BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:46 PM

It's not true that under Obama's plan JtS and I would not be able to find a good alternative. Under Obama's plan, we will be able to get our health care needs met under the public option. Under the public option, people who are currently denied care due to pre-existing conditions will be able to get affordable insurance.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:36 PM

"Pre-existing conditions" - as genetic science and medica; technoogy progresses its probably going to become evident that most of the ills that affect us are down to "pre-existing conditions".

Cancers, heart disease, strokes, most things apart from accidents and infectious disease - and you can guarantee that there'll be private insurance companies who will use such advances in genetic science and medical technology not to imnprove health care, but to exclude people who need health care.
.......................

I noticed that Doug ignored completely the coments on his assertion "With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company."

Subject: RE: BS: Nationu alized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:33 PM

Dick: I never said thyat the administration of Medicare or the VA was perfect. They are existing available programs (though the longevity of Medicare is questionable)that I qualify for and I have been satisfied with the service they offer to date.

My main objection to government take-over of health care is that is not the role of government. If you don't believe me, check out the Constitution. No where does it say health care is the responsibility of the United States government.

That does not mean that I oppose laws that require existing insurance companies to accept patients with pre-existing conditions. I favor that. There are probably other absurdities in the current system that could be corrected by legislation.

Kevin: Sorry I didn't address your question. Other posters have truthfully reported that if you are employed by a company that provides employees health care plans, you have little choice. You are pretty well stuck with that program.

Carol C: I seriously doubt, even if Obama's plan is signed into law, you will find a satisfactory answer to your and Jack's situation. The only place you will find what you are looking for is another country like Canada, or one of the other countries who DO provide government health care.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:26 PM

Those who keep making excuses to not change our methods of health care delivery in the way that Obama and most of the Democrats are trying to do don't seem to understand that for most people who currently don't have insurance, and many who do who are underinsured, if there was a good option available at this time we would take that option and we wouldn't be uninsured or underinsured.

We're not stupid. If there was a good option available to us, we would take it!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:08 PM

One other problem with HSAs is that they discourage people from getting preventive care. And that causes health care costs to increase dramatically because people tend to wait until problems are much more expensive to treat before getting care.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 01:05 PM

I read the piece in the WSJ by Mr. Laffer. He says we would have to spend more on health care if Obama's health care proposals became law. We know he's lying because the reality in the countries that have the kind health care systems he describes proves it. They are paying far less for the health care in those countries than what the US spends on health care each year, not more. I don't trust people who lie to me on behalf of those who want to make a profit off of me.

The HSA insurance option is only good for the insurance companies. It is not good for the people who need adequate access to health care. I know, because I have checked them out to see if JtS and I could get insured that way. There are several problems with them. First of all, they don't want to cover pre-existing conditions. We were not able to find any insurers who would cover both of us for an amount we can afford.

Secondly, the HSAs don't solve the problems of insurance companies denying care to enhance their bottom line. This is just as much of a problem with the HSAs as it is with other forms of private health insurance.

The only thing the HSAs do that other kinds of insurance don't do is force consumers to pay a lot more for their health care than they would otherwise have to do, and they increase the insurance companies profits. Would any of the people who are saying they want to keep their current coverage want to change that coverage to an HSA? I rather doubt it. But that is what they will be forced to do if Obama's health care proposals fail, because according to the industry insider in the interview posted earlier, that is exactly what the insurance companies plan to force everyone to do. (Except those who are benefiting from our excellent government run health care - for now, at least, until the insurance industry succeeds in eliminating those programs as well.)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:45 PM

"With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company."

Sure..if you don't have a pre-existing condition that your present company is handling so poorly that you want to switch.

Doug, I ask again: As someone who seems to be very happy with his Nationalized single-payer healthcare system, administered by bureaucrats (Medicare and VA), why do you say that the Government couldn't do a good job of administering healhcare?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:45 PM

Single Payer may not be in the existing Bills in Congress, but it sure is lurking in the shadows. Likely it is not memorialized in writing in the Bills because the writers are aware that the Bills would sink faster than the Titanic.

