Opinons on the new health care bill?

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I'm curious as to what WP's views are on this.

Personally, I think it's sickening that this is being called "health care reform." Our care is not being reformed in any way. It's not as though getting treatment will be easier, you won't be getting better/cheaper medicine, your quality of care won't go up. This is the same system, if not worse, only now you are required by law to buy it.
(Unless you're one of the high ranking members who wrote/worked on the bill. They are exempt, which I find incredibly suspicious.)
Btw,, if you don't buy it, or can't afford it, you'll be charged a large fine, which increases over time and finally caps at 1/3 of your income. And yes, there's "free" insurance for the poor, but the line for what's "low income" is unbelievably low. There are going to be people who can't afford to purchase the government plan, and don't qualify for the free medicare-esq version, which by the way, covers almost nothing anyway.

Not only will this not be higher quality care, but now we all have to pay for it. Remember when East Germany mandated that all its citizens only purchase the government car, the trabi, which was a piece of junk made out of plastic? This sort of bill is a slippery slope.


I remember reading an article a couple weeks ago about how in many lower income areas, people are flocking to hospitals looking for their "free health care." A reporter went around interviewing the people outside. There was apparently quite a long line of very confused people, trying to figure out how "take advantage of the new health care." One of the people he talked to I think was a good example for how so many have completely misunderstood the bill.
I don't remember it exactly, but it was something like:

reporter: So, why are you here?
man: I want to get my new health care!
reporter: Who do you think is going to pay for it?
man: What do you mean? Obama's paying for it!
reporter: Obama's paying for it? Where do you think the money is coming from?
man: I dunno man, it's Obama money!
reporter: He's taking money out of his own bank account to buy you health care?
man: I dunno! He's the president!

Sorry about the rant. I just am genuinely scared by what's happening in the world...
First Bush screwed us over, stole our rights, left us in massive debt, and basically left us to rot, and now Obama's continuing the trend.


tl;dr: The US government has the perfect business plan. They are the only company that can force an entire country to purchase their product, and fine and possibly jail those who don't.

The governments of the world, not just the US government, act as though they were businesses. Worse then that, they write the policies with just as much concern for human beings or any other form of life as Wal-Fart has, they have the ability to enforce their arbitrary policies with weapons illegal to the populace, and they don't have to worry about debt since they can rob from both the rich and the poor in order to compete in a game of statistical demographics with other nations.

Hear, hear.

And continuing the illusion of choice is very important. We are continually told that the democratic party is "liberal" and the republican party is "conservative," to create a false sense of taking sides. No matter who is in office, we have the same outcome. Both parties (neither of which represent liberal or conservative people in America) are working towards globalization, and they are doing it in such a way that the average joe is going to go along with it, thinking it's a great idea.
I hate that so many people are under the impression that the democrats and and republicans want different things.
What I'm worried will happen is that because the health care bill is so controversial, the democratic party has basically committed suicide with this, and in 2012 we're going to end up with all republicans (read: globalist neo-conservatives). The republican party will then partially repeal the bill, say they've repealed it, and then the liberal side of America will mope and pout about how our "wonderful free health care coverage" never came into effect (because the bill doesn't really come into effect until 2014), and the conservative Americans will cheer and cry "victory over socialism" (as though that's what the bill was...). And no one will notice that we'd all been paying incredible amounts of tax dollars to fund the bill for the past two years, and they will forget. It's not like the feds will send out refund checks if the bill gets repealed. Woo- everyone wins, and the masses are still under the spell.

Pretty much nailed it. This health care "reform" is basically just lining the pockets of the insurance companies. Doesn't lower cost, doesn't actually make healthcare more available(it'll probably be even less available now with more patients and less doctors.) A good portion of the supposed 30 million uninsured could of afforded health insurance before hand and are now being forced to buy coverage or they'll sick the IRS on them and fine them or give them jail time.

This bill is corporatist not socialist.

edit: added the is so i don't sound as stupid

Last edited by Jacoby on 13 Apr 2010, 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There we go, some perfectly legitimate and sound criticisms of the health care reform, free of the right-wing delusions that have characterized most of the national debate on the topic. You are correct: this bill is far more corporatist than it is socialist, and it is deeply flawed in many ways. Still, there are some silver linings: they are getting rid of recission, and they are at least trying to limit discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. The exchanges that will establish a market for trying to purchase health insurance (instead of having to buy through your employer).

How is the bill getting rid of the recession? Huge corporations are the ones with all the cash right now, boosting them up even more won't change things. 70% of our GDP is in big banks right now.

And why would this establish a market for purchasing health insurance? What market? We're all buying from the same company, that's a monopoly.

recission - (law) the act of rescinding; the cancellation of a contract and the return of the parties to the positions they would have had if the contract had not been made; "recission may be brought about by decree or by mutual consent"
rescission
cancellation - the act of cancelling; calling off some arrangement
law, jurisprudence - the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order"

Wow! I learned a new word I'm surprised I've never read/heard anyone use that before.

