On Private Conference Call, Tea Party Organizers Say No Reform At All Is Goal
On a private conference call, a group of top Tea Party and conservative organizers offered a surprisingly frank description of their goal, according to a source on the call: Completely blocking any kind of bipartisan compromise, and completely preventing any type of health care reform bill at all from ever becoming law.
The source who got himself on the call was an organizer for the AFL-CIO, and AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale provided me with the organizer’s notes. It’s certain to be seized on by Dems to argue that organized Tea Party opposition to Obama has no constructive intentions and is fomenting public “concern” about Obama’s plan solely to prevent any reform from ever taking place. GOP officials would argue that they don’t share these goals.
The call consisted of representatives of top conservative groups, such as the American Liberty Alliance, the “Tea Party Patriots,” and RecessRally.com, the AFL-CIO’s notes say.
The moderator on the call, whose name could not immediately be determined, told listeners that bipartisan compromise on the Senate Finance Committee, where senators are holding talks, must be stopped at all costs, AFL-CIO’s notes say. The moderator called on members to pressure GOP Senators seeking compromise with Dems, like Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, and Olympia Snowe, to stop the negotiating.
“The goal is not compromise, and ANY bill coming out this year would be a failure for us,” the moderator said, according to AFL-CIO’s notes. The moderator added that “the Democrats will turn even a weak bill from the Senate Finance Committee into Canadian-style single-payer through underhanded implementation.”
Another organizer on the call, according to AFL-CIO, added: “The purpose of Tea Parties is not to find a solution to the health care crisis — it is to stop what is not the solution: Obamacare.”
Check out AFL-CIO’s notes right here.
To be clear, this is AFL-CIO’s version of what happened. I’m reaching out to the groups in question to get more, and I’ll keep you posted.
****************************************
Update: Corrine Williams, a spokesperson for the American Liberty Alliance, tells me that the focus of the call was educational and policy-oriented, and not on the movement’s political goals. But she acknowledged that the above sentiments may have been expressed during a Q and A at the end of the call, though she doesn’t think the exact language was the same.
But Williams did confirm that the movement’s goal is to prevent the current compromise bill from becoming a reality, because it represents Obamacare. She said no audio of the call exists.
Update II: Tea Party organizer Eric Odom issues a statement in effect denying that the Tea Party movement has specific legislative goals:
“I and the America Liberty Alliance do not have the purpose of politically ‘accepting’ or denying legislation. Instead we provide individuals the tools to express their concerns to their government representatives.”
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Hasn’t the AFL-CIO ever heard of a tape recorder?
Sheesh!
It’s illegal to record calls without both parties consent.
If this turns out to be an accurate account of the sentiments expressed I won’t be at all surprised.
It will hardly be the first time they have happily tried to force us all over the cliff.
It’s ridiculous that fewer than 30 million people are holding over 70 million people back from the reform we voted for.
And does this is surprising because….? I thought it’s been pretty obvious since ‘93 that the worst of the wingnuts were not interested in any reform whatsoever.
Just out of curiosity, why would someone from the AFL-CIO be on the call in the first place?
Stupid grammar. That should’ve been “And this is surprising because…..?”
Oh, and as usual, Tom Toles has already nailed this.
Just fyi, I edited the piece to make it clearer that the AFL organizer got himself on the call. not invited on to my knowledge.
You do good work, Greg, but the rest of the Post – well…
“The media have the job of informing the public. They have the time and the resources to know that when opponents of President Obama’s plan talk about rationing, they are not telling the truth (i.e. they are lying). If the media just pass these assertions on to the public without comment, then they are giving them credibility.
And if the opponents of health reform think they can get away with one really big lie, then why shouldn’t they start moving forward with even bigger ones. It was only a matter of time before someone came up with Governor Palin’s death panel line. For this we owe our thanks to The Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream media.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/governor-palins-crazed-he_b_256136.html
This should surprise no one. As any American history buff can tell you, the right has been fighting health care for 70 years. Follow the money. They always do.
@Greg
Tena’s comment leads me to ask…what sort of association do you have with the Post? While I know this blog is under their umbrella, are posts and their content completely up to you? Do you feel the need to call out Post reporters who perpetuate misinformation (on any subject) – as in more or less than other media outlets?
This isn’t an accusation or anything. I’m just curious about how the dynamic works.
Oooooooooooooooo – OT, but – I just got an email from someone whose name should be familiar to other Texans – Bill White is running for Fluffy Hutchison’s seat.
I like Bill. And he already has name recognition.
BBQ and Tena — the WhoRunsGov and Plum Line site is owned by the Washington Post Company, but it is not editorially overseen by Washingtonpost.com’s editors.
However, separately, this blog, the Plum Line, is listed as one of the washingtonpost.com blogs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/politics_columnists.html?nid=roll_politicsblogs
hope that clarifies…
And I got jumped a couple of days ago for saying the protesters are outside agitators:
“Ryan Grim Health Care Protesters Largely From Out Of District, Sign-In Sheets Show”
They are.
Greg – I have no problem with your association with the Post, I was just pointing out where it has contributed to the problem, according to the piece I linked to.
I’m proud of you – just so you know.
I posted this below, I’ll post it again. It’s unbelievable, but true – before social security and medicare, 90% of our seniors lived below the poverty line. I know that’s stunning, but it’s true.
And I would have had to file for bankruptcy if not for Medicare covering my mother’s last illness. Her last hospital stay cost $400,000, people. $400,000.00.
The Insurance Cabal are the only ones who are making out under the current system. They keep making record profits, by just skimming from the top, money which does nothing to pay for any treatment for anyone. HMOs are the Haliburtons and Blackwaters of National Health care.
Time to get those leeches, who pay their executives millions of dollars each year, for not treating people, out of the system.
It has to be changed drastically. Only nut jobs want to keep doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.
Hello! Hello!, They are in the Insurance, profit making racket, they are not in the healh care business.
the WhoRunsGov and Plum Line site is owned by the Washington Post Company, but it is not editorially overseen by Washingtonpost.com’s editors
So, more or less, the Post owns the blog (as they own a lot of businesses that aren’t part of the newspaper), but you are basically free to post what you like?
“Hello! Hello!, They are in the Insurance, profit making racket, they are not in the healh care business.”
Word up – and all these people defending insurance companies is blowing my mind. Since when do people love insurance companies so much? They are ******* barely legalized robbers.
liam, have you seen this interview? It’s long, but if you haven’t seen it I think you’ll find it insightful. I think it’s “must-see”.
no prob, Tena, appreciate it…oddjob, WhoRunsGov’s editor, Rachel Van Dongen, oversees that and Plum Line…
BTW, check out update: conservative organizer basically confirming the story.
all these people defending insurance companies is blowing my mind.
Tell me about it!
conservative organizer basically confirming the story
What a surprise – not!
Seems to me that these groups are simply reiterating the message that Hatch already delivered:
“Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) says any compromise on health care that comes out of the Senate Finance Committee won’t be used in crafting the final bill… Hatch points out the president and leaders in Congress won’t agree to safeguard any health care compromise. “Assuming that he comes up with a bill…you still have the House bill and the health committee bill that are both just partisan, Democrat bills,” Hatch said. “They’re just going to use those to tell them what the final bill’s going to be.”
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32917
Oddjob is a stunt double in bestiality films..
And I personally always pay the closest attention to everything Orrin Hatch says.
[rolls eyes allllll the way around]
Sorry. Don’t swing that way.
@Tena: “I would have had to file for bankruptcy if not for Medicare covering my mother’s last illness. Her last hospital stay cost $400,000, people. $400,000.00.”
In all sincerity, are you aware that the hospitals have also cut a deal with Obama, similar to big pharma?
“For their part, hospital officials have an understanding that, if the final legislation includes a new government-sponsored insurance program, it will not pay at Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement rates, which the industry has long argued do not cover the cost of services. “We have concerns about a new public program where you have Medicare rates,” one industry representative said. “That would not be part of the plan.”
In other words, another backroom deal about which we know virtually nothing. It would appear that the hospitals could continue to charge exhorbitant rates that that would now be paid via the public option without the cost controls included in Medicare.
the repubs and their allies are singing Groucho’s
“whatever it is, I’m against it.” the repubs have no
interest in any reform and mr. Obama is on fool’s errand
if he thinks otherwise.
this just confirms what was obvious.
“In all sincerity, are you aware that the hospitals have also cut a deal with Obama, similar to big pharma? ”
But but but – you keep telling me we don’t have a bill yet.
@Tena: So please tell me, do you believe that if the Senate Finance cmte reaches a compromise that does not include a public option, that the final reconciled bill will include that compromise?
@tena: Do you honestly not understand that pharma and the hospitals have cut a deal with the admin?
@Eddie Vale — Sometimes yes, sometime sno.
It depends on the state your tape recorder is in.
It’s a simple matter to make sure your tape recorder is in one of the “single-party” states.
This is not news. This is GOP SOP.
“@tena: Do you honestly not understand that pharma and the hospitals have cut a deal with the admin?”
sbj, do you honestly not get the difference between what is reported in the American media and what is actually true?
The White House and Big Pharma already denied that deal that was prematurely reported (as usual.)
# oddjob | August 11th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
liam, have you seen this interview? It’s long, but if you haven’t seen it I think you’ll find it insightful. I think it’s “must-see”.
Thanks, yes I had seen it.
The amazing thing about he whole issue is that people forget what the HMO crowd promised businesses, when they were first created. They went to businesses, and said that for a fee, they would control medical costs, so the employee insurance coverage costs would not keep rising at a steep rate.
Now look where they are at. The companies coverage rates keep skyrocketing every year, and the HMOs are the ones doing the raising, and making sure that they have tacked on their fat profit takes,
What a racket. They get businesses to pay them big protection racket amounts, for doing nothing. It is almost as good as the preacher racket, where they get paid to protect people from the wrath of “their creator” Yet this Pope just got a fracture, and the previous one got shot. Looks like they can protect everyone from the wrath of God, except their selves!!!
Just from reading the right-wing activist blogs like RedState.com, you could have figured out that they are opposed to all new government measures on health care.
Over on RedState.com, I’ve seen posters even denouncing the plan to ban exclusion for pre-existing conditions. They believe that in a free market, an insurance company has every right to deny you coverage for a pre-existing condition.
I’ve been a conservative most of my life (voted for Reagan twice). But that goes too far even for me.
Everyone take it easy on Tena, her mom just got out of the hospital…
However, my whole point about this, the healthcare issue, is that clearly some people want it and some don’t. Let each state decide what is best. Massachusetts has decided to do it..may not be the best system, but its something. So move to Mass if you don’t like your current system. Let the taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Mass pay for it. That’s why we call the United States of America…we are united, but different. I moved to a state where I don’t have to pay state income tax, however I pay plenty of real estate taxes for schools/hospitals, etc. That’s fine, I’m ok with it. But let me have a choice. There is just too much feeding at the money trough by legislators and eventually they run out of people from whom they can get it from. Right now, its about soaking the wealthy, but with more and more of this govt intrusion, the middle class is next, then the poor. Then we are all poor. Don’t penalize success(higher taxes on wealthy), incent people by having a fair system to tax. Everyone gets taxed at the same level. Right now, wealthy Americans(Top 10% of wage earners) represent 50% of the governments income, but only get 10% of a Vote. You should be upset about their lack of equality too if you’re upset about peoples lack of equality with healthcare.
# jak | August 11th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Oddjob is a stunt double in bestiality films..
…………………………
All you have revealed is that you apparently watch such filth.
Time for Greg to get this Jak Off.(Sounded it out folks)
“Everyone take it easy on Tena, her mom just got out of the hospital…”
ROFLMAO. Thanks, but my mom has been dead since 1995. The surgeon killed her. That’s why I called it her LAST hospital stay.
Joe Sixpack | August 11th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Everyone take it easy on Tena, her mom just got out of the hospital…
However, my whole point about this, the healthcare issue, is that clearly some people want it and some don’t. Let each state decide what is best. Massachusetts has decided to do it..may not be the best system, but its something. So move to Mass if you don’t like your current system. Let the taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Mass pay for it. That’s why we call the United States of America…we are united, but different. I moved to a state where I don’t have to pay state income tax, however I pay plenty of real estate taxes for schools/hospitals, etc. That’s fine, I’m ok with it. But let me have a choice. There is just too much feeding at the money trough by legislators and eventually they run out of people from whom they can get it from. Right now, its about soaking the wealthy, but with more and more of this govt intrusion, the middle class is next, then the poor. Then we are all poor. Don’t penalize success(higher taxes on wealthy), incent people by having a fair system to tax. Everyone gets taxed at the same level. Right now, wealthy Americans(Top 10% of wage earners) represent 50% of the governments income, but only get 10% of a Vote. You should be upset about their lack of equality too if you’re upset about peoples lack of equality with healthcare.
…………………………
I always love when guys like Joe Six Pack, and Joe the Plummer, get all stressed out about the plight of millionaires and billionaires.
Joe,
The more you write, the more I understand why your five year old has the same opinion of you, as Tena does!!!
@tena
Please excuse my compassion.
@liam
you should be more worried about the plight of the top 10% of wage earners(200k+) as they are the ones footing more than half the bill of our country’s needs.
I guess, you like biting the hand that feeds the country.
People – behold the new face of the republican party – ignorant violent racist white people making fools of themselves. They are the new base.
It is all they have left.
They are the same people who burned witches at the stake and lynched blacks in the south. This is a virtual lynching by people who are physically and mentally ill because we have a polished intelligent black man as president. Everything that they are not and they want to destroy it so they don’t have to look in the mirror.
And you can credit Obama with bringing this out. Like puss from a wound.
In a swamp the scum floats to the top.
@Joe Sixpack
Under the system, that you are defending, those 200K people are just one medical emergency away from being homeless.
Stop try to spin your way out of it. You posted about how worried you were about those pay taxes at the 50% percent level. No one earning 200K does.
You worry about the small percentagge at the top who have concentrated the wealth of the nation in their hands, while the vast majority of the nation has seen their standards of living decline, thanks to policies of Bush/Cheney. Apparently, you and Bush never met a Billionare that you didn’t feel needed made more wealthy.
Those are the ******** that have shipped all the hands on production jobs overseas. They still make their big profits, while the American blue collar workers get kicked to the curb.
You stick up for the robber baron class, and I will take my stand for the downtrodden, and abandoned working class people of America.
@ Eddie Vale-
“It’s illegal to record calls without both parties consent.”
Depends on the state. In Maine, only one person need know.
Please don’t assume the democrats will seize on this information. That’s not what they do; instead they prefer to get their faces bashed in by republicans while never pointing out the lies and misinformation of the opposition
Joe Sixpack: Can you please give a cite for your claim that 10% of wage earners earn over $200k? According to a 2005 report by the US Census Bureau, less than 3% of HOUSEHOLDS earned more than 200k.
No Reform is the Goal? So that means:
—————————————-
1) Rising Health Costs will continue to Spiral out of Conrtol…impact jobs and our Wallets.
2) Health Insurance companies continue to deny coverages to those who pay
3) Jobs continue to go overseas
…etc. etc. etc….the list goes on…
..in effect, these extremists want an ineffective government espoused by extremist views.
Carlos G, you forgot #4, the one about how the near monopoly in coverage that now exists becomes a complete monopoly. (No one has any choice over what insurance company policy is available to them. There are a variety of policies out there, but each company only offers one to its particular employees and thus in the real world there is no competition and a free market doesn’t exist.
They used to call such a thing a trust, back when we gave a damn about making sure they didn’t exist, but for all practical purposes that era ended in the 1970’s.)
@liam
Please read what I’m saying. I’m not talking about the tax rate, I’m talking about the amount of revenue that group sends to the government, as a percentage of Americans.
@SchrodingersCat
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/05in05tr.xls
Top 10% is actually 70% of all the income taxes. So I was wrong, not 50%, its actually 70%.
Just using the rhetoric that O puts out…250k top 5-10%. However in looking more closely at the numbers, yes, anyone making over 145k is in the top 5%.
Which is making my point even more. 5% of population pays for 60% of all the taxes. Should they get 60% of the vote? No, so why do they pay 60% of the taxes. Even worse, 50% of the our country pay 3% of the taxes.
You can’t tell me that’s fair or ethical. I’m sure you will, but you can’t really. If everyone had equal skin in the game, I’d understand all this healthcare stuff, but its pretty clear who is going to pay for it again. What happens if that well runs dry?
You can take all of these crazies, and they would not equal Glenn Beck.
Check out Glenn Beck’s logical conclusion that a level playing field in our society will lead to slavery.
I am not making this up. Here is the clip.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2490
@oddjob
Most “evil” corporations will allow you to get your own coverage. You can search for companies that offer coverage competitively here: ehealthinsurance.com
Find a rate and plan that fits you and buy it. If another company comes out with better pricing b/c competition will does and will occur, choose them.
Re: Eddie Vale | August 11th, 2009 at 11:06 am
“It’s illegal to record calls without both parties consent.”
Actually, it depends on the state. Most states only require the consent of one party and that person does not have to inform others that he or she is recording the call, so long as that person is a party to the conversation (and is not eavesdropping). These laws exist to protect citizens from being illegally recorded by the government.
So, it really depends on the state, and the AFL-CIO rep may have been calling from a state that doesn’t allow recording. Still, recording the conversation and then leaking it anonymously… that’s possible.
More info:
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/
Find a rate and plan that fits you and buy it. If another company comes out with better pricing b/c competition will does and will occur, choose them.
And when none of them want to bother with you, you’re on your own.
May you never have a pre-existing condition. I was born with one. It’s controlled and has been for years, but I have epilepsy.
@oddjob
ok, sorry to hear, but you raise a good point. I agree, legislation could/should be necessary to address that situation of pre existing conditions. Do we need to scrap the whole system and go to a single payer system? No, but I’m up for that and tort reform for doctors. If we can help lower their costs in doing business(ie medical malpractice), there will be more of them in business and “fair” competition drives down prices. You should want a govt that creates an environment for more competition not less.
Let’s think of something basic. Has competition been good for cell phones? You may or may not be paying less than you did a few years ago, but you certainly have more services. Again, just a basic example of “fair” competition.
Republican leadership and moderate Democrats have several alternate plans out there that won’t destroy the system completely, putting 1/6th of the country’s economy under govt control. These plans use the free market we have in place to control costs, increase competition and decrease LAWYER involevment in medicine. The far left is not interested in that, they want single payer, socialized medicine no matter how much it costs. …bottom line whatever you want we don’t’ have the money…you’re bankrupting our country.
I’m not convinced the free market model is the best way to deliver the nation’s healthcare. Having said that, with regards to other economic issues, provided competition continues, it does usually force prices to a minimum. Over time it’s not unusual for the number of significant players in a given market to diminish. Once that happens unfortunately competition often comes to a (de facto) end. Instead an oligopoly (”trust”) or even a (de facto) monopoly exists and at that point (for all practical purposes) all competition is devoted to excluding new suppliers from gaining entry into that market, not to providing consumers with the best product/service at the lowest price.
they want single payer, socialized medicine no matter how much it costs
That’s why we, with our non-single-payer system, pay twice (per person) what the rest of the industrialized democracies pay for healthcare.
Yeah, you just made one ton of common sense there, Bucko…….
LOL!
@oddjob
I appreciate your openess. Even if we move towards a monopoly, the government shouldn’t be in the business of running healthcare, they should look for ways to legislate on how to allow for more competition in the private sector. Perhaps their own legislation or oversight led to a monopoly.
@oddjob
Please reference your statistic about paying twice what other countries do. Make sure it includes taxes in that equation too.
I’m not arguing anything with you other than your stated “fact” of 10%.
