Says, Who? Mr President, not the American people
There he goes again, bound and determined to force the American people to buy something we clearly don’t want. The President took the airwaves to tell us that that a health care “overhaul must go forward.” Gosh, these guys don’t give up.
Who says it must go forward?
Not the American people. Support for the Democrats’ proposed health care overhaul polls worse that did John McCain in October 2008 and no better than Bob Dole did twelve years earlier, and behind Michael Dukakis in 1988, but about even with Walter Mondale in 1984.
More than just being unenthusiastic about the Democrats’ statist approach to health care, we’d also rather they turn their focus to other issues: “Americans overwhelmingly say that their main concern is jobs, and that they are satisfied with their current health care arrangements.” Yet, the Democrats have devoted more legislative hours and the President has devoted more of his time to pushing health care.
Maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing. Democrats think that they only way to create jobs is to spend more government money–and not to remove regulations which would spark private sector activity.
It’s too bad the president learned nothing from the health care summit on Thursday. Had he paid any attention, he would have put forward a compromise approach and abandoned the statist overhaul crafted in Congress, starting afresh by building on the ideas expressed on both sides of the debate.
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A thought that occurred to me recently. It was very easy for Europe to go for socialism, since for centuries most Europeans were serfs. Those hard scrapple Americans never were, came over here, worked hard, it was all about freedom and no overlord.
So the fact that the Dems think they can corral us into being Europeans just isn’t going to work.
Btw, all immigrants from other parts of the globe came for the same reason. Sure a large number of Africans were brought here against their will, but in the last 100 years we see many immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean and they aren’t being brought over in shackles.
Comment by Leah — February 27, 2010 @ 12:41 pm - February 27, 2010
People can’t get a job if they’re sick.
Let’s say I’m a guy who walks everywhere. Why should I have to pay for the Interstate highways? Well, maybe because the the steak I’m eating got to the grocery store on a truck which drove on the Interstate.
If I’m young and healthy, why should I have to buy health insurance? Because it would lower premiums for the fat and old person who runs the store where you buy your condoms. The young and healthy benefit if they pitch in so the old and fat can afford health care.
The fact that a health care mandate isn’t currently popular doesn’t make it wrong. This could be a case where the President knows that, in the end, it will be a better country if everyone has to buy health insurance. I protested the war in Iraq, but as sad as I am about the loss of troops there, I have to admit that Bush got the job done and Iraq is a better place. The President, in that case, went against popular sentiment, and this might be a time for The President to do it again.
Comment by Ashpenaz — February 27, 2010 @ 1:24 pm - February 27, 2010
the argument that the government is out of line by forcing you to buy something you don’t want is a bit disingenuous. that’s all well and good if you don’t want health insurance and think you’re invincible, but the truth is that no one knows if he or she will get hurt or need medical care. if you don’t have health insurance and then you break your leg, the emergency room isn’t going to turn you away. so who pays for all those expenses if you can’t afford it? we all do. a recent study found that the average family that has health insurance pays an extra $1000 a year in health care costs for that very reason. allowing people to skip out essentially allows some people to game the system (in an inefficient manner, btw).
furthermore, in order for the system to work and to be able to bring down premiums for the majority of americans, we need young, healthy (read: cheap to cover) people to buy into the system. the mandate is basically the only way we can effectively spread the risk and costs of the system. and before you yell “SOCIALISM,” please understand how insurance works. the entire premise of insurance is to spread the risk.
i wasn’t all too happy about the idea of a mandate without a public option at first, but the more research i’ve done, the more i’ve become convinced of its necessity. of course, health experts agree that the most efficient way to cover everyone is with a single payer system, but lord knows that’s not going to happen in this country.
oh, and one more thing. this notion that the democrats are going to “go nuclear” and “use reconciliation to alter 1/6 of the economy” is also disingenuous. the house and senate already passed their respective bills (and the senate did so with the 60-vote threshold needed to kill the filibuster). as i would hope you know, the two chambers now need to find a way to reconcile the two bills. the way they seem to be wanting to do it is to have the house pass the senate bill in its entirety so as to avoid a new vote in the senate. this bill would then be the law. however, the senate would then make a few changes — most of which you guys agree with: getting rid of the ridiculous and disgraceful nebraska buy off, the “louisiana purchase” as you guys call it, etc. this last step would be done via reconciliation because it would, indeed, involve mostly budgetary measures.
Comment by bob (aka boob) — February 27, 2010 @ 1:29 pm - February 27, 2010
“oh, and one more thing. this notion that the democrats are going to “go nuclear” and “use reconciliation to alter 1/6 of the economy” is also disingenuous”
Nailed it.
