Health care reform almost at the finish line... correction: it's finished

If I understand the bill correctly, you will need to buy insurance but you will be given subsidies to lower the price. The only way to keep premiums where they are and still force insurance companies to accept people with pre-existing conditions is to increase the risk pool. This isn't really a concession to the insurance companies. It is an economic necessity.Frankly, I don' think anyone can really say how this bill will work by reading the bill itself. I think it will take 2-4 years to really see what this bill does. It's not selfish at all. Asking what a bill will do for you is the whole point. Everyone should be asking that. For people like myself who already have employer provided health insurance a possible benefit is lowering my premiums. The bill will supposedly do this by getting uninsured people on insurance. This will prevent them from walking away from emergency room bills. These unpaid bills require hospitals to increase their overall charges, and hence increase insurance rates for people who do carry insurance.This is why the moaning and groaning about having to pay for health care for the poor (and illegal aliens) is so misguided. We are already paying for it. IMHO, it is also misguided to claim that this bill will "bankrupt the country". Guess what? Health care is already bankrupting this country. Everything that the Republicans are complaining about is exactly what the current system is doing.Frankly, I really don't see how prices can be controlled without the government being a big part of the system. The one government model we do have in this country, the VA system, is able to spend about 15% less per patient and still give equal care. The savings could be less if more of the care could be done in house (some VA care is contracted out). If we continue to base health care on a for-profit system americans will lose out because there is no profit in giving everyone health care.

There's an old adage about the devil you know. It's not a matter of loving corporations. Rather, conservatives are able to make people fear government run health care more than the shitty insurance they already have, or want to have. I think we should really address whether or not health care should be part of the free market. We have decided that other necessities, such as education and roads, are too important to be trusted to the free market. Imagine if we treated education the same as we treat health care. We would have 10% of kids too poor to go to elementary school. Imagine if 10% of people were not allowed to use our road systems? So why does it make sense to keep 10% of people out of primary care and only give them access to emergency care which ends up costing us a lot more in the long run? It doesn't make sense, and yet this is the system people are defending. Whether this was true for UnitedHealthcare or not, this appears to be the case for employers in general. What money they could use for raises is eaten up by increases in health coverage.

The difference here is that the US bill is trying to prop up a system that is inherently flawed. We are essentially allowing corporations to erect a wall between people and health care, not only allowing it, but now we are going to subsidize it. I guess it takes 1,000 pages to fool people into thinking that buying health insurance is the same as buying health care. Last I checked, no one suddenly became healthier the second they mailed off a check to an insurance company.

Unless we place bouncers at the entrance of emergency rooms and charge a $2,000 dollar cover charge the poor will continue to get free care with or without insurance. At least with insurance they can access primary care which can prevent emergency room visits that are much more expensive. Also, primary care can hopefully resolve health issues before they necessitate a trip to the emergency room. These unpaid emergency room visits end up costing the insured money anyway, so it is in our best interest to offer free insurance to at least reduce the cost that is filtering down to us.We can talk about what is fair and unfair, but unless you are willing to turn away people at the emergency room this is the best option (other than universal government run coverage).Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Employers do this in two ways. First, the sheer number of the people in the pool allows them to get a better deal. If individuals are able to join together to make larger pools they would have access to the same deals.Second, the employer pays the majority of the premium. This is money that the employer could be putting directly in your pocket. I would be making another 1000 bucks a month if my employer gave me that money instead of it going towards health insurance. I think this is something that people should keep in mind. If anyone is wondering why middle class take home earnings have flatlined look no further than employers paying more to supply health insurance. For the sake of argument, if you consider the employer contribution as a tax the middle class is probably paying more in taxes than countries with government run universal health coverage.The only advantage is that the money the employer pays directly to the insurance company is pre-tax so you save money on your taxes. To make things more equitable they could restructure tax law to allow individuals who do not have employer supplied health insurance to deduct half of the cost of their premiums. The problem with the current system is that young, healthy people who can afford health insurance are not buying health insurance. If this group were added to the pool then there wouldn't be a need for higher premiums for the cadillac plans. Everyone could get access to the care they need at the same rates. Exactomundo.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Congress proposed non-governmental, non-profit insurance after it became apparent that the public option wouldn't pass the Senate. The Republicans were dead set against it, and many Democrats were against it because it didn't go far enough.

