Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now
plante, you're really having trouble with the term "quantify" aren't you? Read this part slowly, and repeatedly if needed. Ready? Here goes: "How much money, as in actual dollars, are these unionized employees costing the system over and above what you or some study thinks is a reasonable wage?" Because while you have some strange obsession with nurses salaries, even though if its ER nurses we're talking about 100K for that profession given the life and death decisions involved doesn't seem that outrageous, you aren't identifying a problem nor giving a dollar value for a solution. This is unlike the Dems have have given dollar values for their proposals by independent analysis. (PS - what is it with you and nurses? Did you watch a movie named Naughty Nurses or something and then went down to the hospital to act it out in real life and ended up getting arrested?)
Basically, you'd like me to author a cost analysis study to do this. Rover, short of quitting my day job to provide some slapdick internet hack (you) the proof you desire, use BASIC LOGIC:
* Nurses make up the majority of hospital payrolls (50-60%) according to nursefriendly.org.
* Health care wages have risen dramatically in the past 10-12 years. According to collegecrunch.org, the STARTING salary for a nurse has risen 48%--well outpacing inflation.
* We both agree that unionized workers make more than non-unionized workers. It's a given.
* Logic says that unionized health care workers would drive the costs even higher.
Why is this so hard for you to understand? ER visits don't increase the cost of health care--that burden falls to the taxpayers, which I've already pointed out as being far less expensive than it is being portrayed. We'll try some more basic logic.....I'll go slow so you can follow along with your English-to-idiot translator:
* Costs go down, health insurers pay less for claims.
* Health insurers pay less for claims, health insurance becomes less costly.
* Health insurance becomes less costly, more people can afford it.
Next, while this is apparently too complex for your brain, the Dem bill is trying to address cost AND coverage. Why you ask? The more people are covered, the less costly ER visits and the more on top of potential health problems they are before they blow up into a full blown crisis. Next, as part of having people with pre existing conditions covered (a worthwhile goal which you've completely avoided) the deal is to get more healthy people paying in also - hence mandatory insurance. A worthwhile tradeoff IMHO.
Regarding waste and fraud, the bill does seek to address this. The problem is, if you only go after this first, it could be years to decades before the savings are realized. In the meantime, 10's of millions and growing are still without coverage. That's not a problem if you currently have insurance. It sure is if you don't. Of course, that would require you to think beyond your own interests. As I often say to self centered people like yourself, its a good thing you weren't running the country during WWII, or we'd all be speaking German right now.
What the h*ll are you talking about? Decades? I never thought this possible of you, Rover, but you're completely overthinking this--and at the same time completely ignoring the details of the bill itself. The $500 billion/year of Medicare savings is necessary to have the bill remain deficit neutral. If they DON'T save that much each year, the bill will dramatically add to the federal debt. Start working on those savings with a different health care reform bill NOW and we still have a few more years to work on covering everyone by the time this current legislative piece of sh*t would kick in. And if you still want people to get health insurance, make it impossible to discharge health care debts when filing bankruptcy (a la student loans), and more people will purchase insurance lest they be financially decimated upon a catastrophic injury. Again, people would be more likely to buy insurance if it were cheaper, leading back to my original argument of reducing costs.
As for people with pre-existing conditions, put them on Medicare/Medicaid. It's going to be a hell of a lot cheaper for the government and the current insured than adding them to existing health insurance pools. Of course, if health care costs were to fall, insurance companies would most likely be able to open up new pools for the higher-risk insureds.
Beating you down ideologically is not too difficult, Rover. Don't quit your day job for anything where you'd have to interact with the public--because you're really bad at it. I can only hope English is your second language, because you're completely ignoring the basis of my argument.
