Obama, Congress easing debate on public health care option
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Molenir
The primary reason he wants at least some Republican support for this, is when it fails, and it will fail. When it becomes law, and its looking increasingly likly it will, and the public despises it. He will be able to claim it was bipartisan support that passed the unamerican boondoggle. Of course this is a lie as well. Managing to pass a bill when you have overwhelming numbers in both houses of congress, and attracting a single senate supporter does not bipartisan make.
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yabits
Yes, ensuring that all American citizens have affordable access to health care is, to Republicans, an un-American boondoggle. That's why "the public" which escorted the Republicans out of power in a major way last November despises them and their ongoing lies.
Candidate Barack Obama laid out his plans to reform the health care system back on the campaign trail, and the public "despised" it so much that they gave him a sweeping victory over his Republican opponent and his plan. Getting 70,000 teabaggers out in DC and calling it 2 million is a good example of the delusion of grandeur and influence that conservatives fancy themselves having these days. Getting a relative smattering of committed, obnoxious, bellowing, scared ignoramuses to expose themselves at town hall meetings isn't helping matters either.
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skipthesong
Yabits, where did you get your numbers from? I just looked at several photos and compared them to http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm
Unless someone really good at photoshop, I think your numbers are coming up wrong? Also, the 2Mil was spoken by Pelosi, in order to make it seem as though the March failed. Additionally, the Parks Department nor the DC Police released any numbers as their policy has been not to release numbers for marches like this for the past 13 years (why?).
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adaydream
That's a made up number, yabits know it, like we do. I heard a republican big wig from the march say it 1.5 million. yabits is playing with you.
UnAmerican. I love that. Is it like being unAmerican for not supporting bush in attacking Iraq? Is it unAmerican like not supporting bush's reasons for attacking Iraq?
What's the unAmerican part?
I say no public option than just throw it all away. With out the public option the insurance companies have no reason to reform. < :-)
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skipthesong
I say no public option than just throw it all away. With out the public option the insurance companies have no reason to reform." Well, that does seem a bit true. however, with a public option there might not be any profitable business for them to bother with. So, we got a problem. do you expect a someone to pay 100+K a year on getting a med degree and make a moderate salary?
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Molenir
Sorry, but supporting socialism is unamerican. I don't particularly care if you don't like it, but there it is. Doesn't mean if you are actually citizens and support it, that you're traitors or anything, its merely that you support something that is far and away from what most Americans consider to be their heritage.
See this is what I don't understand. What is it thats so evil about the insurance companies? I mean it. I truly don't understand this attitude. Its like you have this idea that somehow its all the evil corporations fault. Anything that goes wrong is because its not the government that ran things. I don't see it. Companies to me are much better then government when it comes to things like this. If you impact their bottom line, they will change. The government which if full of faceless bureaucrats won't really change, even if you elect someone else. I truly fail to see how this is any better.
You trust the government so much you want them to run your life, and yet you don't think they should have the right to sort through your computer files or listen to your phone conversations. To me, theres an obvious hypocrisy here. Do you trust them or not?
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skipthesong
Companies to me are much better then government when it comes to things like this. If you impact their bottom line, they will change. The government which if full of faceless bureaucrats won't really change, even if you elect someone else. I truly fail to see how this is any better." And they won't get fired, many of them are not in the government sector becasue they are good at their job - most are not, but because of a slew of items not related to their job. Heck, being a Brownie is more challenging than working for the gov...
You trust the government so much you want them to run your life" That's the point that no one is hearing. In Japan, we can not refuse a vaccine, we can not refuse other items we feel may not work. You can clearly see how the J-gov controls most of the people here, I sure as heck don't want that in the states. Why don't they try insurance reform first? No, people like Aday want their hands held.
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yabits
The major news outlets -- ABC, BBC, etc. -- which got them from the DC Fire Department.
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yabits
My American heritage is the freedom to choose.
If I want something that millions of my fellow Americans want regarding health care policy, and we support people who run for office and win who also are pledged to bring about the necessary reform in health care, then that is all about as American as apple pie.