It’s pretty obvious to me that you have a far different view of the world than I do. You do not believe that it’s “fair” that people who make more chip in a little more to help those who are less fortunate. I do. OTH, you think that it’s “fair” that Warren Buffet pays less taxes as a percentage of his income than his secretary does. I do not. Simple.
Funny thing is, the income tax system in this country has always been progressive. If you have an issue with that you shouldn’t be arguing with me; you need to get in to your time machine and fly back and argue with your congressman from 1913.
This should not surprise anyone. The republican view is that they already have their health care and everybody else is one their own. So the old, rich, white racists in the GOP are saying to hell with everyone but themselves. What great Americans.
@Cat
No I don’t think warren buffet should pay less than his secty….they should pay the same percentage of their income. Warren 15% and Secy 15%….Warren will pay more in dollars, but ATLEAST we can say they are paying an equal share of their income.
Please reference your statistic
I will have to dig around to get that. I will get it, but not until this evening.
The republican view is that they already have their health care and everybody else is one their own.
It’s called “the ownership society” (aka “I’ve got mine. The rest of you can go to hell.”)
It is incumbent upon every one of us to counter this misinformation and insanity by letting our lawmakers know we support reform. It is absolutely necessary that we make our voices heard over this insurance-company backed fear campaign. I do not intend to sit back while a noisy, misinformed, fear-based minority hijacks my right to decent health care.
Find out when your representatives town halls are – we have to counter this with equal passion – the numbers are on the side of health care reform, even if the insanity and the volume and the media sensationalism aren’t. These fellow citizens who are swallowing the insurance company propaganda are standing in the way of you getting something you desperately need – act like you understand that.
I do not think the government can reform health care by running it. If anything they should make laws or an effort to stop the cost of expensive drugs or $500 ambulance rides. The majority of people who don’t have health care which our driving up cost are illegal’s. If people want free health care they should join the military (which is only financially free) the government cannot manage Medicare! Why would anyone feel they could manage something as large as this? Use common sense. Do not use my tax dollars to pay for some elses perk. Use it to pay off 12 trillion in debt or fix social security but do not continue to waste it!
Well over half the country dislikes this reform and doesn’t want it, but we’ve got to have it anyway– immediately, without looking into every single fact and detail of the reform?
Let me get this straight, are you saying that if YOU get sick, then I have to pay for it? If you want an abortion, I have to pay for it? If you are an illegal alien and you get sick, I have to pay for you? C’mon — this is total BS and everyone can see it, why do you think the regular folks are so pissed at these town hall meetings? T
Geez, next they’ll be telling me if someone can’t pay their mortgage, I have to pay for it, or if their bank or automotive factory is bankrupt, then I have to pay their debts! Oh, wait — WE”RE ALREADY DOING THAT!!!
Can’t you people pull your heads out of your asses long enough to see that the nationalization of all facets of America is happening at a disturbingly fast pace — a phenomenon which is anti-american to our very foundations — forshame to those of you who would take advantage of the freedoms given to you by our Constition, and then blindly ignore the destruction of that constitution, duped by the empty promise of free stuff for everyone…
Even thought I don’t want health care, I still have to get it anyway?
(yes, many millions of uninsured simply choose NOT to get healthcare, even though they can afford the best insurance in the world, or can afford to pay cash, or just treat themselves)
Here’s some reform for you — eliminate/ Medicare and the existing federal tax payer funded healthcare — let state and local governments decide if they want to have a tax funded system. (then watch California & New York immediately collapse under the strain of millions of deadbeats who flock there to take advantage of all the free stuff without contributing a dime)
Better yet, let those who can’t afford care rely on charity and the goodwill of the American public and doctors — or (gasp!) their families!! — as Obama says, shame is a useful emotion. Believe it or not, this is the way healthcare has been done for centuries…
Lots of people who “cant afford” care are walking around with big car payments, mortgages, and spend plenty on things they feel are “more important” than their health. And by the way, last time I checked, NOBODY has ever been turned down for care in my local emergency room — no insurance, no money, no citizenship — EVERYONE still gets seen in the ER. And even our criminals get FREE healthcare in the jails — what more do you want?
Are we really going to let this happen Healthcare Reform go down the pipes becuase these teabagging nutjobs are screaming the loudest! I would take them seriously or at least have respect for their argument regarding socialized medicine if the seniors protesting opted out of Medicare!
This is stupidity, greed, and racism at it’s finest hour. So sad!
What pisses me off is that the repubs never in their entire time in power at anytime did they ever address health care or any big ticket problem. NEVER! Then when the dems come out with ideas to tackle them they just try and kill it along with the Health care industry. They r n0t for the american people but for big business..its disgusting. They r frauds. Can someone please tell me what have the conservatives and the leaders of the repubs have done for the middle class or the average american. Just one bill. Please tell me!
Great article about the canadian health care system that dispels all the myths out there.(see web site below) It is outrageous that in our country we are all 1 major illness away from bankruptcy.
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090806/OPINION/908059911
When talking about how much someone pays in taxes – it is irrelevany the dollars – it is the percent that matters.
If a Middle Class taxpayer earning $50,000 pays 30% of his income to the government or $15,000 and a rich taxpayer making $1 million pays 10%, or $100,000, by utilizing loopholes and shelters – the Middle Class person is getting screwed. While the rich taxpayer pays more in dollars, they still get to keep more as a percentage of their money.
Get it?
If you want a fair system, exclude the first $50,000 that everyone makes and then tax everything over that at 10%, no deductions. The rich will have a fit although as a percentage they will pay the exact same amount as everyone else.
How could the Gop possibly think this going to help them in 2010 & 2012. Preventing millions of Americans from receiving affordable healthcare coverage. Clearly I’ve missed their logic. Do they honestly think 25% of the population is going to substain them against an entire nation!
the government cannot manage Medicare!
That’s why it’s so popular (it is) and why its costs are rising less rapidly than private health insurance is.
LOL!
Eman with an all too common and backassward way of think, seems to imply that it is the role the federal lawmakers to make laws to “take care” of the people. We’ll, if you want to be “taken care of” by the taxpayers, go directly to jail — you get 3 meals a day, lodging, and healthcare. Or, here;s a novel idea — get job, work hard, and pay for what you want in life through your own talent and dedication…
Do not use my tax dollars to pay for some elses perk.
Then presumably it’s okay if I get to stop paying my share of your road repairs?
@steve
Random numbers you’re using…no facts. When you have them, bring them.
No rhetoric here.
@Chris H and Brian
Nice to see some more common sense thinkers here…
Oh, and brian? If you live in one of the southern states the odds are you get way more of my tax money than I do of yours (living in Massachusetts as I do).
Well over half the country dislikes this reform and doesn’t want it
Which explains why approximately one half of the country favors healthcare reform, and well over one half of the country voted for the candidate who promised the most comprehensive healthcare reform…………
Steve, how is it fair to tax more successful, more talented, and more hardworking people MORE than those who do nothing at all ? — you’re proposition is illogical…. How about every adult pays 10K per year in taxes period — thats fair to me — after all, “we’re all created equal” …
Republicans and Democrats both suck and the quicker you all realize the better off you will be. The government in charge of health care is by far the dumbass thing anyone could support. The government run somethingthing correctly. Its laughable. To EMAN I dont know about you but I do not need to republicans or democrats to do a damn thing for me. All I need to them to do is not screw up my country and protect it. People who expect the government to babby everyone is exactly why we are 12 trillion dollars in debt an social security is about to fail. Social Security is ten more times more important than health care. How much more money does the government have to waste to prove to you all its not about republicans and democrats but about the government ******** overs its country.
2019 is the current projection of an all out bankruptcy of Medicare…go ahead, keep using Medicare as your example of perfect healthcare. Its controlling costs b/c it can mandate costs to providers…why don’t you get that?
It has been obvious for months that the goal of right0-wing zealots is mindless obstructionism.
@oddjob
Mass has the closest to a single payer we have. Can you say its been successful insuring everyone there with great care?
I doubt it.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/02/mass_healthcare_reform_is_failing_us/
in other words the goal it murder american citizens.
these people are just as much enemies of the good ole us of a as the taliban or al qaeda.
THERE IS NO RIGHT TO LIFE
WITHOUT THE RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE
Odd job — hell yes! Let the local governments and communities decide if they want to repair their roads. What a novel idea – this is only the way it was for the first 150 year in the us, before the people stood by and allowed politicians to decide that the 10 amendment was BS and they we’re suddenly in charge..
As far as I know, private insurers are all in the black, its the Federal programs that are inefficient — and thats the one I’m concerned about since I’m an unwilling shareholder for the program…
Joe: Medicare sucks too because it is ran by the government. They should fix it before adding another government funded health care system. If the government spends a billion dollars on anything it is a sure bet they will waste $500 million of it. I dont care if your name is Bush or Obama. Thats why the government needs to worry about laws and national security. If you want the government to take of your life move somewhere else. I only make $40,000 so I am not one of these rich people you all love talking about. I just prefer to make my own living.
you reps keep the money for the rich ,and just lead the poor men,woman and children to a ditch and shot them.
No right to life without right to health care — what a perversion of our Inalienable rights — funny, I didn’t see mention of healthcare in the Declaration or the Constitution — its amazing our founders and first citizens were even able to survive to adulthood with no medical insurance back in the day. Get some personal responsibility for yourself and take care of your OWN health — stop relying on everyone else to take care of you!
Surprised people? These crazy people are your neighbors and co-workers. I live in Nevada where all the worst criticism of Harry Reid starts. No matter how hard Dems try to be a beacon for Americans without a voice the Repubs try todo like Hannity and shout them down, it’s pathetic. They even use the old Nixon administration trick of calling any negative reportsof their activity un American and liberal bias from the media. They call themselves Christians which is really a joke(I’m sure God is not laughing) then hide behind patriotism. The work only began with Obama being elected and Congress becomimg Democratic, there is now time for the real struggle; to get health care reform, and reverse the robber barons theft of the nations treasury. There is much work to be done and the writer who said it won’t be a bi-partisan effort was correct; these folks are not interested in reform, they just want to object to ANY reform.
andy riveria WOW! Your a idiot! Everyone has a right to health care but you have to pay for it like evryone else. Should I get free gas or a free car. I need it to get to work. Should I get free electricity. I need it to live. Earn it like the rest of us. To compare people who so not support a government health care plan to the Taliban is a bit extreme.
Chris h who do you think pays for all the er visits that people with no insurance i have worked in health care for 30 years i have seen people use er for their health needs they get minimal care get them in and out and they still have the problem that brings them back time and time again
Medicare sucks too because it is ran by the government.
Offered without substantiation and in the face of it being well known that it is very popular with those who have it.
Holding such positions is willful ignorance. It is closing your eyes to reality because you don’t like reality.
Wake up. Open your eyes and see.
hey charity, since you’ve called me a racist now, can i go ahead and call you a *****?
just wondering if that’s how it works?
Let the local governments and communities decide if they want to repair their roads.
And then when they can’t afford to make the repairs we come to live in a third world society.
Yeah, that makes lots of sense!
Well said,Chris H. I think that tax reform is a good idea. Too many people who don’t pay in are getting refunds. Too many wealthy are evading taxes by shady means. As far as health care goes, yes, it needs some work. Especially some insurance regulation, but I think they’re pushing this total reform too fast. (C’mon guys, at least READ the BILL before you pass it and know what you’re passing.) As much as they squawk about Republicans trying to kill their reform, I think the real issue is that the Democrats are finally in control across the board and they’re drunk with power… I don’t think it really has anything to do with what’s good for the country…
Get some personal responsibility for yourself and take care of your OWN health — stop relying on everyone else to take care of you!
Gee, thanks! I’m sure being born with epilepsy was my own fault!
What an a$$!
Jmills — you’ve hit the nail on the head but you refuse to see the answer — Health care is so expensive because people with private insurance are paying higher premiums to account for those who free load. Hospitals know a percentage of people will skip out on the bill without paying, so when they do bill you (private insurance or medicare), they have to charge more to account for their losses — so those of us that pay our own way get hit twice — on our insurance premiums and through taxes for medicare..
oddjob you need to wake up. The government does not have one social program that hasnt been corrupted by greed or whatever. THATS A FACT!!
http://factcheck.org/2009/07/obamas-health-care-news-conference/
just because it comes from the President doesn’t mean there’s not an agenda and/or it’s factual.
Whats it to me if you were born with epilepsy — you should start by holding the people who brought you into the world accountable for your well being, then you can try a church or charity (yes, where people donate of their own free will rather than being forced to do it by taxes) — If its my responsibly to care for your disability, where do we draw the line — your way of thinking is an attack on responsible, freedom loving Americans.
And your way of thinking is an attack on civilization in its entirety.
Go move to Haiti, where your ideas are practiced daily.
You want the law of the jungle? Go for it!
@oddjob
Please tell us about the great care in Mass…is it worth instituting all over the country?
Why don’t these people just secede? Seriously. They’re opposed to a president who was fairly and soundly elected. They’re opposed to meaningful reforms that will help millions of Americans. They believe that the “free market” can cure all ills.
So how about they renounce all the wonderful benefits of being an American citizen – all the “socialist” perks like fire protection, highways, clean water, etc, etc? If the free market is so wonderful, let’s see them put it in action for EVERYTHING.
They can take Utah or Wyoming or one of the other TWO states where Republicans have a stronghold (according to Gallup) and go ahead and live out their frontier fantasy. In my opinion, most of these fools are no longer “concerned citizens.” They’re just selfish agitators who want our country to fail so that their narrow-minded personal (and financial) agendas can be achieved. In other words, they are traitors.
oh Mass – where the cost of healthcare services outpaces the US national average and the use of ER services by people with insurance has increased b/c of lack of GPs.
Does anyone get it? Get a JOB. I don’t want to pay for your healthcare coverage! NO COMPROMISES! I don’t want the government involved any more in my life – especially with my health!
Chris tort reform is needed thats the main reason health care is expensive and the fact dr are overpaid for their expert advice 7 years in school 1 million per year rn 4 years 60,000 year and yes nurses can be sued to we have treated dr like gods for to meany years i have not seen a final bill and you have not either,im not for just anything but we need reform,sensible reform
Why is that no one is discussing severing the link between jobs and healthcare coverage? This would truly let the market decide and for once healthcare providers would have to compete for our business? They would have to be transparent in pricing for services and insurance companies would have to be transparent in premium prices. Wow the wonders of competition.
I don’t know the law in all states, but in Alabama it is legal to record phone calls as long as one party knows it is being recorded. I am surprized that this call was not recorded. It would certainly make this article easier to believe. Personally, I am for single payer, but I am in search of the facts, facts that can be verified. I too am surprized at the amount of people willing to risk being arrested to scream and yell for the big pharm and insurance companies. It seems that the very people that protested against corporations durning the Bush years are now doing the dirty work for the corps. Judging from this, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that these people are the ones that will jump on any bandwagon regardless of the cause or how it will affect them and their children. And of course, these are the people the repubs and corps always count on to do their dirty work. I just hope the dems do what is right and votes in healthcare without the repubs.
Laissez-faire capitalism works, and socialism fails. There is no reasonable denial of this basic fact. It has been demonstrated conclusively historically. That is why the neocons abandoned the left and became Republicans. What the liberals want to do is usher in socialism. They do not care that socialism is destructive. In fact, that is their goal. They are anti-American. They would not be happy except with a total collapse in the American economy and American political-military hegemony. They hate everything America stands for. They want to see America weakened and effeminized.
Just a thought, maybe they should put together a health care bill and let the people vote on it.
You really need to look at what the Repubs have NOT done to help the people of this country. They go for the “red herring” – oh, my God – gay marriage. And like lemmings, their followers rush to vote Repub. When all is said and done, what the Repubs did the last 8 years was start a war and make their corp friends rich. They convince these cretins to vote against their own best interests by using their prejudices to fire them up. That should tell you why I “fear” Repubs – and I am surrounded by them. We need to convince our democrat legislaters to vote DEMOCRAT. Anything we don’t like down the road can always be modified. But let’s get it started!!!
For everyone who doesnt want the gov involved in there life why do we need paved roads, an army, police firefighters the court the state gov are they ok,well whats the answer.
Or one step further, put together a government health care plan. If you want to be a part of it – good. If you want to keep what you have currently, you can. But EVERYONE pays for what they pick. No free ride. And no government telling me what services I can and can’t have.
I love how you all like to use the word traitor because we do not trust the crooked government when it comes to spending. I mean they are only 12 trillion dollars in debt. Yeah they could manage it because they are financially responsible. I wish that everyone had cheap quality health care but you cannot fix it by paying a corrupt system with tax dollars. Find a way we can fix it without tax dollars and that will be the reform I will support. Im sorry I guess everone trust their lawmakers more than I do.
WM – Please tell me: What exactly does America stand for? Capitalism, military strength, traditional marriage? I’m so tired of people like you thinking you DEFINE this country, when in reality you are just one tiny blip among many millions of others. Someone is NOT anti-American simply because they don’t share your exact views!
Dems Calling opponents racist – check
Dems Making crude sexual references of opponents – check
Dems Calling opponents names when one doesn’t agree with them – check.
Same old **** out of the same sheep, nothing to see here.
@Joe Sixpack: Ahhh….you’re a “flat-taxer”. That explains a lot. If you think this country is going to be run with a standard 15% flat tax rate awesome. You must enjoy the view of the unicorns and fairies floating around outside your window.
STL Progress says: “So how about they renounce all the wonderful benefits of being an American citizen – all the “socialist” perks like fire protection, highways, clean water, etc, etc? If the free market is so wonderful, let’s see them put it in action for EVERYTHING.”
I have been agitating for this for some time. Fire protection, highways, and utilities should be privatized. They are not legitimate functions of government. The country got on fine before they were confiscated by the government. We will do fine after they are privatized.
“They’re just selfish agitators who want our country to fail so that their narrow-minded personal (and financial) agendas can be achieved.”
If our country fails, how will we benefit, personally, financially, or otherwise? What we want to fail is the socialist agenda in order to save our country.
“In other words, they are traitors.”
Treason is as treason does. Who is the one who wants to dismantle American capitalism?
on which America was built….
Yeah, Brian. You don’t trust the “crooked” government, the government that is by the people and for the people. But you’ll put your faith in corporate America, the one entity that very clearly lets you know that profit comes first. Above employees, above country, above all else.
How bizarre.
Jmills, yes, state and local governments should be free to run all these things with minimal federal interference — Im sure the American public would be much the better for it — If it aint in the constitution (as the 10 amendment says) let the state and local governments run it. If I live in Los Angeles, why should by tax money pay for section 8 for some bum in Florida — I’d rather give a handout to some guy in the street in my hometown.
What is it you want reformed and what is it you want left alone?All i see is info gathering and walk in clinics (drug drop offs for addicted opiium users0which now The Obama administartion own all of the opium in Afganastan,you ever wonder why they never destroy the opium fields? The white house is the cartel..
As far as the right wing is concerned it is imperative that no Democratic successes be allowed. If Obama manages to make forward progress, the right wing’s lack of progress will remind the public that at no time in the past half century has the right wing done anything that benefited the nation as a whole. It will gladly enrich the already rich but is filled with contempt for the poor and middle class as dupes who will never understand that the only ones who count for anything are the rich and their lackeys.
STL Progress, it doesn’t matter what any given individual wants America to stand for. Like it or not, what America does stand for is Individualism–the idea that the individual is an end in himself and therefore possesses inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (The right to private property is a corollary). To achieve it in practice, the government must be effective but checked. It has to have a strong and effective military, police, and court system. The government should not have the power to redistribute wealth. Health care is not a legitimate function of government. When medicine is socialized, it means that the rights of some (doctors, insurers, some patients, taxpayers, etc.) are violated to provide goodies to others.
