|
Post by Hunny on Jun 20, 2012 17:53:53 GMT
Barack Obama could be about to suffer his worst defeat as president, a humiliation that would go to the heart of the election campaign. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on his changes to America's healthcare system. Obamacare, as his opponents call it, is hugely controversial. In a recent poll by Rasmussen, 53% of Americans say they wanted it scrapped. But it is President Obama's single biggest domestic achievement. And he chose to do it. He had to deal with the economy. He didn't have to reform the healthcare system. But providing comprehensive healthcare for all Americans has been a dream of liberals for more than a century. Teddy Roosevelt couldn't do it. FDR couldn't do it. The Clintons failed spectacularly. Obama succeeded. His first year in office was consumed with the struggle. He spent enormous amounts of political capital and rather ruined his reputation as a man who would change the way business was done in Washington, not doing grubby deals. The Tea Party first became vocal and visible while opposing the changes, and it helped them grow. Historical court clashes But now many expect the Supreme Court to rule that either the whole law, or a vital part of it, is unconstitutional. That would be a dramatic political blow to Mr Obama's legacy, credibility and effectiveness. It would leave him with some very hard choices. read more...
|
|
|
Post by shoe on Jun 20, 2012 18:44:15 GMT
I will look forward to the Supreme Court's decision.... I didn't know things were coming to a head on the health care issue.
Being a Canadian, I do not know a whole lot about American politics and the health care issue, but some of my American friends (all Republican) are extremely hot over it.
|
|
|
Post by alanseago on Jun 20, 2012 20:21:01 GMT
This system works almost for everyone in the civilised world. You are simply afraid that 'Someone else may benefit from my money.'
|
|
|
Post by trubble on Jun 20, 2012 21:05:59 GMT
IMHO>
It will be a tragedy if it fails. It will be America's loss, not just Obama's. The Tea Party et al should have helped it through, with changes they wanted, instead of fighting it tooth & nail.
/end MHO
|
|
|
Post by Hunny on Jun 23, 2012 12:26:55 GMT
IMHO> It will be a tragedy if it fails. It will be America's loss, not just Obama's. The Tea Party et al should have helped it through, with changes they wanted, instead of fighting it tooth & nail. /end MHO Unfortunately, the political right in this country has Americans convinced that National Health would be "socialism", and that "socialism" is almost as bad as communism, which was our sworn enemy for 50 years, so if you're for national health, you're unAmerican the implication goes. They also pump out misinformation repetitiously about how it would be terrible, and if we ever switched to a national health system that healthcare would suddenly become inferior, with long waits and deaths from the long waits and inferior quality care. I think those of us who get called "liberal" (is that a bad word?) (I dont even know what it means, except to a republican it's supposed to mean "dirty evil hated trash" or some such vile estimation)...but those of us who get called "liberal" know that we're the only nation stupid enough not to have National Health and that it would make things cost less and we'd be happier, and we wouldnt have 60 million Americans with no health care at all, so that Obama and others before him have to try and put a pseudo-national health system in place (where the obscene profit-taking still happens, but we pretended to solve the problem intelligently *frowny face*
|
|
|
Post by iamjumbo on Jun 23, 2012 16:24:52 GMT
I will look forward to the Supreme Court's decision.... I didn't know things were coming to a head on the health care issue. Being a Canadian, I do not know a whole lot about American politics and the health care issue, but some of my American friends (all Republican) are extremely hot over it. republicans insist on proclaiming that they believe it is better for a child to die than for an insurance company to lose a penny of profit. that is the ONLY thing the battle was over.
|
|
|
Post by peterl on Jun 24, 2012 16:01:31 GMT
I stand to be corrected if I am wrong But as I understand it in the US if you have health insurance you have access to the finest treatment in the world If you don’t then it is very much second class
|
|
|
Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on Jun 24, 2012 17:07:10 GMT
WOLF: After Obamacare
Obamacare will die at least one of three deaths: judicial, political or economic. If the Supreme Court allows this abomination to stand, voters can still deliver its death blow at the polls in November. Ideally, Obamacare will, in fact, die both of these deaths because if it survives now, it will die an economic death and take America down with it. So let’s prepare now for the post-Obamacare America.
