IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

georgeob, You should know that the federal mandate for hospitals to see all patients who walk in the door is not properly funded, and many hospitals have already declared bankruptcy. Besides that, taking care of patients without any emergency in the emergency room only ends up costing much more than if they were able to go to a local clinic for what ails them.

I acknowledged that and suggested direct action to fix the problems we have instead of letting the government screw up the rest of the system.

One of the problems is that of illegals seeking medical care. They are here illegally in the first place. One of the reasons many hospitals in border areas or high immigrant areas are in bad trouble, thanks to bleeding heart liberals, such as in California. Now I hear Obama is considering rolling back planned border fences or maintaining the existing ones.

okie, You are one ignorant bastard! It's not about "bleeding liberals." It's about treating other humans in need. Our country spends billions killing innocent people in wars; why aren't you complaining about all the destruction we're responsible for - then turn around and spend billions more rebuilding what we destroyed - in other countries.

How do you balance our killing and destruction vs our hospitals caring for people who come in sick or injured? Will you turn them away? Will you chase them out of the hospital?

You are one sick-in-the-head dude.

To qualify for medicaid, you must be a pauper.

My mother's health insurance plan provided coverage for skilled nursing home care, but that didn't stop her insurer from denying her claim for skill nursing home care. Because my mother's needs were dire, she was forced to sell her modest townhouse, cash in her pre-paid burial plan, and deplete her bank account before she qualified for medicaid. She was pauperized. With the exception of $40 per month that she was allowed to keep (which barely paid for her private phone line in the nursing home) , she was required to turn over her entire alimony check to the nursing home. Then--and only then--would medicaid pay the balance for her skilled nursing home care.

In other words, medicaid does not help anyone until a person becomes a pauper. It is the bottom of the pit of despair safety net that prevents people from dying on the streets--nothing more.



Emergency room services are the MOST COSTLY healthcare services that exist. Perhaps if the indigent obtained preventative healthcare services or were able to see a doctor BEFORE an illness evolves into a crisis, healthcare costs would go down.



Your individual liberties are not infringed when someone else receives affordable healthcare.

As I clearly stated, I would favor more stable funding for Medicaid and subsidies to increase the supply of public health clinics and caregivers. The inept management and politicization of Medicaid by government is hardly an argument for turning the whole systen over to the same clowns.

Home nursing care for the elderly, particularly those with extended families which have their own moral responsibilities in the matter, is not what I would regard as a responsibility of government.

Home nursing is seen here as the cheaper alternative for stationary long term care.
Both is (partly) paid by the mandatory long term care insurance. (Those are actually run by the same insurance company where you are health insured, but legally different.)

To rely on "moral responsibilities" is a kind of lottery, I think.

Saw Obama speak yesterday morning at UMD - College Park. It was for the most part a shorter version of the 9/9/09 speech, but he took a lot of time relating it back to his campaign promises on health care reform. Additionally, the speech was tailored for students.

The selection of this specific campus was not arbitrary either. Starting this year, the school requires all students to bee insured.

Obama talked about how health care reform is important to them, especially in the years to come as many will no langer be covered on their parent's plans.

One of the introduction speeches was a Junior at the university who had been diagnosed with cancer and had been receiving treatments over the last year and half. Her story was used by her and by Obama to illustrate the need for health care reform as she would be one of the many American's with a pre-existing condition who may potentially need long term treatments and drugs and would eventually have to be on a health insurance plan other than her parent's.

Noteworthy bit: The rally was very positive, and one lucky kid got to be put up on the jumbotron and he danced for like two hours straight. Anyone who has been to a rally knows that the wait beforehand is always terrible, but this kid danced his ass off and people cheered him on. Later, he was rewarded and the event coordinators brought him down to the front so he'd get to meet the president face to face.

There was a presence of protesters. Outside, there were about a dozen. They looked young, I'd wager a guess that they were college student there. Outside that dozen was about 4-5 more older protesters that didn't look like students. About 10 minutes into the speech, a man began to heckle the president and interrupt his speech. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but later I found out form some people closer, that he just keep repeating that the "president is trash" or "this plan is trash"... something about trash. The police walked up to him after about 2 minutes of shouting and asked him to return to his seat. He refused. Eventually (an inevitably) the man was escorted out. On his way out he shock the cops hand off his and threw his hat back into the arena. At this point some other man was also being escorted out. It was unclear if he was also a protester or someone who had made a hostile move on the man being escorted out. Needless to say, the police were less gentle after that.

It's surprising how distracting this kind of thing can be. I thought that if something like this was to happen, I'd be able to focus. I found that I was trying to hear what the guy was saying, and then I realized I had missed like 30+ seconds of the speech. If this was THIS distracting in a basketball stadium I can only imagine how distracting it would have been in a small town hall meeting.

Number wise, I looked up the max capacity of the gym online. It says it holds 17,950 people. I'd guess it was about 70% full, so maybe 12,565 people?

I have some footage, but this pic will have to do for now. :-P



T
Kanye!
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You're being a huge jerk. I didn't abandon my moral responsibilities to my mother (who was NOT elderly--she was only 54 years old) and park her in a nursing home because I didn't want to be bothered with her. My mother was very ill; she was dying of end-stage COPD. She didn't need a custodial caretaker, she required SKILLED NURSING care 24/7.

My mother faithfully paid her health insurance premium every month and her plan provided skilled nursing home coverage. Her insurer dumped her like insurers do all the time to people like my mother. That's one of the main problems that Congress is trying to remedy with healthcare reform.

