America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

[Rover]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

We have a huge health care bill that most members of Congress haven't read, and Obama doesn't even know what is in it.

Which bill are you talking about? The people on the finance committee haven't read their bill? Probably, of course that's because the bill hasn't been written yet.

So what if it took some right leaning radio and TV stations to actually dig into the bill to see what it says. At least someone is doing it. In its current form, the people most hurt by it will be the middle aged and elderly who currently have private health insurance.

Explain please. What bill are you talking about, and Lets hear some specifics. How are the elderly and middle aged hurt by this?

If anything is moronic, its some of the new blurbs put out by the DNC and the likes of Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid decrying the "mobs" that are "storming" the townhall meetings. Give me a break. Mobs? Storming? If the Dems are that afraid of the middle aged and elderly using their 1st Amendment right to speak up at townhall meetings, heaven help us if we happen to get into an armed conflict with another country during Obama's tenure as president.

Were it not staged, that would be fine. The problem is easily seen in the news stories. The stories now aren't indignant Americans rise up against fascist Muslim Overlord who wants to ram socialist bill down their throats. The stories are right wing activists try to pack town hall meetings and disrupt the proceedings. What that tells the country is that conservative Republicans, a group about as popular as the flu right now, is up to their same old a-hole tactics. That plays right into Obama's hands, because in case you haven't noticed, you guys aren't popular with the American electorate at present. I can understand people asking pointed questions, but I'll ask you directly, how is political discourse enhanced by chanting slogans at a town hall gathering loudly so nobody can actually have a discussion?

 

[Bill]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

I can understand people asking pointed questions, but I'll ask you directly, how is political discourse enhanced by chanting slogans at a town hall gathering loudly so nobody can actually have a discussion?

It's kind of hard to have a reasonable discussion when your Congressman either hasn't read the bill(s) or isn't honest enough to admit what's in them and what effect it will have. When it's obvious they are being stonewalled, the constituents are going to get a little testy.

 

[Rover]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

It's kind of hard to have a reasonable discussion when your Congressman either hasn't read the bill(s) or isn't honest enough to admit what's in them and what effect it will have. When it's obvious they are being stonewalled, the constituents are going to get a little testy.

So in your opinion everyday people can't ask a Congressman what they would support in a final bill that's yet to be written, so its better off to just loudly chant "no you can't" over and over again and disrupt the entire session?

Yeah...

BTW - I'm still waiting to hear back on which bill hurts the elderly and middle aged with private insurance...

 

[LynahFan]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

You personal situation is relevant if you termed it a massive tax bill. Why do you say that? Do the taxes of insurance companies truly concern you that much, and if so how long has their plight been on your mind? Again sticking with the article posted, where are individuals paying more taxes?

There are several items mentioned in the article that result in individuals paying higher taxes (tax on the health plans that 7% of Americans have, caps on tax-free health spending accounts, shifting of compensation from tax-free health benefits to higher taxable salaries), and yes, I object to higher taxes on health insurance companies, too. Those costs will obviously just be passed along to consumers (who will now be required to purchase the product) in the form of higher premiums, so individuals will end up paying those taxes, too.

How can you not see that there's a difference between "we are going to make changes to reduce the cost of health care" vs. "we are going to find new ways to pay for the status quo governmental spending on health care"?

 

[Handyman]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

It's kind of hard to have a reasonable discussion when your Congressman either hasn't read the bill(s) or isn't honest enough to admit what's in them and what effect it will have. When it's obvious they are being stonewalled, the constituents are going to get a little testy.

Have you watched any of these disruptions...this isnt people asking questions in a civil manner they are screaming and yelling and infringing on OTHER PEOPLES ability to have a discussion. They aren't there to get answers, they are there to stop the discussion and cause a scene...oh and make sure to get it on camera so it can be played on Youtube and the RNC web site. That isn't democracy in action that is just BS no matter who does it.

