Universal Healthcare

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Most people would not take out insurance until they needed it. Why should they? You could always get accident insurance to cover emergencies. But regular health insurance? Why would most anyone under 50 bother, if you can sign up for insurance under the current law, even with a pre-exisiting condition. Even if the event occurs before you have insurance, they still have to cover you.

 

So the Health Care Bill has passed, Republican howling and raving notwithstanding? Congratulations.

 

Well, technically it hasn't passed yet. The bill went over to the Senate, and the Republicans were able to force through one minor change to the bill*, so it has to go back to the House with that one revision and the House votes on it again, but yes, basically it's done.

* Specifically, this changed:

Full Story.

 

Thanks, but we still have a long way to go.

Yeah, the tea potters were lined up at the Capitol, ranting "niggers," and "faggots," and spitting at the Congress people entering for the vote. There have been threats and some minor violence. It's too bad but those who are doing that stuff will discredit the Tea Pot Party for those who are not in it for the hatred (and there are plenty of civilized, non-haters in it). I thought there was the beginning of some interesting possibilities for it as a third party, but that's fading fast with those racist morons at the front of it.

Check this out. What disgrace to this country these people are.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/36034643#36034643

 

Well, technically you're both right. The bill sent back to the house was just the reconciliation. The senate bill has already been signed, so even if the reconciliation fails, we still get our reform -- it just won't be quite as good.

 

The question now is, what next? Should Obama continue to push for other bills that improve the situation, or will he leave health care alone and move onto something else? If the latter, what?

 

I don't think Obama wants anything more to do with health care. It will be up to the liberals to improve the reform laws, which in their current state, are still flawed. Liberals never wanted the mandate for insurance; that was what the insurance companies wanted instead of the public option, and in the end they got it from all the Democratic "blue dog" senators ("cash dogs" would have been more fitting, IMO). In the end, it was all we could get. But the fight goes on to have the mandate removed and the PO instead....

As for Obama he will try to get out of the dog house with the average voter by focusing on the economy, which is what most people expected him to do in the first place.

 

How? Government spending will piss off even more people. A nice tax cut for the poor and middle class would free up some $$ for investment and purchasing, but he's gonna need the revenue to offset the spending that's been done to revitalize the economy. Perhaps some protectionist measures, like higher tariffs or incentives to buy American? Maybe he could sell off surplus weaponry to other nations? What else could he sell to foreign nations that would get revenue flowing?

I'm not an economist, as you might have guessed, but those are some of my thoughts -- anyone have something informed to share?

 

Because, as some have correctly pointed out, the mandate IS a tax, and the worst kind, because it affects the lower income families more than those who have good, employer based health care. A public option would give people more choices, rather than forcing them to buy insurance, even if the government chips in for lower incomes. More choices are almost always better than fewer.

 

No, my "How" was in response to your comment that Obama

And I agree, but the question is How will he do that? What will he do to improve the economy?

 

Good question; I think his options are fairly limited. He could try to cut taxes, but I really doubt he'd be willing to go there - iirc tax cuts are already costing the US budget somewhere in the region of 400 billion USD per year (from both the Bush tax cuts and Obama's own, via the Stimulus bill), and this is a significant amount of money by any measure. I'm actually expecting the Dems to have the Bush era cuts expire, although this will no doubt be contested.

He could try to call for further programs like the stimulus and recently passed (iirc with some bipartisan support) jobs bill; how likely that is to happen will depend on the political climate then. For all the talk about how the stimulus was unsuccessful, CBO and a few other institutions have reported fairly well on its effect - interestingly, they found that money given to the states or as direct investment had the most effect.

One way or another, though, it's also up to chance; the government can't expect to have total control over the economy. If things pick up, Obama could bounce and have very good chance for reeleection and thus get more of his priorities passed - after all, Reagan had it quite tough at this time of his presidency, and we know how that ended up.

 

I'm surprised I haven't heard more of this 'federal medical database' the health care bill is setting up. I've heard a few conspiracy theories around it, linking it to eugenics and the like (which isn't impossible) and quite a few people objecting to it on security and privacy grounds, but none of the major news services seem to even rate it as an issue. Any thoughts?

 

Here's the next liberal/progressive move on HC:

http://grayson.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=175850

Don't give up on the PO option yet. We can still make the government mandate to buy insurance history (and a short one), and finally get away from the insurance companies' claws.

