ADDED: Breakfast table dialogue:
You're such a winger.
It's a process point!
July 16, 2009
Why aren't the Democrats giving us a chance to see what is in the health care bill?
Since I have been given no time to figure it out, I will ram through my explanation: They don't want us to see how terrible it is. My working theory must be it's a horror. Therefore, I am vehemently opposed to it. Aren't you?
ADDED: Breakfast table dialogue:
ADDED: Breakfast table dialogue:
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281 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 281 of 281I would love to see how providing full coverage versus a basic cat policy is going to be cheaper.
Would you rather pay for twice-a-year teeth cleanings, or crowns and root canal?
Shanna: If memory serves me correctly, I believe there was some sort of deadline this year by which states had to have passed "primary" seatbelt laws in order to be eligible for a certain type of federal funds. Those with "secondary" seatbelt laws (or none--I think that's only NH?) would not be eligible.
Ah, interesting. Same as the 21 year old drinking laws, right?
Incidentally, I saw a “this road work paid for by the reinvestment and recovery act” sign on the highway the other day, but oddly enough, I’m pretty sure that roadwork started before the law was even passed. But the sign just went up after the seatbelt law went into effect. I wonder how much the sign cost.
I also chimed in as a conservative that would be open to some sort of cheap catastrophic coverage being available to everyone, maybe even paying for those under a certain income, but that is not anywhere close to this plan.
HoosierDaddy: As I stated earlier, I incline to your view re: distinguishing between health insurance and health coverage. And your idea about extending Part A etc. etc. etc. may well have merit--in principle, it sounds good to me. HOWEVER, not all catastrophic diseases involve inpatient care/hospitalization. In fact, some of the biggest costs of care w/r/t some types of progressive, incurable diseases have to do with even basic maintenance care--as opposed to extraordinary efforts to cure disease or prolong life--within the context of the home (and this isn't about choice, btw, at least until you get to the final hospice stage). There are some serious gaps in coverage--both in terms of Medicare AND PRIVATE INSURANCE--which I'm not sure people are accounting for. These might need to be looked at.
I'm just saying, HoosierDaddy, it might be a *little* more complex than just expanding A.
I'm flattered knox!
What images do the following conjure up:
Public schools
http://www.flickr.com/photos/althouse/8557051/
Public housing
http://www.thecha.org/pages/Patrick_Sullivan_Apartments/50.php?devID=245
Public bathrooms
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/3551120664/
Public transportation
http://www.cacampuscompact.org/images/contact_us/public_trans_bart.jpg
FLS: I respectfully ask for some evidence that preventive care lowers long term costs. Academic papers or something. Your whole argument rests on this assumption. I've read claims to the contrary (that increased preventive care, while good for the patient, raises costs). And frankly, it's an iffy proposition on logical grounds. Consider, most costs ocurr in the last year of life. Preventive care does not grant immortality. The patient will still die at some point, and at that points the end-of-life costs will ocurr. You may put that day of, so there may be a short term savings, (dubious, but arguable), but those costs will still be incurred down the road. So the best you can hope for is a one-time, non-recurring savings.
Preventive care is good for the patient. It would appear to have little (or negative, since the patient lives longer) effects on costs.
Universal healthcare is more about getting those young, able-bodied uninsured into the mix to mitigate the ballooning problem of baby boomers hitting their sixties. Medicare is in some serious trouble, and instead of re-thinking that, the government does what it has always done. They create some new problem to cover up for their old problem.
As to why private insurers will be put out of business, even if we get to keep our plans for now. See the above. The healthier and the poorer go the lowest cost route. Those left in private plans will be the the older and the sicker, driving up costs to the point of becoming unaffordable.
FLS, here's some public housing:
Baltimore
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/ANACOSTIA/sher1.jpg
Chicago
http://media.chicagojournal.com/photos/Publication/Article/106-1.jpg
"vote against and deliver a body blow to the president and therefore their re-election chances?"
Somebody has not been reading the polls lately. He knows by September, at this rate, suggesting that Americans must "embrace death", use "painkillers instead of costly operations" (painkillers worked great for MJ, didn't they?), etc, that his numbers are going to be around 50 and southbound.
Original Mike said...
