Health Care Reform Rally today in Royal Oak

[ridgeabilly]

STAND UP FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM SATURDAY, NOV. 7th!
Check-in at St. John’s Episcopal Church 26998 Woodward Ave. Royal Oak 48067
Demonstrate anytime between 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Rally 1:30 to 2:00 at St. Johns.
44,000 people die every year who cannot afford health insurance and are not covered.
People are sick and dying, but lobbyists are spending $1.5 million a day to stop reform.
14,000 people a day lose health insurance, but insurance company profits soar.
The system will be broke by 2020, but drug companies charge more every year.
This is wrong! No one should profit from another’s misfortune.
No one should ignore people who need help.
Fight the power of organized money with the power of organized people.
This event organized by the Oakland County Democratic Party and Organizing for America.
To join the fight, contact Mike Galle at mgalle@specialdevents.com or go to
http://my.barackobama.com/page/conte...action-center/ and sign up.

[oldredfordette]

Lots of spirited people lining Woodward and 11 Mile. Nice job on a beautiful windy day!

[EastsideAl]

Keep up the good work!

[RickBeall]

lobbyists are spending $1.5 million a day to pass reform

Wait til you see the number of people who die if it is passed.

[sumas]

Wish I had known earlier. I most certainly would have been there. Haven't had insurance for about six years. In December my husband had a bad fall. Beaumonts bill was $2800 for an emergency visit and frankly they didn't do much. More recently I took him to emergency at St Johns because his balance and vision went way wierd. They didn't do much either but the bill was "only " $485 and to be fair to St John's they reduced the bill to something we can pay. Found a clinic where Dr visits are "Only" $40, the doctor was concerned enough to spend an hour and 1/2 with him. Unfortunately, we can't afford the expensive tests needed for a real diagnosis. The doctor was as distressed as we were.

It is depressing to think that without access to health care if anything happens to us we will just die.

[MrJones]

But you were not turned away from the hospital, were you?
Put the gov't in charge of health care. They can't even make the busses run on time or account for the money allocated to education.

How's hubby? Hope he's feeling better -

[Bearinabox]

Put the gov't in charge of health care. They can't even make the busses run on time or account for the money allocated to education.

I don't think anyone wants to put the City of Detroit or DPS in charge of health care.

[crawford]

I like Obama, but I really think this will only make things worse. I do not trust the govt. with health care.

The govt. health care that already exists [[Medicaid/Medicare/VA) is piss-poor and much more inefficient than in the private sector.

[Bearinabox]

I like Obama, but I really think this will only make things worse. I do not trust the govt. with health care.

The govt. health care that already exists [[Medicaid/Medicare/VA) is piss-poor and much more inefficient than in the private sector.

What about this reform would prevent you from buying private-sector health insurance?

[RickBeall]

There won't be enough doctors to go administer to their patients. It won't matter what health care you are on.

Business will buy everyone the cheapest plan. By default, everyone, at least all the working class and middle class, will get the cheapest plan, the government plan. The other options will whither away.

In Canada, you have to wait a year or two before seeing a specialist. This will happen in the US.

The US government should not be buying stuff for which there are no funds.

There should be options for poor people, but the Democratic options are the wrong options. They will just drag everyone down to the same level, instead of lifting people up.

[East Detroit]

HR 3962 has passed.

Teabaggers may now circle the pickups.

[oldredfordette]

It's a lie that Canadians have to wait a year or two before seeing a specialist.

[oladub]

It's a lie that Canadians have to wait a year or two before seeing a specialist.

Quite right.
"The median wait time in Canada to see a special physician is a little over four weeks with 89.5% waiting less than 3 months.
The median wait time for diagnostic services such as MRI and CAT scans is two weeks with 86.4% waiting less than 3 months.
The median wait time for surgery is four weeks with 82.2% waiting less than 3 months.
Another study by the Commonwealth Fund found that 57% of Canadians reported waiting 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, broadly in line with the current official statisitics; 24% of Canadians waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room.
-wikipedia

[English]

Thanks to the posters from the reality-based community for posting facts.

Also, under the current system, even those of us PRIVATE health care plans sometimes have long waits before seeing specialists or having certain procedures scheduled.

[Bearinabox]

Business will buy everyone the cheapest plan. By default, everyone, at least all the working class and middle class, will get the cheapest plan, the government plan. The other options will whither away.

Then why has this not happened in, say, Germany? I don't understand where this idea came from that public and private health insurance can't coexist.

In the scenario you outlined [[public insurance is much worse than private, but everyone buys it because it's cheaper), there would be a lot of people who considered paying more for better health care a good investment. There would also be rabid teabaggers yelling "boycott the government plan!" who would buy private insurance whether it made any sense for them or not. At some point, a competent private insurer would step up to the plate and give people what they wanted.

If you're so sure the public insurance will be terrible, you should not be worried about the private options not being able to compete. The only way you should be worried about that is if you work for an old-line insurance company that knows it won't be able to adapt. Some kind of private insurance will always exist. The only way it could not exist would be if Obama managed to do the impossible: craft a public plan that was far-and-away superior for absolutely everyone in America, regardless of their income, health situation, or any other factors. If Obama managed to do that, I don't think anyone would be able to argue with a straight face that they "don't trust the government to run health care," because that would be pretty much miraculous.

[Lowell]

Canadian health demagraphics, life expectancy, infant mortality and more are superior ot the US. Period. Canadians of all major parties overwhelmingly support their single payer system.

Medicare is a well-run system with incredibly low paperwork costs. It is overwhelmingly supported by Americans of all major parties.

