Name one thing other than kicking the crap out of other nations the government does well.
Amtrak...nope
Education...nope
Social Security...nope
Medicare...nope
Medicaid...nope
Tax Collection...nope
Census...nope
Elections...nope
Close our borders...nope
Listen to the people...nope
Avoid corruption...nope
Create jobs...nope
Make American resources available...nope
Stop Iran with diplomacy...nope
Fiscal Responsibility...nope
Provide H1N1 vaccines...nope
Crap on American businesses...yes Oh wait thats bad.
Prosecute Criminals...Based on A.C.O.R.N. and the New Black Panthers, nope.
I love this ridiculousness from Pelosi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU
Just pass it and THEN we'll know what's in it? HAHAHAHA! Okay..I have a bridge for sale in Antarctica. Just agree to buy it from me and then I'll tell you the price and where the bridge starts and stops...mmmkay?
Sifting through the political muscling and corporate disinformation, it is hard to imagine that anyone in this country (outside of the insurance companies) would refute that the health care system is in need of repair. Given the dearth of bills on the table to fix the mess, if Congress does not pass this one; nothing will change.
As with any challenge to unrestrained corporate profiteering, this one has been redefined via the (snicker! Liberal Media) as a Titan battle between American (spelled: Wall Street) Values and Socialist Domination. Anyone who has ever walked a dog knows what that rendering smells like.
It's bait and switch, folks. You can wear your pride in walloping Pelosi and Obama or you can feel secure with your ability to access health care- whichever is more important to you.
C.M. save your bandwidth. You are talking to the far right here and they would rather see people die for lack of health care than give up their continual bashing of this administration.
Funny how all that support it all say it's not perfect, it has alot of things that are no good ,but it's the best we can do,and that it's better than nothing..Sound like a good reason to start over and get it right..I was always taught not to do something half-assed...because you only have to go back later and fix it right..
Bea,
I know a lot of people who can not afford health insurance and many of them end up using the Emergency Room (which we all end up paying for).
But, I have never known anyone to die because they lacked care. Do you have any names of people you personally knew that died because they had no care?
Mark, we tried the whole-assed approach (single-payer) then we tried the three-quater assed approach (public option.) Both of them resulted in misinformed ranting at townhall meetings. Now we've arrived at the half assed approach which is certainly not as good as it would be should there be more ass involved. :)
John, I can give a pretty good example from just a couple weeks ago.
A guy I know is a self-employed contractor. Due to the lack of work in the winter months he is unable to afford health insurance. In late February he had a small wound that became infected. After a few days the pain was so bad he decided he had no choice but to head to the emergency room. When he got there they told him the infection had spread to his blood and he spent the next couple days near death while they tried to figure out the exact type of infection and how to treat it.
After they came up with a treatment plan for him and administered the initial medication, he pulled out his IV's, got up and walked out of the hospital. The doctors pleaded with him to stay in the hospital to finish treatment and told him very directly that if he went home the likelihood of relapse was severe. He left anyway because he was afraid if he stayed in the hospital any longer with no insurance that he wouldn't be able to pay the bill. He has a family to support and tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills simply could not fit into his budget.
I'm happy to report that his wife took very good care of him and he's out of the woods, but his lack of insurance directly led to his brush with mortality.
Not a single bit of that story was exaggerated and I'm sure it happens every day in America. This gentleman's trial is a perfect example of why our health care system is broken. Had there been an affordable public option, maybe he would have had coverage and gone to see a primary care physician before things got bad. If we had a single payer system there would have been no concern at all.
In my humble opinion, the health care bill on the table sucks, but it sucks a lot less than the system we have now.
One cannot differentiate health insurance from health care. The two are inextricably entwined. One might say, they are codependent. The first question any health care provider will ask (often prior to inquiry of the medical emergency at hand) is, "Who is your insurer?" The answer to that one question determines all that follows.
Approaching a health care provider without insurance is similar to trying to rent a room in the Hilton without a major credit card. Unfortunately, the consequences are distinctly more dire. A healthy person can survive a night on a park bench.
As to why enact something that is admittedly incomplete? It is a start that can be built upon. To go back to square one is exactly what the insurance companies hope for. It delays the process- perhaps indefinitely and allows them to tailor a bill that can be fed to Congress by their lackeys.
You only get so many windows of opportunity for reform. To pass one by is what my mother used to dub: cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Peter - great list but you forgot the USPS. I think they have lost about 10 billion in the last two years. I find this funny because they have a monopoly on shipping parcels for anything below $1.00. I'll bet Fedex and UPS might have made some adjustments after the first quarter of the first year of losses. I wonder if a 10 million dollar CEO would have made the Post Office profitable(saving $9,990,000,000 of taxpayers money).
Although it's not a federal issue, half the state run liquor stores in Minnesota lose money. The free market seems to do just fine with them even with the huge amount of ridiculous regulation they are subject to.
An entity that has no incentive to do things well and has no accountability will never be able to accomplish their intended goal.
Chris,
That's my point. We need insurance reform, not health care reform. Leave my doctor alone.
And your friend did get medical care. He did not almost die because he could not get care, he almost died because he could not afford the care he was getting and decided to leave the hospital.
Bea said people have died. I just want to know who she knows that died. Not second hand, first hand.
One thing that bothers me Chris, is that if your friend decided he just did not want insurance, he will now be FORCED to buy it. If he does not, the IRS will fine him. And if he does not pay the fine, he can be put in jail. I don't consider that reform.
I'll refer you back to C.M Barons' latest post. health insurance and health care in this country are inseparable entities. The fact that they are tied so closely together is at the root of many problems with affordability and quality of care. If we had a single-payer system for basic health care needs we wouldn't have to argue about mandated health care purchases.
I noticed you failed to mention that under most public option proposals the purchaser would get a tax subsidy to cover the insurance cost. It doesn't really matter though since the words 'public' and 'option' won't be within four paragraphs of each other in whatever health care bill we end up with. Not from this Congress anyway.
But, if you think I like the idea that you take my money, out of my pocket (tax subsidy), to give to somebody else, so they can buy insurance, think again.
