Obama's New HC Plan

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He's a politician. Since when have we expected politicians to actually stick to what they say? Hell...since when have they ever done it?

--A

[Cybrweez]

Actually, there were quite a few people who took Obama at his word, and quite a few of them still do. Those that still do are the worrisome ones.

[Ki]

I took him at his word. He promised to fundamentally transform this country and I believe that's what he intends to do.

[Avatar]

Well, he may be intending to try anyway. changing things is harder than it looks.

--A

[Rawedge Rim]

www.speaker.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=1576

............


“You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President’s economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation—innovation begins in the classroom—clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform. Health insurance reform is about jobs. This legislation alone will create 4 million jobs, about 400,000 jobs very soon.

“We must have the courage, though, to get the job done. We have the ideas. We have the commitment. We have the dedication. We know the urgency. Now we have to have the courage to get the job done. So proud that President Obama is taking the message so forcefully to the American people! This is long overdue, a hundred years.

“The challenges we face, the health, the education, the education of our children, the economic well-being of their families, the safety of neighborhoods, all of this, all roads lead to you. The challenges we all face are too great though for each of us to face them alone. We need to form the partnerships, strengthen partnerships at every level of government and with committed and compassionate leaders to understand that the need to focus on the next generation, we need to focus on the next generation, not the next election.

“With that in mind and with great enthusiasm and a sense of history that we have of this responsibility to ensure that health care in America is a right not a privilege; let us move forward in the spirit of restoring and strengthening our partnership, and finding solutions in difficult times. In so doing, we will realize the dream of a brighter future. Thank you for all that you do to make that so.

“Thank you NACo, for the opportunity to be with you. On behalf of my colleagues in the Congress, I welcome you to Washington, D.C. I hope we will see you on Capitol Hill. We want your advocacy either here or from home.

Let me get this straight......we have to pass the 2700 page bill into law so we can find out what's in it?

Did I just step out of the "Twilight Zone" where a statement like that is meant to be taken seriously? We need to pass the bill into law so we can find out what it will do???????

And this silly assed person is 3rd in line for the Presidency???????????

[Avatar]

Yeah, that's crazy.

But I thought we'd gotten away from the huge 1,000 page bill? Thought the new one was a drastically pared down one?

--A

[Zarathustra]

............a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket.

With an HSA, preventive care is 100% covered, and there is no deductible.

Most preventive "care" is 100% free: eat less, exercise more, don't smoke, don't drink too much.

the three pillars that the President’s economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation

I can't believe she thinks "innovation" and "legislation" can exist in the same paragraph.

—innovation begins in the classroom—

Innovation begins in a massive government monopoly run by mediocrity-protecting unions who's main job is to teach conformity and a government-standardized view of what's important?? Innovation? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.

. . . addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world . ..

You mean like the largest tax in human history, which makes the production and transporation of every single commodity more expensive? Yeah! Go America!

The challenges we all face are too great though for each of us to face them alone.

Ah, the sing-song jingle of communism. No, she's got it all wrong. The challenges we face are too great to let government screw it up.

We need to form the partnerships, strengthen partnerships at every level of government and with committed and compassionate leaders to understand that the need to focus on the next generation, we need to focus on the next generation, not the next election.

You hear that? "Partnerships." Not top-down control backed up by guys with guns who will put you in jail if you don't buy health insurance. No . . . a harmless "partner" of a "committed and compassionate" leader. Just forget that his compassion is enforced by the world's most powerful government. Focus on the nice word, "partner."

health care in America is a right not a privilege

A right. So you have the right to smoke and eat yourself to death, and then use the government to take my money to pay for your expensive health care bills. Riiiight. No. You have the right to get off your ass, exercise, get a job, and pay for your own health care. You don't have a right to force me to buy it for you.

[Avatar]

How many taxpayers are there in America? What percentage of total tax revenue does your contribution represent?

--A

[Zarathustra]

How many taxpayers are there in America? What percentage of total tax revenue does your contribution represent?

--A

Well, obviously, my contribution to the overall revenue pie is very small. But that's the wrong question. You have to ask how much of my earnings go to taxes. One way to look at it is Tax Freedom Day. For nearly 1/3 of the year, we're effectively working for the government. But instead of getting paid by the government, like those who have cushy government jobs, our labor is taken from us to run the government. That's 4 months out of 12 in which we're servants to the collective.

[Avatar]

Well sure. My question was out of interest though...found out the other day that technically, SA is one of the largest welfare states in the world. Despite the fact that it barely supports anybody. Only 25% of the population pay taxes. The rest are either unemployed, or earn so little that they're exempt.

Anyway, as I've said before, I lose all control of my tax the instant I pay it. It ceases to be my money. The government can (and does) do whatever it wants with it.

So I don't worry about it much.