Disingenuous attacks is the heart of modern conservative argument.
Listen to their arguments on Medicare, look at their actions.
Listen to their arguments on the stimulus while they fight for the money because they know it will help their economies back home.
Listen to their arguments on spending, then look at their record.
Listen to their arguments against reconciliation then look at how many times they used it.
If they were consistent, that would be one thing. But they are only consistently hypocritical
Comment by gillie — February 27, 2010 @ 1:42 pm - February 27, 2010
um, bob, the individual mandate means gov’t is forcing us to buy something–oh, and, how can insurance companies bring down costs when the gov’t won’t allow the insurance industry to use actuarial tables to determine costs, limiting the cost differential between individual groups.
And gillie, fascinating how all you do is attack conservatives in general, without addressing the particular points in the post to which you attach your comment.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — February 27, 2010 @ 1:48 pm - February 27, 2010
GPW says: “um, bob, the individual mandate means gov’t is forcing us to buy something”
no shit. do show me where i said otherwise.
Comment by bob (aka boob) — February 27, 2010 @ 1:52 pm - February 27, 2010
bob, this is how you began your comment, “the argument that the government is out of line by forcing you to buy something you don’t want is a bit disingenuous.” How is that disingenuous? Please explain.
Now, please address the point of the post to which you attach your comment, instead of use the space we provide you to continue you regular rants against the right. The point of the post is that the American people don’t want the health care overhaul Obama is selling. And please, pay attention to this blog. I have long since abandoned GPW.
It’s unfortunate you lack the ability to recognize what’s going on on a blog where you spent a good portion of your waking hours.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — February 27, 2010 @ 2:02 pm - February 27, 2010
i said the argument that the mandate is “out of line” is disingenuous. i then went on to explain my reasoning, which you apparently didn’t read very carefully. i never said that the bill doesn’t require people to purchase insurance.
moron.
Comment by bob (aka boob) — February 27, 2010 @ 2:06 pm - February 27, 2010
If they wanted to force everyone to buy health insurance then why a 2,000 page bill to do it? There are far more reasons for that bill and it is to start taxing people right now, destroy the insurance industry and create new federal departments to run things. Then it says the gov’t will subsidize those who can’t afford insurance, meaning the taxpayers will pay for it. In MA health insurance premiums went up with everyone in the system – why is that? This bill is a disaster. Insurance is expensive in NY due to govt interference in mandating over 50 items they must cover thereby raising the costs. And of course the massive fraud in Medicare, everyone knows it except the govt doesnt audit or monitor the payments.
Comment by Krystal — February 27, 2010 @ 2:25 pm - February 27, 2010
So our resident Hitler fan argues the Government has the right to order someone to buy something. Why am I not surprised?
Then gillie spouts off, again with no substantiave attacks.
So the Government can force me to pay for not only my insurance but the insurance of everyone else in the Cornhusker Kickback?
Comment by The_Livewire — February 27, 2010 @ 2:28 pm - February 27, 2010
If you really Ol’ Big Ears, Stretch Pelosi and Harry “the body” Reed are concerned about your healthcare, you are dangerously naive. These are big gubmint, ACLU, neo-socialists who want POWER, POWER & POWER. Centralized power. Government making the big decisions in life. Oh don’t worry the Obami will allow you to decide what clothes to buy (but not what food you should eat) but the Ivy League Elite will make all the big decisions.
No mind you, there are Americans who are comfortable with that. Perhaps about 30%, no more. What Leah said in the 1st comment is essentially correct.
Americans are different because we have a different tradition (except Leah thinks slaves were brought here just 100 yrs ago. Leah, slave ships were stopped in the early 1800s). The reason why the US has prospered so much more than other nations is we had a smaller, central government, which allowed people maximum individual liberty – to succeed or fail. But in today’s electronic, 24/7 media, economic inequities can not be tolerated, everyone must be the same, that is the liberal mentality.
The Obami will fail….two-thirds of Americans correct size him up for what he is – a race hustling, big government, anti-American socialist, who want’s government over-seers to centrally plan everything, to pick winners and loser in the market place. His big policy initiatives are all going up in smoke.
One term wonder.
Comment by gsr — February 27, 2010 @ 2:38 pm - February 27, 2010
Uncle Sam can have my insurance premium, when he pries it from my cold, dead hands.
Comment by Brendan In Philly — February 27, 2010 @ 2:52 pm - February 27, 2010
Bob’s arguement is even more absurd when you look at it.
