http://money.cnn.com/...eal_cost/index.htm?hpt=T1



Do you think the Republicans will still try and fail at repealing Obama's health care laws, now knowing that doing so would go against their other core campaign promises (lowering the deficit and lower spending across the board)?

Obviously, with a Democratic controlled senate and Obama holding the veto pen, there's no way this would actually pass, and it would be -- at best -- political showboating. At worst, it would be an attempt to continue to line the pockets of the insurance industry and keep the right polarized against change.

Personally, I always think that "universal" health care is going to be like segregation. It's an issue that many will fight against with all their power, but future generations will look back and go "oh my God... what were we thinking :|"

A lot of countries already have this and arent doing bad so perhaps the problem isnt in universal health care

ya, obviously it's not going to turn a country into a socialist paradise...

we've had universal health care in Canada for several decades and it is on par with the US in terms of quality of service, and it's not only helped make the quality of life better for individuals, it's created a more positive economic climate, as companies don't need to worry about covering expensive health insurance for their employees.

Mod supported political threads! Wonderful to see.

i said we're allowing these on AT again... but no one started any up, so I figured I would as this is a good discussion topic.... it's got social, economic and political aspects :p

Pang: In actuallity, the world ranking of Canada's healthcare system is vastly higher than that of the United States which is somewhere around 32nd last I checked.

well I believe that our healthcare system is ranked better based on accessibility, but in terms of leading-edge technology, skills and other aspects that create health care, we're very similar to the US and other western nations.

having amazing health care technology and stuff is great, but it doesn't help you when you don't have any access to it

"as companies don't need to worry about covering expensive health insurance for their employees."

yes they do, they just call it taxes.
social safety nets always lead to ridiculous waste and overspending.
canadas health care is no different.

Obamacare isn't "universal healthcare" as canadians and a few europens countries know it

at least as far as I understand it

my main problem with obamacare is the horrible impact that it has on small busisness owners.

My friend, who's dad owns a few car care franchises, told me a story.

His employees were extatic at the new healthcare laws. They thought they were geting elite healthcare for free! Omfg ignorance is amazing. He ended up cutting their pay by 15% and cutting another 10% ofhis employees. The economy has actually helped his buisness and since 3 of the franchises he owns are in Fayetteville (home of o e of the largest military bases in the unitedstates) the military clientell has floated his buisness greatly

my problem is that the new plan cripples small owners when the majority of the workers in te US are employed by the very same companies. In the midst of one of the greatesd recessions we have ever seen, you pass massive legislation that further fluffs on the economy.

Make urdamn mind up Obama.


It is something that will eventually be great for our nation, but the timing of this legislation could not possibly worse

jobs > universal health care

Healthcare reform a really complicated issue so I question using CNN as a source to get the conversation started lol.

Anyways, one of my perhaps incorrect perceptions is that a vast majority of medical advances occur in the United States, and the funding for these medical advances comes in large part due to the payoff that the current healthcare system in the US provides for cutting edge developments. Thus the rest of the world is able to benefit from US developed, in a sense US paid for medical technology. So comparing Canada's system to the US system is not really appropriate, as the Canadian system in part only works so well b/c of the US system.

Perhaps this perception is right, perhaps it is wrong. I'm posting it here b/c my lazy ass would love to learn from someone in the know :P

ya, I gotta agree with that point... Hillary-care should have passed in the 90's. That would be been a good time. Bloating the budget during a recession isn't exactly great long term theory :p

and it is true that it'll cost more in taxes across the board... but IMHO, I've always felt that the American tax burden is ridiculous and should be revised in so many ways..... but that's a different thread's discussion :p
Also, I'd rather pay extra every year in taxes, rather than spending money on health care insurance. I'm not sure how much the average american with health insurance pays per year (whether their employer pays or they pay themselves) but my assumption is that if it was included with taxes, it would be less out of pocket on aggregate.

I bought my own insurance when my dad got laid off and I could no longer piggyback on his years ago

I was 20 years old and a smoker. I was paying $196 a month for a mid level health care plan with no dental and a midrange copayment and lifetime cap

after a year I said fluff it and switched to my moms plan.

