send a letter to your senator about health care
 

I'm just saying...this is simple..all you have to do is PRINT-SIGN-MAIL

Hell, e-mail it :)

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Dear Senator,

As you may or may not be aware the majority of US Citizens are NOT in favor of the Administrations proposed Health Care Plan. This plan, adds an insane level of complexity to the health care system and in this removes my ability to choose the insurance I want, to petition companies the way in which I want and to access the services I want without some level of Government interference.

The secondary issue with this proposed effort is the cost. There is no fixed answer on cost. President Obama has failed drastically to show where and how this insane level of spending will come from. “Taxing the rich” as is commonly thrown around on the hill and by the administration is NOT ACCEPTABLE. The highest paid 5% in the US pay over 30% of the income tax, the top 50% pay 94% of the income tax, this is BY NO MEANS FAIR! When did the United States of America encourage the methodology of “tax the other guy as long as it isn’t me”. This is non-sense.

However the cost and the loss of personal choice is not nearly has horrifying as some of the proposed evaluations and systematic reviews.

For Example:

Page 425:

"(FF) advance care planning consultation (as defined in subsection (hhh)(1));"; and

(B) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

"Advance Care Planning Consultation

"(hhh)(1) Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4), the term ‘advance care planning consultation’ means a consultation between the individual and a practitioner described in paragraph (2) regarding advance care planning, if, subject to paragraph (3), the individual involved has not had such a consultation within the last 5 years. Such consultation shall include the following:

"(A) An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to.

"(B) An explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses.

"(C) An explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy.

"(D) The provision by the practitioner of a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning, including the national toll-free hotline,


This is highly concerning. I do not want the government telling me how and when to use my health care. I would be very interested to see how this ‘universal’ system covers those with disease, both hereditary and communicable, such as Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Acromegoly and other diseases or issues not as common as “cancer”? Not to mention you have wording discussing abortion, this frankly is legislation crossing the bounds of branches of power and dabbling in the realm of the judicial branch. This is pure an simple non-sense.

Now onto the effort to shove this down the citizenships throat. Why is it essential to get this massive amount of legislative change and deficit spending right now? I recall recent congressional pushes for stimulus, clunkers and bailouts to stop the unemployment levels, business failures and foreclosures, none of which has happened. The government can’t run cash for clunkers (CARS), how does it propose to run 1/7 of the US economy? The government has failed at Medicare/Medicade and vastly in Social Security. How dare we assume that Congress will get it right this time? Where does this blind faith come from? Congress has failed to earn the trust of its constituents so it should come as no great shock to sane persons that there is communal uprising.

Frankly this legislation is unfounded and thoroughly not thought out. The USA has a wonderful health care system, access and costs are the issues. Lowering benefits to some to adjust costs and raising taxes on others to create social engineering is unfounded and UNAMERICAN! You do not tear down a house because you do not like the location of the door, you move the door, you fix the DOOR you don’t destroy the house and tell everyone it will be OK.

I strongly advocate you begin listening to your constituents!



Sincerely,


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I'll send a letter re: healthcare, but it won't be this one.

Congratulations, I would expect nothing less.

My neighbor is an anesthesiologist. He gets to bill $125 for an intubation and the happy gas when Medicaid/Medicare is footing the bill. Welcome to single payer health care.

The kit...just the fooking disposables cost $75.

Would you go through God knows how many years of med school and residency when you could make better money fixing toilets?

He's been sued once. By a Medicaid patient.

Patient went into the procedure with a loose tooth (which was noted) and it fell out post-op. His insurance said screw it, let's settle and they wrote a check for $5K to make it go away. Never mind that the patient was likely old, calcium-deficient and hadn't been to a dentist since the Yalta Conference.

All you Hope and Changers better get a clue. I have a $1200 Medicare wheelchair sitting unused in my garage that you bought for my mother.

After viewing Keith Olbermann's comments that linked Healthcare Protests to terrorism I could barely keep my dinner down. Last time I checked Mr Olbermann it's democracy that allows people to demand answers and protest when they disagree. Americans have a right to know EXACTLY what is in that healthcare bill and understand exactly what government interaction will do to their quality and availability of care.

YouTube - Political Terrorism From the Right!

:iagree: 100% I believe Americans need to take time to read the
health care bill before showing up to town hall meetings
shouting down others and making statements that are not factual.

What they saying may not be true....YET. Remember Healthcare won't get cheaper with time, it will get more expensive, it outpaces inflation. In addition I don't see any sign of people changing their "give me a pill because I don't want to change my life" mentality (extreme expense) and last time I checked the obesity epidemic is continuing to get out of hand (hugely expensive). There will come a time when the government will need to factor in cost into their budget for healthcare and THAT is when I believe the rationing of care, limited services and age-specific coverage limits stand a very good chance of being introduced. At that time we may have nothing but public left and people will have no other choices. This bill may not be as dangerous "as is" to you but to me it's the future that makes this bill dangerous. Remember that cost containment is what health insurers do well and they do it while delivering quality care to their members. An individual mandate with a realistic cost of living subsidy is the best way to create a world class system. Just my 2 cents...