--A

[sindatur]

Well sure. My question was out of interest though...found out the other day that technically, SA is one of the largest welfare states in the world. Despite the fact that it barely supports anybody. Only 25% of the population pay taxes. The rest are either unemployed, or earn so little that they're exempt.

Anyway, as I've said before, I lose all control of my tax the instant I pay it. It ceases to be my money. The government can (and does) do whatever it wants with it.

So I don't worry about it much.

--A

The reason for concern is the more they do (or waste) the more they need to take. I think most of us accept that we do need some form of Government, and they are needed for certain things (and most even accept a certain elvel of safety net services). So, yes, once they take the money it's theirs, however, if they waste it, they took money they didn't need to take, and now need to take more.

[Zarathustra]

This came out last fall. I don't know why I'm just now hearing about it.

The biggest denier of health care claims is . . . .

Medicare. link

Government health care denied 6.85% of its claims. The seven insurance companies in the study averaged 4.05% denial rate of their claims.

I wonder why those numbers weren't all over the news, and why Dems still get away with demonizing insurance companies.

Oh, and private insurance industry averaged less than 3% profit margin. As George Will said recently, you could take 100% of the profit of insurance companies, and you'd only be able to fund the health care system for 48 hours! So they barely make enough profit to stay afloat, and they deny fewer claims than government health care. What's the problem, again?

[Damelon]

Warren Buffett makes my point about the healthcare problem far better than I. We need a Plan C.

The world's second-richest person called on Washington policymakers to adopt fundamental reforms on such costs to address what he called a "national emergency."

He said health care eats up 17 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, at a time when many other countries pay only nine or 10 percent of GDP but have more doctors, nurses and hospital beds per capita.

"It's like a tapeworm eating at our economic body," Buffett said on CNBC television.

"If it was a choice today between Plan A, which is what we've got, or Plan B, which is the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill," he said. "But I would much rather see a Plan C that really attacks costs, and I think that's what the American public wants to see."

[Zarathustra]

Damelon, you (and Buffet) are right. My question was a little facetious. Cost is the problem, and it has been the focus of my free market solutions.

I was responding to the demonization of insurance companies by Obama and the Democratic leaders. The reason they tell horror stories of insurance companies denying claims--and focus on profits of Big Insurance--is because they don't want to identify the real problem, like you've done here. And that's because they know their plan won't do a thing to lower cost.

If health care consumes 17% of our GDP now, it will consume even more if we let the government assume a major role. The history of every government entitlement is to grow.

However, while I believe cost is the problem, I don't believe it's a crisis. Or it doesn't have to be. The only sense that it's a crisis is because we have government entitlements like Medicare that are going bankrupt. If the government hadn't promised to take care of people indefinitely, we wouldn't be in such a mess. You can't make promises that are impossible to keep.

Part of the reason health care cost keeps increasing is because of its success. Our technologies are not only getting more complicated and expensive, but they are also keeping us alive longer, so that per person we end up spending more on health care over our lifetimes. We're keeping more people alive during their least healthy years for longer and longer. Of course that's going to increase in cost! The longer you use health care, the more you'll have to pay. And the older you get, the more expensive your health care is (and the less you're able to contribute to your own costs).

The problem is that we feel like we're entitled to live as long as medical science is able to squeeze a few more breaths out of us, but we don't feel like we should pay for the diminishing returns of those astronomically increasing costs. If people had to pay for their own health care, maybe they'd decide that they had lived a good life, and it's not going to get any better, so they might as well let nature take its course. But as long as you're spending other people's money, why not lie in a nursing home bed a few more years? Why not eat as much as you want and then have other people pay for your gastric bypass surgery? Or knee replacement surgery? Or chemotherapy for your smoking? Why make any sacrifice at all when you're spending other people's money? Especially when our Democrat leaders are telling us it's our right.

That's why health care costs so much. Because we have a system in place which encourages people not to care how much it costs.

We do need plan C. This will destroy our nation if we increase health care entitlements. We'll become an aging society of useless people who cling to life because they think it's their right to pretend that life costs nothing, and that their lives aren't their responsibility, and that it's rational to deny our mortality as long as technology enables us to do so.

I find it ironic that the people most likely to have the mindset that modern, industrial, capitalist civilization is "evil" are also the ones who think we have a right to take other people's money to spend on medical technology (produced by that modern, capitalist civilization) to keep them alive longer than Mother Earth ever intended. They will talk about the evils of overpopulation, but never think it applies to them, and will fight for my last dollar in order to continue crowding the earth with their unhealthy bodies as long as my money lasts. It's a bizarre, contradictory attitude.

[Avatar]

Survival of the fittest huh?

Good post though.

--A

[Zarathustra]

I'm not sure if it's survival of the fittest (though ultimately it's impossible to escape Darwinian logic).

