So, basically you're complaining that the much maligned individual mandate is too toothless for your liking? Wasn't this tyranny worth rising up in arms against like, 5 minutes ago?

I think I'm pretty much okay if the plan has made you willingly pay more in taxes rather than purchase a service from a private company.

If there's a big right wing media-led campaign to get people to do this and try to raise premiums for sick people, you can bet the reaction will be to put teeth in the mandate, not bring back denials for preexisting conditions. Or add a public option. Or just ditch private insurance entirely and go for single payer.

Way to go, anti-government idiot.

I like the conversation. My 2 cents: The bill was, in its conception, a great policy. But after it went through the special interest ringer that has a stranglehold on our governance, it turned into a giant turd. I have examples but will spare you the ten paragraph rant. The bill stands as a beacon of just how fucked our political system has become. I pray that over time new legislations will be added to ensure that premiums won't increase due to the new insurance regulations. Also that a public option will be added so that people will be activly participating in driving down insurance rates, and turning their money into aditional aid that will reduce the federal deficit.

I do not see this like most of my fellow liberals, as helping out a less fortunate sector on the socioeconomic rung. Their gross income will be reduced more than it has ever been, regardless of whether or not they need any medical coverage at all. I definitly don't agree with the conservatives who think that this is a handout at their expense. No class stands to gain if your looking soley at paystubs, as the republican argument always appears to.

>> ^blankfist:

@rougy, I'm talking about a desire for some consistency. So many participating in the two-party system are fence sitters waiting for the group to go in a direction they can follow. If that means war is bad, then war is bad.

[snip]

I'm very consistent. Why can't the Dems and Repubs be?


Let's start with this: you're an individual, they're nation-spanning organizations with millions of people shaping how they operate.

Individual Democrats disagree on things. Individual Republicans disagree on things.

That said, I don't know what lack of consistency you're talking about.

The Democratic platform included a withdrawal from Iraq, "winning the necessary war in Afghanistan", and a general return to the use of diplomacy as the US's primary way of influencing other nations. It also said that they would seek to reform (not repeal) Patriot, so as to make it more consistent with our "tradition" of civil liberties.

They have been consistent in their approach to those subjects, though they've had varying degrees of success.

I don't agree with every plank of the platform. I don't like the phrasing of trying to "win" in Afghanistan. I want Patriot repealed. I wish we were getting out of Iraq at a faster pace. I wanted a public option in HCR. I fully expected them to have done banking re-regulation last year (they didn't).

Democrats still oppose the war in Iraq. Democrats are fairly divided over Afghanistan, though all of us agree that we want the conflict to end there as quickly as possible, or more importantly with the smallest loss of life we can manage.

I am just commenting on a few cases I know for sure are happening and have been happening for many years. My personal experience and what I see people whom I know are on government assistance doing.

As for proving it with statistics, many of these people on the government subsidies fill out forms improperly or change information on the forms they submit from their landlords to the government. I have also seen this when my grandmother had rental properties, they would ask for them back so they could mail them, instead of having her mail them. One time my mother typed up her response, and the renter who lived next to my grandmother...was asking for a typewriter. Never asked for one before or since, just when that one piece of paperwork had been typed.

So how can one accurately find statistics on how much people deceive or change their living situations to benefit more greatly from the system? Do they have a check box on forms that says "I divorced my wife and refuse to pay child support so she can draw a government subsidized check for rent on my children, and get them into medicaid?"

It's enough that I've seen multiple cases like this over the last 10-15 years.

This bill could help the middle class greatly, because it's impossible to say how it'll get twisted around and massaged to make it work "better" for corporate interests or what loop holes have been overlooked in it's creation and re-examination.

And really middle class is a pretty broad term, a lot of people like to classify themselves as middle class. In this "middle class" range people go from being 10k above the poverty line to pulling down 250k or more. So sure if you're barely above poverty, YOUR middle class will be subsidized. But if you're pushing the upper limits of middle class and spend your time worrying about trying to avoid taxes, YOUR middle class probably won't be sudsidized much if at all.