FLS: I respectfully ask for some evidence that preventive care lowers long term costs. Academic papers or something. Your whole argument rests on this assumption. I've read claims to the contrary (that increased preventive care
LOL,what does save money is cigarettes and butter.
who costs more? total lifecycle costs:
a 50 y/o who dies of cancer, or
an 80 y/o who dies of cancer?
add in the lifetime earnings minus lifetime medical, minus lfetime social security payout.
FLS said, "Buying insurance is not more noble than universal health care."
You know what's noble? Working is noble. Working long hours and saving enough money to be sure your family is taken care of is noble.
I like you well enough, FLS, but please keep your hands out of my cookie jar.
Yes, I've also read studies that cigarette smoking saves health care money and, especially, Social Security money for the reasons you suggest, SGT. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a "good" argument.
Scott M - ...generally awful
Not just public transportation but, as LarsPorsena helps point, many public services. We have private security because we can't count on the police. Private schools have flourished in recent decades because public schools generally suck.
Bottled water exists because people generally believe it is healthier than public water. (It usually isn't.) Bottled water was virtually non-existent 30 years ago. You didn't find the single serve bottles in convenient stores, groceries, or gas stations.
UPS, FEDEX, etc thrive because they out perform the mediocre USPS. The list goes on and on.
Shanna -
" But the sign just went up after the seatbelt law went into effect. I wonder how much the sign cost. "
I saw an article on this recently. Those signs cost $300 apiece. Producing those signs was one of the first "shovel-ready" projects that Obama and his disciples were talking about.
Isn't it nice to know that $787 billion buys you a bunch of propaganda?
How about a more honest sign like "This sign paid for by mortgaging your children's future to the Chinese"?
Maybe something like: "This sign is a complete waste of your money."
Or: "This sign is proof that the political rot in our system starts at the top."
Or: "Stimulus: just like bread and circuses...only better."
"This sign paid for by mortgaging your children's future to the Chinese"?
Maybe something like: "This sign is a complete waste of your money."
Or: "This sign is proof that the political rot in our system starts at the top."
These were all equally true of the invasion of Iraq, too. Hope you pointed that out back then as well.
Somebody has not been reading the polls lately. He knows by September, at this rate, suggesting that Americans must "embrace death", use "painkillers instead of costly operations" (painkillers worked great for MJ, didn't they?), etc, that his numbers are going to be around 50 and southbound.
I've been reading the polls -- but if they pass it, they may be able to staunch the bleeding.
If it fails, he may hit Bushian numbers by the midterm election...
"The larger point here is not that the liberals want to insure the needy, their larger aim is to destroy any vestige of private care. Just out of hate and spite for those who can afford it."
This is, simply, ridiculous. I favor single payer health care for the same reasons I support the Bill of Rights...because it's morally right, and, frankly, for selfish reasons. I want to make sure everyone's civil rights are protected and that everyone is afforded due process of law because I believe in a humane and just society, but also to insure that my own rights are protected under the law, to insure that I am afforded due process of law if circumstances should ever place me in conflict with the authorities. By the same token, I favor single payer health care because I believe that in a civilized society people who are sick should be able to be treated and not be bankrupted by their medical bills, but also because, although I have health insurance now through my employer, I want to insure that if my circumstances should change I will not be financially ruined if I get sick or am injured, or have to go without health care...that wherever I may be or whatever my job situation, I will know I can be treated if I become sick.
I have never had to seek or accept public assistance, but I know people who have, and I'm very happy that my tax dollars help make it possible for them to find help when they have needed it, and while I'd like to think that I will never need such assistance, but that if I do it will still be available to me.
I'm quite enjoying the spectacle, mind you. Except for my fear that they really will bankrupt the country...
"We are the only nation moving left...."
????
Truly a bizarre notion. We'd have to move left even to reach the middle.
isn't that why Obama is proposing adding a "public option" to our current patchwork system of health insurance? To preserve what's already here?
Well, it appears from some source that he is instead trying to shut down the private option. At least one reading of the bill appears to eliminate the sale of new insurance to anyone after the first of the year after the bill becomes law. If you lose your job (and insurance), you will apparently have no choice except for FLS's public option. You can stay in your current plan, or you can join the public plan. Nothing else.
This provision is supposedly on page 16 of the bill. We shall see. But if that is truly in the bill, no wonder the Democrats are so hot to get this passed into law before very many people have an idea of what is going on.