Bobert: I find it strange that you cannot accept the fact that the majority of U.S. citizens do not approve of Obama's plans for providing health care in this country. Folks attending Town Halls on the subject are exercising their right to protest those plans just as you folks, who attend similar meetings to protest things you do not approve of, enjoy those same rights!

Republicans are regularly criticized because they are "againers" only and never offer alternatives to Bills they oppose. If you are interested enough, Google The Wall Street Journal and check out the health care plan proposed by Arthur Laffer, a Republican, who served, I believe in, as Kendall loves to point out, "The Actor's" administration. His plan is one I would support 100%. His column, in the opinion section of today's edition makes sense to me. It would supply everything most of the posters to this thread want, and keeps the government out of our health care lives.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:30 PM

Lobbyists, McGrath. Lobbyists are professional people paid to represent private industry and influence legislators, and they are paid VERY well. It's their fulltime job. They siphon money to legislators, and arrange all kinds of contracts and perks, and they apply pressure to get legislation passed that will benefit the private industries who have employed the lobbyists, but NOT the general public. They are THE signficant factor in steering legislation in the US Congress, in the various state legislatures, and no doubt in the Canadian government as well, because they represent the most powerful financial entities in the society. The voice of the public is not much compared to the voice of the corporate lobbyists in Washington. The public is too distracted, too divided, and too busy with their ordinary lives....but the lobbyist has a fulltime job to bribe, influence, and cajole Congressmen into doing what the big corporate players want done. And he has the MONEY to buy their votes.

So they went looking for someone, ANYONE they could find from Canada who had a personal beef of some kind about our Medicare system. Well, someone like that can always be found...it doesn't matter where you go. There's always someone who has a beef against a system. They may be only one person in 100,000 people, but you can find them.

My point is, they did not go looking for the millions of Canadians who LIKE our medicare system and support it. If they had, they could have found millions of them to testify at Congress if they had paid them for their time and trouble to do it, but they were not paid to find someone who likes our medicare system. They were paid to find someone who doesn't like it.

I'd say she represents about 1% of the people up here in Canada...but Congress won't hear that part of the story, will they? And Fox won't report it. And the Republicans will never know about it. They will see and hear only what they already wish to see and hear. Thus is the monkey kept happy inside his cage, never mindful of the bars that surround him.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 12:12 PM

I hear they got ONE Canadian woman to testify to Congress...

Who is "they"? Do the insurance companies have a stranglehold on who is called to testify to Congress and who is not?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 08:19 AM

Single payer, yes, is the goal but it looks as if just getting a "public option" will be hard enough to achieve...

This August recess is going to wreck havoc on the cahnces of that... Seems that the insurance companies are now organizing goon squads to disrupt town meeting all over the country...

I think it's time for Obama to make a statement that governors should be prepared to use the police to maintain some civility in town meetings... This is getting out of hand... Reminds me of the 2000 election with paid goons trying to disrupt the recount...

A month of letting the insurance companies and goons control the converstaion and there won't be a "public option"... You can take that to the bank...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Aug 09 - 02:13 AM

It's only a great many Americans' gross ignorance of what is actually going on in the rest of the developed world that lets the American private insurance companies and their lobbyists pull the wool over so many people's eyes in the USA and scare them with the boogeyman stuff about government-run health insurance coverage.

(Clearly, many here at Mudcat are not ignorant about it...but the insurance companies are depending on those USA citizens who are...)

Man, it is amazing to watch from the outside, it really is. Private industry, and I mean BIG corporate private industry, has got your government in its greedy grasp, and your society pays the price for it. What a sad situation.

I hear they got ONE Canadian woman to testify to Congress about how our public health system didn't help her...

Well, for heaven's sake, they could have gotten 50,000 other Canadian women to testify about how our public health insurance system DID help them...but they weren't looking for that kind of testimony to put in front of Congress, were they? Of course not. It would not be to their financial advantage for people in the USA to learn the truth about Canada's public health system....and the truth is that it's the most strongly publicly supported institution there is in this country, it's the one thing that our politicians do not DARE to dismantle...so far...because our public would be absolutely furious at them if they tried to take our government-sponsored health coverage away.

