What is your concern or issue about nationalized health care?

Are you more worried about things that might be snuck into this law than you are about things that are snuck into other laws?

That whole, sneaky-sneaky concept sucks.

The fact that it is going to put a severe financial strain on the country in a time where we are already reeling of unprecedented debt. I don’t understand how they are planning to pay for this thing.. and the fact is, eventually someone will have to foot the tab. That is going to be us in severe tax increases.

Regarding the “sneaking stuff in” part. This is not uncommon in a lot of laws, especially if a bill is expected to pass. They say hey we have been trying to get some new legislation on this other stuff for years, lets just throw it in with this one bill thats gonna pass. So, its kind of standard operating procedure to be honest. The right wing media might try to scare you by saying oh god theres stuff in this bill that we don’t even know about and isn’t even relevant to health care. But it literally happens alllllll the time.

About my opinion in general, I am glad we are finally getting something that fixes the health care system. Like it or hate it, we had 48+ million people uninsured. Now we will be able to cover about 95% of people. This sounds like a good thing to me. A lot of people are freaking out saying OMG the government is forcing you to purchase health care! Well lets be honest, everyone who is mortal will get sick one day and need health care, so forcing people to have it is a good thing.
Last, its going to end discrimination based on medical history or the dropping of people for bizarre or random reasons. This is definitely a good thing and should of been passed years ago. It is a shame to have people pay health insurance for years and years and when they get sick take it away from them.

Anyways, hopefully that gave you a little more insight into the legislation process.

It refreshing to hear someone for the health care bill, I must commend you for that. It’s a sortof rare thing, I feel.

Another concern of mine is how it will be paid for, will it go to legal citizens (sorry, I had to say it), and is it constitutional that the government is making people buy something.

My issue is that the bill does not create nationalised healthcare.
The vast majority of the public supported the bill when it still had the public option.
When it was removed, many started thinking “then what is the point?” and support fell.

Well, I briefly read through some of the highlights in the new york times and a couple other papers but first off, if you already have health insurance you don’t have to pay for the government one. If you don’t have it then if you make a certain amount of money above the federal poverty level then you have to pay, if not then you pay a smaller fee and if you have no income then its only like 95 bucks or something like that. Also if you make over 200k then you pay more taxes or fees. So sounds like they have some kind of plan to pay for it.

Another important thing to remember is this doesn’t even go into effect until 2014. People are so worried that it will break the bank but we have 4 years to recover before we start paying big on it.

Last, Maybe I am reading this wrong but its going to cost 900+ Billion to afford this over 10 years, but will save over 1trillion. So you can nit pick their numbers all you want and say they are under estimating or what ever, I am not an accountant i couldn’t tell ya.

And regarding the constitutionality of it, I don’t know enough about constitutional law to answer your question. But I haven’t heard the supreme court say anything about it, and no one seems to be worried about that except a few squeaky wheels making some noise.

@Tenpinmaster :: Last summer I went to the ER twice for severe chest pain. It felt like a three hundred pound person was sitting on my chest. I was having trouble breathing. I didn’t have insurance so I had to go to the ER. I don’t have a GP. So I got a 10K+ bill that I have no intention of paying. It would have been cheaper if I could have seen a GP instead of the ER.

That is how the CBO says this plan will save money.

@LKidKyle1985 Thanks for the information. :)

I should add, there are a few things that go into effect this year. I think they are making it so you can get health care for children through the government, Also insurance companies will be required to cover your children until they are 26 (yay i get another year of health care from my mom) And discriminating against people because of past or current medical conditions will no longer be allowed.
And you are welcome

That they can’t enact it fast enough.

I wanted a public option. Just blow up medicare/caid and shove everyone the hell on it. (simplistic yeah yeah I know, but it’s early and I have a sinus headache so please, be easy okay?)

I’m waiting to pass final judgment until the revised super-special-we-mean-it version. Then I’ll read that and see what I think.

I wish it wasn’t going to take so long to get it moving. How many people are going to go without healthcare in the next few years while they wait? It’s sad, to me.

@gemiwing :: I really wanted a public option too. Even better a Single Payer system. But I am dancing and pooping rainbows and unicorns that this bill passed. It isn’t perfect. But, baby steps.

