Obama Care - Hillary Care II

[rb336]

The "evilness" of an insurance company is not an argument that I'm making.

just pointing out some basic facts. if those sound like i'm describing something as evil, that is mjs' or whoever's judgement

[WolverinesA2]

WolverinesA2, rb336, and Sstashmoo may [[should?) take issue with how you've shaped their positions. Their duty.

Never once have I suggested that we should abolish private health care coverage OR put it in the arms of "Big Brother." It is a fact of life that insurance companies DO NOT take clients who have pre-existing diagnoses of cancer. They don't. If you have a chronic pre-existing condition, you are essentially uninsurable if seeking private health insurnace. This is wrong. And because insurnace companies can cherry pick the young and healthy and rich, the poor and the elderly and the sick are left to the government to take care of. Or, if people like ccbatson had their way, there would be no Medicaid and Medicare, no government care, and the sick, poor and elderly would simply be left to die as they are unfit to live in a conservative social Darwinist society.

Back to UHC, here's what the Insitutes of Medicine have to say on the subject. The IOM is a non-partisan committee of top experts, part of the National Academies of Science, whose job it is to offer expert advice and reports to Congress and the White House. Here's a report from 2003:

Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/4660/12313.aspx

Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America, the fifth of a series of six reports on the consequences of uninsurance in the United States, illustrates some of the economic and social losses to the country of maintaining so many people without health insurance. The report explores the potential economic and societal benefits that could be realized if everyone had health insurance on a continuous basis, as people over age 65 currently do with Medicare.



In the report, the Committee concludes that the estimated benefits across society in health years of life gained by providing the uninsured with the kind and amount of health services that the insured use are likely greater than the additional social costs of doing so. The potential economic value to be gained in better health outcomes from uninterrupted coverage for all Americans is estimated to be between $65 and $130 billion each year.

The long-term financial benefits of UHC far outweight the costs of covering every man, woman and child in America.

From a fiscal POV, UHC will save us money. The costs of providing health coverage to everyone regardless of ability to pay will be offset by the multidue of benefits in other areas.

[4real]

UHC - it absolutely will not save money.
Saving money = Rationed Health coverage.
They determine what, when and how you will get it.
Look at the socialist countries, they all have shit care, look at a British persons teeth.
Canadians come to the US beacuse their system is a joke.

An another thing, [[that fat ugly pig whose husband cheats on her because she is so disgusting) Debbie Stabenow, wants this government controlled health system to go through. This social worker has never had a real job in her life.

I am urging all of you to vote this ugly bitch out of office, as well as that other piece of garbage penishead Senator Levin. He has been in office way too long and Michigan can't afford to have him ruin this satate anymore, like his dumbass brother too.

[rb336]

UHC - it absolutely will not save money.
Saving money = Rationed Health coverage.
They determine what, when and how you will get it.
Look at the socialist countries, they all have shit care, look at a British persons teeth.
Canadians come to the US beacuse their system is a joke.

An another thing, [[that fat ugly pig whose husband cheats on her because she is so disgusting) Debbie Stabenow, wants this government controlled health system to go through. This social worker has never had a real job in her life.

I am urging all of you to vote this ugly bitch out of office, as well as that other piece of garbage penishead Senator Levin. He has been in office way too long and Michigan can't afford to have him ruin this satate anymore, like his dumbass brother too.

i'm urging YOU to break out of that spoon-fed republicrap that you've been devouring. virtually every comment you have made is a flat-out falsehood [[ok, just so you can understand, that means a lie) straight out of the wingnut book, and not one claim can be backed up by anything resembling a fact. your comments about Senator Stabenow expose you as a vile, mindless cretin

[Lorax]

UHC - it absolutely will not save money.
Saving money = Rationed Health coverage.
They determine what, when and how you will get it.
Look at the socialist countries, they all have shit care, look at a British persons teeth.
Canadians come to the US beacuse their system is a joke.

An another thing, [[that fat ugly pig whose husband cheats on her because she is so disgusting) Debbie Stabenow, wants this government controlled health system to go through. This social worker has never had a real job in her life.