 

Chandos, I don't think a PO will be enough to kill the mandate. In order to do that, while still preventing insurance companies from denying pre-existing conditions, the PO would have to be good enough to match anything the private industry could offer, and be a default fall-back (AKA a new mandate) for all Americans. Remember, the problem that requires the mandate is the 'buy it when you need it' problem. If people can go from nothing or a cheap option straight to the best cadillac plan available when they're diagnosed with cancer, then you kill the entire private market. Freeing up Medicare for everyone would be a good idea, provided that the Gov't also makes Medicare's payouts reasonable, but it won't kill the mandate.

 

What insurance companies? Well, there would probably still be a few around, but no longer the primary source for most coverage. A lot of people would still want supplemental insurance for what Medicare does not cover, but Medicare rates are cheaper than insurance company standard rates, with or without a mandate. See Ya, United and Cigna.

 

And a lot of doctors won't accept it because they actually take a loss under it's payments. So, in your ideal world, the bulk of the medical industry would crash. You want treatment for your child's leukemia? Sorry, there aren't any practicing oncologists left because the government refuses to pay them enough to operate their businesses.

And, incidentally, you aren't talking about a public option any more, but a public mandate. That really would be a government takeover of health care insurance.

At best, you're talking about a system easily as complex as what we have now (Does this fall under our Medicare coverage, or our supplimental coverage, or not at all?) which would require a complete re-work of how the system works. Simply expanding Medicare won't cover it.

 

Anyone know anything about the tax on home sales which is supposed to help pay for this? I'd heard 4% but don't know if that's on the sale price or the gain.

 

Sorry they can't manage their business. Maybe they should find something else to do, since they can't handle it.

NOG - Calm down. And there is no need to get snotty. I put doctors in the same class with lawyers (sorry, DMC no offence intended), and they would rather hang out at the country club playing golf rather than taking care of poor people. I would fire them all, and bring in doctors from other countries, where they really care about their patients rather than just grabbing the quick buck. Isn't that what we do with workers who don't want to work anyway?

I'm glad you got the point.

 

Chandos, I think you have a skewed view of doctors both American and from elsewhere. You know, they are people and like pretty much every human being in the world they want as much as possible for as little as possible. Do you expect the car mechanic to care about the poor people who can't afford to fix their cars or the sales person lowering the price or giving things away to people who need something but can't afford? Some car mechanics and salespeople do this but not many, doctors are generally way more generous with their time than people in other professions.

I am about as left wing as you get on these boards and I do not expect anyone to work for free out of the goodness of their hearts. Fine if they want to, kudos to them but I honestly can't disdain someone who prefers to get as much as possible for as little as possible. Wouldn't you want a higher salary and shorter hours Chandos? What needs to be done, worldwide is to educate a truckload of more doctors. I know that in Sweden and I am sure elsewhere as well the medical doctor associations have worked very hard for many years to suppress the amount of doctors trained to keep the supply low and demand high. Open up places, let anyone qualified train as a doctor and pretty soon a lot of the problems in health care would go down.

 

How funny. You took my post literally, when I was being sarcastic. I hope you are not offended by my sarcasm. It is as silly as saying that if America went on the same system as everywhere else in the world that the "health care system would crash."

This is the typical BS, that "the sky will fall" if the government does health care, even though they have been doing it for the last 40 years. You know, the same government that defends our borders, sends the fleet all over the world, manages a stockpile of nukes that can destroy the planet 3 times over: Yes that same government.

Now the big scare tactic is that "the doctors won't take government patients." Do YOU want to trade your Swedish system for ours, Joac? I didn't think so, because you would be a fool if you would. I'm sure your system is not perfect and that it has its problems, but it is nothing like what we have here, atm.

I don't know if you are left wing or not, but you will find no one who is more in favor of worker rights than I am, and that's a part of why I am supporting a government option. While I was sarcastic about the "country club doctors" helping the poor (because some doctors actually will help them anyway), many corporations are cutting the health care benefits of their employees, leaving them with next to nothing for health care. In other words, the employer based health care system is starting to break down and we will need something to replace it sooner or later anyway. In fact, some doctors are turning down insurance provided care and going back to just cash, because the insurance companies are just as bad, or even worse to deal with than the government. But you won't find the corporate lackies talking much about that aspect of the health care problem. Why is that?