My only real concern for our American cousins may be based on my ignorance of how the new scheme will work. In the UK, while I support the NHS fully, it has become something of a dumping ground for people who cant hack-it in the real world. Basically, due to the relaxed working environment & strong unions we seem to get all the rejects from private business.

The cost. The Gov has never delivered a project upon their estimates and this will be no exception. Just throw Government run health care on the train wreck pile of Medicare, NASA and the postal system and be prepared to open you wallets.

The bigger a project, the less reliable estimates are. This is true everywhere, not just government.

Sadly, the US is not getting nationalized health care. Or “Government run” health care.

People might vote to repeal it when they see the immediate disadvantages….I hope the long term benefits really work cuz if not, well, you get the idea….

I am thoroughly disappointed that the bill doesn’t include a public option, but happy that it might, at least, provide us a starting point. I’d like to see the removal of the anti-trust laws that currently allow price-fixing, bid rigging, market allocations, and subject health insurers and medical malpractice insurers to the same good-competition laws that apply to virtually every other company doing business in the United States.

the train wreck pile of Medicare, NASA and the postal system

Most Medicare problems are fraud from the private sector. For example Republican Senator Bill Frist’s family business, HCA, admitted stealing almost $2B from the taxpayers before being caught.

The post office? Will you deliver my letters cross-country cheaper than 44 cents? They do it in 3 days. So you have to do it in 2 or it’s not worthwhile. For packages I pay $4.90, two day service, which is about half of what UPS or Fed Ex want.

And NASA is a train wreck? Hadn’t heard that.

@cruiser: the USPO is privatized and therefore in the profit-making business. That is why the service you get is getting less efficient, not more so.

Well, we’ve all seen what’s been happening with social security and medicare over the years. What honestly leads anyone to think this will work out any differently.

For the most part, the people who need it will benefit. Plenty will slip through the cracks. In about 20 years it will be plagued with inefficiency, cost over runs, and fraud which will get a quick congressional “fixing”. And about 20 years after that it will become so laggard it will be unable to provide enough for enough without a major overhaul… sounds familiar.

As to the riders and extras, I’ve yet to hear a logical reason why a bill can’t be voted on for it’s own merit. If it’s so big as to need political vote buying don’t make it bigger, break it up. Lots of times I hear “then nothing would ever pass”. You know what? Then maybe the problem isn’t with the bills.

I don’t have an issue with it all they will do what they want anyways. I’m just along for the ride ya know.

I’m worried that it won’t go far enough or do enough to provide good, universal cost-effective health care.

@py_sue, you said, “Included in the bill is an item where the government is going to take over student loans.”

No there’s not.

The Dems did propose it, and will probably make a separate bill to do this. I’d like to know why you think this is a problem. The way student loans work, the government pays banks and the banks pay students the loans, often reaping profits themselves. Having government pay students directly would save a lot of money by cutting out the middle man.

“But, I’m still really surprised at how many people, in and out of Congress, are against this. And yet, it’s still there.”

60 senators voted for it. A majority of representatives voted for it. I’m surprised that you’re surprised—a “lot of people” may be against it, but they’re not a majority.

“Maybe I’m missing something.”

You certainly are missing something if you think the bill is “nationalized health care.” It’s not.

I am concerned that the Middle Class will pay for everything. The wealthy will write everything off ; and working American’s will pay for insuring people who come here illegally.
America should be helping it’s own. We should help disabled American’s, senior citizens; not people who cross our borders illegally.
We have many Americans that deserve help. People with special needs,elderly people and veterans.

@wonderingwhy – what IS happening with Social Security and Medicare is that we’ve voted to give ourselves the lowest taxes in the First World. That gives those who have some money more disposable income to invest as they see fit. If we don’t want social safety nets as well, we can’t have them. We have to decide.
California has been a very good leader in this experiment. Because its laws which allow it to make legislative decisions by propositions rather than bills voted on by elected representatives, its idiot citizens have, over time, enacted laws which leave the community penniless. This has made citizens happy by reducing their personal taxes. But they have bad schools, their universities are shaky, their roads are deteriorating, and their enormous prison system is dangerously understaffed. These are not systems that can be fixed by personal expenditures; but California decided to forego community.
Duh.