I am urging all of you to vote this ugly bitch out of office, as well as that other piece of garbage penishead Senator Levin. He has been in office way too long and Michigan can't afford to have him ruin this satate anymore, like his dumbass brother too.

Still waiting for you to write something intelligent.

LOL!!!!

[Omaha]

Come on DY liberal posters, give 4real a break. He’s just echoing a basic conservative meme regarding any change in the way health care is delivered.. What he’s doing is akin to associating even the most innocent liberal thought with communism, socialism, and atheism. If we Social Darwinists want to scare the uninformed and ill-informed into hating this Obama presidency and everything associated with it, this is the shortest path.

And don’t get me wrong I am not being politically partisan: both conservatives and liberals can be found in both of our two major political parties as they have been in the past.

Lies work. Repeat a big enough lie often and loud enough it becomes part of popular culture; it becomes a meme. If as a Colbert Conservative I engage in lies, distortions, falsehoods, exaggerations, prevarications, deceits, and deceptions, I am just using all the weapons in my arsenal. It is war out there.

“Politics is war conducted by other means. In political warfare you do not fight just to prevail in an argument, but to destroy the enemy's fighting ability…In political wars, the aggressor usually prevails... You cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can do it only by following Lenin's injunction: ‘In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.’� David Horowitz in “The Art of Political War: How Republicans can Fight to Win� a pamphlet distributed to GOP members of the House in 2000

Conservatives understand that what you say in public doesn’t have to be consistent with what happens behind the scenes.

“[Conservatives] understand that George W. Bush was right to begin his administration smothering the Democrats with bear hugs while activists delivered body blows to vulnerable Democrat senators. Praising dead Democrats and hugging live ones is not treason when the goal is legislative victories.� Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform and unpaid advisor to President Bush, in the American Spectator, 2001

Conservatives say they prefer one person one vote, but what they really prefer is one dollar one vote. The problem dates back to the expansion of the right to vote beyond the few white property-owning males. Those who owe the country ought to govern it. And believe me if the rich and well-born has more say Obama would have lost the election.

Here are two learned conservatives [[from the Democratic and Republican parties) a on the idea of enfranchising blacks in the South prior to the Voting Rights Act.

“National Review believes that the South's premises are correct…It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way; and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.� William F. Buckley, the father of modern Conservatism, commenting in 1957 in his National Review on why Whites must continue to dominate African Americans in the South.

“As you know…there are some communities and some states where the Negro’s voting potential is very great. We wish at all costs to avoid a repetition of the Reconstruction period when newly freed slaves made the laws and undertook their enforcement. We feel even more strongly about miscegenation or racial amalgamation. The experience of other countries and civilizations has demonstrated that the separation of the races biologically is highly preferable to amalgamation. I know of nothing in human history that would lead us to conclude that miscegenation is desirable.� Senator Richard Russell [[D – Georgia) 1957 in an interview in the National Review, an early magazine of Conservative commentary.

'Nuff said: from a Social Darwinist point of view, the right to vote never should have gone beyond white male property owners.

[Lorax]

Wonderful read. I agree.

I do, however, have a darker theory as to why Obama was victorious last November.

He won fair and square, since the alternative was unacceptable to the vast majority of the electorate.

But he was allowed to live through to inauguration based on the deal that was most likely struck beforehand, whereas Democrats- specifically Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama himself agreed not to press charges against the evidentiary war crimes and economic destruction wrought by the fascist authoritarianism of the Bush Crime Family.

From early on, Pelosi said impeachment was "off the table" with regard to the ongoing crimes committed by the BCF, and since Eric Holder has become AG, there has been little more than lip service paid to the investigation/prosecution of any in the BCF.

It really goes back to the filthiest of Rethuglican political maneuvers with the staged anthrax attacks, all against Democrats- Tom Daschle, Patrick Leahy, perceived liberal media outlets like NBC, etc. Modern history's most insidious form of smokescreen.

This was the calling card for what was to come, should Democrats try to show a united front against the actions of the BCF. Fear works wonders- it worked well for the BCF with the invasion/occupation of Iraq, and leaves a legacy of death and destruction.