I do not like the coorporate america either. We should make laws to cover that instead of tax dollars. All we are going to do is give tax dollars to corporations. How ironic is that? This government is ran by people who were elected by default. Everyone who runs for office has already been corrupted by the system. So our votes while by the people are limited to grap and ****!
You are wrong. Why would anyone want the president to fail, no matter the party? That is honestly betting against yourself. We want what is best – and the government making healh care decisions is not what is best. Period.
WM, what the hell are you talking about? Laissez-faire has failed on every level socialism failed on, only with worst impact on the environment, social well-being, fair income, and individual rights. Your independence is more undermined by unfettered capitalism than it ever would be under a public health care option. I sincerely doubt that any of what reasonable people, like myself, have to debate with you can penetrate the alternate universe you inhabit, but it’s been proven, time and again, that government DOES have a certain role to play in ensuring the security of its people and the stability of the economy. Our brand of capitalism has, for too long, allowed the expediency of quick easy money over the greater good of societal balance.
No one is saying that those who are more economically more fortunate are bad (unlike those who argue, as you do, that poor people ARE somehow deficient), but it’s time that they pay a little back for the 30+ years of prosperity they’ve enjoyed. Yes, their tax burden will increase by about 2.5%, but the increased efficiencies being proposed, the ability of small-businesses to capitalize more towards development than be burdened by exploding health-care costs, the focus on preventative care, the networking of medical records, will pay dividends to rich and poor alike that will ultimately save everyone more money in the long run.
I have it on good authority that, under the Obama health care plan, we will all, eventually, die.
Pretty scary tought, isn’t it?
As an independent it must be clear to most people that the best was is somewhere in the middle. Clearly, having a single payer system would NOT benefit anyone because that one payer holds all the cards both with respect to the consumers (us) and clients (healthcare professionals). If this system is adopted, I do forsee the fact that healthcare rationing will eventually be the outcome.
Think about it. Someone on here said that their mother’s last stint in the hospital cost $400k. How many of those types of incidents does there have to be before certain types of interventions are limited once people turn a “certain age” – hence the “death march” that people are concerned about.
A separate issue is that with medicine progressing so far, people that would not have survived years ago are able to be kept alive today. I personally know of onw babby that had spina bifida because her mother smoked, drank, and did drugs during her pregnancy. It cost over $1,000,000 before that baby came out of the hospital. As these types of procedures become available and people take advantages of them, of course health care costs are going to skyrocket, what do you expect?!
I would argue that the blame for the mess we are in belongs to all of us to some degree or other. The insurance companies definitely are a part of this, as are the consumers (us) that don’t take care of ourself, the hospitals (for charging outrageous sums for simple procedures – I had an MRI with contrast of my spinal cord and after the day was over the hospital wanted to bill me between $6-7k, and the insurance company had deals that it only had to pay about $4-4500 of that so clearly there’s overcharging going on), and certainly the pharmaceutical companies are part and parcel to the problem. Sure they need to make money, but, how much is enough? I don’t think ANYONE would mind if they used this money to plow back into additional research, or providing drugs for reduced cost or free (some companies do this), but when the profits are used solely to make CEOs rich then we just don’t see that as being “fair”, but face it, capitalism is not designed to be fair.
What the democrats want here is, in fact, a limited socialist state. Yes, they are trying to get government to be our baby sitter and to take responsibility for us, but also to limit what we are allowed to do, and this does not sit well with those of us who value our freedoms, such as those guaranteed us by our constitution – no – freedoms that are ours just by virtue of being alive (that’s what an inalienable right is – something that can not be taken away).
People try, using scare tactics, to take those freedoms away all the time, but this is a different discussion that I do not want to engage in now.
Of course, there has to be a happy middle in each discussion. Where is that? I don’t have all the answers, but I would propose that there is definitely some health care reform that needs to be done.
Something along the lines of:
1) No restrictions on pre-existing conditions.
2) Large buying groups that are able to use their purchasing power to negotiate the price of medications with the drug companies.
3) Limits on the amounts that insurance costs may increase (and I mean a realistic limit, not something ridiculous like 30% a year) – probably tied somewhere to the CPI, or the actual (real) rise in the cost of health care costs themselves (which may be hard to determine).
What ticks me off, is that some of this stimulus could be used to buy newer equipment for hospitals or do lots of things that would have real effect on the cost of healthcare. Think about it – as more of these high tech instruments get ordered, there is a reason to do a cost reduction on them to provide the best deployment for a given $.
Anyhow – these are just a whole host of rants and raves from someone that’s tired of both sides bickering.
areyouserious,
whereas the insurance companies are qualified? Medicare, Medicaid, VA, and other existing government health care programs are by-and-large providing excellent coverage for their users at a fraction of the cost of private plans. Yes, their are problems, as there are in ANY system, but public plans don’t have “recision” clauses built in, they don’t restrict people based on pre-existing conditions, they don’t artifically inflate the cost of medical coverage because of the fee-for-service expectation. The private system is HEAVILY rationed, with hundreds of thousands of insured families having to declare bankruptcy in the midst of catastrophic illness because of what private insurers either don’t cover, won’t cover, or barely cover.
I am a physician. If you have a right to healthcare, that would make me what? Oh, right: a slave.
The govt cannot run the post office, why in the world would anyone want them running the Health Care System…or even the car industry…wait to see what happends to that.
recording a call is legal in all states – its admission into a court of law is restricted by each state’s laws on the subject.
some states require all parties to consent, some others only require one party to consent to recording a call.
it is my belief that if you are in a one-party state, regardless of where the other caller is – you have the right to record the call without the other party’s permission.
illegal vs. legal isn’t the point, admission into a court of law as evidence is what it restricted.
I didn’t say it was perfect, I agree with Bob Smith that there are some changes needed – and he has a good list started. But the federal government should do what they are supposed to do, and that is not run health insurance. I don’t trust them, any of them. I know the system will never be perfect, its not possible. I believe that with government in charge, given their history on so many levels, it will be worse.
My bottom line is: I can not aford to pay for Insurance, for anyone that is too lazy to go to work ! Or for anyone that is not a citizen of the United States of America !
Roshi98, laissez-faire capitalism IS the politico-economic system of individual rights. Therefore, it cannot fail in the area of individual rights. It is the establishment of them. What is failing is the mixed economy, i.e., our current system of partial government control. If capitalism is such a failure in the area of “income,” then why are people in free economies the wealthiest and those in state-controlled economies the poorest, in direct proportion to the level of control? Perhaps you are confused in thinking that some things are rights which are not rights. “Environment,” “social well-being,” “fair income,” are liberal clap-trap, not objective things. What is fair is for a person to make what he can in a free market unfettered by the government.
Second, the wealthy were the ones who *produced* the prosperity in the first place. It is you and I who have enjoyed the prosperity THEY produced, not the other way around. Government does not produce wealth. Those who are not wealthy produce less in objective terms than the wealthy. That is not a moral judgment on anybody. It is simply a fact. And the wealthy are paying way, way more in taxes than they should and would if our government were properly sized and checked in its powers.
James – I agree 100%. I was raised knowing you got a job, and one of the reasons you worked (besides taking care of your living expenses – morgage, car, food, etc.)was to have health insurance.
Dr. D – Americans have the right to own a gun, but does that make gun manufacturers slaves? No, it makes them very rich, just like most physicians in this country. If you have a problem with serving sick people, maybe you picked the wrong profession.
This was all reported by an organizer for the AFL-CIO? Now THERE’S a fair-minded, unbiased believable source if ever I heard one. Could he have been one of the same union thugs that was photographed beating up elderly people who were protesting the intimidator-in-chief’s so-called health care plan?
Eddie Vale | August 11th, 2009 at 11:06 am
It’s illegal to record calls without both parties consent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every I-phone has a recording device built in to it, as do most Blackberry’s or Palm phones.
Recording conversations has become workplace norm, as others pass the buck or deny ever having a conversation.
Illegal my patooty…..damn stupid on their part, but par for the course.
Is a gun a person or an inanimate object? not the same at all.
I saw where Insurance industry profits quintupled from 2000 to 2008. Should there be any surprise why they want things to remain the same? The sad part is that the angry violent pathetic pawns are being boned and their pockets looted all the while the conservatives are laughing all the way to the ban.
“What is fair is for a person to make what he can in a free market unfettered by the government.”
by that argument Madoff did us all a favor, by producing “wealth” in a “free” market – you know, one unfettered by the government with laws and regulations. he’s one “free” son of a gun right now isn’t he?
is a market really “free” when some participants profit from fraud/crime with impunity?
free’ness requires a lawful structure so that some who break laws don’t end up more “free” than those that follow them. if the gov’t doesn’t prevent “free market theft” then who will?
P.S. the hands of the laborers that the wealthy hired to do the work actually produced the profit. the wealthy just have a system by which they can deduct their expenses from their income to book a profit. there is no means by which an individual earning wages can book a profit – individual tax payers pay taxes BEFORE expenses, not after.
Insurance companies are part of a risk-reward system. They have great RISK, which usually provides the opportunity for great reward. Like everything else.
It has never been demonstrated that government MUST interfere in anything in the private market. Liberals like to impose non-objective language and their own personal values in the analysis. But objectively, it has already been demonstrated by numerous classical economists throughout the past two centuries that government interference is always destructive on net.
The government’s only role should be to protect individual rights. This includes making and enforcing laws against the initiation of force and fraud. The government should not be making laws and regulations to tie industries hand and foot for social causes. The only “reform” in health care that is needed is deregulation, privatization, and tort reform.
WM – Your Ayn Rand “producer” baloney doesn’t fly. Millions of Americans are active contributors to the productiveness of this nation, and yet their financial rewards are limited. Are we supposed to believe that some clown on Wall Street adds more genuine value to our society than, say, teachers or nurses or garbage men?
The size of a person’s paycheck is NOT an indicator of their societal value. And I don’t care what you say, but unchecked capitalism is absurd. It allows the most ruthless and ethically flexible to push and shove their way to greater wealth, while the vast majority of citizens become little more than serfs.
And what a hoot that the environment is just “liberal clap-trap.” You wouldn’t fill your bedroom with chemicals and car exhaust and toxic waste and expect to sleep there, but you think magically what we do to the environment has no effect. Please.
onepartystate, see my posts above. The government’s role is to protect individual rights. This includes laws against what Madoff did, which was fraud. It is quite disingenuous to say that a free market means anarchy/anything goes. Freedom means the protection of individual rights–from violation by foreign invaders, domestic criminals, and our own government.
And no, laborers do not produce the bulk of the profit. That is the Marxist view, and it has already been thoroughly debunked by economists. Value production is not a mindless physical process. It takes a business model, plans, organization, and other mental processes to produce profits. Intellectual capital is far, far more valuable than physical labor in economic terms.
to WM:
by that logic, should oil/energy commodity traders be allowed to continue “buying” oil they have no intention of taking delivery on?
btw if private business paid the actual cost of producing their goods, (i.e. environmental clean up etc.) then their goods would be offered at a price to high for the market to bear.
a market is not free if costs are subsidized by the government and earnings are privatized.
there is no free healthcare market when the gov’t pays for some citizens and not otheres – arbitrarily.
medicare and specifically medicare Rx drove up healthcare costs because a large segment of the market didn’t pay the true cost – or even pay attention to the price they were paying at all. when someone else pays, there is no free left in the free market. a free market price is determined by what people are willing to pay – if they feel they don’t have to pay anything, then their impact on the price is phony, and not free.
Check your sources. Too bad the Politco post that this is based on is riddled with inaccuracies. Here’s the clarification:
http://americanlibertyalliance.com
I am a non-obese, regular exerciser, who doesn’t use tobacco, drugs or drink to excess. Does anyone know the percentage of healthcare dollars that are spent due to personal choices like: obesity, lack of exercise, tobacco use, drug use, and excessive alchohol consumption? (Let’s guess and say it’s more than 50%)
It is time for those of us who take care of our bodies to start paying less for our healthcare/health insurance, not more. The Dem’s plan will only lead to the “it’s all free” mentality spreading; so that noone has any concern over those personal health practices only they can control. (who cares as long as the gov’t will replace my heart, weakened by a lifetime of donut consumption and pack a day smoking?). Those of us who “manage” our own health will pay more into the system (taxes) for those who don’t care enough or are not disciplined to do so.
The best way to take care of your health, is to take care of yourself. That goes for you: fatty, smokey, lazy, druggy, drunky.
OH hell lets go ahead and have our civil war last one standing gets to call the shots and dr who stated he was a dr slave no but when i go to see you you work for me that does not mean you have the right to del lousy care and then rob lie and steal from medicare
how do good ideas come to fruition? the contribution of physical labor and commodities – both of which are priced based on what the market will bear.
a free market is one in which each level of participation has its rewards – when only one level (the highest) is deemed the only one worthy of the reward then the system isn’t free – its rigged. and not only that its destined to bring down the whole system because at the end of the day, the regular folk, i.e. the consumer – determine the market price – you know, the price they are willing/able to pay. when you reduce their wages, you reduce their buying power which by effect of the free market reduces the price your brilliant ideas can fetch on the free market.
trading on ideas instead of tangible products makes it impossible to identify “value” in a market price.
ideas are an intangible product until someone derives a tangible product from them – and their value is limited to that ability to apply it to that tangible product.
STL Progress: “Are we supposed to believe that some clown on Wall Street adds more genuine value to our society than, say, teachers or nurses or garbage men?”
Yes, because that is exactly correct (minus the “clown” description). In objective terms, financiers produce more value than teachers, nurses, and garbage man. Again, intellectual labor is more valuable than physical. If teaching is somehow intrinsically more valuable than what financiers do, and if we paid teachers in accordance with some value system like that, then everyone would flock to become teachers so they could be millionaires, and people in general would be paid in accordance with what we feel, not what we actually need.
The truth is that we need financiers to do what they do because they create new ways to invest and manage money and to mitigate financial risk. It is not easy to create value, which is why they get paid a lot more.
one party state: “by that logic, should oil/energy commodity traders be allowed to continue “buying” oil they have no intention of taking delivery on?
Yes, absolutely. Why not? They are on the hook for taking delivery or bearing the cost of getting it delivered, and this is understand by all parties. There is an objective legal process for enforcing contracts.
“btw if private business paid the actual cost of producing their goods, (i.e. environmental clean up etc.) then their goods would be offered at a price to high for the market to bear”
This is the theory of externalities, which is so much bunk. Externalities is not an objective concept. Where there is an actual rights violation by a company, such as dumping, there are already laws to deal with it.
And I am against any socialized medicine, including Medicare. You are right–Medicare HAS driven up the costs of medicine, and it does involve the coercion of younger people to pay for the medical care of older people (who were stolen from when they were younger).
WM – Again, absurd. People like you, whose entire value system is built around money, are the reason our country is in trouble. The very LAST thing we need right now is more greedy types coming up with ways to trade pieces of paper and drive up the cost on assets they will never actually own.
We have been scammed into thinking that these people are “the best and the brightest.” While they’ve been busy “creating wealth” for themselves, the folks who used to make actual, tangible things all lost their jobs. It’s time to listen to real leaders – those with new ideas that can help our nation prosper and move ALL of our citizens forward.
WM one final note.
I think the recent Wall Street bailouts pretty much gut your argument.
Any added value financiers brought to anything was seriously discounted by the money we had to pay so they wouldn’t circle the drain.
Remember the basic business model…
Earnings minus expenses = profit.
They earned a lot, and just expensed a helluva lot more – financiers are running a serious “value deficit”.
As someone who owns my own business and manages the financing of our projects I do value it as a a key component of our profit model – and I agree that financiers offer a lot of value, but they also have the power to take away a lot of value.
My personal/business motto is that none of the work that goes into a project matters much until the check clears – and the reason that is true is that no amount of profit is truly realized until all the expenses are paid, either to vendors or labor in the form of wages.
By that measure I put the value that my vendors and employees contributed above my own value. I don’t get to realize my value until the end – pricing an ideas’ value before it is realized is roulette, not free market. free markets depend on informed decisions – not “all in” gambling bets.
“They are on the hook”
how so?
Enron’s electricity traders didn’t lose bear any consequences, they took their scheme over to the oil markets – hence $150 a barrel oil last fall.
The constitution only declares the right to “pursue” happiness. Substitute “health” for happiness.Then ask yourself if you over eat, don’t exercise, smoke, use drugs and/or drink to excess… are you really “pursuing” health? Perhaps you just expect some gov’t paid physician to “deliver” it to you with a prescription or a surgery? Good Luck and Get in Line!
It looks like the two camps will never even agree on the facts. The whole argument is seems more emotion based than factual. From personal knowledge I can offer these facts. I travel internationally a lot and find some form of single payer systems in first world countries. The people from Canada, Germany, France, England, Netherlands and Belgium that I have talked to would not change their system for ours. I have read a number of studies done on health care outcomes that showed single payer system had a lower death rate, lower costs and better long term care than in the USA. I was in fraud prevention efforts for ten years at the state level in California and the common theme in that health fraud was the provider, doctor, druggist, durable medical device provider got rich at our expense by providing unneeded medical services. Many bird cages used adult diapers instead of newspaper for the waste and electric wheelchairs were taxpayer provided cars to say nothing of tons of drugs proscribed but never used or needed. Lets hope the system can be fixed before we are all broke.
It’s true that any weak compromise bill that is passed will eventually, through political tactics, lead to complete government takeover.
It allways amazing that when there is so little trust in politicians that people are willing to give them complete control over us and our healthcare. If it happens we can never go back.
STL- What is the value that you speak of? We have a school system that is bankrupt, a graduation rate of about 60% and as Maher pointed out we have a majority of students that can’t even answer basic questions about American history. I am not sure what value they add but a profession that succeeds a little more than half the time needs to be revamped. Much in the same way the healthcare needs to be revamped through tort reform. I am a current PA student and when Obama speaks of evidence based medicine he is talking about Meta analysis. Not looking at the individual to differentiate the options for care, but looking at a construct of society. There is a big point that gets thrown out that medical practitioners waste money on tests. I believe something like 2 billion(?) a year or something like that gets lost through this claim. The mere fact is that the test is a CYA. How many times has a lawyer used the excuse that the patient’s life could have been saved but for a 65$ test? When you weight the options, a 65$ test looks a lot better than a 1,000,000$+ lawsuit. I would say demand better tort reform and rework the system that is already in place. It’s not like we completely destroy roads in order to repave them….
“You are right–Medicare HAS driven up the costs of medicine, and it does involve the coercion of younger people to pay for the medical care of older people (who were stolen from when they were younger).”
totally agreed. the healthcare market is broken, irreparably.
in my opinion we have only two options. either move to a completely government run healthcare system or a completely private “free market” healthcare system. either option is radical, i agree.
i have always hoped for something in between. laws that regulate how much can be charged for a premium, laws that allow policies across state lines and laws that prevent insurance companies from excluding (i.e. discriminating) certain illnesses.
if i knew for a fact that when i buy a policy that it will cover all healthcare and not just bits and pieces – i would know what i was actually paying for.
It’s amazing that the same nutjobs screaming “I don’t want to pay for anyone else’s healthcare are the same ones out there trying to tell a woman she can’t terminate her pregnancy. LET’S ALL TELL THE TRUTH NOW…THE RAGE IS TRULY BECAUSE WE HAVE A BLACK PRESIDENT. Some just can’t handle the fact that the color of America is changing. PRESIDENT OBAMA IS THE SYMPTOM OF CHANGE…NOT THE CAUSE. Resistance is futile.
mfellion: Have you seen the obesity rate in a country like Germany versus the USA? Gov’t “healthcare” won’t fix our health problems (not with a million+ stomach staples).