@philosopher – perhaps the wealthy could be persuaded to contribute more. Shall we do some political activism to encourage this? And perhaps we should be careful not to offer services to illegal aliens. Shall we do some political activism to discourage such misuse of funds? Let’s go!

@jaytkay Privatized yes but far from independent. It’s a government controlled, supervised and wholly sponsored Monopoly!!

Of the eleven members of the Board, nine are appointed by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate . The nine appointed members then select the United States Postmaster General, who serves as the board’s tenth member, and who oversees the day to day activities of the service as Chief Executive Officer. The ten-member board then nominates a Deputy Postmaster General, who acts as Chief Operating Officer, to the eleventh and last remaining open seat.

The USPS is legally defined as an “independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States,” as it is wholly owned by the government and controlled by the Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General.

The USPS has consistently posted losses in the billions of dollars that if the USPS was a privately “owned” corporation would have been out of business long ago. Further, show me one…just one single US corporation that has the same retirement and legacy benefits and salary compensation packages that Postal workers enjoy AND shows a profit and I will eat my shoes.

The average postal worker gets 23 paid vacation days a years, 9 paid holidays, 13 sick days, a fully paid life insurance policy, 75 percent-paid health and medical insurance coverage, a generous taxpayer-financed pension, and a guaranteed lifetime job. Yet, even with all these benefits, the GAO found that up to a third of all postal workers have “attendance problems”—that is, they don’t show up for work often enough. In three cities GAO surveyed, employees missed an average of 50 work days a year

As far as NASA same BS financial mismanagement that cost us taxpayers nearly $1.1 billion of “cost over runs” in nine of its flagship projects!! Again no US corporation could possibly stay in business with that type of gross financial mismanagement!! But despite the worst US economy in recent memory, BO wants to give them even more money to squander!

I can only say (as I have done on FLuther previously) that I deeply feel very privileged to have the NHS here in the UK and I couldn’t imagine how I would begin to fund our healthcare if we didn’t.

@philosopher, are your concerns actually reflected by anything in the bill?

Working-class Americans who can’t afford insurance are going to get subsidies (along with sick Americans). The bill contains $900 billion in subsidies to help people afford insurance.

Half of that money comes from cost savings and efficiency. The other half comes from taxing wealthy Americans and high-end insurance coverage. The latter could perhaps affect middle-class Americans—union members who have gotten very expensive insurance plans through their unions. But that doesn’t go into effect for almost a decade.

@Cruiser, it’s not government “controlled” anymore than the government controls banks through regulation. Are you suggesting that the insurance industry should not be regulated? And what on earth do you mean by a “monopoly”? I don’t even think you know what you’re talking about sometimes. edit: n/m, apologies (see below)

@Qingu Cruiser was referring to the US Post Office as government-controlled and a monopoly, those are correct statements. For 1st class mail, it is a legal monopoly.

The healthcare bill has become such a scatterbrains clusterfuck I don’t even know what to think about it anymore.

We have all these people who have some heightened state of cultural amnesia, where they somehow think that this is 1870 and the government doesn’t have a place trying to make valuable but expensive resource accessible to all. Oh wait, compulsory primary education has been mandatory since before then, my bad.

Is healthcare a human right? No. Neither are libraries, education, urban planning, etc, but we allow the government to control them because it’s easier to do these kinds of things with the backing of a large community than it is privately. As is evidenced by the fact that healthcare costs are out of control.

But we wouldn’t want the government’s grubby hands on it, that’s communism and it doesn’t sound quite as peachy as the segregated, cold war, asbestos coated world that Glen Beck remembers and loves so dearly.

If you’re worried there are “secret agendas” hidden in the bill, there’s an easy solution: read the bill.

As mentioned above, there’s nothing about student loans in it.

My concern about this specific health care bill (which has nothing to do with nationalized healthcare) is that it was almost mortally wounded by [Republicans and a few idiot Democrats] pandering to the people who matter least: insurance companies doing everything they can do maximize their profit margins.

Instead of creating a nonprofit, government-run healthcare system whose goal is to, I don’t know, provide healthcare, we’re now feeding an extra $900 billion or so to the fucking insurance companies that created this fucking mess in the first fucking place.

I would have liked the bill a lot better if our representatives grew some balls, told the Republicans and their big business fuckbuddies to shove it, and created a public option.

But until then, I’ll take what I can get.