Surely it’s not unreasonable…
To force you to avoid meat, since heart disese is so prevelent,
To force you to abstain from alcohol, to keep down costs from DUIs and injuries
To force you to work x hours of community service, since they allready seize part of your income to buy insurance in his example.
To force you to abstain from sex, because of the risk of disease.
To force the woman deemed ‘unfit’ by the state to submit to sterilization, because others pay for her children…
Comment by The_Livewire — February 27, 2010 @ 4:09 pm - February 27, 2010
To LiveWire — the progressives already did that in the early 20th century – forcibly sterilize women they deemed genetically unfit (poor) – I believe it was covered in a book called War on the Weak. Eugenics was and is big among the “progressives”.
Comment by Krystal — February 27, 2010 @ 4:22 pm - February 27, 2010
The kids movie, “Coraline”, makes me think of Progressives and other statist movements. Coraline is a little girl who is unhappy with her life and is lured to a world where everything is “perfect”. Her new mom gives her everything she wants and all is good until Coraline finds out new mom wants to take her soul and control her. Her new mom just keeps saying how she wants to love Coraline. Progressives = New Mom.
Comment by Az Mo — February 27, 2010 @ 4:47 pm - February 27, 2010
Bob, go fu*k yourself. Even with over a year to rehearse and refine your talking points (and a pathetic command directly from the White House to slobber them all over conservative talk radio programs: http://radio.barackobama.com/), you still can’t manage to sell it to the rest of us. And it’s not because of Republican “obstructionism” or racism or the health insurer’s lobby. It’s because the plan is a total f-ing disaster, and you either know that it is (which makes you one of Obama’s slack-jawed flying monkeys) or you really think Obamacare is a fantastic idea that’s going to deliver premium healthcare to every man, woman, and child in North America and save us oodles of money hand-over-fist (which makes you a hopelessly deluded imbecile that the rest of us should pity and pray for).
Bob, as long as I can remember, the Left has been bitching and moaning about the US healthcare system and claiming that none of us should be able to sleep at night knowing that millions and millions of Americans have no health insurance (or, as you types usually call it “healthcare”). You claim that these helpless masses can’t afford it because of the cost of the premiums, but that adding 40-50 million beneficiaries to the mix will bring the cost of premiums down so low that EVERYONE will then be able to afford it. Whoopeee! Am I missing something? I thought these poor millions upon millions of people couldn’t afford jack sh*t? Suddenly all of them are going to be chomping at the bit to buy health insurance? Really? All of them? None of them? Some of them? Could you just please save us some time and admit that you really don’t have a fu*king clue as to how many will suddenly be contributing to “the system” and how many will end up staying the same, freeloading, useless drains-on-society they have always been? You have NO idea. But if you think you can figure it out, I suggest you start with the crucial fact that unemployment is currently at about 10 percent (and higher in many states). Can we at least safely assume that those people will go into the “non-contributing” column?
Now let’s just factor that “variable” into your idiotic hypothetical above. According to you, those of us with health insurance are currently paying around a thousand bucks extra because of uninsured people going to the emergency room with broken legs. You indicate that this dude with the broken leg is basically “gaming the system” because the rest of us are paying for his broken leg treatments. You then assume that by adding millions and millions of people paying into the system, this guy will now be able to afford health insurance, right? Are you sure about that? In your hypothetical, why doesn’t the guy have insurance for his broken leg in the first place? Is he poor? Unemployed? Mentally disabled? Is it possible that if he had a 40-inch plasma TV instead of a 60-inch plasma TV, he could afford health insurance? You don’t really know for sure do you, Bob? It could be any one of those reasons I listed. However, your genius plan isn’t concerned with that. What you’re really interested in doing is not only treating this hypothetical uninsured patient for his broken leg, but to go ahead and give him an EKG, full-body scan, colonoscopy, lasic surgery, throat culture, H1N1 vaccination, and (what the hell…) liposuction as well. Maybe he’ll be one of those paying into the system. Maybe he won’t. In your world, it makes no difference. The only thing that matters is that we all just pretend that the whole mess is going to save us billions and billions of dollars.
Bob, there is a reason (in addition to pathological incompetence) that Obama and his statist-controlled Congress haven’t managed to get this detestable, 2000+-page bill passed in over a year. Ummm, it sucks. Go try to sell it on the air to Rush Limbaugh or Laura Ingraham (you can get their call-in numbers from the White House’s handy-dandy website). And like I said, go FU*K yourself.
Comment by Sean A — February 27, 2010 @ 5:11 pm - February 27, 2010
Krystal,
Yes, I know.
unfortunately people like bob and Levi are more than willing to send us down the path again.