It is “fraud” that people claim concern with their health, when their every action says something completely different.
Gov’t involvement always creates more opportunity for fraud than the free market.
i agree TJ, which is the real tragedy.
people are allowing their visceral anger to overshadow their real interests.
I’m in Alaska and just watched local news coverage of tourists from out of state who arguably traveled expensively to get here – protesting my elected leaders on healthcare and stimulus spending.
The reason they have so much disposable income to take an extremely expensive vacation to Alaska is because they don’t have to pay the true cost of their healthcare, i.e. Medicare.
mr full monty did you know when you exercise to much you get an enlarged heart if you quit exercising at some point this will happen and you will need lots of medical care dont overboard in the end we all die maybe none of this matters end of the world is on the way just ask radical right they read the bible
TJ Williams: Most of the same “nutjobs” were against a gov’t run healthcare system, when the Clintons tried (without success) to sneak it past us in the 90″s. Last I checked Bill and Hill were both white (though there were some strange references of Bill being the first Black Prez).
Nice try, but healthcare is not a White vs. Black issue, but a Socialism vs Free Market battle. What we should really be fighting for is less gov’t involvement in healthcare (Medicare et al), not more.
I found the following excerpt from the President’s speech at Portsmouth very interesting.
“He also disputed the notion that adding a government-run insurance plan into a menu of options from which people could pick would drive private insurers out of business, in effect making the system single-payer by default.
As long as they have a good product and the government plan has to sustain itself through premiums and other non-tax revenue, private insurers should be able to compete with the government plan, Obama said.
“They do it all the time,” he said. “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. … It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.””
TJ and onepartystate—- Isn’t this a classic example of why we shouldn’t move to a government system? Can you think of one government agency that runs the way it is suppose to or that is profitable? As far as I can tell the Postal service is a bloated behemoth that sucks the tax payers dry. Much in the same way the Health service would as well.
jmills:Moderation is key in life. The important thing is; I have taken responsibility for my own health. You should try it sometime, and so should the millions of other Americans who haven’t made that commitment. I feel great (and so too, could you!)
PUT me down for socialism i sure dont like the way the repub free market has worked the last 8 years wall street gas prices, stupid wars costing billions if we can spend for that on people that do not like us or even want us there well i would rather spend it on america and its people
You believe anything the AFL-CIO has to say???!!! You shouldn’t have to read any farther to realize this is fabricated.
Hey KalPal….go to the libary and look up some books on Ronald Reagan. If fact most of you liberal…..the government should provide and pay for everything I need. I was a senior in high school when I voted for this great man. He INHERITED a double digit inflation, un-employment…etc. He ran on a platform of the only way to make this country strong again was to promote small business ownership and lowering taxes. What about the great job for 8 yrs of Newt and balancing our budget for 8 yrs and we actually were back in the black after years of Dems spending our way into prosperity!!! haha
Sandman: I too found the “UPS/FedEx” quote interesting. UPS and FedEx succeed because they are not forced to execute unprofitable tasks and unsustainable rates. They both do an incredible job and compete tooth and nail with each other.
What the President should tackle next is how to eliminate the US Postal Service, not getting the gov’t involved in another losing enterprise.
Jmills— If you prefer the gas prices of Germany and England you should pay your local gas station that then. Convert the liters to gallons and you will see that Americans pay far less for gas/petrol than most of the world. As for the war thing; I would have to disagree about who likes us and who doesn’t, but that argument is all semantics anyways. The real question about this is if this started as a ploy to provide healthcare for the persons that do not have it- why is there even talk of an option for employers? The only possible conclusion you can reach is that the leadership desires a single-payer system. If it was as simple as providing health care for the 30 million people then we would only need to provide the funds for that and integrate them into the system that we have. Why pray tell do we have the bill that we have now? I will tell you that I haven’t read it yet, but I am reading it right now. There are a few things that grab my attention right now and will update as I peruse….
well the post is at it again they are pushing obamas agenda as the have done for the last two years.
why dont they do agod investigation and see who is really running the country it can be obama because he always on tv or traveling here and ther at taxpayers expense. before my congressmans votes yes on thsi bill i would like to see a provision requiring the president and congres to come under it . also wulk like to see the bill in a written for with all it changes. be provide to the taxpayers for two weeks before it is voted on not just blank pages so it can be written in after it passes
JMills: What the heck does the “Free Market” have to do with Wars, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? Last I checked the price of Gas was lowered prior to the election (by the Free Market, when people reduced consumption). Of course, by wrecking the economy the socialists have found the perfect long-term solution for bringing down fuel costs.
The next “War” will be a Civil one, between Free Market proponents and Socialists. Just remember… if you win, you’ll ultimately lose. Check history for the record.
keith- newt? are you drunk and on drugs
I have worked all my life and so have many of my friends but anyone who thinks that they will be able to sustain their medical coverage when they have made under 60K a year…into their old age is simply foolish. We are supposed to be civilized. A public option does not mean anyone has to relinquish their private insurance. THAT IS A LIE THE INSURANCE COMPANY IS TELLING YOU BECAUSE THEY WANT THEIR PROFITS TO CONTINUE TO BE 300 BILLION INSTEAD OF 200 BILLION.
A Public option is not for everyone. You can’t keep telling opposing lies about it. LIE # 1…The government can’t run a successful program. (Military, Medicaid/Medicare, USPS, VA) Lie # 2…A Public option will put Private Insurance out of business. Silly Rabbits:-)…When have you bought a really bad product just because it was cheaper??? If that was the case we’d all still be driving Chevrolet Vegas.
Grow up, think for your self and let go of your fear of the scary black guy.
I have gone over this health care plan and if it is not good law then why pass it? It is just crazy the way everyone is saying anything is better than nothing. When you own a business and have to make your payroll, pay your own bills and are just holding your own in this recession you have to make good choices. Now would not be the time to go out on a buying frenzy (millions on new jets), or to enact new policies that could possibly ruin what you have worked years to build. So why are they in such a rush to ram down bad law they threw together. I HAVE read the whole thing……..even great attorney’s can’t figure it out!! It is a complete mess and we are suppose to say what the heck better than doing nothing??!!!
TheFullMonty—
Exactly. I wonder how completive UPS/FEDEX would be if they were forced to comply with regulations that provided an equal footing with the USPS? The fact is that they can do what the USPS cannot, but if you took the kind of regulation that we are trying to impose on the health industry and applied it to the shipping industry, then we would have only a USPS that would deliver mail 2 times a week due to “cost”.
NONE OF YOU HAVE GONE OVER THE PLAN GET REAL AND GOODNIGHT
TJ Williams: The reason people object to “Public” options, is that they are smart enough to know that whether they choose “Public” or “Private” they will also be paying for the Public. USPS, Medicare, Amtrak and other gov’t programs have taught us that. The question is: Why haven’t you learned this lesson?
If it were honest reform and we were not being force to pay for Abortion by making sure language included no TAX PAYER funded abortions and HR 3200 was removed and government health care would never be cheaper than private health care you would have more folks taking a real look at it. Since our President has not read it and neither has 90% of congress. NO WE DON’T WANT this government health care this year.
This plan will be very similar to Oregon Government Health Care program. State is broke from the program and letters are sent all the time to people asking them to consider options instead of getting surgery and asking many to accept dying instead of being a burden on society……….
I am not going to accept any Government sponsored health care program. AMERICA should want better than this. I don’t care if a person is 85-90 years old, you should not tell them health care does not exist for them anymore. The Dems said recently that Medicare is Government run health care and it is, this is why most of the elderly pay for private additional health coverage since the government coverage is limited and does not cover most ailments they suffer from.
Can anyone explain to me why “Race” keeps getting injected into this debate?
Where is a link to the proposed plan, so we can read it?
Hey news flash…to everyone that said the they don’t want to pay for health care for those of us too “lazy” to work or move somewhere else if you don’t like it…easy for the rich and insured to say because your money buys you those options…I like, many of my previous coworkers at corporate behometh Bank of America got summarily laid off without notice or severence, in my case after 14 years (aka my entire career)…and whatever idiot said join the military, they don’t want 40 year old women but thanks for the suggestion. I didn’t just sit on my butt, when there were no jobs anywhere close to what I was paying before or in my field for that matter, I took the job I could find which pays 1/2 of what I made before and no insurance. Furthermore my daughter was born with a condition called torticollis and COBRA is over $1200 a month…and you know what my situation is not unique. Trust me after my whole life with the same company I didn’t see this coming…Wake up it can happen to anyone.
TheFullMonty–
This is the one I found. I downloaded the PDF. Take the site with a grain of salt. It was the first place, and only so far, that I have found that had the full document.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/14/health-care-bill-released_n_232206.html
ONE LAST THING THIS IS NOT OBAMAS PLAN CONGRESS IS COMING UP WITH DIF PLANS THERE IS NO FINAL PLAN WAIT AND SEE THE FINAL ONE BEFORE YOU START THE WAR IM A MOD IN THE MIDDLE AND IVE GOT AS MEANY GUNS AS ANY OF YOU NRA NUTS
read the friggen plan
here are the lowlights as obama strives to screw the Real Americans
ENJOY THE TRUTH – IT WILL SET YOU FREE AND MAKE YOU THINK
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Government will audit the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!
Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC Bill – YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC Bill – THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get
Flag as Offensive
Pg 42 of HC Bill – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!
Pg 50 Section 152 in HC Bill – HC will be provided to ALL non-U.S. citizens, illegal or otherwise
Pg 58 HC Bill – Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Health Care Card will be issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer. (This really does mean they can take your money at any time. Who will have this authority?—a government bureaucrat.)
Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions and community organizations (ACORN).
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Government is creating a Health Care Exchange to bring private health care plans under government control.
Pg 84 Sec 203 HC Bill – Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private health care plans in the Exchange
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The government will ration your health care!
Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill – Government mandates linguistic appropriate services.
Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The government will use groups i.e., ACORN & AmeriCorps to sign up individuals for government Health Care Plan
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members – Your health care WILL be rationed
Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill – Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
Pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue the government on price fixing. No “judicial review” against government monopoly.
Pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill – Doctors/ #AMA – The government will tell YOU what you can make.
Pg 145 Line 15-17 An employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE
Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health care for part-time employees AND their families.
Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer w/ payroll 400k and above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll
Pg 150 Lines 9-13 Businesses with payroll between 251k and 400k who do not provide public opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll
Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable health care according to government will be taxed 2.5% of income.
Pg 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay).
Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans’ financial and personal records.
Pg 203 Line 14-15 HC – “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it says that.
Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.
Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill – Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.
Pg 253 Line 10-18 Government sets value of doctors’ time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.
Pg 265 Sec 1131Government mandates and controls productivity for private health care industries.
Flag as Offensive
Pg 268 Sec 1141 Federal Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing! Many cancer treatments will not work unless implemented early, but the waiting time just to see a specialist will likely be months when this plan is implemented. As you can see in this bill, the option of the health care bureaucrat is to deny treatment to those they deem not likely to be helped by it. Watch the cancer death rate skyrocket, like in Canada and the U.K.
Page 280 Sec 1151 The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable readmissions (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release).
Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Doctors that treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission-Government will penalize you.
Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Doctors what/how much they can own.
Pg 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Government is mandating hospitals cannot expand.
pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception, BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!
Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 – Government mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Health Care the way they want. Rationing.
Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Government plan.
Flag as Offensive
Pg 354 Sec 1177 – Government will RESTRICT enrollment of special needs people!
Pg 379 Sec 1191 Government creates more bureaucracy – Tele-health Advisory Committee. Health care by phone/Internet?
Pg 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life.
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.
Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The government has a say in how your life ends.
Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An “adv. care planning consult” will be used frequently as patient’s health deteriorates.
Pg 429 Lines 10-12 “adv. care consultation” may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from Government.
Pg 429 Lines 13-25 – The government will specify which doctors can write an end of life order.
Flag as Offensive
PG 430 Lines 11-15 The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life. The above really does give the government the authority to determine who lives and dies, and when. A government bureaucrat really will be making this decision for you and your loved ones.
Pg 469 – Community Based Home Medical Services=Non-profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?
Pg 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?
Pg 489 Sec 1308 The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. They will insert government into your marriage.
Pg 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.
PG 502 Sec 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. – Hello Big Brother – Literally.
Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records.
Pg 503 lines 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the U.S., including your data.
Pg 504 Lines 6-10 The “Center” will collect data both published and unpublished (that means public and your private info).
PG 506 Lines 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data.
PG 518 Lines 21-25 The Commission will have input from Health Care consumer reps – Can you say unions and ACORN?
PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.
PG 621 Lines 20-25 Government will define what quality means in health care. Since when does government know about quality?
Pg 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from other government Trust Funds. More Taxes.
PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients.
PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc.
Pg 628 Sec 1443 Government will give “Multi-Stake Holders” Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of “Quality” Measures.
Pg 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those multi-stake holder groups include unions and groups like ACORN deciding health care quality.
Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any “Quality measure” of health care services as they see fit.
PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed “Quality Measures” for Physician Services and Dialysis Services.
Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on doctor but not government.
Pg 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections – Looks okay.
PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency – Government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.
Pg 676-686 Government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals.
Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the government with an $18 million website? Or $60 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud every year?
PGs 701-704 Sec 1619 If your part of health care plan isn’t in Government Health Care Exchange but you qualify for Federal aid, no payment.
PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secretary gets complaints (ACORN) on health care provider or supplier, government can do background check.
PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny health care providers/ suppliers admittance into Health Care Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.
Pg 719-720 Sec 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.
PG 722 Sec 1639 Government MANDATES doctors must have face-to-face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Services.
PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (your kids).
PG 724 Lines 16-22 Government reserves right to apply face-to-face certification for patient to ANY other health care service.
Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforcement, proposes the Secretary-HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL data.
PG 740-757 Government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (That’s your tax dollars people).
Pg 757-762 Federal Government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)
Pg 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin.
Pg 765 Sec 1711 Government will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)
Pg 768 Sec 1713 Government – Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks).
Flag as Offensive
Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Services include economic self-sufficiency, employ adv, school-readiness.
Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services – “increasing birth intervals between pregnancies.” Government ABORTIONS anyone?
Pg 770 SEC 1714 Federal Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and State Sovereign. (Can you believe that in America you will be told how many children you can have, and when? Does this mean we can expect the government to impose mandatory abortions? How else can this be interpreted?)
Pg 789-797 Government will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought to market. Bye innovation.
Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control doctors’ educations.
PG 801 Sec 1751 The government will decide which health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!
Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc. req. to register. Government takes over private payment system.
Pg 820-824 Sec 1801 Government will identify individuals ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.
Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.
PG 829-833 Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for Trust Fund!
PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.
Pg 838-840 Government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families expecting kids.
PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Program includes government coming into your house and telling you how to parent!?
Pg 859 Government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes that’s billion.
Pg 865 The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.
PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where doctors perform mandatory health care for two years for part loan repayment.
PG 876-892 The government takes over the education of our medical students and doctors.
PG 898 The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure supply of public health professionals.
PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.
PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service.
PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.
PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular and Reserve Officers. HC Draft?
PG 910 The government will develop, build, and run Public Health Training Centers.
PG 913-914 Government starts a health care affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.
PG 915 SEC. 2251. Government MANDDATES Cultural and linguistic competency training for health care professionals.
Pg 932 The Government will establish Preventative and Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000 billion.
PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Control YOU!!
PG 936 Government will develop “Healthy People and National Public Health Performance Standards” Tell me what to eat? This is no joke — the government will be able to actually mandate what you can eat or not eat. This could be helpful for some, but do we want the government doing it? What is the most fat and out of shape entity on the planet? The Federal Government. What kind of shape do you think the bureaucrats will be in who mandate such for everyone else?
PG 942 Lines 22-25 More government? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Svc, Minority Health, Women’s Health
PG 950- 980 BIG GOVERNMENT core pub health infrastructure including workforce capacity, lab systems, health info sys, etc.
PG 993 Government will establish school based health clinics. Your kids won’t have a chance.
PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say government brainwash!
PG 1001 The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?
UNLESS YOU ARE A TOTAL FREELOADER, YOU CAN NOT BE AN AMERICAN AND SUPPORT THIS PILE OF CACA
First of all, it looks like almost no one knows how democracy works. Just because he won the presidency, does not mean he gets to push any bill he wants through. The MAJORITY does not want it. It does not matter why. It is not a right to have health care. What good is health care if you do not have food or housing? And neither of those are a right. The more I read the liberals response, the more I wonder how these people got through school.READ THE BILL, it does say it will force you out of your insurance. I have read it and so has the MAJORITY that DOES NOT WANT the bill. To the people that want this, go move to Canada or England and see why the rich people from those countries come here.
Let’s all face the “scariest” fact of all; We do not have the resources (Public or Private) to provide all the medical treatments, that we currently have the technology to perform, to all the patients that might need and/or desire them.
All they care about is politics. The people of this country can just drop dead, and they would not care one whit. Know how I know this? It is alrady happening!
See someone listed the pages and the TRUTH, read it and weep Libatards! Here it is again:
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Government will audit the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!
Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC Bill – YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!
Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC Bill – THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get
Flag as Offensive
Pg 42 of HC Bill – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!
Pg 50 Section 152 in HC Bill – HC will be provided to ALL non-U.S. citizens, illegal or otherwise
Pg 58 HC Bill – Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances and a National ID Health Care Card will be issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer. (This really does mean they can take your money at any time. Who will have this authority?—a government bureaucrat.)
Pg 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions and community organizations (ACORN).
Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Government is creating a Health Care Exchange to bring private health care plans under government control.
Pg 84 Sec 203 HC Bill – Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private health care plans in the Exchange
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The government will ration your health care!
Pg 91 Lines 4-7 HC Bill – Government mandates linguistic appropriate services.
Pg 95 HC Bill Lines 8-18 The government will use groups i.e., ACORN & AmeriCorps to sign up individuals for government Health Care Plan
Pg 85 Line 7 HC Bill – Specs of Ben Levels 4 Plans. #AARP members – Your health care WILL be rationed
Pg 102 Lines 12-18 HC Bill – Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
Pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue the government on price fixing. No “judicial review” against government monopoly.
Pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill – Doctors/ #AMA – The government will tell YOU what you can make.
Pg 145 Line 15-17 An employer MUST auto enroll employees into public opt plan. NO CHOICE
Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health care for part-time employees AND their families.
Pg 149 Lines 16-24 ANY Employer w/ payroll 400k and above who does not prov. pub opt. pays 8% tax on all payroll
Pg 150 Lines 9-13 Businesses with payroll between 251k and 400k who do not provide public opt pays 2-6% tax on all payroll
Pg 167 Lines 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable health care according to government will be taxed 2.5% of income.
Pg 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay).
Pg 195 Officers & employees of HC Admin (GOVT) will have access to ALL Americans’ financial and personal records.
Pg 203 Line 14-15 HC – “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it says that.
Pg 239 Line 14-24 HC Bill Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.
Pg 241 Line 6-8 HC Bill – Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.
Pg 253 Line 10-18 Government sets value of doctors’ time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans.
Pg 265 Sec 1131Government mandates and controls productivity for private health care industries.
Flag as Offensive
Pg 268 Sec 1141 Federal Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
Pg 272 SEC. 1145. Treatment of certain cancer hospitals – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing! Many cancer treatments will not work unless implemented early, but the waiting time just to see a specialist will likely be months when this plan is implemented. As you can see in this bill, the option of the health care bureaucrat is to deny treatment to those they deem not likely to be helped by it. Watch the cancer death rate skyrocket, like in Canada and the U.K.
