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Cheaper Health Care or No Health Care?

Posted 14 months ago|11 comments|575 views
Obama Adressing Governors
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Altruist
Eugene, OR
Twice as many people think the flaws in the Health Care law should be fixed, than think that the law should be repealed as Republicans want.

The Republicans would rather leave health care to the Insurance companies, with no controls on how much they can raise their prices, no controls on how much of the money goes to the policy holders, no controls on who can be dropped, or controls to limits to expenditures.

The Republican Insurance company sponsors want to continue getting record profits, and be able to deny service to anyone that would cost money. They have bribed most Republicans like Orin Hatch, and many Democratic representatives to fight any controls. The wellbeing of the public does not enter into their equations. Without the new Health Care Law, as many as 129 million people (nearly half) of the people could be denied any health care because of preexisting conditions. http://www.healthcare.gov/center/reports...

The Affordable Care Act is admittedly flawed. If it was done correctly they would have simply made Medicare universal and we would only have 3% overhead instead of the 20-30% with the insurance companies. There would be no new bureaucracies, no new complicated laws. We would get our health care for much cheaper (nearly half as much) because we would eliminate the middlemen.

The health care law is complicated because they tried to please the Republicans and keep the Insurance companies in charge instead of making it a government program. They included the controversial Federal Mandate (a Republican idea) because making a wider pool would bring costs down.

Despite these flaws the Affordable Care Act did have a lot of cost controls and allowed experimentation so the States can determine the best way to save money. The idea was to give the Affordable Care Act a few years to work (Most provisions start in 2014) and then if the States figured out better ways to do things they could incorporate their ideas (in 2017).

Some of the States thought they could come up with better ideas before then. Obama being a pragmatic centrist listened to the objections of the States and agreed. He said he would welcome any ideas to save money on health care.

Now the States are free to come up with any ideas so long as just as many people are covered, and so long as it isn't more expensive than the Affordable Care Act.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/w...

The big danger here to the Republicans is that with 50 states each experimenting to provide better service cheaper, something might work. They are hoping that health care will be a disaster, but with so many different options it is almost certain many of the states will be successful. Some individual states can now come up with Single payer Systems, or a non-profit state insurance program that can provide affordable quality care that the insurance companies can't compete with. Then when the other states see how much better and cheaper that care is the idea will spread. This is the worst fear of the Republicans - that government can actually do Health Care well. Vermont is already considering the Single Payer approach. http://www.csgeast.org/content.asp?pageI...

If successful much of the East Coast would then follow their example. Watch what Oregon and California do next. Oregon's Governor Dr. John Kitzhaber is one of the most knowledgeable politicians when it comes to health care and has lots of good ideas.

So the question now is should most of the people in the country be allowed to get the cheapest insurance possible as the Democrats want, or should half the people in the country be denied any coverage at all as the Republicans want? Will regressive ideology and corporate profits prevail, or will the states be allowed to determine the most cost effective way to best care for their citizens?
UPDATE - 14 months ago
The States would only have this flexibility if the bipartisan Brown - Wyden- Landrieu bill is voted in as law. If the bill is not adopted the states will have to wait till 2017 to apply for alternate health care plans.
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COMMENTS
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
14 months ago: Twice as many people have no idea what is even in the health care bill as those that do.
14 months ago: Most of what people think is in it are lies spread by Sarah Palin (Death Panels) and Fox News. As more people it affects find out about the truth and use it, more people will like it and accept it.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
14 months ago: Thanks to those of us who did actually read it, it wasn't swallowed hook line and sinker. And now, thanks to Obama setting a precedent that laws considered by the President as unconstitutional don't need to be enforced, it will pretty much be cast aside. Eventually.
14 months ago: Can we agree that both parties are corrupt and statist? One is facist (D), and the other is socialist (R). BUT THEY ARE BOTH REPUGNANT to the Constitution.

Maybe stop fixating on labels, and look at actions that will get us out of this deliberate man made catastrophe.

Liberty is the answer.
Facism, Marxism, and Statism (from any party or group) is a trail of many sorrows.

14 months ago: Insurance is governed and controled by each State. Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts enacted a simlar healthcare bill into law in his State. The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but it is a work in progress and we can amend it, not repeal it. The States probably will tinker with it and find ways to make it better.
Altruist
Altruist
Eugene, OR
14 months ago: OOTB it wasn't Obama but Bush that set precedent about not obeying laws (570). Besides the administration is still obeying the DOMA law, just not defending it in court.

The Affordable Care Act's main purpose is allow the 50 million who are now uninsured, to get insurance. The Republicans and the Libertarians (fascists and whackos) have no alternative plans. If the democrats were actually socialists we would have a simple single payer system that costs half as much.

No Obama and the Democrats aren't even close to socialism. 40 years ago their policies would have been considered conservative.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
14 months ago: In other words, they are not enforcing the DOMA law, which is what I said.

The Affordable Care Act simply shifts who the uninsured is. Thirty million people will still not have insurance, and many of those that will be without insurance are currently insured.

Sofa_ was saying that Democrats are fascists and the Republicans are socialists.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
14 months ago: Forty years ago their policies wouldn't have even been considered.
Altruist
Altruist
Eugene, OR
14 months ago: Also if the Democrats were socialist they would have nationalized the failing banks and made them re-finance people loosing homes, and they would have instated a federal job's program like the CCC, and we would have a carbon tax so we wouldn't be so dependent on oil from OPEC, and there would be a 90% tax on the super rich so there wouldn't be such terrible wage inequality.

Would all of that be so bad? We would be out of the recession, people would have jobs and homes and would have decent health care and an energy policy that made sense. The people in the Scandinavian countries have some socialist programs and they are happier than we.

Repugnant to the Constitution? It is the Republicans that shredded the Constitution under Bush and it is the Tea Party that wants to repeal all of the Constitution except the 2nd and 10th amendments.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
14 months ago: No he didn't nationalize the banks, because he knew he could have survived the civil war that would have ensued. But he did dictate the banks are going to have to eat a large portion of the bad debt.

Would all that be so bad? Not if you don't consider modern day Libya bad. Everything you just mentioned is what Quadafi did when his socialist regime took over, deposing the capitalists and the monarchy.
14 months ago: Fascists promote their ideology as a "Third Position" between capitalism and socialism. Italian Fascism involved corporatism, a political system in which the economy is collectively managed by employers, workers, and state officials by formal mechanisms at the national level. Fascists advocate a new national class-based economic system, variously termed "national corporatism", "national socialism" or "national syndicalism".

Fascist governments exercise control over private property but did not nationalize it. They pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as consolidating trade unions to be state- or party-controlled.

Consider how Gov suddenly 'directs' banks and financial institutions and car companies. It's Facism, and it's miserable.

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