As I travel the nation, I ask audiences two questions and always receive astonishingly similar responses to both. First question: Does America have a serious health insurance problem? Almost everyone’s hands rise; some emphatically, some applaud, some shout. Second question: Does America have a serious auto insurance problem? So far, I’ve not seen a single hand rise. Crickets chirping.
But why? Why has auto insurance maintained competitive prices, portability and amazing customer service while health insurance has not? Why aren’t people clamoring for laws that force companies to keep their 26-year-old “kids” on their policies? Are we to believe the health insurance providers are greedy scoundrels, as Democrats claim, but auto insurance providers are altruistic angels? That’s ludicrous, particularly when many companies provide both.
Some mistakenly believe medical technology causes increased health care costs, but today’s cars are as technologically advanced as hospitals. Besides, witness the $99 iPhone compared to the $5,000 first-generation cellphone: The trend of free-market technology is rapid price deflation, not inflation.
The difference between health and auto insurance is so obvious that we often miss it. Auto insurance is, well, actually insurance, a protection against an unexpected but known risk. We don’t use our car insurance - or worse yet, government - to fill our gas tanks, change our oil or replace our windshield wipers. The health care fantasy world of avoiding “out-of-pocket” expenses simply means your money will be taken out of your tax pocket and your insurance premium pocket, and usually a lot more of it. Does anyone believe that oil changes will become cheaper if our government declares them to be a fundamental right and takes them over?
What’s more, because you buy it yourself, your car insurance belongs to you. Your boss can’t take it away from you. You will never be stuck in a bad job because you’re afraid of losing your car insurance. And best of all, if your car insurance company fails to treat you right, you can simply fire them and hire someone else.
As we envision a health care system in post-Obamacare America, surely we can agree that patients deserve to be treated at least as well as car owners. What follows are straightforward steps that make the patient, rather than government, the priority in health care. Additional details of these substantial but solvable problems can be found in my book, “First, Do No Harm” (Broadside e-books, 2011).
Tax fairness: Under current law, individuals face unfair tax penalties for daring to purchase their own insurance. These laws coerce Americans into accepting employer-based policies, which often trap poor souls in bad jobs and even make some productive workers unemployable simply because they got sick. Tax fairness would level the playing field so families could choose for themselves how to purchase insurance.
End state insurance monopolies:State governments have a long history of mandating that you purchase whatever services they declare you need - coincidentally provided by those who have the best lobbyists. Not only does this practice raise insurance premiums, it is responsible for a quarter of the uninsured in America. What’s more, these mandates create the artificial state boundaries that have the perverted effect of protecting insurance companies from competition in the other 49 states. End them, either by allowing states to do so voluntarily or by employing the power of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, if necessary.
End state licensing monopolies: Physicians, like insurance companies, are also the beneficiaries of artificial state boundaries that protect them from competition from each other. Our system should be centered around patients, not doctors. As with the state insurance monopolies, the licensing monopolies should be ended voluntarily, if possible, or using the Commerce Clause.
Health savings accounts: HSAs and other consumer-directed health plans empower patients to be consumers and have been shown to save money without sacrificing health care outcomes. Our current third-party-payer health care system is like a grocery store without price tags, where customers fill their carts with “free” steaks whether they need them or not. Since patients are blind to prices, the government has only one way to reduce health care costs: provide less of it. This is accomplished with reduced reimbursements and outright rationing. HSAs, on the other hand, would turn 310 million Americans into an army of watchdogs who are incentivized to avoid unnecessary medical expenses but are still able to get the care they need.
End frivolous lawsuits: It’s estimated that nearly $50 billion a year is wasted on “defensive” medicine that could otherwise be used to provide care for the needy. Furthermore, the sky-high malpractice insurance costs are unavoidably passed on to patients. If an obstetrician is charged $100,000 per year for malpractice insurance and she delivers 100 babies, you’re paying a $1,000 “lawsuit tax” to welcome your bundle of joy into the world. Limits on pain and suffering - but not actual damages - have been shown to reduce health care costs and improve access. For the most egregious cases, forcing losers to pay the winners’ court costs would end the lottery-ticket mentality of trial lawyers.
To be sure, Obamacare did not cause these problems - they were decades in the making - but it left them untouched or, in some cases, even made them worse. The vast majority of Americans want to scrap Obamacare, but they expect solutions to the fundamental flaws of our current health care system. Mitt Romney and the Republicans would be wise to embrace these free-market reforms.