Page 280 Sec 1151 The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable readmissions (Incentives for hospital to not treat and release).
Pg 298 Lines 9-11 Doctors that treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission-Government will penalize you.
Pg 317 L 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Doctors what/how much they can own.
Pg 317-318 lines 21-25, 1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Government is mandating hospitals cannot expand.
pg 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception, BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!
Pg335 L 16-25 Pg 336-339 – Government mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Health Care the way they want. Rationing.
Pg 341 Lines 3-9 Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. Forcing people into Government plan.
Flag as Offensive
Pg 354 Sec 1177 – Government will RESTRICT enrollment of special needs people!
Pg 379 Sec 1191 Government creates more bureaucracy – Tele-health Advisory Committee. Health care by phone/Internet?
Pg 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance [Death] Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life.
Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!
Pg 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.
Pg 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The government has a say in how your life ends.
Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An “adv. care planning consult” will be used frequently as patient’s health deteriorates.
Pg 429 Lines 10-12 “adv. care consultation” may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from Government.
Pg 429 Lines 13-25 – The government will specify which doctors can write an end of life order.
Flag as Offensive
PG 430 Lines 11-15 The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life. The above really does give the government the authority to determine who lives and dies, and when. A government bureaucrat really will be making this decision for you and your loved ones.
Pg 469 – Community Based Home Medical Services=Non-profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?
Pg 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORG. 1 monthly payment to a community-based org. Like ACORN?
Pg 489 Sec 1308 The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. They will insert government into your marriage.
Pg 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.
PG 502 Sec 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. – Hello Big Brother – Literally.
Pg 503 Lines 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records.
Pg 503 lines 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the U.S., including your data.
Pg 504 Lines 6-10 The “Center” will collect data both published and unpublished (that means public and your private info).
PG 506 Lines 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data.
PG 518 Lines 21-25 The Commission will have input from Health Care consumer reps – Can you say unions and ACORN?
PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.
PG 621 Lines 20-25 Government will define what quality means in health care. Since when does government know about quality?
Pg 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from other government Trust Funds. More Taxes.
PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients.
PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc.
Pg 628 Sec 1443 Government will give “Multi-Stake Holders” Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of “Quality” Measures.
Pg 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those multi-stake holder groups include unions and groups like ACORN deciding health care quality.
Pg 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any “Quality measure” of health care services as they see fit.
PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed “Quality Measures” for Physician Services and Dialysis Services.
Pg 635 to 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on doctor but not government.
Pg 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections – Looks okay.
PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency – Government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.
Pg 676-686 Government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals.
Pg 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. You mean like the government with an $18 million website? Or $60 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud every year?
PGs 701-704 Sec 1619 If your part of health care plan isn’t in Government Health Care Exchange but you qualify for Federal aid, no payment.
PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secretary gets complaints (ACORN) on health care provider or supplier, government can do background check.
PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny health care providers/ suppliers admittance into Health Care Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.
Pg 719-720 Sec 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.
PG 722 Sec 1639 Government MANDATES doctors must have face-to-face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Services.
PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (your kids).
PG 724 Lines 16-22 Government reserves right to apply face-to-face certification for patient to ANY other health care service.
Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforcement, proposes the Secretary-HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL data.
PG 740-757 Government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (That’s your tax dollars people).
Pg 757-762 Federal Government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)
Pg 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin.
Pg 765 Sec 1711 Government will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)
Pg 768 Sec 1713 Government – Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks).
Flag as Offensive
Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Services include economic self-sufficiency, employ adv, school-readiness.
Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services – “increasing birth intervals between pregnancies.” Government ABORTIONS anyone?
Pg 770 SEC 1714 Federal Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and State Sovereign. (Can you believe that in America you will be told how many children you can have, and when? Does this mean we can expect the government to impose mandatory abortions? How else can this be interpreted?)
Pg 789-797 Government will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought to market. Bye innovation.
Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control doctors’ educations.
PG 801 Sec 1751 The government will decide which health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!
Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc. req. to register. Government takes over private payment system.
Pg 820-824 Sec 1801 Government will identify individuals ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.
Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.
PG 829-833 Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for Trust Fund!
PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.
Pg 838-840 Government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families expecting kids.
PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Program includes government coming into your house and telling you how to parent!?
Pg 859 Government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes that’s billion.
Pg 865 The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.
PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where doctors perform mandatory health care for two years for part loan repayment.
PG 876-892 The government takes over the education of our medical students and doctors.
PG 898 The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure supply of public health professionals.
PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.
PG 898 The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service.
PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.
PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular and Reserve Officers. HC Draft?
PG 910 The government will develop, build, and run Public Health Training Centers.
PG 913-914 Government starts a health care affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.
PG 915 SEC. 2251. Government MANDDATES Cultural and linguistic competency training for health care professionals.
Pg 932 The Government will establish Preventative and Wellness Trust fund- initial cost of $30,800,000,000 billion.
PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Control YOU!!
PG 936 Government will develop “Healthy People and National Public Health Performance Standards” Tell me what to eat? This is no joke — the government will be able to actually mandate what you can eat or not eat. This could be helpful for some, but do we want the government doing it? What is the most fat and out of shape entity on the planet? The Federal Government. What kind of shape do you think the bureaucrats will be in who mandate such for everyone else?
PG 942 Lines 22-25 More government? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Svc, Minority Health, Women’s Health
PG 950- 980 BIG GOVERNMENT core pub health infrastructure including workforce capacity, lab systems, health info sys, etc.
PG 993 Government will establish school based health clinics. Your kids won’t have a chance.
PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say government brainwash!
PG 1001 The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?
I totally disagree with your “interpretation” of bill as listed above, and to all you who are screaming about government-”mandated” abortion.
You might want to check FactCheck.org and Politifact.org for a rundown on some of the wild and crazy accusations being tossed around. Here’s an article that summarizes some of them:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/politics/story/73462.html#none
Chris H – Well over half the country dislikes this reform and doesn’t want it,… Considering we elected a president to reform healthcare, you are lying. Also: no NEW provisions are made to pay for abortions, these regular folks at the town meetings are not discusing anything – they are just shouting or chanting = no democratic forum = treason to democracy, if you didn’t like the bailout you never listened to someone who lived through the deppresion,
the reason for temporally nationalizing some things is because it became CLEAR they couldn’t be trusted to run themselves but were an integeral part of the economy, there is a damn good reason the government has to put limits on utilities or polution – greedy corporations don’t care about anything but profit, I don’t know of a single sane person who dosen’t want healthcare – if you don’t want it please stop paying for it,
“(yes, many millions of uninsured simply choose NOT to get healthcare, even though they can afford the best insurance in the world, or can afford to pay cash, or just treat themselves)” This is so ignorant and mean that I have no real words for it. I just take comfort that sooner or later, you’ll get what you deserve.
“Here’s some reform for you — eliminate/ Medicare and the existing federal tax payer funded healthcare — let state and local governments decide if they want to have a tax funded system. (then watch California & New York immediately collapse under the strain of millions of deadbeats who flock there to take advantage of all the free stuff without contributing a dime)” Here’s more the same hateful drivel. I can’t wait for you to get old to see how messed up you are. Oh, BTW people on SSI pay for medicare monthly and it works just fine. They also have the option of buying all the insurance they can afford from anyone they choose.
“Better yet, let those who can’t afford care rely on charity and the goodwill of the American public and doctors” You can clearly see by the Dr’s comments above that not all of them take their oath seriously and couldn’t care less if you died right in front of them.
“”Lots of people who “cant afford” care are walking around with big car payments, mortgages, and spend plenty on things they feel are “more important” than their health.”" I couldn’t agree more on this one. These people are getting deals on all the money they went into debt for and fiscally responcible people have gotten majorly screwwed.
“And by the way, last time I checked, NOBODY has ever been turned down for care in my local emergency room — no insurance, no money, no citizenship — EVERYONE still gets seen in the ER. And even our criminals get FREE healthcare in the jails — what more do you want?” Health care that prevents so many ER visits. The uninsured not only wait for a simple cut to become infected, they wait until they have blood poisoning. The ER visit and treatment for a preventable, much more severe condition are costing you RIGHT NOW.
If you don’t want government in your life please go live in the woods or far away. Please?
I don’t see anything wrong with a flat tax and limits for deductions. Everyone should sholder their part of the burden. And yes, the wealthy do have more influence using donations, lobbyists and other means.
Healthcare is already rationed – read your policy. They will pay upto a certain amount and then you’re on your own. If you have the cash fine – the majority of us don’t and as I recall the majority gets what it wants in a democracy, not the loudest or most intimidating.
to:thefullmonyt…You are talking out of your butt. I used to work for Blue Cross. I have been a Human Resource Manager. My Husband worked for Insurance Companies for 30 years. The simple fact is PATIENTS ARE BEING DENIED CARE EVERY DAY! OLDER AMERICANS ARE BEING TOLD EVERYDAY BY PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES…THEY CANNOT HAVE THE NEW LIVER, KIDNEY, HIP REPLACEMENT ETC. The company bonuses are based on how much coverage is denied. I’ve had private health insurance all my life and I KNOW I AM CURRENTLY PAYING FOR EMERGENCY MEDICAL FIR THE UNINSURED. The real difference with the Public Option is a person won’t be denied coverage because of a “PRE-EXISTING CONDITION”. (Just TRY to buy Private Insurance at 60. A cold is a pre-existing condition)….
P.S. if you think race is not a part of the anger…then you’re to far out of touch to even respond to.
TJ Williams, they are indeed too far out of touch to bother with.
jjd – factcheck and politifact – BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
and it bet you think dkook and huffpoo are legit sources of news?
or sources for anything other than LIBERAL VITRIOL AND HATE toward the Real Americans
your koolaide habit is showing
Jack Kennedy…simply put…YOU ARE A LIAR !
you would think people taking the Hippocratic oath would care more about people and their hospital owners wallets and i thought the ama was a good thing.. they dont want reform either.. shame on you US doctors you are hurters not healers
Why does everyone seem to bring up race. I hated the clintons version as well. Healh Care sucks and needs to be fix but anything that involves he government running it will be a waste of taxdollars.he government is just as corrupt as the corporations. Thats why the answer is always GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOLUTION but the problem. Stupid congress caused the housing problem which led to the recession. The government complains of corporations handlings of money but who is in 12 trillion dollars of debt. They cant manage a bill because NONE OF THEM READ IT. NOT REP OR DEMOCRATS. ITS A FACT! Fix social security, the debt, medicare, and then see where we stand on health care.
libersals – your anger is showing
guess you have been reading the polls that prove the America does not want the obamadeathcare
its ok, your prez and his radical policies have seen their best days and you have your wins and tyranny on Americans for the next 3 years
enjoy the short obama reign of terror
NorCal – you mean, everyone should shoulder their OWN part of the burdon, right?
TJ WILLIAMS says – Jack Kennedy…simply put…YOU ARE A LIAR !
there you have it – liberal anger – cant argue the facts, so call names
your freeloading ways are showing
get a real job and pay your own bills – dont expect to get in my pocket for my money
cynthia in ft. lauderdale, fl
I sympathize with your situation, but the question still remains, do you believe that I, a person that lives on the other side of the country, should have to pay for you? And transversely, would you want to pay for me? I am not against reform by any means. I do however want it to be paid for other than with the presumption of fines. If you look at the bill the majority of the income to pay for the bill will be through fines levied on companies that do not offer the government plan or offer private plans that do not fulfill the governments requirements. That is not such a good idea. That would be like going down to a car dealership and saying that I want to purchase a car with no obvious means of paying for it but I will. That makes no sense at all.
HE WILL BE RE-ELECTED. HEALTHCARE WILL PASS AND AMERICANS WILL BE THE BETTER FOR IT. Fortunately REAL AMERICANS the party of “NO and ME ONLY” is gradually being marginalized buy educating THEIR young, taking care of THEIR old and confining them to small spaces. (like their minds)
Jack…sweetie…you couldn’t afford to pay my shoe bill.
Don’t flatter yourself.
What’s scaring me about Obama are his policies, not the presence or absence of pigment in his skin.
Message to the Socialists: Stop hiding behind Race, and come out into the open and debate this Gov’t Health Plan (Takeover) on it’s merits.
TJ
Simple question—Why do you want reform? and why do you believe that this plan is good?
Once again the far right is waving their fiery fists in the air proclaiming that they know what is right for all of the American people, by making false accusations. As Americans I would think that during the town hall meetings, there would be constructive recommendations to overhaul the countries current health care problem, especially since there is no bill before the congress or senate. There are no details just a lot of talk. I am very greatful that these people that are sturring up people with false information were not around at the founding of this great country. If they were, we would the largest English colony. Wake up America, think for your, research the facts, ask intelligent questions, and stop acting like a hateful mob. Once again all of the world looks at America and doesnt understand how we claim to bring democracy to other countries when we still behave like spoiled children.
tjwilliams – HE WILL BE RE-ELECTED. HEALTHCARE WILL PASS AND AMERICANS WILL BE THE BETTER FOR IT
America is going to show you a little trick in 2012
I bet the polls are giving you real heartburn
America is not a radical/liberal country – America believes in freedom not some euro trash way of govt and preferred by obama ilk, such as yourself
you got to much of the hippie thing working – wishing and hoping
I did the hippie thing in the 60’s and then reality hit and I woke up to the world
maybe you will some day – the children deserve real freedom not the kumbaya farce you seem to prefer
good luck with your peace/love/rocknroll
Ugh so many idiots. Probably have never even traveled or anything. We need single payer. It will provide better health results for less money. Will it be instantaneous? No, but it will work. Canada, Europe, Japan etc figured this out. They won’t be going back to a system like ours. We should try to join them in the 20th century…
BTW
tjwilliams – you forgot to call me a … da da dum ….. a ….. a ….. RACIST !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Paul,
I dare you to respond to the situations that we have raised about the other Government run programs and their competency and profitability. So far all I have heard is accusations that the right is up in arms. You say you want a debate, but when questions are asked and the rhetoric laid to the side there is nothing from your side that says why we should have it or how we will pay for it. These are the questions I ask. Do you think a government can run a healthcare system when it can’t run the USPS? Do you think it can provide oversight when it can’t with the FDA or the financial sector? The fact is this bill is wrong not because of the prospect of coverage, but of the management that they think they can achieve. It is poorly written and will not work. Now as far as my proposal—How many of the “left” are for tort reform? And do you believe that will solve the healthcare crisis? Why/why not?
Sandman: It’s simple. Substitute the word “Control” for “Reform” and it all becomes crystal clear.
From what I have read of the proposed “Reform”… not a single item reduces gov’t involvement and “controls” in healthcare (still reading). If someone does find one, I would love to see it.
The fact that the Fed Gov’t will be collecting and dispersing ANY additional funds with regard to healthcare means an increase in “CONTROL.” This “Reform” will result in trillions of dollars of Gov’t “control.”
Canada is so close… why haven’t more of the Socialists moved there to experience their fantastic healthcare system?
TC
I travel enough to get my 330 if you know what that means…But the fact is that one does not have to travel in order to grasp that this bill will start a program that cannot be paid for; That is wrong for this country. There are so many factors to account for when one starts to compare countries and what they can and can’t do. You make it sound like a backseat argument. “Well they do that so we should too”. To which my reply is as old as time, do you see any cliffs? We have to discuss and come up with solutions that actually fix the problems that we have in America before we can even look at what other countries do and don’t do.
Sandman…I am fortunate enough to have a diverse group of friends. Some are quite wealthy…some are very poor. I and my husband have worked in the business and as an HR Manager I have personally seen families in distress. I
When I gave birth to my daughter I had great health care. I did 27 hours of labor with all the “good stuff”. The young girl next to me did the same 27 hours with aspirin. I will never forget her suffering.
Granted… I am realistic and I do not expect perfection from Congress. I don’t expect the Public Option to pay for face lifts, cosmetic surgery or breast implants. But I think if it means a mother can take her child to the doctor for a flu shot because she has health care she can afford (making 8.5o an hour) and not wait until he has a temp of 102, scared to death, sitting in a Emergency Room for 4 hours at 3AM…the Private Insurance Executive can take the hit of earning 500,000 per hour instead of the current 700,000 per hour (look it up, it’s true) We are supposed to be a better country than one that has people showing up for 12 hours in endless lines just for a little free medical care. As Americans we have sacrificed for War why can’t we sacrifice for life?
Also republicraps, who complain about govt spending, the national debt balloon happened 1980-1990, hmm who was steering the ship during that period? Ten debt levels were fairly stable up to 2000, and what happened since. YOU ARE ALL HYPOCRITICAL ASSTARDS.
Free market libertarian fanatics should note that wealthy industrialists seriously considered overthrowing the government and replacing it with a fascist dictatorship in the 1930s. I guess you would not have minded that tho.
NO COMPROMISES DESTROY THE RIGHT!!!
We need to have intelligent conversation, instead of name calling and accusations. I am still trying to read and figure out the facts, but if I had to make a decision right now, I do not like this bill. I do not like the “rush”. And I am NOT a member of the far right, I am NOT a Republican. I am Independent. I dislike BOTH of the major parties.
Everyone needs to stop generalizing each other. The angry Americans showing up to these meetings are not only Republicans, they are AMERICANS. And this is not about loving the insurance companies. I DESPISE the insurance companies (and the drug companies). I think they are SOOOOO corrupt. Yes there are problems with the current system. So let’s fix those specific problems. Socialized medicine is NOT the answer. Why does this bill have to be the ONLY answer?
Specific questions I have, if you answer please provide a source, I am searching also but if someone already happens to know it right off the bat, that would be great:
1. Is it true that Congress & the Pres will opt out of this health plan? Why? What’s wrong with it that it’s not good enough for their families?
2. Will this do away with our freedom to choose private health plans that work better for us and our situations? Some people are saying no, some are saying yes, it will gradually do away with our freedom of choice.
3. The “tax on people without acceptable health plans”? What is that all about? “Acceptable” by whose standards? If the Government doesn’t like the plan I want, they can tax me more money?
4. I have read that the Government will have unlimited access to our bank accounts (to withdraw the fees)? That’s scary. What are the details on that?
Again, if you can provide real answers with sources, I would appreciate it. Let’s look at the facts and stop stereotyping, generalizing, name-calling, etc. That will get us nowhere.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but whenever you sign a contract, it’s best to read the fine print before committing yourself. Is it wrong to expect Congress to do the same, before voting for this?
TC SAID
We need single payer. It will provide better health results for less money. Will it be instantaneous? No, but it will work. Canada, Europe, Japan etc figured this out. They won’t be going back to a system like ours.
obviously you have never be to any of Americas specialized Medical/Cancer centers – these centers are inundated with the citizens from the countries that you quoted as having the great socialized healthcare
talk to these and people and they will tell that they hope we do not ruin our system with the failed plans in their countries
Sandman, maybe we don;t need the exact plan another country has but we need something similar. We should learn from others instead continuing with the delusion that the US is the best. We have had tons of other programs that “couldn’t be paid for”, but this one will actually pay for itself eventually.
I find it difficult to understand why we are having such a commotion over somethng that is most easlily solved. All the People in government, who want this bill need do is make their first priority to sign up (ie President Obama and family, Congress, the Cabinet and all political appointees as the first enrollees of the bill. This would show the people that they a truly telliong the truth about the kind of care they plan for ALL the People to get. That should not be that difficult to understand or to accomplish.
I do have a question though. Didn’t we have a budget surplus less than a decade ago? Didn’t we have the money to easily provide much better insurance options to poor Americans? Could someone please give me a recap of how that turned into a massive deficit, and which political party was in charge when that happened? Then could someone tell me which party is opposed to reform that could provide better insurance options to poor Americans, simply because of the ‘financial’ costs involved?
