[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUMQR_Bo7s[/youtube]
In Part II of my “Talkin’ with Teabaggers” adventure, I chat with an elderly gentleman protesting last Thursday’s pro-healthcare reform rally (you know, the one that never happened). No snarky subtitles or silly inserts this time, just a few minutes of unedited conversation about healthcare, and why us whippersnappers don’t need or deserve it.
In what has become an ironic cliche that typifies the inanity of the current healthcare reform debate, this eighty-ish-year-old man may be opposed to government run health insurance, but he sure does love him some Medicare. When asked if he’s happy with Medicare he says “yes.” When asked if he’d want it taken away, he says “no.” When asked if the government has done an “okay job” running Medicare, he says “As far as I’m concerned, it’s been okay with us.”
In fact, his high degree of satisfaction with his government-run Medicare seems to form the basis for his opposition to any plan that might include a government-run public option for the rest of us. “Why mess it up for old people?” he asked me.
Good question. Perhaps we should give up on this “public option” thing and just allow everybody to buy into Medicare, regardless of age? I know he thinks young folks don’t need it (hell, he didn’t have health insurance until he was 40, so why should anybody else?) but if that’s true then they’d sure be cheap to insure. Meanwhile, they’d still be subsidizing his Medicare coverage through their payroll taxes, just like they’re doing now, so how could that possibly mess anything up for him?
Yeah, sure… under that scenario, Medicare would be the public option. But shhhh, don’t call it that, and we might get his support.
Why are some skeptical about the public option? Because nobody is offering specifics on how to pay for it. Even AARP, which is allied with the Administration on this issue, knows its members are unconvinced:
Medicare as the public option? Of course!
“Public option” is just shitty terminology. As usual the messaging from the Ds has been simply awful.
It’s basically what the House progressives are holding firm to and discussed in their recent letter to the President.
I also suspect expanding medicare is too simple and understandable and wouldn’t require a 1200 page bill (the ONLY valid criticsm from the ‘baggers, I’ve heard) with the usual “filler” in the sausage for the special interests.
“hell, he didn’t have health insurance until he was 40, so why should anybody else?”
According to this reasoning, because Republicans are stupid, why should anyone else have any brains? I mean, who needs Einstein? or Stephen Hawking? or Isaac Newton?
@1 They don’t like public option because they know it’ll lead to single-payer. Which is another way of saying they know what the odds are of the private insurance industry shaping up.
At least there’s some logical, albeit selfish, basis for this guy’s reasoning. The trouble with most wingnuts is you can’t have a reasonable conversation with them about building houses in flood plains even when they’re standing neck-deep in muddy water in their own living rooms.
Goldy is a dumbass, ignorant east coast punk…
This posting only proves it.
As usual, Mr. Rabbit, you’re spot on.
This could be such a simple, powerful message for the Ds:
“The private insurers are parasites. They literally suck the blood of Americans and add no value. It’s your premium dollar: Would you rather spend 4 cents on the dollar to pay someone to write a check, or 40 cents?”
The only thing #5 proves is the fool who wrote it is a dumbass ignorant moron who came from God knows where.
Priceless: “There are no crazy people at my teaparty”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zach_a/3897830238/
Another one (out of the mouths of babes):
“Mommy says republican is another word for fucker”
Empty @5,
Why? Because I let this guy make his case in his own words?
No, because the facts are’nt on your side. Even the CMS website admit this program is unsustainable.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
a synopsisis:
The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains challenging. Projected long run program costs are not sustainable under current program parameters. Social Security’s annual surpluses of tax income over expenditures are expected to fall sharply this year and to stay about constant in 2010 because of the economic recession, and to rise only briefly before declining and turning to cash flow deficits beginning in 2016 that grow as the baby boom generation retires. The deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets until reserves are exhausted in 2037, at which point tax income would be sufficient to pay about three fourths of scheduled benefits through 2083. Medicare’s financial status is much worse. As was true in 2008, Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is expected to pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures this year than it receives in taxes and other dedicated revenues. The difference will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets. Growing annual deficits are projected to exhaust HI reserves in 2017, after which the percentage of scheduled benefits payable from tax income would decline from 81 percent in 2017 to about 50 percent in 2035 and 30 percent in 2080
I don’t think I could ever take a guy with lights on baseball cap seriously.
@ 4 RR spews; ” The trouble with most wingnuts is you can’t have a reasonable conversation with them about building houses in flood plains even when they’re standing neck-deep in muddy water in their own living rooms.”