Dr. Milton R. Wolf, a Washington Times columnist, is a radiologist and President Obama’s cousin. He blogs at miltonwolf.com.
|
|
|
Post by trubble on Jun 24, 2012 20:48:13 GMT
That's a very interesting piece.
I have to pull him up on this though:
It's just rubbish. It looks as if it makes sense at first reading, the logic looks sound, but just think about it for a bit and you realise that in no respect can the mass market for cheap telephones, or the advanced technology of cars, be applied to treating someone with a brain tumour where the research doesn't even provide a bloody cure!
|
|
|
Post by trubble on Jun 24, 2012 20:58:18 GMT
IMHO> It will be a tragedy if it fails. It will be America's loss, not just Obama's. The Tea Party et al should have helped it through, with changes they wanted, instead of fighting it tooth & nail. /end MHO Unfortunately, the political right in this country has Americans convinced that National Health would be "socialism", and that "socialism" is almost as bad as communism, which was our sworn enemy for 50 years, so if you're for national health, you're unAmerican the implication goes. They also pump out misinformation repetitiously about how it would be terrible, and if we ever switched to a national health system that healthcare would suddenly become inferior, with long waits and deaths from the long waits and inferior quality care. I think those of us who get called "liberal" (is that a bad word?) (I dont even know what it means, except to a republican it's supposed to mean "dirty evil hated trash" or some such vile estimation)...but those of us who get called "liberal" know that we're the only nation stupid enough not to have National Health and that it would make things cost less and we'd be happier, and we wouldnt have 60 million Americans with no health care at all, so that Obama and others before him have to try and put a pseudo-national health system in place (where the obscene profit-taking still happens, but we pretended to solve the problem intelligently *frowny face* I think alanseago should comment on this. He has experience of the French system. I have friends who live in France and seem to have found it very good. It's a possible rebuttal to Tea Party fears. I'm pretty sure we should all be trying to reach French standards.
|
|
|
Post by iamjumbo on Jun 24, 2012 21:26:56 GMT
WOLF: After Obamacare Obamacare will die at least one of three deaths: judicial, political or economic. If the Supreme Court allows this abomination to stand, voters can still deliver its death blow at the polls in November. Ideally, Obamacare will, in fact, die both of these deaths because if it survives now, it will die an economic death and take America down with it. So let’s prepare now for the post-Obamacare America. As I travel the nation, I ask audiences two questions and always receive astonishingly similar responses to both. First question: Does America have a serious health insurance problem? Almost everyone’s hands rise; some emphatically, some applaud, some shout. Second question: Does America have a serious auto insurance problem? So far, I’ve not seen a single hand rise. Crickets chirping. But why? Why has auto insurance maintained competitive prices, portability and amazing customer service while health insurance has not? Why aren’t people clamoring for laws that force companies to keep their 26-year-old “kids” on their policies? Are we to believe the health insurance providers are greedy scoundrels, as Democrats claim, but auto insurance providers are altruistic angels? That’s ludicrous, particularly when many companies provide both. Some mistakenly believe medical technology causes increased health care costs, but today’s cars are as technologically advanced as hospitals. Besides, witness the $99 iPhone compared to the $5,000 first-generation cellphone: The trend of free-market technology is rapid price deflation, not inflation. The difference between health and auto insurance is so obvious that we often miss it. Auto insurance is, well, actually insurance, a protection against an unexpected but known risk. We don’t use our car insurance - or worse yet, government - to fill our gas tanks, change our oil or replace our windshield wipers. The health care fantasy world of avoiding “out-of-pocket” expenses simply means your money will be taken out of your tax pocket and your insurance premium pocket, and usually a lot more of it. Does anyone believe that oil changes will become cheaper if our government declares them to be a fundamental right and takes them over? What’s more, because you buy it yourself, your car insurance belongs to you. Your boss can’t take it away from you. You will never be stuck in a bad job because you’re afraid of losing your car insurance. And best of all, if your car insurance company fails to treat you right, you can simply fire them and hire someone else. As we envision a health care system in post-Obamacare America, surely we can agree that patients deserve to be treated at least as well as car owners. What follows are straightforward steps that make the patient, rather than government, the priority in health care. Additional details of these substantial but solvable problems can be found in my book, “First, Do No Harm” (Broadside e-books, 2011). Tax fairness: Under current law, individuals face unfair tax penalties for daring to purchase their own insurance. These laws coerce Americans into accepting employer-based policies, which often trap poor souls in bad jobs and even make some productive workers unemployable simply because they got sick. Tax fairness would level the playing field so families could choose for themselves how to purchase insurance. End state insurance monopolies:State governments have a long history of mandating that you purchase whatever services they declare you need - coincidentally provided by those who have the best lobbyists. Not only does this practice raise insurance