****~~**Official Health-Care Bill Appreciation Thread **~~****

I think it's alright. It's not the magic bullet, but it's also not the end of the Republic. It's a good start.

And it's good to see Democrats showing some spine for once and standing up for their beliefs and doing what they were elected to do.


I found a lot of good, non-partisan analyses of it on politifact and factcheck.org yesterday. Not puff pieces, not alarmist bullshit, just nice point by point analysis of the good and bad, the truth and the lies.

I was going to post them in another thread, but all the other threads are too full of partisan cry-babying and alarmism for any rational debate, so I didn't bother. I'm sure even though they point out the bad things as well as pointing out the good things, they'd still be dismissed by the alarmist and demagogues as LIBERAL LIES!!!


So yeah, I appreciate it.

 

Co-Chair of Socialist Party USA:

"This is not a healthcare reform bill," says Wharton, "It is instead a corporate restructuring of the American healthcare system designed to enhance the profits of private health insurance companies disguised with the language of reform."

Actual socialist weighs in on "socialist" health bill - War Room - Salon.com

We need to address why health care is so expensive in the first place, not further anti-competitive regulation and force everybody to buy it.

 

It's a step in the right direction. I can imagine it'll be tweaked and such over the years, but I'm curious if the American people can handle it without blowing their load about RFID chips and death panels.

As far as I know the insurance companies lobbied against this, so in my eyes it's a good thing. I view it as the government testing the waters, seeing if we might be able to handle joining the club.

 

Yes, funding advertising campaigns that say things like "we need health care reform now" definitley counts as lobbying against the bill.

I'm curious though: where exactly did you get your information?

 

I'll admit, I see that there are a lot of handouts for Insurance Co's in this bill - forcing people to buy their products and such.

However, there are people in this country today, people that paid into insurance for years before they got sick, who are now facing a choice of food or meds because they got fucked over by the Insurance Co when they got sick.

They can't wait for the magical day when everyone will see the light, vote Libertarian, and the companies will get put in their place by the free market.

So pragmatically, if getting the Insurance Co's to stop taking thousands of dollars from people, then figuring out a way to fuck them when they actually need coverage means giving them a handout, then it's worth doing.

And what of those people who paid into an Insurance Co for years or decades only to get dumped the first time a Dr. says "Cancer?"

They paid a lot of money for a product, only to find out when they got sick they were being sold snake oil.

It's exactly the same thing as Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme. They bought into something with a promise of a return at a future date, but it turned out to be lies.

Is there no justice for them?


And people keep saying "It's not right to force me to buy Insurance" and something about the fruits of their labor being taken away is slavery.

But if you don't have Insurance, and you end up in an ER (even if you didn't ASk to go there) and you can't pay the bill, then you are asking other people to pay for your health care, because the ER is just going to pass the cost of treating you on to everyone else.

So yeah, if you can afford insurance but chose not to, then you should be forced to at least buy some sort of catastrophic injury coverage. Or you should be forced to sit down with a Doctor and a Lawyer and sign something saying "I refuse to buy Insurance, so I waive my rights to be treated an an ER if the treatment costs more than what I have in my wallet."

Then when you get your head smeared across the freeway, the ER can say "Sorry, you made your choice." and they can dump your ass in the gutter.


And that's all the "Death Panels" are. Forcing people to get real about the fact that something will happen to them at some point, and forcing them to decide while they are still able who is going to pay for it WHEN (not IF) that day comes. And if their choice is to buy insurance, this bill forces the companies to actually pay out when you get you get your head smeared across the freeway.


So yeah, if this bill fixes those problem, which all indication are it will, then it's a good thing.

 

Agreed.

Well...the pharmaceutical and insurance industries lobby congress hardcore, so I'm sure they were against this bill in someway, since it sets restrictions on how bad they can screw people. Let me see if I can find an article somewhere...

Health care groups lobby at record pace - USATODAY.com

Revealed: millions spent by lobbyists fighting Obama health reforms | World news | guardian.co.uk

 

Those articles state that the lobbyists weren't fighting against reform, they were merely trying to get what they wanted put into the bill (lobbyists don't always fight against legislation, especially when they can modify it to suit their needs). The lobbyists were fighting for their own type of reform, which is probably why the articles posted are from October and why the more recent articles tend to point out the results of the lobbying (no public option, health insurance mandate, tax hikes on people making $250k+, penalties for employers not insuring their employees).

 

From what I understand (which isn't much), the pharmaceutical companies are the big winners here.

 

Lots of health care lobbies supported ObamaCare, including the pharma lobby, the AMA, AARP, and the insurance lobby.

 

First off let me say, not part of the left or the right, and I personally have yet to see a Politician I can put any faith in. I am also a Father , 3 kids I take care of by myself as a single father.

There is so much shit wrong with the insurance companies, drug companies, doctors, hospitals etcetc, so I'm not sure how I feel about it but...

My Grandfather, now passed away, was a successful salesman for Grumman back in the day. My Mother barely knew her Father because he was always working so there would be something for his family after he was gone. He managed to gain a pretty decent life savings, only person in the Family I can really say that about. Him and my Grandmother bought this Beautiful house in the country, always loved leaving the hood and going up there to visit them. I even had my own bathroom!!.

Well one summer my Grandmother's arthritis started really acting up. She went to the doctor, they couldn't figure out why she was getting so bad. Eventually they found out she had polymyositis a pretty uncommon disease, the doctor actually had to break open the text books to figure out what she had and what to do. Between doctor bills and medications, the insurance company quickly dropped her. Then my Grandfather cleared out the life savings, then they sold the beautiful house in the country, eventually my Grandmother just wasted away and died in pain, by that time they had nothing left to pay for treatments, and had returned to the meager surroundings they he had worked so hard to move up from. All his hard work gone, a house that could have been part of my Family gone, no inheritance for their children, grandchildren or great grandchildren.

All I can really say is, it is a shame that shit like that happens in a modern world. Will the new Bill stop shit like this from happening? If so it is a small step in the right direction for a morally corrupt country.

 

The communist party seems to like what hes doing.

Home

 

This bill is downright un-constitutional and violates so many of our rights, your kids rights, your future kids rights.. shouldn't they get a say in this? The idea is fine, but this bill is rubbish.

 

I think some people wandered into the wrong thread.

I would have preferred an even more socialized health care plan, but this is a start.

If anything, watching the republican teabaggers go batshit crazy has been highly entertaining.

 

Sure! I'll just go ask my good ol' buddy Doc Brown to take me back to the future so I can ask them!

 

Well that's what I mean. They poisoned the original thing and threw money at it to get their way.

I don't think greed is going to go away anytime soon, so of course our ball-less government succumbs yet again to the mighty dollar.

But it's a start.

 

I lol'd as soon as I saw the tread title... but didn't see the reactions from the right that I thought I would.

Anyway, I think the bill is just okay. I'm gonna say this again though; without a public option there's only so little to benefit from this thing. As long as it's going to be a law, give folks a choice on plans what they'd consider affordable/suitable to their needs.

 

WTF is the "right"? Almost all of the fiscal conservatives on this forum are socially liberal and support a more defensive foreign policy than the statists... a more appropriate term for those of us who are against giving more power to the insurance companies instead of addressing the reason health care is so expensive in the first place would be "libertarian."