Obama care?

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I hold this up as an example of the average American literacy in politics, economics and business.... Corrupted by Fox news.

Its very interesting to me, that you actually think that the force against Obamacare is also behind all of commercial media. Obamacare is what the elites want (who actually owns the media), not the other way around. People, like me, do not want this, because this forces people to buy insurance, and if they don't face fines, or jail time. That's not Freedom, and this country is supposed to be free. This is the first step, to becoming a non free country. That's the opposition, not the fact that there needs to be a change. But that it takes away my right, to choose to have insurance or not.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Banking and Insurance lobbies are the two largest players.

In a normal system why would you be required to buy auto insurance? Why not let the guys who want protection for their cars buy full coverage. Let everyone else go as they see in their own self interest?

If I wreck into someone who owns a $2million car and total it, he is covered. If I do not have coverag then I loose my own car. There is some logic that the guy driving the expensive car pay the expensive insurance and the guy driving the $1000 beater car pay small insurance premium or none at all. But the Insurance companies might not benefit as much, why? Well the rich guy has power and shop for the best deal and the poor guy will not buy it at all. So if we have a mandated by law to buy insurance system the insurance companies do well. This system is no accident it was designed to make rich men richer.

Here with medical insurance we have a situation where the insurance companies are guaranteed to profit and it is made better by having mandated insurance.

What we should have is a single payer system with no profits in health and medical.

I'm confused when people say this is supposed to be a free country and I shouldn't be forced to by Heath insurance and this is the first step in becoming a not free country. Aren't we forced to buy car insurance regardless if the car sits in the drive way or not. Home owners insurance, flood insurance if we live in a flood zone even if it never floods. PMI insurance if we don't put 20% down on a mortgage? Forced to pay taxes, forced to pay social security tax even if we don't live old enough to use it? School taxes even if we don't have children in the school system? Maybe I'm looking at it wrong? I don't no just hope people start working together for the greater good and it all works out.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

you are not looking at the real problem. You are looking at what you must pay what about what your neighbor must pay?

Why does a doctors visit need to cost $750, or a drug test $2200? or a medical procedure $75000? or a hospital stay $155000? Why should 30 year old technology open heart surgury cost $250,000?

why must a hospital provided aspirin cost $250?

If we outlawed medical insurance then prices would fall quickly to whatever the average family could afford to pay. 2 chickens for a doctors visit.

Well when you are healthy and don't really need insurance being saddled with a bill that is around $5000 a head is a major sacrifice. When jobs are being cut in a bad economy in order to accommodate this that makes it a big thing. When it goes for decades you give up. You are used to it. This is new. You really have to be naive if you don't expect people to react when such major financial changes are a foot.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Your fears are all fostered and promoted by Fox news..... It is no accident that you are afraid. Fog of war for the Right to get what they want.

What makes me nervous is that I don't understand the Affordable Health Care act very much. I hear a lot and I can't tell if it's just republicans hyping stuff up or if they are telling the truth. I've grown to distrust both sides of the isle over the years. Dems point their fingers at republicans and republicans point their fingers at dems constantly. Both sides are potentially equally corrupt. The government doesn't seem to work very well.

Looking at it objectively certainly doesn't hurt. What if someone in my family becomes chronically ill? Are they going to die because they have to wait too long to see a doctor? Are there going to be death panels?

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Really? I'm republican, former democrat, and am FAR from rich. A lot of people have genuine concerns. I'm glad the republicans are standing up for the little guys. I hope they do not compromise.

Quote from a loyal Fox News watcher.

I dont see why younger people should pay higher costs.

Sooner or later you will have kids, maternity cost money. So if you think you will not use the system you are deluded.

your party protects a system that allows 2200% profit on drugs, medical procedures and doctors visits and then blames the patience for suing when they get mistreated. If you research much you can see what the true cost of frivilous law suits are..... If you know anything at all about how a law suit begins you will know this is mostly propaganda by one side trying to scare illiterate people to allow powerful lobbies to do away with your private protections in the tort system.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

You sir are navie.

pot to kettle, you are black.

Do you honestly expect that the CURRENT plan gets any money from the wealthy?

Regardless of how it is paid for it is required. You have to break and egg to make an omelet...

This is the first step it will not stop here. Single payer will be the result but this is the way the game must be played.

