IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

@okie,

Okie, can't you avoid red baiting. It is not constructive.

Government has always stepped in when the private sector has not coped. That is why we have a public post office, public schools, NASA, etc. There is nothing more important than health care, and the private sector has failed. The companies are getting up to 30 % of health-care costs merely for shuffling papers around. You better get ready, universal is on the way.

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@okie,

Okie is in favor of tort reform. That makes him a Marxist. He is probably also in favor of government licensing of doctors, and punishment of those who provide negligent care. Okie might even be a commie.

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@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

I wonder why many of the same people who are against opening up health insurance to be sold across state lines ARE in favor of a public option.

I mean, there would only be 1 public option, it would likely not meet all of the individual states' requirements. The policies would be no different than Blue Cross developing a similar plan and administering it across all 50 states.

Can someone who is against opening up inter-state insurance sales please explain how they reconcile that opposition with a similar public option plan.

Allowing companies to sell insurance across state lines, without having to comply with local state regulations, merely ensures that the exact same thing which has happened to the CC industry will happen to the insurance industry: the companies will relocate to whatever state allows them the highest profits and the lowest mandated payouts. This isn't a positive thing.

Unless insurance is regulated on the Federal level - something requiring a new bureaucracy and extra money - selling across state lines is a recipe for disaster.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Well, we had the CARD act which eliminated many of the things that CC did to skirt around invididual state laws.

I don't see why there can't be a federal minimum applied to health insurance contracts, and then opening up competition across state lines, AND REMOVING THE ANTITRUST EXEMPTION, which I just found out about this week. No wonder costs are going up.

And I don't know that this would require any extra money or departments; just writing a regulation and giving it to the department of health to monitor. And even if it does cost money at the federal level, it would likely be relatively small (in comparison to the cost of healthcare) and it would provide downward pressure and compition to an industry that has none.

1 Reply

@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

Well, we had the CARD act which eliminated many of the things that CC did to skirt around invididual state laws.

I don't see why there can't be a federal minimum applied to health insurance contracts, and then opening up competition across state lines, AND REMOVING THE ANTITRUST EXEMPTION, which I just found out about this week. No wonder costs are going up.

Well, part of the reason there can't be these things is that the Republicans won't allow the current bill to go through; it would add Federal minimums to insurance and lay the framework for a system of national insurance sales.

Quote:

And I don't know that this would require any extra money or departments; just writing a regulation and giving it to the department of health to monitor. And even if it does cost money at the federal level, it would likely be relatively small (in comparison to the cost of healthcare) and it would provide downward pressure and compition to an industry that has none.

This certainly doesn't seem to have happened with Credit cards.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

The current health bill has nothing resembling selling insurance across state lines, except the public option, which does the same thing.

What if the public option met the lowest common demoninator regarding state regulations, would you still be in support of that?

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

This certainly doesn't seem to have happened with Credit cards.

This is a statement resulting from ignorance. I work for a credit card company, I can assure you that we try to cut our competitors rates or practices at every possible place.

1 Reply

@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

This certainly doesn't seem to have happened with Credit cards.

This is a statement resulting from ignorance. I work for a credit card company, I can assure you that we try to cut our competitors rates or practices at every possible place.

Has this lead to a large amount of diversity and choice in the CC market, in your opinion? It certainly doesn't seem to be that way. There doesn't seem to be much that differentiates one CC company from another, in terms of both rates and practices.

Has it not directly lead to CC companies moving their headquarters in order to find the State with the loosest regulations? It certainly does seem that way.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

The current health bill has nothing resembling selling insurance across state lines, except the public option, which does the same thing.

What if the public option met the lowest common demoninator regarding state regulations, would you still be in support of that?

I'm not 100% sure what this means. And I would add that the Public Option, sadly, isn't a part of the current Senate bill.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

Heres an interesting video.
The same senators that are now talking about using reconciliation (51 votes instead of 60 to bass a bill), were adamantly opposed to it when the Bush admin wanted to use it.
Senator Barak Obama also opposed it.

If they opposed it then, isnt it hypocritical to support using it now?
It seems to be to me...

http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/

1 Reply

@mysteryman,

mysteryman wrote:

Heres an interesting video.
The same senators that are now talking about using reconciliation (51 votes instead of 60 to bass a bill), were adamantly opposed to it when the Bush admin wanted to use it.
Senator Barak Obama also opposed it.

If they opposed it then, isnt it hypocritical to support using it now?
It seems to be to me...

http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/

You (and Breitbart) are confusing Reconciliation with the 'Nuclear Option.' They are not the same thing at all. Do you understand the difference between the two?

Cycloptichorn

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I have been watching the debate in Washington for the last three hours and it is mind numbing.

They are suggesting cutting out fraud. Fancy that.

They are talking about the merits of prevention rather than cure. As if nobody had thought of that before. And they are talking about it without reference to the food producing and advertising industries or whether they could get people to eat a healthy diet and exercise.

Then there's lawsuits for malpractice which is a good portion of the legal profession's bread and butter. And insurance against such risks.

Then exchanges and pooling and shopping around and comparing and common sense reforms as if they are all novel ideas and as if they can be defined.

Most points were made based on what some committee had said, some poll had shown, some university had discovered and what the Congressional Budget Office had concluded.

They even argued about how much time each side had had.

They are electioneering actually and they are both pretending that they can deliver health care more cheaply with an aging, hypochondriacal and litigous population. Which can't be true.

There's only one answer it seems to me. Free Federal healthcare for all at the point of delivery. A Sec. of State for Health who says what goes and who is responsibly to the voters.