And the idea you can go to jail because you just don't want to buy a product (insurance)is just plain wrong.
John,
I had a good friend, Constance Frazer 1961 - 2006 from my online genealogical group. She didn't go to the doctor for a disease that turned out to be terminal. Although friends tried to persuade her to go, she refused because she didn't have insurance.
She suffered a great deal. She would come online and tell us what was going on; the stomach pains would double her over, she couldn't sleep at night, she was vomiting all the time. She had a young son and an ailing mother under her care.
Her goal was to be a para-legal and was working on her BS on a part time basis. A few months before she was to graduate, the stomach pains became unbearable. She did go to a clinic and was sent to a nearby hospital.
She had surgery the following day. Her stomach cancer was so far advanced that there was nothing they could do.
She passed away two days later leaving a young son, just ten years old, and her mother.
The mother was placed in a nursing home and the child was given to his aunt and uncle to raise.
I don't know how more graphic one can get about how helpless some feel when they know they can't pay for health care and can't pay for insurance.
PS: John, if you doubt this, I have the cookbook we dedicated to this wonderful young woman who left us way too early. Her biography is in the book. I'd be more than glad to share it with you sometime.
Bea and Chris, both examples you gave reflect people who made choices not to get help at the onset of their conditions. They could have used the ER or local clinics. These are unfortunate stories but do not support the notion that the lack of health insurance resulted in death. Chris, why did your friend not work doing something else during the winter months? Bea, if Constance was going to college, most colleges offer low cost health insurance to their students? I don't know the particulars of each story, but most of the time when you scratch the surface, you find that immediately blaming the system is not the appropriate answer. Now the easy route is to condemn anyone who tries to find out if there were alternatives available in these stories as cold and unsympathetic, but that is simply not the case. I agree with John that health insurance reform is what is needed, not the current reforms to the entire idea that are being proposed.
If people die without health insurance it is almost always as a result of a choice or a breakdown in the system elsewhere that won't be fixed by means of the proposed legislation.
Howard, I wonder how many of the nay-sayers already have health insurance through their employers. Maybe that ought to be a poll.
After my husband and I retired, we paid about $12,000 per year for health insurance. That did NOT cover doctor appointments which totaled roughly another $1200-1500 per year. We now have medicare [a public option] with suplimental health insurance from the company that begins with a "B". Immediately upon my husband signing up [I already had it for a few months] the company jacked the prices up by 40% for the following year. All told, we still pay $6,000 for health insurance. I don't expect they plan to lower it any time soon. They are proud of their record payout to stockholders. Meanwhile they are squeezing the membership dry.
For Bea McManis, I am sorry about your friend.
For any politicians who read The Batavian, hell will freeze over before I vote for any legislator who votes against health care reform.
Janice, the fact that you and your husband paid $12,000 per year for health insurance that didn't even cover Drs visits is outrageous and precisley the problem that needs to be addressed in real health care reform, now how exactly does the current proposed legislation fix that problem? And please don't quote Obama yesterday when he said our premiums would decrease by 3000% allowing employers to give us raises too.
Jeff, the gentleman I told you about avoided the emergency room and doctor's office because he couldn't afford insurance nor could he afford the astronomical price of an emergency room visit. Sure, he made a choice but what I'm saying to you is that a person shouldn't have to make a choice between making ends meet that month and going to see the doctor for a treatable condition.
It's easy for those of us who don't have to make choices like that to judge another human being. After all, I have health insurance that covers my whole family, I could easily ignore the problems that others have. I choose not to be ignorant of other people's hardships though, because I don't believe for a second that simply because I'm taken care of that I can look the other way when another human being is not.
I believe that for our society to be moral and just, we must take great pains to ensure that even the least among us are afforded the opportunity to have their basic needs met. I believe to the core of my soul that basic health care is tied directly in with the right to life that our forbears cited in The Declaration of Independence and I believe, sir, that no man, and certainly no corporation, has the right to tell another man that the amount of money he can pay should have any bearing on his value as a human being.
The ONLY people in this country who deserve to have "Complete, free, and worry free" health care are the elderly. Our country as a whole I believe have totally turned thier backs on the elderly. Why is it when people retire now days they have to WORK more than they did before they retired? Because of thier health care...That makes NO sense what-so-ever.
LEGAL CITIZENS of this country who are 65 and older are the ONLY ones who should have it.
Anyone under the age of 65, shame on you for asking any HARD WORKING people to pay for your worthless, lazy uninsured "arses". Not only is greed a factor here, but a complete breakdown in the moral fabric of society as well. If you don't work, you shouldnt eat. It does not get more simple than that. One of the many many many problems with this bill is that most of the people who will receive it are the lazy welfare receiving wastes of oxygen who are already sucking our paychecks dry.
Do not even think about using the economy as a rebuttle, if you are of true moral character, you will find some honest work somewhere to pay your bills.
And for the record i too do believe that the COST of health care is way out of whack and again GREED on BOTH sides (hospitals, doctors, insurance companies) ALL parties involved in health care are to blame, you can fix the system without needlessly bankrupting this country.
“…worthless…lazy welfare receiving wastes of oxygen…"
"Do not even think about using the economy as a rebuttle (sic), if you are of true moral character, you will find some honest work somewhere to pay your bills.”
In other words, if a person is unable to find work in the mythical land of “somewhere” they are NOT of “true moral character” and are thereby unworthy of breathing.
We had a big talk the last couple of days about the kind of businesses we should have in Batavia. I, of course, advocate start ups rather than bringing in chains. I'd love to see more entrepreneurs in the community. But how many people never take the plunge of going into business for themselves because they can't afford to loose their employer-supplied health insurance?
Something needs to be done about health care and health insurance in this country. The current system is killing a lot of what is great about America. I've never been a fan of what the Democrats have proposed, but I've seen squat come out of the Republicans on this issue. I feel ready to just say, "Obama, have at it. Be as socialist as you want to be on this issue because the Republicans sure as hell ain't going to do anything."
It is cruel and inhumane to assume that those who can't afford insurance, can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions, or have had insurance drop because medical bills were too high are in that situation because they chose to be.
I am so sick of hearing that.