What is not American is a relative minority of deluded, dishonest people calling it "socialist" or "un-American."
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yabits
They suck money out of the health care system and make their living by denying a certain percentage of people critical health care when they need it most. The question is: What value do they add to the system?
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yabits
Even Fox News reported the numbers as "tens of thousands." That's tens and not hundreds.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/12/tea-party-express-arrives-march-washington-protest-government-spending/
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seijichuudo9sha
Maybe I spoke too soon.Comparing pictures of the two events I came across another example of winger 'humor' - an outhouse near the DC rally with a sign stuck on the door saying 'ACORN Recruitment Office'.
Yeah.Real funny.If you are a Glenn Beck fan I suppose.
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seijichuudo9sha
Unfortunately for us yabits the public's trust of the media is at a twenty year low.
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Molenir
And you have that right. Although if this health care bill passes, you won't for much longer. You won't be able to choose a different health care provider, or a different doctor. The government will do that for you. I suppose its like a bad HMO in that respect. Only much worse.
Do you truly not see the role of the insurance company here? Or are you being naive and stupid? Or maybe just naive, I do want to think better of you, then that you are being willfully blind. Do people get cut off? The answer is yes. Is there a reason, obviously, its the bottom line. Those kinds of treatments are far and away more costly, and they just won't work. Insurance companies act as an umbrella. If your disease puts you outside the umbrella, they can't cover you, and cover everyone else they are supposed to. Oh, they might be able to cover part of you, and these companies frequently do, how they can't cover everything fully. Its simple math. You have x amount of dollars coming in every year. You have y amount of dollars going out to pay for health care. If x <= y then theres a problem, and the company simply won't be able to meet its obligations. This would be a betrayal of all their other customers who pay into the system every year. So while its said, thats the reality. They can't save everyone.
Heres a question. You have 10 million dollars. You have a 1000 patients whose treatment will cost roughly 10k each. You have 1 patient whose treatment will cost 1 million dollars. You should of course treat the 1 patient and allow 100 of the others to die right? Because that patient is so much more important then the 100 whose treatment would cost so much less. This is the reality. We cannot save everyone. All we can do is make it as cheap as possible. And the insurance companies have very little to do with that. Lawsuits raise the premiums on everyone, making things more expensive. Defensive medicine, likewise increases costs. And finally not being able to shop for insurance companies does as well. Address those issues, and while you may not be able to cover everyone, or save everyone, the costs would drop sufficiently, that more people could be helped. And thats what this health care bill should be, and is not.
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Molenir
gah, what happened to the rest of my post? Let see if I can try again on this. Regretably I didn't save what I had written.
So picking up from where that left off...
If y is greater then, or equal to x, theres a problem. The insurance companies would be abandoning their other customers if they fail. Insurance is a very simple game. They bet you won't get sick, you bet you will. If they're right, its all well and good. If they're wrong, they will likely have to pay far more then you've paid in. But if enough people are wrong, at least this year, then they make money and stay profitable, and manage to cover many people.
It really comes down to simple math. If you have 1000 people who are sick, and who you can cover and treat for say 10k each. And you have 1 person whose treatment would cost 1 million. Do you save the 1 and allow 100 people to die? Or do you save the 100 and allow the 1 to die. No one likes to make those kinds of choices but thats the reality. You cannot save everyone. Be it because of money, or lack of doctors or what. All we can do is save as many as we can. To do that, we need to bring down costs.
I'm already off the thread of what I said previously. Losing half my post really derails my enthusiasm in posting here. I'll finish this by just saying that the way to reform health care is by bringing down costs, not going after the insurance companies. Look at the places where costs could easily be cut. If tort reform went through lawsuits would no longer cost 100 billion a year. Defensive medicine while still happening occasionally, would be much less common, again saving billions a year. Allow shopping for insurance companies, encouraging competition, and expanding the umbrella. Unfortunately these things are not in the current bills. Things that actually would be helpful. Instead we have talk of the government nationalizing the system. That does not make things any better. It just gives the government more power in the lives of people, and I don't see that as a good thing.