Just because the entire country is being required to get insurance doesn't mean the entire country is one big group rate insurance program.

any battle like foot ball reaches for the next 10 yards. Then you get another 3 chances to make the next 10 yards and then again and again until you get 100 yards down the field and get a goal.

it is messy and ugly but it is happening and it is happening because we cannot afford to have 17% projected to grow to 23% of gross domestic product for the medical industry. This hurts Americas competitiveness and will get solved sooner or later or we lose competitive advantage even more.

People are being told they MUST spend $5000-$10,000 per year on insurance. Average income in the US is about $48,000. So many are going to spend nearly 1/4 of their take home income on insurance.

lots of wrangling going on and we do not know exactly how it is going to settle but I suspect the reason that the first years penalty for not buying any insurance are only $95-258 is so that people in a real pinch can wait to see how it comes down later.

I do not like the way it is shaking out as it works out to an additional income tax earmarked for health care but I too have faith sooner or later things will turn around.

AND THAT IS STICKING IT TO THE MAN? Really? Most democrats are idiots so wrapped up in class envy that you don't even realize the plan you endorse is making life much harder for you.

That man is already getting it stuck to him for the last 20 years and its getting worse each year. This tries to redirect some of the future stucking(Sticking).

BTW- I am a democrat with an MBA from a second teared Ivy League college. I own two airplanes and two homes for cash. I have not one penny of loans or mortgages for the last 13 years.....It is not class envy but clarity. I recommend you broaden your reading sources and stop listening to talk radio or watching Fox or anything to do with Rupert Murdock.

I'm not sure that true universal health care is a solution but ACA is NOT UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!!!! That is the problem with it.

You obviously have intelligence to be open to other ways of doing things....now we just have to find those ways. Agreed ACA is not the end all, nor the end of this.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Right now there is a fight to death on ACA mostly funded by doctors, medical industry who stands to make smaller profits int he future and medical insurance providers who do not want to insure everyone. Do you believe there is any chance to the idea that there may be some game playing by the insurance companies to try and move the political scene one way or the other? Also, didn't Texas opt out of the state managed plan and force it to a government implementation? Doesn't this contradict the R general tenancy for state control over national? So what purpose do you suspect they have for going against their own policies?

With all due respect. Where do you think I got my figures from? I get coverage from my wife's plan where she works but as an exercise I went to the Texas exchange and shopped for insurance for us both. Cheapest rate I can get is $240 month. But it has a $10,000 deductible and only 3 office visits allowed with co pay. To get decent real coverage that I would want the cost is much higher around $600 per month. That is only for 2 people. A family of 4 basically doubles those rates and a history of tobacco use also doubles your rates. So I stand by my figures.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I am a democratic libertarian and I can tell you that Republicans are not libertarians. The are big spending military, drug and medical complex guys talking out both sides of their mouths....They have never met a Corporate welfare program they did not support. If there is one thing I hate more than giving money to the poor its giving money to the rich corporations.

I am glad to hear you are a libertarian so now when you actually read some real facts and news you will have light shed on what you have been bombarded with down their in the land of longhorns. I have the same problem here in the land of Tornadoes. By the way R backed corporate welfare is 3x more than all welfare to the poor.

Hey you'll get no argument from me about Governor Goodhair. That's politics in the land of Red. I'm a libertarian which we could clone Dr. Paul(Rand's daddy and just as much a Libertarian) and fill our statehouse with him.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

I spent 6 weeks in ICU in 1999 with both a severe heart attack and a head bleed. I've spent a considerable amount of time and money since then with follow-up treatment. The kicker is that I worked for a regional insurance company at the time of my incident so I was able to have visibility into both sides of the equation.

Conclusions? Healthcare is one of those subjects that defy rational discussion because it's so personal to each of us. However I do feel qualified to throw out an observation.

First and foremost is the common notion by even intelligent people that healthcare should somehow be free or very low cost. Why? It's a service you buy just like an oil change for your car. Well you sputter that health care can be a matter of life or death. So? Can you dictate that a doctor or nurse give up their income just to keep you alive? Why should your neighbor pay for your Viagra or chiropractor treatment?