That's because we've already had it. When you've already had something good and you KNOW it's good, you don't let someone take it away, do you?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: mg
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 10:32 PM

true...and I have been in job lock for some time and will always be so I can get benefits and state retirement. That is what they say they will put on some people's graves..she had state retirement...my biggest accomplishment to date.    mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 09:15 PM

Once again, the government does a better job of providing health care, in this case, to its employees.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: mg
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 09:09 PM

At least in my state job we can choose from a number of plans, various agencies, especially in larger cities. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:28 PM

Cross posted. Carol, too, is right on the money.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:25 PM

". . . if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company."

McGrath is exactly right.

If we had to buy health insurance directly, we simply couldn't afford it. It comes as one of the benefits from my wife's job. That is, partially. The Seattle Public Library pays part of the monthly premium, and they deduct the rest from my wife's paycheck. So—the option to simply change companies is not open to us. Nor is it open to the vast majority of people in this country who have health insurance for the same reason. Doug, you—and most conservatives I have met—are simply not living in the real world. Sorry, but there it is!

And Art is also right. Unless I missed it, there is no government run single payer health insurance program on the agenda. Basically, what I have seen offered is a whole smorgasbord of partial plans that could come together under the definition of "camel:   a horse designed by a committee." They're trying to please everybody, and there's no way that's going to work.

I give Obama marks for bringing the matter up at all, but I wish he'd show a little courage and go straight for a government run single payer program. It'll be one helluva battle against the Forces of Darkness, but that's the only way health CARE coverage in the United States will ever come up to that in the rest of the civilized world.

The flaw in Obama's approach is the same as the one in the Clintons' abortive attempt. As long as the insurance companies are at the table, it will either not happen at all (their preference) or it will manifest itself as a plumber's nightmare.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:22 PM

And to answer a question upthread, people who get insurance through their employers do not get to chose which insurance company will provide their care. That choice is made for them, and they are stuck with it. They can get a different job, maybe, but the choice will still be made for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:19 PM

There is one single payer program that is being discussed in the House, but that one is not being taken very seriously. The resolution that has just passed out of committee in the House, and the one being worked on in the Senate are not single payer plans. No matter how many times a certain poster on this thread keeps harping on single payer plans, the plans that are being seriously considered in both the House and the Senate are not single payer plans.

Personally, I think it's extremely dishonest to keep trying to characterize the health care plans that are being seriously considered as "single payer", when that is absolutely not the case.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:45 PM

There is no single-payer government run program anywhere in any proposal. President Obama says he opposes single-payer. What is the purpose of ponting in alarm at a non-existent program? I looked at the Heritage Foundation's "evaluation" of health care plans....they do something very similar. That is, they describe a "plan" that exists only in their imagination and analyze its deficiencies.   

I hate to sound repetitious, but, at the present time, THERE IS NO PLAN. There are a number of different proposals that must be voted upon, reconciled, and voted upon again. Right now, NOBODY KNOWS what, if anything, will finally be submitted for the President's signature.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:36 PM

With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company.

Can you actually do that if you are covered as an employee of a firm that has set up a deal with an insurance company? Doesn't that mean you automatically dependent on that particular company?

That's a real question, not a rhetorical one. In principle it would be perfectly possible to have a system under which individuals woudl pick their own preferred insurance and the firm employing them would pick up the bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:26 PM

Don & Ebbie, I would urge caution about conflating the words "Doug" and "think" . That way lies madness. And futility.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:26 PM

I guess, Don and Ebbie, that I just have less confidence in federal bureaucrats than you do. With a private company, if you are not satisfied with that particular company's service, you can always sign up with a competing insurance company. If you are in a single payer government run program, you are up the creek without a paddle.