I want to insure that if my circumstances should change I will not be financially ruined if I get sick or am injured, or have to go without health care...that wherever I may be or whatever my job situation, I will know I can be treated if I become sick.
What's immoral is forcing other people who may not share your desires to participate in your scheme at the point of a gun.
If you want insurance, get your own insurance. Create your own pool if you like, persuade others to voluntarily join your pool. But don't try to pretend that you're a more moral person because you have no compunction about taking from others what isn't yours.
This is, simply, ridiculous. I favor single payer health care for the same reasons I support the Bill of Rights...because it's morally right, and, frankly, for selfish reasons. I want to make sure everyone's civil rights are protected and that everyone is afforded due process of law because I believe in a humane and just society, but also to insure that my own rights are protected under the law, to insure that I am afforded due process of law if circumstances should ever place me in conflict with the authorities. By the same token, I favor single payer health care because I believe that in a civilized society people who are sick should be able to be treated and not be bankrupted by their medical bills, but also because, although I have health insurance now through my employer, I want to insure that if my circumstances should change I will not be financially ruined if I get sick or am injured, or have to go without health care...that wherever I may be or whatever my job situation, I will know I can be treated if I become sick.
And, of course, you are happy for the rest of us to pay for it and suffer the inevitable lowering of of the level of health care available to us so that you can get this right that you consider so fundamental.
We don't know what's in the bill. No time. Thuggery!
But we know it's horrible and costly. And innocent people will die.
The "civil right" not to face economic hardship exists... where?
Certainly not in natural law.
Not in the Constitution.
Not in religious doctrine.
So from where does this incredible civil right spring?
"Truly a bizarre notion. We'd have to move left even to reach the middle."
Which says more about where you consider the "middle" than anything else.
Bruce and Sofa King, you both forget that what benefits me benefits both of you, just as our Bill of Rights supposedly offers it protections to all of us, and just as publicly financed fire departments and police departments and roads and bridges benefit all of us.
"What's immoral is forcing other people who may not share your desires to participate in your scheme at the point of a gun."
Speaking of which, I object to paying for mass murder and torture--to war crimes--but my tax dollars go for these ghastly enterprises nonetheless.
That aside, a majority of Americans, the small cohort of right wingers on this board who feel otherwise notwithstanding, support either single payer health care or at least a public option. This is the majority view, and yours is the minority view. Not that being in the majority automatically makes one's view correct or being in the minority makes one's view incorrect, but don't pretend that we "leftists" are proposing that which a majority of Americans reject. Most Americans want it.
Here is the article from Investers Business Daily: "Congress: It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal."
I just heard something said on MSNBC the veracity of which I do not know: Is it true that under the current proposal, much of the public plan wouldn't go into effect for four or five years, but the associated taxes would pretty much start right away (I'm assuming next year, but I don't know). Anyone else hear or read about this anywhere?
(Even the people discussing this--who are supportive of Obama's efforts in the area of health care--think that may be a hard sell to the American people.)
"Truly a bizarre notion. We'd have to move left even to reach the middle."
Which says more about where you consider the "middle" than anything else.
Just as does your presumed view to the contrary.
Bruce and Sofa King, you both forget that what benefits me benefits both of you, just as our Bill of Rights supposedly offers it protections to all of us, and just as publicly financed fire departments and police departments and roads and bridges benefit all of us.
But it is unclear how covering your health care needs benefits the rest of us. Indeed, all indications are that I will be harmed by it, through a reduction in the health care that I could otherwise expect.
That aside, a majority of Americans, the small cohort of right wingers on this board who feel otherwise notwithstanding, support either single payer health care or at least a public option. This is the majority view, and yours is the minority view.
The polling results, of course, are dependent upon how the questions are asked. Whenever people are asked whether they are willing to give up their current coverage in trade for covering more people, less well, the results are just the opposite of what you suggest, with a great majority of Americans very much preferring what they have now over the "government option". It is only when asked in the abstract that you get anywhere close to a majority on your side.
And, what do you think the polling data is going to show when the American people find out that most of them will be giving up their private plans, if this bill becomes law (see the Invester's Daily article above).
You misunderstand the Bill of Rights.