However, I'm just talking about the relationship between cost and personal responsibility. The more responsible you are, the more you care about cost, and the more you care about cost, the less costs will spiral beyond demand. Unlimited access to healthcare, unchecked by people caring how much it costs, creates a demand that is ever-increasing. As demand increases, so does cost. That's just basic economics.

I'm not saying that people *should* die if they can't afford to live. I'm just stating the fact that life isn't free. Liberals have no problem pointing out that resources are limited (when they're talking about resources they don't like and want us to stop using--such as oil), but they seem to never recognize that health care is also a finite resource. [Finite at any given time--we can increase it, however.] And money is a finite resource. [Again, at any given time, though it can increase indefinitely.] It is impossible for people to have as much health care as they want, and pretend this access is disconnected from cost. There WILL come a time when health care eats up 100% of our GDP--or close enough that our system will collapse.

There are ways out of this. We can try to grow the economy faster than rising health care costs, so we'll always have money to pay for our ever-increasing health care. We can also exercise judicious personal choices to act as a brake upon rising health care costs (consumer-driven health care), so that the market responds to a natural retraction of demand by people shopping for the best value. And we can combine these two factors--economic growth and restricted, savvy demand--to ensure that costs don't go up faster than our ability to pay.

Or we can have the government step in and undermine the free market principles which naturally, efficiently restrain costs, by providing health care to people without holding them responsible. This will have the opposite effect: costs will continue to go up, and the economy will suffer . . . leaving us with no choice but to ration health care from a top-down approach, because cost will outstrip our ability to pay. It will be survival of the fittest, as decided by a government bureaucrat, rather than individuals making free choices.

[Harbinger]

Further down the spiral.


I have very primitive beliefs. I do believe in survival of the fittest. I also believe in healthcare, but I do not believe that it's a right. Don't expect me to take care of you unless it's an emergency and I happen to be around.

[Avatar]

I'm all in favour of personal responsibility. And I'd be supportive of any scheme that promoted it, while still providing essential health-care to people who couldn't otherwise afford it.

At heart, I am a Darwinian. Natural selection and all that. But I'm always torn on the issue, because as true as Darwinian logic is, it's not humane. And neither are we compelled to be restricted by it, (good as it may (genetically) be for us).

I think that nature is red in tooth and claw. But I also think that we should try and improve the lot of those who need it, because we can.

It's in our power to help improve life and society. Why shouldn't we?

--A

[Zarathustra]

I'm all in favour of personal responsibility. And I'd be supportive of any scheme that promoted it, while still providing essential health-care to people who couldn't otherwise afford it.

Seems like a contradiction. If someone can't afford it, isn't that becuase they haven't taken enough personal responsibility to be able to afford it? I hate to keep bringing this up, but my family is insured for less than most people spend on cigarettes. Ever notice how poor people still manage to afford cigarettes? How does that happen? Priorities.

At heart, I am a Darwinian. Natural selection and all that. But I'm always torn on the issue, because as true as Darwinian logic is, it's not humane. And neither are we compelled to be restricted by it, (good as it may (genetically) be for us).

I think it's inhumane to make people dependent. I think it's more humane to encourage them to stand on their own two feet. And in a society where it's easier than it ever has in all human history to live well by your own labor, there is nothing inhumane about insisting that people do so.

I think that nature is red in tooth and claw. But I also think that we should try and improve the lot of those who need it, because we can.

I'm not saying "tooth and claw." I'm saying, "get a job and earn it. How can you not afford $10/month????"

It's in our power to help improve life and society. Why shouldn't we?

--A

Well, we already do. Even if you didn't count all the entitlement programs we already provide for the poor, the elderly, for vets, for children of families making up to $60,000 for christsake(!!!), our capitalist society already helps people in many ways by giving them opportunities that humans didn't have 100 years ago . . . or even 25 years ago. So we *do* help improve life and society. Even when we do "nothing" at all. The capitalist system helps people by default.

The question is: how much more are we obligated to help? You say it's within our power. But the help we're providing right now is bankrupting our country. That's not within our power. It's not within our means. It's passing the burden on to our grandchildren. I don't think we have the right to force people who aren't even born yet to take care of people who are able to take care of themselves today.

As for "why shouldn't we," well, because you don't have the right to force me to improve your life. Your life is your responsibility. I shouldn't be under any obligation to improve your life. That's why I shouldn't.

But if someone else wants to help others . . . who's stopping you?

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If you're making 60K a year, you shouldn't be needing help. But I'm not talkng about the specifics of any case, I'm just talking about the principle behind it.

And of course, I operate on the principle that it's not you doing the helping, it's the government. You're not obligated to do anything except pay taxes. It's with what the government does with that money afterwards where the question arises.

--A