I wish you would check out the Heritage Foundation website and take a look at the evaluation of the proposed government health care plans they commissioned. You well may view the proposed government programs in a different light. I would supply a blue clicky but never learned how to do one.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 06:17 PM

OT cars

I don't have an opinion one way or the other on this..honest..but I bet most of the clunkers have been sitting in someone's driveway and are not out on the roads. What is the number of people who can both produce an older car (isn't in 1985 or older) and qualify for new financing? Maybe a lot...people who are forced by poverty to drive the really old cars I would think couldn't get qualified...don't know. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 05:52 PM

Regarding your "fiasco," Doug:

The "Cash for Clunkers" accomplished a number of things. First, it helped reduce the number of older, gas-thirsty, smog-emitting cars on the road. That's a plus for the environment. It reduces this country's dependency on foreign oil, and reduces the amount of pollutants being poured into the atmosphere (that's fairly important to people with respiratory problems). And secondly, rather than "bailing out" the auto industry by giving taxpayer's money to the auto companies (so the senior executives can vote themselves raises and bonuses), it gives the money to people who will go out and spend it right away (in fact, if they don't spend it, they don't get it). So it does stimulate auto sales, without which the auto companies (not to mention dealerships) are bloody well dead.

"I wonder, Don, why do you trust your government to be more fair than Aetna Insurance Company is?"

Granted government bureaucrats can be major stumble-bums, I would trust them to have my interests at heart far more than I would trust health insurance company bureaucrats who have an established record of attempting to maximize company profits by finding excuses to deny benefits to their clients, including, on more than one occasion, my wife and me.

There is no reason that single payer, government financed health service in the United States can't be as good as the same as that in other industrialized countries in the world, such as the U.K., Canada, France, the Scandinavian countries, et al, where, contrary to right wing propaganda, the citizens of those countries seem to be pretty well satisfied with the health care service they are receiving (note above posts to that effect from British and Canadian Mudcatters).

Or as Ebbie asks, is it that you don't believe Americans are up to the challenge? We can't handle it? Are we, unlike all those other countries, so bereft of honest government officials that any attempt Americans make to implement such a program is doomed from the start?

I have more faith in this country than that, Doug!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 05:10 PM

I think that I may finally understand DougR's misgivings. His saying: "I wonder, Don, why do you trust your government to be more fair than Aetna Insurance Company is?" made me realise that that he thinks people in other countries - specifically countries that have nationalized health insurance - are superior to people in the US.

For shame, Doug! Where is your patriotism? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 04:58 PM

Don: Nope, I didn't rely on anyone at Fox News when I used the term, fiasco, I thought it up all by myself. If one's measure of success is the number of people who took a tax payer hand out to purchase a car for perhaps 25% less than they normally would have to pay for it, then I guess it was successful. I'd like a boat. When might I expect my hand out of $4,500 of YOUR dollars to help me by it. A condo here in Durango, CO, would be nice too! When might I expect to receive my government hand out so that I can purchase one?

Congress, with this clunker deal, did what it does best: spend tax payer's money.

I wonder, Don, why do you trust your government to be more fair than Aetna Insurance Company is?

Incidentally, today's edition of the Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial on the "clunker" fiasco today. I agree with every word in it.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 04:34 PM

" ...and screw the rest of you!"

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 04:21 PM

Along with "No we can't", I'd suggest that the right slgan for the begrudgers might be "I'm all right Jack."

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 03:44 PM

"Ronald A. Williams, Chair/CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834 (2007)"

My wife and I are insured with Aetna, through my wife's job at the Seattle Public Library. They take a substantial wallop out of Barbara's paychecks for that.

The coverage is generally pretty good, but—there is an annual allowance of benefits. If you use up all of your benefits for a particular year, they stop paying for your medical care. And they don't pay for certain procedures or medical (orthopedic) equipment, even if it's prescribed by a doctor.

I have a scoliosis (spinal curvature), one of the leftovers of polio at an early age. This can cause considerable discomfort between my shoulders and in my lower back. This is relieved by fairly frequent chiropractic adjustments and massage (medical doctors offer only surgery—fusing the vertebrae, which often leaves one worse off as far as pain is concerned, and it's irreversible). Aetna allows only a specific number of chiropractic adjustments per year, and if I need any more than that, I'm on my own.