Short of that you are going to get these people, who all have Rolls Royce health insurance paid for by the taxpayer, arguing forever and adding more costs as they thrash about, finding ways of preventing everybody else having what they have because it would cost too much as if they and their families had more rights to life and treatment than the poor. And all under the banner of equality.

What a state to get into. Millions of Americans worried everyday and all day and all their lives whether the next twinge or accident of their own or of a member of their family spells financial ruin and destitution. That sort of permanent anxiety is medieval and must have unseen costs which are unquantifiable. And profiteering doctors have a reputation going back through Voltaire, Rabelais and all the way to Galen and beyond to shamans.

And looking at it from here, where anybody from hobo to Highness can just flop into a hospital doorway at anytime, probably unfixable.

Talking about what to teach rather than teaching is an industry. As is talking about health care rather than caring.

Demographics, technologically advancing treatments and human nature are against them.

1 Reply

@spendius,

So nice to hear from you, Spendi, that the NHS has been such a uniform success and that the UK has been so free of political issues concerning its operation, and remains on the moral heights to which it has been accustomed for centuries.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

So nice to hear from you, Spendi, that the NHS has been such a uniform success and that the UK has been so free of political issues concerning its operation, and remains on the moral heights to which it has been accustomed for centuries.

Well, did the USA have anything at least somehow similar to the NHS during the last 60 years? Or even earlier, say, during the last 130 years?

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@Cycloptichorn,

I was referring to Obama's starting point that he finally put his name on.

What I'm referring to regarding the public option is the following:

Using a totally hypothetical example, and I have no idea if any of this is true.
Say South Carolina has the fewest regulations of any state in the country. They don't mandate payment for mental health visits. They don't mandate payment for acupuncture visits. They don't mandate coverage for 'experimental' treatment, etc.

What if the public option had those exact same minimum regulations, and was sold across state lines (as it would be).

Would you support it then? The public option would not meet the same standards as health insurance companies the operate in California would have to meet. It WILL not meet the same standards of ANY state. It takes away the states ability to set standards for it's own citizens.

The federal public option could do the exact same thing you don't want health insurance companies who would be allowed to operate across state lines to do.

While you may not 'think' that the Democrats would institute a lowest common demoninator health plan, you probably beleive that Republicans would. Are you willing to risk that possibility when the Republicans take power at some point in the future?

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Has this lead to a large amount of diversity and choice in the CC market, in your opinion? It certainly doesn't seem to be that way. There doesn't seem to be much that differentiates one CC company from another, in terms of both rates and practices.

Has it not directly lead to CC companies moving their headquarters in order to find the State with the loosest regulations? It certainly does seem that way.

Last time I checked there were literally tens of thousands of different credit cards with thousands of different terms/rewards/fees/interest rates/practices/etc. Not everything can be different, as there are hundreds of thousands of pages of regulation you have to follow, but yes, I feel there is significant diversity in the Credit Card market. How much more choice could you possibly want. Please tell me what you want, I'm sure I can find a card that has it.

The credit card company I work for is HQ in the state of Illinois (an un-business-friendly state as you are likely to find in the USA), as are several others. There are literally thousands of different banks that issue credit cards; are you suggesting that all of them are HQ in just a few states?

If you want to discuss this further, we can in another thread.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

So nice to hear from you, Spendi, that the NHS has been such a uniform success and that the UK has been so free of political issues concerning its operation, and remains on the moral heights to which it has been accustomed for centuries.

Oh George. It hasn't been such a great success. It is beset with many of the same problems you have as one might expect. Success, even small success, is impossible. Holding the line is the aim.

But that permanent financial anxiety throughout all the population I mentioned doesn't exist.

Many well off people here, not all, use the NHS. They think it a duty to do so in order that they have some idea of what they are talking about. It's a damnably dirty business.

But while poor people are subjected to the horror stories I heard in that debate and taxpayer funded High Rollers who expect and get the best, having organised the right insurance, are debating the subject whilst looking over their shoulders at their backers, one can hardly imagine "equality" as much other than only a distant objective and not to be applied literally to the here and now.

Conservatives here have found out that you don't get into office by cutting spending on the NHS. All three parties have "ring-fenced" the NHS from the upcoming cuts, the thought of which has all our knees knocking and our teeth chattering. Not all of us of course. Some professions benefit from us having our knees knocking and our teeth chattering. Psychological counsellors say.

One might argue that conservatives will never win an election arguing against an opponent who can wring the heartstrings of the nation, until they bleed, on the subject of health care for all and particulary for that increasing slice of the franchise of our elderly doddering old fogies such as you and I when the upcoming generation might not be averse to exposing us on a mountainside. I wouldn't be either if I was in their shoes.

I was implying no moral high ground. Either for now or for previous centuries. I couldn't for shame do that. I was being political. Gradgrind is a thing of the past.

BTW--did you make an answer to that post I addressed to you about litigation mania and the "state of your character as a nation"? I didn't see it if you did. I was looking forward to it actually.

And BTW again- I notice that the post I'm responding to here has that style farmerman uses so often. I hope I'm wrong because I wouldn't like you to become as incoherent as he is. I was looking forward to your response. Maybe it slipped your mind.

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The conseratives came up with a new proposal today. Scrap all the bills the congress has worked on for a year and start over. That way they can stall health care reform for at least 1 or 2 years. Mabey even longer if they can get Sara elected.

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@spendius,

Quote:

But that permanent financial anxiety throughout all the population I mentioned doesn't exist.

Those who don't have to worry about this, don't give a **** that others do. It's the American way!

Cycloptichorn

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@Advocate,

The US Postal Server is nearly bankrupt, by the way.

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IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

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