What do you think of Obama's health care an/or economy package(s)

Health care needs to be changed for the better or abolished and limitations put onto private health care.

Two things I think that are obvious: Large businesses cannot be trusted to be completely unregulated, and the current system won't work.

 

I think you misinterpreted that section. From what I can tell, it's basically saying you can keep you're current coverage if you want, but if you plan to switch, the new coverage must follow the minimum coverage and other rules prescribed in the bill. In no way is private health insurance prohibited. What it prohibits is companies from gaming the system by enrolling people in grandfathered insurance plans that don't follow the law.

 

To me this means (the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.)
That the private insurer cannot enroll anyone that is not already covered in their plan on or after the first day of the year the healthcare bill becomes law.

I hope you are right Bob, but it doesn't sound like that to me.

My stance is I want to still have choices.

 

I seriously doubt they are actually going to make health insurance illegal, that doesn't make sense.

Even if they did, I don't see what stops private hospitals from working like gymnasiusm, charging a membership fee for use of the facilities, which would be similar in terms of money paid and service rendered but it wouldn't be insurance.

Stopping people from paying someone to provide medical treatment is really not practical.

 

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=health_care_reform_villains

Skip down to paragraph 8. This is the reason I support the current healthcare reform going through Congress. Its not perfect, but it will stop things like this from happening.

 

Chris: when government is a competitor it doesn't play by the rules because it can change rules at any time. Therefore we don't want government in anything except where we need it (army, police and courts).

Everyone has to eat but there is no public food service. If you can't afford basic things like food you go to social welfare.

Prospect isn't liberal but socialistic. I have no idea how can you call someone who wants gay marriages but doesn't allow you to buy what you want liberal. I stopped reading after 4-5th paragraph. There were no arguments there.

 

i want to buy an atomic bomb, i have the money... why cant i?

i want to buy an army, i have the money... why cant i?

buying "what you want" sometimes cannot be allowed because it hurts or creates a risk on hurting others, if buying your way out of the health care system hurts the health care system (the balance of paying for it and receiving medical attention breaks for example) then it should be made illegal so that selfish Americans who are rich enough to pay for private health care dont undermine the system


an alternative would be that you HAVE to take the governmental health care insurance, and can supplement extra with whatever you can find on the market that you want

goverments are there to serve the people's common benefit, if they stop doing that and an unbalance of care starts (for example only looking after the rich) the government should be replaced

 

"sometimes cannot be allowed because it hurts or creates a risk on hurting others"

There is a difference between hurting (physical damage) and not paying money to a bum. Of course right to work means that someone SHOULD provide job for you. Because some selfish employers might not give you a job.

 

"sometimes cannot be allowed because it hurts or creates a risk on hurting others"

There is a difference between hurting (physical damage) and not paying money to a bum. Of course right to work means that someone SHOULD provide job for you. Because some selfish employers might not give you a job.

Anyway if can't name yourself liberal if you're restricting liberty more than needed.

 

the thing is, people buying private health insurances is hurting others in a way, because it makes them unable to secure medical insurances for themselves

 

the thing is, people buying private health insurances is hurting others in a way, because it makes them unable to secure medical insurances for themselves

WHAT?! Are you retarded?

 

its hard to explain in English, but basically "cheating your way out of the system hurts the system"

also screw you! im not retarded

 

I think many people don't understand how bad current health care in America really is. Sure, private insurance is readily available, but many people grossly underestimate how costly it is.

I've always had pretty good health coverage in the past, due to my father being a manager of engineering for AT&T Global, which provides a pretty hefty health care package to its employees.

However, without it, my mother, my brother, and myself would never have been able to have health insurance because my mom's employer doesn't provide it or even subsidize it (make a contribution to a health insurance policy where the rest is covered by the employee). My mother is a dental hygienist, and would not be able to afford private health insurance without my father's job.

There are many full-time workers here in the US who simply cannot afford private health insurance. If your employer doesn't provide it or subsidize it, you're screwed and must turn to Medicaid/Medicare/Health Clinics for vaccinations and etc. When you do manage to be able to afford to pay for health insurance yourself, they do what ScardyBob pointed out and focus all of their resources on figuring out a way to disqualify you, deny your claim, and find you to be in violation of their terms - they slither and squirm their way out of covering you.

There was a story a few years back of a lady down here in Southern Texas who didn't have health insurance, but had enough cash stowed away to pay for a critical operation she needed to have done - they would not accept her cash payment and required that she obtain insurance. I don't recall the outcome of it, but such a situation should never arise.

Private health care looks nice on pencil and paper, but there are many hard working Americans (some even moonlighting at a second job) who can't even begin to imagine participating by purchasing their own health insurance - if they can't stay healthy they eventually can't work, and then they're on a downward spiral that they can't get out of.

Over here in the US, a full time job that includes health coverage is worth forgoing about $20,000 in salary (so you'd opt for the $40,000 salaried job with health coverage instead of the $60,000 without health coverage).

My grandfather needed a pacemaker some odd years ago, and all in all the whole thing cost about $240,000 (surgery, equipment, fees, lab work, etc.). Without health coverage from his employer, he would not have been able to afford to pay it outright, or even pay for private health insurance (which he wouldn't qualify for if he had a known condition prior to applying for coverage). He'd have been dead years ago.

I graduated from University this past May and am still actively seeking full-time employment... and if I can't find a full-time job with health coverage, then I'm fucked if universal healthcare isn't available within the next several years... because there's no way I will be able to afford private health insurance on my own, and certainly not if it's not at least subsidized by an employer (hopefully it would be subsidized enough to where I could afford it - everyone loves Shandy right?).