Now... the Geneva Convention is what you suggest... rules to follow because we'd like them to be reciprocal.
The Bill of Rights doesn't exist because this is how I'd like to be treated so I agree to be nice to you. The Bill of Rights is a list of immutable creator established rights that exist quite apart from any reciprocity or expectation of reciprocity.
It has nothing at all to do with what everyone wants or how everyone would like other people to treat them.
"but don't pretend that we "leftists" are proposing that which a majority of Americans reject. Most Americans want it."
What most Americans want is for Santa Claus to be real and for fairy dust to cure cancer.
And in any case the argument isn't with the INTENTIONS it's with the blithe assurance that the desired results are what will actually happen. Government will suddenly not cause more problems than it cures, there will be no rationing, research on cutting edge medicine and pharmaceuticals will continue unimpeded, waiting times will practically disappear and those previously reluctant to see a doctor will suddenly show up for all of their screening tests.
Saying, yet again, that you CARE and want everyone to get great medical care and not lose their house... well, fabulous for you!
It's not about CARING. It's about the real world and the real world probable results of a system where the government unbalances the private options or denies the private options, where people who ought to know better propose that removing profit motivations will not impact research, that rationing will not happen, and waiting times will be shorter instead of longer.
I don't care how much your liberal heart bleeds... your bleeding doesn't help a single other person on the planet, does it.
When someone makes the claim that rationing will occur or UK type penalties for obesity or Canadian wait-times will occur, calling them MEAN does not make your argument.
People don't want THIS, they want free, easy, fast, unrationed health care.
That's what people want.
And if they are foolish enough to think Obama will give it to them it only means that people who know better should be a whole lot louder about opposition to what appears to be wanton messing about with the present "broken" system with little to no care or thoughtful consideration.
Supposedly Obama was all about thinking things through but what he's given us is rush, rush, rush.
"Whenever people are asked whether they are willing to give up their current coverage in trade for covering more people, less well, the results are just the opposite of what you suggest, with a great majority of Americans very much preferring what they have now over the "government option."
Of course, because this is a slanted and inaccurate way of describing the single payer system. You will find few people who live under such systems advocating for a change to the American system.
"You will find few people who live under such systems advocating for a change to the American system."
And what do they know about the American system?
Anything?
"The Bill of Rights is a list of immutable creator established rights that exist quite apart from any reciprocity or expectation of reciprocity."
No. There is no creator. These rights were enshrined in our Constitution by men who had experienced the tyranny of the British King, and who selfishly wanted to insure their own protection against an American tyranny.
If such rights are immutable and established by a creator, then Gee Dubwa was a heretic in violating these rights that are therefore equally immutable and "creator established" for the alleged terrorists imprisoned by us.
You will find few people who live under such systems advocating for a change to the American system.
So, when change is proposed in this country, we should discount those opinions in favor of those outside this country?
If such rights are immutable and established by a creator, then Gee Dubwa was a heretic in violating these rights that are therefore equally immutable and "creator established" for the alleged terrorists imprisoned by us.
Since when did the US Constitution extend to terrorists?
"No. There is no creator. These rights were enshrined in our Constitution by men who had experienced the tyranny of the British King, and who selfishly wanted to insure their own protection against an American tyranny."
And this is why you get it wrong.
Not that there is no creator, but that you can't see or use "creator" as an understanding of what is real and true and immutable no matter if it is attributed to God or Nature.
No MAN, be he pissed off at the British King or not, is *given* the right to sovereignty over his own soul or *given* the right to sovereignty over his conscience or his speech or *given* the right to sovereignty over his own body.
Those Rights exist and must exist and where they do NOT because they have been taken away, the moral person is compelled to assert those rights even through violence. No authority on Earth has the *authority* to take them away.
Which is the difference between a "right" and a "good idea."
Mixing them up weakens the very concept of anyone having any rights at all that are not subject to the will of the majority or subject to the will of a tyrant.
"Since when did the US Constitution extend to terrorists?"
Since when did the "creator" establish immutable rights that apply only to Americans?
Reader:
As I understand it, it will take 3-5 years to implement what the bill requires.
That is why some are saying the $150 Billion in annual cost is misleading. Over the ten years, it is $150 Billion but due to the 3-5 year phase-in, the more accurate annual cost is reflected in the costs of years 6-10. Then it will cost almost $230 Billion per year in those last five years.
