Universal Health Care for America

[Guest LOL]

Hatch is a quitter,

Grassley a fence sitter.

McCain learned to twitter,

but the GOP is in the shitter

[Guest nervous]

There needs to be leeway in making patient physician decisions. Suppose this group finds that a certain chemotherapy is effective 90% of the time, and a more expensive alternative is effective only 85% of the time. Can the doctor and patient decide on the second one if the side-effects are less and they are willing to take a 5% greater chance it won't work?

[Bluto]

This is my current opinion.

[Luke_Wilbur]

It is interesting to note that the District of Columbia agencies do not share information in one database or contact each other when information is needed.

 

We already gave this Information to the DC DMV, DC DHS, Eckington Service Center. That is why the disabled fall through the cracks to get money that was already granted.

 

Will nationalized Healthcare be the same way.

 

http://www.dcmessageboards.com/Montgomery-...tri-t16714.html

[Guest YellowJacket]

What about a single-payer system?

[Guest Paul Begala]

The Republican attacks on health care are getting downright scary. And I mean literally.

 

One Republican says that now is the time to "go for the kill" on health insurance reform and even "drive a stake through its heart." Another one talks about making it President Obama's "Waterloo" and adding that "it will break him." Jeez. These guys sound like they're living inside a bad horror movie.

 

But here's the part that actually is scary. They may succeed if we do nothing. The Republican lobbyists and special interest groups just announced a million-dollar plus ad campaign aimed at stopping President Obama's progress on health care reform including the RNC targeting 33 states with a radio campaign zeroing in on Democratic House members. They are willing to break your family and break our budget in order to politically break Pres. Obama.

 

Back when I was working for Pres. Clinton in 1993, he told the Congress, "We know the cost of going forward with this system is far greater than the cost of change." Pres. Clinton was right. But the special interests and their Republican lackeys won back then - and the cost of health care has gone through the roof - just as Pres. Clinton warned. Today, a family of four spends oer $15,000 a year on health care - in part because the Republicans in Washington killed reform.

 

And get this: if we allow them to kill Pres. Obama's reforms, things will go from terrible to catastrophic. The noted Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt has written that without reform, "10 years hence America's health system will be able to extract from the rest of society the sum of $36,000 per typical non-elderly family of four."

 

So if you have an extra $36,000 a year laying around the house, the Republican plan of preserving the status quo is fine for you. But if, like most folks, you can't afford a $36,000 annual health care bill, you need change.

 

Just like in 1993, the Republicans are trying to use the same old fear mongering, the same misleading attacks, and the same downright dishonest ad campaigns.

 

But they're in for a rude awakening if they think they can protect the status quo this time around. President Obama's plan lowers costs for everyone, provides greater choice including the right to keep your own doctor, and comes with a public option to keep insurance companies honest. The cost of doing nothing is an extra $20,000 a year . We can't let them get away with this.

[Greenie79]

It is entertaining to say the least to read the partisan rhetoric posted on this topic. In the middle of this issue is the solution the American Public needs. The Democrats (the lawyers) have basically ignored the fact that TORT REFORM is a major component of fixing the soaring cost of healthcare. They refuse to acknowledge this because the trial lawyers profit from malpractice lawsuits everyday for which the patient may be lucky to get 30 to 40% of the settlement while the lawyers get the other 60 to 70%. In addition to Tort Reform, we need FREE MARKETS to ensure that prices stay IN CHECK. For Example, in the state of Maryland, the marketplace is controlled predominantly by two companies, CAREFIRST and UNITED HEALTHCARE. Is this good for the CONSUMER, absolutely not. A key component of making coverage affordable is to have healthy competition in the marketplace, we can't achieve this when the lionshare of the market is controlled by two companies. Lastly, America needs to wake up and realize that the final piece of the this puzzle is PREVENTATIVE HEALTHCARE. We have far too many people overweight, out of shape, and as a result are a drain on the system. WE need some incentives in the marketplace to encourage people to be healthy. Maybe a TAX CREDIT for people who get a good bill of health for a PHYSICAL. If your overweight, have high cholesorol, or have high blood pressure, YOU ARE LOSING MONEY IN THE FORM OF A TAX CREDIT. The HSAs or HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS were actually a way to reward good health. Patients with great health actually kept their savings and could invest those dollars tax free. Lastly, we need to address the patent duration on prescription drugs. When Drugs hit the marketplace, the public pays dearly while the patent is in place. Once the patent is up, the generic market drives the price down almost 200%.

