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  • TUESDAY JUNE 30 2009 9:30 AM

Democrats Blowing It On Health Care

It’s really quite interesting to watch the Democrats throw it all away. This time, they seem to think blowing the chance at decent health care reform will aid them in future elections. Or perhaps they have taken so much money from the health care industry that they don’t give a shit. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Fixing health care is the biggest problem facing our country. If we don’t do something drastic, it will completely destroy our economy in the years to come. As it is, we’re in bad shape. Democrats, specifically Senate Democrats, have decided to help the poor insurance industry out as much as possible. Es no bueno.

Most of the debate is over the dreaded “public option.” Oh, dear no. We can’t have a public option. That’s socialized medicine! Americans must be able to choose! And by that I mean they can’t choose a public option! They have to be able to choose between private monopolies! This is fucking America! We demand to be fucked over by private companies as much as possible!

And make no mistake about it; those against the “public option” want to continue with monopolies.

But the notion that most American consumers enjoy anything like a competitive marketplace for health care is flatly false. And a study issued last month by a pro-reform group makes that strikingly clear.

The report, released by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), uses data compiled by the American Medical Association to show that 94 percent of the country's insurance markets are defined as "highly concentrated," according to Justice Department guidelines. Predictably, that's led to skyrocketing costs for patients, and monster profits for the big health insurers. Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.



So, that's what the "free market" kids are fighting for. Monopolies. Yay!

A public option would guarantee the possibility of lower cost, reliable coverage. It will bring cost control by reforming how we pay for medical care. It will create competition between private insurers that simply does not exist today. It will also force private insurers to perform better, something they are not doing today.

To those who say the public option would drive the private companies out of business; I thought everything government did sucked? Is government bad or highly efficient? Please stick to one talking point, no matter the subject. Secondly, the private insurance companies have had their chance and to say they fucked it up would be an understatement. They deserve no protection. I have no interest in keeping pedophiles in business, either. Their time has come and gone. They could have kept costs lower, kept people from dying, insured anyone with preconditions, but they decided to go for the biggest profits possible and now they are on the deserving end of what’s coming. They only compete to insure the well and reject the sick. Then they employ adjusters to get the company out of paying for health care services when the well become sick. Welcome to the world of failure. They made their bed, now they have to lie in it.

If any of you loud mouthed, utopian, not living in the real world Libertarians bring up regulation, feel free to explain the exact regulation that makes health care so expensive. If you can’t detail these so called regulations, shut your face and stick your broad stroke arguments up your ass. Your simplicity has grown tiresome. This current debate is for adults and what you want will never be, so stay out of it or act like an adult and accept that what you want ain’t going to happen.

As far as the public plan, Democrats are right now working on a way to water it down until it is completely ineffective. Senator Jay Rockefeller, who is a son of a bitch because of his FISA legislation, has come up with a good public health care plan. His plan would partner a public plan with Medicare for more bargaining power and access to provider networks. According the non-partisan Lewin Group and the Commonwealth Foundation, Rockefeller’s plan would drop premiums 20 to 30 percent. Can’t have that, now can we?

Rockefeller’s plan would force private insurance companies to be more honest. They would have to cut their bullshit administrative costs and fire quite a few of those adjusters whose job is to find ways to not pay for care. Right now, you have no choice. You can choose between one horrible private insurance company or another. There really isn’t much difference. The idea is to force them to become insurers instead of profiteers.

Other Democrats are working on plans that would do almost nothing. Senator Chuck Schumer has a “level playing field” public plan that won’t save much at all. It will just create a plan that will allow private companies to dump old, sick and high-risk patients onto the public plan. This is considered a compromise. It will be awesome because by doing it halfway, they will create exactly what the right wing claims will happen. It will be a terribly ineffective, expensive plan. It would not use low rates that Medicare sets or use taxpayer subsidies. It wouldn’t force its way into networks. It would just be like any other insurer, except for the fact that it would be a dumping ground for private insurers to unload their expensive patients. It’s one of those genius “Democrats compromise and create a pile of shit plans.”