I may not have explained this very clearly but I tried.
"Since when did the US Constitution extend to terrorists?"
It doesn't, of course, as criminals give up their rights even in the US, or how do we lock them up?
Due process is just a codified way of determining when that happened that hardly applies to someone pointing a gun at you or planting a bomb.
Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal."
More and more, I think the I in IBD stands for Idiot.
The House Health Care bill appears to incorporate a reform suggested by a member of the Heritage Foundation, that well-known commie front group, the Health Insurance Exchange.
http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm1230.cfm
Wouldn't it more helpful if you just had us go to Daily Kos and read your sources there? It would save you the time of copying and pasting.
I don't read Daily Kos, but you're welcome to go there without my prompting if you like.
Obama's health care package will cost this nation over 250,000 jobs!
I have seen job loss already related to this fiasco. On my web site, http://www.gorillamedicalsales.com , a job board for medical device sales representatives to find employment, vacant sales territories are not being re-filled by medical supply companies. It will only get worse!
Obama pretty much confirmed diagnostic rationing on TV this morning:
"If you only need one test, why do you want five tests?"
Has this fool never heard of a false positive? Ask any woman who had to sweat out re-testing a positive pap test or mammogram how happy she would have been with one test.
Jesucristoenunabicicleta.
"If you only need one test, why do you want five tests?"
Has this fool never heard of a false positive?
That would be a different question, because now you need two tests:
"If you only need two tests, why do you want five tests?"
I agree Obama is creating more and more uncertainty among individuals, families, all consumers and most business owners.
That is killing the economy!
@FLS, the doctor orders five tests because he or she fears a malpractice suit from riff-raff scumbag lawyers like you if they miss something.
Most of the time the tests are superfluous, but that 1% when the extra tests turn up something saves million-dollar lawsuits.
"These were all equally true of the invasion of Iraq, too. Hope you pointed that out back then as well."
FLS
I know you support this health boondoggle, but I didn't know you supported the war too. You drew the equivalence you know.
That's the problem with stupid arguments...they're stupid.
Since when is it a civil right to have the government decide what health care you can have.
They won't give you what you need, they will give you what they decide you need without ever seeing you, asking you, or diagnosing you. I can request any reasonable test and usually get it it through my private plan. It just has to have some chance of helping. I have that power because I'm a customer, not a subject. I have never been turned down for any scan or blood test, some of which saved my life. That simply will not happen under single payer.
I don't consider being denied something a right.
Then again I don't believe I have a right to decide how you to take care of your health. That's a prime difference between people politically.
The universal justification for taking away peoples freedom is for the common good as in: If you're using public money then you don't get to decide. There's been a lot of that lately.
That is why this will quickly become onerous. How long before dangerous lifestyles start getting restricted. No smoking, hang gliding, skiing, running with sissors, dating strippers, no freaking ice cream.
This will suck, but it's cool for you cause being liberal means never having to say your sorry.
fls, no it's not another question.
Often one needs several tests to reach the correct diagnosis. Once testing is quantified by cost (rationed) people will die unnecessarily or more costs will be incurred if treament is delayed.
It's not too late for free market providers to propose how to cover the uninsured. Ever since Hillarycare was proposed, however, all they've done is squinch their eyes, stick fingers in their ears, and mutter, "Socialists socialists socialists"
Oh, bull. There have been any number of free market reform proposals put out there as well as plenty of proposals for insuring the "uninsured." It's the universal/government option/single payer people who have their fingers in their ears ("I can't HEAR you...").
That big health care summit Obama threw where just everybody from everywhere got together to kick around their big ideas? Free marketeers didn't even get an invite much less a hearing. Just a group of nobodies from nowhere, I guess.
"That big health care summit Obama threw where just everybody from everywhere got together to kick around their big ideas? Advocates of single payer didn't even get an invite much less a hearing. Just a group of nobodies from nowhere, I guess."
There I fixed that for you.
OK, so no free marketer types invited (per Suky Tawdry) and no single payer types invited (per Robert Cook).
Dang, is that Obama stacking the deck again?
How do you have a summit if you don't invite anyone?
Has this fool never heard of a false positive?