It costs around 12K a year
to insure my family of 4
on an 80/20 plan Blue Cross plan

luckily its a part of my benefits package, and if my insurance goes up, my beneifts package goes up.

Oh we also have individual and family wide deductibles. That once met, we don't pay as much...

no eye no dental.

it cost me under 80 a month to insure my self health/vision/dental with a 500 dollar max out of pocket. I have no need for obamacare :P

I think they'll do it, reguardless just to go against Obama at something.

why do they have to repeal an unconstitutional law? just let the courts smack it into the dirt, we can use it as fertilizer to grow peanuts!!!!

Republicans are gratuitously inane. Oh, and the judge who "repealed" the requirement to buy insurance.. is an exec on the BoD of a health care insurance company.

"Obamacare" is a block copy of Romneycare, the universal (>96%) coverage in Massachusetts. Obamacare is also a direct copy of the Republican counter-proposal to Hilarycare in 1993, as developed by The Heritage Foundation.

Obamacare prevents health care insurance executives from becoming nonsensically wealthy, by forcing them to (gasp) cover every person. Additionally, Obamacare only deals with the insurance plans.. it does NOTHING with hospitals and the transmission of care to the patient.

*National plans are NOT good.. because national regulators are coopted by Wall Street (whereas state ones are not) and the lack of regulators means that insurance companies take your premium, don't pay out when you need that coverage, and don't pay a penalty.

*Health care costs will rise more without the restrictions mandating premium increase percentages. Don't believe the fantasy-land assertion from Fox that costs will somehow magically fall without any action on their part to accomplish that.

Why try to repeal this? Because Republicans quite literally have zero ideas other than "obama bad." Also, if anyone actually believes any Republican is serious about decreasing deficits.. you've been played for a fool. Not surprisingly, under 2% of the total federal budget is even under consideration for being cut in the upcoming Congress. If you decrease taxes.. you are increasing the deficit. If you increase spending.. you are increasing the deficit. Luckily, it's now 100% in the Republican lap, so let's see how this plays out.

All of this speculation as to what might happen in 2019, 2021, etc is utter BS. There is no way to forecast that far into the future with any accuracy whatsoever. Making decisions based on forecasts 10 years into the future is a problem in of its own.

I would love to see the assumptions made in the calculation that the repeal of Obamacare would increase the defecit by $230b by 2020. I'm sure they are all bullfluff and assume a static and continued trend in healthcare costs.

I'm pretty sure getting rid of obamacare would decrease the deficit in the immediate future. I'm not even going to start speculating what is going to happen in 10 years, because nobody knows, and anybody who tells you they have an estimattion, ask them how much they are willing to wager that their forecasts come to light as predicted, I'm guessing not much.

You can't protect jobs forever, otherwise we would still have blacksmiths and people would still weave cloth by hand.

Jobs go, new jobs come. Economies need to restructure, resisting it is only slowing down your growth! Instead your should be embracing the direction your economy is heading. Invest in healthcare delivery (a lot of old people looking for healthcare services are coming around the bend), digital media, the knowledge economy.

Financial services is suppose to be a fast growing sector anyway, so there will be jobs for the unemployed health care insurance folk to apply to. I'm sure all the people working at the call centres can get jobs with AT&T.

Issue number one is that "Obamacare" as it was explained to me (most likely very erroneously, courtesy of the nightly news) is basically "Everyone MUST BUY health care." This ignores the fact that many of the people that don't have it already (dare I assume, most of those people) haven't bought it because they can't reasonably afford it. Universal health care is a great idea, but what came out of Congress is what the people in high school government class like to call "compromise," which is to say it has been stretched in so many competing directions that, instead of helping people, it puts them in an even worse position than they already were in.

On the other side of the coin, no, costs are not going to come down due to competition in the private sector. I know this because THERE ALREADY IS competition in the private sector and it hasn't done a damn thing.

I don't vote anymore cause either way... we get fluffed.. doesn't matter who, in 4-8 years the Dems will win and people will be saying, hurray, we got rid of those guys.. 8 years later.. Reps win and we're saying hurray, we got rid of those guys... either way, politicians don't care, aslong as they get paid well, they'll throw a bone to keep us from becoming too angry.