 

In summary,

 

1. TORT REFORM

2. FREE MARKETS & MORE COMPETITORS

3. PREVENTATIVE HEALTHCARE INCENTIVES

4. DRUG PATENT DURATION

 

GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTHCARE WOULD BE A NATIONAL DISASTER. IF YOU THINK GOVERNMENT IS EFFICIENT, JUST LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE NATIONAL DEBT TO SEE HOW FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE BOTH PARTIES HAVE BEEN WITH TAXPAYER DOLLARS. DATING BACK SEVERAL DECADES, ALMOST EVERY GOVERNMENT PROGRAM HAS DOUBLED AND TRIPLED IN COST AND SIZE. HEALTHCARE WOULD BE NO DIFFERENT. IN THE END, WE CANT AFFORD THIS ROUTE, HOWEVER WE CAN CUT THE COST WAY DOWN BY REFORMING THE AREAS I OUTLINED.

[Guest Human]

From this Republican to other Republicans;

 

You WILL NOT TRY to Remove the Pre-Existing Conditions clause.

 

Even the GOP doctors are in agreement about the Pre-Existing Conditions Clause.

 

A health care bill will go through. To remove the Pre-Existing Conditions Clause Sentences ALL disabled Groups as well as the Senior population to certain death.

 

 

With the rest of the Bill? Go at each other to your hearts content.

[Guest Jimmy]

It has been 40 years since anything has been done to healthcare. Even PPO didn't begin until Nixon. I have insurance, in fact I am most fortunate, because I've been lucky enough to work where health insurance is offered. BUT even though I have insurance, I am sick and tired of seeing my premiums go up, my co-pay go up, and the cost of my medications go up. I'm sick of the insurance company deciding for me and my doctor if I need a test done, I am sick to death of insurance companies and big pharma getting richer and richer while the rest of us barely make it and avoid going to the doctor because we can't afford it.

[Guest WSQT]

On Thursday, July 30, an estimated 2,000 people packed Upper Senate Park to demand that the House of Representatives pass HR 676, a bill to scrap Obama's capitalist health care "reform" and replace it with a singly-payer system.

 

Judging by the turnout, it seems that a hell of a lot of people are sick of the Kool-aid Obama and Congress are pouring on health care. For those with serious health problems but without a serious chink of cash, keeping corporate health insurance could prove as deadly as anything jimm Jones ever served!

 

The rally even featured hospital gowns open on the backside with a big plastic ass sticking outr saying "not covered." Also present were signs showing a blue dog, symbolic of the "Blue dog Dems" saying "BAD DOG!"

 

After the rally, some people went inside to lobby for single payer, while others marched over to Congressman john Conyer's press conference on the East side of the Capitol with their signs.

 

All other industrialized nations have single payer health care, paid for by progressive taxation. That Kool-Aid Obama and the Democrats are pouring reeks of an effort to save corporate health insurance firms on the backs of the working poor, who would face compulsory purchase and NO effective cost controls

[Guest LAW]

Single-payer health care is a term used in the United States to describe the payment of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from a single fund. It differs from, and replaces, typical private health insurance where, through pricing and other measures taken by the insurer, the level of risks carried by multiple insurance pools as well as the coverage can vary and the pricing has to be varied according to the contribution of risk added to the pool. It is often mentioned as one way to deliver near-universal or universal health care. The administrator of the fund could be the government but it could also be a publicly owned agency regulated by law. Australia's Medicare, Canada's Medicare, and healthcare in Taiwan are examples of single-payer universal health care systems.

 

According to the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus, a single-payer system is:

 

An approach to health care financing with only one source of money for paying health care providers. The scope may be national, like the Canadian system, state-wide, or community-based. The payer may be a governmental unit or other entity such as an insurance company. The proposed advantages include administrative simplicity for patients and providers, and resulting significant savings in overhead costs.

 

Single-payer health care does not necessarily mean that the government or some government agency delivers or controls health care services. It may pay for health professionals and services that are delivered in either private or public sector settings according to the needs and wishes of the patient and his or her doctor.