 

il pay for your medical bill on anything life threatening if you become a Belgian citizen and travel to Belgium

 

I don't fully understand.

If that is the case why hasn't the government enslaved everyone and declared America to be the great global empire of democracy or whatever?

I wrote a lengthy post about how 'the government' doesn't do anything, because 'the government' is far too spread out to do anything cohesive. The NHS works pretty well as far as I can see, people aren't dying of typhoid in the streets and most people I know are being treated by some branch of the NHS for something, so they are obviously doing what they are supposed to do, which is provide medical care to people who are ill.

The government isn't a giant evil collective consciousness with godlike foresight and power. It's more like a very large and ugly tea cosy, which can at best make wild flailing motions in the direction of something and yell a lot, but as long as you have a pair of earplugs you'll be fine. It's primary function is to provide a nice looking veneer over an aesthetically displeasing but quite functional system which provides important fundamental services to society (tea), like making sure the trains run twenty minutes late and making all those nice buildings in westminster look like they're being used.

Hospitals are buildings full of people who know how to fix people who are damaged using the things in the building. For this to occur however you need to put money into the building, and you get healthy people out.

I think there's something a bit flawed about making it so that the people who are responsible for putting money into the building are a desperate as possible to avoid doing so. So putting it into the hands of government (who are only too happy to spend ridiculous amounts of money on things, because they lack the iron fiscal cohesion of a successful insurance company) seems logical. Sure you'll get the government wanting to do things as cheaply as possible, but you already have insurance companies trying as hard as possible to not pay for anything at all. I'd rather have less than perfect healthcare than no healthcare at all. It's not as if hospitals are going to completely stop functioning, every time someone dies of something silly in a hospital the government would take huge amounts of flak for it, so it's in their interest to ensure that they work.

The experience hospitals in america have of being private enterprises has a benefit, because that teaches them efficiency, because a private enterprise needs to be efficient because it has limited funding, combine that efficiency with a governmental budget and you've got a good mixture. Of course it likely won't last and eventually hospitals will probably end up being inefficient and then there'll be a scandal and then the govenrment will make some reform promises but that happens with everything, people work hard and well until it becomes routine, then they slack off, then something bad happens and everyone works hard and well again, people need constant kicks in the pants to ensure constant hard work, but hard work usually means you don't get a kick in the pants, so you get the cycle.

 

The biggest problem with the private health care system in America is how ridiculous it profit margins are. Look at pharmaceuticals for instance, our drugs are marked up many times higher than comparative ones in other countries. Many drug companies hold monopolies on their drugs, so they can get away with that. Hospitals can do the same thing with special treatments and operations. Health insurance companies are greedy, and make ridiculous amounts of money off of questionable practices (insurance is another necessary evil in the world). As a result of all this, many people can't afford health insurance. Many companies (especially small ones) are dropping health plans because of the economy and rising healthcare costs.

Most people reading this forum either live at home with their parents or are college students. The few that actually live and work in the real world could tell you that getting healthcare isn't the easiest thing anymore. With unemployment still high, many of you should look to the future and ask youself, "When i graduate, will i be able to get healthcare?"

 

Health care is a lie
Just like the holocaust.

 

If I need medical attention I will pay for it. I wont ask the government to raize the taxes a cent for my care. But they want to any way. Between our income tax and sales tax and everything in the middle average American loses about 50% of their money to the government. Imagine if you had 50% more wealth, you could pay your own Dr. the government has grown too large its expenses two grand and too uncontrolled. They are currently moving to tax the obese. "We'll motivate them to become healthier" is not freedom. This is tyranny, we are not nutritionists they are not personal fitness majors, they aren't even regular exercisers, why you should we trust in me to choose a fair tax.

On the medical side to nationalize Health Care has convenience benefits, on the taxpayer side it's a larger burden. Everyone a matching 50% more wealth all the things you can do. If everyone had a rifle. If companies paid for the roads to their buildings and neighborhoods paid for the roads to their homes charities paid to feed the homeless and the poor (Who could survive on less, cause of the reduced cost of living). A man would be entitled to everything he earned th inspiring me to work harder, and the lazy could work just enough to get by.

This was the kind of freedom that America was founded for.

 

I life in germany we have on of the top 3 healthcare systems in the world.
If your american freedom means that:
People die because they cant afford healthcare.
People have tooth spaces, haha.
People go into depts for the rest of their lifes because they had one bigger disease.
asf...

Its ridiculous, everytime I see something on the news or elsewhere
about the american health care system it reminds me of countrys like
uganda. Its 3rd world standart.

A example, my grandpa had an apoplectic stroke, needed a hip joint
endoprosthesis and had some major diseases in his life. The treatment of
those problems cost the state over 3000000 Euro that are
4266000 Dollar and guess how much he had to pay?
Nothing exept the monthly financial contributions into the health care
system.

If you want a 3rd world health care system and you are so stupid to be proud
of it let your people die, people like me that life in a country with a good
and reasonable system will point at you and laugh.

 

My fathers hip replacement only cost 6000 dollars. Up and walking like a pro. Sounds like you've been had.

It's not about good medical coverage. It's about freedom. I don't believe the whole world should be like America. I just think America should be free. So those in other countries who want to pay for their own coverage and not the coverage of others, can. Diversification is key to survival just because a Medical System Works in one country doesn't mean it will work in another we should have as many different countries with as many different plans is possible, and people go to those plans they want. That is freedom.