Sorry but this isn't civil discourse...this is faux outrage and attacks. It is like when a bunch of "concerned citizens" charged the recount in Florida in 2000...sure none of the "rioters" were from Florida and all of them were paid (and many employed to this day) by the Republicans but they are just expressing their outrage at something that has nothing to do with them without any conflict of interests! This is what politics has become...

Anyone remember Mr. Smith Goes To Washington? Remember when Congress is going to throw Smith out and Jim Taylor and his machine stage riots, buy out all the radio airtime they can, get editorials written and block any dissent from being put through? That is all we get these days from the Dems and GOP...its all scare tactics and slogans, nothing is real.

 

[Handyman]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

There are several items mentioned in the article that result in individuals paying higher taxes (tax on the health plans that 7% of Americans have, caps on tax-free health spending accounts, shifting of compensation from tax-free health benefits to higher taxable salaries), and yes, I object to higher taxes on health insurance companies, too. Those costs will obviously just be passed along to consumers (who will now be required to purchase the product) in the form of higher premiums, so individuals will end up paying those taxes, too.

How can you not see that there's a difference between "we are going to make changes to reduce the cost of health care" vs. "we are going to find new ways to pay for the status quo governmental spending on health care"?

Rover is not going to listen to you...he thinks anything the Dems do is in the best interest of everyone. If the same plan was put forth by Newt he would be lambasting it because the Insurance Companies are just going to pass along the cost to the consumer (which means of course the GOPs Insurance cronies will get rich while we pay more) but since it is his guys doing it he files in lockstep. It is like deja vu all over again back when dtp defended everything the neocons did.

I hope this plan fails badly so maybe they can try and come up with something that might actually help out the vast majority of people...nah that cant happen!

 

[Kepler]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

So what if it took some right leaning radio and TV stations to actually dig into the bill to see what it says. At least someone is doing it.

That's actually an excellent point. The adversarial party doesn't have to have our best interests in mind to accomplish something positive. In throwing everything against the wall and praying something sticks, they may inadvertently find something real. "Useful idiots" describes this.

Parties are machines for concentrating power in the hands of party donors and members. Media are machines for generating profits by attracting audience. Neither has "our best interests" at heart -- they exist to serve a handful of people's personal interests. But they have the resources and will to challenge the government, and that accidentally can protect us from being bulldozed.

After the last 8 years, it's obvious what happens when those adversaries aren't able to do this. One of the best things that can happen during the Obama presidency is to return the government to balance, so that can not happen again.

 

[Bill]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

So in your opinion everyday people can't ask a Congressman what they would support in a final bill that's yet to be written, so its better off to just loudly chant "no you can't" over and over again and disrupt the entire session?

Yeah...

BTW - I'm still waiting to hear back on which bill hurts the elderly and middle aged with private insurance...

Look, we all know there isn't a final reconciled bill yet, so all we can do is critique what has been included in the initial draft bills. The huge draft bill that first came out includes a public option for health care. Do you think the private insurance companies can compete for long with a government option that doesn't have to make a profit and is supported by the fact that the government can print all the money it wants? The bill may not explicitly put an end to private health insurance, but that's what it would lead to. And even for those who initially would be able to keep their private insurance, if any changes are made to their policies, that would wind up kicking them over to the public option. If a public option remains in the final bill, that paves the way for an eventual single payer option, which is what Obama and other Dem leaders (e.g. Barny Frank) want to see. And we all know who the single payer will be. The government doesn't exactly have a good track record of running large scale entitlement programs.

We don't exactly have an excess supply of doctors and nurses in this country. There have even been decreases in certain areas. If we throw another 40-50 million people into the mix, we're going to have long waits to get medical care and even rationing. Who do you that is going to impact the most? The elderly, and to a lesser extent the middle aged, are the biggest users of health services. That's just part of the reality of growing older. What would be really surprising is if they weren't raising any stink at all based upon what details have come out of the draft bill(s).

If you want universal health care with a single payer option, fine. Be careful what you ask for...

