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

No it won't. No bill has, in the last 40 years, had a positive effect on the deficit. I dare you to find just one that has. There's a reason for that. These bills never turn out to be what they are supposed to be. Law makers can't forsee future costs of these bills 5 years down the road or what might happen.And that's why I'm against this bill. Not because it's liberal vs. conservative (although that's "generally" the way it goes, but the GOP really ticked me off during GWB tenure) but because I'm opposed to almost anything that balloons the size and control of the government. To me, it's never a good thing. Now, I do think something needs to be done about health care reform but I would prefer the private sector to fix it (buying health care plans across state lines, HSA's, ect). But even with my solid state/local gov't job, the costs are going up every year for us too.One thing to ask yourself is this: Congress currently has the greatest health care plan in existence. One, why don't they give that to all of us and two, conversely, are they willing to give that up and take the health care plan that they are about to pass??? I think we know the answers to those questions.Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

Do you know what kind of plan the Congress has right now? It is NOT the same plan they are proposing to us. Yes, it has government funding but not 100% but the biggest difference is the OPTIONS they have, whereas we will have NONE.As soon as members of Congress are sworn in, they may participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). The program offers an assortment of health plans from which to choose, including fee-for-service, point-of-service, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). In addition, Congress members can also insure their spouses and their dependents.Not only does Congress get to choose from a wide range of plans, but there’s no waiting period. Unlike many Americans who must struggle against precondition clauses or are even denied coverage because of those preconditions, Senators and Representatives are covered no matter what - effective immediately.And the Congressional perks don’t stop with the FEHBP. According to the article Health care as good as Congress gets, by John Barry, a staff writer for the St. Petersburg Times, Members of Congress have their own pharmacy, right in the Capitol. They also have a team of doctors, technicians and nurses standing by in case something busts in a filibuster. They can get a physical exam, an X-ray or an electrocardiogram, without leaving work.Those last three paragraphs are from a moderate to left leaning source called Suite101.Here's a link from a very conservative source that agrees with me on this. Congress's Own Health Plan As A Model For Medicare Reform | The Heritage FoundationThe point I was making that the Congress is nothing like what Congress is proposing. Ya, tax payers fund some of this but it's still 10X better then what the same Congress is proposing that we all HAVE to go to. Um, no, I've not read 1,000 pages of a bill from Congress. I've read bits and pieces but not all 1k pages.I know the Bill does not set up any plan for them to take up. That's my point!!! Congress is exempt from this, but none of us are! I have good health care right now, it's affordable (yes, rising in price, but affordable) so why should I HAVE to change??? They don't! That's my point. Name calling and personal attacks? Mature.Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

Ding, ding, ding, ding.....we have a winner!!! Somebody that knows what they are talking about!Rahvin, this is exactly what will happen. The city I work for provides health care...pretty good health care. I have to pay a set amount out of every paycheck for my family plan, city covers the rest. So, call me an idiot, but you figure it out. What is the city going to say when Federal health care is provided for everyone? I hope I don't have to explain this to you. Oni figured it out in minutes.

Please provide where I've done that. I provided two sources in my post, one liberal, one conservative, both pretty much saying the same thing. They will disagree on what the solution is, but they both said that Congress has the best health care in the country, which is all I was pointing out.I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of a group of elected officials, who have the best health care available, trying to dictate what kind of health care we should have. They won't change their plan, why should we?You maintain that I won't HAVE to change, but you are the one who has no idea what you are talking about. Every city in this country will drop their health care provision for workers if it's available to us AND required by law. My problem is, it will be more expensive and probably quite a bit crappier then what my family is getting now.I'll be the first to say (maybe this is a conservative talking point) that health care is not a right for anybody (you may disagree) so my employer has every right to drop health care if they want (now, they'll have a mega fight on their hands with the union...but that's another topic) but employers do provide health care for employees as incentives and benefits to lure better employees. This concept probably works much better though in the private sector then it does at the municipality level. Most cops I work with have nothing but a high school degree so we aren't talking Harvard grads competing for jobs here.

I would call a health care plan that penalizes you if you don't purchase it, in the form of fines, Federal health care. We can call it whatever we want or disguise it however we feel, but it's government run health care.To sort of change the topic just a bit, and it's been mentioned in passing already in this thread, I'm trying to figure out the need for the government to step in at this point. Maybe someone can explain this to me and maybe it's a state by state thing but here in Ohio, there's health care for everybody, and I mean everybody. We have Care Source and every person that is dirt poor is on this and go to hospitals, prescriptions, ect. It's income based, so maybe this doesn't work out for those who actually go work a job but make barely enough to not qualify. I know tons of people who use this and it doesn't cost them a dime. Do other states have this?My brother is married, has two kids and doesn't make close to what I make and he found very affordable private insurance too here in Ohio. How is it in other states?