The problem is that under the pre-Obama care, acute health care delivery is not a profitable business. The average for profit hospital in my state was making about .5% profit a couple of years ago (not sure what it is now, not currently chasing work in that sector). Since most treatment is provided at a partial loss (with less than cost reimbursement from insurance companies and medicare), or complete loss (charity care), if hospitals can't get the patients for the few profitable elective surgeries, they're not feasible as a business.

The system needed to be changed, and quite frankly I don't think "Obama care" goes far enough, but I guess we'll see in a few years if hospitals in lower income areas continue to close, or if only a few hospitals that get the elective care patients stay open in densely populated areas.

my main problem is everyone HAS to have it, yes i understand all the bs that goes along with how people going to the ER without it still have to be seen blah blah blah, bu forcing people to have something goes against what the US "stands" for, freedom, forcing people to have health care goes against the basic freedoms, not to mention the size of the govt is getting ridiculous, forget about the budget deficits and everything, et out of the complicated bs that people will always debate but noone can predict bc it is the future...its a basic right that would be broken, and that should be the main reason it is changed

you understand that charity care and under funded medicare/medicaid reimbursements are putting hospitals out of business, right?

not to mention that in most states everybody has to have auto insurance. Does that mean that our "basic freedoms" are being violated?

One of the many reasons that I don't bother to get a license or a car...

More specific to the discussion, I agree that forcing people to purchase health insurance is stupid, but on the grounds I listed above: If we can't afford it now, what makes the government think we can afford it after the law comes into play? I like the idea of universal health care, but if it requires putting that much more strain on pocketbooks that can't take it, I'm not sure how that's supposed to help people.

That said, while government is too big, it will always require funds (i.e. taxes) no matter how big or small it is. As far as I'm concerned, if I pay taxes (and I don't yet because I don't have a job or income, but the day is fast approaching), I'm paying the government to look out for me. If it doesn't, then it doesn't deserve the money it takes from me.

JFK's famous statement about asking what you can do for your country has already been answered: You pay taxes. I think the other half of that statement is actually rather appropriate, since the government doesn't seem to be in the business of looking out for the people giving it the cash to function.

in very simple terms the law just provided insurance companies with millions of new customers...@tax payers expense.

if you cannot afford insurance the government will pay it for you or at least most of it.

this is basically the government transferring an enormous amount of taxpayer dollars into privately held companies.

how many insurance companies are currently running ads requesting customers stop applying for insurance?

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Had the government expanded medicare or medical to include lower income families and opened these two programs to the public then it would have made sense to me. This could have included small businesses, self employed, or employees who are not covered by their work place. The public option would have helped fund these programs while providing the access to health-care everyone was asking for. It also would have been optional and not a mandate to purchase a product from a private company.

Medicare and Medical could have competed with other insurance companies. The same way the post office competes for shipping business with UPS and FedEx and each of these entities are doing just fine.

Basically instead of the gov paying/susidizing lower income families and paying $400-$800 a month to private insurance companies this family could pay the gov 20-50 a month for medicare/medical. If someone is making enough money and wants to buy medicare/medical vs. blue-cross it should have been available to them. The higher paying customers would have offset some of the cost imposed as a tax burden on working families. This also would have provided a true way of forcing insurance companies to remain reasonably competitive.

At the moment, I do not see insurance companies scrambling to figure out how to streamline their businesses to absorb the cost impact ObamaCare will have on their bottom line. Actually the opposite is occurring as they are ramping up for the influx of new customers they will need to be servicing.

sorry for the rant... but i really hate it when someone plays 3-card monte with these types of issues.

They vote for the left,
They vote for the right,
It is the United States of America,
They can't vote for shiite.

Pang, I'm afraid you don't really understand "the veto pen". Please allow me to inform you how this could & hopefully will pass.

The Presidential veto power is established in Article I, Section 7 of the United States Constitution. This section provides that if a bill is passed by both houses of congress it is then presented to the President for signature. If the President has objections to the bill, he is to return it to the house in which it originated (either the House of Representatives or the Senate). That house of congress may then vote on the bill again and if they vote for it to be a law by a two-thirds majority, the bill is then sent to the other house of congress where it must again pass by a two-thirds majority.

