Obama: Health Care Bill a Victory for Americans

I agree sir nose.

 

I know Jordan, I worked in cardiology and so over half our patients were in the over 50 age group, and a lot had no insurance or only Medicare, it was really disheartening to see people being forced to accept less than they needed because that's all they could afford. I just don't think it appropriate to put a price on people's health, and yes I realize that's naive and the money has to come from somewhere, but I'll gladly accept higher taxes if it means everyone has access to health care.

 

What's so frustrating about this whole thing is I have a background in both political science and accounting and to me this is so fixable. Cut down on foreign aide and reduce military spending by less than ten percent and this shit is paid for. Better yet withdraw from Iraq and there's most of the money. I don't understand why no one makes those points. SMH

 

LOL, I've been SMH a lot lately Andrae. What you have to understand is that some people bitch and bitch, and yet resist all attempts to address their bitching because they don't actually want it fixed, they just like to bitch. You won't ever reach any type of workable solution with people like that, because they aren't interested in solving anything.

 

Very true but this seems to come from just one side. I'm not saying that liberals are perfect but at least they've been willing to compromise.

 

Agree with that. Did you see the link that Michael Moore highlighted in his healthcare letter with bedrooms of soldiers who were killed in Iraq. Brings a bit of personal feel to something that has gone on for seven years and killed a lot of Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/21/magazine/20100321-soliders-bedrooms-slideshow.html

 

Note to whoever left me the negative rep for this post, I'm Barbadian not Jamaican. :smt023

 

Wow that was awesome thanks for sharing.

 

I remember as a teenager watching my mother die in a nursing home from cancer and being strapped financially because my dad made too much money to qualify for any government assistance. At the time he was in the low end of middle class earning power and worked his ass off to provide for his family.
The health bills drained us of any financial surplus and most of my dad's paycheck.
Food on the table was scarce so were clothes on my back and I cursed the government for dissing hard working people who needed the help and giving freebies to those slackers who milk the system and sit on their ass eating bon bons getting fat and saying they are entitled to the money because they are too fat to work.

I grew up with a solid work ethic of personal responsibility and said fuck off government that taxes the shit out of me and won't give my mother decent health care.

What is needed is a curb on health care graft before I give more taxes to the spendthrift government that can't balance its books.

Scam artists used dead doctors medicare id numbers to bilk 1.3 million from the government (we the taxpayers)
and more instances of health care fraud abound.

National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association estimates that more than $60billion a year is lost to fraud by citizens and doctors.
Naturally the insurance companies will pass on that cost to the patients.

I pay state taxes for Police, fire protection, roads
and I home schooled my kids as well as had them in public schools.

You know what, my kids tell me that public school was a waste of time for them.

I don't want the feds in my health care.

I want the feds to go after the fraud in the health care to reduce the cost of health care.

If we have a public health care system then better it be at the local level or state level so that the fundamental issue that needs to be solved - a lack of transparency and a lack of consumer involvement in cost control can be addressed.

Take a look at Medicare and Medicaid and even Social Security.
The Feds have put those programs in the red and mismanaged them.
Why should I be confident that the feds WON'T mismanage the health care funds?

I want to see a balance between personal responsibility and community support, but I want the community support to be local or state not federal.
I want to see the insurance companies held accountable and the costs decreased and the slammer for anyone who bilks the system.

I don't want to pay more money into a system that increases the costs.

Will the health care system become insolvent in 100 years much like the social security system?

Change is always difficult.
Although opposed to the health care bill I do hope it will provide the high quality health care for EVERYONE that it proposes without breaking the backs of those who work their butts off to succeed financially in a competitive world.

 

I think she is a nurse. If I have to guess I will say she is prolly an ER nurse and maybe seen her share of many many system abusers and frequent flyers. She is pretty much stating what the majority of health care professionals have been feeling about this bill. I have yet to meet one person who is in the health care industry that has a positive feel about this bill.

God knows the health care system that we have right now is jocked up and it needs a serious fixing. I sincerely hope this is the fixing that it needed but I am not certain. I truly hope it works for the best of the country and for the best of its good citizens.

I also agree with Andrae, cut down foreign aide, let's get out of Iraq, and cut other unnecessary spending, then you can have some portion of this health care expense be covered.

 

The Class Failed

Here is an example for you as to why many do not support Obamacare nor socialism.


As the late Adrian Rogers said, "You cannot multipy wealth by dividing it."

An economics professor made the statement that he had never failed a single student before, but he had once failed an entire class. The class insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will practice Obama's plan in class and put it to the test." All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A...

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received the above average grade of "B".
The students who studied the most were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little studied even less and the ones who studied the most decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was the letter grade "D"! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test was taken, the average letter grade was an "F". They all failed.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in angry feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed the course that semester, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

I believe in community support, but not at the expense of personal responsibility.

I think America needs to reaffirm and practice what personal responsibility is at the individual, business and government level.

 

Ok I'm gonna sound like a broken record a minute so here we go. We have socialized police departments socialized firefighters and socialized education so why should something as your health be for profit? Where's the rights answer to that. Instead of bashing the left where's the alternative solution.

 

I'm not bashing any person.

I'm stating that we should be cautious to look to the future repercussions of our actions now.