I have two wheelchairs. I have an electric, which I use for long "voyages" (say, to the nearby business district, or on the bus, where I may have to travel long distances on my own) and a manual, which I use around the house and when going someplace where we have to stow the wheelchair in our car's trunk (like when going to Bob Nelson's, where he tilts me back like a hand-truck and lifts me up the two steps to his front porch). The insurance company allows me only one wheelchair (no matter what my doctor says I should have). Since the electric was more expensive, I let the insurance company pay for that (that is, 80% of it. There was a 20% co-pay). I paid for the manual myself (lightweight and foldable, so after stashing me in the car, Barbara can fold it and lift it into the trunk--a little under $2,000).

The insurance company's decisions often have little to do with the actual needs of the patient. It has to do with what they are willing to pay for, which is generally what they (not you, not your doctor) deem necessary.

I believe most people would call that "rationing," n'est-ce pas?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: bobad
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 02:34 PM

Executive Salaries of Insurance Companies
Jul 27, 2009 — KZeese

NAME, TITLE, COMPANY ANNUAL COMPENSATION

H. Edward Hanway, Chair/CEO, Cigna Corp., $30.16 million

Ronald A. Williams, Chair/CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834 (2007)

David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million

Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million

Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc., $20.06 million

Jay M. Gellert, President/CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million

Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529 (2007)

Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp., (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million (in 2007; up 78% from 2006)

Angela F. Braly, President/CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771

Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp., $8,750,751 (2007)

Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825 (2006)

Cleve Killingsworth, Pres/CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million (2007)

William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits

Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555 (2006)

Charlie Baker, President/CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million (2006)

James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million (2006)

Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc., $ 1,061,513 (2007)

Sources:

1. Special Report: CEO Compensation, Forbes.com, April 30, 2008: http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/ceo-paycompensation-lead-bestbosses08-c...

2. Executive PayWatch Database, AFL-CIO http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/database.cfm#H

3. The Chicago Business Journal, April 5, 2008: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=28855&seenIt=1

4. Equilar, a Redwood Shores, California-based executive compensation research firm.

5. The Boston Globe, November 16, 2007 and February 12, 2009.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 02:21 PM

LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 02:16 PM

"I cannot refer you to any portion of it that addresses choice of health care plans by government employees."

Why should there be any such portion addressing "choice of health care plans by government employees" any more than for any other group pf employees?

Incidentally, BUPA, the major provider of health insurance in the private sector in the UK, is a non-profit organisation (the initals stand for the British United Provident Association. "...any profit they make is re-invested in better health and care services." Is the same true of the insirance ppoviders in the USA?

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 02:04 PM

I think they're saying its a fiasco because it's been so popular it ran out of money. Now that's a stunning example of double-speak.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 01:24 PM

Wait a minute here, Doug!

". . . the fiasco that resulted from the "Cash for Clunkers" legislation that occurred this weekend is an excellent example of what I mean. . . ."

You almost slid that by me. "Fiasco," you say? Quite the contrary. The program has been a spectacular success. Many people have taken advantage of the program to replace their gas-guzzling smog belchers with smaller, more efficient and economical automobiles—to the extent that the program is running out of money, it's that popular! There are moves afoot to re-up the program

AND—this should please any conservative—it has been a badly needed stimulus to car sales in the United States, which, prior to the initiation of the program, was in the Dumpster.

"Fiasco?" Which Fox News Service commentator did you get that from?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 12:21 PM

Artbrooks: I have skim read only the 1000 page bill in the House. I cannot refer you to any portion of it that addresses choice of health care plans by government employees. You are correct regarding my source of information television news shows.

I certainly admire your fortitude for reading the legislation. Were I to read it, I doubt I would understand much of it because I am not a lawyer ...I assume you are, and bow to your knowledge of the subject.

Bobert: It's a giant right wing conspiracy and I have heard that it was organized and put in place by Greg F.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 11:41 AM

From the Washington POST:

Lifting A Burden Of Worry

By Kathleen Sebelius
Tuesday, August 4, 2009

As the political debate about how to pay for and pass health reform grows louder and more contentious, we shouldn't lose sight of the reason we're even having this conversation: We have a huge, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve the lives of all Americans, insured and uninsured alike.