Hey RR got any earthquakes where you’re at? How about volcanoes?
In Europe nurses and midwives account for 60% or more of healthcare expenditures. Here in the U.S. we are planning on bringing more people into an over crowded system, but none of the conversation is geared toward allowing nurses and midwives to do more.
Doctors waiting rooms are called that for a reason. Now there will be just more waiting.
After listening to people (including myself) talk about what would be best, I think I understand why this guy and others say they want Medicare left alone. They are afraid, because everyone else they know has awful problems with their form of insurance, and if those people get something out of whatever bill passes, then Medicare’s probably going to get impacted somehow. It isn’t that they’re stupid (usually), or that they’re refusing to see reality (usually). They know, viscerally, how dicey this whole situation is and they just want to put their arms around Medicare and protect it from whatever storm will arise.
I have Medicare and I may be a lot knowledgeable than this guy, or most of them. But I’m afraid also. That’s the existential state of Americans re health care coverage: fear. And it’s a rational state to be in.
SS and Medicare each have their own unique poblems, but Republicans always lump Medicare in with SS to make the overall situation seem much worse.
Revenues are down during the worst recession since the Great Depression? You don’t say! Hard to believe a thing like that could happen, huh?
But the SS trust fund under the most optimistic (they call it “low-cost”) scenario never runs out of funds at all (see Figure II.D6 in the Trustees’ Report). Of course, the GOP’s dirty little secret it that the low-cost scenario has just about always been the most accurate.
Medicare, of course, is a different question. The same cost drivers that are putting regular old medical care under our incredibly stupid system of private, employer-paid insurance either more and more costly or out of reach to Americans (especially in this time of high unemployment and underemployment–see M6 measure) are driving up costs for Medicare as well. So cost containment is a goal for us all. The current health insurance reform will address these cost issues and save money, as well as cover the uninsured.
If you want to know how, read the bills. I’ve presented them here already.
@11:
1. Conflating Social Secuity with Medicare is intellectually dishonest. The Trust Fund + scheduled FICA taxes will pay scheduled benefits until about 2040–like 30 yrs. from now.
2. Medicare is in trouble. So why are all the windbag wingnuts insisting on “leaving it (a government program no less) alone?” Reform is indeed necessary. We need to find a way to expand the pool, expand coverage, and lower costs. What is the conservative solution? Nothing: Tort reform has already proved to be worthless; and allowing people to buy insurance from different carriers in other states is laughable. We need single payer coverage for all, or better still, national health (yes, grasshopper, socialized medicine). Fee for service medicine must die. Insurance models do not work for health care. Ask any economist with an actual brain.
@14, Sarah68: All the more reason to embrace reform and educate yourself about this important debate. Fear is not a rational state when it comes to this issue.
@13: “In Europe nurses and midwives account for 60% or more of healthcare expenditures.”
Cite please. Thank the AMA doctor monopoly for that. It’s OK for autoworkers to be subject to international cost pressures (low wages elsewhere), but no, not our god like MD’s. Dean Baker calls this, correctly, nanny state conservatism. When push comes to shove, conservatives don’t really believe in so called ‘free’ markets.
It’s pure unadulterated rent seeking. Look it up.
@15 The current health insurance reform will address these cost issues and save money, as well as cover the uninsured.
——-
Really? Show us the plan you’re talking about, and the independent analysis for it that shows how this is changed:
http://www.cbo.gov/publication.....health.cfm
Or those holloywood liberals that continue to build expensive homes in fire zones.
The Trust Fund + scheduled FICA taxes will pay scheduled benefits until about 2040–like 30 yrs. from now.
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Beginning in 2016 or so SS payroll revenues will begin falling behind SS payments for good, requiring the redemption of trust fund assets. In reality that MEANS the US Treasury will have to fund the shortfall through deficit spending, a cut in spending, or new taxes unless the system is tweaked. In addition, all those surplus SS dollars have historically gone into the general fund and been spent. As those go to zero, the shortfall will also have to be made up through spending cuts, higher deficits, or tax increases. Obama has highlighted social security as an important issue, though his initial thinking, proposed during the campaign, was vague.
ds @ 21: The long term outlook for the exhaustion of the Trust Fund rest critically on long term assumptions about the future trajectory of the US Economy. The SS Admin. posits three scenarios: Low Cost (Social Security will be able to meet its obligations forever); Middle cost (some small adjustments might be necessary); and High Cost (everything goes into the shitter–in which case, there will be much larger issues to deal with). You simply ignore this and make bald ass assumptions and expect your credulous reader to accept assumptions as “facts”. It ain’t so.