[313WX]

Put the gov't in charge of health care. They can't even make the busses run on time or account for the money allocated to education.

That's because people are too "fiscally conservative" [[or what I call CHEAP) to antie up enough money needed to run an efficient school or bus system.

Look at government-run/socialized Europe. They havw top-notch mass transit in all of their major cities.

[PeachLaser]

Just a correction. This is not health care reform, this is billing and access reform. Nothing is being changed to make the health care system better and more effective, and the only change is widening access to our malfunctioning system. The U.S. is ranked #37 in the world in quality of our health care system. All the hoopla is about how to give access to the world's #37 system. As you will notice, the doctors, insurance companies and Big Pharma have lined up first with their hands out in this new system. I am all for making our health care system better, more affordable and with better access, but I'm afraid the lobbyists have turned something good into the same old stuff. Why not have health care reform that lets us choose how we want to spend our money in pursuit of good health? That is called health freedom. Already 48% of Americans have chosen Complementary and Alternative Medicine in pursuit of better health. That is what the establishment is afraid of. They don't want people to be able to choose.

[oladub]

Excellent analysis PeachLaser. Obamacare is neither an affordable Canadian provincial single payer plan nor health care freedom. We are societally getting into new territory when our government can order us to purchase corporate products, in this case health insurance policies, while at the same time forbidding less costly health care alternatives. Forget innovation; the new direction for corporate profit will be to lobby governments to require the personal consumption of specific products.

[RickBeall]

The bit that I know about Canadian healthcare is from watching Fox news where they brought in a few doctors and patients with horrendous stories and sited their own dire statistics that were the opposite of yours.

Bearinabox wrote:
>>If you're so sure the public insurance will be terrible, you should not be worried about the private options not being able to compete.

Hey, the government has an unfair advantage, they can regulate anything out of business. They can destroy entire swatches of the economy. That is what happened with the housing boom which led to our fiscal crisis. In essence, the democrats lowered the criteria for home loans so everyone could get one, rhe republicans deregulated banking. A few years before the crisis finally blew, when republicans tried to start regulating housing and controlling Fannie May Freddie Mac, the Democrats with Barnie Frank and Dodd in the lead say, "Why do you want to slow down the only thing that is working in our economy?" The bad loans were repackaged several times and sold everywhere up the banking food chain. The goal of the Democrats is a laudable one, they want everyone to own their own home. But the end result of the bad government tinkinger was the melt down of the banking industry.

Probably the same thing will happen in health care. We have great goals: What is more noble that that everyone has affordable health care? And with the way the government runs everything, the end result will be the same. No one has health care. Or good health care.

That was a sort of an argument by analogy.

You guys look at government and see great stuff, I look at governement and see waste and fraud, legislators voting themsleves pay raises in the middle of the night, who give themselves lifelong pensions and healthcare that continues after they leave office. I see venial people who we keep voting into office for 30 years or more into their 80's or 90's, basically until they die.

I see the current government racking up huge deficits. It's kind of like this. You always wondered what would happen when the self-indulgent baby boomer generation grew up. Well, what happened was that they never grew up. Instead of using their parents credit cards, they are now using their childrens credit cards by racking up huge debt. Not a bad idea! Clever!

They should call it the Bernie Madoff Health Insurance Plan.

[oldredfordette]

RickBeall, that means you know nothing about Canadian healthcare. Assuming you are in Southeast Michigan, take an afternoon, drive across the bridge or tunnel and stop any Canadian and just ask them. Because Fox "News" told you a flat out lie.

[RickBeall]

I do live in Southeast MI, but I don't have a passport. I don't know too much about Canadian Health care it's true. But I do have a co-worker who lived in Canada, and I remember him complaining about having to wait a long time to see doctors. I don't remember if it was weeks or months. I'll ask him.

We could also ask Dr. Anne Doig, the new president of the Canadian Medical Association, their Top Doc", in August 2009 she said

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," ... "We know that there must be change,” she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands….[[Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable."

Do a web search on "We all agree that the system is imploding" and you will get a lot of hits. She is not just anyone, she is the head of Canadian Health care. Fox news quoted other crazy people like her.

[Bearinabox]

Rick, the problem with your analogy is that you started off saying this...

Hey, the government has an unfair advantage, they can regulate anything out of business.

...and then went on to cite an example of deregulation. In fact, you said as much yourself:

In essence, the democrats lowered the criteria for home loans so everyone could get one, rhe republicans deregulated banking.

Argument by analogy works a lot better when the situations you're comparing are in some way analogous.

[RickBeall]

The Republicans de-regulated or failed to regulate banking, and the Democrats forced the banks to loan money to poor people who could not repay the loans. By "forced" I mean that banks would be sued if they did not make the loans, and the government made a climate where it was very profitable for banks to make lots of bogus loans. The point is, the government made some rules changes to the business climate which then destroyed business. Whether you call it regulation or de-regulation, a lot of both were going on at the same time, so just slapping labels on things does not really explain anything.

Bearinabox wrote:
>>analogy works a lot better when the situations you're comparing are in some way analogous

I'm sorry, I thought I was comparing the governments meddling in one industry to the governments meddling in another industry. I guess it was not the government after all. It was ....

[oladub]

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," ... "We know that there must be change,� she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands….[[Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable." -Dr. Anne Doig

Wow, if Canadian provincial health care systems were that bad, you would think that Canadians would be wading across the Detroit River en masse to get Obamacare once their immigration status is normalized. Its totally unaffordable but its the first health care system in the industrialized world that will increase insurance company profits.