Yes, they can be that stupid.

Those don't sound like the type of docs we want in this country anyway. If you aren't interested in helping people then perhaps you shouldn't be a doctor. See, this new health bill is already producing new jobs. Not bad.

I could care less what doctors think of this bill. What matters is how it helps ALL AMERICANS. If doctors are quitting because they are in it purely for the money then good riddance.

You are required to have health insurance which can be purchased from a private health insurance company.Or you can look at it this way. Everyone is being charged a $750 dollar tax (adjusted for lower income individuals and families). You can get an offsetting tax credit of $750 by purchasing health insurance from a private health insurance provider. Would you feel better if the government raised taxes equivalent to the amount of health insurance premiums and then offered free health insurance?The fact of the matter is that everyone, at some point, uses the health care system. If they are uninsured then there is a much higher chance that they will either go bankrupt due to their medical bills or walk away from those bills entirely. It's not like forcing everyone to purchase a TV in that someone can go through life without one. It is either this or we start kicking the uninsured out of emergency rooms (which we wouldn't do anyway, but you get the point).

It is estimated that 40,000 people die per year because they can not get access to health care. More than 10% of our nation is uninsured right now which means they may very well face the choice of either dying or bankrupting their family. I would call that a failure. If it is so expensive that more than 10% of our population is limited to emergency rooms then it isn't the best health care in the world. This is further backed up by the fact that first world nations with nationalized health systems have citizens that are far healthier than Americans, and they spend a fraction of what we do for the same care.Like I said earlier, why not privatize education and roads? If we modeled education and roads after our current health care system then 10% of our country would be illiterate and 10% of our citizens would not be able to use roads to get to work. Does that sound like a good idea? There are reasons that we have public roads and public schools, and it is the same reason that we should have public health care. You can't allow capitalism to fuck around with something as vital has your health. Your life is not a commodity.

Private schools failed long ago. Prior to the introduction of public schools 80% of blacks were illiterate, and 20% of the overall population was illiterate.National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) - 120 Years of LiteracyModern private schools are a by-product of the public school system. These schools cater to the relatively rich, so higher scholastic scores are to be expected in private schools. However, if the public school system were taken away then we would return to soaring illiteracy rates. If we take the private health system as our model, we would have about 10-15% illiteracy rates among the entire population, and disproportionately higher rates among minorities and the poor. To be fair, the quality of care needs to be averaged across the entire population. This would necessarily include those who are prevented from getting primary care and are only given access to emergency care.As an analogy, we could claim that the fictitious country of Traveland has the best transportation in the world. On closer examination you find that of the cars on the road all are luxury cars costing $85k and above. However, you also find that only 10% of the population owns a car. Does Traveland have the best transportation in the world? Of the people who actually can afford cars, yes. Across the entire population, no. In any business you do not price your product so that it is affordable to 100% of the population. You shoot for a sweet spot where (price) x (# of people who can buy your product) is maximized. This means that your price may only be affordable to 90% of the population. This is how capitalism works. This is NOT the way health care should work. We should not be denying health care to 10% of the population in the name of profit. That is morally wrong.We have some of the same safeguards for utilities. Many states heavily regulate the utilities in their state to the point where the legistlature sets the price (at least that's the way it is in ID). If markets were unregulated then there is nothing to stop the electric company from pricing out 10% of the population in the name of profits. The same for the water, sewer, and gas companies. The eletric and gas companies in say N. Dak. could charge extremely high rates for their product in the winter months and balance out price vs. customer base to maximize their profits. Does this sound like a good idea? If not, then why is it a good idea to run our health care system like this?