The real problem is the General Fund. Current projected spending is unsustainable, thanks in great measure to the Bush tax cuts.
In a nutshell we have this: FICA taxes were raised back in the 80’s. This regressive tax has funded federal spending ever since. The rich have enjoyed huge tax cuts in the meantime. Now that it is time to pay it back, they are trying to renege. This is theft. Under any other circumstances you would be howling about the “sanctity of contract”. Well, we have a social contract. The rich are trying to weasel out of their obligations.
Fuck ’em.
@22 You simply ignore this and make bald ass assumptions and expect your credulous reader to accept assumptions as “facts”. It ain’t so.
——-
Excuse me? The funding of the SS deficit that begins in 2016 or so is exactly as I described. The shortfall will have to be funded somehow, and those are the options. This isn’t complicated, and it has nothing to do with long-term viability issues, theft by the rich, or how the system is eventually tweaked.
Regarding this:
“The real problem is the General Fund. Current projected spending is unsustainable, thanks in great measure to the Bush tax cuts.”
the last administration was fiscally irresponsible, yes.
@23: The Department of Defense also has to be funded, as do other federal programs. What’s your point? The problem is with the General Fund–not Social Security. There is no “shortfall in Social Security”.
You are conflating two separate issues. Please stop.
Marvin @ 20: “Or those holloywood liberals that continue to build expensive homes in fire zones.’
Oh, that is rich. Lessee here. The Congresscritter from the 25th is some clown named Howard McKeon–and he appears to be a-boom baddah bing! republican.
Damn those sneaky liberals.
@24 There is no “shortfall in Social Security”.
Shortfall meaning when the surplus disappears and trust fund redemptions begin. That MEANS cutting spending elsewhere and/or higher taxes. Sorry, nothing complicated here.
@23: “the last administration was fiscally irresponsible, yes.”
Yes. Agree. The Bush tax cuts put the general fund in a position where spending (current + some posited reasonable growth) will grow faster than revenues, making deficits a larger and larger portion of GNP, even if you assume a reasonable level of economic growth. A couple of “off budget” wars didn’t help any. This, I would agree with you, is unsustainable.
But I ask you this: If endless war on the asian continent to the tune of hundreds of billions every year is on the long term horizon, why are not conservatives up in arms demanding this “entitlement” be fully funded “into the inifinite time horizon”? Why is this not a fiscal crisis?
The answer is simple: They hate social spending. They worship war. They are lickspittle for the rich and powerful.
“That MEANS cutting spending elsewhere and/or higher taxes.”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. This assumes all else remaining static. It won’t. The economy most likely will grow. Productivity most likely will return to trend. On a stand alone basis, the program is just fine. When you conflate it with the general fund (which you repeatedly do)suddenly Social Security “has a problem”.
PS: The government could also issue bonds.
But I would agree that the Bush Tax cuts must be repealed. Thanks.
“That MEANS cutting spending elsewhere and/or higher taxes.”
That is not a problem with the program. It is a problem due to our fiscal recklessness.
For a quarter of a century the FICA taxes paid by ordinary folks subsidized federal spending. Where was the hue and cry then? Now the bonds have to be redeemed by law, and there is a “crisis”?
Puhleez.
bunny boy…..why screw up health care…the best in the world…for health insurance reform? The “public option” would kill quality health care. Allowing for more competition amongst insurers (allow all people to buy from whom ever they please – see progressive insurance) would save folks money. Tort reform and prosecuting insurance fraud would save money. Why aren’t we doing that before we kill quality health care?
Would you let miss bunny have Indian health care? I bet not…she’d end up being hasenfeffer.
My grandma is on medicare, but it isn’t a be all end all….it is a life line that we all pay for. It sucks, is bankrupt and needs to be fixed. Why not do that and the help the 5million folks that can’t get insurance. Leave teh rest alone…after they allow me to buy insurance from any company I CHOOSE!
I know you are smart…..stop being so dumb on this subject.
“Shortfall meaning when the surplus disappears and trust fund redemptions begin..”
That is a shortfall in the General Fund, not Social Security.
But if you insist on making Hobbsian choices, try this: Cut defense spending in half, leave asia, raise top 10%ers marginal rates to 50%, eliminate the distinction between capital gains and ordinary income, abolish special tax breaks, severely curtain patents, raise the death tax to the point where somebody, just ONE person, actually dies from writing the check to pay it…..
Run that through your calculator.