This notion that healthcare should be free is the poison that destroys any reasonable legislation or reform. During many of the last few years my health expenses have routinely topped $10k per year. Why not? I was consuming expensive medical treatment and I was the sole beneficiary. Why shouldn't I pay at least a portion of it?

You'll see youngsters walking around with all the latest expensive gadgets but become positively indignant that they might be expected to pay $250 for a routine physical exam. It's a destructive state of mind.

A true reform of the US healthcare system would be to move deductibility for health care insurance away from employers and apply it directly to individuals. Employers providing healthcare insurance and getting a tax deduction for it have warped our system to the breaking point. That coupling needs to be broken and individuals should get the tax deduction. Then they'd understand the true cost of insurance and they'd be freed from the chains of insurance slavery to an employer.

One other major reform would need to be made. Since many healthcare providers like big hospitals are monopolies in their particular region they should be required to publicly post their prices and not be allowed to offer discounts to favored groups. Nothing infuriates me more than seeing my local hospital deduct 80% from a Medicare bill while they'll charge full price to the poor sucker without any form of insurance. One price, everyone pays the same, everyone knows up-front what it is. As it stands now you HAVE to have insurance just to get more preferred pricing and that should be illegal.

My 2 pennies!

-Mike Tanis

Mike thank you for that. You made a few mistakes. You talk of viagra and chiropractors which are not emergency care of what you need to live but optional pracises which might make your life more enjoyable. So I do not believe viagra should be free.

On the other hand if a 6 year old has a condition that could be treated that allows her a normal like life but she is unlucky enough to be born to working poor parents should she die? Be handicapped for life?

No you canont force doctors to lower their rates or take free loaders. But you can take away the artificial things keeping those rates high. I was getting $300 per computer 5 years ago to fix them today I am lucky to get 1/3 or 1/2 of that. The system forces these changes because computer techs do not have strong enough lobby to create a federal and state certification process to keep new interlopers from entering and driving costs down. As well we do not require membership in associations which have the right to pull our license if we do things against the industry like offer lower prices.

Just outlaw medical insurance and watch how quickly your doctors and surgeons lower their rates to what people can afford to pay rather than what they think they can ransom from your government or insurance companies.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

due to gamesmanship of the industry you can expect today's quotes to be different from the real quotes next year and years to follow.

You can opt out as long as you need too. others are ransomed for a while. I guess the question is do you believe it will get better or worse?

If you believe the mouth pieces from Fox it will get worse if not changed and according to those on the other side it will continue to level off and come down.

WE are all businessman here so we should understand some things about economics. If we are going from a world where 50% were not insured and the others were to a world where 98% are insured then there will be double the amount of people who can come in for a doctors visit.

What would happen to your business if over night you now have 2x the number of customers?

There is room for prices to settle. If the private insurance guys continue to price themselves out of the market I do believe we will soon have a single payer system. In which case the cost will be a true average of health care costs with all paying in one way or another.

I am against required health insurance but I see no other way to get form point A where we are to point X where we need to be without a bunch of wrangling. This is not the end game but the beginning. Sooner or later America has to have health care costs about what the world average is or we cannot compete. I see this as a way to put pressure on the medical industry and they know it and that is why they are so dead set against it.

I post on Pilots of America forums and there are many doctors who own airplanes and I can tell you they are blood drunk mad about having to sell their private islands and 3rd homes and small jets due to the confusion of what might come.... I feel sorry for them-NOT.

Doctors need to get used to a smaller amount, Drug companies need to get used to a smaller amount, medical equipment manufacturers need to get used to a smaller amount. The dirty street knife fighters of the deal is the insurance industry and they are in a fight to the death. They do not like smaller numbers so they are playing every tactic to scare the juvies out of us all in attempts to squash things.

A HUUUUGE amount of misinformation is spouting around here....wow! I'm a republican so I should be slamming the crap out of this stuff...but the most I have to say is...insurance costs will go up a little for some of us.

One thing...you will have options...I forget the names..but basically there's a gold card plan and a silver card plan and a bronze card plan...different levels of coverage, different deductibles..all that stuff.

Check with your businesses insurance reps...by now they've all gone through the training and will spoon feed you guys the correct information.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Sorry I don't find it very moral to tax, and the fine IS a tax, people who are hard up and struggling to prop up another group who is also hard up(those who are ill with pre-existing conditions). It's robbing a poor man to help a cripple. It seems that there ought to be a better way to do it. Like cutting some of the massive Federal War Machine and shifting that money to healthcare.

