obamacare

[alewifebp]

The question to ask anyone that supports this flaming turd of a bill is to think of anything that government actually does "well". Sure, they do plenty of stuff satisfactorily, but is there anything they do well? Anything? Crickets.

I will say one thing they do well, and that is the military.

[fln8tive]

Originally Posted by alewifebp

What's interesting about the so-called uninsured 46 million, is that when you look at the the figures for future years, after a big drop, the uninsured still total around 20 million. Sorry, don't have a source, just read it in the WSJ.

Part of that number includes young people who opt not to get health insurance...and are illegal aliens included in that figure?

All you need to know about ObamaCare can be found in the $1200 wheelchair that MediCare recently bought for my mother and is sitting in my garage

("...because MediCare will pay for a new chair every five years...")

[Quicksilver]

It is an interesting problem this health care
thing. I suppose we can all agree health care
for all is a good idea. But if there is a disagreement
regarding the government instituting the plan
then who should put the program in place and how
should it be paid for?

[Wagner]

Originally Posted by Quicksilver

It is an interesting problem this health care
thing. I suppose we can all agree health care
for all is a good idea. But if there is a disagreement
regarding the government instituting the plan
then who should put the program in place and how
should it be paid for?

Talked to a friend whose daughter has SMA. He is furious about any 'gov' health plan because individuals in his situation see nothing but problems. His exact words 'I'd rather have a slim chance of working with my health care provider to help my daughter than to be told by the government what I'm allowed to have'.

I agree, HC for all is a neat notion, however there is no working model for it that maintains great access, great care at the same time. I get irritated by the "health care is broken" in the USA line. Health care is GREAT in the USA, access and cost might be difficult. My suggestion would be simple, offer all small business (500 or less employees) to write off an insane amount of deductions if they provide 100% health care coverage options for their employees.

[X5rolls]

Interesting read from Charles Krauthammer -

What is a pragmatic way to drive costs down?

Doesn't seem to be a conversation I've heard too much about.

Common sense tells me that he is spot on about tort reform. Is any of this addressed or even mentioned by Obama or Congress?

Nope.

Why Obamacare Is Sinking by Charles Krauthammer on National Review Online=


Why Obamacare Is Sinking
You can’t fake health-care nirvana in legislation.

By Charles Krauthammer


What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage, less cost.

But you can’t fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes.

President Obama premised the need for reform on the claim that medical costs are destroying the economy. True. But now we learn — surprise! — that universal coverage increases costs. The congressional Democrats’ health-care plans, says the CBO, increase costs in the range of $1 trillion plus.

In response, the president retreated to a demand that any bill he sign be revenue-neutral. But that’s classic misdirection: If the fierce urgency of health-care reform is to radically reduce costs that are producing budget-destroying deficits, revenue neutrality (by definition) leaves us on precisely the same path to insolvency that Obama himself declares unsustainable.

The Democratic proposals in Congress are worse still. Because they do increase costs, revenue neutrality means countervailing tax increases. It’s not just that it is crazily anti-stimulatory to saddle a deeply depressed economy with an income-tax surcharge that falls squarely on small business and the investor class. It’s that health-care reform ends up diverting for its own purposes a source of revenue that might otherwise be used to close the yawning structural budget deficit that is such a threat to the economy and to the dollar.

These blindingly obvious contradictions are why the Democratic health plans are collapsing under their own weight — at the hands of Democrats. It’s Max Baucus, Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who called Obama unhelpful for ruling out taxing employer-provided health insurance as a way to pay for expanded coverage. It’s the Blue Dog Democrats in the House who wince at skyrocketing health-reform costs just weeks after having swallowed hemlock for Obama on a ruinous cap-and-trade carbon tax.

The president is therefore understandably eager to make this a contest between progressive Democrats and reactionary Republicans. He seized on Republican senator Jim DeMint’s comment that stopping Obama on health care would break his presidency to protest, with perfect disingenuousness, that “this isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics.”

It’s all about him. Health care is his signature reform. And he knows that if he produces nothing, he forfeits the mystique that both propelled him to the presidency and has sustained him through a difficult first six months. Which is why Obama’s red lines are constantly shifting. Universal coverage? Maybe not. No middle-class tax hit? Well, perhaps, but only if they don’t “primarily” bear the burden. Because it is about him, Obama is quite prepared to sign anything as long as it is titled “health-care reform.”

This is not about politics? Then why is it, to take but the most egregious example, that in this grand health-care debate we hear not a word about one of the worst sources of waste in American medicine: the insane cost and arbitrary rewards of our malpractice system?

When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, through higher doctors’ fees to cover the insurance.

And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing — and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers — where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, who then pass it on to you in higher premiums.

But the greatest waste is the hidden cost of defensive medicine: tests and procedures that doctors order for no good reason other than to protect themselves from lawsuits. Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law.

Tort reform would yield tens of billions in savings. Yet you cannot find it in the Democratic bills. And Obama breathed not a word about it in the full hour of his health-care news conference. Why? No mystery. The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers.

Didn’t Obama promise a new politics that puts people over special interests? Sure. And now he promises expanded, portable, secure, higher-quality medical care — at lower cost! The only thing he hasn’t promised is to extirpate evil from the human heart. That legislation will be introduced next week.

[Wagner]

What you'd lose with Obamacare:

You'll lose 5 key freedoms under Obama's health care plan - Jul. 24, 2009

[dsm2925]

man does that sound bad... i do not agree with this Obamacare crap at all.. What other way can we solve this upcoming issue..

im not too informed about this Obamacare.

[askhao]

It hasn't even been one year and Obama has failed as president...

[dsm2925]

Originally Posted by askhao

It hasn't even been one year and Obama has failed as president...

and it seems like there is more to go. but look at the positive side / if we had Bush for another 4more year - it would of been hell

seems like we cant win..

[AzX5]

We gotta get those sick old folks to die off quicker, for the good of society...

GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors. - WSJ.com

excerpted from the article...

While the House bill being pushed by the president reduces access to such cures and specialists, it ensures that seniors are counseled on end-of-life options, including refusing nutrition where state law allows it (pp. 425-446). In Oregon, some cancer patients are being denied care by the state that could extend their lives and instead are afforded the benefit of physician-assisted suicide instead.