I do hope this bill helps more people then it hurts

[Tailormyst]

And will continue to try and help to elect people who will move us to real health CARE reform in the future. One that guarantees health CARE and not health INSURANCE to all Americans. I hope many of you will do the same.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Who exactly does this bill hurt and how does it hurt them?

I've now read this here and heard it, primarily from rightwing nutbags, in the media over and over again without any rational explanation of how precisely this bill will cause harm. Please explain.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Yep. I want specifics

I'm tired of all this nebulous, free-floating anxiety. Fuck that. I want to know exactly who in the fuck is going to get hurt as a result of this bill. After all, if someone takes the time to start a fucking thread, I expect that person to have an inkling as to what the fuck they're talking about. Let's have it already!

[Cirque du So-What]

14. Just as I thought

Drive-by flamebait that contributes NOTHING toward coherent discussion. Where are you now? You certainly had time to tippy-tap out your 'concern,' but when it comes to discussing specifics, I only hear crickets.

Yeah, this is just what DU needs - fear-engendering codswollop :eyes:

[Tailormyst]

29. I am at work so can the fucking snark

My post was NOT flamebait. My post was stating that I hope this helps more then it hurts and my intention to continue working towards single payer. Obviously YOU think we have no more fucking work to do.

Take your snark, insults and general uncivil BULLSHIT and shove it.

Off to ignore you go with the rest of your ilk.

[daa]

23. Retirees duh

Companies will drop retiree drug coverage because they lost their subsidy. Also retiress with the Medicare cuts.

[zipplewrath]

3. Mandates insurance company customers

It mandates that people of meagar means buy health insurance with money they don't have to cover medical care they won't be able to afford. They'll be poorer, and no better off.

[Dawgs]

6. Bullshit. They will get help, if they don't already have medicare, and...

if they get sick they will no longer get SCREWED by the insurance industries.

If I'm wrong, then try answering the question with specifics. Fear and ignorance should be left to the republicans.

[eridani]

9. Tell that to the Sarkisians. They HAD insurance. CIGNA killed their daughter anyway n/t

[eridani]

10. What planet do you live on? NOTHING in the legislation requires claims payment

Sure, about 80% of claims do get paid. So just fuck the other 20%, OK?

[zipplewrath]

12. Okay, specifically, this law does not mandate access

In truth, it even exempts certain folks of meager means from even having to pay the penalty. They won't get health care or insurance, but they won't have to pay a fine either.

They will get help paying health insurance premiums. They will get to go to health care clinics that will tell them if they are seriously ill. If they are seriously ill, it will be up to them to pay the deductibles or co-pays. And the money they paid for their premiums won't count against their deductible.

[enlightenment]

17. Read the details of the bill and then rethink your comment.

This 'you prove it' schoolyard stuff is getting old. You feel free to spout your own baseless assertions without a scintilla of evidence to support it, then whinge about others doing the same thing. Only with vulgarity.

"They will get help, if they don't already have medicare" - who are "They" and why do you presume that most will have medicare? Because only the very poor don't have insurance?

"if they get sick they will no longer get SCREWED by the insurance industries" - how won't they be screwed? Because they won't face recission? Because they will be able to buy insurance despite a pre-existing condition?

That's nice. Will they be able to afford the cost of their care after they pay their premium? As has been explained many times on this forum and in other places, the subsidies won't make up the difference for many people - they still won't be able to afford their care. And that 'high risk' pool everyone is so thrilled about will charge a premium, also - plus the insurance companies don't have to offer more than 65% coverage, after the 'cost sharing' of $5000 or $10000 (along with a number of other goodies, like an age adjustment ratio of 4:1). The subsidy - despite claims on DU - is not stipulated as available for this pool, though there may be some 'help' for the needy in that regard. It is unclear how they plan to use the money set aside for the plan.

There are no active regulatory or penalty mechanisms to prevent insurance companies from doing exactly what they want. There is a tremendous amount of verbiage in the bill that directs the Secretary (HHS) to make determinations/form panels/etc; but nothing is specified, so we cannot know what will wind up on paper. Most direction for regulation is made to the States - which means that there will be no single, consistent policy but rather a hodge-podge of 'rules'.

