For the millions who now have health insurance, who didn't have it before; for the millions of children who were uninsured; for the millions who can no longer be denied care by the insurance companies, it is is working out very well, thank you.

And for the 10s of  millions of Americans that had good coverage but will now be dumped into Obama's ghetto care it won't be all that great.   Oh and the waivers are only for a few years.  If your company has a waiver you will eventually be dumped into Obamacare.

As usual, RP is talking from the clueless position. All of the problems with "Obamacare" were  caused by your side fighting to protect the insurance companies and screw you.

For the millions???  I thought this wasn't even going to be completely in effect until 2014.  I understand that parts of it are in force, with the remainder to come in phases.  But Millions already.  Really?  I won't even begin to ask how many lined up to get free healthcare at my tax expense.  It seems to me that if I am, and always have been, responsible enough to have insurance for myself, why can't everyone else?  I understand that there are some who truly cannot obtain insurance on their own and I suppose our government should have a "rainy day fund" for that.  But there are many who claim they cannot get insurance because they are too poor or too ill to work where it is provided.  How many of these same people can, however, afford their cigarette, alcohol, and/or drug habit?  Just saying. 

side note:  If our government were run by a mother who knows how to balance her household budget, work a full time job, get the kids to all their appointments/ games/etc., help with homework, cook supper, do the laundry, clean the house, work with the PTO and church functions, and still find time to "tend to her husband's needs" then our country would be better off a thousand times over!!!

And another clueless moron ions the discussion. Tinabeth, it is always better if you know what you are talking about rather than just repeating talking points.

I've long stated we need an old nun with a ruler as final arbiter of expenses at each federal department -- resulting in less expensive government and (until aversion therapy sets in) rapped knuckles. 

Dear, Dear jimi.  How funny you should use the words "clueless moron" in your post.  I was just thinking about how it is impossible to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person and then you showed up.  If you will be so kind as to allow me to use another worn-out phrase... please stop drinking the Kool-aid.  My best to you always!

Socialism

Jimi, please post a link showing these millions of uninsured that now have insurance. If we're all cluless morons here's your chance to prove it to us.

I am not your Google. Your avatar tells me that you are an Obama hater. No need to explain anything to you. You aren't interested in reality. You would rather support those who would destroy you than listen to reason.

 But there are many who claim they cannot get insurance because they are too poor or too ill to work where it is provided.  How many of these same people can, however, afford their cigarette, alcohol, and/or drug habit? 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You left out cell phones, internet, and about a thousand other things they can afford besides insurance. I always think of the joke, "they were so poor the baby had to sleep in the box the TV came in." Are there truly needy people in this country? YES!!! And it makes me angry to think of what they have to do without because of the ones demanding "cradle to grave" care and government benefits for no other reason but feeling it is their "right" and we're all duty bound to take care of them. Did you ever hear of someone robbing people to support their "insurance payments"?

More crap from another crapmeister.

So Roland, Et Al,

 Since it is quite apparent that you are opposed to a guvment run healthcare plan, ( I am as well)

 What is your plan to actually tackle the issue of uninsured costs, skyrocketing medical costs, and all the problems associated with these?

 

They don't have a plan, for
this or anything else. Their plan is to screw the middle class and keep profits up for insurance companies.

I'm willing to listen to reason but you're not giving any.

You have clearly demonstrated your position and reason is not in your vocabulary.

You're not giving me anything to reason. Is that by design or lack of ability?

More crap from another crapmeister.

 

Such a lovely reply from a mature, responsible adult.  I assume you are an adult... and yes, I know what assuming does.  You talk about people using the forum as personal attacks, well, here are my thoughts on that (not that YOU really care, but no one really cares about your thoughts either, *see below) : 

1.  You like to use "you", "your kind", "your people".  What?  Are we all a different species or something?  I thought we were first and foremost Americans, human beings who love their country. 

2.  Your comments often tend to have a child-like tone.  Really, who uses the word "crap"?

3.  Why are you always so negative?  You start throwing accusations and negative comments to anyone who doesn't agree with you.

4.  You state that you're not "google" because you can't/won't go find the facts to support your comments but you don't mind blasting us with your supposed facts and figures.  I believe you told me earlier that it is better if I know what I'm talking about than just throwing out talking points.  Okay, if you are so well informed, then share your knowledge and information with the rest of us.