No, you don't know the whole story. It is a sad one, to be sure. Her parents owned a 61 acre farm in Kentucky. They grew tobacco, corn, a garden and raised horses, cows, cats and dogs and even chincillas at one time. They had that farm for 34 years.
Her father died and her mother was suffering from dementia. Her brother in law convinced her mother to sign the farm over to him. The woman did.
In the meantime, Constance's husband abandoned her and her son. She never heard from him again.
Her sister convinced her to move back to the farm to take care of their mother because the sister's husband didn't want the burden of caring for her.
Constance and her young son moved in and she was barely hanging on to catch a class or two when she could. She tried working, but she couldn't afford child care for her son and day care for her mother.
To make a long story short, about 8 months before she died, the brother in law got a good deal to sell the farm. He evicted his mother in law, Constance and her son in order to sell it.
They moved into a small apartment in another town and it was shortly after that when she started getting sick.
She would wake up and her stomach would be bloated. She couldn't keep much down. We begged her to go to a doctor but she didn't know anyone in her building who could stay with her son and mother. She didn't have insurance and money was too tight to pay for a visit to the ER.
This cancer spread fast. I'm not talking about an interval of months or years, but weeks.
One of our members called her and Constance told her, in tears, that she was doubled over in pain. She convinced her to get to a hospital. Constance said that she would take her son and mother with her to a clinic.
That was the last we heard from her. It was a few weeks after that someone, in the group, found her obituary on line.
They lived on her mother's social security check. There was no extra money.
It is easy for those of you who are well insured to dismiss the real problems others have. No one that young, with a son that she loved, would chose to die.
The options you suggest may sound simple, but there are realities that you can't comprehend.
Should some one who never took care of there health ..ex.smoking,eating a diet of all fast food,do nothing to stay in shape,Should they get free health care..Should an insurance company be force to insure the high risk people at the same rate as a person that took more of a responsible approach to their health..What's next the government paying for car insurance..As it stands right now if you are poor on welfare you have health care ,if you are in prison you have health care ,if you are over 65 you have health care..seems like the government is already forking out a ton of cash on health care..I already pay to have health care i don't want to pay anymore..
Welcome aboard Howard! I guess we are going to have to teach you the secret socialist handshake and password. I guess you are right, a bad plan is better than no plan at all. I wish the Republicans had decided to work on making the bill better. The fact is they failed us and now we will just have to live with what we get.
A bad plan is better than no plan? Really? I'll bet all the former employees and pensioners of AC Delco, B & L, Kodak, and Xerox would disagree. On a more local note, how about the plan that resulted in the mall downtown? That worked out just great, didn't it?
Bea, everyone has a story to tell and Constances story is a tragic one and I am sorry for the loss you have experienced. But when you get to know anyone you will find tragedies that most never know about. For every Constance in the world there is also someone who has health insurance and still refuses for some reason to act on early onset symptoms and as a result discover terminal illnesses too late. No one in this country whether here legally or not can ever say that they cannot go to a hospital because of a lack of health insurance or money. Millions of people find a way each and every day and yes it is at the rest of our expense and needs to be fixed. But I still assert that no one dies due to a lack of health insurance. There has never been a more dire time in our country for real health insurance reforms and this past year has at least exposed the problems of how our system has been corrupted. The answer however is not to turn over the reigns to our government when it can ill afford to support it. The Constances of this world are a startling reminder of why the time is now to reform the way our citizens who are less fortunate get access to healthcare, the current legislation, which we still cannot predict its affect on a teetering economy, is not the answer.
Bea, your first sentence implied that I fall into the category of cruel and inhuman. If you knew my life and background you would know that I am far from cruel and inhuman when it comes to reaching out and helping people in need, I am however a realist and know that there is a better way to help those less fortunate than by continuing to put them under the yoke of government dependence.
Jeff, I related that story because John doesn't believe that people die because of lack of insurance.
They die because they can't afford medical care or insurance and are too proud, not lazy and shiftless, to ask for charity.
Constance should be the banner for people who don't want their money helping others get insurance. She did the noble thing, she died so it wouldn't cost anything to anyone.
John,
Read what has been written. If you go to the ER without insurance, that money is coming out of someone's pocket.
If you don't have insurance or can't pay for it, then you are lazy and shiftless.
She was terrified of not being able to pay a bill. We pleaded with her and told her a hospital or a doctor would have to treat her, but she kept insisting that she didn't have the money; she didn't have insurance.
Regardless of whether she could get help or not isn't the point. The point is she didn't want to be someone beholding to others.
Pride? Maybe. But maybe she had heard it too often that she would be a burden on society.
I wonder what the number of people who die with insurance is to the number of people who die without. My bet is that those with insurance are in a much bigger group.
From Wikipedea: A legislator (or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people. Legislatures may be supra-national (for example, the United Nations General Assembly), national (for example, the United States Congress), regional (for example, the Scottish Parliament) or local (for example, local authorities).
Peter, you should try reading something written by a person who doesn't keep a bust of Ayn Rand on their mantelpiece. Variety is the spice of life after all.
The "lazy and shiftless" people i was refering to were ONLY the many worthless "Welly's" running around genesee county bringing the rest of this great county and country down.
I do recogonize the fact that there are a few people who are very GOOD, upstanding people who work hard for a living and still cant afford health care. For THOSE people we do need real reform, but instead of bankrupting the country by means of handouts we should investigate the greed that plagues the health care system and EVERYONE involved in it, and bring health care COSTS way down so everyone can realistically afford it.
Plus, I agree with your statements earlier on in this thread that insurance companies are the problem, although they are not the ONLY problem, they are certainly the front runners to why everything is so out of whack.
Tim, I respect the basis of your opinion here although I don't agree with the way you stated it.
The problem, as I see it, is that insurance companies will never willingly participate in reform. It doesn't matter how nicely you ask them, if you don't enact new laws that govern their practices they'll ignore you until you go away.
I've always been a proponent of a single payer system for basic, and I do mean 'basic', heath care needs, but I've also been on board with some of the Republican suggestions including reasonable tort reform and cross-state purchasing of health insurance plans.