Because my mother's insurance company abandoned her when she needed her insurance the most, she had to liquidate her property to pay for her healthcare until she didn't have anything left except a monthly alimony check. She was pauperized! I was divorced, attending law school, and I had a young child of my own to support. I couldn't possibly pay for my mother's skilled nursing home care nor could I possibly take care of her myself due to her dire medical condition. She had no choice but to turn over her alimony checks every month to the nursing home and rely on state medicaid to pay the balance.

If you believe that people like my mother ought to die in the streets rather than be a burden on the taxpayer, then you should contact your state legislators and tell them to repeal their state medicaid laws. But you missed the f'ing point. Before my mom could qualify for medicaid, she had to be pauperized!!!!! She reasonably believed that by purchasing health insurance and faithfully paying the premium every month that she wouldn't have to worry about losing everything she owned if she became too sick to care for herself. She got screwed by her healthcare insurer.

"Too many of our senior citizens are being forced to choose between neglecting their ailments or being pauperized by them."--Ted Kennedy (1962).

True

I agree.

Between a poisonous snake and a poisonous snake pretending to be a harmless lizard, I would rather face the snake. At least you would know what you were getting. (referring to some comments made back and forth a few days ago. )

Why do you feel time is running out, is there an invisible clock ticking which says after a certain congress may no longer work on the matter? It ain't over until the fat lady sings.

No I haven't been paying attention to the Service Employees union-enlighten me with facts backed up by links, if the source is partisan, make sure the source has links to back up their statements.

As for you opinion about the Administrations favoritism towards the UAW in the bankrupt, they didn't do so well in that deal.



MarketWatch

As for the last; I assume this is what you are referring to:



source

I don't see anything at all wrong with it nor do I see any of that proves your previous predictions.

I went searching and the only thing I come up with in connection with service employees union is where a SEIU staffer assaulted someone.

Victim of Alleged SEIU Town Hall Assault in St. Louis Interviewed on Cavuto

I don't condone it nor excuse it but again, I don't see how that computes with passing a health care reform bill will mean mandates for unionization's for health care.

(sorry for the multiple postings)

Anyway, been looking into the story quite a bit since I started this morning.

Reality Check: False Claims Debunked About Last Week's Town Hall in St. Louis


Anyway, thats it for the day, sorry again for posting so much. Just wanted to get the other side.

We would all like to see a more stable funding for Medicaid, but congress will not act on it to make it work for the long term. They can't keep upping the benefits without increasing revenue; that's simple economics. They are "useless" as the people's representatives in our government.

I can respond in greater depth later today, but, quickly -



Absolutely. I don't know why you say 'time is running out.' Is there a deadline?

I also don't think the public option is all that uncertain... I'm not sure why you think this is true.

Cycloptichorn

Your forecast was by October.

Why do YOU think anyone else would be? It wasn't me that alleged people do this, or would find such a life rewarding; it was you.

Cycloptichorn

George, I was thinking about this whole "moral right" idea this morning and I think it all dawned on me what this all means, and the reason why this really is a huge point in terms of understanding political views. And I will post this on the dictator thread as well because I think it strikes right at the heart of how right vs left manifests themselves in politics and in individuals, not only now but in history, as it applied to various figures in history, such as Hitler, Stalin, etc.

Here is what I think is so important to realize about this. The left, or the liberals, to one extent or another believe that health care is a right. As you have pointed out, or asked of liberals, then what about food, housing, etc. The answer I think from some would be yes, those are also a right, if not guaranteed by the State, they should be because they are a moral right as being part of the State or community, or they should be made available, they are a moral right. The point that I want to make here about what is so important about this - is that if one believes that services and things are morally due everyone, I think this means that everything belongs to everyone, and individual persons property and work also either are or become communal property, they belong to everyone, as individuals are all members of the human race and anything they have or produce were given to them or they produced from stuff that belongs to everyone. Therefore, liberals view us all as a whole, a community or commune. This means they believe in socialism or even communism. This even ties into many different facets of political issues, such as environmentalism, views on it in terms of liberal and conservative, the earth belongs to everyone, the animals, everything belongs to the community. I could mention other issues that display the same principle, but I think this should amply illustrate the point I am making here.

Now, in contrast, and it is a huge contrast, the Judeo-Christian belief is one philosophy, perhaps not the only one that propagates what I am about to describe but certainly one of the most important in the history of the world, it brings in the concept and principle of the rights and responsibilites of the individual, not the group, to own property, to work and earn whatever he earns for himself. What he earns belongs to him, and his property belongs to him alone. This also means that stealing is now a huge crime, when one individual steals or takes from another what the other rightfully owns or has earned. So now apply this to health care, liberals view this as a right, so it does not bother them to take from others to give it to themselves or others. Under their belief, it is rightfully theirs, but under the Judeo-Christian philosophy, that is essentially stealing. Of course people can and do commonly give to others voluntarily, this is called charity, but when it is forcefully taken from them what they earned and own, it is essentially an act of theft.

Okay, here is where we are, America has traditionally been founded upon, and I think the vast majority of people still believe in the concept and right of people as individuals to own property and things, and when it is taken from them, it is considered stealing. However, as more and more liberalism, or philosophy of the commune, as more and more of that thinking creeps in, there is more and more pressure upon the "State" to take (it isn't called stealing) from those that rightfully earn and own assets and give it to those that do not have it, why, because it is morally and rightfully theirs too, because we are all members of the commune or community, or nation, whatever, now I think the "world" is creeping into that attitude more and more. Note Obama made a big point of the fact that he was a "citizen of the world."

All of what I have just described is really a religious belief at its foundation, whether it is in an established religion or merely the fact that the State is the arbitor of fairness because everything belongs to everyone, according to the ultra left. After all, what other vehicle can be used to institute this religious belief besides the State, so the State also becomes a religious belief in practice.

I am going to post this on the dictator thread as well, with a closing paragraph on Hitler and how this relates to him.