premiums, it is responsible for a quarter of the uninsured in America. What’s more, these mandates create the artificial state boundaries that have the perverted effect of protecting insurance companies from competition in the other 49 states. End them, either by allowing states to do so voluntarily or by employing the power of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, if necessary. End state licensing monopolies: Physicians, like insurance companies, are also the beneficiaries of artificial state boundaries that protect them from competition from each other. Our system should be centered around patients, not doctors. As with the state insurance monopolies, the licensing monopolies should be ended voluntarily, if possible, or using the Commerce Clause. Health savings accounts: HSAs and other consumer-directed health plans empower patients to be consumers and have been shown to save money without sacrificing health care outcomes. Our current third-party-payer health care system is like a grocery store without price tags, where customers fill their carts with “free” steaks whether they need them or not. Since patients are blind to prices, the government has only one way to reduce health care costs: provide less of it. This is accomplished with reduced reimbursements and outright rationing. HSAs, on the other hand, would turn 310 million Americans into an army of watchdogs who are incentivized to avoid unnecessary medical expenses but are still able to get the care they need. End frivolous lawsuits: It’s estimated that nearly $50 billion a year is wasted on “defensive” medicine that could otherwise be used to provide care for the needy. Furthermore, the sky-high malpractice insurance costs are unavoidably passed on to patients. If an obstetrician is charged $100,000 per year for malpractice insurance and she delivers 100 babies, you’re paying a $1,000 “lawsuit tax” to welcome your bundle of joy into the world. Limits on pain and suffering - but not actual damages - have been shown to reduce health care costs and improve access. For the most egregious cases, forcing losers to pay the winners’ court costs would end the lottery-ticket mentality of trial lawyers. To be sure, Obamacare did not cause these problems - they were decades in the making - but it left them untouched or, in some cases, even made them worse. The vast majority of Americans want to scrap Obamacare, but they expect solutions to the fundamental flaws of our current health care system. Mitt Romney and the Republicans would be wise to embrace these free-market reforms. Dr. Milton R. Wolf, a Washington Times columnist, is a radiologist and President Obama’s cousin. He blogs at miltonwolf.com. what unadulterated bullshyt. there's not a single word of truth in the entire bit of stupidity
|
|
|
Post by iamjumbo on Jun 24, 2012 21:29:01 GMT
That's a very interesting piece. I have to pull him up on this though: It's just rubbish. It looks as if it makes sense at first reading, the logic looks sound, but just think about it for a bit and you realise that in no respect can the mass market for cheap telephones, or the advanced technology of cars, be applied to treating someone with a brain tumour where the research doesn't even provide a bloody cure! there's nothing interesting about it. it's the same old tea party stupidity that they've been regurgitating. the "free market" imbecility is just what i said it it is previously. they could care less how many people die. their ONLY concern is insurance company profits
|
|
|
Post by iamjumbo on Jun 24, 2012 21:30:35 GMT
Unfortunately, the political right in this country has Americans convinced that National Health would be "socialism", and that "socialism" is almost as bad as communism, which was our sworn enemy for 50 years, so if you're for national health, you're unAmerican the implication goes. They also pump out misinformation repetitiously about how it would be terrible, and if we ever switched to a national health system that healthcare would suddenly become inferior, with long waits and deaths from the long waits and inferior quality care. I think those of us who get called "liberal" (is that a bad word?) (I dont even know what it means, except to a republican it's supposed to mean "dirty evil hated trash" or some such vile estimation)...but those of us who get called "liberal" know that we're the only nation stupid enough not to have National Health and that it would make things cost less and we'd be happier, and we wouldnt have 60 million Americans with no health care at all, so that Obama and others before him have to try and put a pseudo-national health system in place (where the obscene profit-taking still happens, but we pretended to solve the problem intelligently *frowny face* I think alanseago should comment on this. He has experience of the French system. I have friends who live in France and seem to have found it very good. It's a possible rebuttal to Tea Party fears. I'm pretty sure we should all be trying to reach French standards. EVERY european country is better than the u.s. when it comes to healthcare. that's just a simple, yet irrefutable, REALITY
|
|
|
Post by Hunny on Jun 24, 2012 21:44:38 GMT
I stand to be corrected if I am wrong But as I understand it in the US if you have health insurance you have access to the finest treatment in the world If you don’t then it is very much second class Yea, that's right. Well, actually, if you have no health insurance here, what you do is wait unhelped until whatever it is you have is so bad you need the emergency room, which will have to take you. Without health insurance people often have to use a pharmacist (chemist)'s advice as the closest thing they can get to a doctor visit. And if over-the-counter wont fix it, then they wait until it's chronic so they can go to the emergency room. Before Obamacare there were 70 million Americans without health insurance, living that way.