30: “Tort reform and prosecuting insurance fraud would save money.”
Please name a state in which tort deform has brought down healthcare premiums and then name a state in which insurance fraud is not prosecuted. You guys all use the same playbook, and it doesn’t work anymore. You live in Wonderland, and even Alice no longer visits there.
@30
“best in the world” my ass, try 37th in the world based on outcomes. Also the most expensive by a large margin in every measure.
Allowing people to “buy from any insurance company” typically means not allowing states to regulate out-of-state insurance companies. In the long run this means every insurance company will locate itself in the states that regulate insurance the least. Essentially it leads to a race to the bottom especially if enforcement of insurance companies actually paying claims or upholding their side of contracts is left to the states in any “reform” legislation.
If endless war on the asian continent to the tune of hundreds of billions every year is on the long term horizon, why are not conservatives up in arms demanding this “entitlement” be fully funded “into the inifinite time horizon”? Why is this not a fiscal crisis?
—————–
Defense spending is part of the crisis IMO. The administration’s own mid-session review issued in late August – a review considered highly optimistic by the non-partisan Concord Coalition – showed interest on the debt alone to be 29 percent of income/corporate tax revenue for fiscal 2019. That is, nearly 1 out of 3 dollars paid into government coffers from these primary revenue sources will go to interest payments by then, with deficit trends only getting worse from there on out unless significant changes are made.
Entitlement reform must happen or we will go bankrupt. My personal view of defense spending is we clearly spend money (a) we don’t have; and (b) much of it is unnecessary and, indeed, a scandal. We spend far more than any other nation on earth, and endless wars are draining us. I’m no fan of our defense priorities or a procurement system. The entire system is broken and/or corrupted. You only have to look at efforts to curtail the F-22 (a truly bipartisan affair) or John Murtha to see this (this is not a partisan observation – both sides do it).
However, the current administration’s long-term budget plan does little to rein in defense spending, and its numbers may end up being optimistic depending on Afghanistan and who knows what else.
Both my parents are on Medicare but they also purchase supplemental plans since Medicare doesn’t cover their needs (both are relatively healthy, in their 70s, no major diseases or complications). To save costs with a public option, Medicare will have to make cuts that will make it an even more ineffective plan and still not bring it out of debt.
Ironic, this same government that cares about your “right” to healthcare could care less about your “right” to shelter if you fail to pay your property taxes. They’ll confiscate your home, kick you out, and auction it for back taxes.
Well if the congressman is conservative I guess in your mind that proves all those hollywood people are republicans. Of course they will disagree with you, call you names for that insult but I guess you know best.
Or were you implying that mckeon owns all the land in the SM mountains?
What was your point of mentioning mckeon if not to deflect from the fact lala land is dominated by liberals?
Excellent point.
Many people consider the free government healthcare program more about gaining more control of the population as opposed to helping We The People.
Your point about “right to shelter” does point out that the government is more about control and taking from the population than actually helping.
Every state. $70 billion (approx 20% of Medicare)…though I don’t believe the $120 some have said. That is what the government is stating. I know they are tryng some, but not enough. Just like immigration….enforce the laws we have. I know that there have been action in FL ($400 million ring caught) and hopefully more to come.
Tort reform…where is it passing? We had a chance in WA but it was defeated. Did you vote against it? why not have it in the HB 3220? Not in there? Why not? Are you saying that you don’t believe that the costs of protecting against ambulance chasers don’t drive up costs?
As for insurance companies….So are you saying the government can’t/shouldn’t regulate? So some slum states will allow companies to screw everyone? I thought Dems love regulation? So why not regulate all? States rights are an issue, but the public option fucks all states rights.
BTW – Our insurance commissioner is a liar. He want’s single payer…wish he’d just say it. STand up for what you want. Then let folks decide.
37th in the world..but if you have cancer…want to live in #1? My dad is alive after prostate cancer….he’d be dead if he lived in Canada, cuba, England or most other government run systems.
Marvie @ 37: “Many people consider the free government healthcare program more about gaining more control of the population as opposed to helping We The People.”
When you use the term “many people,” what you are referring to is the wingnut fringe that doesn’t much live in the fact-based world. Helping people with their basic needs provides them freedom. That really isn’t debatable. How free do you feel when debt pulls you down, when you can’t see the doctor because you haven’t any way to pay for the doctor? We The People is not you, Marvie. You are a wingnut. You remind me of that old saying, “those with the least to say, say it the loudest.”