Health insurance is fundamentally about peace of mind. If you have good insurance, you don't have to worry about an accident or sudden illness. You know that whatever happens, you and your family will be taken care of.

We can't eliminate all disease. But through health reform, we can give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance so that if they do get sick, they have the best chance possible of getting better without bankrupting their families.

The current health-care system gives insurance companies all the power. They get to pick and choose who gets a policy. They can deny coverage because of a preexisting condition. They can offer coverage only at exorbitant rates -- or offer coverage so thin that it's no coverage at all. Americans are left to worry about whether they'll get laid off and lose their insurance or wake up from surgery with a $10,000 bill because they didn't read the fine print on their policy.

By giving Americans choices, health reform will switch the roles. Americans will get peace of mind and insurance companies will start getting nervous. They will know that if they don't deliver a great value, their customers will flee. So they will start offering better coverage.

Reform will close the gaps in our current system. When my two sons graduated from college, I had mixed feelings. I was incredibly proud of their accomplishments, but I dreaded the fact that they would lose their health insurance when they left school. The peace of mind that comes with health reform means college graduations can go back to being the celebrations they are supposed to be.

Consider the entrepreneur sitting at her desk, dreaming about her idea for a new business. Right now, many entrepreneurs are paralyzed by our fractured health insurance system. They know that if they leave their job, they might not be able to get insurance for their families. So they, and their innovations, stay put. Health reform means unleashing America's entrepreneurs to chase their big ideas.

Without reform, we will miss out on these benefits. And our health-care system will still be a fiscal time bomb. Recent estimates indicate that by 2040, health-care costs will eat up 34 percent of our gross domestic product. By comparison, the entire federal budget today is just 20 percent of our GDP. By acting now, we have the chance to slow health-care costs in a way that doesn't slash benefits or reduce care. Instead, we can make investments in prevention, wellness and health information technology that will allow the health-care system to deliver incredible results at prices we can all afford. Imagine a system in which your doctor spends as much time trying to keep you healthy as treating you when you're sick, in which you and your doctor have all the information you need to choose the treatments that work best for you, in which you never have to fill out the same paperwork twice. Health reform is the first step in that direction.

President Obama and I are working closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and health-care experts to make sure we get the details of health reform right. But we can't let the details distract us from the huge benefits that reform will bring. The urgency behind reform has nothing to do with the schedule of Congress and everything to do with the needs of the American people.

Nor should we let ourselves be distracted by attacks that try to use the complexity of health reform to freeze Americans in inaction. We've learned over the past 20 years that "socialized medicine" and "government-run health care" are code words for "don't change anything." With some insurers raising premiums by more than 25 percent and 14,000 people losing their health insurance every day, Americans want to hear something more from their leaders than "wait and see" and "more of the same." People have enough to worry about these days. Americans deserve the peace of mind that only health-care reform can provide.

The writer is secretary of health and human services.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:48 AM

I'm puzzled by what Doug is on about...

That situation prevails universally.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Aug 09 - 07:06 AM

"Obama was asked if he and Congress would be participating in the government plan if one is adopted. He refused to answer the question and was clearly nonplussed"

I'm puzzled by what Doug is on about there, and am not surpised if Obama was nonplussed by the questrion, because it doesn't really make too much sense.

Surely the "government plan" is that a new government backed insurance agency would be set up, in parallel with existing insurance agencies, including the one that operates for members of Congreess, and everyone would have the option of sticking with their existing arrangements or sawitching.

That is the "government plan", and by definition everyone takes part in it, whether they switch or not.
...............