Finally, there’s Ben Nelson’s “Trigger Plan.” You know it’s good because Nelson has taken millions and millions of dollars from insurance companies. The Trigger Plan would be like a big, invisible, scary fist looming over the insurance industry. If the private market didn’t offer cost control or enough options, the public plan would come into existence - but it would be at the state level. It’s a regional Trigger. Some states might have a public plan and others would not. It’s basically set up as a way for private companies to game the system. Ben Nelson doesn’t seem to realize the trigger should have been pulled 8 years ago. If he wants to set the threshold where costs are now, it’s a big lose. Go Blue Dogs!

Those are the public plan options. Now which one do you think Democrats in the Senate will choose? I’d bet big money on the “Level playing field” plan because it doesn’t actually threaten the private insurance market. It actually helps them in their quest to be the biggest douche bags on Earth.

Prepare for failure.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper You may also enjoy his blog, Stop All Monsters.

 

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TheFuckOffKid

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

JUL 01, 2009 02:31 PM

ZakSmith said:

PointBlank said:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

ZakSmith said:

SergeantPsycho said:

Just because you're working some where doesn't mean you can't have your own personal business. if that business works out, then it can start to provide insurance for it's employees (and the founder can quit his day job).




I quit my day job long ago and run my own business. And guess fucking what?

My medical bills are insanely fucking high.

I get double and triple-billed even after I pay the bill at the hospital in cash every time, no matter what hospital I go to anywhere in the country (just got my fifth bill in a row from an already-paid bill at Kaiser.)

The amount of preventive care we get is subzero.

Whenever I'm not in the US and have a medical emergency I fucking thank my lucky stars 'cause the wait's shorter, the people are nicer and the care's better. And it's free.

When someone works for me, I don't cover any of my employees because they're part-time and giving them health-care would be taking on an expense far in excess of just fucking paying them double.


Fascinating side effect:

Since covering my occasional employees would be so expensive, the employee who wants medical care would be better off working for some big fat corporation RATHER than taking independent-go-your-own-way-type temporary work with me and my groovy little do-things-different small business

So small, start-up David-type businesses are going to have a tough time retaining good employees and competing with Goliath businesses unless and until we change our mother-fucking for-profit health care system


In other words, not only is it retarded in a million more important ways, the for-profit health care system is also bad for competition. If you care about that sort of thing.


You need to start a second business, this way that business can pay the health care for the first business, and when you need healthcare for the second business you should start a third . . . and so on. It just sounds like you're not trying hard enough.

/sarge



Of course!. God, thank you!


It's like a small business Ponzi scheme!

DevilsReject

DevilsReject

Cleveland, OH
February 2007

JUL 01, 2009 08:36 PM

Sick said:

DevilsReject said:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

FearTheReaper said:
If I were to lose my Guild insurance, I would not be able to get private insurance due to pre-existing conditions. My wife would also not be able to get insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Thankfully, I've made enough through acting (SAG) and writing (WGA) to have been covered the past 10 years. But if I ever have one bad year - God forbid I was sick and couldn't work - I would lose my insurance. We make far too much money to qualify for any public assistance. If anything bad happened, we'd be looking at bankruptcy and possibly death.



What they throw under "pre-existing condition" is absolutely amazing. When my daughter was born, she was 6 weeks premature and i had just started a new job, higher pay, better benefits. As part of me taking the job, there was supposed to be this "easy switch over" from health insurance company to health insurance company. I prioritized it when taking the job, that i need to be covered at all times, they said no problem.

Jump forward to my daughter being born 6 weeks early, three weeks in the NICU, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills and the new insurance company didn't cover shit. Pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition that they wouldn't cover and they ended up not covering anything when it came to my daughter throwing it under the pre-existing condition clause.