Comment by The_Livewire — February 27, 2010 @ 6:10 pm - February 27, 2010
Bob, you forgot to add the part where you are a concerned Christian conservative. Otherwise, Axelrod would be very proud. Keep up the good work, there are so many blogs and so little time. Teh Won said you only have six more weeks to push this shit.
Comment by dr kill — February 27, 2010 @ 7:15 pm - February 27, 2010
if you don’t have health insurance and then you break your leg, the emergency room isn’t going to turn you away. so who pays for all those expenses if you can’t afford it? we all do. a recent study found that the average family that has health insurance pays an extra $1000 a year in health care costs for that very reason.
And under the Barack Obama plan, in which everyone will be forced to buy the most expensive comprehensive coverage, they’ll pay $2000 per year more.
This is what you don’t understand, boob. Right now, those costs are only incurred when a) people get injured and b) when said people don’t have insurance. In both cases, you’re not paying unless that person NEEDS medical care.
Under the Barack Obama “plan”, you pay whether that person needs medical care or not. Even if they never break their leg, you’re still paying as if they had to cover the eventuality.
The problem here, boob, is that ignorant fools like yourself and Obama have lived on welfare your entire life and thus have no concept of what things cost. You don’t pay taxes. You live off a welfare check. For you, the government is one giant ATM, spitting out money so that you don’t have to work.
Those of us in the real world are thoroughly sick and tired of lazy people like yourself and your Barack Obama who contribute nothing and continue to whine like spoiled children that we need to pay for you to breathe.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — February 27, 2010 @ 10:21 pm - February 27, 2010
As I read more of the posts here, there is one thing clearly missing. Yes, there are many many problems with the Obama Administration… However, I do not see any solutions coming from the Republican side. All I hear is whining from them – sounding a lot like Democrats. This is one of the two main reasons why the GOP loses out – they are quick to point out what is wrong with the Democrats’ solutions but offer very few solutions of their own.
Imagine if real Republicans aka true Conservatives spent our energy on finding solutions to problems instead of focusing on what the President is doing wrong – what awesomeness could be achieved.
Comment by James Younce — February 28, 2010 @ 12:32 am - February 28, 2010
James, at the health care summit, the Republicans did indeed offer some solutions. And they’re listed on various websites, including that of the White House.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — February 28, 2010 @ 12:46 am - February 28, 2010
#20: “However, I do not see any solutions coming from the Republican side.”
Then you aren’t looking, James. Republicans have proposed ALL of the measures that will slash the costs associated with healthcare insurance premiums–tort reform, insurance portability between jobs, permitting health insurers to sell policies across state lines, etc.–but the Democrats AREN’T INTERESTED because their objective is to create a massive federal bureaucracy that they can control and exploit every election cycle. So, their strategy is to pretend that none of these proposals exist and that the GOP is “the party of NO” and that all Republicans can do is criticize Obama, and on and on and on. It’s GARBAGE. It’s nothing but liberal propaganda designed to keep Americans in the dark about what is actually in their 2000-page bill. Clearly it has worked like a charm on you.
“Imagine if real Republicans aka true Conservatives spent our energy on finding solutions to problems instead of focusing on what the President is doing wrong – what awesomeness could be achieved.”
You know what would be really, really awesome, James? If you…I dunno…typed out a search on Google or something and maybe, well, uhm, bothered to get yourself up to speed on what Republicans have actually been doing with regard to healthcare reform for over a year instead of just parroting exactly what Obama has said they have been doing. How does that sound? Just imagine the awesomeness of thinking for yourself.
Comment by Sean A — February 28, 2010 @ 1:14 am - February 28, 2010
However, I do not see any solutions coming from the Republican side.
Of course not.
Now, James, since you are obviously not a concern troll and certainly not merely a paid Axelrod shill, you’ll be able to tell us everything that you think is awesome about that bill and how the fact that the Obama Party opposed every bit of it shows their intransigence and unwillingness to listen to anything other than complete statist takeover of the health care system.
Or, more likely, Barack Obama’s astroturf attempts through his lobotomized acolytes just backfired and we’ll never see you again.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — February 28, 2010 @ 2:49 am - February 28, 2010
Who? Who are these much vaunted “health experts”???
And why is it people keep running to the “health experts” for their opinions? More often than not, the doctors are the ones who know the LEAST about billing, insurance and where there money comes from or goes to. In Houston, my mom was a freelance medical office manager. She would go to work for various clinics to audit their books and make sure the billing was done correctly and that insurance companies were paying.
