the line of the British House.
"Liar"
Did you see Pelosi and Biden? Priceless!!!! "
So we need more heckling and less civil discourse?
We need more people to behave like childish DICKHEADS?
We should have fewer conversations, less listening, and more SHOUTING?
Is that what conservatism has descended to: mob rule instead of ideas?
Lame, really f*#king lame bluering.
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apogee
climber
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"Is that what conservatism has descended to: mob rule instead of ideas?"
Yes, dirt, that is exactly correct.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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were staunchly silent as they were f*cked up the wazoo by their own party,
Look, sh#t for brains....How many times do I have to say I didn't support Bush's spending policies. I supported the wars initially, but was opposed to all of his socialistic spending.
Quit f*#king saying I supported it!!!!
The wars were fought by pussy-footing around listening to Euros tell us what was right and wrong when they had minimal boys getting shot in the face.
You stat a war, you f*#king finishing it AS QUICKLY AS MILITARILY POSSIBLE!!! Agree or disagree, read up on LAO TSU.
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