I still don't understand how "they are getting rid of recission" with the health care bill...?

I think one of the worst things about it is that it's going to make unemployment skyrocket. Many employers are now going to be forced to give their employees health insurance, which raises labor costs. Rise in labor costs = rise in unemployment.

Another really bad thing about it is that if people are forced to buy health insurance, the health insurance companies have absolutely no incentive to provide any sort of decent coverage. Why would they? Less coverage = higher profits. People now either have the choice of taking crappy deals from the health insurance corporations or getting slapped with a huge fine by the government.

"Change" isn't always a good thing.

Under the current system, even if you have health insurance and you have been paying your premiums, if you get seriously sick your insurer can (and does) say "screw you," cancel your policy, and refuse to cover your bills. The new bill bans that practice. Even the Republicans do not generally oppose that measure, and the Republicans have been pretty batshit the past year or so.


No, it's not. Starting in a couple years, there will be health insurance "exchanges" that allow people to purchase insurance policies from a variety of options offered by different companies, including buying across state lines. That is the market to which I was referring. This is less monopolistic than the current system, where everyone is forced to buy health insurance through their employer, taking the choice of health plans away from individual patients and putting it into the hands of their employers. The new system returns some degree of control back to the individual.

that is a mean falsehood with which i disagree. as an old fart, the cheapest catastrophic-only [IOW totally worthless] plans available to a pre-existing-condition-laden person like myself, exceed $800 per month. this amount equals the net income of anybody who earns minimum-wage in this country. to expect such people to "just get a 2nd and 3rd fulltime job" when there are NO such jobs left for unskilled workers in this country [all taken by teenieboppers] is just being cruel-minded and arch, and equals the clueless arrogance of marie antoinette who said to the starving peasants, "let them eat cake." IOW, "let them eat mcjobs" or "let them eat tax cuts."

obama had a thankless task, in terms of expanding healthcare access for working-class american citizens without resorting to a universal access system that all other advanced western nations use- so the only option left that he was allowed to do, was to tinker 'round the edges of the present system so as to make it less inhumane, less banana-republic so-to-speak. global rating only works if EVERYBODY is in the system, otherwise the costs death-spiral as the sick and poor are increasingly the only ones utilizing services while the healthy and wealthy opt-out.

i can't help believing that the real motivation of the anti-healthcare reform people is simply raw hatred of obama and the people who voted for him, IOW it is just class warfare against working class people like me. i take it VERY personally

Orwell: I find your account name ironic in all of this... oh well.
I understand where you're coming from; the old system is a piece of useless crap that helps no body but the insanely rich. However, I don't think the new system places any control back in the hands of the people. We are now forced to buy health insurance from the government, lower quality insurance at that! I understand how much we do need reform, but this is not reform, this is yet another (large) step in the journey to total control.


auntblabby: Do you remember back when Obama was just a candidate? How he criticized Hilary by saying that she would only reform health care by forcing the people to purchase a government plan, and that he, being different, and better than she, would implement a universal coverage plan instead, much like what many other countries have. In the end, he went against his own values to please the insurance companies and the corruption.
I'll have you know that I supported Obama (though I preferred the smaller party candidates) and voted for him. I have an Obama sticker on my car. This is not just bullying, this is not prejudice against the good guys who are simply trying to SAVE AMERICA. This is an educated, informed opinion, formed after reading the bill and reading summaries of the bill. There is no one I hate more than Fox News, I don't take advice from Glenn Beck, and I don't read slanted articles. I simply read the bill.
This is not hatred of the working class. I was raised by a single mother who had to move back in with her parents after a horrible divorce which left her with no credit history and little to no possessions. My father didn't pay child support until we took him to court when I was 13 (and we could afford the legal fees). He still never pays on time, and never pays the full amount. He's never payed what our state requires by law, but we're letting it slide because he's poor too, and now has another baby to support with his new girlfriend. I've grown up being told that I won't be able to go to college, because we can't pay for it. I didn't get eyeglasses for a long time because my insurance wouldn't cover it. I know what it's like, and I hate it. But Obama is not our savior, Obama is not the second coming, and we can't sit back and let the government continue to enslave and abuse us simply because their figurehead is charismatic and kind.

Have you read the bill? Maybe this is the problem here... I always end up debating with people online like this only to find that no one else has actually read the bill, so they honestly don't know what's happening

How so?


Um... no, not at all. The bill that passed had no public option, and single-payer was never even discussed. You will purchase insurance from a private corporation. As far as "lower quality," my insurance routinely attempts to deny coverage for things that they definitely are supposed to pay for. If I was ever seriously sick or injured, I'd be pretty much screwed. High quality insurance is useless if your policy is canceled anytime you need it.