It’s the medical office managers whom Washington SHOULD be talking to.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — February 28, 2010 @ 5:58 am - February 28, 2010
Please explain how insurance works to Il Douche:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmo1rATDE00&feature=player_embedded
Comment by ThatGayConservative — February 28, 2010 @ 6:05 am - February 28, 2010
Which study was that and why do both Politifact and FactCheck both say it’s closer to $200??? I’d be interested in you explaining it to us.
Let’s be honest, ghillie:
http://tinyurl.com/ybnkaqz
Emphasis mine. And you ass hats should know by now that just ’cause Harry gReid (D, 35%) says it ain’t gonna happen doesn’t mean that it ain’t.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — February 28, 2010 @ 6:17 am - February 28, 2010
“fascinating how all you do is attack conservatives in general, without addressing the particular points in the post to which you attach your comment.”
I was responding to a comment. How is that a problem?
I also I provided 4 specific examples of the disingenuous modern conservative. one of them – reconciliation – is the heart of your post.
So I am not sure what your problem is…
Comment by gillie — February 28, 2010 @ 9:19 am - February 28, 2010
Sean A. Why do you have to be a smartass? If I’ve missed recent solutions from the GOP I apologize. But read the first couple of pages on this blog. Most of what I find are attacks on the current Admin instead of discussion about these solutions. Where’s the blog post on these recent GOP proposals?
Comment by James Younce — February 28, 2010 @ 9:44 am - February 28, 2010
North Dallas Thirty. I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I do not agree with the current bill nor did I vote for Obama. I believe there was a proposal by the Conservative Republican caucus in the very beginning – a year ago maybe – that I thought was great, unfortunately it never got anywhere. And I voted for Barr.
Your response just backs up my assertion that lots of folks would rather point out whats wrong instead of telling us how they would fix it.
Comment by James Younce — February 28, 2010 @ 9:49 am - February 28, 2010
[...] Gay Patriot is asking Obama exactly who is say health system destruction must go forward [...]
Pingback by Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove — February 28, 2010 @ 10:20 am - February 28, 2010
James,
I’ll be kind and assume you misspoke initialy when you said, “However, I do not see any solutions coming from the Republican side,” since several solutions have been proposed.
But this, “Your response just backs up my assertion that lots of folks would rather point out whats wrong instead of telling us how they would fix it.” Seems to indicate otherwise.
There are several different options, but the Democrats only want their own. So who really is the party of no?
gillie doesn’t seem to understand what reconciliation is for. Then again, that doesn’t surprise me.
Comment by The_Livewire — February 28, 2010 @ 11:22 am - February 28, 2010
#28: “Sean A. Why do you have to be a smartass?”
Did I come off as a smartass in my comment, James? I’m sorry, I was actually shooting for “contemptuous disgust.” My bad.
“If I’ve missed recent solutions from the GOP I apologize…Where’s the blog post on these recent GOP proposals?”
James, cut the sh*t. You’re obviously a “concern troll,” and a hopelessly transparent one at that. Am I wrong? Or did you really just come to this site honestly seeking information about “recently recent proposals and recently proposed solutions that the GOP recently proposed related to the recent healthcare reform debate being discussed recently in recent news”?
Troll, there is nothing “recent” about these proposals and you know it. The Republicans have been shut out of this debate from the beginning and have been left to do nothing but shout these logical, reasonable proposals to the rafters of Congress while Obama has spent a year with his hand cocked to his ear saying, “what’s that?! I can’t hear you?! Huh?!” The GOP proposals would ACTUALLY cut costs and ACTUALLY protect individuals’ healthcare decisions from federal bureaucrats, so Obama can’t be on the record rejecting them or he will be exposed as the power-hungry statist that he is. Thus, the Democrats have been pretending all year that the GOP has proposed NOTHING.
“But read the first couple of pages on this blog. Most of what I find are attacks on the current Admin instead of discussion about these solutions.”
There’s nothing to discuss, James. The liberals have spent a year pretending that the GOP proposals don’t exist. They had their kabuki photo-op where Obama pretended to be bipartisan, and today the Democrats are all over the Sunday news shows saying exactly what we predicted. They’re going to pass whatever they want and that’s the end of it. So, of course we attack the administration. Obama and his lackeys are a bunch of lying scumbags. They deserve nothing but our contempt.