The devil is in the details and while there are many, many words, there are very few details in the bill. Try reading it instead of the talking points - it is painfully obvious that you haven't bothered, thus far.

Here's a link - you don't even have to google:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text

[Dawgs]

18. I did read it.

And you're wrong.

[enlightenment]

20. Wow - less than five minutes to prove my point.

Aren't you the eager one?

Let me borrow your line.

Prove it. Prove I am wrong. You made two statements that you will not back up. Until you do so, your assertions are meaningless.

[Cleobulus]

37. The insurance companies can still deny claims...

for BS reasons such as saying that some procedures are "experimental", or that its not a medical necessity, its not life threatening, you are too young to have said condition, etc.

There is nothing in this bill that prevents you from being screwed over by insurance company except they can't use the preexisting condition excuse anymore. They will simply get more creative.

[Warren Stupidity]

40. Yes but it will be more difficult.

The bill is not perfect by any means.

[Cleobulus]

42. More difficult for what, when the Insurance company is denying a claim...

they hedge their bets that you will not consult a lawyer, hell, they don't even consider whether the denial is legitimate or not half the time. As far as I can tell, the HCR bill hardly addresses this issue at all.

[eridani]

8. It hurts me. I have shitty age-rated "insurance" now, plus significant ongoing expenses

I can cope with paying for both now, but the bill takes away the option of giving up the shitty insurance should I ever get into a financial bind where I can't pay for ongoing expenses plus the insurance. With "reform," I get the IRS on my case.

Why in fucking hell do so many on a supposedly Dem board think that old people are disposable human garbage who deserve to be charged three times as much for crappy catastrophic only "insurance"?

Not to mention the utterly abhorrent levels of "coverage" determined solely by how much money you have to spend.

[Warren Stupidity]

21. In your hypothetical financial crisis you wil receive financial support.

Or you can choose to pay the tax, if that works out better for you. In either case you will not be harmed by this legislation - instead you will have help mitigating the harm caused by external circumstances that without this legislation would happen anyway, in your hypothetical.

So your harm is, if I understand you correctly:
1) you suffer a financial crisis.
2) you are offered financial help by this legislation to enable you to keep your health insurance.
3) that help harms you because if you reject the aid offered you will have to pay a small tax.

Is that all you've got in the 'harm' department?

[eridani]

44. The financial help will not make any difference to me according to Kaiser

I still couldn't pay for ongoing expenses. And the financial aid is not to me anyway, it's to a useless parasitic insurance company.

Forcing people to buy products they can't afford to USE is harm, period. Subsidizing the premium does jackshit to help with actual expenses.

[Raineyb]

24. Anyone shoved into that high-risk pool ghetto.

Insurance you can't afford to use is no insurance at all.

[Warren Stupidity]

35. Right now you cannot get insurance at all.

And you have no idea if the high risk pool will contain only unaffordable insurance. There is considerable evidence that, while not perfect, this interim measure will in fact help many people currently locked out.

http://health.newamerica.net/blogposts/2010/coverage_creating_a_temporary_national_high_risk_pool-26212

So again - how is this mitigation of the current situation 'causing harm'? It is in fact lowering the harm currently being imposed.

[Raineyb]

38. Did insurance companies change? There are high risk pools NOW and

they are exactly as I described. There is nothing in this bill that mandates that the insurance companies behave differently. To ignore their past behavior is folly.

Forcing people into high-risk pools were they cannot afford care isn't helping them. And they're still allowing insurance companies to refuse their business now.

So I stand by what I said. Your Pollyanna assumptions don't do a damn thing to change that.

[Tailormyst]

28. I'm not looking for a fight

I am saying that I hope this bill is all you think it is and that I am going to continue trying to single payer advocates elected so we can progress eve further on reform. You know Warren, we really are on the same side.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

33. The 22+ million uninsured Americans it does NOT cover --

for starts. :shrug:

[midnight]

36. I think the Nurses Union gives some insight into who might be hurt and how.

NNU Co-president Deborah Burger, RN challenged arguments of legislation proponents that the bill should still be passed because of expanded coverage, new regulations on insurers, and the hope that it will be improved in the House-Senate conference committee or future years.