That would be a different question, because now you need two tests:
"If you only need two tests, why do you want five tests?"
The BIGGER question is why would you want to turn the decision of how many tests I might need to live and be diagnosed or how many tests that the Doctor feels are necessary over to a bunch of government bean counters? You know? Those lazy unionized bureaucrats who are paid by us poor serfs and who have a 100% gold plated insurance plan already?
Is that the world you want to live in? One where my life and your life and the lives of your family are just statistics in the meat grinder of government incompetence? Welcome to it sucker.
Do you think that Obama and his cronies are going to be on the public plan? In a pigs eye!!!
I propose that ALL government employees, including Congress be on the same plan as the rest of us indentured servants. See how quickly they cram that meat through the sausage grinder with out even examining it for the maggots that infest this current bill.
"I propose that ALL government employees, including Congress be on the same plan as the rest of us indentured servants."
That's the answer right there and every incumbent running next election should be asked why they didn't propose it while voting to destroy our coverage.
Cookie - your delusions are getting better. But your logic is deteriorating.
Commenting from a small sized border city in Canada - a positive for us is, if you implement a medical system such as ours, we will quit losing our doctors to the U.S.. Once we had six(6) neurosurgeons, they relocated to the States, now we have one.
Getting back to the Professor's original point: "They don't want us to see how terrible it is. My working theory must be it's a horror. Therefore, I am vehemently opposed to it. Aren't you"?
260+ comments, and we're pretty much right back to the original post. If it was such a good deal for people, there would be no reason why they would be pushing it through like this, would there? Nor would Congress exempt itself from participating in this plan, nor would Barack Obama have to hem and haw when a doctor asked him right out whether he'd subject his wife and daughter to this plan.
But the point is, they will be the ones deciding what we get to have -- and some of the people on this thread are slavering for their masters to take over their lives.
Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi should be run out of Washington on a rail, just to let the rest of them know we're serious!
The only thing worse than passing bills you haven't read is passing bills you haven't let ANYBODY read! And of course, as one would expect, it outlaws private medical insurance.
The biggest secret about legislation is that most of it is cribbed from somewhere else, and is so filled with references to other sections of the code that it's impossible to read.
This is a perfect example for judges who don't care about "legislative intent." Steny Hoyer laughingly admitted that if they waited for everybody to read the bills they'd never get any votes.
This is proof positive that Congress is out of control. It's like a runaway bus with all of us as the passengers.
As one can see, I'm too angry to compose a coherent response! Boot them all out!
The Blue Dogs will not get re-elected if they vote for this monstrosity.
Our local Blue Dog is the traget of a protest demonstration tomorrow.
He made the grievous error of telling the consituents he would vote the way they wanted on the Crap and Trade and then voted FOR C&T when his own office reported constituents calling 9:1 against it.
If he even thinks about voting for this monstrosity we could run the dog catcher against him and this Blue Dog would lose.
Ah Pooh -- If the US gets this, you guys will have to drive to Central America for your health care.
Score one for Sen. Coburn
If Democrats strike this amendment from a reconciled bill, then they should be made to pay for it at the ballot box.
"How do you have a summit if you don't invite anyone?"
The same way my parents had "pow wow's" with me. I guess they call them "time out's" now. When you get older, some call them "come to Jesus" meetings, but you get my drift. It is, after all, how each of us learned the ole "nod and bob" routine.
And while we are on this topic, of "nod and bob", I want to thank Althouse for not giving in to that top-down thinking.
She lets us "kids" fight it out amongst ourselves. Heck, she doesn't even have a problem when we make fun of her, because she knows that is part of our growing up, AND her own.
I, for one, am glad she is off on some vacation, or at least an adventure that doesn't have this website or her ego at its core.
So far, so good. Eh, kids?
So who's making breakfast tomorrow?
Penny: LOL.
My own son is at the exact right age to start demonstrating the truth of that--the dawning of the learning of the ol' nod and bob--and don't I ruefully know it.
OK,that comment is my favorite of yours to date.
Wow. Twice in a day I find myself keyboarding that basic statement!
Forgot to specify: My comment was in response to Penny's 10:22.
Funny dilemma for the blue dog Dems -- vote for the bill and risk a tax revolt, or vote against and deliver a body blow to the president and therefore their re-election chances?