 

[MinnFan]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Unions to join the fray at townhall meetings

If conservatives at the meetings are "thugs" then what do you call these guys?

 

[ScottM]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Care to explain this? My company is contracted with dozens of VA facilities to contact insurance carriers on unpaid medical claims when the vet has health coverage beyond Medicare. Exactly how do the "feds" deny claims they've never been expected to pay for services rendered at a VA (Federally funded) facility?

I was making more of a generalization about dealing with the federal bureaucracy. Whatever the feds may outsource to third parties, it's never a picnic dealing directly with the nameless, pencil pushing GSs. So, feel free to unbunch your Hanes.

 

[Kepler]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Unions to join the fray at townhall meetings

If conservatives at the meetings are "thugs" then what do you call these guys?

I believe the traditional term is "undervalued employees of the New Jersey sanitation industry."

I'd like to see both astroturf groups scream at each other in the parking lot while the rest of us get to talk with our reps, but why should a town hall meeting be any different from lobbying, letters to reps, "spontaneous" rallies, editorials, news commentary, etc? If anything, this may help more people recognize how much of a scam our "representative democracy" will continue to be as long as institutionalized bribery is "protected speech."

 

[Patman]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Unions to join the fray at townhall meetings

If conservatives at the meetings are "thugs" then what do you call these guys?

personally I think the president has opened the door to getting sued personally if somebody gets injured with his whole "hit back twice as hard" bit.

So much for the uniting post-partisan. Worse, so much for an American president who is supposed to represent the nation. If his ideas are so great and righteous and correct then why does he need to wage a campaign against his own citizens?

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

personally I think the president has opened the door to getting sued personally if somebody gets injured with his whole "hit back twice as hard" bit.

So much for the uniting post-partisan. Worse, so much for an American president who is supposed to represent the nation. If his ideas are so great and righteous and correct then why does he need to wage a campaign against his own citizens?

He's just following his predecessors lead as all good Presidents do.

BUSH: No, I don't view -- I'm a uniter, not a divider. I don't believe there's a deep divide. As a matter of fact, when you look at the results amongst Republicans who are voting in the primaries, I'm winning overwhelmingly, and -- which means it's going to be easy to unite our party and lead us to victory. It's been my record. It's what I've done as governor. I know how to unite people. I don't like the politics of pitting one group of people against another, the politics of pointing fingers. I like that politics advocated by somebody like Ronald Reagan, who was a uniter. He didn't stand up and pit groups of people against each other. He didn't have a spiteful agenda, he had an optimistic agenda, as do I.

 

[Rover]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Some surprisingly good points out here, lets take them one by one...

1) Bill, I'm all for tough questions of our representatives at health care forums. Personally, I don't think a public option is a deal breaker. If a compromise comes up that puts that aside (perhaps to be revisited if health care costs continue to spiral) or this state by state co-operate idea gets tried, I'm okay with that. If a public plan is in there, they should make it extremely limited, as in employers can't just dump you off on it. I don't think there's enough support in the Democratic caucus to set up a single payer system so I don't see that as the end result here.

2) To your second point, the free market that everybody talks about will help fill positions if there's a demand. Furthermore there's a bit more of a movement to have health clinics at your local CVS or the Minnesota example that was sighted to maybe handle more non-emergency health care options. A valid point no doubt, but I don't think the answer to a potential doctor shortage is just not insuring 50 M people.

3) Handy, right on the post about disruptions (ackkk, peteweey, did I just say that? ). Don't see how anybody on the right, unless you're really juvenile or stupid, thinks shouting down a discussion is a good idea. The press coverage bears it out, as reporters are now actively researching who got these people to come, and that's now the story. All this will do is activate a now dormant Dem base to rally around the President, and since there's more Dems than Republicans out there this is a bad idea.