*5.  Why do "WE" even bother to continue any dialogue with you? 

 

*5.  Why do "WE" even bother to continue any dialogue with you?

 

 

Boredom usually.  LOL

 

Trying to have a conversion with jimi is like trying to tell a 5 year old about quantum physics. Everything goes right over his head.  Ooops, is that a personal attack?

It's how he get's his kicks Tina. I like to pull his strings but otherwise don't pay too much attention to him. He's usually full of "crap".....lol

============================================================================

Hello, 1955?  2011 calling....

 

What tinabeth reminds me of:

 

The subservient, I mean good wife, always knows her place.  

 

 

 

Jimi's answer is typical of the leftist agenda....

I got mine, so screw you!!!

As long as a few get what they want in the form of redistribution, we should be happy , I guess....

(A phone and Internet access are both necessary tools for the job search in 2011!  Try to find a job without either of those...as if landing a job in this economy isn't hard enough.)  

 

Why having a cell phone, Internet, cable, etc., has NOTHING to do with affordable health care:

 

Santorum’s Message To People Who Can’t Afford Health Care Costs: Lower Your Cell Phone Bill

 

During a meeting with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register on Friday, Rick Santorum said that people who can’t afford health care should stop whining about the high costs of medical treatments and medications and spend less on non essentials. Answering a question about the uninsured, Santorum explained that health care, like a car, is a luxury resource that is rationed by society and recalled the story of a woman who said she was spending $200 a month on life-saving prescriptions. Santorum told her to stop complaining and instead lower her cable and cell phone bills:

 

SANTORUM: All the other necessities of life, we allow people to have varying degrees of creature comforts, if you will. Why? Because we are people who ration our resources based upon what’s important to us and health care has to be one of those things, which is in the mix of things we make decisions about as to what type of, what kind of money we want to allocate to that.

 

I had a woman the other day who came up and complained to me that she has to pay $200 a month for her prescriptions…I said, in other words, this $200 a month keeps you alive, she goes yes. I said, and you’re complaining that you’re paying $200 a month and it keeps you alive? What’s your cable bill? I mean, what’s your cell phone bill? Because she had a cell phone. And how can you say that you complain that you have $200 to keep you alive and that’s a problem? No, that’s a blessing!

 

But for the majority of Americans, crawling out of medical debt isn’t as simple as changing to a cheaper phone plan. According to a 2007 study, more than 60 percent of all bankruptcies are “actually capsized by medical bills” and most bankruptcy filers are “middle-class, well-educated homeowners” who can probably control their texting addictions. A more recent study published this year found that bankruptcy rates are particularly high among cancer patients, but “much lower for people age 65 and up, who would be eligible for Medicare.”

Buttercup, you must have someone reading this forum and doing the typing for you because you obviously can't read.  Did you see the part where I stated "work a full time job"?  If a woman is an average, well-mannered, educated, good ol' southern gal who lives in our area, she IS and DOES all that I stated.  Welcome to 2011, yourself!  I work 40+ hours a week and still get all that done because it is the normal, human, decent thing to do.  You apparently are more privelaged than I, but when I get in from work, there are things to be done.  Must be nice to go out for dinner every night and not have to cook and/or clean the kitchen.  I suppose your house cleans itself and your clean laundry mysteriously appears in your closet and drawers each day.  Mmm, mmm... must be nice!  Tell me how I can become so lucky.  Oh.  Wait a minute.  If I jump on the Obama wagon, then I can sit back and let everyone else take care of me.  I won't have to work so that should leave me plenty of time to do the housework, unless of course, I'm too strung out to pay attention or even care.  And kids?  What kids?  I think I've got a few of them running around here somewhere but I couldn't really say.  All I know is I get a check for each one of them and that's all that matters.  And helping them with their homework?  That's a laugh!  I can barely read or write myself - how am I going to help them? 

 

Please excuse my rudeness for painting such a picture because I understand that there are plenty of Obama supporters who are nothing like the above.  I know that there are well educated, successful people who are huge fans of his, but I really hear any intelligent information from them.  It's always the questionable ones that rant about the same-o, same-o and never really say anything.  Then of course, there's the Brad Pitt types who are huge supporters but what do they care about a little old health plan?  They've got millions.  What's a few hundred dollars a month to them?