The bill, in it's current form, does not give us single payer or a public option, but it does address some of the more egregious practices that insurance companies engage in. I'm not being sarcastic or disingenuous when I say that I think a lot of people who don't think they like this bill will be pleasantly surprised when some of the reforms start happening for real.
There are just soooooo many things about this bill that scares me.
-The Cost: When you see how much $$ is going to be spent on this bill and all the $$ that this poor excuse for an administration has already spent in the short couple years in office on foolish things(and before anyone else misquotes me, i am NOT refering to THIS problem as foolish), i just think that it should be almost perfect. Now i know "perfect" is not possible for anything the gov't does (regardless of who is in the white house) but, Its got to be done right....Man, the dollar signs scare me, they really do
-Gov't sticking nose where it does not belong: With the exception of Defense, which to be honest with you is the ONLY job i believe gov't should do and was ever intended to do. I believe EVERYTHING else should be left to each state to work out on thier own. It really scares me that the gov't hand in being dipped in to so many areas of our lives. I know something needs to be done with health care, and rather quickly its just that uncle sam does not have a good track record with being efficient. And that march toward socialism is getting closer one step at a time. BTW, i loved that post towards the beginning of this thread with the huge list of gov't insufficiancy....so very true.
-People standing on thier own 2 feet: Now i realize the way i worded things in my first post may have ruffled some feathers and i dont appologize for what i said, and i know it may have seemed harsh, but another thing that really bugs me about this whole discussion is the fact that people are asking for handouts, when all that needs to be done is finding the evil people responsible for the ridiculous price of health care and in one way or another "bringing them to justice", not just handing health care over to people. 100 years ago the thought of a welfare system would be OFFENSIVE to pretty much every american (even the ones that needed help) Sort of along the same lines as Bea's story of her poor friend. People were taught to take care of thier own familys and NOT to ask for handouts. Heck even 50 years ago most people would be appalled by the thought of getting a "free ride" in life, getting "something for nothing", and not working very hard to put food on the table and to take care of thier health care needs. Now again, i know that there are some people who are trying and working so hard for thier familys and still cant afford to go to the doc's or to get proper meds for ailments they may have, but is it really the Gov't job to get involved? This is where the matter becomes a very delicate one. How do we help the ones that need help WITHOUT getting the gov't involved or should i say without the gov't sticking its nose in? And how do we go after the greed within the health care system, again preferably WITHOUT the gov't "helping"? What scares me the most is instead of "we the people" trying to work things out for ourselves, some of us are VERY comfortable with turning over problems to the gov't to solve....Very scary.
-Morals: Expensive terminal illness nowdays compared to a generation or 2 ago. Another theory of mine is a moral issue. Have any of you wondered why the heck there is so darn much cancer and terminal illness now days that was not there 50 to 100 years ago. In the lifestyles we live, the foods we eat, the garbage that is put into the foods we eat that once again our friend the gov't says is ok to put in there. I think there are very obvious reasons why so many people are getting terminally ill now as compared to a generation or so ago. Lets put it this way, the next time you go grocery shopping say this to yourself "if it wasnt food 50 years ago, its not food today" And believe me, this is not exactly coming from a "health nut" i am a junkfood junkie myself so i dont exactly practice what i preach. But my theory is not JUST that we dont make good food decisions, its the fact that the companies providing us with foods are not exactly being kept to high standard as far as what they put in it.
Tim,
If you look back, Health Insurance got its big start because during WWII, there was a wage freeze and for companies competing for workers under the wage freeze, this was a new benefit idea. It was not covered under the wage and price controls. As more companies offered it, unions started to ask for coverage in lieu of wage increase before and after the war. As demand went up, so did prices. Over the years, lack of tort reform helped drive up the cost also.
And the federal government made things worse by also letting Health Insurance Companies be a monopoly. If they had let them be like car or home insurance, where you could buy from anyone you wanted, maybe this problem might not have gotten so out of hand.
Something to remember about this new plan. It does not stop costs from going up. And while it will cover pre existing conditions, the cost for those policies will be up to 30% more than standard policies. And standard policy prices can keep going up.
It will also tax things like wheel chairs and even dental filings, at 5% to pay for all this. Of course, the tax will be passed on to us in higher costs.
But even if you like this plan, the biggest problem is that for the very first time you will made to buy a product, even if you don't want it and just want to pay cash when you see the doctor. And failure to buy the product could result in jail. That is a major loose of freedom and is only a money grab.
Name one thing other than
Name one thing other than kicking the crap out of other nations the government does well.
Amtrak...nope
Education...nope
Social Security...nope
Medicare...nope
Medicaid...nope
Tax Collection...nope
Census...nope
Elections...nope
Close our borders...nope
Listen to the people...nope
Avoid corruption...nope
Create jobs...nope
Make American resources available...nope
Stop Iran with diplomacy...nope
Fiscal Responsibility...nope
Provide H1N1 vaccines...nope
Crap on American businesses...yes Oh wait thats bad.
Prosecute Criminals...Based on A.C.O.R.N. and the New Black Panthers, nope.
I love this ridiculousness
I love this ridiculousness from Pelosi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU
Just pass it and THEN we'll know what's in it? HAHAHAHA! Okay..I have a bridge for sale in Antarctica. Just agree to buy it from me and then I'll tell you the price and where the bridge starts and stops...mmmkay?
Paul Ryan: Hiding Spending
Paul Ryan: Hiding Spending Doesn't Reduce Spending:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxMZ1WdINs
I love the look on Obama's face...priceless.
Sifting through the political
Sifting through the political muscling and corporate disinformation, it is hard to imagine that anyone in this country (outside of the insurance companies) would refute that the health care system is in need of repair. Given the dearth of bills on the table to fix the mess, if Congress does not pass this one; nothing will change.
As with any challenge to unrestrained corporate profiteering, this one has been redefined via the (snicker! Liberal Media) as a Titan battle between American (spelled: Wall Street) Values and Socialist Domination. Anyone who has ever walked a dog knows what that rendering smells like.
It's bait and switch, folks. You can wear your pride in walloping Pelosi and Obama or you can feel secure with your ability to access health care- whichever is more important to you.