4) To your next point, I'm all for the bipartisan finance committee negotiations, and think they've produced some better ideas. Particularly on the cost cutting side. The bottom line for me in all of this is that a final bill should not be held up because 1% of it somebody finds objectionable. Its doubtful we'll ever get everybody on board with this effort for a long, long time if this doesn't go through, and I don't see the point of throwing away all of the hard work both sides have been doing just in the name of "lets start over" or "lets delay". A lot of people on the right are saying that to defeat the bill strictly to deny the President a victory, and that's not a valid reason IMHO.

5) Lynah, changes to pay for health care and changes to make savings go hand and hand. Its like anything, an aquisition or opening a new office somewhere. Your upfront costs are high until you start seeing savings/revenue. Why would this be any different?

As far as tax burdens, for the finance committee proposal its an attempt to wring more efficiency out of the system. High cost, gold plated health care is expensive and inefficient, and will most likely stop being offered. While HSA are a good thing, you're not screwing people if at some point the deductions are limited (much like other deductions in the tax code have a ceiling to them). Plus, it may encourage people to do better about managing their health care usage. In a perfect world, it would be great if it cost nothing extra to reform the system. However, I'd prefer using tax changes to make the system work better as opposed to a straight out tax hike on say income to pay for any overhaul.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

2) To your second point, the free market that everybody talks about will help fill positions if there's a demand.

That only if you actually let the free market work. The increase in demand with a constant supply would normally mean that prices go up. In this case doctors' salaries. That would encourage more people to become doctors. However, that won't be allowed in order to control costs. Therefore you will not see more doctors to meet demand. In fact, beause there it no pricing mechanism for demand you will likely have less doctors considering they come out of school with $200K of debt and their pay will be regulated.

 

[SPIN CONTROL]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

I think the "angry mobs" at these town hall meeting should steal a play from the lefty moonbat playbook and start throwing pies at the Democrat congressmen. That would be some pretty funny stuff.

 

[Kepler]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Worse, so much for an American president who is supposed to represent the nation. If his ideas are so great and righteous and correct then why does he need to wage a campaign against his own citizens?

The irony of this, coming after the antics of Dubya, Clinton and Reagan in stroking their supporters and denigrating everyone else, is pretty impressive. I've heard Obama acknowledge that both sides can have legitimate and differing policy preferences which should be respected and logically argued. That's more than we ever heard from those other three bozos, who played the "grunt, good, grunt evil" card whenever they could.

 

[Rover]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

That only if you actually let the free market work. The increase in demand with a constant supply would normally mean that prices go up. In this case doctors' salaries. That would encourage more people to become doctors. However, that won't be allowed in order to control costs. Therefore you will not see more doctors to meet demand. In fact, beause there it no pricing mechanism for demand you will likely have less doctors considering they come out of school with $200K of debt and their pay will be regulated.

Why would their pay be regulated? If anything, more people insured should equal more business (albeit at maybe less $$$ for Medicare/Medicaid patients per patient), shouldn't it?

 

[LynahFan]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Rover - clearly, I'm all in favor of finding mechanisms to pay for any changes up front, and kudos to all those involved for doing so. All I'm saying is that I seem to be hearing more and more about funding and less and less about reform.

It seems like all we hear about are nebulous promises from "the industry" that they will identify a few billions in savings here and there. Somehow that seems a bit disingenuous to me - they're telling the government what it wants to hear in order to get this bill passed. What's a few billion in savings when the government is about to hand them a previously untapped, captive base of 45 million new customers? Without explicit cost controls, rationing, etc tied to mandatory coverage, I fear that "the industry" are about to make out like bandits at the expense of the quality of care for us, their customers.

 

[goldy_331]

Re: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 - The USCHO debates

Why would their pay be regulated? If anything, more people insured should equal more business (albeit at maybe less $$$ for Medicare/Medicaid patients per patient), shouldn't it?

Fee for service is set by Medicare/Medicaid and is typically not enough to cover costs and a reasonable salary for the docs. More of those patients will not increase the doc's income as they already see too many patients in a day as it is.