******If both houses of congress vote for a returned bill by a two-thirds majority, then it will become a law even though the President did not sign the bill.******

why did the kuwaiti man refuse to shower?
he was afraid of being labelled a baathist.

flameys rhyme reminded me, i'm sorry

Trippster, I'm sure he's referring to the fact that a two-thirds majority in both houses is impossible to attain on something like this right now. I'm not sure that they could myster a two thirds in the House, never mind the Senate.

bah, just throw them in jail for racketeering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...Corrupt_Organizations_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeering

itd be great if u knew the difference....auto insurance is only required of people that drive/own vehicles...there isnt a law stating that u have to have a car, if u decided not to have one u wouldnt have to have the insurance....

now making me buy insurance bc im alive and a citizen of the US? thats what goes against our freedoms...but thanks keep trying

auto insurance is a violation of my freedom. it's a requirement that is taking money away from me to pay for somebody else's accidents. if i quit driving today, i should get a refund of every damn cent i spent on auto insurance except for lifetime claim of $2200 because i was forgot to tell the boss to fark off for requiring me to drive in a flood area during a tropical storm. got at least 2 states that don't require auto insurance, yet those drivers are allowed to drive in the other 48 whether or not they can pay for the damage they cause.

OK, let me take an alternate tact. The government provides services or funding for services that private industry is unable to provide profitably while charging enough to make use of that service feasible. This includes national defense, public safety, education, roads, and now, barring a massive restructuring of the health care and pharmaceutical industries, health care delivery.

The main flaw of the governmental health plan is that it is a compromise solution - the insurance and pharmaceutical industries had too much power in congress (and this was before the Roberts Court decided to allow corporate entities to use money to legally influence politicians (in New Jersey we call it pay to play), and as a result they were able to resist the kind of change required to make a meaningful difference to the industry. Obama got his wish to provide health insurance to everyone (vital to the survival of hospitals, and helping to reduce government expenditure by eliminating charity care), but failed to make the kind of change needed. Mandatory health insurance will reduce the need for charity care, which will take some of the pressure off, but it isn't enough.

Ideally, health insurance providers increase the buying power of the individual consumer, allowing them to get health care at a reasonable price. Realistically, health insurance providers mainly represent a mark-up in the cost of health care, and as health care costs rise and margins disappear, the industry can no longer afford the middle man. Since no business is going to voluntarily give up its business for the public good, the government has to step in, either by regulation, or in an extreme case (as I, someone who provides professional services to the health care sector, believe we are only a few years away from), elimination.

The only effective solution to this is for the government to provide health care as a service, or to take over private industry's role as the middle man in providing purchase power to consumers. The mismanagement of the VA system tells us that we want the latter rather than former, but take my word for it - as governments (state and federal) cut down on their medicare reimbursements to cut their deficits, and private entities continue to separate the profitable procedures from the money losing hospitals, the government will eventually be forced to take over health care delivery. As the son of a Vietnam Vet, I can tell you that it won't be pretty.

to go back to my original point, manditory health insurance is another form of taxation to provide a service, and the constitution, while guaranteeing the rights of citizens also give our government the right to tax us in order to provide services.

oh, and i may not be required to drive, but a good portion of the taxes that i pay(late) does go towards to paying for all the dang road infrastructure. so whether i drive or not, i'm still paying to give you non-driving SOBs a chance to drive between the lines.

fluff

pffft. your momma and her second cousin caught on tape.

interesting points to consider, thanks :)

you show once again pang how base you are-

Obamma Care is not constitutional. Where in the constitution does it say that simply because i exist that i have to buy something from a private corporation - who are out to make max profits??? It doesnt- the gov has power to REGULATE commerce not CREATE it. Get a life dude- this law isnt right- the Dems, with their backroom deals are trying to take away our basic rights of freedom. I pray the repeal it-

And im for health care- but not this Obamma care- if the law takes away rigths of americans its not a good law- no matter the good parts.

Jeremy you may be right. Over the years though I've run across many, many people who believe that if the president vetoes a bill that's it. Most do not realize that the President can be overridden by Congress.

Ronald Reagan had 9 vetoes overridden, George H W Bush only had 1 overridden, Bill Clinton had 2, George W Bush had 4 and Barack Obama hasn't had any to date so ... it's about time they handed him one ... on something that matters to Americans.