 

Thank you for allowing my time on the soap box.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02...nion/20Dubinsky.html

 

Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

 

THIS isn’t the story of a poor family with a mother who has a dreadful disease that bankrupts them, or with a child who has to go without vital medicines. Unlike many others, my family can afford medical care, with or without insurance.

 

Instead, this is a story about how broken the market for health insurance is, even for those who are healthy and who are willing and able to pay for it.

 

Most employees assume that if they lose their job and the health coverage that comes along with it, they’ll be able to purchase insurance somewhere. The members of Congress who want to repeal the provision of last year’s health insurance law that makes it easier for individuals to buy coverage must assume that uninsured people do not want to buy it, or are just too cheap or too poor to do so.

 

The truth is that individual health insurance is not easy to get.

 

I found this out the hard way. Six years ago, my company was acquired. Since my husband had retired a few years earlier, we found ourselves without an employer and thus without health insurance.

 

My husband, teenage daughter and I were all active and healthy, and I naïvely thought getting health insurance would be simple.

 

Why did we even need insurance? First, we wanted to know that, if we had a medical catastrophe, we would not exhaust our savings. Second, uninsured patients are billed more than the rates that insurers negotiate with doctors and hospitals, and we wanted to pay those lower rates. The difference is significant: my recent M.R.I. cost $1,300 at the “retail” rate, while the rate negotiated by the insurance company was $700.

 

An insurance broker helped me sort through the options. I settled on a high-deductible plan, and filled out the long application. I diligently listed the various minor complaints for which we had been seen over the years, knowing that these might turn up later and be a basis for revoking coverage if they were not disclosed.

 

Then the first letter arrived — denied. It never occurred to me that we would be denied! Yes, we had listed a bunch of minor ailments, but nothing serious. No cancer, no chronic diseases like asthma or diabetes, no hospital stays.

 

Why were we denied? What were these pre-existing conditions that put us into high-risk categories? For me, it was a corn on my toe for which my podiatrist had recommended an in-office procedure. My daughter was denied because she takes regular medication for a common teenage issue. My husband was denied because his ophthalmologist had identified a slow-growing cataract. Basically, if there is any possible procedure in your future, insurers will deny you....

 

Our premiums, which were reasonable at first, have increased substantially over the last six years; the average annual increase has been 20 percent. I now am paying premiums that are more than double what they were initially. And because these are high-deductible policies, we still are paying most of the medical bills ourselves.

 

The new health care reform legislation is not perfect. Nothing that complex could be. But I have no doubt that the system is broken and reform is absolutely essential. If we are not going to have universal coverage but are going to rely on employer plans, then we must offer individuals, self-employed people and small businesses a place to purchase insurance at a reasonable price.

 

If members of Congress feel so strongly about undoing this important legislation, perhaps we should stop providing them with health insurance. Let’s credit their pay for the amount that has been paid by the taxpayers, and let them try to buy health insurance in the individual market. My bet is that they all would be denied. Health insurance reform might suddenly not seem to them like such a bad idea.

http://www.healthreform.gov/fo...peoplearesaying.html

Here are a few interesting points from Physicians For A National Health Program (PNHP):

 

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single-payer-faq#socialized

 

What is single payer?

 

Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private. Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

 

Is national health insurance ‘socialized medicine’?

 

No. Socialized medicine is a system in which doctors and hospitals work for and draw salaries from the government. Doctors in the Veterans Administration and the Armed Services are paid this way. The health systems in Great Britain and Spain are other examples. But in most European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan they have socialized health insurance, not socialized medicine. The government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector. This is similar to how Medicare works in this country. Doctors are in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis from government funds. The government does not own or manage medical practices or hospitals.

 

The term socialized medicine is often used to conjure up images of government bureaucratic interference in medical care. That does not describe what happens in countries with national health insurance where doctors and patients often have more clinical freedom than in theU.S., where bureaucrats attempt to direct care.

 

Won’t this result in rationing like in Canada?

 

The U.S. already rations care. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study by the prestigious Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. Many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. That’s rationing. Other countries do not ration in this way.

