Something's gotta give re: Health Care...what's the greater good?

[CreekDog]

Is the greater good:

-expansion of Medicaid
-expansion of subsidies to get insurance
-guaranteed issuance of health insurance without exclusions for preexisting conditions
-guaranteed pricing of insurance on a community basis with variation limited to 3x based on age only
-national regulation of health insurance as never before

Or is the greater good:

-not having to carry insurance and not having to pay for it
-keeping things as they are until something better passes both houses of congress and/or a presidential veto.


I guess what it comes down to is your right to dictate the outcome of this debate and avoid a personal mandate more or less important than a sick person's right to both see a doctor and not go bankrupt in the process due to lack of medical insurance/coverage?

Seems pretty clear to me. If our health care system is a 3 for the uninsured and a 6 for the insured, would I support moving people from the more precarious system into something better (even if it's not good enough)? If it's all I could do I would and if I could do more, I would still do something right now and do more as the opportunity arises.

[dkf]

1. You don't need to mandate everyone pays in order to allow preexisting conditions.

I reject that as anything but a slimy deal made with the insurance companies.

[CreekDog]

2. No you don't, but that's what this legislation does

and there isn't anything else on the table that can be passed right now.

so the way you can escape the mandate is to kill the bill now

but what you are saying is that everybody who would use it's passage to get health care is going to have to wait an indefinite amount of time to get what they believe they need because you aren't pleased yet.

you aren't convincing me that's a fair trade.

[dkf]

3. What is repulsive is we have been given hideous choices where insurance companies are the winners on

Both sides.

My view is that this makes my future choices worse and it is to my benefit to start over. I'm trying to save my future too and I don't like it the way it is being presented now.

Moreover once we have ensured the populations view that insurance companies run healthcare we have no hope. Right now they are just an option. After this they will be the only reality.

[truedelphi]

38. I have your back, as you express my feelings exactly

This bill is nothing but CRIMINAL.

I have no intention of voting for anyone who had anything to do with this monstrosity of a bill.

Obama shrank away out of view last year, when he could have been out on the bully pulpit getting it done, in a manner that would have represented and benefited the Average Person's situation.

But instead only the Big Insurers will benefit. People in my age group are expected to pay up to three times the average price of premiums, which means the holocaust on those 49 to 65 continues unabated.

SHAME on Obama and all the other self serving parasitic Elected Politicians. Shame on them forever.

And the notion that it will somehow improve over time is not at all true: Obama's other Big Talking point has always been "I will be the last President who ever has to deal with this matter."

The minute the ink on this bill dries, the changes that will come about will be at least a decade away. Obama will see to it that it is kept on the back burner, just as he has promised the Big Insurers.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. The petty personalized tone you use

indicates a lack of conviction, which is to be expected when pushing the mediocre on the basis that it is the best that can be managed without proper leadership. It is about the leadership, of course.
Candidate Obama mocked the very notion that mandates are essential, in great detail, in various media, and he went so far as to frame those who suggested mandates as nefarious individuals plotting to take your earned money by force. He made a strong and convincing argument, well reasoned and filled with memorable language. He has not convinced me otherwise.
If there must be mandates, we must then do what other nations that mandate do, and make all providers of basic health insurance be not for profit. If you make an argument that we need mandates, you will also have to provide an argument for why profit based insurance has to be the one and only choice available under those mandates. I say mandate, with no profit allowed under those mandates, that is one thing, but mandate with profit as the only objective is another thing, and that thing is theft.

[ProSense]

5. "Candidate Obama mocked the very notion that mandates are essential" What he did was

Say all the right things about mandates.

March 2008

The Clinton and Obama health-care plans have more similarities than differences. But where Mr. Obama would require only that parents obtain coverage for their children, Ms. Clinton would impose that mandate on everyone. The argument for such a requirement is that, without it, too many people, especially those who are younger and healthier, will go without coverage, knowing that they can always get insurance down the road. This would drive up health-care costs by shifting costs incurred by these free-riders to those with insurance, and by depriving insurance companies of premiums paid by the healthiest beneficiaries. Ms. Clinton asserts that without the individual mandate, Mr. Obama's plan would end up leaving out 15 million Americans, about one-third of those currently uninsured. Mr. Obama says the differential would be far smaller; that he would consider an individual mandate if the numbers left uninsured turned out to be too large; and that imposing a mandate at the outset is unwise because enough people will purchase insurance voluntarily if costs can be brought down.