“Those wishful statements ignore the reality that much of the expanded coverage is based on forced purchase of private insurance without effective controls on industry pricing practices or real competition and gaping loopholes in the insurance reforms,” said Burger.

Further, said NNU Co-president Jean Ross, RN, “the bill seems more likely to be eroded, not improved, in future years due to the unchecked influence of the healthcare industry lobbyists and the lessons of this year in which all the compromises have been made to the right.”

“Sadly, we have ended up with legislation that fails to meet the test of true healthcare reform, guaranteeing high quality, cost effective care for all Americans, and instead are further locking into place a system that entrenches the chokehold of the profit-making insurance giants on our health. If this bill passes, the industry will become more powerful and could be beyond the reach of reform for generations,” Higgins said.

An affordability mirage. Congressional Budget Office estimates say a family of four with a household income of $54,000 would be expected to pay 17 percent of their income, $9,000, on healthcare exposing too many families to grave financial risk.




http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in-the-news/2009/december/nation-s-largest-rn-organization-says-healthcare-bill-cedes-too-much-to-insurance-industry.html

[Warren Stupidity]

39. Failing to make the current rotten system better is not causing harm.

So until you can present some evidence that this bill causes harm, I remain unconvinced. I agree that the bill is vastly imperfect, I disagree that its failure to remedy all or even anything about the status quo is 'causing harm'. Instead it is allowing the current harm to continue.

[my2sense]

4. .

[TZ]

5. It will help ME and others like me.

I will not be told I don't know what I'm talking about any more by people who have NEVER walked in my shoes!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7978372

[GoCubsGo]

11. Thank You!!

eom

[laughingliberal]

34. I've always admitted those who can afford the coverage anyway but have had trouble obtaining

insurance would be helped. I assume, though, that most of those without coverage are not of the group who could have afforded the insurance, anyway.

It sounds as if your coverage is excellent. I don't think it's what we will see from the 'bronze' policies.

[Cetacea]

7. It certainly helps the poor/working poor in a huge way.

Medicaid coverage up to 29k/year.

[inna]

13. 29K is for a family of four. $14,300 is an income cutoff for a single individual.

Still, Medicaid expansion is a good thing.

[Raineyb]

25. Which means if you're single and making minimum wage you're not eligible.

So how exactly is the minimum wage worker supposed to come out of pocket for insurance?

[barbiegeek]

15. Kids now today don't have pre-existing condition clause

[eridani]

16. True, But why do the rest of us have to wait until 2014? n/t

[enlightenment]

19. Because there is no money to pay for it -

and because delaying the 'not so fun' parts (like the mandate) is safer for the politicians reelection bids.

Before you get nailed again, though, keep in mind that one of the big 'woo-hoo' bits that will go into 'immediate' effect is the high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.

It's not as great a deal as people are making out - which they do primarily because they haven't bothered to read the bill but are relying on talking points - but it will be available. I'm sure it will be helpful to some people, who have the money to buy insurance and pay for the premiums, deductibles, and co-pays (the bill calls those last two things 'cost sharing' now, btw) - but health care will still be out of reach for those who can't afford the above - or managed to have some sort of insurance in the last six months - or have a condition that isn't on the approved list (yet to be determined, and will be determined by actuaries, not doctors).

But it WILL be available before 2014.

[Raineyb]

26. In other words we don't matter because there are more important things to spend money on?

I'll remember that the next time someone calls or writes looking for a donation.

[eridani]

43. Good fucking grief! States ALREADY HAVE those crappy high risk pools

They are utterly useless.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. Without this bill the wait is inifinity and beyond.

[Tailormyst]

27. And that is a very good thing

[Tailormyst]

30. self-delete

sigh- nevermind

[cali]

31. it didn't read as flamebait at all.

don't worry about it.

[Tailormyst]

32. Thanks Cali

[defendandprotect]

41. I'm with ya ---