I had a sick wife, a sick kid and was missing work and ended up getting laid off for missing so much work in four weeks, even if i was at work my mind was obviously not there. In medical bills alone i had hit six digits. Within six months of my daughter being born, i filed bankruptcy.

The "too much money" amount to qualify for public assistance is painfully low, at least in Ohio. They want you to sell off assets and property in order for you to meet a set limit they have, and anything you have over that limit, you're expected to put towards the surgery. Your assets are overvalued in these set standards they have. They expect you to get a set amount for your assets and if you don't, they want explicit information on why you didn't get their idea of what it was worth.

Even if you get the surgery, after the surgery, you have nothing. You're absolutely broke. i gave up. There is absolutely no negotiating with them either, it's their way or it doesn't happen.



This would have been about 2001? Well after HIPAA. So not only were they assholes, they were breaking the law as well.



'99, it became an illegal practice in 2001

sick

sick

Minneapolis, MN
June 2003

JUL 01, 2009 09:03 PM

DevilsReject said:

Sick said:

DevilsReject said:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

FearTheReaper said:
If I were to lose my Guild insurance, I would not be able to get private insurance due to pre-existing conditions. My wife would also not be able to get insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Thankfully, I've made enough through acting (SAG) and writing (WGA) to have been covered the past 10 years. But if I ever have one bad year - God forbid I was sick and couldn't work - I would lose my insurance. We make far too much money to qualify for any public assistance. If anything bad happened, we'd be looking at bankruptcy and possibly death.



What they throw under "pre-existing condition" is absolutely amazing. When my daughter was born, she was 6 weeks premature and i had just started a new job, higher pay, better benefits. As part of me taking the job, there was supposed to be this "easy switch over" from health insurance company to health insurance company. I prioritized it when taking the job, that i need to be covered at all times, they said no problem.

Jump forward to my daughter being born 6 weeks early, three weeks in the NICU, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills and the new insurance company didn't cover shit. Pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition that they wouldn't cover and they ended up not covering anything when it came to my daughter throwing it under the pre-existing condition clause.

I had a sick wife, a sick kid and was missing work and ended up getting laid off for missing so much work in four weeks, even if i was at work my mind was obviously not there. In medical bills alone i had hit six digits. Within six months of my daughter being born, i filed bankruptcy.

The "too much money" amount to qualify for public assistance is painfully low, at least in Ohio. They want you to sell off assets and property in order for you to meet a set limit they have, and anything you have over that limit, you're expected to put towards the surgery. Your assets are overvalued in these set standards they have. They expect you to get a set amount for your assets and if you don't, they want explicit information on why you didn't get their idea of what it was worth.

Even if you get the surgery, after the surgery, you have nothing. You're absolutely broke. i gave up. There is absolutely no negotiating with them either, it's their way or it doesn't happen.



This would have been about 2001? Well after HIPAA. So not only were they assholes, they were breaking the law as well.



'99, it became an illegal practice in 2001



Ah; HIPAA was 1996, but I think they wrote in some compliance time, and insurance companies stalled for as long as they could. I still might have said, "Fuck you, lawbreakers!"

Not that it would matter. Their response would have undoubtedly been, "Yeah, so? Sue us."

They could tie it up in court for years. Even if the state took care of the prosecution part of things, you'd still be without insurance. What a crock.

DevilsReject

DevilsReject

Cleveland, OH
February 2007

JUL 01, 2009 09:04 PM

Sick said:

DevilsReject said:

Sick said:

DevilsReject said:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

FearTheReaper said:
If I were to lose my Guild insurance, I would not be able to get private insurance due to pre-existing conditions. My wife would also not be able to get insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Thankfully, I've made enough through acting (SAG) and writing (WGA) to have been covered the past 10 years. But if I ever have one bad year - God forbid I was sick and couldn't work - I would lose my insurance. We make far too much money to qualify for any public assistance. If anything bad happened, we'd be looking at bankruptcy and possibly death.