Agreed and it is smart to start thinking about what we can change like why do we use our military to support the oil and gas industry?

we bankrupt Soviets forcing them to spend a high amount of GDP on military to try nad keep up with us. Our economy was 2x their so they had to spend 2x % of GDP to maintain equiliberium....even then they could not because of deficiencies in their system.

we do not want our military industrial complex to bankrupt us, but never do we want the medical industrial complex to bankrupt us either. Since every living being needs health care it is pervasive in our system. It effects all industries. It has to be solved as a matter or national defense if nothing else.

 

[SilverLeaf]

Wow Tony, nice post rampage. I'm still a little unclear on how you really feel about FOX news though...

The whole thing (not just healthcare) is a big clusterf*&k right now. Until we get term limits and get the money and undue influence of special interests out of the government, we'll have to settle for small bites of mediocrity and the continued dominance of big business over our lives.

 

[TechLady]

A little allegory

So, imagine that the company you work for held a poll, and asked everyone if they thought it would be a good idea to put a soda machine in the break room. The poll came back, and the majority of your colleagues said "yes," indicating that they would like a soda machine. Some said no, but the majority said yes. So, a week later, there’s a soda machine.

Now imagine that Bill in accounting voted against the soda machine. He has a strong hatred for caffeinated soft drinks, thinks they are bad for you, whatever. He campaigns throughout the office to get the machine removed. Well, management decides “OK, we'll ask again” and again, the majority of people say “Yes, lets keep the soda machine.”

Bill continues to campaign, and management continues to ask the employees, and every time, the answer is in favor of the soda machine. This happens, lets say...35 times. Eventually, Bill says “OK, I’M NOT PROCESSING PAYROLL ANYMORE UNTIL THE SODA MACHINE IS REMOVED," so nobody will get paid unless management removes the machine.

What should we do???

Answer: Fire Bill and get someone who will do the effing job.

Bonus: Bill tells everyone that he was willing to "negotiate" to come to a solution where everyone got their payroll checks, but only so long as that negotiation capitulated to his demand to remove the soda machine.

Bill is a effing jackass.

(Found here).

 

[Gary Rockliff]

Anybody heard of Medicare in Australia and how we fund health services for everyone to access. Its not perfect as I believe the levy is currently to low to sustain our aging population, but for the most part it works. People on low incomes who don't have private insurance pay a levy and people on middle to high incomes who can afford private insurance take pressure off the public system.

My sister has MS and I would hate to think how she would get on in the US health system without health cover at all. The citizens of the US deserve a safety net system like Medicare so they to can go to the local doctor without have to pay a ransom.

Sometime I don't understand how a great country like the US has lawmakers debating over providing health care for everyone and on the other hand allowing people to carry guns in public, something is not right.

 

[14049752]

Sometime I don't understand how a great country like the US has lawmakers debating over providing health care for everyone and on the other hand allowing people to carry guns in public, something is not right.

It's simple: Guns are a god-given-right and altruism is socialism.

Edit: I realized that those outside the US may not be immediately aware... right now "Socialism" is the worst of the worst in some circles in the US political system.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

Thanks to ACA -My ex partners company is getting much better coverage at lower cost now thanks to Obama- but even Obama caters to the Insurance companies through his back door deal to not establish a government managed insurance pool (which would quickly show the over indulgence of private insurance and profits taken by same).

Previously they were locked in to a company with outrageous two or three times-a-year, raises. It is a small company under 25 employees and one of their members has stage 4 cancer.

BTW because she has insurance (Deep pockets) the doctors try to pressure her into unnecessary treatments which are extraordinarily expensive such as removing her breasts ($250k), and possibly lymph nodes and get toxic treatments ($30k per week) although it has been known for decades that there is no difference in survival having or not having the breast removal with other drug/chemical treatments. Even within the normally cooperative medical community there is a power struggle. There is a power war between Hospitals & Surgeons Vs Drug companies for lucrative cancer and heart patience. So they worked out a scheme to do both....first surgery to empty your wallet and then sell high priced drug treatments to destroy your organs.