But you already know all of this, don’t you James? You’re just doing your part as one of Obama’s volunteer performing monkeys—going from blog to blog, and talk radio show to talk radio show, typing your vapid lines that read like:
“Well, goooooolleeeeeee, folks! There sure does seem to be a whole lotta’ GOPers complainin’ around here and nobody seems to be wantin’ to tell our bipartisan President just how they would fix it. Those Republicans shoooooore are a negative bunch! Well, how do ya like that?! I guess it’s only fair that we call them the ‘party of no’! See ya later everybody!”
Cut. Print. That’s a wrap, James. You have sufficiently registered your feigned bewilderment about the GOP offering Americans nothing but criticism of the current administration. Now go away.
Comment by Sean A — February 28, 2010 @ 11:44 am - February 28, 2010
Let’s get some facts on the table.
1) You can not have the greatest health care for everyone with no limits whatsoever.
2) Insurance is strictly setting odds. Insurance companies are major investors in the market. They pay dividends, salaries and bonuses.
2a) When you take health insurance company “profits” and apply them to health care market costs, they would pay for less than a week of “free” national health care. Being generous, that is less than a .019% effect on health care costs. But, they still make good whipping posts.
3) Hospitals take cash patients, insurance patients, Medicare and Medicaid patients and non-paying patients. They take non-paying patients because it is required by law.
4) Costs for the hospital are spread across the bills of those who pay through cash, insurance or Medicare and Medicaid. A major cost in medical care is malpractice insurance. (See #2 above.)
5) Medicare and Medicaid pay a set price and only a fraction of the hospital cost. (Think 60% of the bill.) Therefore, the hospital has to get the Medicare and Medicaid short payment from insurance and people who (See: 6a) pay cash. The hospital also has to cover the costs of non-payers from the same sources. (Medicare and Medicaid are notoriously slow in paying and for not paying at all due so some regulatory catch-22. They are every bit as hard to deal with as any health insurance company when it comes to denying claims.)
6) The health insurance industry must have functioning hospitals in order to cover the health care of their policy holders. Therefore, the health insurance companies actually build the Medicare and Medicaid shortfalls to the hospitals and non-payer costs to the hospital into their premiums.
To be clear, the insured carry the costs of the non-payers and the short payments from Medicare and Medicaid. (The grocery store also charges the customer for shop lifting, spoilage, etc.)
6a) Believe it or not, but cash payments to hospitals will carry up to a 40% discount, since cash payers are billed at levels of Medicare and Medicaid payments. Therefore, the insured also pay premiums that cover a portion of the bills cash payers actually do not pay.
7) A true “single-payer” plan is pure medical welfare. You show up for treatment, you get treated, you pay nothing. The “government” pays the bill. Of course, the government gets the money through taxation which might fall equally on everyone, but likely falls heavier on the rich and lightly or not at all on the poor.
8a) If you had a medical savings account, you would ration your own medical care.
8b) When you buy health insurance, the policy spells out the coverage and the limitations. Cheap, low quality insurance provides cheap, low quality coverage.
8c) If you turn medical care over to the government, a panel decides who gets what.
9) “Insurance reform” is a BS term. AIG failed because it could not cover the risks it assumed. It was “bailed out” because it was “too big to fail.” Blue Cross/Anthem can be regulated to fail, because it will be forced to assume risk it is not allowed to finance.
10) “Mandated” insurance will have a short term influx of cash, but it will shortly disappear as the system absorbs the cash.
11) Ultimately, all of Obamacare is aimed at #7.
12) 5% of the population (the chronically ill) spend 50% of the money spent in the health care portion of the economy.
13) Efficiency can always lower some costs, but the free market does a good job of weeding out inefficiency in the process of building productivity and lowering costs.
14) The primary cap on health care costs is coercion. Somehow, some way decisions are made about who gets what and how much.
15) No matter what, coercion is a bureaucratic process whether insurance companies do it by actuarial tables or faceless government panels write rules.
16) These are the economic rules. To pretend otherwise is to change the realities of mathematics. There are no “free” lunches.
17) Under national health care, the rich will get their treatment in another country and the rest of us will troop through highly regulated clinics.
Comment by heliotrope — February 28, 2010 @ 11:52 am - February 28, 2010
Sean A. I have no idea what a ‘concern troll’ is. I have Gay Patriot on my Google Reader & I usually just skim through. But an article about the Tea Party movement caught my eye – mostly because just recently I tried to get more informed about oue local KY Tea Party, but found out Dr Frank Simon head of the American Family Association is also the leader of the KY Tea Party. In any event, I browsed thru the rest of the articles, & just found mostly anti-Dem stuff. If I wanted that kind of fluff I could listen to Rush.