What they throw under "pre-existing condition" is absolutely amazing. When my daughter was born, she was 6 weeks premature and i had just started a new job, higher pay, better benefits. As part of me taking the job, there was supposed to be this "easy switch over" from health insurance company to health insurance company. I prioritized it when taking the job, that i need to be covered at all times, they said no problem.

Jump forward to my daughter being born 6 weeks early, three weeks in the NICU, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills and the new insurance company didn't cover shit. Pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition that they wouldn't cover and they ended up not covering anything when it came to my daughter throwing it under the pre-existing condition clause.

I had a sick wife, a sick kid and was missing work and ended up getting laid off for missing so much work in four weeks, even if i was at work my mind was obviously not there. In medical bills alone i had hit six digits. Within six months of my daughter being born, i filed bankruptcy.

The "too much money" amount to qualify for public assistance is painfully low, at least in Ohio. They want you to sell off assets and property in order for you to meet a set limit they have, and anything you have over that limit, you're expected to put towards the surgery. Your assets are overvalued in these set standards they have. They expect you to get a set amount for your assets and if you don't, they want explicit information on why you didn't get their idea of what it was worth.

Even if you get the surgery, after the surgery, you have nothing. You're absolutely broke. i gave up. There is absolutely no negotiating with them either, it's their way or it doesn't happen.



This would have been about 2001? Well after HIPAA. So not only were they assholes, they were breaking the law as well.



'99, it became an illegal practice in 2001



Ah; HIPAA was 1996, but I think they wrote in some compliance time, and insurance companies stalled for as long as they could. I still might have said, "Fuck you, lawbreakers!"

Not that it would matter. Their response would have undoubtedly been, "Yeah, so? Sue us."

They could tie it up in court for years. Even if the state took care of the prosecution part of things, you'd still be without insurance. What a crock.



i had the option of suing them, but, at that point i was going through a divorce/custody battle, would have been spread a little thin.

sick

sick

Minneapolis, MN
June 2003

JUL 02, 2009 05:10 AM

DevilsReject said:

Sick said:

DevilsReject said:

Sick said:

DevilsReject said:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

FearTheReaper said:
If I were to lose my Guild insurance, I would not be able to get private insurance due to pre-existing conditions. My wife would also not be able to get insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Thankfully, I've made enough through acting (SAG) and writing (WGA) to have been covered the past 10 years. But if I ever have one bad year - God forbid I was sick and couldn't work - I would lose my insurance. We make far too much money to qualify for any public assistance. If anything bad happened, we'd be looking at bankruptcy and possibly death.



What they throw under "pre-existing condition" is absolutely amazing. When my daughter was born, she was 6 weeks premature and i had just started a new job, higher pay, better benefits. As part of me taking the job, there was supposed to be this "easy switch over" from health insurance company to health insurance company. I prioritized it when taking the job, that i need to be covered at all times, they said no problem.

Jump forward to my daughter being born 6 weeks early, three weeks in the NICU, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills and the new insurance company didn't cover shit. Pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition that they wouldn't cover and they ended up not covering anything when it came to my daughter throwing it under the pre-existing condition clause.

I had a sick wife, a sick kid and was missing work and ended up getting laid off for missing so much work in four weeks, even if i was at work my mind was obviously not there. In medical bills alone i had hit six digits. Within six months of my daughter being born, i filed bankruptcy.

The "too much money" amount to qualify for public assistance is painfully low, at least in Ohio. They want you to sell off assets and property in order for you to meet a set limit they have, and anything you have over that limit, you're expected to put towards the surgery. Your assets are overvalued in these set standards they have. They expect you to get a set amount for your assets and if you don't, they want explicit information on why you didn't get their idea of what it was worth.

Even if you get the surgery, after the surgery, you have nothing. You're absolutely broke. i gave up. There is absolutely no negotiating with them either, it's their way or it doesn't happen.



This would have been about 2001? Well after HIPAA. So not only were they assholes, they were breaking the law as well.