As for my question about insurance, Mr Potter appears to have answered it (85%), and he would appear to be in a position to know. The thing is, the amount spent per head on health in America is much higher than elsewhere, and I was curious to know how far that reflected more being actually spent on providing the health care, and how much was taken by the insurance companies.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 10:09 PM

DougR, perhaps you could tell me exactly where, in either one of the versions of the House bill being considered or in any of the provisions of the Senate's proposed legislation, it says that Congress, the President, or any employee of any federal agency (those employees make up the "Executive Branch") are exempt, excluded, omitted, or anything else. Please, tell me. I admit that I've only read the original legislation a couple of times, and something might have snuck in behind my back. However, I suspect that this particular thing is a figment of the imagination of certain TV commentators and bloggers. However, I am entirely willing to be corrected. So - give me a citation to the legislation rather than some BS about my being the only person in the world who doesn't know this.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 09:50 PM

CarolC,
There have been many times in the past that we may not have agreed but on this you're spot on!
                   Sandy

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 09:21 PM

Greg F: You know the history of the U.S. Postal service? I'm impressed!

You shouldn't be. Lots of folks do- historians, numismatists, & just regular folks who are interested in such things as how the U.S. developed as a country.

You shouldn't expect everyone to be as ignorant as you are, Douggie-boy.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 09:11 PM

I find it real interesting that the same "haters" who attended Palin rallies and called for Obama to be hanged are now disrupting town meetings all accross the nation...

When we leftest did this in the 60's the force of the entire governemnt, including the military, the FBI, and every police agency in the country was called up to try to stop us...

Yet the fringe right lunies get a free pass to disrupt these meetings and shout down elected representatives???

Go figure???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 09:07 PM

In health care, profits always take money away from needed care. All of the insurance companies are charging excessive premiums, which means that none of them will go out of business for doing so, and all of them are denying care in order to make larger profits. They have the US consumer over a barrel, and that's where the insurance companies would like to keep them. Denying care to their customers so that they can make larger profits is always obscene, especially when people die as a result, as many thousands are now doing every year. The insurance companies are making very large profits at the expense of the people they insure. They are rationing care so they can make larger profits. That means we have rationed care in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: bobad
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 08:58 PM

Not only is the per capita cost in Canada one half of what it is in the US but outcomes, as measured by life span and infant mortality, are better in Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 08:04 PM

No one will be required to participate in the public option. The public option will be entirely optional.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: DougR
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 07:59 PM

Artbrooks: at a recent Town Hall (I forget in which state)Obama was asked if he and Congress would be participating in the government plan if one is adopted.

He refused to answer the question and was clearly nonplussed.

Simple question. Shouldn't have been too difficult for a guy like Obama to answer.

I think, Art, that you must be the only person who has not heard that the Congress and the Executive branch, probably the legislative branch too, are exempt from the proposed program. I would certainly be less apprehinsive If I knew the folks proposing such a program would be required to participate. And why is it not possible for that decision to be made before legislation is passed? That's what is expected of the American people?

McGrath: I doubt anyone on this forum can answer your question accurately. Most here will probably reply that the companies make sinfully excessive profits. What is excessive? Well, it's in the eye of the beholder, I guess. However, if a company charges so much more for it's services than a competitor, that company will not be in business very long (unless it's G.M. (Government Motors).

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 07:26 PM

DougR asked: "if such a plan is "equal" or "superior" why wouldn't government employees, including the president and members of congress, opt out of the excellent plan you describe and join us "common" folks in the plan Obama is trying to shove down our throats". Perhaps they will - they will probably have that choice - but I think it is rather unrealistic to expect them, or anyone else, to elect to do so before the plan, its cost and its benefits are defined. As of right now, there are 3 separate House plans, which are yet to be reconciled, and there is no final Senate plan. Once each has a plan, and the full House and Senate vote on them, they must go through a set of negotiations. Then, Congress must vote again on whatever compromise is reached. Obama is not trying to shove anything down anyone's throat - the entire process is completely out of his hands, as it should be.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 07:12 PM

In that interview linked to above, a figure of around 85 percent was quoted as actually going to provide health care, with the rest going to lobbyists, marketing, CEO salaries, executive salaries and percs, profits (obscenely high and getting higher all the time), and gold rimmed plates on the company jets.

So fifteen percent of all of that money they're raking in is not going to people who are dying in the thousands every year, but rather to expenses that are non-existent in government run health care.

Subject: RE: BS: Nationalized Healthcare, good? bad?
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 07:08 PM

Per capita, Canada spends half on health care what the US does. The services are about equal. In a word, the US spends too much.