Dengle @ 38
I am not capable of making sense of whatever it is you are spewing. “Tort reform” is a fiction the insurance companies have spent more than a generation and billions of dollars to cause the gullible to believe. Juries are made of people like you. They are all too full of people like you, those who hold a grudge against anyone who wants simple justice. In medical malpractice actions, which are not brought nearly as often as they should be because of cost considerations, doctors almost always win. Nonetheless, because the right to trial by jury is protected under both the federal and state constitutions, I believe that imposing limits on what juries can do in tort cases is, well, unconstitutional. And, by the way, you didn’t name a single state in which “tort reform” has been enacted (and there have been plenty of them) that has seen a related decline in healthcare insurance premiums. Quit drinking the Kool-Aid, you pawn.
Helping people with their basic needs with our own money is the most altruistic choices we make. I don’t need the government to tell me how to help people by confiscating my money.
There are many city, county, federal and private clinics that provide free or slide-scale medical services based upon your ability to pay.
Not everything in life is free, cheap or provided by the government. It’s called prioritizing YOUR responsibilities. I’d rather save my money for health insurance than pay for cable, movies, vacations, a new car, etc.
Goldy, we know you have a compulsive desire to insult, but even you know the term “teabaggers” has some pretty hjeavy deviant sexual practices baggage. Especially applied to the Gray Panthers.
Anyway, the debate is about who pays, and the implication is how much. If you apply all the assumptions and logic used in the health care issue to your homeowners or renters insurance and to your automobile insurance you could not afford them either.
There is no argument that people are denied medical care, as evidenced by the numerous stories about the use and abuse of the Emergency Room service and how it is stressing or bankrupting a lot of hospitals. People are not being denied service based on ability to pay.
If we apply the Medical insurance theory to autos or to houses and such, look what happens. Oil changes count toward the deductible. Need new tires, there will be a $50 deductible. Want a new kitchen? Do you find the existing kitchen cramped and confining and causing you the vapors? Our consultant will validate your claim and design a new kitchen for your dreams and you only need pay the deductible. And we may as well do the baths while we are at it.
If you want reform, put the Medical on the same basis as auto and homeowners, with a %500 per occurrence deductible. Insurance is for catastrophes.
Can’t deal with that? OK, call it Medical Welfare.
The Chiropracter takes cash, charges $29, has very nice facilities, and will reluctantly submit a claim to insurance, including Medicare. The Doctor charges $65, has shabby facilities, and prefers to bill insurance and then calls back frequently about difficulty getting paid.
This debate ought to be intellectually honest. It isn’t about insurance in the classic terns, i.e. catastrophic loss.
But it isn’t about insurance , it’s about what can I get for free. Which sort of defines this site.
You’re trying hard to be an elite snob but you don’t have the credentials to pull that off.
Freedom for what? Spending their money on toys and stuff not as important as their own basic needs?
If helping people with their basic needs gives them freedom, why don’t YOU prove it and pay for my basic needs. Since you hate people like me, then pay for the basic needs of someone that you do like… someone like byebyegop or gman.
Maybe people shouldn’t waste their money on non-important things in life. If healthcare is so important, why shouldn’t it cost a big part of a persons income.
A large part of my debt is the bills I get from the government. If you get your wish, my debt goes up. If you’re right about debt and freedom, that means I will have less freedom if you get your way.
How bush-like of you.
If I’m not part of we the people, why do you want me to pay for your healthcare?
What have you said in message #40 besides your lame attempts at insulting me?
43: “But it isn’t about insurance , it’s about what can I get for free.”
You truly don’t get it. Your post was, for the most part, incomprehensible, but the quote above at least exposes your Beckian, Limbaughian leanings. The percentage of people in either party who want something for free is negligible. Healthcare is a real problem in this country, and naive platitudes like what you’ve posted do not advance the argument. I pay not only for my family’s health insurance, but for that of my employees, too. It is not about wanting something for free. Turn off the Fox News.
ROTFLMAO
Another nutty tin foil hat Republican idiot. HE wants government health care (Medicare) but doesn’t think anyone ELSE should have it. The government can and does do a great job with health care for a 75 year old man, this guy admits. So the government CAN do health care for the folks are use the MOST health care, but somehow (and he’s not sure how) it can’t provide health care to 25 year olds. ROTFLMAO.
If Republicans weren’t so violent and angry, they’d just be CUTE with how retarded they are now a days.
Marvie,
You are in a mood tonight, aren’t you?