I am in the middle class. The bottom of the middle class. And I would gladly pay more in taxes to see this clusterfuck bill take effect. Because it is more important for other people to have healthcare (which I already have) than for me to buy more stuff.

Exactly HOW is the USPS a monopoly? No one is forced to ship or mail by them. There are private messenger and courier services and nationwide shipping companies as well as e-mail, so it’s not like anyone is forced to use their services. The truth is, the USPS makes most of it’s bread-and-butter money from junk-mail distribution and mass-mailing (which unfortunately are often indistinguishable from one another). Furthermore, since its reorganization into an independent organization, the USPS has become self-sufficient and has not directly received ANY taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s. So, I fail to see how this fits into a discussion about the imagined inefficiencies of current or future government-run programs.

By law, only the USPS can deliver first class mail.

Universal Service and the Postal Monopoly: A Brief History
“To enable the Post Office Department to serve all Americans, no matter how remote, yet still finance its operations largely from its revenue, Congress gave the Department a monopoly over the carriage of letter-mail by a group of federal laws known as the Private Express Statutes. Without such protection, Congress reckoned that private companies would siphon off high-profit delivery routes, leaving only money-losing routes to the Department, which then would be forced to rely on tax-payers to continue operations.”
http://www.usps.com/postallaw/_pdf/UniversalServiceandPostalMonopolyHistory.pdf

The problem with nationalized health care is that you cease to be a sovereign individual. From the inception of the program forward, everything you do or say regarding personal health and medical care becomes the business of every other tax payer plus the business of the bureaucrats who run the program. If they do not like your habits or ideas regarding personal health, and if they can organize a political movement, they can confront your life and modify your liberty with the backing of the government, which has a monopoly on jail cells and the legitimate use of force. Take a look at public schools. As long as taxpayers fund the schools, then the taxpayer with the craziest ideas has an equal voice as the taxpayer with the best idea. Apply that to medical treatment. Anyway, national health care is not really about medical treatment. It is about a political elite controlling the lives of those who produce the wealth (the new proletariat), which in turn is confiscated by the political elite to fund their own special perk package including a terrific pre paid medical plan and retirement unlike anything most people in the private sector enjoy. Shame on them for their power lust and their hubris.

The problem with private health care is that you cease to be a sovereign individual. From the inception of the program forward, everything you do or say regarding personal health and medical care becomes the business of a company that is incented to deny you health care.

No first-world country looks to the US health care system as a model. Zero. None. The places without national health care tend to look like this.

When I was growing up Blue Cross and Blue Shield were non-profit organizations that funneled payments to doctors and hospitals. It was insurance in the sense that you bought a reasonably price policy, there were no pre-existing conditions or other exclusions. The only people that got in trouble were the ones seeking payment for non-existent conditions. We need to go back to the pre-HMO days.

We now have rationing, price fixing, exclusions if you have insurance and get expensively sick, exclusions if you are sick when you apply. The hospitals don’t get paid, doctors don’t get paid, and medical staff certainly doesn’t get paid. The only people that benefit under the current system are the owners and stockholders of the insurance companies. The rest of us just get sick and die while our money is drained away. Talk about a death tax!

@jaytkay – Technicalities, technicalities. Having a minor monopoly on first-class mail hasn’t stopped or prevented internet e-mail or cellphone texting which permits correspondence at a cost of nearly zero cents per message. So, there ARE ways around that particular stipulation and nearly everyone has access to one or the other, or both. Add that to the fact that their are other delivery and courier systems in place, and that the USPS operates as an independent entity, which for nearly a quarter of a century, has received NO tax monies and any pertinence of it’s inclusion in a discussion about a government-run institutions all but vanishes.

@jaytkay good points!

I’d like to see the removal of the anti-trust laws that currently allow price-fixing, bid rigging, market allocations, and subject health insurers and medical malpractice insurers to the same good-competition laws that apply to virtually every other company doing business in the United States.

@Rufus_T_Firefly And those same laws slap down doctors who so much as dare to talk about what they charge.

I have no concerns about nationalized health care. I don’t live in a country that has it, nor is every going to have it. The only country I know with nationalized health care is Britain. I’m sure there are others, but that’s the only one I know.

In the US, no one is going to touch the sovereignty of health providers. Hospitals, doctors, nursing homes will all continue to compete for patients.