I’ve been a registered Libertarian for the past 3 years now, but Ive found the leadership very lacking. I looked at Outright Libertarians but their more into themselves than the movement. So I began looking for other fiscal conservative – small govt groups. I found Gay Patriot & the new breakoff group Go Proud.
I’d really like to see real conservatives take the Republican party back. Maybe Palin can be persuaded back from the Tea Party & we could have some real change.
I left the Dems long before Obama, but I can guarantee you that there are thousands of Democratic gays looking for a new political home. If this attitude is the best you have to offer, I am certain you wont see your numbers grow.
I hope that politically polarized extremists such as yourself, Rush, etc get pulled off your podiums & real conservatives take back the party & the voice of Republicans.
Comment by James Younce — February 28, 2010 @ 2:37 pm - February 28, 2010
James, you seem to want desperately to shift the topic. Here is Dan’s premise:
Get it? Who says it must go forward?
Now you show up demanding
How do you segue from “who says it must go forward” to “telling us how they would fix it”?
It has been Obama’s single-minded obsession to pass nationalized health care. We are not required to offer a Republican-lite version of his obsession.
But, here are my suggestions.
1.) Hold open hearings and try to delineate the problems to be addressed.
2.) Hold open hearings on various solutions to the problems identified.
3.) Slog it all out in the court of public opinion.
4.) Let the CBO “score” all the solutions without their hands tied by trickery, insisting on rosy scenarios or double entry bookkeeping.
5.) Take a stand.
Get the picture? Transparency, hearings on C-Span, nothing off the table, everybody has a seat at the table, grown-ups act like statesmen.
Sorry you chose to waste your time on Bob Barr. Sorry you are too smart for Rush Limbaugh. Sorry you haven’t posted your solutions, because you and Bob Barr must really be adept at seeing through the haze of party politics. We all need your clear, laser-like vision. Bring it on.
Comment by heliotrope — February 28, 2010 @ 3:14 pm - February 28, 2010
You segue by realizing that people want more than just to know that Obama’s healthcare plan is wrong. We hear that 100′s of times a day. What doesn’t make it to the front are the alternatives. And you’re right – I dont want Republican-lite versions of solutions. I’d like to hear real conservative solurions such as grassroots efforts to get people to stop buying healthcare services just because they have insurance. How about educating & getting people to realize that prevention measures will drive down healthcare prices. What about getting people to droptheir insurance & buy into car-like health insurance where it only covers catastrophes not oil changes or minor bumps & bruises? The GOP has spent gobs of time on trying to get prayer into schools – can they not spend as much time on making physical activity a requirement? They continue to protest gay marriage, yet allowing it would enable more americans access to healthcare. Why cant we shut down Medicare & SocSec? Maybe more of us could afford more health coverage if tge govts hand wasnt continuously in our pocket.
I find very little use in hashing out the Democrats plan. We know what it is & we know what it will be – more taxes, more inefficiency, more govt, etc.
What we should be talking about are plans that the conservatives can offer which will provide some answers for the problems, win with the public, & may sway others across the fence to agree with common sense and logic.
Comment by James Younce — February 28, 2010 @ 3:40 pm - February 28, 2010
James,
I agree with you on substantial parts of your comments above. My points in #33 above are the reality of our situation. I have seen a number of realistic plans offered by conservatives to help cut through the fog of “health care reform.” Until there is a platform open to considering those ideas, we have no recourse but to fight The Won. Everything he hears from the conservative side he brushes off as “talking points.”
So be it. We simply have to reorganize and keep at it. Medicare/Medicaid is broken and bankrupt. Social Security is broken and bankrupt. Unfunded mandates on the states have driven them into the ground. Unfunded entitlement liabilities means we operated deep in the red even if the budget is “balanced.” The Fed is buying our unsold bonds with money it prints for the purchase. Meanwhile, the Democrats want to top all of this off with nationalized health care they will pay for with unicorn gas and fairy dust. (Obama will not sign a health care bill unless there is some budgetary slight of hand to create the illusion that it doesn’t add to the deficit.)
Hopefully, the country can be forced to face the facts of economic collapse. Even the UAW knows better than to take over General Motors and figure out how to fund their saprophytic retirement plan. GM was a retirement plan with an auto company. The UAW knows that formula has only one solution and they reject it along with any other serious discussion of stopping the hemorrhaging.
There is little practical difference between the sad facts of GM and our entitlements, except GM could conceivably recover.
Look at the Democrats. They not only demagogue anything resembling bitter medicine, they work like fiends to pile more unfunded entitlements on top of the crushing weight of their past socialistic handiwork.