I posted the example because it speaks eloquently to human nature and the deterioration of a work ethic of personal responsibility that blames everyone else and claims entitlement by the government.

I know policemen, firefighters, and I have been a teacher and I will tell you that the same malaise permeates those institutions to various degrees depending on where those organizations are in the "test taking".

Keeping to the analogy, I'll gladly help a student study who is having trouble understanding the curriculum, but I'm not going to take that student's test because the student was pub hopping and drunk as a skunk and didn't study.

My example does not say health should be for profit.
My example says that socialism is not the answer.

The answer is to make the government, the doctors, the patients, the insurance companies work together to reduce the costs of health and still provide adequate care to everyone.

When the reward of success is great the effort is great.
There are other rewards of success than money.

I say that money needs to be taken out of the equation altogether.
The first thing that needs to be agreed upon is what the personal responsibility of individuals, businesses, and government should be.

 

This has nothing to do with Socialism, what so ever.

And there is a HUGE dofference between Socialism and what Obama is trying to do. Huge.

An no, Im not a Socialist.

 

As usual I agree with you FG. :smt023

 

Socialists reason that economic output (or surplus value) and power is to be distributed based on the amount of work expended in production, do they not?


I think the above example is the truth of that reason in action.

One group decides not to work and enjoy the grade of those who do the work.
The work expended in production is imbalanced and so those who work more decide to work less.

 

In the working less our health care does not improve but actually deteriorates.

The answer is in finding a reward that requires effort on everyone's part to benefit in the success.

I support a work ethic that says one should be self-sufficient and work towards that self-sufficiency with personal responsibility and live a life of generosity to those who are in need.

The responsibility should be at the family, neighborhood, county, state level not the federal level.

I don't believe in the entitlement mentality, both for personal and corporate gain.

I was brought up that no one owes me anything. If you want it, you work for it.
I was also taught that when someone is genuinely in need, I should be generous and thankful for the fruits of my labor and be the Good Samaritan and help that person in need.

I apply those principles to my personal life and to my business.

Corporate CEOs who bilk their employees and customers need to be taken down a notch and retaught how to implement the Good Samaritan policy and still run a successful business. It can be done without detriment to the production and bottom line.

Insurance companies, research facilities, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufactures, hospitals, medical professionals need to implement the Good Samaritan policy and all fraud needs to be eliminated.


Trouble is there are so many charlatans in the world that profess need and bilk the good-hearted tax payers who work their butts off to succeed that I've become quite cynical of any entitlement to my money without my direct input and my own deliberation of who gets a share of it and who does not.

I have every right to protect my money from thieves as I have the right to protect my home from unwanted intruders.

 

I make those points all the time to the people I talk to, but it won't happen because I know Iraq and the military budget is more about just keeping us safe, just like I know this bill was more than just about providing health care . The government is a functionary of private interests a.k.a Corporate Socialists/Corporatists.

That's why it took quicker for them to get a trillion dollar bail out with our money than it did for this bill to pass. That was one issue every American got behind though, not bailing these guys out, and when the first bill didn't pass the market dropped 777 points. Scared the shit out of Congress.... Healthcare bill passes and the market goes up, insurers are doing just fine cause they got a whole lot more customers and I'm sure they'll find a way to pass on whatever expenses they might incur back to the consumer.

We shouldn't want just free health care (They get free "care" and shots in the poorest parts of Africa too), we should want the best health care (I would take other socialized models in a heartbeat though). Obama and his wife have correctly hinted at American's having a health crisis beyond insurance; it's our unhealthy lifestyle. No amount of coverage is going to stop something which you could have prevented. The Healthcare/pharma business wants repeat customers, and it seems too many of us in this country are willing to oblige by leading unhealthy lifestyles. Hopefully people wont think they can just do anything now that they have coverage.

I've heard little talk about about our Healthcare crisis having to do with employers in this country. If you're even lucky to have a job, you're luckier to have a job that gives you benefits. Many of the big employers that use to have gone overseas cause benefits fucked with the bottom line or growth. I wonder what made certain democrats switch? What did Obama promise or scare them with? Maybe it was a bleaker unemployment picture? Will more Americans be needing this?

IMO, we are not moving into socialism, but into a subsistence where things will be rationed in the name of scarcity and saving the planet all the while technology has made information and energy more abundant. The architects that were destroying the planet and not insuring your poor ass will be the same ones you go green with, they will be the ones "suggesting" what pharmaceuticals you should be taking with your free care.

They (the Corporate Socialists or <insert scarier name>) don't want a free market, they don't want you using "alternative" medicine, harnessing "alternative energy" or using/creating any of this new technology (and info) without them getting their cut.

The "government" is not going to cut back or liquidate one business to give something out for free, they just open up another shop.

 

The total voice of reason and realism. +1

 

Obama is trying to get decent health care to those uninsured through a socialistic implementation of wealth distribution.


I'm for everyone having quality care if the money is used in a cost effective manner that actually does produce quality care.

It is estimated that true public healthcare could actually reduce costs $400 billion if we eliminated pointless insurance corporations.

I'm not convinced the plan as it stands will produce the quality care.

What I want to see before I put my money into the pot is the specifics of that quality care.

The rhetoric is promising, but the reality will not be as rosy as its been painted.