That is the same page I did the c&p from :)

All issue could easily be resolved if Obama could clearly state the objectives and costs and payments of the bill, he hasn't...thus the confusion.

If the current administration truly wanted to lower the cost of healthcare, they WILL need to address TORT Reforms as well.

First day of law school... What is a Tort? Do ya'll actually know what Tort reform is? I hear alot of people saying that, but I'm not sure they know what it means. Be careful of what you ask for. You may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

There is already a cap on med-mal claims of $500,000.00 (at least in Louisiana. We went thru Tort reform in 1996 under then Govenor, Mike Foster). Also, med-mal cases are some of the most difficult lawsuits to prosecute. You have to go before a medical review panel so they can tell you whether you can bring your lawsuit against a doctor/hospital. That is pretty rigid, IMO.

This just in.... I just got my "group" healthcare rates for my family thru BCBS...$793.00 per month! Up 9.5% from last year. It was to increase by 12.5%, but the insurance company was "generous" enough to give our company a discount. :rolleyes:

I don't know what the solution is, but something must be done about the cost of healthcare.

In keeping, my corporate went up by 10%.

V & I pay $760 per month, off the top or the bottom, for Major Medical
Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC...it has a deductible of $5,000 per "incident"
and a lifetime ceiling of $2Mil. Obviously, I don't go near a Doc or a hospital,
with the sniffles, bug bites, aches & pains, the flu, and on and on, and on...

We we first copped it, after shopping hard back in early '02, it was ~$250/month.

I'm not gonna miss lunch because of the monthly fee, but that $9Gs+ per year,
for basically calamity insurance coverage, (with pages and pages of exclusions and
less than full coverage, minus the deductible(s)) currently, is a bite in the butt for
us retired bums.

I don't know the "answer", or really any semi-answers after reading/watching the
HC arm wrestle in the media, for the past couple of weeks.

It is an expensive, lobbyist driven fookin nightmare, however.

Is this group or an individual plan?

Your state may have a cap, California has a cap, but not every state has a cap. Pennsylvania does not have a cap and they basically drove out all the OB-GYN doctors out of the state...

Unfortunately, depending on the specialty, there is a lot of defensive medicine being practiced these days which also adds cost to healthcare. Better technology adds cost to healthcare (since this is a BMW board, I will make a BMW analogy)...look at the cost of buying a new BMW....Why is it more expensive?
More technology, more expensive to build because increase cost of building cars and material, etc.

The same thing is happening with healthcare all over the world. There is a lot of waste going on these days and I have never heard of any government program that has made anything more efficient. I agree something needs to be done...will more regulations save more money?

No matter what, everyone will need to get used a coordinated care model...that will be the solution to help cut healthcare cost down. If you don't understand that...just Google it...;)

Olbermann understands, but he's just a big hypocrite. Dissent was fine pre-January.
Hypocrisy Flashback: ?It Is Political Dissent That Created This Country and Sustained It and Improved It.? | NewsBusters.org

Group.

So, if you are comparing the cost of healthcare to buying a new BMW, healthcare is not only a privilege, but a luxury.

I sometimes wonder if the corporate rate is all that competitive...our family BCBS family $1000 deductable PPO that we buy through Florida Farm Bureau runs about $6000 a year and that includes maternity, but no vision/dental plan.

And that's after about $1mm in claims.

But...as illustrated by D&V, they stick it to ya once the 49th birthday candles are blown out...$9K for a couple with a $5K deductible is stout.

That is typically based on a groups RAF or Risk with a base rate which means sicker groups would pay more. 9.5% could be your pulling your own weight from a cost perspective, I couldn't tell you

It isn't competitive at all, just allows me to help pay for employees coverage. In MD it doesn't matter whether you're a company or person till you are more than 50 "lives".

I'm comparing cost...but heck, you don't have to buy a BMW, you can buy a KIA...They are both cars and you can get from point A to B. However, don't expect BMW luxury in a KIA...

The public option will be a basic KIA.

Agreed, BMW is a luxury...but is healthcare a privilege...:popcorn:

I'll say it again, allow small biz (500 emp or less) to write off up to 150% of their health insurance costs if they provide 100% coverage options to their employees. Then the government will realize that rationing and controlling who gets what isn't important, cost is...and lobbying is. It will also encourage your masses to actually have a job, you know when they start dropping from the common cold.

Cost drivers: ER visits by the uninsured, Pharmaceutical costs, Malpractice.....

The fact that SEIU has partnered with AARP to help push through health care legislation should tell you something...if it doesn't...please stop voting ;)