WORST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME!!
WORST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME!!
GEORGE W. BUSH WAS THE WORST
GEORGE W. BUSH WAS THE WORST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME!!
Different Strokes for different folks, as the saying goes.
CM, There is nothing wrong
CM,
There is nothing wrong with health care. It's insurance coverage reform that is needed.
George,
Since 1900, I vote for Hoover and/or Carter as the worst presidents.
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C.M. save your bandwidth.
C.M. save your bandwidth. You are talking to the far right here and they would rather see people die for lack of health care than give up their continual bashing of this administration.
Funny how all that support it
Funny how all that support it all say it's not perfect, it has alot of things that are no good ,but it's the best we can do,and that it's better than nothing..Sound like a good reason to start over and get it right..I was always taught not to do something half-assed...because you only have to go back later and fix it right..
Bea, I know a lot of people
Bea,
I know a lot of people who can not afford health insurance and many of them end up using the Emergency Room (which we all end up paying for).
But, I have never known anyone to die because they lacked care. Do you have any names of people you personally knew that died because they had no care?
Mark, we tried the
Mark, we tried the whole-assed approach (single-payer) then we tried the three-quater assed approach (public option.) Both of them resulted in misinformed ranting at townhall meetings. Now we've arrived at the half assed approach which is certainly not as good as it would be should there be more ass involved. :)
http://www.reuters.com/articl
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58G6W520090917
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/18/deaths.health.insurance/
Now tell me the system doesn't need to be reformed.
John, I can give a pretty
John, I can give a pretty good example from just a couple weeks ago.
A guy I know is a self-employed contractor. Due to the lack of work in the winter months he is unable to afford health insurance. In late February he had a small wound that became infected. After a few days the pain was so bad he decided he had no choice but to head to the emergency room. When he got there they told him the infection had spread to his blood and he spent the next couple days near death while they tried to figure out the exact type of infection and how to treat it.
After they came up with a treatment plan for him and administered the initial medication, he pulled out his IV's, got up and walked out of the hospital. The doctors pleaded with him to stay in the hospital to finish treatment and told him very directly that if he went home the likelihood of relapse was severe. He left anyway because he was afraid if he stayed in the hospital any longer with no insurance that he wouldn't be able to pay the bill. He has a family to support and tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills simply could not fit into his budget.
I'm happy to report that his wife took very good care of him and he's out of the woods, but his lack of insurance directly led to his brush with mortality.
Not a single bit of that story was exaggerated and I'm sure it happens every day in America. This gentleman's trial is a perfect example of why our health care system is broken. Had there been an affordable public option, maybe he would have had coverage and gone to see a primary care physician before things got bad. If we had a single payer system there would have been no concern at all.
In my humble opinion, the health care bill on the table sucks, but it sucks a lot less than the system we have now.
Here's a couple of links I
Here's a couple of links I came across recently that are interesting ...
First, my friend Matt Welch, editor of the libertarian Reason magazine on "<a href="http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/07/why-prefer-french-health-care">Why I prefer French health care</a>."
Paul Krugman on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12krugman.html">health care myths</a>.
Those who just bash reform for the sake of bashing reform should read these pieces.
One cannot differentiate
One cannot differentiate health insurance from health care. The two are inextricably entwined. One might say, they are codependent. The first question any health care provider will ask (often prior to inquiry of the medical emergency at hand) is, "Who is your insurer?" The answer to that one question determines all that follows.
Approaching a health care provider without insurance is similar to trying to rent a room in the Hilton without a major credit card. Unfortunately, the consequences are distinctly more dire. A healthy person can survive a night on a park bench.
As to why enact something that is admittedly incomplete? It is a start that can be built upon. To go back to square one is exactly what the insurance companies hope for. It delays the process- perhaps indefinitely and allows them to tailor a bill that can be fed to Congress by their lackeys.
You only get so many windows of opportunity for reform. To pass one by is what my mother used to dub: cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Peter - great list but you
Peter - great list but you forgot the USPS. I think they have lost about 10 billion in the last two years. I find this funny because they have a monopoly on shipping parcels for anything below $1.00. I'll bet Fedex and UPS might have made some adjustments after the first quarter of the first year of losses. I wonder if a 10 million dollar CEO would have made the Post Office profitable(saving $9,990,000,000 of taxpayers money).
Although it's not a federal issue, half the state run liquor stores in Minnesota lose money. The free market seems to do just fine with them even with the huge amount of ridiculous regulation they are subject to.
An entity that has no incentive to do things well and has no accountability will never be able to accomplish their intended goal.
Chris, That's my point. We
Chris,
That's my point. We need insurance reform, not health care reform. Leave my doctor alone.
And your friend did get medical care. He did not almost die because he could not get care, he almost died because he could not afford the care he was getting and decided to leave the hospital.
Bea said people have died. I just want to know who she knows that died. Not second hand, first hand.
One thing that bothers me Chris, is that if your friend decided he just did not want insurance, he will now be FORCED to buy it. If he does not, the IRS will fine him. And if he does not pay the fine, he can be put in jail. I don't consider that reform.
Chris, I loved your
Chris, I loved your assessment of assorted-assed approaches to health care reform.
John, I'll refer you back to
John,
I'll refer you back to C.M Barons' latest post. health insurance and health care in this country are inseparable entities. The fact that they are tied so closely together is at the root of many problems with affordability and quality of care. If we had a single-payer system for basic health care needs we wouldn't have to argue about mandated health care purchases.
I noticed you failed to mention that under most public option proposals the purchaser would get a tax subsidy to cover the insurance cost. It doesn't really matter though since the words 'public' and 'option' won't be within four paragraphs of each other in whatever health care bill we end up with. Not from this Congress anyway.
Chris, Again, I said we need
Chris,
Again, I said we need insurance reform.
But, if you think I like the idea that you take my money, out of my pocket (tax subsidy), to give to somebody else, so they can buy insurance, think again.
And the idea you can go to jail because you just don't want to buy a product (insurance)is just plain wrong.
But tax subsidies are another subject altogether.