I look at it this way. If you don't want to pay for health insurance, then quit going to the hospital. I have a hospital blocks away from me threatening to close up because they are losing so much money. The reason they are losing it? People on welfare come across the state line for care here and Illinois won't pay for services done in Indiana.

Yeah. So when I get TB, and don't go to the hospital because I can't afford health insurance or treatment, I'll make sure to transmit it to you.

I live in a country with true universal healthcare. The whole healthcare department is entirely funded by taxes, which means the highest earners contribute more. It isn't without it problems, they can't always afford the more expensive treatments that could be decisive and waiting lists can be long, but at least I have the knowledge that I wont be charged for a life saving operation.

In fact, as a self-funded student with no income I'm entitled to free prescriptions. When I'm earning moeny I'll be taxed and recontribuite to those who are in my situation. There is also the oppotunity to pay extra and go private if you are willing to spend extra.

When talking about Obamacare it is more similar to the system the Dutch use, which is pretty right wing. Hence, in reality Obama is trying to move the US from the extreme right to the right than any lurch to the left. It may be unconstituional, but to me it is odd that a set of ideas from 300 years ago, written by a bunch of British rebels should dictate the present and the future.

I point out the bit about "buy[ing] something from a private corporation" because, if the Democrats had had their way, it likely wouldn't be like that. This is the "compromise" bit, where the Republicans are telling the government that it shouldn't take part in health care delivery, otherwise there would be a public option that wouldn't be a private corporation (not to say that paying more money to the government is a good thing, but at least there would be the option). Because the Republicans ran that out of the debate, we have a situation where the only ones who are going to get paid are the private insurers, the ones who are part of the problem this bill was meant to (try to) solve.

[quote poster=gwagers; 6437; 109154]

I point out the bit about "buy[ing] something from a private corporation" because, if the Democrats had had their way, it likely wouldn't be like that. This is the "compromise" bit, where the Republicans are telling the government that it shouldn't take part in health care delivery, otherwise there would be a public option that wouldn't be a private corporation (not to say that paying more money to the government is a good thing, but at least there would be the option). Because the Republicans ran that out of the debate, we have a situation where the only ones who are going to get paid are the private insurers, the ones who are part of the problem this bill was meant to (try to) solve. [/quote]

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hmm considering the democrats ran solo on this one it is hard to say this was a comprise ;) ...

If any party forcefully uses their majority to pass any bill/law then they need to take ownership as delivered. They were gambling high-stakes and the only input/compromise that mattered here for votes on the floor or senate would have come from democrats. Final note the democrats obviously had the power to pass this legislation to include whatever their hearts desired as demonstrated by their vote across both house and senate. Therefore I do not buy the bad parts are because of the evil republicans.

BTW when an issue this big come to the table it should not be about us vs. them, but what works best for all parties involved.

so yeah I'm upset our congress sold us out to the insurance and health-care sector. Hospitals do not lose money contrary to popular belief, they simply have more profitable areas they can be in for the labor and overhead resources they are paying for.

I find it ironic that the Democrats claim to be "pro-choice" and then take away a person's right to make their own decisions on health care.

Obamacare is anti-choice, anti-liberty. The Republican solution of 'regulated' health care is no better, because those in the government regulating the health care industry will be strongly influenced by the few major players in the health care industry.

Letting an industry regulate itself is one of the best ways to ensure that your economy is NOT laissez-faire. Allowing the healthcare business to become so centralized that only a few corporations control it is what leads to those corporations having coercive power over their consumers. When there are so few producers, consumers do not have a fair bargaining position with the producers.

Both Republicans and Democrats will work hard to ensure that the healthcare system is in the hands of a few corporations, and that those corporations hold the upper hand over consumers, and that those corporations can dictate exactly what the consumers must accept.

Corporations are an abomination to capitalism.

I guess you've been sleeping for the past decade. The republicans have done more to take away our rights than any terrorist could ever hope to accomplish.

Your own Vice President, fluff Cheney, publicly stated, when asked about our rights and our Constitution, "What rights? You don't have any! What Constitution? It's just another dam piece of paper that don't mean shiat!" Then they went on to forge the "Patriot" Act, Military Commissions Acts of 2005 and 2006, all of which were intended to take away even more rights.