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adaydream
Molenir
It appears that you're just playing with me. It's insurance companies that have set up exceptions like, i.e., a previous health condition keeps you from getting health insurance at all, insurance rates that increase faster than my pay ever increased, being dropped because of a health condition period, being told that a procedure won't be paid for because "they" don't approve the procedure and the list goes on.
I've heard how the republicans are so scared of the so called "Death Panels", but insurance companies all the time are telling families that they won't pay for procedures because of age, etc.
That's what is so evil. < :-)
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yabits
The September 7 issue of Newsweek (US edition, page 42) reports on The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate. Lie Number One regards the conservative lie as the right to choose being taken away.
In fact, the other four "lies" are those commonly repeated by conservatives on this board and elsewhere.
LOL! Who says they won't work??!! I trust a doctor to help me make that decision, not an insurance company. The insurance hasn't taken any form of oath that doctors take to try to preserve life. It's just a business and numbers game to them.
Here's a common one that insurance companies play: Say a person needs physical or mental therapy after an accident or traumatic event. The doctor decides that medication is not necessary, and should be avoided due to the undesireable and sometimes harmful side effects. The patient can fully recover given a series of therapy sessions -- which are more costly than the medication.
What do insurance companies do? First, the force doctors to write and submit regular reports as why each additional therapy session (beyond a minimum of 5-6) is needed. Second, if the doctor says 20 sessions are needed, the insurance company will demand that they take down to 12 and administer medication if the problem still isn't fixed. Or write more reports to justify additional session. Insurance companies have staff being paid full time to make doctors jump through hoops like this. And they have nothing to do with what is in the best interest of the patient.
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yabits
Tort reform should not become a red herring which derails a health care reform bill.
I wonder how much all the additional bureaucratic paperwork foisted on doctors by insurance companies puts them under far greater pressure, which causes them to make more mistakes than they otherwise would.
The key number is nearly 200,000 Americans who die each year from medical mistakes. And conservative only seem to worry about the costs involved with holding people accountable for those errors. I seriously doubt if tort reform would have much of an impact on that sorry statistic.
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adaydream
Maybe liberals should cite from a republican publication that beat the drum and back bush's assertions about Iraq and WMD.
The truth is that insurance companies are spending $$Millions to try to stop the public option. What are they afraid of? Competition? That's not a free market attitude. < :-)
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yabits
LOL! As just indicated, the frequency of inaccuracies in journals right-wingers don't like are measured in years. Right-wingers tell the truth just about as often.
The Five Lies about health care being spread by opponents of health care reform are proof enough.
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Molenir
So basically you guys ignored what I wrote in my previous post. Guess I can't blame you. I start getting a bit cross eyed myself when I see a really long post or 2.
No, health care should not become a red herring which derails a tort reform bill.
The more I read what you say, the more I have to laugh. You keep talking about all these lies the right has been saying. Yet you refuse to acknowledge the lies on the left. When you compare the 2 sides, the right comes off looking like saints in comparison. Just about every other word out of wingers like yourself seems to be a lie. I'll give you guys some credit though, some of your lies are merely exaggerations of the truth. Some you tell part of the truth, in order to tell a greater lie. Obama is becoming famous for that.
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yabits
Regarding health care and public option, we've heard how this will remove all choice from the system, and how "death panels" will "pull the plug" on grandma. Nothing but lies.
And so it seems silly to take someone seriously whose side lies all the time, that it's the other side that is lying and that the most egregious liars are somehow actually "saints."
The moderate-liberal position is one of wanting all Americans to have access to effective, affordable health care without these wasteful middlemen (the insurance industry) taking their fat cut via denying Americans care when they need it most. Moderates and liberals are not motivated by the hatred for the president and his party. Nor are we driven by irrational fears that greater government involvement through a public option will mean that socialism has taken over.
The self-delusion and irrational fear that mark the debate from the right side on this issue only serve to underscore the need for better access to mental health services that will surely come as a result of the passage of the health care bill.
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