John, I had a good friend,
John,
I had a good friend, Constance Frazer 1961 - 2006 from my online genealogical group. She didn't go to the doctor for a disease that turned out to be terminal. Although friends tried to persuade her to go, she refused because she didn't have insurance.
She suffered a great deal. She would come online and tell us what was going on; the stomach pains would double her over, she couldn't sleep at night, she was vomiting all the time. She had a young son and an ailing mother under her care.
Her goal was to be a para-legal and was working on her BS on a part time basis. A few months before she was to graduate, the stomach pains became unbearable. She did go to a clinic and was sent to a nearby hospital.
She had surgery the following day. Her stomach cancer was so far advanced that there was nothing they could do.
She passed away two days later leaving a young son, just ten years old, and her mother.
The mother was placed in a nursing home and the child was given to his aunt and uncle to raise.
I don't know how more graphic one can get about how helpless some feel when they know they can't pay for health care and can't pay for insurance.
PS: John, if you doubt this, I have the cookbook we dedicated to this wonderful young woman who left us way too early. Her biography is in the book. I'd be more than glad to share it with you sometime.
Bea and Chris, both examples
Bea and Chris, both examples you gave reflect people who made choices not to get help at the onset of their conditions. They could have used the ER or local clinics. These are unfortunate stories but do not support the notion that the lack of health insurance resulted in death. Chris, why did your friend not work doing something else during the winter months? Bea, if Constance was going to college, most colleges offer low cost health insurance to their students? I don't know the particulars of each story, but most of the time when you scratch the surface, you find that immediately blaming the system is not the appropriate answer. Now the easy route is to condemn anyone who tries to find out if there were alternatives available in these stories as cold and unsympathetic, but that is simply not the case. I agree with John that health insurance reform is what is needed, not the current reforms to the entire idea that are being proposed.
If people die without health insurance it is almost always as a result of a choice or a breakdown in the system elsewhere that won't be fixed by means of the proposed legislation.
Howard, I wonder how many of
Howard, I wonder how many of the nay-sayers already have health insurance through their employers. Maybe that ought to be a poll.
After my husband and I retired, we paid about $12,000 per year for health insurance. That did NOT cover doctor appointments which totaled roughly another $1200-1500 per year. We now have medicare [a public option] with suplimental health insurance from the company that begins with a "B". Immediately upon my husband signing up [I already had it for a few months] the company jacked the prices up by 40% for the following year. All told, we still pay $6,000 for health insurance. I don't expect they plan to lower it any time soon. They are proud of their record payout to stockholders. Meanwhile they are squeezing the membership dry.
For Bea McManis, I am sorry about your friend.
For any politicians who read The Batavian, hell will freeze over before I vote for any legislator who votes against health care reform.
There won't be any
There won't be any legislators voting one way or the other for Health Care Reform since it's a matter before Congress.
Janice, the fact that you and
Janice, the fact that you and your husband paid $12,000 per year for health insurance that didn't even cover Drs visits is outrageous and precisley the problem that needs to be addressed in real health care reform, now how exactly does the current proposed legislation fix that problem? And please don't quote Obama yesterday when he said our premiums would decrease by 3000% allowing employers to give us raises too.
Jeff, the gentleman I told
Jeff, the gentleman I told you about avoided the emergency room and doctor's office because he couldn't afford insurance nor could he afford the astronomical price of an emergency room visit. Sure, he made a choice but what I'm saying to you is that a person shouldn't have to make a choice between making ends meet that month and going to see the doctor for a treatable condition.
It's easy for those of us who don't have to make choices like that to judge another human being. After all, I have health insurance that covers my whole family, I could easily ignore the problems that others have. I choose not to be ignorant of other people's hardships though, because I don't believe for a second that simply because I'm taken care of that I can look the other way when another human being is not.
I believe that for our society to be moral and just, we must take great pains to ensure that even the least among us are afforded the opportunity to have their basic needs met. I believe to the core of my soul that basic health care is tied directly in with the right to life that our forbears cited in The Declaration of Independence and I believe, sir, that no man, and certainly no corporation, has the right to tell another man that the amount of money he can pay should have any bearing on his value as a human being.
Bottom line: The ONLY people
Bottom line:
The ONLY people in this country who deserve to have "Complete, free, and worry free" health care are the elderly. Our country as a whole I believe have totally turned thier backs on the elderly. Why is it when people retire now days they have to WORK more than they did before they retired? Because of thier health care...That makes NO sense what-so-ever.
LEGAL CITIZENS of this country who are 65 and older are the ONLY ones who should have it.
Anyone under the age of 65, shame on you for asking any HARD WORKING people to pay for your worthless, lazy uninsured "arses". Not only is greed a factor here, but a complete breakdown in the moral fabric of society as well. If you don't work, you shouldnt eat. It does not get more simple than that. One of the many many many problems with this bill is that most of the people who will receive it are the lazy welfare receiving wastes of oxygen who are already sucking our paychecks dry.
Do not even think about using the economy as a rebuttle, if you are of true moral character, you will find some honest work somewhere to pay your bills.
And for the record i too do believe that the COST of health care is way out of whack and again GREED on BOTH sides (hospitals, doctors, insurance companies) ALL parties involved in health care are to blame, you can fix the system without needlessly bankrupting this country.
“…worthless…lazy welfare
“…worthless…lazy welfare receiving wastes of oxygen…"
"Do not even think about using the economy as a rebuttle (sic), if you are of true moral character, you will find some honest work somewhere to pay your bills.”
In other words, if a person is unable to find work in the mythical land of “somewhere” they are NOT of “true moral character” and are thereby unworthy of breathing.
Disgusting.
We had a big talk the last
We had a big talk the last couple of days about the kind of businesses we should have in Batavia. I, of course, advocate start ups rather than bringing in chains. I'd love to see more entrepreneurs in the community. But how many people never take the plunge of going into business for themselves because they can't afford to loose their employer-supplied health insurance?
Something needs to be done about health care and health insurance in this country. The current system is killing a lot of what is great about America. I've never been a fan of what the Democrats have proposed, but I've seen squat come out of the Republicans on this issue. I feel ready to just say, "Obama, have at it. Be as socialist as you want to be on this issue because the Republicans sure as hell ain't going to do anything."