Now we also do not have nationalized health insurance. In fact, the US government will not be expanding their coverage to anyone except a few who don’t have insurance. And they will be doing this through existing national insurance programs: Medicare and Medicaid. For the people who are not on Medicare or Medicaid, or VA or military health insurance programs, practically all of them will still have private insurers. The new people who gain insurance will also be purchasing private health insurance products.

Of course, the right wing doesn’t give a shit about facts. They just throw out wild words like nationalized or socialized and scare up a few idiots who buy such tripe.

Here’s another thing. Here is a nationalized insurance program: Medicare. It serves people over the age of 65, primarily. Do you hear a single conservative arguing to get rid of Medicare? No. They aren’t so stupid as to get every senior citizen to vote against them.

So if it’s good enough for our parents and grandparents, why is it no good for us? Are we treating our elders as second class citizens? If so, then why don’t they want to get rid of the program? Why don’t we volunteer to get rid of it for them?

It should be the other way around. We should be expanding Medicare instead of relying on the supposedly “competitive” insurance market, which, of course, is anything but competitive. Ok. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. However, it is not nearly as competitive as it should be. Anyway, it seems to me that “competition” is raising premiums, not reducing them. Does anyone have reduced premiums this year? Anyone? Don’t be shy. Raise your hand.

The Republicans are morally bankrupt on this issue. (Yeah, like that’s news). They use fearmongering and outright lies to generate opposition and to claim the opposition is huge. They raise the fear that Democrats will be voted out. We’ll see. Give this thing a chance to phase in, and most of the people who now have coverage that didn’t have it before will be rabid in their support of the plan. Most privately insured will also love it, because their premiums will go down. Finally. It’s about time Congress made some progress on this issue. Far past time, in fact.

Hmmmmm so can someone answer me this?

I am a self employed, single 50 yr. old woman,that pays near $300 per mon. with Blue Cross for an individual 70%-30%, ( 5k deductable ) with modest dental benefits.

My work has been extremely slow this past 18 months and I have not found a supplementary possistion to bolster up my income.

My income was only about 10k last year, but…I have a decent nest egg that I have been skimming from. ( essentially $ that should be going towards my retirement…haha…no retirement for me I think! lol )

Would it be in my best interest to drop my coverage and apply for the goverment benefits or would my savings disqualify me even though my income has been pathetically reduced during this recession?

Any thought’s?

@Coloma as things stand now, your assets are part of the consideration for government assistance. Even if you try to liquidate them by stashing the assets with a trusted friend or relative, you have to wait, I think, 5 years before you apply. Of course by then you may be eligible for a death benefit. If you have pre-existing conditions, you won’t get insurance anyway.

The new law may help but it will be years before some of the provisions kick in.

Of course if you live in Massachusetts, you can be covered immediately.

@Coloma Wait for the bill to be signed. It can still change a bit in reconciliation.

I went to opencongress.org and downloaded the bill as it is. It’s a little over 2500 pages. I’ve been reading this for days now.

My complaint is that it will take me longer to read this, form an opinion, and actually try to do something about my one opinion than it will take to pass, be signed, and go into effect.

Thanks for your input folks. :-)

I somehow did not think I would see any immediate options for my particular situation.
@Fenris Hah! Yes…no worries, we will all be dead by the time we are done slogging through that 2,500 pages. lololol

The 2,500 pages are double spaced and in an extremely large font. It’s about as long as a Harry Potter book.

Do you have trouble reading or something?

Not only do I have to devote 12 hours a day to job hunting and fixing up this house I’m staying in, so I only get about 6 hours of free time, I also have to sound out the words in my head or text becomes gibberish to me, so I can only read as fast as a good narrator. I can’t read a Harry Potter book in 6 hours, and the bill is going to be signed into law tomorrow.

@Fenris
They count on the fact that most of us are too busy working and taking care of our families; to carefully read and study the bill.

I missed the old summer breaks when I had a whole month of non-interruption to do this stuff. I read HR5252 (I think it was) cover to cover and showed a lot of people the mistakes in reporting the document. It was a bill designed to give ISP competition a boost in America, though it did little good.

Nowadays, I’m lucky if I can read 20 or 30 bills a year. This sucks, let’s go wave signs at government offices.