In what way is it total control? The hospitals and doctors are not being nationalized (no one, not even the fringe left, have even advanced that as a possibility). Insurance is not being nationalized—Kucinich is the only politician I have heard advocating a single-payer system. There isn't even a government run insurance program that will be allowed to compete with the available private plans, since the public option was defeated. I mean, there is some slight government regulation of the most egregious insurance industry abuses, and there will be some modest subsidies for people who can't afford insurance on their own, and there's not much else in the bill. Only the paranoid ravings of the right wing have convinced people that this is in any way a government takeover.


After reading your comments, I will guarantee that you have read neither the bill nor the various summaries of it. You didn't know what recission was, and you were under the impression that health insurance was being nationalized. Both of those things are only possible if you are grossly misinformed about the health care bill that passed.

[quote="Orwell


In what way is it total control? The hospitals and doctors are not being nationalized (no one, not even the fringe left, have even advanced that as a possibility). Insurance is not being nationalized—Kucinich is the only politician I have heard advocating a single-payer system. There isn't even a government run insurance program that will be allowed to compete with the available private plans, since the public option was defeated. I mean, there is some slight government regulation of the most egregious insurance industry abuses, and there will be some modest subsidies for people who can't afford insurance on their own, and there's not much else in the bill. Only the paranoid ravings of the right wing have convinced people that this is in any way a government takeover.

Have you read the bill? Maybe this is the problem here... I always end up debating with people online like this only to find that no one else has actually read the bill, so they honestly don't know what's happening[/quote]
After reading your comments, I will guarantee that you have read neither the bill nor the various summaries of it. You didn't know what recission was, and you were under the impression that health insurance was being nationalized. Both of those things are only possible if you are grossly misinformed about the health care bill that passed.[/quote]

The bill is something like 800 pages long. From the summaries I have read, it is a honey of a deal for the insurance companies, even if their habit of canceling the insurance is curbed.

The main opposition if from people who resent the high-handed manner in which the bill was pushed through. If John McCaine had been elected and he favored a bill similar to the one passed, but advanced in a more cordial and politic manner, many people who now oppose it, would have favored it.

Possibly the greatest danger from this bill is not the current provisions, but the "nose under the tent" effect. But the government has had its nose under the tent since 1932, if not before. The real danger is having an abomination like the National Health Service in Britain foisted upon us. That has not yet happened.

The reform I was looking for was to permit competitive insurance programs nation wide (across state lines), eliminate the near fraud of canceling the insurance after a person has made a substantial claim and some tort reform to curb the vulture lawyers and their egregious torts. Bad liability law has forced doctors to insure themselves against torts at great expense which is eventually passed on to the end the use, the poor patient.

I have finally settled on a position. How much would I voluntarily invest in a program that permitted a person capable of work and willing to work to go to work and still have a modicum of health care? How much would I invest to keep him from having to run to the Emergency Ward and get care at the highest possible cost. Viewed in these terms, it might be a good investment to keep people out of the Emergency Rooms and to encourage preventative care and health maintiance. For example, making a condition of getting a subsidy for an overweight person, to participate in weight reduction program. Or making getting a subsidy conditional on giving up smoking (the effects of smoking can be determined in a medical exam). That way the person being subsidized benefits and so do I -- he can work at something useful and he wont clutter up the Emergency Wards unnecessarily.

ruveyn

From what I have read, this is true. For one thing, requiring everyone to buy insurance guarantees customers for the private insurance companies.


Don't kid yourself ruveyn, the main opposition is from misinformed and misled people who think this is some sort of socialist takeover of the medical system. The bill only had to be pushed through in such a manner as it was because the Republicans refused to negotiate and compromise. At every step, the Democrats tried to include Republicans, but the Republicans were going to vote against the bill no matter how many concessions they gained. At that point, blaming the Democrats for failing to be bipartisan is silly: it was the histrionic nonsense of the Republican party that prevented bipartisanship.


And yet the same congressmen and senators who opposed the bill also claim that it cuts Medicare funding. If you're worried about a "foot in the door," then you should be a hell of a lot more concerned about Medicare than about this reform.


It has that.


It has that.


It has that to some extent.

The GOP published a list of conditions for health care reform on their website. The bill that passed without a single Republican vote included every last plank of the Republican health care agenda. The GOP's opposition to the bill was a matter solely of politics, not of policy.

Unfortunately, this is blatantly unconstitutional. Congress has no such power, not even under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Refusal to buy or not buying is not commerce. In fact it is a lack of commerce so Congress can't regulate that.

It might be a good idea to have a policy that people who don't buy insurance if they can afford to, shall not be treated, except as they can pay out of pocker and not even in an Emergency Ward. Then people can make a decision on how important insurance is.

ruveyn