'99, it became an illegal practice in 2001



Ah; HIPAA was 1996, but I think they wrote in some compliance time, and insurance companies stalled for as long as they could. I still might have said, "Fuck you, lawbreakers!"

Not that it would matter. Their response would have undoubtedly been, "Yeah, so? Sue us."

They could tie it up in court for years. Even if the state took care of the prosecution part of things, you'd still be without insurance. What a crock.



i had the option of suing them, but, at that point i was going through a divorce/custody battle, would have been spread a little thin.



Exactly. If you're worried about health insurance, you certainly don't have the resources for a lengthy court drama, and they know that.

ArtHippo

ArtHippo

Edwardsville, KS
December 2007

JUL 02, 2009 06:21 PM

SergeantPsycho said:

FearTheReaper said:
People who could start a revolutionary business. People who could start millions of small businesses. They're all stuck working in offices for companies that provide health insurance. Quite the free market we've created. The rest of the industrialized world does not handicap their workers in such a way.



Just because you're working some where doesn't mean you can't have your own personal business. if that business works out, then it can start to provide insurance for it's employees (and the founder can quit his day job).




Spoken like someone who's never done it. I've been working on getting everything I need to get my business up and running for two years now. With everything else, my car blowing up and having to get a new one, things around the house having to be fixed and everything else I have to deal with getting everything together and paid for, not to mention liability insurance, transportation, promotion and other minor expenses , I'm still don't have what I need to finely get started, although I am close now. I'm just lucky that I haven't suffered any serious illness. I used to have good insurance from my employer but they changed two years ago to a cheaper and pretty shitty insurance company; these assholes won't pay for shit. It took almost a year for them to finely get me an insurance card (after about 6 calls and serious bitching). And to this day I still have no idea who the hell my primary care physician is supposed to be. I want to live in Sarge's word. It seems to be much simpler than what I have to deal with every day.

gfvella

gfvella

Australia
November 2004

JUL 02, 2009 09:26 PM

There is a good outsider's political overview in the Guardian; I especially like the spending comparisons between the US and UK. i had no idea the US spent that much on health care for such a crap result.

FearTheReaper

FearTheReaper

NEWSWIRE

I'm lost

JUL 02, 2009 09:48 PM

gfvella said:
There is a good outsider's political overview in the Guardian; I especially like the spending comparisons between the US and UK. i had no idea the US spent that much on health care for such a crap result.



Yep. We are shockingly stupid.

TheFuckOffKid

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

JUL 02, 2009 09:59 PM

The US health system ties health insurance to employment, far more than other comparable countries.

One argument is that this is the result of a tax break for employer-provided healthcare in the US.

So well-off employed people get good coverage, and good access to healthcare. Technically, the tax-break means that insurance is, if anything, over-provided to the wealthier portion of society. Employers have little incentive to constrain health costs incurred through their health plans.

While on the plus side, insurance serves to "manage risk" for potential patients (you pay when healthy to offse tthe chance you may be sick later), it also disconnects people from the cost of the health care they utilise.

If health insurance is being over-provided to a wealthy segment of society, the risk becomes that they will "over-utilise" healthcare, seeing doctors for minor ailments, or insisting on expensive treatments and tests that are hard to justify on the basis of cost-effectiveness.

Other systems, including public systems, typically have more direct incentives to keep costs in check, and ration healthcare a little more effectively.

So, no, I'm not surprised when I hear the US has a high per capital health expenditure.

gfvella

gfvella

Australia
November 2004

JUL 02, 2009 10:32 PM

TheFuckOffKid said:
The US health system ties health insurance to employment, far more than other comparable countries.

One argument is that this is the result of a tax break for employer-provided healthcare in the US.



That makes the mess more understandable; nothing like tax breaks or other forms of government incentives to build distortions a system and lead to an inefficient or ineffective distribution of resources.