Middle class is such an ambiguous term, I couldn't even find a definition that meant anything from a discussion standpoint.


>> ^longde:

I'm willing to talk about your anecdotal cases, but please back them up with statistics. How many people are like this, and how much of our budget goes to subsidizing them? I don't think it's much in either case.
It's baseless to say working people were and are getting screwed. This bill for instance, helps the middle class greatly.
The american middle class is much more subsidized than the Tea or Republican parties would have us believe. >> ^Porksandwich:
I have to say that Grayson's proposed bill to allow people to pay into Medicare is interesting. It's not as if the US gov hasn't spent the time and effort into setting up a healthcare network like every other health insurance company has, IE Medicare. So allowing people access to what they have been and still are paying for is not crazy hard to understand. We already spend the money for the agreements they make with the hospitals and providers, so why can't they just allow people to trickle over to Medicare if people choose to? I suspect it has something to do with keeping insurance companies in business.
All I know is for the last two years minimum, the economy has obviously been down. And maybe 3 years ago it was starting to get to those levels. In that same period of time, my insurance premiums jumped up each year. This last year, it went up by nearly 50 percent. I pay out of pocket for it, and if I looked into it I would probably be in the realm of receiving government assistance at this point. But I'm trying to keep it coming out of my own pocket. The silly thing about it all is, I pay these outrageous premiums and I can't afford to get any tests done besides really simple blood tests the doctors want every so often. If I didn't have to cover the premium costs, but could get in on the pricing deals Medicare/other insurance companies had.......I could have the tests done with the money I would have been putting toward premiums. I've had to stop getting treatments in the last couple months for allergies because of the out of pocket costs on top of the new and improved monster premiums (even after I raised my deductible, etc).
Now I know for a fact there are people out there who've been on Medicare/SSI/Medicaid/Welfare/Whatever government program gives out money, who are 50 something years old and have been on it since they were 15. Worked an actual job very little in their lifetime, and have drawn a pretty sizeable check (more than someone would typically draw on unemployment at the lower end). So these people choose not to work at all, have the government cover most of their health care costs, live in a rental property most lower income working stiffs would find quite nice, and still afford to go out to the casinos every week and grab a steak dinner every week or so as they gamble away their government check.
And there are people out there who just want to be able to get treated so they can keep their job/house/whatever. And the government officials can't figure out a way to make it so working people can suffer a little less, but they can provide all of the above for people who don't work at all. It's a pretty fucked up situation, and all these welfare recipients get together and figure out ways to get more government money via divorce, custody, and other legal loop holes other people wouldn't even think of doing. And that's just the legal stuff, then you get into the welfare/medicaid guys who are getting drugs on the government dime and selling em for cash outta their welfare paid for houses.
So if you're not well off job wise, and completely unwilling to be a degenerate milking the system even though you could work......you get fucked.

I work for the only self-sustaining office in the fed gov't. If I got laid off it would take them 9 months to do it. So tomorrow? Nope.


>> ^longde:

Do you own your company? How do you know you won't be layed-off tomorrow? Many professional class assholes thought just like you before this last season of layoffs. >> ^Sigh:
What most people around the globe fail to realize. Those of us who have healthcarThe already don't give a rat's ass about the 32 million who didn't. Now my rates will go up because some moron who couldn't educate himself enough to get a decent enough job where they could get healthcare? Fuck that. I am selfish for saying that? Hell yes. Do I care that I'm selfish? Hell no. Fuck stupid people.

Do you own your company? How do you know you won't be layed-off tomorrow? >> ^Sigh:

What most people around the globe fail to realize. Those of us who have healthcarThe already don't give a rat's ass about the 32 million who didn't. Now my rates will go up because some moron who couldn't educate himself enough to get a decent enough job where they could get healthcare? Fuck that. I am selfish for saying that? Hell yes. Do I care that I'm selfish? Hell no. Fuck stupid people.