It is cruel and inhumane to
It is cruel and inhumane to assume that those who can't afford insurance, can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions, or have had insurance drop because medical bills were too high are in that situation because they chose to be.
I am so sick of hearing that.
No, you don't know the whole story. It is a sad one, to be sure. Her parents owned a 61 acre farm in Kentucky. They grew tobacco, corn, a garden and raised horses, cows, cats and dogs and even chincillas at one time. They had that farm for 34 years.
Her father died and her mother was suffering from dementia. Her brother in law convinced her mother to sign the farm over to him. The woman did.
In the meantime, Constance's husband abandoned her and her son. She never heard from him again.
Her sister convinced her to move back to the farm to take care of their mother because the sister's husband didn't want the burden of caring for her.
Constance and her young son moved in and she was barely hanging on to catch a class or two when she could. She tried working, but she couldn't afford child care for her son and day care for her mother.
To make a long story short, about 8 months before she died, the brother in law got a good deal to sell the farm. He evicted his mother in law, Constance and her son in order to sell it.
They moved into a small apartment in another town and it was shortly after that when she started getting sick.
She would wake up and her stomach would be bloated. She couldn't keep much down. We begged her to go to a doctor but she didn't know anyone in her building who could stay with her son and mother. She didn't have insurance and money was too tight to pay for a visit to the ER.
This cancer spread fast. I'm not talking about an interval of months or years, but weeks.
One of our members called her and Constance told her, in tears, that she was doubled over in pain. She convinced her to get to a hospital. Constance said that she would take her son and mother with her to a clinic.
That was the last we heard from her. It was a few weeks after that someone, in the group, found her obituary on line.
They lived on her mother's social security check. There was no extra money.
It is easy for those of you who are well insured to dismiss the real problems others have. No one that young, with a son that she loved, would chose to die.
The options you suggest may sound simple, but there are realities that you can't comprehend.
Should some one who never
Should some one who never took care of there health ..ex.smoking,eating a diet of all fast food,do nothing to stay in shape,Should they get free health care..Should an insurance company be force to insure the high risk people at the same rate as a person that took more of a responsible approach to their health..What's next the government paying for car insurance..As it stands right now if you are poor on welfare you have health care ,if you are in prison you have health care ,if you are over 65 you have health care..seems like the government is already forking out a ton of cash on health care..I already pay to have health care i don't want to pay anymore..
I'd say you're about to get
I'd say you're about to get your wish Howard. Remember to keep saying that to yourself after this monstrosity becomes law, and it will.
Welcome aboard Howard! I
Welcome aboard Howard! I guess we are going to have to teach you the secret socialist handshake and password. I guess you are right, a bad plan is better than no plan at all. I wish the Republicans had decided to work on making the bill better. The fact is they failed us and now we will just have to live with what we get.
A bad plan is better than no
A bad plan is better than no plan? Really? I'll bet all the former employees and pensioners of AC Delco, B & L, Kodak, and Xerox would disagree. On a more local note, how about the plan that resulted in the mall downtown? That worked out just great, didn't it?
Bea, everyone has a story to
Bea, everyone has a story to tell and Constances story is a tragic one and I am sorry for the loss you have experienced. But when you get to know anyone you will find tragedies that most never know about. For every Constance in the world there is also someone who has health insurance and still refuses for some reason to act on early onset symptoms and as a result discover terminal illnesses too late. No one in this country whether here legally or not can ever say that they cannot go to a hospital because of a lack of health insurance or money. Millions of people find a way each and every day and yes it is at the rest of our expense and needs to be fixed. But I still assert that no one dies due to a lack of health insurance. There has never been a more dire time in our country for real health insurance reforms and this past year has at least exposed the problems of how our system has been corrupted. The answer however is not to turn over the reigns to our government when it can ill afford to support it. The Constances of this world are a startling reminder of why the time is now to reform the way our citizens who are less fortunate get access to healthcare, the current legislation, which we still cannot predict its affect on a teetering economy, is not the answer.
Bea, your first sentence implied that I fall into the category of cruel and inhuman. If you knew my life and background you would know that I am far from cruel and inhuman when it comes to reaching out and helping people in need, I am however a realist and know that there is a better way to help those less fortunate than by continuing to put them under the yoke of government dependence.
Charlie, At least your right,
Charlie,
At least your right, it's a bad plan.
Jeff, I related that story
Jeff, I related that story because John doesn't believe that people die because of lack of insurance.
They die because they can't afford medical care or insurance and are too proud, not lazy and shiftless, to ask for charity.
Constance should be the banner for people who don't want their money helping others get insurance. She did the noble thing, she died so it wouldn't cost anything to anyone.
Bea, From what I read, she
Bea,
From what I read, she could have recieved care.
John, Read what has been
John,
Read what has been written. If you go to the ER without insurance, that money is coming out of someone's pocket.
If you don't have insurance or can't pay for it, then you are lazy and shiftless.
She was terrified of not being able to pay a bill. We pleaded with her and told her a hospital or a doctor would have to treat her, but she kept insisting that she didn't have the money; she didn't have insurance.
Regardless of whether she could get help or not isn't the point. The point is she didn't want to be someone beholding to others.
Pride? Maybe. But maybe she had heard it too often that she would be a burden on society.
People die every day with
People die every day with health care...They have it and don't go see a Dr. until its to late..With it or with out people die..
delete
delete
Msrk, I wonder what the
Msrk,
I wonder what the number of people who die with insurance is to the number of people who die without. My bet is that those with insurance are in a much bigger group.
Everyone else,
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/10/IsHealthCareARight.htm
Read that if you think Health Care is a right.
Maybe Howard should change
Maybe Howard should change the name of this forum to Eugenics Supporters Anonymous.
From Wikipedea: A legislator
From Wikipedea: A legislator (or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people. Legislatures may be supra-national (for example, the United Nations General Assembly), national (for example, the United States Congress), regional (for example, the Scottish Parliament) or local (for example, local authorities).
Peter, you should try reading
Peter, you should try reading something written by a person who doesn't keep a bust of Ayn Rand on their mantelpiece. Variety is the spice of life after all.
