Reform? Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.

[davester]

BCam wrote:
Would someone PLEASE explain to me how this is different from a government bureaucrat getting between me and my doctor?
Anyone?

The difference is that the government bureaucrat wouldn't have a vested interest in avoiding paying for that procedure.

[Don Kiyoti]

Dakota wrote:
[quote=Don Kiyoti]
The sarcasm of that piece will fly over the heads of many, including a few forum regulars.

A new Harris poll suggests that a majority of Americans are in favor of a Gov't-run or public option. I know I am.

Slackers usually are for freebees. Go get a second job. I am not paying for your health insurance, who probably has half a dozen Macs scattered throughout the house, to go out and buy even more.
FYI, I'm self-employed and already buy my own health insurance, every dime of it, and it goes up in price by about 20% per year, not including automatic increases as I get older. Nothing else in my life rises in price so quickly. And I have just one Mac.

[john dough]

Dakota wrote:
Governments invented red tape and you want them to cut them? Where else have they done that? Just ask car dealers the paperwork they have to put up with just to sell a lousy car that took me all of one hour last week to buy. There is red tape reduction in front of you.

So keeping thing status quo is your solution? That mentality does nothing to resolve the issue; hurling scare tactics to those who are most vulnerable to keep things going is absolutely unethical. The health care industries are not your friend as your care are what is keeping them from making their money, yet you are hell-bent on keeping things from changing from their business model.

Americans in poll after poll after poll indicate that people want the system to change and the best you can do is call folks lazy, lemmings, slackers, etc., yet the only ones that benefit from this system now are the for-profit health care companies, not you or me.

Put down the party hat for a second and follow the money; the ones that are yelling the loudest are the companies that will have to change their ways. This is not about left or right but common decency and having a healthy population. Obama does not have all of the answers (no one does) but he is 100% right that the system is broken and it will be changed. Too many American lives are ruined due to spiraling health care costs and this trend has to stop.

[Mike Sellers]

Lux Interior wrote: Right now, insurance co. execs are in charge. Their primary goal is to make money. Providing the best care is not compatible with that goal.

No kidding. Imagine hiring a home security company that got 20% of the take every time your house was burglarized.

[Mac1337]

JD, your posts are so repetitive in style, content and tone that I really don't bother to read them anymore. They are all about me putting the party ahead of the country, right? OK, we get it. Got something else to say, 1trickpony?

[Don Kiyoti]

Dakota wrote:
JD, your posts are so repetitive in style, content and tone that I really don't bother to read them anymore. They are all about me putting the party ahead of the country, right? OK, we get it. Got something else to say, 1trickpony?

Good Lord, but you are an idiot.

[john dough]

Dakota wrote:
JD, your posts are so repetitive in style, content and tone that I really don't bother to read them anymore. They are all about me putting the party ahead of the country, right? OK, we get it. Got something else to say, 1trickpony?

I am only reflecting on what you say. The ideas that you project may seem like good ideas to you, but in the real world, they do not help us out as a country, which is what we need most now. The last 8 years were not stellar for us as a nation yet you and many in your party don't seem to care to change the way of thinking that led us to this point.

It seems to me that you parrot the talking points that do nothing to change what is broken (and yes, things are broken). While I don't accept everything Obama says as gospel, I am sick of the movement in this country that attempts to shout him down at every turn, which you seem to do with most of your postings. In that manner, your party is blatantly hypocritical as they said that doing this with a sitting president was borderline treason (as recently as last year this was the refrain).

Look, I am not thinking that what I am saying will suddenly open your eyes to how I see things, yet I have to clear up the misinformation that you present and must call out your party on what it is supporting, as it seems driven not by forces that are not in the best interest of the American people. These companies don't care about us, only profits, so if you are supporting these ideas, then YES, you are putting these companies before your country.

Take the long view on healthcare; do you think that doing nothing to change the path we are on will make us stronger as a nation? Are we better off pre-Bush or post-Bush as far as healthcare goes? Every year since 2000, the insurance companies have charged a little more than the prior year (my costs are up 100% in those 8 years), yet the coverage says the same or retracts (I know this first hand as I pay ALL of my own coverage out of my pocket yet my copays have gone up and the treatment levels have gone down). What kind of sense does that make to allow healthcare companies to have as their "clients" NOT the patients but their shareholders? The industry is screwing Americans yet your party is siding with the companies that are doing it and siding against the majority of us who wants things to be fixed. If that makes you uncomfortable, good, it should.

[davester]

Dakota wrote:
JD, your posts are so repetitive in style, content and tone that I really don't bother to read them anymore. They are all about me putting the party ahead of the country, right? OK, we get it. Got something else to say, 1trickpony?

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That is a riot!

[Mac1337]

People aren't buying what Obama is selling. You are losing it and you know it. Why? Because we have been down this road before,

When Medicare was being considered in the mid-1960s, the government projected that the outlays for the program 25 years down the road would be $10 billion. Instead, in 1990, 25 years later, the outlays were $107 billion. Government estimates were off by a factor of more than 10!

Medicaid, the other large medical program currently in effect, outdid Medicare. Medicaid outlays in 1968 were $1.8 billion. In 2007 they had risen to $190.6 billion, an increase in dollar terms of 105.9 times.

Not unexpected from people who need a 137 page manual how to buy a used car.

[john dough]

Dakota wrote:
People aren't buying what Obama is selling. You are losing it and you know it. Why? Because we have been down this road before,

When Medicare was being considered in the mid-1960s, the government projected that the outlays for the program 25 years down the road would be $10 billion. Instead, in 1990, 25 years later, the outlays were $107 billion. Government estimates were off by a factor of more than 10!

Medicaid, the other large medical program currently in effect, outdid Medicare. Medicaid outlays in 1968 were $1.8 billion. In 2007 they had risen to $190.6 billion, an increase in dollar terms of 105.9 times.

Not unexpected from people who need a 137 page manual how to buy a used car.

More noise from someone who is determined to shill for the corporations. Most people polled support changing the system, no matter how many times you think they are not.

Almost 3/4 of those polled say so:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health....html?_r=1

You can pound out your opinions or post skewed results from Fox news or other right wing attack sites, but the facts are things are changing as the path we are currently on is unsustainable. If we do nothing, your costs are not going to get better as the companies will only raise our rates more.

Even if the numbers that you say were valid, it completely pales in the amount that was spent in the last 8 years on 2 wars that directly contributed to many problems we have now. And where did that get us? So some companies can carve out Iraq for their oil business? Where is the money that would be repaid us from all of the money that they are making because of the oil? Last time I checked, Iraq is sitting on a pile of cash while we don't have enough to take care of our own sick.

This country was neglected by Bush and Cheney yet when we did not agree with their ways, we were labeled as bad Americans. The reality was irresponsible spending, blank contracts, missing funds, no-bid contracts to cronies, failure to fully document cash outlays -- how is pointing out that folks were doing rotten make the accuser the bad guy? Your party has no case to point fingers when it comes to money, after the last 8 years of your party in charge. Deny it all you want, that administration was awful and no spin will change their legacy.