I'm not sure I understand your point on the individual/family difference. My work offers insurance to both, whether you are married or not. My cousin is a cop with me, he's single, but has an individual plan.Here's what the "family" plan entails. I pay $40 a paycheck for the family plan, it's $20 for individual plan. Also, a family plan means anybody that is married and/or children and the number of children does not matter...it's all the same whether you have 1 or 100 kids. I'm just going to continue to explain the family plan, not the individual because it's the same, the numbers just go down.We have an HSA, one of the few municipalities to go to such a thing. We have a $4,000 deductible until insurance becomes "free". Now currently under our contract the city frontloads our HSA with $3,000 of that 4k, we come up with the 1K out of paycheck deduction. That right now is a great deal but I can guarantee you on the next contract, the city is going to fight tooth and nail to lower their end of the deal...to like $2,000 or something and we come up with the other 1K.Now, I'm fairly certain that the city is also paying something else to the insurance co. (Anthem) besides what I listed but I will have to check in to what that is, if anything.

You are one of the one's I feel for. Doesn't seem right to me that all these people that DON'T work are given decent "free" (it's not free, someone pays for it) health care while you go to a job everyday, make a decent amount of money (I make 60-62K a year but up that to about 75-80k depending on the amount of overtime available in a given year) but your work offers no insurance and your stuck in no man's land with the cost of insurance. The system certainly needs fixed for people like you but I have no clue what the solution is.

Very good points. I'd love to see what I would get back from the city and what I could find on mine own. Maybe it wouldn't be worth it but on the flip side....I don't trust the city I work for (go figure, union guy not trusting management...huge shock huh?) to actually give me that money...they'd probably pocket it all and give us a nice 1.5% raise. HA!Let me clarify though, I'm not really a union guy in the same sense that electricians or auto workers may be. We are simply a bargaining unit. We can't strike (obviously) so our ability to leverage the city is weaker then at other jobs. Most of our bargaining is decided by an arbitrator who looks at the contracts other cities are getting in the same year and basis his decision on that so there's not much mystery as to what he'll decide as far as raises go. Our last contract and the one coming up have been brutal for us...we've taken it on the chin in a big way.Rahvin, I'll dig for that premium amount and post it for you.Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

Rahvin,I've found this about my insurance. And I'm willing to concede and swallow some pride that you may know more about this then I do right now. I'm not sure if these are the numbers you are looking for or if there is another premium number I'm just not finding but according to my current statement the Annual Out of pocket maximum amounts are listed as this:In Network Providers: $4,000
Out of Network Providers: $8,000I just tried setting up an online account access with Anthem but something messed up and I have to make a phone call so who knows, I may not be able to find out for sure until Monday. I'll keep digging.

I can see I'm totally in the minority here but think about this: the government has now mandated that we, as free citizens, are REQUIRED to purchase a product from the government or be penalized! In America! Seriously?? What if this were housing, or an automobile? Would you all still be for that? Of course you would! Why? Because for some of you (not all of course) others are fitting the bill.I know that something needed to be about health care but I just feel ill that we've gotten to a point where our government is MANDATING the purchase of a product. This is truly a historic moment for the country. Do I think this is leading us to Stalinism as someone sarcastically suggested here? No...that would require a dictatorship but what just passed Sunday is exactly what the Founding Fathers were AGAINST in setting up this country.Just my .02 cents worth.

What a ludicrous statement to make. Have you studied why this country has been the world's leader in innovation and why this country can single handily feed darn near the rest of the world. It's called capitalism and innovation. Without the desire for money, there is no incentive to produce, anything really. It's why the USSR couldn't overtake Afghanistan in 10 years of fighting and we swept through there in 3 weeks. It's why citizens of the USSR came over here and wept at the sight of our supermarkets and the amount of food available to us, the amount of cars available to us, the amount of computers and TV available to us. Look at our "poor" compared to the world's POOR. There's a reason why our "poor" have big screen TVs and a Play Station 3 in their homes.....it's called capitalism. It's called, we have people in this country with the incentive to become millionaires and better the way we all live.My best friends dad started the leasing concept of cars in this country. It's because of the vision he had, and yes, the want to makes tons of money, that millions of Americans live a lifestyle of leasing cars and driving brand new cars at an affordable price. Some of you have probably used that luxury we have in this country. That is just one example of an AMERICAN capitalstic venture that the world is now benefiting from. I could give thousands of examples of this.And for your example Taq, we have the BEST health care in the world because doctors are doing it for the money...there's a reason why Canadians flock here for surgeries. It's because we have the best doctors in the world. Say good riddance to them if you'd like.

Taq,You give an example of public schools. Let me ask you, as a whole, what's performing better in this country, public or private schools? I'm not saying there aren't good public schools, we've discussed this in another thread, but as whole, private schools are well outperforming public....and I'm not plugging "christian" schools here, I'm talking about just private schools, whatever that might be.When I talk about the best health care system in the world, I'm not necessarily talking about the cost. I realize costs in this country are out of control but I'm referring to the quality of care we get here. There's a reason why leaders from foreign countries have sent their family members thousands of miles away to our country to have surgeries performed. Money drives incentive to perform good work. I'm sure you don't work for free Taq...I'm sure you get a paycheck and probably even try to perform above and beyond for a bonus or something...we all do. It's human nature and those incentives increase the quality of work performed in this country, no matter the product.Well, that's my peace...I won't respond in this thread anymore as we'll just go around in circles. Until the next debate...........