Bea, The point you were first
Bea,
The point you were first trying to make is that she died only because she did not have insurance.
I say that's not why. She could have had care.
And only one idiot said people without insurance are "lazy and shiftless". Of course, he's clueless and not very bright, but that is not a crime.
Mr. Roach, The "lazy and
Mr. Roach,
The "lazy and shiftless" people i was refering to were ONLY the many worthless "Welly's" running around genesee county bringing the rest of this great county and country down.
I do recogonize the fact that there are a few people who are very GOOD, upstanding people who work hard for a living and still cant afford health care. For THOSE people we do need real reform, but instead of bankrupting the country by means of handouts we should investigate the greed that plagues the health care system and EVERYONE involved in it, and bring health care COSTS way down so everyone can realistically afford it.
Plus, I agree with your statements earlier on in this thread that insurance companies are the problem, although they are not the ONLY problem, they are certainly the front runners to why everything is so out of whack.
Tim, I respect the basis of
Tim, I respect the basis of your opinion here although I don't agree with the way you stated it.
The problem, as I see it, is that insurance companies will never willingly participate in reform. It doesn't matter how nicely you ask them, if you don't enact new laws that govern their practices they'll ignore you until you go away.
I've always been a proponent of a single payer system for basic, and I do mean 'basic', heath care needs, but I've also been on board with some of the Republican suggestions including reasonable tort reform and cross-state purchasing of health insurance plans.
The bill, in it's current form, does not give us single payer or a public option, but it does address some of the more egregious practices that insurance companies engage in. I'm not being sarcastic or disingenuous when I say that I think a lot of people who don't think they like this bill will be pleasantly surprised when some of the reforms start happening for real.
Chris, There are just
Chris,
There are just soooooo many things about this bill that scares me.
-The Cost: When you see how much $$ is going to be spent on this bill and all the $$ that this poor excuse for an administration has already spent in the short couple years in office on foolish things(and before anyone else misquotes me, i am NOT refering to THIS problem as foolish), i just think that it should be almost perfect. Now i know "perfect" is not possible for anything the gov't does (regardless of who is in the white house) but, Its got to be done right....Man, the dollar signs scare me, they really do
-Gov't sticking nose where it does not belong: With the exception of Defense, which to be honest with you is the ONLY job i believe gov't should do and was ever intended to do. I believe EVERYTHING else should be left to each state to work out on thier own. It really scares me that the gov't hand in being dipped in to so many areas of our lives. I know something needs to be done with health care, and rather quickly its just that uncle sam does not have a good track record with being efficient. And that march toward socialism is getting closer one step at a time. BTW, i loved that post towards the beginning of this thread with the huge list of gov't insufficiancy....so very true.
-People standing on thier own 2 feet: Now i realize the way i worded things in my first post may have ruffled some feathers and i dont appologize for what i said, and i know it may have seemed harsh, but another thing that really bugs me about this whole discussion is the fact that people are asking for handouts, when all that needs to be done is finding the evil people responsible for the ridiculous price of health care and in one way or another "bringing them to justice", not just handing health care over to people. 100 years ago the thought of a welfare system would be OFFENSIVE to pretty much every american (even the ones that needed help) Sort of along the same lines as Bea's story of her poor friend. People were taught to take care of thier own familys and NOT to ask for handouts. Heck even 50 years ago most people would be appalled by the thought of getting a "free ride" in life, getting "something for nothing", and not working very hard to put food on the table and to take care of thier health care needs. Now again, i know that there are some people who are trying and working so hard for thier familys and still cant afford to go to the doc's or to get proper meds for ailments they may have, but is it really the Gov't job to get involved? This is where the matter becomes a very delicate one. How do we help the ones that need help WITHOUT getting the gov't involved or should i say without the gov't sticking its nose in? And how do we go after the greed within the health care system, again preferably WITHOUT the gov't "helping"? What scares me the most is instead of "we the people" trying to work things out for ourselves, some of us are VERY comfortable with turning over problems to the gov't to solve....Very scary.
-Morals: Expensive terminal illness nowdays compared to a generation or 2 ago. Another theory of mine is a moral issue. Have any of you wondered why the heck there is so darn much cancer and terminal illness now days that was not there 50 to 100 years ago. In the lifestyles we live, the foods we eat, the garbage that is put into the foods we eat that once again our friend the gov't says is ok to put in there. I think there are very obvious reasons why so many people are getting terminally ill now as compared to a generation or so ago. Lets put it this way, the next time you go grocery shopping say this to yourself "if it wasnt food 50 years ago, its not food today" And believe me, this is not exactly coming from a "health nut" i am a junkfood junkie myself so i dont exactly practice what i preach. But my theory is not JUST that we dont make good food decisions, its the fact that the companies providing us with foods are not exactly being kept to high standard as far as what they put in it.
Tim, If you look back, Health
Tim,
If you look back, Health Insurance got its big start because during WWII, there was a wage freeze and for companies competing for workers under the wage freeze, this was a new benefit idea. It was not covered under the wage and price controls. As more companies offered it, unions started to ask for coverage in lieu of wage increase before and after the war. As demand went up, so did prices. Over the years, lack of tort reform helped drive up the cost also.
And the federal government made things worse by also letting Health Insurance Companies be a monopoly. If they had let them be like car or home insurance, where you could buy from anyone you wanted, maybe this problem might not have gotten so out of hand.
Something to remember about this new plan. It does not stop costs from going up. And while it will cover pre existing conditions, the cost for those policies will be up to 30% more than standard policies. And standard policy prices can keep going up.
It will also tax things like wheel chairs and even dental filings, at 5% to pay for all this. Of course, the tax will be passed on to us in higher costs.
But even if you like this plan, the biggest problem is that for the very first time you will made to buy a product, even if you don't want it and just want to pay cash when you see the doctor. And failure to buy the product could result in jail. That is a major loose of freedom and is only a money grab.
So basically John, there is
So basically John, there is nothing good about this bill what so ever. Yep, I get that feeling too :(
I had a friend email this to
I had a friend email this to me. I hope I linked the video right.
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