I’m not much of a genius, but I’ve heard the term “working poor” before. It is those Americans who work two or three jobs at a time, yet are still unable to rise above the poverty line. They are unable to just “go find a better job” because if you’ve noticed, we’ve a shortage of those currently, in fact, there were over half a million jobless claims filed last week, if my facts are right.
So how can we best help those people who work, yet don’t make enough to afford basic necessities, such as health care and insurance, so that they and their families are looked after in case of emergency? The current system is obviously broken when it comes to that aspect, and it does need reform. Not doing anything is the very WORST option we can choose, this is a situation that can be fixed, and that we should easily be able to, without partisan bickering, we should be able to help our fellow Americans and we should be able to do it quickly, without hassle, with all respect to their plight and suffering.
Here are some questions:
1.) Is the “Plan” Socialistic or Free Market based?
2.) Will it improve the quality of care for the majority of Americans.
3.) Does it disperse the burden of costs fairly?
4.) Can we afford it?
5.) Will it be managed efficiently or ruled by waste and fraud?
5.) What will the long-term result be on the economy?
The last is especially pressing, considering that in almost every economic climate our US economy out performs the list of socialist/single payor countries offered.
By using Gov’t healthcare taxes to choke the life out of our economy the socialists will have solved another big problem: illegal immigration.
Who wants to sneak into the Land of Opportunity, when opportunity no longer exists?
Sorry about the spelling telling and lost ) after appointees.
to all LIBERALS AND OBAMA SUPPORTERS
BOTTOM LINE IS THAT OBAMA AND HIS FELLOW DEMOCRATS WILL NOT BE SUBJECT THEMSELVES TO THIS FARCE
WHY SHOULD AMERICA BE SUBJECTED TO ANYTHING LESS THAN WHAT THE OBAMA CREW HAS
MY FATHER IS FORMER GOVT EXEC AND HE HAS THE FEDERAL GOVT HEALTH PLAN AND IT IS THE ABSOLUTE GREATEST – I UNDERSTAND WHY OBAMA AND COMPANY WILL NOT SUBJECT THEMSELVES TO THIS FARCE THAT THEY ARE TRYING TO FOIST ON US.
THE POLITICIANS WILL NOT STAND ANYTHING LESS THAT WHAT THEY HAVE NOW
I WILL SUPPORT THE PLAN THAT THE DEMOCRAT POLITICIANS HAVE AND NOTHING LESS
TJ—–As I said before I am not against providing coverage for all, I am against the way this plan tries to go about it. I don’t think this is the way. I think tort reform is the way. Or simply provide a plan for the ones that cannot afford the healthcare. If a plan is enacted though let’s find a way to pay for it that doesn’t involve raising taxes or transforming the burden to the general populous. Is that too much to ask? Maybe there can be a system put into place such as the pro bono system that lawyers have. Any ideas on that?
Well the way I see it the Health Care plan should be shut down completely and start all over again to much conflict of intrest with to many select people that are exempt from the plan I think the health care issue needs alot more work for one I refuse to pay for illegal aliens health care and I wont pay for others to have abortions we need to go after Hospitals and Doctors that rape Americans out of their hard earned money. read these two things before cusing me to badly.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Union-workers-would-be-exempt-from-Dem-health-care-tax_06_23-48810402.html
http://www.patientpowernow.org/2009/06/22/congress-federal-employees-exempt-insurance-mandates/
Jack Kennedy give it a rest, its not true. We have some great health care options for wealthy foreigners, and some great options for refugees from countries with nothing. But average folks from abroad don;t come here to see the doctor.
World Health Organization (WHO), in 2000, ranked the U.S. health care system as the highest in cost, first in responsiveness, 37th in overall performance, and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study).
Jack, you do realize that before the “Obama crew” had that health care plan, that the “Bush crew” did? Don’t the Republican politicians have the same exact health care plan as their Democrat counterparts? Why are you trying to insert partisan rhetoric into a debate where we should be talking about what’s best for Americans, instead of what is best for Republicans or Democrats?
Justin—Look above we have provided options to counter this plan. Surprising though not a single blogger has yet to respond to those points. Instead of proclaiming the desire to want debate in the issue, how about you debate the questions raised?
This is not an interpretation, it is right out of the bill. And the MAJORITY DOES NOT WANT IT, look at the polls! You can call me whatever you want. No liberal has ever done anything for me except make my life harder and then call me a racist and greedy. I do not see any of you libs taking your millions and billions and helping, just giving it to politicians, and that does not help people in need….You are hypocrites. Like I said, go to Canada if you want socialize medicine. We the MAJORITY want the system the way it is, you can have tort refrom and open policies across state lines, that should help a lot. Being that the government is slandering us. I would not beleive anything they said. They do not respect me, they just want to steal from me. BTW< I worked minimum wage jobs too, so go screw yourselves. I bet I give more to charity than you liberal jerks!
They do not want to debate, they want to force it on us, because it is about power and skimming money from the programs, not too mention, a couple of million people wasting salaries for the new government agencies. This will cost way more than the current system and you are a fool if you think otherwise. Look at ANY government system and ALL of them WASTE LOTS OF MONEY, ALL OF THEM!
Oh yes they do, Canadains have US health insurance and come here for everything except the emergency room. Again, spouting BS, typical libs. That is why I had to do their work at my last job. They are so pathetic, claiming to know, but know squat! They are lengends in their own minds!
OH NO! Something might have a socialist aspect! Its so scary! Just forget the fact that there are hardly any truly free markets (and healthcare shouldn’t be one of them), and also, it’s proven regualted markets are more efficient than free markets.
“every economic climate our US economy out performs the list of socialist/single payor countries offered.” yeah maybe for some people. But our income disparity is getting worse. We are getting closer to Brazil than I personally am comfortable with. We should be heading the other way. Health care is a part of that.
TC, are you blind? How do you think that this would not cost, when EVERY OTHER PROGRAM THE GOVERNMENT RUNS, COSTS LOTS OF MONEY. How ignorant of a comment is that? I have bridge to sell you…..
President Obama himself stated about a week ago, that if a bipartisan bill can’t be agreed on, that Democrats will do it alone.
How is his “my way or the highway” approach any different from this point of view?
Both sides are going to have to find a way to reach a compomise that actually improves health care in a sustainable way.
Sandman…where did I proclaim any desire for debate? I dislike debating in general, especially on issues like this, where the two major opinions are polar opposites, and crystallized in their unwillingness to budge even a slight bit. I believe that if both sides tried to understand the other’s perspective, it might make for a more reasonable discussion.
As far as anything else goes, let me say this. I am not a Republican, nor am I a Democrat. I have no partisan inclinations, and I’ve seen plenty of things from both that I dislike. My only concern is that for the plight of those Americans who do truly work hard, yet are forced to suffer and endure poor medical care, zero insurance, and no benefits from their employers. Is helping them out really a partisan issue? Why can’t it just be a humanitarian crisis instead? Peoples’ lives and their ability to seek treatment and insurance to provide for their families’ health and well-being should not be something that people just recite talking points about, it should be something that we ALL strive to fix, regardless of political party or ideology.
No, you do not understand democracy. Here the majority rules, and the majority does not want their bill. End of story, there is no debating. Just like we have to live with this worthless president, you have to live with DEMOCRACY. Why don’t you go live in China and see how well Obama’s ideals work.
BAP: hi your dumb
You are a communist, I am not dumb, I read the bill and took the facts stright from it. You believe a bunch of liars. Who is the idiot?
Sandman..we can agree to disagree and chances are our vote will cancel each other out. No Problem. As i said I was a Human Resource Manager and yearly part of my job was to review the company benefit plan. I guarantee you each year the cost went up. And while the company covered the employee (HMO only) the employee’s family was not covered. This was fine for the top-tiered employees …but the support staff (sec, clerks, janitors etc.) could not afford to add family members. There are millions of “working poor”. If the Private insurers would get rid of Pre-existing conditions, and denial of service it would make them more competitive against a Public Option. Even with Tort Reform (and i know a lot about PI and Work Comp) they will have a monopoly on care. And I I said before…the general populas IS paying for the uninsured now. Only much more because a $1200 trip to ER by the uninsured is kicked up to 2400 in new charges by the hospital to the Insurance Companies who kick up Group Coverage by 10% yearly…to me the HR Manager who has to tell YOU the employee at the yearly open enrollment…you health care contributions will be increasing. The Public Options allows ALL of us to be cover and negotiate lower prices simply because we have eliminated a few greedy middlemen.
I have yet to see anyone from the left acknowledge a democracy. So why would we care what you think, you do not have any common sense.
Again TC, you are going by the word of liars. They haven’t even read the bill and are making claims. You are not getting rid of any middle man, just moving it to the government. Man you are stupid!
It has become pretty clear who the bad guys are (according to the Socialists) in this argument:
1.) Racists – (remember, anyone who opposes the plan, is presumed to be a racist)
2.) Insurance Executives – (of course we could all choose to self insure, and put the money we are spending on premiums into our own personal healthcare fund, but then we wouldn’t have the Evil Insurance Executives to blame) The truth is, some companies do self-insure their health benefits. The gov’t could work to elminate the evil insurance exec’s by incenting more companies to self insure.
3.) Physicians – Let’s face it, we all hate that they make more than we do (that’s why we sue them at every available opportunity)
4.) Drug Companies – (Give me more and better drugs, and do it for free!)
Of course if you buy into the above bad guys, then that must mean that you think the Federal Government is the key to an efficient, fair and corruption free health care system?
No wonder you all suffer from health problems… bad choices lead to equally bad consequences.No one needs to “scare” me about this plan, somethings are just scary.
BAP: Democracy != majority rules
And the majority is saying no, read the polls. What don’t you get?
One more point, if the main stream media and white house would tell the truth, it would be even a higher percentage of those against the bill.
For those who don’t believe that the left wing knows what a democracy is…..didn’t that left wing decide who our President is, and who would control the Senate with a filibuster-proof majority?
Like I said earlier, I’m not on either side of the debate. I just want an option that will work quickly and better the lives and medical care of poor, working Americans. I’m sure they really don’t care who’s option works best, as long as it works for them, and I believe that we should all feel the same way.
justin – repubs arent trying to ration care or some other kind of restrictions with some kind of BS plan
obama and the democrats are running the show and it is severely partisan as obama has admitted – and these is the party that is trying to put this **** plan on us
point still stands – WHEN OBAMA AND PELOSI SIGN UP FOR THE PLAN – THEN I WILL SIGN UP
TC – said – But average folks from abroad don;t come here to see the doctor.
I talk to the furiners at the City of Hope in LA and MD Anderson in Houston and these people are pretty average folks – there are some rich folks, but a lot are spending what it takes to come to the US to get care that they can not get in France, England, Spain, Saudi, India, Germany, Russia, eal
The people to the person say that they do not want us to give up the system that we now have – THE US SYSTEM IS STILL THE GREATEST IN THE WORLD – JUST ASK THE WORLD THAT COMES HERE AND USES IT
AND YOU DO NOT SCREW UP A GOOD THING – AT LEAST THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE THE COMMON SENSE DON’T – YOU TWEAK IT, YOU DONT OVERHAUL !!!!
BAP and FullMonty
Let’s have an honest discussion then. I am open to possibilities. First of all, I will agree with you on something. This particular health care reform plan may not be the best solution. Can you agree with me at least that there is a problem with our health care system, and that we could do better? I personally have pretty decent coverage, not even too expensive, and I still think it an obviously inefficient system. For many others (many of them hard working people believe it or not), it is clearly broken. If we could find some common ground we could make some progress.
What does that prove? TC even said majority and the majority does not want it. It does not matter who won the presidency. And we do not care what you want, we care what the majority wants. Don’t you get it? I will not pay for illegal aliens health care and they will be covered in this bill. It is in there.
Have any of you guys even been to the DMV lately? It’s not exactly a model of effeciency. Every government agency wastes money because they don’t need to turn a profit. They don’t need to be efficient. So handing the power of all health care to the government is a folly. Simple as that. It, like everything else, needs private industry, and thats AMERICA.
TC, we keep saying, start with tort reform and let insurance companies sell polices across state lines. Won’t cost us a dime and will reduce costs. The problem here is the government is wanting to just take it over, because they are power hungry. And a few other reasons I will not mention, but everyone knows it is true.
Justin-
You proclaimed your desire for debate by coming onto this forum….That being said you still refuse to respond to the questions raised about tort reform or any other alternative to this plan. You proclaim a desire to provide health care to all, but when I raise the questions about how to go about doing this, you respond with the same mantra about providing care. I want to provide care as well. Hell I am a provider. I am becoming a medical professional because I desire to help. But this is not the way to do it. One of the reasons for evidence based care is the amount of money spend on “needless” tests. If that is the problem how does this bill fix that problem? The fact is that it doesn’t. Making healthcare cost less is not going to change that. The medical professional orders the tests because they either want to Cover Their ***, or they are trying to defraud the system. The CTA is from the amount of litigation that they face. As I said before, how can they justify to a family that they could have saved the life or prevented extra costs if they had simply done a 65$ or 100$ test. Is not having the test worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits? Tort reform would solve this aspect of the cost of healthcare and thusly lower the cost of healthcare for all. For the second there could always be stiffer penalties for subversive behavior, but people are going to conduct deviant behavior not matter the risk if they perceive the reward to be greater. As to the solution to that problem, I am at a lost at this time, I would have to think more or if you could provide your insight- greatly appreciate it.
TC – you said – Democracy != majority rules
ain’t it the truth
I am all for voting to the the radical policies he is trying to foist on us
obama would lose, now that America has seen the lies for what they are
REAL THE POLLS – AMERICA DOES NOT WANT SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE
TC – “USA = 72nd overall level of health”
The fact that many Americans are fat, lazy and habitually ingest harmful substances into their bodies, has nothing to do with our current U.S. healthcare system.
It has to do with the fact that many Americans are fat, lazy and habitually ingest harmful substances into their bodies.
Blame it on the tobacco companies for tricking us into thinking smoking was healthy?
More than tobacco, how about twinkies, ding dongs, etc
BAP nothing is going to please everyone. Its in our interest to provide at least some care for illegals because they are here, they can be contagious like any legal citizen, they are generally working and participating int he economy, etc. I think it would be better to address the problem of illegal immigration separately and not let it cloud the health care debate.
BAP – Yes, and I am certain if you look hard enough; behind every delicious but unhealthy snack food you will find a Racist (and a Free Market one at that!).
To all-
I currently reside outside of the United States and I have to pay doubly for insurance. I have BC/BS in California, my home state, that is bundled with dental and life insurance. I am a healthily 29y/o wm. I have good coverage that costs me ~81 dollars a month. I have to also have separate overseas insurance which costs me over 225 dollars a month. No choice in that. Because of the laws my BC/BS cannot be used abroad and my overseas insurance cannot be used in the states. Not saying that I am crying about that, but is that fair? Is that a free market? I think that plans can be affordable to the general public but there isn’t a need for federal intervention.
FullMonty, what to do about it then? You don’t want the government to force people to get healthy do you? But you see it’s a problem. A real system would have incentives for practitioners when get results, convince and help patients to quit smoking, lose weight, etc. Anyways we can’t be the fattest and laziest country in the world and also the greatest right?
I prefer if we all lose some weight. More hot chicks for everyone, or dudes or whatever you go for. I have no problems with gov’t programs for this.
I guess its okay to agree to a private insurance company care manager to ration access to healthcare with profit as the bottom line. There is nothing in the legislation that puts the evil government in the decision making process between MD and patient. This campaign is a witch hunt designed to highlight the RNC campaign against the Administration. Its interesting that in this Christian/patriotic country there is no concern for the millions without health insurance.
Oliver–Really though? No concern? Did you not read the postings or are you just that incompetent?
TC – Ultimately the incentives to “get healthy” should not be with the practioners. They should be with the patients. In a free society we make choices every moment of every day. These choices lead to consequences.
The incentives for each of us to “get healthy” are:
1.) Spending less of our personal money on healthcare.
2.) Feeling better because we are “healthy” as opposed to “sick.”
3.) Lower clothing costs (because we don’t outgrow stuff before it wears out)
4.) More time spent with our families (because we live longer)
5.) Lower fuel costs (because the car or plane we are riding in weighs less, with less of us riding in it.
The point is, I can give you hundreds of “incentives”… but this is America and we each get to choose what is important to us. You can smoke two packs a day; but don’t ask me to pay for your triple bypass, and don’t blame your general practioner for not convincing you to give it up.
Is Obama still a regular smoker?
TC – Excellent point on “bodies that are better to look at” I just disagree that “health” should ever be mandated by a gov’t.
In communist East Germany the “Gov’t” virtually forced their female athletes to undergo heavy steroid regimens, making a wreck of their bodies and a sham of the Olympics.
Governments should be in the business of protecting our inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the “Pursuit” of Happiness. Not in the business of defining or delivering our Happiness (or our health for that matter)
I have been involved in the healthcare industry for over 30 years,including 10 years in hospital administration. This proposed plan is presently estimated to cost 1 trillion over 10 years. Based on our experience with the cost of Medicare(which Dems are ignoring) it is far more likely to cost 10-20 trillion. The government just has no ability to
estimate within acceptable parameters.We have just seen the Cash for Clunkers go bust in a matter of days and now taxpayers are funding another 2 billion which the USA does not have. This administration can’t get a handle on a Cash for Clunkers program but want us to trust them blindly with 1/6 of the American economy. NOT IN A HEARTBEAT!
Duh! No we do not want government within a thousand miles of our health care thank you very much. Any “compromise” will entail having government increase their nasty presence in our lives, and I say we can live without it.
Obamacare will cost this nation thousands of jobs. In my business, medical sales, we have already lost 20,000 medical device sales reps in anticipation of “reform”. Join our discussion at http://www.gorillamedicalsales.com/blog
Mrs A – Agreed. “Compromise” only means we won’t allow them to intrude as much (for now). We have have arrived at the place where we need to “draw the line in the sand.”
I say, “Enough Already!”
The sucking sound you hear is the Health Care Reform(Control) Bill getting ready to suck the remaining life out of our economy.
It will help other liberal objectives, like lowering energy consumption.
Last one with a non-Gov’t job… turn out the lights and cash in your 401K.
I was watching all the health care meetings today on tv. When I see the people who are for this program one thought comes to mind. Typical food stamp, rent check, free health care type of american.
tater – The problem with the “takers” versus the “producers” debate on most of these issues is that producers are too busy producing to participate. Maybe this time it will be different? Maybe that is what is so infuriating (and scary) to other side?
Those in favor of new programs have always been given free and easy access to the podium, because we were too busy to attend the meeting.
I don’t have a problem with these groups attempting to stop UHC in its current form. Why is it necessary to disrupt the healthcare of those of us with insurance to help those less fortunate. I am all for assiting those without healthcare and certainly agree with medicare assisting elderly and others but I don’t think we need to create a government plan for everyone when only 15 million people are uninsured and want to be insured.
So let me get this straight. THey arent concerned with fixing health care?….so be it. But they are concerned with stopping a Bad Bill or any semblance of this bill from passing….
seems to me they are trying not to put the cart before the horse and head off a disastrous “medical” bill.
despite what the”press” says, not everybody wants govt run health care and they are focused on preventing that.
So please tell me what is so bad about this?
and to the comment about being dragged off a cliff by the minority? dont you think that maybe the so called “minority” (really not) dont want to be dragged off a cliff by the so called “majority” with the passing of this bill?
“I am all for assisting those without healthcare”
jj – Wake up and smell the coffee. This new program isn’t about “assisting.” It is about control and ultimately power. If you “control” healthcare, you control life and death decisions. Having this control makes it easier to, you guessed it, stay in POWER.