Actually, I would suggest that the more often they vote against their party and their President, the more likely it is that they will be reelected. But the dilemma still exists, because if they do that, they are likely to get cut out of whatever goodies Pelosi has to give out, such as pork and committee assignments.
My prediction is that if they don't change the way that they are voting, there are a lot of 1st and 2nd term Democrats in the House right now who won't be coming back in 2011 because they come from districts that voted for Bush in 2004 and are toeing the party line right now. It doesn't sit well with a lot of voters to vote for a bunch of trillion dollar bills without reading them, merely on the orders of Speaker Pelosi, esp. if those bills are heavily pork lade, and in the case of the Tax and Bribe (aka Cap and Trade) and health care reform bills, already quite unpopular with their constituents.
Well, I have been reading the bill, and the more I read, the scarier it gets. For example:
- It looks like health ratings will go out, as well as preexisting condition riders. Age rating will apparently only allow for doubling rates based on age. This will likely make a lot of those who are already opting out of insurance in favor of more beer money be even less willing to participate (which is why so much of this is mandatory). After all, they are typically from the demographic with the absolute lowest premiums (since many are 20 and early 30 something males).
- Deductible flexibility will essentially disappear. All policies will have one of maybe two different allowable deductible levels. As someone today pointed out, say goodbye to your Health Care Savings Accounts (HSA), which I think was one of the few opportunities to apply market forces to health care costs.
- Plenty of mandated coverages, and, I suspect, many more to come.
- The government is going to watch claims/loss ratios very closely, and if they are too high, apparently fine the insurance companies. This means that they cannot make up one year for claims losses in a previous year, or visa versa.
- There also appears to be provisions for the government to review claims rejections.
And that was with reading only about 1/4 of the bill. No wonder they want to ram this through so fast.
Jim,
You know that that amendment won't stay in. The big question is how are the Democrats in the Senate going to remove it without making it too obvious. I expect to see some sort of parliamentary slight of hand, something maybe akin to how they give themselves raises without having to vote on them.
FLS asked: "What images do the following conjure up"
My response is that they represent a lot of taxpayer money being spent on very nice buildings.
I will possibly give Ann's law school some leeway there, since many law schools are built primarily by donations by alumni and others.
Bruce -
"You know that that amendment won't stay in."
Unfortunately, there's not a chance of it remaining in the final bill; however, it should be featured prominently in every ad that Republicans run in 2010 against every Democrat that votes for ObamaCare. It's a powerful statement of just how out of touch the political elite of this country are with their constituents and a message that will resonate more and more loudly as the economy continues to slide.
I'd also feature Obama's extravagant family vacations and self-aggrandizing photo-ops alongside graphs of unemployment and consumer confidence. If there's ever been a greater "Let them eat cake" attitude in the White House, I'm not sure I've ever seen it.
fls @ 3:02 PM
Would you rather pay for twice-a-year teeth cleanings, or crowns and root canal?
That's a false analogy, eventually we will have to pay for both. Shit happens and genetics plays a large part in one's health and longevity.
How many of us know people who were fit and did everything possible to preserve good health yet became ill or died from a condition or disease they could not predict or ameliorate with prevention?
Public plan , private plan. Which is really better??
One way to gauge how the US health care system stacks up against other countries is to ask citizens of each county what they think of their system.
Harris conducted a poll in 2008 to answer that question
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=927
"How many of us know people who were fit and did everything possible to preserve good health yet became ill or died from a condition or disease they could not predict or ameliorate with prevention?"
My guess is 100% of them die.
That would be a different question, because now you need two tests:
"If you only need two tests, why do you want five tests?"
Well, FLS, it's because if a doctor misses something, he'll be sued. And, no, they won't do shit about tort reform or to help doctors with already insanely high malpractice premiums. They test to cover their ass incessantly.
Congress won't subject themselves to this system. Would you drink city water if the sanitation department only used bottled water to drink at home?
But, then again, these are the same folks demanding you send your kids to public schools while they manage to send their kids elsewhere.
"ask citizens of each county what they think of their system."
Little problem with the psychology of that question is: The people in the US will assume change means they will keep all the goodies but not have to pay for it. The others will assume their system will improve but still be "free".
Neither assumption is true, but likely what they where thinking regardless.
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