I’m headed to bed, so I’m short on time here. I’ll say this in response to your points above: debt is an enslaver far more than anything this country’s government can do. And, don’t give me your bullshit about taxes–I know I pay way more in taxes than you do. Debt changes career options for kids coming out of college, healthcare insurance changes preclude people from changing jobs. And, I could go on and on. If I had the time. Which I don’t.
What are you talking about?
If people lived within their means (which is not the american way), people would have less debt. I live cheap, of course that’s a choice so I can accumulate lots of property to increase my wealth.
When I told gbs I was on welfare I was teasing him. I’m not.
That said, how do you know how much I pay in taxes? Are you that fucking rich? if so, use some of your money to pay for someones health insurance you cheap bastard.
Marvin, that comment reaffirms my belief that government, no matter what party, is all about control.
Well, Medicare CAN’T do healthcare efficiently since it is BROKE. It can’t provide health care to everyone when it drains the taxpayer base. We’ll all be going Galt soon…
Those pesky scientists weigh in: just like they succumbed to one the alternative reality that suggests that anthropogenic activity has increased the amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Nothing new there coming from latest research, so why would science types know anything about health care???
Daddylove and everyone: Congress hasn’t PASSED anything yet, thus you can’t show us or tell us what it is. It doesn’t matter what the separate bills are, or what the combined Senate and House bill is. The ONLY thing that matters is what the President signs. We won’t know what that is until he signs it. Until then, you’re all just saying “Hey, look at THIS! Look over HERE!”
I don’t see how the public option will work unless the government completely takes-over the health care system. Who would want to pay for health insurance if there’s a “free” public option available? That means an end to all private health care insurance and a government agency directing the entire nation’s system of doctors, nurses and other health care workers. It also means some serious tort reform to get the trial lawyers out of it.
Well, it’s that’s the way we want to go, we shouldn’t be half-assed about it. We need to include dental, vision, chiropractic, natural healing, etc. If we’re gonna socialize it, we may as well be thorough about it. Oh yeah, The House and Senate can’t excuse themselves from participation: if it’s good enough for us peons, then it’s good enough for those elected yahoos, too!
@29 That is not a problem with the program. It is a problem due to our fiscal recklessness.
Puhleez.
———-
I’m not sure what this is about since I’ve stated nothing to the contrary. In fact, I agree.
Regarding this:
“the Bush Tax cuts must be repealed.”
Obama’s proposed budget will not repeal these for the middle class, so you no doubt have an issue with him there, correct?
On this:
“If endless war on the asian continent to the tune of hundreds of billions every year is on the long term horizon”
I imagine you also have a problem with Obama’s “war of necessity,” and are beating the drums on HA on this, correct?
@51 Congress hasn’t PASSED anything yet
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See @19. Exactly, there is no final plan to point to, let alone a cost analysis of it. You would think this would be apparent with all the debate taking place in Washington.
Doesn’t stop right wing idiots from whining about “socialism”.
You want to talk about costs: 70 to 80 cents of the health care dollar in this country is spent on delivering health care. In other countries it’s 90 cents and up. The overhead of Medicare is what? 5 cents on the dollar?
The debate is over whether the health insurance company shareholder (as in greedy executives) gravy train should be reigned in.
Hey if they find a way to pocket big paydays while delivering more cents on the dollar to actual health care – all the power to them.
@16 The current health insurance reform will address these cost issues and save money, as well as cover the uninsured.
As usual, Daddy Love is way out in left field:
Sick and Wrong
“By blowing off single-payer and cutting the heart out of the public option, the Obama administration robbed itself of its biggest argument — that health care reform is going to save a lot of money. That has left the Democrats vulnerable to charges that the plan is going to blow a mile-wide hole in the budget, one we’ll be paying debt service on through the year 3000.”
http://www.rollingstone.com/po.....and_wrong/
Insane Klowne Hall Posse
Now the government wants to fine people for not having health insurance. So, healthcare is a right but if you don’t exercise that right you’ll be fined? Let’s try the 2nd Amendment analogy. If you don’t buy a gun, we’ll penalize you. Brilliant…
More proof this isn’t about providing health care – it’s about money and power. Remember, this same government that cares about your right to healthcare could care less about your right to shelter if you fail to pay your property taxes. They’ll confiscate your home, kick you out, and auction it for back taxes.
From Organizing for America web site: “Rally and benefit concert for Palmyra Romeo, an Americorps Volunteer, who fell ill with a brain infection. Her federal Americorps insurance had a 50k cap and she has been forced to incur thousands of dollars of medical bills. Health care has to be fixed!”
Any one notice the problem with this statement?