However my friends company and employees now pay a better rate for better insurance so they can fund the corrupt practice of medicine in the USA.

Corrupt practices, Greedy medical industry and insurance executives are ruining this country. Every industry is effected since every person every job is effected.

A better system to create Democratic Slavery could not be devised. Government pretends to protect us, then allows industrial pollutants, recommends the wrong foods in the food pyramid, allows Monsanto, drug companies to have their way with us, we as a whole get sicker every decade for the last 40 years all the while medical industrial complex gears up to make more than a fair income by treating but never curing our ills. The prices are so high we cannot pay them with a regular salary so we MUST be insured bringing in another Huge financial interest.

People should take responsibility for their health by learning about sustainable produced foods and foods they are meant to eat rather than mass produced, chemically laden, industrial polluted, overly refined and processed foods as well as GMO or BT crops. I do not mean get propaganda from the government about health. They are wrong if not totally corrupted by monied interest as well.

I have no plans to buy health insurance as I believe they are a bunch of crooks as is most of the medical and drug community. Nearly all modern ailments can be cured by proper nutrition, juicing, vitamins, and such. Avoid all starchy, sugary carbs and refined food products, sugar drinks, soda, buy nothing in a can or a box. The healthy way to shop in the grocery store is to only shop on the outside isles (meat, produce, fruits, eggs, dairy) and not walk up and down the middle isles where all the processed (high fructose added, high white carb, wheat, rice, oats and other grains and crap is). Americans diet is now the same grains we stuff animals before slaughter.

Of course powers that be will never allow it but If you abolish all insurance then watch how prices fall. Maybe doctors should swap a checkup for 2 chickens like they did in the 1800's. Lord knows modern science and medicine is killing us.

Top surgical organizations make decisions good for surgeons (like bury information about mastectomy not being more effective than non evasive treatments) and not good for patience. Top Dental organizations prohibit talking about mercury vapor and amalgams. Top Medical organizations decree what is considered malpractice so if an honest practitioner does not tow the party line he can be removed from the organization that controls his livelihood.

So we all fight about health care insurance and how to continuously fund this beast that is our medical industry and drug industry which is the real problem. Media distracts us so we are mad at illegal aliens, immigrants, refugees, aid to foreign countries and the line or fight over if there is global warming or not or fight over oil drilling in anwar or other silliness.

We need a top down reorganization and audit of FDA and any /all organizations charged with protecting the public and monitoring foods, agriculture, livestock, water, medicine and specifically not allow organizations where the lead legal counsel for Monsanto (like Richard "Dick" "Rumy" Rumsfeld) could be in top decision making authority to protect the interest of Monsanto. Buy any other name-corruption.

There is so much baloney fed to us by every media outlet to keep us looking at the wrong things and not asking the correct questions. Wake up America.

 

[lan101]

Well said Tony. What's really irritating is finding out about a lot of good honest doctors in the past getting black balled because of a cure or natural cure they found. Like different natural cancer cures etc.

 

[SilverLeaf]

Excellent points Tony. You hit a lot of my "hot button" issues in that last post. Don't even get me started on Monsanto.....and the legal patenting of life/genes/nature....WTF? Monsanto will soon control the global food supply.

If you follow some of you statements a little further, you also uncover other issues that are fundamental to the state we are in. For instance, if medical insurance was eliminated, why would anyone accrue six figures worth of educational debt to become a doctor, just to be paid in chickens? It's indeed a complicated web. Everything is connected.....rabid capitalism, healthcare, education, nutrition, poverty.....

On the topic of alternative medical treatments, natural cures, and nutritional supplements; I frequently caution people to be just as skeptical, if not more so, of this multi-billion dollar industry as you are of the formal medical/pharmaceutical establishment. Due diligence is a necessity here. This industry is completely unregulated, very profitable, and full of out right fraud. It takes a lot of research and commitment to separate the the legitimate from the bogus......of course this applies to virtually everything anymore.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Monsanto is an example of many "bad influences" that steer our gov't and nation. Lobbying and "behind closed doors deals" took control of our countries daily routine and destiny a long time ago.
Oil/gas
Healthcare
Tobacco
Alcohol
...even "corn"...yes corn!

 

[Blues]

Don't get me started on corn... mostly on that disgusting mess known as HFCS or High Fructose Corn Syrup.