 

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh/2008/MB_cgi?mode=&term=Single-Payer+System&field=entry

[Guest Diane]

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is one of the key players in helping the Obama administration create sweeping reforms in the health care system. His role is to make the case for reform while reassuring medical professionals that it will not lead to an unwelcome upheaval.

 

“You are not going to flip a switch and change our system,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s got to be an evolution, not a revolution.”

 

Ezekiel is the older brother of Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, whom he speaks to daily. Described as an outspoken, accomplished academic with impressive medical and policy credentials, Ezekiel has spent the past two decades writing about guaranteeing health care for all. He brings a multitude of strengths to his position, including a medical perspective which was lacking during the debates over health care reform in the Clinton presidency.

 

Barack Obama’s personal physician, Dr. David Scheiner, a Chicago based internist, passes Obama on his ‘excellent health’, but fails him in the way he’s building Health Care System for the country.

 

After 22 years of faithful doctor-patient relationship, Dr. Scheiner is still a huge Obama supporter. However, being a doctor in an urban low income community mixed with famous clients such as the president himself, the doctor has seen and heard it all. He worries that Obama is not seeing the harsh issues of those in need.

 

“I’m not sure he really understands what we face in primary care,” Scheiner says.

 

Scheiner is also concerned with Obama’s team of health advisers making the most important decisions on behalf of over 300 million people in United States.

 

“I have a suspicion they pick people from the top echelon of medicine, people who write about it but haven’t been struggling in it. He doesn’t see all the pain, it’s so tragic out here,” he says. “Obama’s wonderful, but on this one I’m not sure if he’s getting the right input.”

[Guest Nobama]

So you have Obama's Chief of Staff's brother making these decisions???

[Guest Chumps]

Here is the 1996 Hastings Center article in which Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel wrote "Where Civic Republicanism and Deliberative Democracy Meet."

 

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3528746

 

This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity - those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberation - are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.

[BlingBling]

Contrary to popular opinion, the proposal is NOT actually universal health care or any other scare words the Republicans have been throwing around.

 

The plan itself is laid out in a nine page pamphlet detailing the changes to be made and it seems fairly straightforeward.

 

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf

[Guest Al in Mclean]

With insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies having poured $81 million and $134 million, respectively, into Congressional coffers, it's not surprising that more senators and members of Congress seemed to be concerned with the profit margins of these companies than with the health and wallets of the American people. I expect Republicans to out-and-out lie to protect their health insurance company benefactors (like Sen. Tom Coburn saying that people will die if health care reform is passed). But when you have a Blue Dog Democrat like Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas proudly saying Wednesday, "We have successfully pushed a floor vote to September," you really start to wonder if there is any pretense left as to who those who oppose the president's health care reform are working for. What is he so proud of? Delaying relief to the American people?

[Guest Human]

Where do you think that the funding for all of this is coming from? Thin Air?

 

http://www.mcknights.com/Slashing-Medicare-to-pay-for-healthcare-reform-an-ugly-shell-game/article/140656/

 

To have Pre-Existing conditions covered by Private insurance companies on a sliding scale mitigates the amount of damage that WILL be done to ALL disabled groups, as well as the Senior population.

 

So please!!!! next time do your home work.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------

With insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies having poured $81 million and $134 million, respectively, into Congressional coffers, it's not surprising that more senators and members of Congress seemed to be concerned with the profit margins of these companies than with the health and wallets of the American people. I expect Republicans to out-and-out lie to protect their health insurance company benefactors (like Sen. Tom Coburn saying that people will die if health care reform is passed). But when you have a Blue Dog Democrat like Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas proudly saying Wednesday, "We have successfully pushed a floor vote to September," you really start to wonder if there is any pretense left as to who those who oppose the president's health care reform are working for. What is he so proud of? Delaying relief to the American people?

[Guest CRFB]

Increasing Consumer Cost-Consciousness – Consumers lack proper incentives to control their health care consumption since the system hides the true cost of medical care. Cost sharing would provide patients with a greater financial stake in their health care decisions, encourage cost-consciousness, and drive down both prices and excess utilization.