link

June 2009:

I understand the Committees are moving towards a principle of shared responsibility -- making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and asking that employers share in the cost. I share the goal of ending lapses and gaps in coverage that make us less healthy and drive up everyone's costs, and I am open to your ideas on shared responsibility. But I believe if we are going to make people responsible for owning health insurance, we must make health care affordable. If we do end up with a system where people are responsible for their own insurance, we need to provide a hardship waiver to exempt Americans who cannot afford it. In addition, while I believe that employers have a responsibility to support health insurance for their employees, small businesses face a number of special challenges in affording health benefits and should be exempted.

link

July 2009:

I feel pretty good that I've been pretty consistent on this. The individual mandate is probably the one area where I basically changed my mind. The more deeply I got into the issue, the more I felt that the dangers of adverse selection justified us creating a system that shares responsibility, as long as we were actually making health insurance affordable and there was a hardship waiver for those who, even with generous subsidies, couldn't afford it. And that remains my position.

I think other than that we've been pretty consistent about how I think we need to approach the problem. And by the way, I in no way want to suggest that cost is more important than coverage. My point has been that those two things go hand in hand. If we can't control costs, then we simply can't afford to expand coverage the way we need to. In turn, if we can expand coverage, that actually gives us some leverage with insurers or pharmaceutical industry or others to do more to help make the health care system more cost-effective.

link

[CreekDog]

9. you think i lack conviction on this issue?

:rofl:

universal health care is the primary reason i've voted for Democrats for almost two decades now.

yeah, this bill is not all i'd hoped for, but it's a major step and one worth taking.

before you decide whether i believe this or not, why don't you give me a call before you jump to such a conclusion. but even if you don't, one thing's for sure: i haven't been posting about health care here for months because i *don't* have conviction about what i'm supporting. if i didn't think it was worth doing i would find something else to do --my posting history would show you that if you looked.

[Oregone]

10. "universal health care is the primary reason i've voted for Democrats for almost two decades now"

Whoops. In retrospect, you really flubbed that one.

[CreekDog]

21. oh? well what were my choices?

Perot? The Republicans?

Nader?

I did the best with what I had.

Who you been voting for all these years?

[Oregone]

24. You didn't have any...

But just don't be deluded on the health care issue. The real reason to vote Democratic is because they aren't Republicans. When they talk about war and free enterprise in their flowery nuance, your heart flutters just a tinge more. Come on...admit it!


:)

[Kalun D]

42. No It's Not

""but it's a major step and one worth taking.""

No it's not.

[CreekDog]

19. do you currently have access to medical care?

health insurance, etc.?

[truedelphi]

39. + 1. ( Although I think your post was meant to end up as

A response to the individual that it ended up falling under.)

[girl gone mad]

13. I think you need to use a little bit of common sense on this one.

This bill will do nothing to keep insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Basic logic dictates that it can't possibly do such a thing.

If insurers were genuinely forbidden from refusing customers with a pre-existing condition, most young people would simply choose to pay the mandated fines until they were diagnosed with a serious illness, thereby saving tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Insurers will continue to exclude and drop sick customers, just as they do now. It's absolutely foolish believe otherwise.

[CreekDog]

22. so you think we shouldn't pass a law to forbid it because they won't follow it?

:wtf:

do you have health care, or health insurance coverage now?

[girl gone mad]

40. This "law" is obviously a toothless, unworkable, pointless sham.

and we should not force people to buy a defective private product under penalty of law for a handful of false promises like the ones cited in the OP.

[jefferson_dem]

25. HaHa....

Don't pass regulations because they won't be adhered to. What kind of logic is that? Seems cynicism has found new outer limits.

[dkf]

34. Yeah those new credit card regs are working just perfectly right?

[girl gone mad]

41. Now imagine if everyone were required to carry credit cards and pay annual fees..

in exchange for those fabulous regulations.

:scared:

[dkf]

32. They did it in Vermont.

Yet we never hear about it.

I do know Vermont has a higher uninsured rate than we do in Hawaii but they score better in the healthiest state ratings.