No liberal, even the Nobel Prize NYT economist/columnist, can draw a simple road map for how Marxism works. “From each/to each” is a wonderful fairy tale, but nowhere, ever has it come remotely close to actually working.
Comment by heliotrope — February 28, 2010 @ 5:26 pm - February 28, 2010
But you haven’t provided any examples of what the liberals have done to correct them. If Bush’s Medicare reform was so horrible, why haven’t the liberals done away with it? And Republican spending can’t hold a candle to the spending of Il Douche. I fail to see the alleged hypocrisy other than liberals claiming they can do a better job but actually make things worse.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — February 28, 2010 @ 5:31 pm - February 28, 2010
Helio. Agreed. We’re going to have to get the ideas to the public – on the front page – and hopefully convince them to change the course of this Administration.
Comment by James Younce — February 28, 2010 @ 5:46 pm - February 28, 2010
North Dallas Thirty. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
Yes, it’s pretty obvious that you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
For example, you first started out with this:
However, I do not see any solutions coming from the Republican side.
But then, when you were cornered by myself and Sean, suddenly it changed to this:
I believe there was a proposal by the Conservative Republican caucus in the very beginning – a year ago maybe – that I thought was great, unfortunately it never got anywhere.
So you’re trying to pretend that you support a Republican solution — when you denied that Republicans had ever offered any solutions in the first place.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — February 28, 2010 @ 6:45 pm - February 28, 2010
I’d like to hear real conservative solurions such as grassroots efforts to get people to stop buying healthcare services just because they have insurance.
They’re called co-pays, co-insurance, and deductibles, and they already exist. Add them to Medicare and Medicaid, and that will fix a large part of the problem. Amazingly enough, people are much better about not utilizing services unnecessarily when it actually costs them money to do it.
How about educating & getting people to realize that prevention measures will drive down healthcare prices.
That’s called allowing health insurance companies to set premiums based on health risk factors.
What about getting people to droptheir insurance & buy into car-like health insurance where it only covers catastrophes not oil changes or minor bumps & bruises?
See the two above. Add to that the removal of idiotic state mandates that policies have to include, and you would see the costs start dropping like a stone.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — February 28, 2010 @ 6:53 pm - February 28, 2010
Hmm, I’ll have to disagree with you on the state mandates.
I think a state should be able to mandate coverage on contracts written in their state. While it’s a short term headache it’s a long term benefit for Federalism.
For example Florida requires policies written in their state to cover massage therapists. But with my Ohio policy in Florida it’s not required to cover it. This makes sense to me. It would also allow market forces to work if policies can be bought across state lines. If I want a policy that covers massage therapists I buy it from a company based in FL. If a state gets too funky with their mandates (say, Maine wants to make companies pay for hottubs) then the insurance companies will be just stop writing policies in that state.
Comment by The_Livewire — February 28, 2010 @ 7:14 pm - February 28, 2010
North Dallas. I disagree that the current system is working. I don’t care for the current system mostly because the price for actual services are over-inflated due to the middle man – insurance. I’d be much happier to pay the doc directly – the power of my direct dollar has much more influence over the care I receive much more than the indirect dollars paid by the insurance.
So while I do not want the govt to control any of it or force anything, I do believe we the people need to demand changes in the private sector by changing our behaviour.
Comment by James Younce — February 28, 2010 @ 7:28 pm - February 28, 2010
Maybe because it won’t?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — March 1, 2010 @ 1:02 am - March 1, 2010
I cringe at the thought of building any welfare program on educating people to not take the handout.
All over the world, people age, grow ill and die. Heart transplants and titanium hips are wonderful things, but practically speaking, they are extreme luxuries. We are very much unwilling to face the actual costs of exotic testing and complicated human body repair.
There is an egalitarian spirit among us that the illegal alien mangled in a car wreck should get all the repair and repeated therapy and realignment over time that the insured citizen would get with his high priced insurance coverage.
The Democrats talk about everyone getting the Bethesda Navy Hospital premier care that Congressmen enjoy. That is the ultimate example of denial. It would be so easy to figure the cost of upgrading every medical facility in the country to Bethesda standards and then staffing it accordingly. That would be an insurance premium only 2% of the population could pay. But, hey, under nationalized health care it would be free. What a deal.
I doubt that educating people to practice prevention would lower the cost by any measurable amount. Of course, if we could educate people not to shoot and stab each other and not to stick needles in their bodies and not to drive under the influence and to get someone to hold the ladder and don’t run into each other and dress warmly and eat chicken soup, etc…………
Comment by heliotrope — March 1, 2010 @ 11:21 am - March 1, 2010