 

Bundling Payments – “Bundling” in Medicare, or paying for multiple individual services at one time, would help to align provider and payer incentives. This, in turn, would discourage the use of questionable or redundant tests and procedures.

 

Limiting Less Effective Procedures and Treatments – Studying the effectiveness of current treatments would likely lead to significant longer-term savings if Medicare

 

a ) limited coverage of ineffective treatments

b ) rewarded providers for providing the most effective treatments; and/or

c ) required greater patient costsharing for questionable treatments. Merely studying effectiveness without limiting procedures and treatments would provide far less savings.

 

Outsourcing Tough Decisions – De-politicizing certain cost savings and technical medical decisions would make achieving savings easier. Empowering the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) or creating a new agency to enact savings or make recommendations under fast track procedures, would improve the quality of the reforms and increase the chance such reforms would occur (see http://crfb.org/documents/IMACProposal.pdf). In order to be most effective, a council should have a broad mandate combined with explicit savings goals and a fall-back mechanism (such as across-the-board payment cuts) to kick in if savings are not approved by Congress.

[Guest Mitch Stewart]

Every day, 14,000 more Americans lose their coverage. Premiums continue to rise at three times the rate of wages. And each day, more small businesses are forced to choose between covering their employees and keeping their doors open.

[Luke_Wilbur]

For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them. He has even proposed eight consumer protections relating specifically to the health insurance industry.

 

• No Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions
• Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
• No Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays
• Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
• No Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care
• Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
• No Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill
• Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
• No Gender Discrimination
• Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
• No Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage
• Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
• Extended Coverage for Young Adults
• Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
• Guaranteed Insurance Renewal
• Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won't be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.

[Guest Donny Ferguson]

Congress wants to make it look like government-controlled health care is off the table so they can just get something passed. Once it’s law, all it takes is a few quick amendments to get the government-controlled system they wanted all along. It’s delayed-onset government control.

[Guest Blanch]

What is the worst thing we've found out -- so far -- about the Democrats' government-run health care plan?

 

Page 16, outlawing private health insurance

29% (614 votes)

 

Section 440, calling on the government to visit your home to monitor your parenting

53% (1141 votes)

 

The Congressional Budget Office reporting that rather reduce the cost of health care, it makes it more expensive than ever

18% (396 votes)

 

http://www.lp.org/poll/what-is-the-worst-thing-weve-found-out-so-far-about-the-democrats-government-run-health-care-pl

[Guest Mary Andrus]

For people with disabilities, this debate is not simply about words it’s about the future. An essential element of health care reform is ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to coverage that meets their needs and promotes their long term health. For example, a young man with cerebral palsy needs physical therapy every week for his life. His health insurance plan only permits 10 visits per year. He has a choice: he can pay out of pocket for this service or forgo the therapy. If he chooses the later, he risks having his muscles constrict to the point where the use of his arms and legs is severely restricted.

[Guest Bobbi99]

What is the worst thing we've found out -- so far -- about the Democrats' government-run health care plan?

 

Page 16, outlawing private health insurance

29% (614 votes)

 

Section 440, calling on the government to visit your home to monitor your parenting

53% (1141 votes)

 

The Congressional Budget Office reporting that rather reduce the cost of health care, it makes it more expensive than ever

18% (396 votes)

 

http://www.lp.org/poll/what-is-the-worst-thing-weve-found-out-so-far-about-the-democrats-government-run-health-care-pl

 

Section 440 of the House bill – Home Visitation Programs for Families with Young Children and Families Expecting Children – would provide grants to states to establish home visitation programs to educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills. The “well-trained and competent staff” will:

 

…provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains…modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices; [and] skills to interact with their child…

 

Aside from the obviously questionable role of the federal government in such practices, the vaguely-worded program specifics are troublesome. The home visitation provision dictates that the state will “prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families or a high incidence of child maltreatment.” While the home visitation program is described as “voluntary,” it’s not clear whether it would remain voluntary throughout or just up to the time a parent trainer enters the home.

 

The federal government doesn’t hold the key to parenting success, and creating a new home visitation program would further increase the federal role in preschool education. Just one more reason for parents to be concerned about what’s actually in the health care bill.

[Guest ALWAYS RED]

Page 429 lines 13-25: - Government will specify which doctors can write an end of life order, and page 430, lines 11-15: The Government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life