The problem with putting Congress and Senate on the plan, is they quickly and easily subvert it to their needs anyway. By not being on “the Plan” they can’t skip that hassle altogether.
Here is a quick formula for you to understand it better:
If Healthcare = $’s and $’s = POWER then:
Healthcare = POWER
Why leave all that power in the hands of those Nasty Physicians and Insurance Executives, or even worse… the patients? (they’re probably all racists, anyway)
“Tena …And I would have had to file for bankruptcy if not for Medicare covering my mother’s last illness. Her last hospital stay cost $400,000, people. $400,000.00.”
And what makes you think your mom would have even made it TO the hospital under a government plan that includes a group of people whose job it is to decide who gets care and who does not? This DOES happen on other now operating government controlled systems.
hey…
i was unfortunately laid off last year.. and coudn’t afford cobra as i’ve only had contract jobs in the tech field here in california.
i had sharp pains for ~6months that unfortunately wound up being my gallbladder having to be removed. thankfully, the county hospital removed it and i managed to keep living…
a few days later.. i had sever pains and had to go to the local for profit hospital, where i told them my situation, meaning i had no insurance, and only ~1250 in my account.. (being close to homeless is a *****!)
the hospital kept me overnight.. gave me $20.00 worth of liquid that i could have got from walmart… and then billed me for ~$25,000!!!!! that’s twenty five thousand!
thankfully, i was able to convince the person in the billing dept that this was ludicrous.. and she dropped the bill… we need health care to be reformed.. across the board… badly…
Let’s all agree on at least one thing:
If Tena was a U.S. Senator; her Mom would have no problem with either the transport or the coverage of the procedure.
private insurance does not pay for cancer treatment. many people without insurance are not welcomed by the insurance companies. it doesnt take much. even people who live healthy lifestyles are excluded by ins.co’s. i pay for congress, medicare and medicaid, but am not insured myself. i never minded paying for these ,but i do now, as i am without.congress has some nerve blocking my chance for coverage,while charging me to pay for theirs.i have some degenerated discs from a car accident many years ago. didnt happen over night. health care is not just about sickness. accidents happen .if an uninsured person breaks a bone or whatever, they are screwed.if it makes some folks feel good to put all uninsured into some “its their own fault’ catagory, so be it. many will be joining us at some time. as i said, it doesnt take much to be denied. i dont expect anyone to pay for mine, but it does seem unfair to have me pay for others.some type of reform is a necessity. why didnt the previous administration look at this pervasive problem and offer up some kind of solution? its like the big elephant standing in the middle of the room,
Tena, sorry to hear about your mom; however, do you realize that your mom’s $400k surgery was paid by you, me, and everyone else in the country. That isn’t fair. Why should I have to pay for your moms $400k surgery. When my mom and grandmother died of cancer, the taxpayers did not pay for the chemo treatment.
You guys want to call the Republicans lairs and the media not passing the truth. Is there possibility the change that Obama and congress are blowing smoke up your ***. Obama has lied about all kinds of things and clearly 50% of Americans don’t want it. I don’t want to pay the taxes, I have private healthcare and you can too.
when W was President it was ok to oppose any and everything he proposed or did. Now we have O which is the same a zero and every Republican who says no to his rediculous proposals is a commie, un American traitor
The problem with the health care industry is insurance isn’t about providing care. Its about making executives rich so if they can take your money then dump you on a fine print technicality when you need them. They will.
The Insurance CEO’s are scared that a government healthcare plan would force them to reform to a system that benefits the consumer and not there bottom line.
The health care reform bill is more then just a government plan option but regulations that would prevent the insurance company from ******** you.
Even if you think you have good insurance and good coverage when you actually call it up into service you may find they cancel the plan on some tiny loop hole or after six months of treatment they drop you because of a spending cap.
The health care reform bill will help close these loop holes and require that insurance companies actually cover their clients. A government alternative is just one way of accomplishing that.
What should be added to that bill to re-enact the law that outlawed direct to consumer prescription drug advertising.
In the old days it was illegal for drug companies to advertise prescription drugs to anyone except those in the medical field.
The idea being that doctors should decided what drugs you need and not that Ad you saw between Leno monologs.
What we have now are drug companies essentially inventing conditions to prescribe drugs to.
If you really want to know how the system works just look at your insurance bill, you will see that nothing is pay in full. Hospitals and Doctors are paid a percentage of the bill. Saying that our health care system is broke. ED around the country are closing and the fear that businesses will opt out of health care will happen anyway because the premuims will be to expensive to have unless the employee pay part of the bill. If you think that’s not happening today just ask workers who are now paying more of their healthcare. Wake up people we need to fix this today. Also 60 minutes showed a segment of cancer patients who had loss their healthcare and was denid service. What happen most die. That is reality.!!!
Ok, so help the people who have no insurance..geeze it’s not hard to figure this out. It would save tons of money, and leave the rest of us alone! If we need Gov insurance, we’ll ask for it. If this is not bogus legislation (and it is, READ it, I have) then WHY are they trying to pass this with the same scare tactics used during the “bailout”??? Help those who can’t or won’t help themselves, and leave those of us who DON’T want Gov healthcare ALONE.
What is wrong with you people, This administration and others before it are shredding the Constitution. What happened to our bill or rights, particularly the 10th amendment that leaves things to the states, our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves and those of the 1860’s are wishing the south had won so states would have all the power rather then the feds. The last thing we need is more federal government programs that waste our money. I am a college student working to make some money over the summer. I am taxed $20 each working day, yes small to some but for a college student $20 a day is a lot of money, for those mathematically challenged out there, thats $400 a month, That can easily pay for healthcare, so how about the feds give our money back and we would all be able to afford what we CHOOSE to, if you choose not to buy healthcare and buy something else, then thats your damn problem and stop ******* complaining.
why not think more about others, everyone just stand on your own site….
i think we still learn to love…tallloving*com
Change is not the same as reform. The problem with health care in the US is ever increasing price increases. Making the government responsible for paying does not control cost. Historically, the government controls cost by reducing quality of service–Compare Fed Ex to the Post Office or public schools to private ones. Is medicare or medicade or the VA hospital system well run? Fix medicade and the problem is solved for people who can’t afford insurance. Why is it necessary to destroy the system that provides excellent care to 93% of the population? Increasing the number of doctors (which would do more to hold healthcare costs down than having government pay)can be done without turning over control of the health care system to government. Universal insurance does not mean that everyone gets the best insurance. It means that everyone gets insurance that is worse than most existing insurance. Real reform would be something like “medical stamps”, similar to food stamps that could only be used for medical treatment. If you belong to the UAW, your coverage will be worse when the government controls it.
Most of us know that that was the objective all along with the GOP and that also includes anything else that the President has on his agenda. If they can make him look bad by failing to get this or anything else accomplished they think they may have a chance in 2012 to move Obama out of office.
Gee, I came here expecting a somewhat intelligent conversation, but sadly, I was mistaken. Apparently, there are a few things you are overlooking.
Most millionaires don’t pay any taxes.
I guess your extremely pleased paying increase premiums for your healthcare, year after year. Remember HMO’s and how they were supposed to control pricing? In the near future only the rich will able to afford healthcare, and by the way, the current system is already rationed, by the almighty dollar. Ys, go ahead and read your blogs, go to rallies and scream at our gov’t, listen to your neo-con fatboy fanatic heros, and you too can become a statistic, and maintain the status quo.
Tena | August 11th, 2009 at 11:12 am
It’s ridiculous that fewer than 30 million people are holding over 70 million people back from the reform we voted for.
Oh, you mean you think it’s rediculous that 30 million sheep are holding over 70 million wolves back from the dinner they voted for?
@Patriotic Citizen, that’s exactly what I said before. Taxes are already ridiculous, especially if you don’t have dependents. I want to buy my own insurance, but after the government is done taxing me to death, I won’t have any choice but to have the garbage health insurance the government is handing out. Is anyone even aware of the issues with the existing insurance provided by the government?
I think race got injected into this conversation because some at the so-called “town halls” were yelling “Give us our country back”. As Maher said, “They want it back from the “scary black man.” Sad – I live in the south – full of wing nuts – even the crazy stuff they publish in the paper would make you cringe. They’ve been ginning up this stuff since the election – couldn’t believe a black guy won.So a lot of that anger is based on that – not the health care or the stimulus or anything else. Those are just the vehicles to express their racism. They can’t do it any other way. They won’t rest til they re-fight the Civil War and probably for the same reasons they fought the first one. Maybe this time they could really lose and they would never come back! Let’s hope so.
The problem is, that because of the healthcare “issue”, that, I am sorry, NEEDS to be REFORMED, so that EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN, can be treated at a hospital or clinic, without fear that it will BANKRUPT them, for their FULL lifetime, has become THE issue, that has stirred up race, class and wage warfare. white against black, (why should WE have to pay for all those BLACK, POOR people, who stand on street corners all day, selling dope & bodies, making babies when they are 13?) Why should WE, who work hard, & perhaps own a small business, have to pay for those who cannot or will not find work that pays good money? If they are uneducated or not MOTIVATED or just UNLUCKY, that should not be a reason why WE should have to share our bounty, to make them healthy–It all boils down to race, class and MONEY. Those who have money, sorry to say, in our beautiful, wonderful country, that USED TO help each other, do not wish to help their fellows now. Selfishness, snobbishness, & hatred of those less fortunate, are trying to RUIN progress. This COULD lead to violence, & GOD FORBID that this happens, because sooner or later, our country HAS TO FIX the healthcare mess. The crash last September, in the financial industry was pudding compared to what is gonna happen with healthcare, if we don’t rein in the costs. $100 to see a GP? $400,000 for a short hospital stay? NO ONE can afford a $400,000 hospital bill!!! In 1971, a normal birth cost a total-hospital & dr. $300. Now, it is $10,000!!! I’m sorry, that baby is gonna be born!! Nothing has changed, in that respect. We HAVE to win this bill–we HAVE to have reform–don’t let the “MONIED” people strip this chance away!! WE have to organize too!! Stop them, NON_VIOLENTLY!!,
The Birthers, Tea Baggers, Deathers and the rest are just the Republican party going under other names. The Republican name is so discredited that it doesn’t help them to use it too much, so they try to conceal themselves under other identities.
The Republicans are organizing all these town hall drown outs, right down to the questions the “protesters” are reading–they are using the exact same wording for all these questions, and following the same tactics in trying to shout down the speakers and anyone else who isn’t following their script.
It goes without saying that the Republicans oppose all of Obama’s reforms and want to “break” him. they have often said so. In Congress, they vote as a bloc against anything he proposes, and will continue to do so.
They would oppose health care reform no matter what is in the bills, even their own amendments. (And it was a mistake to accept and Republican amendments, as should be obvious now. they are a set up, a sucker punch.) In any case, they are against anything Obama wants, but have no positive ideas of any kind to help the country in this crisis. They are the Party of Nothing.
They are Anti-Matter.
Last weeks it was the Birthers, this week it’s the Deathers, and next week it will be something else, as long as they can find one reason to attack Obama in a scripted chorus.
The saddest thing about all this is the people who are trying to protest all this are the ones who need the help. They have been so brain washed or gullible they are protesting against their own best interests. The huge corporations know just who to tap when they want to ruin good legislation. There are a lot of sheep out there.
We need solutions, put up or see our nation go down the tubes because other industrial nation take care of all it people and there is nothing wrong with that
I agree with whoever said it’s imperative to get the prescription drug and patent medicine advertising off TV, and I would add all mass media. As a person who rarely turns on the TV I am shocked at the bombardment of ads for patent remedies, some for ailments that are on the fringes of establishment medicine. It’s not so much each ad but the aggregate repetition, that becomes in turn an ever-present drumbeat reminder of our frailties and our need for remedy. The purveyors of pharmaceuticals are selling us many diseases in order to sell us many cures. Interesting. I read a graphic novel once where the people doing that were evil space aliens.
Hey Michael C.: I’m not a birther,deather, t-bagger, republican or even a racist. I am just someone who believes in the the basic principles of the constitution: Life, Liberty and the “Pursuit” of Happiness.
If you want a “Guarantee” of Happiness, or even healthcare for that matter, go somewhere else.
Even if we agree that healthcare in our country can be improved, we will never agree that the Federal Government is the “solution” to achieve that improvement.
Let’s hear some ideas that don’t involve gov’t: mandates, controls, regulations, taxes etc. Why is it always assumed that the really “Big” problems can only be solved by “Big” gov’t (or even big corporations)?
Think “small” Michael C. From my initial impression you have a “small” mind, so use it. Drink a glass of orange juice, take 2 aspirin (or acetaminophen) and call your Gov’t health care provider in the morning… they’ll call you back next month.
All the reforms being discussed in the congress is nothing but nonsense. The only way to curb the costs are to deny treatment which will happen ,once these bills are passed. Already the reimbursements for physicians have been drastically rerduced by Medicare and Insurance companies. More an dmore physicians are not paticipating in Medicare and Insurance plans because of terrible payments which does not cover the overhead. Tha best plan will be to pool allthe insurance premiums paid to Part B ande -private insurance companies and managed by a Not for profit ,which worked well till the profit came into health care. The private insurance companies have anywhere 25-30% in overhead while medicare has only 2%.
Chris Alexander: Big Pharma can only “sell” you diseases if you “buy” them. So you want Big Gov’t to save you from your own stupidity? Only you can do that. Or maybe not.
It has become clear to me that the majority of Republicans are not interested in anything at all, except destroying this president and getting back in power.
After observing the events of recent weeks, I don’t know what else one could conclude. This report is just icing on the cake.
It is truly sad, but they’d rather see America fail, than Obama succeed.
The Democrats, with all their flaws, did not automatically oppose everything Reagan, Bush I or even Bush II proposed.
Has anyone noticed that the left uses “birth” (as in “birther”) almost as a dirty word? It’s like the word has some horrible connotation (as opposed to gloriously wonderful) to them.
Lone Star Gal: The Dems “did not automatically oppose everything Bush II proposed?” Can you even type that lie with a straight face? Only “interested in destroying the President and getting back in Power?” It gets really hard for me to remember which party you are talking about, and consequently which president.
OK, you win. We’ll just agree to everything Obama proposes even if it violates every principle our nation was founded upon. If Obama proposes cutting capital gains tax or eliminating the Death Tax, then you’d see just how fast I would line up behind him, and consequently just how wrong you are.
This time we stand up to be counted.
I love the logic of the Socialists: If Obama fails to gain complete federal control over the healthcare system, then that is the same as “America Failing.”
I see “Obama succeeding” as equivalent to “America failing.”
Thanks to the Founders we have the right to disagree. We will continue to do so without violence or malice, but with resolution and conviction.
Hey Lonestar: One last thing:
“The Democrats with all their flaws”
Finally something we can agree on. See how easy it is to find common ground?
At times I wonder about the American educational system. The amusing thing is the tea party groups can sue this blog. It was clearly said they oppose democratic health care reform because of a lack of trust. They fear the democrats will add onto the healthcare bill at 4am when everyone is asleep(which is something the Democratic Party has already done since the new year).
They clearly stated they support healthcare reform just not democratic healthcare reform. As such this author is guilty of slander and liable as is every barely literate person who commented here.
NO television station, magazine, radio station or other media outlet is going to tell the REAL story because more than half their revenue is medical industry based! GET A CLUE! They cover these “tea partiers” as if they are the only opposing voice when MULTITUDES of the population are calling for SINGLE PAYER! That’s right! And for those that scream “Socialism” get back to cleaning your guns, because if that’s socialism, so are the police and you clearly don’t need THEM either right? Or fire departments…or libraries, or…yeah.
What’s really frustrating is how Democrats and Republicans act like retarded cheerleaders for there respective candidate/President. This effectively paralyzes our country and we never get anything done. One party is no better than the other with each one trying to grab more power for themselves. Obama has whored himself out to the legal lobby just as Bush did to his special intests groups. Why do you think there is no tort reform even being discussed. This is not a coincidence. Has it ever occured to anyone that despite your political affiliation the government can’t run healthcare. They can’t manage medicaid/medicare, social security, the post office, Amtrak ect ect ect. Why would any rational person expect anything to be different this time? The left (or right) will merely steam roll over anyone who disagrees and thereby hold those people who believe in personal freedom and a rational tax rate hostage.
F.Y.I. “Single Payer” is different than “Public Option”. Now everyone get back to their “Abilify”, “C.O.P.D. medication”, and “Erectile Dysfunction” ads!
independent voter – you are having a hard time with polls that prove that Americans dont want socialized healthcare – including single pay or public option
keep dreaming but Americans dont want to pay for freeloaders to force rationing on the taxpayers
so, find another lie about the radicals and their desire for single pay farce
I cant even beleive some of the drivel on here about how great the current party is haha after all the spending and outright robbery that has occured, it is truley pathetic. When will people realie that this govt wheather rep or dem are simply crooksand constant liars. I know you all are smarter than to even defend them.
ever notice how the liberals/free loaders/radicals only demonize, name call, slur, belittle, lie and denigerate those that do not want the obamadeathcare plan
liberals/radicals/freeloaders can defend the plan, so they have to ramp up the hate America spiel.
it has got to be killing you loons that America does not want your freebie healthcare plan
the polls show that America does not want to pay your bills for you – we can not afford it
read the polls and see the Real Americans in action and quit your whining cuz you wont be getting free care at my expense
AFL-CIO says with no proof and it’s gospel now? Unions are exempt from the public option just like congress/senate/president and government workers are so why is this goon spying on others? The same group that sent out marching orders to their thug union members to police the townhall meetings?
Medicare denies more claims then private insurance besides the amount of fraud due to the lack of government competance.
The misinformation and scare tatics are coming from Obama and the DNC. They don’t even know what bill is what or what is in the bills but yet they are giving you the truth? They need you to snitch on those who oppose the bill because they have intergity and are honest or because the have such a stellar bill that has no hidden agenda and will actually fix the problem? why is that the president needs the public to snitch on each other? Sounds pretty Nixon to me!!
9 out of 10 dems voted NO in committe to an admendment that would include them in the public option. why would they vote no if this plan is so great? Why aren’t they telling you why they vote no for this plan they want to force on America?
The CBO gives a fairly accurate picture of the cost yet Obama and gang deny it? Once again who is telling the lies?
All the hate and insults by elected officials and dems/liberals/progressives on this site yet it was union thugs and a reporter who were arrested for assualting a black man at a townhall meeting because this black man was selling “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. Again I ask why are union members being ordered to “punch back harder” when they are exempt from this plan?
Oh and the best one I have read over and over again on this site is how those that oppose this plan are soo horrible and if they stop this they are _____ fill in the blank.
Hey newsflash the dems own the government now if this bill does not pass it is not because of anyone other than the dems themselves. But yet it seems like most out here can’t even get that basic fact, let alone Obama has publically said he will do it without the republicans. Oh and the dems have already determined they will use the nuclear option to get this bill passed.
You claim you want debate but over and over I see no answer to direct questions that should have answers. Instead I see the typical liberal/dem/progressive attack on anyone that doesn’t march to their drum.
You claim I am defending big pharmacy because i oppose this, wrong again big pharmacy already made their deal with obama so they don’t need anyone to defend them and it’s the dems paying 10/15$ an hour for workers to push obamacare.The dems are the true astroturfers!
I will tell you I oppose this because I no better than to think the government can fix any damn thing let alone that they care about you or me! It’s all about power and greed for both the D & R. But right now D is in charge and they have shown in the last 6 months they are totally incompetent and it won’t be long until they have put the last nail in the coffin of freedom. It took them 50 years to get here and they can’t wait any longer hence the rush to pass trillion dollar legislation they don’t read, pile with pork and fixes nothing but makes things worse.