 

If there is this much rationing, why don’t we hear about it? And if other countries ration less, why do we hear about them? The answer is that their systems are publicly accountable, and ours is not. Problems with their health care systems are aired in public; ours are not. For example, in Canada, when waits for care emerged in the 1990s, Parliament hotly debated the causes and solutions. Most provinces have also established formal reporting systems on waiting lists, with wait times for each hospital posted on the Internet. This public attention has led to recent falls in waits there.

 

In U.S. health care, no one is ultimately accountable for how the system works. No one takes full responsibility. Rationing in our system is carried out covertly through financial pressure, forcing millions of individuals to forgo care or to be shunted away by caregivers from services they can’t pay for.

 

How will we keep costs down if everyone has access to comprehensive health care?

 

People will seek care earlier when chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are more treatable. We know that both the uninsured and many of those with skimpy private coverage delay care because they are afraid of health care bills. This will be eliminated under such a system. Undoubtedly the costs of taking care of the medical needs of people who are currently skimping on care will cost more money in the short run. However, all of these new costs to cover the uninsured and improve coverage for the insured will be fully offset by administrative savings.

 

In the long run, the best way to control costs is to improve health planning to assure appropriate investments in expensive, high-tech care, to negotiate fees and budgets with doctors, hospital and drug companies, and to set and enforce a generous but finite overall budget.

 

Why shouldn’t we let people buy better health care if they can afford it?

 

Whenever we allow the wealthy to buy better care or jump the queue, health care for the rest of us suffers. If the wealthy are forced to rely on the same health system as the poor, they will use their political power to assure that the health system is well funded. Conversely, programs for the poor become poor programs. For instance, because Medicaid doesn’t serve the wealthy, the payment rates are low and many physicians refuse to see Medicaid patients. Calls to improve Medicaid fall on deaf ears because the beneficiaries are not considered politically important. Moreover, when the wealthy jump the queue, it results in longer waits for others. Studies in New Zealand and Canada show that the growth of private care in parallel to the public system results in lengthening waits. Additionally, allowing the development of a parallel, private system for the wealthy means the creation of a permanent lobby for underfunding public care. Such underfunding increases the demand for private care.

 

 

Buttercup,

Your group, Physicians for National Helathcare Program, does not represent the views of about 90% or greater of the practicing physicians in the US. A recent debate on www.sermo.com has shown an overwhelming dissatisifaction with the current trend and proposals.  This group you mention is basically made up of a bunch of academicians, most of whom do not even run a clinic or an office, and certainly in not position to argue the merits of system they really don't understand.  Even the partial acceptance of the proposal Obama made by the American Medical Association cost them a huge number of memberships and portions of them were free.

Lies, lies, and more lies.

I actually know some local physicians who are not that much opposed to the plan. On top of that. I have friend in his last year of medical school and he told me most of the people he is associated with support it as well.

 Look, the current system is broke, by debying there is a problem and witghout being a part of the solution you and many like you are insuring that the system we actually get will be a single payer socialized system.  I wish the republican party would just dump El Rushbo and Sean Hannity and their failed economic system and become part of the system that will save America.

 

 There is coming a revolution, and if history is any indicator, it will push us closer towards socialism.

 We need Capitalism to assume it RESPONSIBILITY and deal with this issue before the communists do.

============================================================================

 

It's not what you said, but how you said it - especially that "take care of my husband's needs" crap.

 

And, just like most right-wingers, you're oversimplifying the health care problem.  You're asserting that those who are for health care reform are welfare mom types who purposefully don't work and care nothing about their children.  When the actual picture is of middle-class Americans who can't access health care because they have pre-existing conditions; they've lost a job in this recession; they're employer doesn't offer it; they make too much to qualify for gov't-sponsored care (which is usually minimum wage, what a joke!) but too little to afford an individual plan, and on and on.  They're hard-working Americans, not freeloaders.  BTW, medical bills are the cause of 60% of bankruptcies in this country, not laziness.

 

If you're going to debate, at least stop overgeneralizing by alleging that people who can't obtain health insurance are just lazy, and want everyone else to pay for it along with their other needs.  Most people do want to take care of themselves but it's quite difficult when the game is rigged in favor of the rich.  

Great post Tina. On behalf of working moms, thank you.