[ProSense]

37. Speaking of Vermont:

My Turn: We can break health care gridlock

By Patrick Leahy • Sunday, March 7, 2010

A year of drafting and negotiating and debating has been poured into shaping a health reform plan. Soon, Congress will render a verdict that can put some long-overdue reforms in action. Or reform will be sidelined yet again, for another day or another generation -- maybe for another 45 years. We owe it to our families, our businesses and to our nation's economic vitality to end the procrastination -- and to get it done by simple majority votes in the House and Senate, if necessary.

The building blocks of health reform are more popular than the sum of the plan's parts. Polls show public unease about the hazy concept of "comprehensive health reform," but solid support for what's in the plan.

<...>

Some may think that doing nothing is the "safe," option, but it is anything but that. Health policy experts and economists across the political spectrum agree that we are on a glide path to unending escalation of health costs that will hurt everyone -- costing us more, driving up Medicare's budget, cutting back coverage and preventing businesses from being able to afford offering insurance to their workers. Without reform, in the next decade half of all non-elderly adults at some point will find themselves without coverage. If we do nothing, the same insurance coverage a family had in 2008 will nearly double in cost to $24,291 by 2016, soaking up a whopping 45 percent of median family incomes.

<...>

Wherever I travel across our state, Vermonters tell me their personal experiences with a national health system that needs fixing. Doing nothing may seem the safe course, but it is a course fraught with danger for Vermonters and millions of other Americans. The hefty bipartisan vote to repeal insurance companies' antitrust exemption shows that on many of the ingredients of health reform, gridlock may be a mile wide, but it's really only an inch deep. I continue to believe in reform, and I will continue to fight for reform.

[dkf]

45. That is because it all rests on a faulty system.

Until we can go public option or single payer you will have most of these problems. I'm just saying if you want a half assed system then getting rid of recission and expanding Medicare is a better way to go than a mandate.

[CreekDog]

53. they are getting rid of recission

that's in the legislation

that's one for two and you won't go for this in the meantime?

criminy!

[CreekDog]

18. do you have health insurance?

do you have any medical conditions which require ongoing treatment that you will forego in the meantime?

[eridani]

6. Guess what? The only kind of "insurance" that will be subsidized is worthless garbage

It will pay only 60% of your actual costs. Trying to keep up with those costs is, for the chronically ill, hard enough without being forced to pay for catastrophic "coverage" as well.

And I really love how you are so ready to consign those of us who are old but not old enough for Medicare to the category of completely disposable.

[Oregone]

7. I think the majority of people in favor of this reform have never heard the term "actuarial"

Presenting them with valid arguments about how low values cause economic rationing amongst the lower classes is met with bald-faced lies and obfuscation.

[eridani]

8. +10

And they can't point to so much as a single line that will require insurance companies to pay up on claims.

[jefferson_dem]

27. So all the republicans and teabaggers and dirty rotten scoundrals...

who are hunkered down in a death struggle to defeat reform are really looking out for the poor? And all the dems and liberals and public interest groups who support reform are out to screw them?

[Oregone]

29. "are really looking out for the poor"

No, they want to defeat a black president and the Democrats.


"And all the dems and liberals and public interest groups who support reform are out to screw them"

Some just want a win and don't understand the tenets of universal health care.


Sometimes its not about policy, but politics and emotions

[HughMoran]

47. "Sometimes its not about policy, but politics and emotions"

A-fucking-men

;)

[CreekDog]

11. of course it's zero now

which is so much better. :P

[Oregone]

14. Its pretty much the same. The only difference is that in the new system, insurers get subsidies...

for doing absolutely nothing. They wont have to pay out on claims if their clients can't afford their end. If thats progress to you, go for it.

[jefferson_dem]

16. The subsidized insurance will ONLY cover 60% of actual costs!

Meh. Whatever. Let's all alert these underprivileged families that they mustn't accept 60% if they can't have it all - complete cost-free care! Surely, they would be much better off.

[jefferson_dem]

12. Great post.

No brainer if there ever was one. Hate to say it but arguments to kill the bill sound ... stupid. There's really no other way to put it. I keep waiting for the "kill the billers" to jump out and say "hahahahaha...you just go punk'd."