Explain to me why tort reform is not addressed at ALL in this glorious bill? hint lawyers can’t cut their profit only the evil doctors and insurance companies.
Obama’s goal is not to improve your healthcare it is to control every aspect of your life and you can’t wait to let me, but I know better and no insult you can sling will phase me or change my mind. but I am not!
You want free healtcare from Obama have him use all the billions he gets from his high dollar supporters and pay for your healthcare. Leave the taxpayers alone you are already sucking us dry because nothing is free.
Why is Apollo Alligence writing all the bills for Obama and crew?
Hope I did not SCARE you too much I know the truth is scary, you probably should snitch on me for telling it!!
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Medicare was the most likely to deny any part of a claim, with a 6.9 percent rate. Aetna was a close second at 6.8 percent while the others ranged from 2.7 percent to 4.6 percent.
Coventry Health had the fastest median turnaround between receiving a claim and responding, at four days, according to the AMA. Medicare and CIGNA took a median 14 days; Humana and Aetna, 13 days; Health Net, 11; United Healthcare, 10 and Anthem, seven.”
http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/06/30/medicare-more-likely-to-deny-claims-than-commerical-health-insurers/
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Make social change – Help Pass Obama’s Health Care Reform!!! (Sacramento)
Earn $350-500 per week
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/etc/1310895349.html
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On Tuesday, the Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page amendment courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn that would require all Members and their staffs to enroll in any new government-run health plan. Yet all Democrats — with the exceptions of acting chairman Chris Dodd, Barbara Mikulski and Ted Kennedy via proxy — voted nay.
In other words, Sherrod Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse won’t themselves join a plan that “will offer benefits that are as good as those available through private insurance plans — or better,” as the Ohio and Rhode Island liberals put it in a recent op-ed. And even a self-described socialist like Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, who supports a government-only system, wouldn’t sign himself up.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124786946165760369.html
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In a memo sent out on Thursday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney outlined the blueprint for how the union conglomerate would step up recess activities on health care reform and other topics pertinent to the labor community. The document makes clear that Obama allies view the town hall forums as ground zero of the health care debate. It also uses the specter of the infamous 2000 recount “Brooks Brothers” protest to rally its members to the administration’s side.
“The principal battleground in the campaign will be town hall meetings and other gatherings with members of Congress in their home districts,” reads the memo. “We want your help to organize major union participation to counter the right-wing “Tea-Party Patriots” who will try to disrupt those meetings, as they’ve been trying to do to meetings for the last month
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/unions-to-take-on-conserv_n_252720.html
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The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says some little-noticed provisions in the House health care bill are racially discriminatory, and it intends to ask President Obama and Congress to rewrite sections that factor in race when awarding billions in contracts, scholarships and grants.
The commission also fears the programs, which are designed to improve health care in underserved areas, will not be effective.
In a draft of a letter the commission approved Friday, the group raises constitutional questions about giving preferential treatment to minority students for scholarships, and about favoring medical schools and organizations that have a record of sending graduates to areas with inadequate health care services.
“These programs are unlikely to reduce health care disparities among racial and ethic groups,” according to the draft letter obtained by The Washington Times. “A growing body of evidence indicates that increasing access to high-quality physicians – whatever their racial or ethnic ancestry – is the best way to mitigate such disparities.”
The draft letter also cites testimony from Dr. Amitabh Chandra of Harvard University who said the idea that expanding the number of minority physicians and providing “cultural competence training” will bridge the health status gap is “grounded in hope more than science,” according to the draft language. (hehe hope and change)
http://www.washtimes.com/news/2009/aug/11/panel-sees-race-bias-in-health-care-bill/?feat=home_cube_position1
So who are the racists?
Who is astroturfing?
What elected officials are name calling Americans?
Who is using scare tatics and lying?
OBMAMA and gang!!
you poor delusional obama followers you will learn the hard way but not on my dime anymore!
who is writing the bills for Obama?
stimulus, cap n trade, health care
Apollo Alliance Writing Legislation? Stimulus Bill, Cap and Trade Bill, Healthcare Bill? America Needs To Know!
UPDATE! 8/4/09 The Apollo Alliance has now ADMITTED that they wrote the Stimulus Bill AND the Cap and Trade Bill. It will only be a matter of time before America learns THEY wrote the Healthcare Bill too!
The APOLLO ALLIANCE consists of a coalition of UNIONS, like SEIU, Social Justice groups the likes of ACORN and at the helm is Van Jones a Communist that is Obama’s “Green Czar” and head of the Green Initiative. So the triad of these groups are writing our Legislation. America, have you had enough yet?
http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/alliances-writing-legislation-stimulus-bill-cap-and-trade-bill-healthcare-bill-america-needs-to-know/
The APOLLO ALLIANCE consists of a coalition of UNIONS, like SEIU, Social Justice groups the likes of ACORN and at the helm is Van Jones a Communist that is Obama’s “Green Czar” and head of the Green Initiative. So the triad of these groups are writing our Legislation. America, have you had enough yet?
Apollo Alliance Writing Legislation? Stimulus Bill, Cap and Trade Bill, Healthcare Bill? America Needs To Know!
Our Mission
The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs. Inspired by the Apollo space program, we promote investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, and emerging technology, as well as in education and training. Working together, we will reduce carbon emissions and oil imports, spur domestic job growth, and position America to thrive in the 21st century economy.
http://apolloalliance.org/about/
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yes indeed let obama have total control over your life it’s always in the best interest of all Americans for radical groups to write legislation to control your every being!
Wow dude, freeloaders, how bout this, you and your family (if that’s the case) go 1 year without insurance, and see how much you ***** about having to pay for a kids checkup, or problem with yourself. You and people like you, are whats wrong with the U.S. not your so called freeloaders, get off your soapbox and think of other for once in your life (it’ll be hard for you, I know) Of course this isn’t “the answer”, but it’s a start in the right direction. I can’t believe I served in the military to stand in front of you, and your type, to defend you and your freedoms, my eyes are opened now, I suppose the troops coming back home injured, or dead, with their families, shouldn’t get any help in ome way or another because they/we chose to sign up. Blow Me, you self centered pillow biter. You’d be a “accidental kill” by friendly fire if you ever nutted up, gave your trust fund to the needy, and served, crosshairs back ‘O’ your noggin.
been there done that have been without health insurance before and probably will again.
How many uninsured have cell phones, iphones, ipods, cable tv, xboxes, designer clothes, niki’s credit card debt and all the cool things?
you pick these luxuries over health insurance then cry how evil others are that don’t want to pay for your health care?
would you work two jobs to provide healthcare for yourself and family? how about three jobs if necessary?
or is this the new give me generation that gives nothing back just takes????
glad you mentioned the troops you claim they need help well that’s what the VA is for now isn’t it? Another failed government run program.
I can’t believe you are a fellow veteran and threatening others with “friendly fire”.
Thanks for proving my point about who the radical thugs are they are the ones crying wolf and wanting to put their fellow americans in the cross hairs for a little “friendly fire” you should be ashamed of yourself.
maybe you should reup since it’s obvious you can’t function without the government giving you orders. I bet you were nothing more than a “slacker” who could not handle the military so go out looking for freebies!!
prove me wrong “friendly fire”
who supports the troops? not liberal organizations they spend there dollars lobbying government to force the taxpayers to pay for their failed entitlement programs.Matter of fact conservatives give more of their own money to charity then liberals/progressives/democrats they want to spend others $$ not theirs.
woundedwarriorproject.org
http://www.homesforvets.com
http://troopssupport.com/
you won’t find liberals behind these orginaztions that are taking care of what the government should. One of the few things they should be taking care of yet they are to busy taking from the tax payers for their pet entitlement programs that don’t include our soldiers or vetrans. nice people their “friendly fire”
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Sen. Barack Obama released seven years of prior tax return documents on Tuesday. And a review of the records reveals several newsworthy, albeit minor, disclosures.
Up until recent years when their income increased sharply from book revenues and a Senate salary, Obama’s family donated a relatively minor amount of its earnings to charity. From 2000 through 2004, the senator and his wife never gave more than $3,500 a year in charitable donations — about 1 percent of their annual earnings. In 2005, however, that total jumped to $77,315 (4.7 percent of annual earnings), and to $60,307 in 2006 (6.1 percent).
The money went to several organizations. More than $27,000 total was given to Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ, whose former pastor Jeremiah Wright has dominated recent news coverage. Other charity gifts included: Muntu Dance Theater, a Chicago-based company that performs contemporary and classic African dance, which received a $5,000 donation; The Rochelle Lee Fund, a literacy organization, which received a $20,000 donation; the Illinois Reading Council, which received a $25,000 donation, and CARE, the poverty fighting organization, which received a total of $31,000 in donations.
Obama also classified a $13,107 contribution to the Congressional Black Caucus as a charity gift.
Taken as a whole, these disbursements made up a small portion of Obama’s annual income. According to TaxProf Blog, the Illinois senator gave “well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/25/obama-tax-returns-low-on-_n_93353.html
tightwads with their own money but oh they care so much about others! what a joke liberals really are. you care so much about others as long as you can care with others money!
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Bleeding Heart Tightwads
This holiday season is a time to examine who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but I’m unhappy with my findings. The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy.
Skip to next paragraph
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof
On the Ground
Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.
Go to Columnist Page » Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.
Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.
Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.
The upshot is that Democrats, who speak passionately about the hungry and homeless, personally fork over less money to charity than Republicans — the ones who try to cut health insurance for children.
“When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html
Liberals have big hearts and deep (public) pockets, but their private pockets are not so deep. Their big hearts are filled with hatred for anyone who works hard, smart and successfully to get ahead in life.
We can all see where their health plan is going. We’ve been there before. This time we’ll say, “No thank you.”
I find it intresting that this article is a distorition of the truth. I also find it funny that no recording was made of this phone call. In the state of North Carolina, legally only 1 person has to know that the phone call is being recorded…if that 1 person is the one doing the recording, he/she is in compliance of the law. I cannot speak on the laws in other states, but I do know the law in my own, so it is possible to have done that.
What I find remarkable is that you people actually belive that we, those who want a free-market Healthcare system, want no reform at all. Which could not be further from the truth. We want reform, in the form of NO government control over the healthcare system. This is the same government who has been incharge of the VA healthcare system, and anyone who knows their history know that it has taken a long time to get anywhere near where it is today.
WE, who want a free market healthcare system, do not want the Government to take over the healthcare industry and impose costs that number in the trillions of dollars, that translates to higher taxes for us all. The government imposed healtchare is like the cash-for-clunkers program, that is just doing more harm than good and is ANOTHER form of the redistribution of the wealth.
So this article, could not be further from the truth, and the fact that Eric was misquoted is just a sign that the thugs from the left are scared of us who fight every day for liberty.
Many well stated opinions, the last of which, (producer) was to say the least, very interesting….
seems liberals do hate those who work hard and are sucessful unless they are from hollywierd or the DNC!!
btw, to all that think the seniors are on a ‘free’ ride with madicare, it costs approx $100 a month to have this, even tho you have paid into it all your working life! You are given a chance to continue your med ins with any private ins co before you turn 65….
Oh yeah, coming from Obama supporter SEIU so it must be true. Common please. Seriously? If you believe this then you’re a bigger fool then the person who wrote the story.
Yeah, the AFL-CIO isn’t biased and can be totally trusted. Sure. And I was born yesterday.
The only reform that will work is to get government out of health care, not involve it more.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Form a more perfect UNION, promote the general WELFARE! My God who wrote this socialistic communistic garbage. They should go live in another country not the good ole USA!
Bintampa so why were no welfare checks issued until the after 1930? Did all the previous admins forget to write the check?
No wonder people are demanding our government take from others and give to them, comments like yours explain it fully.
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:
“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”
“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
-James Madison
b0nnie glad you found my links interesting.
Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a pediactric doctor at town hall meeting.Turns out she is not a nurse at all and an obama volunteer to boot.
Gotta love the left and thier lies while crying about the evil-mongers that oppose them are nothing more than astroturf paid by the evil right.
When the left claims someone is lying it is probably them.
The name calling by the left at others is a description of their own character.
When the left claims astorturfing you can bet they are astrotrufing in full force.
Our own David Jennings secured a phone interview, in which Mayer admitted to impersonating a physician, saying — get this — she thought it would help her credibility. (It didn’t.)
Now here’s where it spins off into a whole new dimension of weird. See the bug-eyed woman seated behind not-doctor Mayer?
Look familiar?
Yes, that little ray of sunshine, who accompanied Mayer to the meeting, is none other than Maria Isabel, the unhinged moonbat who ran a Barack Obama campaign office, complete with Che Guevara flag.
Hell, she’s even wearing the exact same outfit she wore the last time we mocked her!
A word of advice to budding political operatives: when you need two plants, try to pick people smarter than actual plants.
This isn’t brain surgery.
UPDATE: The ChronBlog has updated their original article without noting that they were negligent in reporting.
lonestartimes.com/2009/08/13/obama-camp-plants-fake-doc-che-fan-at-jackson-lee-forum/
Time: Tuesday, March 4 from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Host: Roxana Mayer
Contact Phone: 713-301-0312
Location: At the polls (Houston, TX)
Houston, TX 77057
Directions: Got to your local precinct.
my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4r9wf
what a lefty from OFA going to a townhall not in their district and then lying that she is a doctor
The original text:
Some attendees at the meeting spoke in favor of the plan, go so far as to want a system where the government had complete control.
One supporter, Dr. Roxana Mayer, a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee’s district, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system.
“I don’t know what there is in the bill that creates such panic,” she said.
Another supporter, Robbie Evans, concurred: “The United States pays more for health care than all the other industrial countries put together.”
The revised text:
Some attendees at the meeting spoke in favor of the plan, go so far as to want a system where the government had complete control.
One supporter, Roxana Mayer, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system.
“I don’t know what there is in the bill that creates such panic,” she said.
Mayer identified herself as a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee’s district. However, her name does not appear in the database maintained by the Texas Medical Board, which licenses all doctors in Texas.
Oh snap!
An African-American man has pleaded guilty after being accused of impersonating a white supremacist in a fictitious Facebook account to make death threats against an African-American university student.
A Mississippi man admitted creating a false Facebook profile in November.
Dyron L. Hart, 20, of Poplarville, Mississippi, pleaded guilty Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt to one count of communicating threats in interstate commerce, according to a Department of Justice statement.
Hart admitted creating the fictitious account in November, pretending to be a white supremacist outraged by the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president, the statement said.
He then transmitted a death threat via Facebook to an African-American student at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, saying he wanted to kill African-Americans because of Obama’s election, according to the statement.
cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/13/facebook.racial.threat/index.html
wonder why my posts showing acorn and OFA busing in folks to Specters and Obama’s townhall meetings that are not from those districts, disappears from this site when I hit submit?
oh well here’s some more facts that makes this so called tea party conferece call look pale in comparssion to the left sending out the union thugs to assualt opponents.
This makes me sick and to think you folks ignore this and go on and on about the evil republicans when it’s the party you support that is everything you claim about your opponents!
a pastor and labor organizer, was part of the Service Employees International Union’s presence at Carnahan’s Aug. 6 event in Mehlville.
Earlier this year, McCowan was the Green Party’s candidate for mayor, losing to Democrat Francis Slay by a wide margin. Now, McCowan is at the center of a much dissected — and much disputed — dust-up involving conservative activist Kenneth Gladney.
McCowan was booked on misdemeanor assault charges. The SEIU had planned a press conference today to “to set the record straight” on the scuffle, but the event was canceled.
Elston K. McCowan is a former organizer – now the Public Service Director of SEIU Local 2000 – and board member of the Walbridge Community Education Center, and is a Baptist minister, has been a community organizer for more than 23 years, and now, he is running for Mayor of the City of St. Louis under the Green Party.
I love these people who twist the constitution for their own purposes. All of the framers of the constitution had their own ideas about what it meant. But they used the English language to write it and the preamble is pretty clear. The constitution says that we the people are supposed to be in this all together. Not seperate individuals fighting each other for resources. They knew that the only way for us to survive was to take care of each other. That what was an injustice to one was an injustice to all. The very idea that 1/6th of our economy is based on part of the population using the pain and suffering of another part to get rich is just plain against the constitution and what it stands for. Any health care system that will bankrupt a person, steal all their assets, in exchange for their life is evil. We may have the best health care but the system that distributes it is corrupt and needs to be changed. Instead of worrying about your own situation maybe you should worry about your fellow Americans. We are all in this together. We the People!
producer | August 14th, 2009 at 02:25 am
wonder why my posts showing acorn and OFA busing in folks to Specters and Obama’s townhall meetings that are not from those districts, disappears from this site when I hit submit?
—
Sensorship?
Acorn/OFA=DNC must keep followers uninformed about the truth.
Showing that they are the ones organizing and sending the paid astroturfers to a townhalls outside of their district who contridict all the claims they are making that average americans are really evil-mongering paid RNC operatives.
We can’t have Obama looking bad and since Acorn was bused in for his townhall meeting would not look good.
Reform that does not address TORT or illegals (which caused so many hospitals in Cali to go bankrupt) are addressed. If those 2 things aren’t at the top of the list it is NOT reform.
Bintampa are you calling our founding fathers liars?
I will borrow what producer posted and his question.
Why did the government wait until 1930 to issue welfare checks if according to you this was the plan from the beginning. You are the one twisting the US constitution for your own agenda to take from hard working taxpayers and give to those who can’t or won’t take care of themselves. The American people do take care of each other and don’t want the government taking care of us because like most things they are incompetent and nothing more than a debt machine with failed policies.
So again who’s twisting you or James Madison?
“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
-James Madison
Exactly Lilli! They are not trying to push reform they are pushing their agenda to grab more power and control the American citizens daily life even down to what we eat!
First:
“They” are not a party or group – this call doesn’t represent me or anyone else but the group on the call.
Second:
Senator Jim Demint, Arthur Laffer and several others have been advocating PATIENT CENTERED reform for a long time. Nice try, but “We” have really good alternatives you should consider.
Representative Boehner,
Please stop referring to Democrat’s “government takeover of health care legislation”. It is disengenuous on your part since the Republican party has abdicated any responsibility for the task of bringing critically needed health reform to the U.S. In March 2009, Medicare/Medicaid Trustees warned Congress of the urgency; the introduction of comprehensive, systemic health care reform and cost reduction in 2009 was essential to protect the US economy.
Unmoved by the state of the US economy, the Republican party is twice on public record communicating an obstructionist stance against President Obama on health reform and best intention to derail and block any reform from being passed in 2009:
In an August 11 Politico.com post by Glenn Thrush, “Conservative goal: No health reform at all?”, which reported “Despite universal lip service to the idea that there should be some health care reform, some conservative activists are admitting that the goal is no bill at all. In a conference call of conservative groups, including the National Tax Limitation Committee, the American Liberty Alliance, the “Tea Party Patriots” and others, organizers encouraged their members to pressure Republican negotiators like Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine to stop negotiating not to back any compromise health reform bill in the Senate, according to notes from an AFL-CIO official who listened in on the call.”
Ira N. Forman, Executive Director, National Jewish Democratic Counsel, wrote in TPM on July 20: “The theory that the Republican Party of 2009 has any interest in public policy was destroyed over the past 24 hours. Sensing that the momentum for health care reform has slowed, one GOP talking head spoke about the biggest domestic reform in decades using the most brazen partisan and cynical terms. Senator Jim DeWitt (R-SC) joyfully told a conservative group, “If we are able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” The Republican Party has a long way to go beyond just being the party of “no”. These last 24 hours is just a taste of the party they’ve become.”