Someone on an MSNBC show (wish I could remember who) made a really good point. The opposition to this bill isn't really based on specific policy issues. It is much more basic than that. It would appear that the majority of those who oppose this bill fundamentally disagree with the idea that government is responsible for the well being of its citizens. The passage of this bill sets a precedent for government involvement in the well being of its citizens. No bill that involved government in health insurance, much less health care, would have moved past the Republicans.Republicans do not see any role for government in getting people access to health care. The only role for government that they see is to remove already existing regulations which is why they wanted to allow health insurance companies to be able to sell insurance across state lines. They claim that this will "lower costs by increasing competition". What it really does is allow all of the nations health insurance companies to move to the state with the fewest consumer protections and the biggest profit thereby removing regulations that have been provided to protect consumers. That's their big idea for health insurance reform, create a way for health insurance companies to get around regulations.

"The nonpartisan budget office told lawmakers that the health bill set for a vote this weekend would cut the deficit by $130 billion over the next decade, and $1.2 trillion in the second decade of the plan’s implementation."http://news.firedoglake.com/...osts-940b-lowers-deficit-130b Nope, it's health insurance. The people paying into it this year are also this years beneficiaries. It is not a system where workers pay in to pay the people who retired. Tax revenue is used immediately to subsidize that years subsidies for premiums. Before the bill passed you had no say in which provider your employer went with. Nothing has changed. They could just as easily shift to a very limited private insurance plan as well. The only difference now is that companies with 50 or more employees will now be required to provide insurance to their employees, including part time workers (pro-rated for the number of hours they work). The "keep the insurance you have" only applies to those who pay 100% of their insurance premiums, or the employer. Also, nothing is stopping you from purchasing supplemental insurance to make up for any perceived gaps in the public option. However, since there is no public option yet perhaps you should wait until there is one before judging it. If you currently pay for insurance you are already paying for health coverage for these individuals. Hospitals have steadily increased the prices they charge insurance companies to cover the bills left by those without insurance. It is estimated that the average person pays out $1,000 per year in their premiums just to cover the cost of unpaid medical bills. Also, the uninsured typically go to the emergency room where they can not be denied health care because they lack insurance. Trips to the emergency room can cost 5-10 times more than a trip to the local doc-in-the-box. By subsidizing insurance for the poor you actually reduce the amount of money you need to spend to cover unpaid doctors bills.Unless you are willing to deny emergency care to the uninsured you are going to have to pay for their care somehow. It would seem to me that the first fix is to allow them access to primary care to avoid unneeded trips to the emergency room. What public option? The only hint at any sort of public option in this bill is to make the same insurance plan that congressman get available on the exchanges. While this plan is a non-profit cooperative, it is not a government run plan. Also, I highly doubt that congressmen (and congresswomen) have bad coverage. I'm not picking on you, but I have always found it ironic when Republicans wail about the evils of socialized medicine and then in the very next breath berate Democrats for threatening Medicare WHICH IS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE.But I do agree with you on this one. As my parents' generation hits retirement age (the baby boomers) it is going to create a huge burden on both SS and Medicare. We are going to have to make some very tough choices, be it raising the minimum age or increasing taxes. People my age (mid 30's) assume that SS will not be there when they retire. It's kind of sad to say, but you have to be pragmatic about it.

It's not quite that simple. A better term may be "White Anxiety", a reflection of the fact that whites are becoming less and less powerful as minorities become a larger percentage of the population. IIRC, by 2050 whites will not make up a majority of the country anymore. I sense that many in the Tea Party movement fear that minorities will try to exact revenge on whites for perceived wrong doings in the past. I agree. The tea party movement really isn't for anything. They are anti-Democrat. It reminds me of the video Olberman played a while back. Someone got to the stage and asked for a show of hands for people making under $200,000 a year. Most of the crowd raised their hand. He then explained that Obama had just lowered their taxes, which he did. They booed him. This isn't about lower taxes. This is about fear of progress.