Even with the 11th hour BCF murder of Bruce Ivins, the scientist accused of sending the anthrax tainted letters, the well-known secret is that this was yet another staged event to deflect any further investigation- a loose end of the BCF which was tidied up before the November election.

Senator Leahy still wonders who really sent the anthrax, and would like to know who tried to kill him, but has no access to justice, since the deal was made privately to hush it up long before. And if a sitting senator has no access to justice, what do you think the chances are for the rest of us?

As for Squealer's attempt at putting together a cohesive post, I have no other comment.

[ccbatson]

Lies you say? Like "stimulus", "spreading the wealth", "under 250K pay not a dime of new taxes", man made global warming and the proposed solution [[high taxes)"? Those kind of lies?

[WolverinesA2]

MJS and others have asked how UHC will be funded, assuming that such spending MUST come from increased taxation. Also there's this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090707/..._health_reform

U.S. hospitals offer $155 BILLION for health care reform. This $155 BILLION will come from decreased government spending on Medicare DSH payments and reducing subsidies that cover that uninsured [[since these things will no longer be necessary if everyone has coverage).

So that's $155 billion right there. Add that to the $80 billion pledge from the pharmaceutical companies.

[Lorax]

Lies you say? Like "stimulus", "spreading the wealth", "under 250K pay not a dime of new taxes", man made global warming and the proposed solution [[high taxes)"? Those kind of lies?

Lies are something you should be familiar with, since at this point if you haven't seen how completely discredited and bankrupt the Rethuglican Reich is, then continuing to propagate your ideology would equal lying.

In future, try quoting the post you are responding to- adding discourtesy to the other lies would be really revolting.

[mjs]

Ok, I'll buy the $55 billion non-medicare portion that the hospitals pass on to the providers that gets passed on to the purchasers. Only savings to the Feds show up on the CBO report so it shouldn't have included this. But the savings to Medicare and Medicaid has already been considered in the CBO numbers.

As for the pharms, even you can't really believe this. If I thought they put themselves at the top of the lobbying pile so they can convince politicians they will accept lower profits, I would have already sold my stock in them. If this passes, pharm stocks will leap since everyone on the street knows it will mean record profits for these guys.

[oladub]

U.S. hospitals offer $155 BILLION for health care reform. This $155 BILLION will come from decreased government spending on Medicare DSH payments and reducing subsidies that cover that uninsured [[since these things will no longer be necessary if everyone has coverage).

So that's $155 billion right there. Add that to the $80 billion pledge from the pharmaceutical companies.

I'm having a little trouble believing this unless there is more to the story. Are we supposed to believe that hospital chains will renounce profit at their next annual stockholders' meeting or that executives have offered to take gigantic pay cuts? More likely, pharmaceuticals will cut research and start importing more Chinese products with exclusive import licences.

[ccbatson]

It is baffling that hospitals would commit such suicide.

[mjs]

The Dems are starting to come apart on funding, cuts, taxes, time table, deals with private entitities, benefits, etc. I told you its more complex and costly than some are leading you to believe. Pelosi sure loves to rush complex multi-paged mega-spending bills. Gives her and her colleagues plenty of room to plead stupidity as to why they voted for it. What excuse of super urgency will she craft for this one? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090708/..._care_overhaul

Senate Democrats edged away Wednesday from their goal of passing ambitious health care legislation by early August. "I think the ultimate goal is to have a bill by the end of this year" that is signed into law by President Barack Obama, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an interview with The Associated Press. In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has vowed to pass legislation by the end of July, and the leadership is in the midst of deciding which tax increases and spending cuts will be included in the bill to ensure it does not add to the deficit.

Controversy dogged efforts in the House, as well, when Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said he had been assured by the administration that it was not bound by an $80 billion agreement with the pharmaceutical industry that Obama announced with fanfare at the White House last month.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said Democrats seemed encouraged after going over a list of alternative tax proposals to help raise $320 billion toward the cost of the bill. Among them was a plan to tax workers whose insurance costs more than $25,000 a year, far more than the $15,000 or so that had been under consideration.

Numerous officials say that under the proposal, an income tax surcharge would be imposed on individuals earning more than $200,000, with a higher threshold for couples. The same officials say earlier options under consideration have been abandoned. Among them was a proposal to raise the payroll tax that finances Medicare. The officials spoke anonymously to discuss private discussions.