@Qingu

Piss off.

@Coloma When was the last time you shopped your insurance. You really should shop policies every 3 years…if you haven’t find a broker or try online for free rate quotes. You may want to consider dropping dental and pay out of pocket for that.

@Cruiser

Yes, will be reevaluating in May….sheesh…I don’t wanna be a grownup anymore! lolololol

What on earth does it matter if “we” get to read and study the bill anyway?

You guys do understand the concept of representative democracy, yes?

@Qingu : And? I’m not paying these people to think or opine for me, that’s how the bold servant that is government became our trembling master. Thinking for ourselves, questioning authority and always getting involved in the political process is how we are supposed to keep a leash on the government.

@Fenris “thinking for ourselves” is the problem, isn’t it. Our representatives no longer represent us. Otherwise we would have had a one payer system long ago. I think “Qingu” fell into the common U.S. fallacy, thinking that Congress actually represented us. Virtually all Republicans in Congress have resorted into voting as a block. No individual or representative thinking is permitted. More than half of the democrats are representing various industries and their constituents have no say. Those that control the purse strings control the government. I can’t afford a purse, let alone one with really that has really tight strings.

@Qingu I do understand this “representative democracy” as you call it and this “representative democracy” is in bed with the corporatocracy that controls our government and the single reason why you, me and everyone else should read everything that comes out of Washington. “K” street is the real enemy here and until we bulldoze it things will never change no matter what side of the isle you sit on.

@Cruiser
We need leaders that come from the Middle Class and remember what it is like to work for a living. Independents that do not support the Ideologies of the R or L. Leaders that support the American working people and not some unrealistic rhetoric.

@philosopher Sarah Palin tried to do that and got fed through the “K” street wood chipper. At least she got a nice book deal out of that train wreck.

@Cruiser – Palin’s fatal mistake regarding the K Street Wood Chipper was that she behaved like a diva and all but helped them plug it in.

@Rufus_T_Firefly I agree with you on that part but her “handlers” were the ones that sharpened the blades!

@Cruiser – Thank god for small favors, huh? LOL

@philosopher “We need leaders that come from the Middle Class…..” It was the educated class that had enough leisure time, energy, and month to think, the then unthinkable act, of breaking away from the monarchy. I believe that we should not divide our country further. That is how tyranny takes over. We came close during the Bush years and even close because of the recent Supreme Court decision.

What we need are educated progressive thinkers from all classes to set us back on the path blazed by our founding fathers. What we don’t need is the tea party rabble with their guns and racial epithets.

@Ron_C
The problem is that wealthy people seem unable to comprehend what life is like for most of us.
My successful Brother In Law is my case in point.
He grew up in the project. He lives in a mansion. He has little compassion left.
He worked hard and married into a family of blue bloods.
I use to enjoy Lou Dobbs showing the faults of both parties and their unrealistic ideologies.

@Rufus_T_Firefly She’s Baaaack!”

@Cruiser –
Yeah, I just saw the news bit saying that Palin and McCain had reunited. Scary, huh? What the hell ever happened to McCain’s so-called integrity? You know, the integrity that he appeared to possess during his gracious concession speech back in 2008? As you mentioned, it was McCain’s own people who kicked Palin to the curb (probably due to her apparent lack of relevance). Now, he’s bouncing all over the place trying find someone… trying to find anyone… who still thinks he can be relevant.

@philosopher I was looking at articles concerning economic stability. Remarkably, the economy was stable from the 1940’s to the 80’s. Even with the oil crisis created by the Oil Cartel.

Things changed when Reagen came into office with his stimulating the economy with trickle down theory, tax breaks for the wealthy, and privatization functions.

Bush furthered the process with another 2 trillion dollar giveaway to the wealthy. The bigger the disparity between the rich and poor, the lower the quality of government, and the greater abuses for the poor and middle class. With the Supreme Court granting “person-hood” to corporations, an additional tier of wealth has been added to the U.S. class system. We may be looking at the end of the Republic as a democratic system.

@Ron_C
I do not have all the solutions,
I think Dobbs had a lot of good moderate ideas.
We need leaders that relate to the Middle class.
I simply point out the problems. Romey is another Bush. Pallin is a moron.
I do not like the extreme R or extreme L.
I supported Hillary. I hate Pelosi.