[JVS]

15. It's better to let it die.

Our options: 1) quit now and come back when the current broken system hits a crisis (which is in the process of happening) and is not in a position to lobby/ fuck things up. 2) Pass this reform which is not enough to fix the broken system and get blamed for how fucked up things are for the foreseeable future.

[CreekDog]

17. do you have health insurance?

who is going to be doing the waiting while we wait for the system to implode so we can finally save it?

[JVS]

20. Yes, but I haven't seen a doctor in 5 years because it's shit insurance.

Just like the shit insurance that the uninsured will soon have.

[Oregone]

36. Insurance without access to care?!? I was told such a thing was bullshit

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=433&topic_id=208466#208554

Hm...are you some kind of anomaly? Is the cosmic universe going to explode because your existence contradicts God dictated "sense" and logic?

[JVS]

23. Your turn now. What kind of insurance do you have? Do you see doctors?

[CreekDog]

26. I have terrific insurance, fairly low cost, I see doctors when I want

I have preexisting condition

Though I have a great job, I could probably never leave it because of the insurance issue.

Oh and in my 20s insurance didn't cover my preexisting condition. However, under the health care bill, they couldn't get away with this again.

[JVS]

28. I'd appreciate it if you quit browbeating those of us that have shitty insurance into supporting...

being locked into this shit and having shitty insurance be made the norm, which is what employers are going to do to avoid the "Cadillac Tax"

[ProSense]

30. Here's the thing, if the bill fails you can keep your "shitty" insurance. If it passes

you will be able to choose something other than your "shitty" insurance. You can even choose to opt out and get a voucher from your employer to buy your own insurance.

Now why on earth do you consider the poster's opinion "browbeating"?

[Oregone]

33. Just don't try and switch to a responsible, affordable, non-profit public insurance

Socialism is soooooo last century as a solution. If reform can't produce private profit, its not good enough for the people!

[CreekDog]

31. no can do man

you know i have nothing against you.

i think regulating the insurance companies on a national basis and forcing them to take and cover those with preexisting conditions, capping out of pocket expenses, mandating community rating and forcing insurance companies to spend a certain percentage of their premiums on health care would improve the crappy plans.

right now you've got a crappy plan, you've got nothing to lose by having all these regulations come down to make it better.

besides, the cadillac tax is above $8000/year, my insurance is about 5k per year.

[girl gone mad]

43. "However, under the health care bill, they couldn't get away with this again."

Aren't you just adorable?

[CreekDog]

44. so we shouldn't have a law forbidding it, because they might break it

:wtf:

aren't YOU adorable? :rofl: :eyes:

[hulka38]

35. There's a bigger issue.

We've been put in a situation by politically savvy people who have been commissioned to deliver HCR without a PO. We could have had a PO in addition to all the other good items included in the present bill. It should not be a choice of the present imo bad bill and nothing at all. We've been manipulated into that. That is the larger and really much more serious issue. The fix was in. You guys, pardon me for lumping you all together, seem to blow off the role of corporations wrt writing legislation and influencing the agenda. I think it's pretty clear that it's a dominant role. The issue is beyond progressive vs moderate. It's about getting people to realize how sick our democracy has become in the hope that we can get it back to the way it should be.

[kestrel91316]

46. What's the greater good?? Death of the very concept of "health insurance".

SINGLE. PAYER. NOW.

The only people who should profit from medical care are those who PROVIDE it.

[HughMoran]

49. Nice all or nothing post

But what do YOU think is possible given the state of politics today and the few Democrats who support the best alternative. What's your realistic solution given the problem we are faced with now and the cards we've been dealt?

[kestrel91316]

50. I prefer to sit back and see what the current HCR bill turns out to be in the end,

and then we will have to spend decades turning it into SP. I doubt I will live to see SP, but it is a worthy goal to work toward.

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

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[HughMoran]

48. This is real-world politics

Of course a person can sit around all day and pick holes in any plan ever conceived by humans (yes, even non-politicians are flawed) - there's never been a 'perfect' bill - SS & Medicare were far from perfect when passed. Expect the naysayers to tell you that the bill isn't perfect, therefor all Democrats should be smashed and thus replaced by Republicans who will kill this bill (and appoint right-wing judges who will kill all of our civil liberties - minor detail of course.) Some people can't comprehend compromise. Many people like this fill up our mental health institutions.