|
|
|
Post by alanseago on Jun 25, 2012 14:26:28 GMT
My wife needs regular treatment at a specialised clinic approximately one hour's drive away. Her taxi drives her there waits two or three hours then drives her home. Charge nothing. I have taken to temporarily leaving this world at inappropriate times which can be most irritating. Our doctor sent me off to a specialist who scanned by head but found absolutely nothing but sent me to a cardiologist who listened to things then suggested I see him at the hospital the following Tuesday. Upon arriving there I was plonked on a trolley and wheeled to a large shower two young ladies removed all my garments and scrubbed me with a special substance from head to foot. After lunch, for my wife only, I was wheeled off to an operating theatre where one one theatre nurse held my hand and allowed me to gaze into her brown eyes whilst the other one assisted the surgeon plunged hypodermic syringes picador style into my chest. I left with a new little friend embedded in my chest which records the productivity of my heart. For the next eight days I was visited at home by a nurse who cleaned and redressed the wound. I now have a little device which communicates between 'productivity' and 'Control'. I won't mention the charge, I am sure you know by now but I will stress the warm, caring attitude and, of course, the smiles everywhere. I have contributed as an employee and as an employer for 35 years and it is worth every cent.
|
|
|
Post by Hunny on Jun 28, 2012 12:08:57 GMT
|
|
|
Post by sadie1263 on Jun 28, 2012 14:48:26 GMT
Well....well....well.....the court upheld it. Says it falls under the governments ability to tax.
I have mixed feelings about it. I want everyone to have health insurance. It's important. But.....it is very unfair for all of us that pay our taxes.....or have paid into the system.....to also be supporting millions of illegal aliens that are sucking are health system and our other benefits dry.
|
|
|
Post by alanseago on Jun 28, 2012 16:42:10 GMT
I don't know how things are now in the UK but I know that everyone needed a National Health number before signing on with a doctor. I doubt if illegal immigrants get one. Here in France we have a swipe card which carries our ID and details, in most cases we pay the fee then the SS refunds us at the end of the month. Serious ailments such as cancer are totally free.
|
|
|
Post by trubble not logged in on Jun 28, 2012 18:17:23 GMT
Apologies if I don't understand it but it seems a better deal for the taxpayer if you ask me because health insurance will benefit from more people paying in - not just some tax payers paying for both private and public funding.
& How do illegal aliens get access to the health system? Well, more importantly, how will they have more access under the new care plan?
Here's my understanding of it:
At the moment, if I don't have any insurance and fall ill I can either:
>pay cash (from my pocket or a steep loan)
>get medicare (?) > the state/taxpayer to cover it if I qualify as poor enough
>go without
Obama's plan means that I won't be in that position because I will have to have insurance. I can get this by:
>working for an employer that provides it
>buying private insurance (from insurers who will be seeking my custom even if I have a pre-existing condition)
>get medicare(?) if I am poor enough.
Too simplistic?
|
|
|
Post by sadie1263 on Jun 28, 2012 18:30:06 GMT
Right now....the border states near Mexico.....the hospitals and health care places are going bankrupt. Anyone that walks into a public hospital gets cared for.......so......many people come from Mexico.....and have babies...(which gives that baby U.S. citizenship and all the welfare benefits that go with it).....if they are sick...they come here....and get every treatment available.....and then go back home.....or die here.
|
|