"Such reductions could severely damage safety net providers if not carefully crafted." "This is essential funding that supports trauma centers, burn care units and medical training," said Melissa Stafford Jones, president of the California Association of Public Hospitals.

[Sstashmoo]

Well then that should give them plenty of time to work on the trade situation that they have been harping about for two years all through their campaign. Instead of costing, the tariffs would generate revenue. What are they waiting on?

[Detroitej72]

It is baffling that hospitals would commit such suicide.

Whats so baffling? They'll pretty much break even by getting paid by the insurance companies instead of Medicaid.

[mjs]

The articles are now coming in so frequently with so many updates and so much info its hard to keep up, but I'll do the best I can to summarize whats in the links.

The newest Dem plan is cutting medicare/medicaid benefits by $40 billion/yr and adding $60 billion/yr in new taxes on individuals making over $200k and families making over $250k with the possibility of adding people making under $200k. An additional 3.5% of their income. Taxes on drugs, health care plans, and soft drinks are also being considered.

Obama, Senate Dems, and some House Dems say this should take to the end of the year as they need time to work things out and read the legislation over the summer break, but Pelosi is still giving her all to rush it through for yet another ill informed vote.

Finally, we get to the real question. Is this important enough to accept reduced medicare/medicaid and ask each American for an additional $1950 in taxes? Now that I've been asked an honest question, I say it might be especially if taxing unhealthy foods and ending subsidies for drug ads is on the table. Is this also a chance to eliminate our massive sugar and tobacco subsidies? Agricultural subsidies are around $26 billion per year. Eliminating that alone could bring the bill down to $1100 per American and that doesn't even factor in how less sugar and tobacco will lower insurance costs.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009...tax-hike-.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090709/..._care_overhaul

[ccbatson]

What is the mechanism that will coerce private insurance companies to pick up the tab for the lost revenues from Obamacare? And how will that work once Obama puts the private insurers out of business? It isn't going to happen as promised [[it never seems to with this administration).

[mjs]

Another reason health care costs more in the US and continues to rise is that our BMI is way above average and continues to rise. Compared with 22.5 BMI, lifetime healthcare costs for 27.5 BMI for these five diseases is raised by 20%, 32.5 BMI raises them by 50%, and 37.5 BMI raises them by nearly 100%. Drinking just three Mountain Dews a day in place of water adds 700 calories to a diet or 35% of the USRDA. If you drink the recommended 8 glasses of water a day and it offsets the same volume of Mountain Dew, its saves you 880 calories a day. Thats in addition to the dental destruction from the acid and sugar and the dehydration and vitamin flush from the caffeine.

I have to admit when Hillary first proposed a sugar a decade ago, I thought she was out of her mind, but now its making sense.





http://apps.who.int/infobase/compare...gegroup=30-100
http://www.obesityonline.org/slides/...re+costs&dpg=1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090708/...us_obesity_usa

[ccbatson]

One, of many lifestyle factors that negatively impact HEALTH quality [[but not quality of healthcare)

[ccbatson]

I was questioning the claim made by Detroitej72 in post #141. I don't understand what he is getting at either.

[mjs]

Its a discussion of health care costs.

[ccbatson]

He claimed that the hospitals wiould make up for the decreased reimbursements by way of increased moneys coming from private insurers....Why would that happen?

[mjs]

Under these proposals, the number of paid treatments for those on Medicare/Medicaid would go down, but the number of paid treatments for those who currently lack insurance would go up. I assume the reduction in uncollectable bills from those currently without health coverage will offset the increase in uncollectable bills from those currently not being denied Medicare/Medicaid benefits.

[Detroitej72]

He claimed that the hospitals wiould make up for the decreased reimbursements by way of increased moneys coming from private insurers....Why would that happen?

You said the hospitals were committing suicide by declining government money that will instead go to help fund a public health care system. I said they will break even because they will no longer have to treat folks without insurance coverage, since all will have either a private or public insurance plan.

I heard a good story yesterday on NPR that clearly explained this process. You could probably find it, look under All Things Considered.