Cheyenne

Cheyenne

SUICIDEGIRL

USA

JUL 02, 2009 11:56 PM

maybe it has been mentioned and I just missed it...but uh...
what about this whole thing to "fine ppl 1000k" for NOT getting health insurance?

That isn't so cool with me...mainly because, I would love to have insurance, but i can't afford it and didn't qualify for medi-Cal because I'm not pregnant, disabled and don't have kids whose daddy is locked up.

thoughts? or direct me if there's a thread...sorry...it's late.

Cheyenne

Cheyenne

SUICIDEGIRL

USA

JUL 03, 2009 12:01 AM

think i found the thread i was looking for.

missshanab

missshanab

Dayton, OH
July 2009

JUL 05, 2009 09:46 PM

I agree, but i think you're missing something.
The health care will be a poor system yes. But that's what OBAMA wants.
The earlier people die, the less resources they use. Social security will make it's way back and everyone wins, except us.
All government officials are exempt from the health care plan, allowing them to live long and rule even more.
In the eyes of buisness and government he truly believes what he is doing is right. It's more personal than that though.
This government is working on taking away everything we fought to obtain.
mad

ZakSmith

ZakSmith

Los Angeles, CA
August 2003

JUL 05, 2009 10:18 PM

missshanab said:
I agree, but i think you're missing something.
The health care will be a poor system yes. But that's what OBAMA wants.



Either you do or do not agree with the considerable statistical evidence that exists that western nations with government health coverage HAVE LONGER LIFE EXPECTANCIES than people in the US.

Here's the list of all the UN designated geographic entities that have longer life expectancies than the US:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

rank nation/territory/group avg. male female

1 Macau ( PRC) 84.379 81.36 87.45
2 Andorra 82.67 80.35 85.14
3 Japan 82.07 78.73 85.59
4 Singapore 81.89 79.29 84.68
5 San Marino 81.88 78.43 85.64
6 Hong Kong ( PRC) 81.77 79.07 84.69
7 Gibraltar ( UK)[4] 80.9 78.5 83.3
8 France (metropolitan) 80.87 77.68 84.23
9 Switzerland 80.62 77.75 83.63
10 Sweden 80.63 78.39 83
11 Australia 80.62 77.8 83.59
13 Iceland 80.43 78.33 82.62
14 Canada 80.34 76.98 83.86
16 Italy 79.94 77.01 83.07
17 Monaco 79.82 75.99 83.85
18 Liechtenstein 79.81 76.24 83.4
19 Spain 79.78 76.46 83.32
19 Norway 79.78 76.46 83.32
19 Israel 79.78 76.46 83.32
24 Greece 79.38 76.85 82.06
25 Austria 79.21 76.32 82.26
27 Malta 79.15 76.95 81.47
28 Netherlands 79.11 76.52 81.82
29 South Korea 79.10 78.10 80.10
30 Luxembourg 79.03 75.76 82.52
32 New Zealand 78.96 75.97 82.08
33 Germany 78.95 75.96 82.11
34 Belgium 78.92 75.75 82.24
37 United Kingdom 78.7 76.23 81.3
38 European Union 78.7 75.6 82
39 Finland 78.66 75.15 82.31
40 Jordan

-(wikipedia)



As you can see, it includes Canada, plus all the European countries with government-run health care.

If you agree, then what you just said makes no sense at all.

If you don't agree, then you should post some different evidence supporting the idea that when a western government in a developed nation runs health care, then the life expectancy goes down.

gdarklighter

gdarklighter

San Diego, CA
August 2005

JUL 05, 2009 10:43 PM

missshanab said:
I agree, but i think you're missing something.
The health care will be a poor system yes. But that's what OBAMA wants.
The earlier people die, the less resources they use. Social security will make it's way back and everyone wins, except us.
All government officials are exempt from the health care plan, allowing them to live long and rule even more.
In the eyes of buisness and government he truly believes what he is doing is right. It's more personal than that though.
This government is working on taking away everything we fought to obtain.
mad


Drugs are bad for you, y'know.

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