Ron Paul walks the walk.

 

Eventually Paul got so busy he took on a partner. Jack Pruett, who was then fresh out of his obstetrics/gynecology residency, says when he first sat down in Paul's office, he was told there were two stipulations he would have to agree to before joining the practice.

"He said, 'No. 1 is we will not perform any abortions.' And I said, 'That's fine; I can live with that. What's No. 2?' " he remembers.

No. 2, says Pruett, was that the practice would not participate in any federal health programs, which meant, as Paul described it, "that we will see all Medicare and Medicaid patients free of charge, and they will be treated just like all of our other patients, but we're not going to charge them and accept federal funds."

Still in debt from his medical training, Pruett said that was a little harder for him to swallow. "But I liked Ron, so I decided I would agree to that, too. And in all those 20 years, we never accepted one penny of federal money. We saw all those patients for free, delivered their babies for free, did their surgeries free; whatever they needed we did, and we didn't charge them."

Ron Paul is tap dancing.  He treated medicare patients and didn't take federal money.  As Part  A of medicare, which is federal money, covers hospital expenses, he still accepted part B, which is a policy paid by the patient. 

 

Interesting to learn if he managed to accept the portion of medicaid paid by the state, and not the federal government!

It's now been 10 hours since my request from the originator of this thread for his ideas for solutions to the healthcare problem in this country.

You are going to have a very long wait. Their solution to everything is "defeat Obama". Other than that, they have nothing. It is pathological.

It has now been 19 hours since I requested from the originator of this thread what his plan would be for the healthcare problems in this country. And still no response.

In response to your address to me about local physicians who support ObamaCare, please forward their names to me.  I would love to actually converse with them and see what they are doing differently than the remaining people in the area to stay afloat.  As to the medical student, like I have said before, everyone leaves medical school with an idealistic attitude, then reality sets in.  They have spent the last four to nine years while someone else has taken the responsibility and paid the bills for them. They have received no instruction in running an office, nor how to pay a bill, and they for sure do not have a clue about insurance billing.

If any physician supports this, and there are some aspects that are appealing, it is because a single payor system will alleviate the necessity to do complicated billing.  They however are living on the assumption that they will be paid the cost of the procedure they are performing.

If I come down to the drive shaft shop with a bad drive shaft, and government insurance, and you agree to take it.  You are obliged to take my copay, in this case let me say it is $5.  I pay you the $5 and you fix my drive shaft, using the same parts and techniques which you would have to use if I were paying cash.  It costs you $175 in parts and labor to do this.  Now you fill out the paperwork and send it in to be paid, and you get back a statement saying that the typical drive shaft repair station only bills $165 (despite the fact that there is no other around), and under current policy, which you agreed to by taking this insurance, you will be paid 61% of the allowed amount (approximately $108), and that money will be sent to you within 4-6 weeks...carry on.  Oh wait, two weeks later, the drive shaft breaks and I decide that I will sue you to have it repaired along with my incovenience, so get a lawyer and defend yourself.  You will probably prevail, but the money you spent on the case and your time will be lost.

Not only did you just lose money, it costs you more to do the procedure than you will be reimbursed.  That is what is currently happening, and because of it, it is harder and harder for physicians to see Medicare and Medicaid.  They certainly do not want another government payor to taint the mix.

There are no easy solutions.  First thing it to fix Medicare.  Watch the television everday and you will see commercials for power chairs and special tubs, all at no cost to you (well not to the taxpayer).  These companies are getting rich.  There are also physicians out there abusing Medicare as well, and they need to be prosecuted, so don't get me started on those.

Medicaid needs to stop taking care of those who are illegal in this country.  An illegal alien in this country has an easier time getting help with a delivery than a Colbert or Lauderdale county resident who needs assistance. They manipulate the system.  I see it...daily.

People are going to have to learn that they cannot have everything they want.  ObamaCare is right about this.  There are too many limited resources and a 90 year man or woman should not be getting a $100K knee or hip replacement.

There are no easy answers, and I do not want to see a system that sort of works, be replaced by something that will not work. In the US the average costs for medical school graduates at my insitution was $150K.  That money is not forgiven and add that to the cost of running a business, malpractice insurance, and taxes and you can see why primary care is a dying art.