>> ^rougy:

^ You are lying out your ass.
There is nothing that says this had to be a "bi-partisan" bill.


First things first, I gave my honest opinion. You may think I'm wrong, or just simply disagree with me, but I said what I really believe.

As for the bill being "bipartisan", I'm not sure what you mean. Only Dennis Kucinich was talking about single payer in the Presidential primary. Edwards, Clinton, and Obama all had plans that left private insurance at the heart of their reforms. None of them proposed a public option as strong as Grayson's bill that would allow everyone to be able to buy into Medicare. None of them really even proposed a plan that regulates the private insurers as much as this bill will.

Democrats are honestly a center-right party. I'm on board for trying to pull them left so that they become at least a center-left party, but we're not there today.

I think that we got a pretty good bill, considering the kind of timid centrists we had at the heart of our party, and we'll have plenty of opportunity to improve the bill over the course of the next decade. We might even get a public option before most of this stuff comes into effect in 2014.

I for one expect that the public option will be a big topic in the 2010 and 2012 elections, especially in the Democratic Senate primaries, and hopefully in the 2012 presidential campaign as well.

Your video, Obama Confronts Heckler Demanding Public Option, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I'm willing to talk about your anecdotal cases, but please back them up with statistics. How many people are like this, and how much of our budget goes to subsidizing them? I don't think it's much in either case.

It's baseless to say working people were and are getting screwed. This bill for instance, helps the middle class greatly.

The american middle class is much more subsidized than the Tea or Republican parties would have us believe. >> ^Porksandwich:

I have to say that Grayson's proposed bill to allow people to pay into Medicare is interesting. It's not as if the US gov hasn't spent the time and effort into setting up a healthcare network like every other health insurance company has, IE Medicare. So allowing people access to what they have been and still are paying for is not crazy hard to understand. We already spend the money for the agreements they make with the hospitals and providers, so why can't they just allow people to trickle over to Medicare if people choose to? I suspect it has something to do with keeping insurance companies in business.
All I know is for the last two years minimum, the economy has obviously been down. And maybe 3 years ago it was starting to get to those levels. In that same period of time, my insurance premiums jumped up each year. This last year, it went up by nearly 50 percent. I pay out of pocket for it, and if I looked into it I would probably be in the realm of receiving government assistance at this point. But I'm trying to keep it coming out of my own pocket. The silly thing about it all is, I pay these outrageous premiums and I can't afford to get any tests done besides really simple blood tests the doctors want every so often. If I didn't have to cover the premium costs, but could get in on the pricing deals Medicare/other insurance companies had.......I could have the tests done with the money I would have been putting toward premiums. I've had to stop getting treatments in the last couple months for allergies because of the out of pocket costs on top of the new and improved monster premiums (even after I raised my deductible, etc).
Now I know for a fact there are people out there who've been on Medicare/SSI/Medicaid/Welfare/Whatever government program gives out money, who are 50 something years old and have been on it since they were 15. Worked an actual job very little in their lifetime, and have drawn a pretty sizeable check (more than someone would typically draw on unemployment at the lower end). So these people choose not to work at all, have the government cover most of their health care costs, live in a rental property most lower income working stiffs would find quite nice, and still afford to go out to the casinos every week and grab a steak dinner every week or so as they gamble away their government check.
And there are people out there who just want to be able to get treated so they can keep their job/house/whatever. And the government officials can't figure out a way to make it so working people can suffer a little less, but they can provide all of the above for people who don't work at all. It's a pretty fucked up situation, and all these welfare recipients get together and figure out ways to get more government money via divorce, custody, and other legal loop holes other people wouldn't even think of doing. And that's just the legal stuff, then you get into the welfare/medicaid guys who are getting drugs on the government dime and selling em for cash outta their welfare paid for houses.
So if you're not well off job wise, and completely unwilling to be a degenerate milking the system even though you could work......you get fucked.

JD,

People who are 400% above the poverty line will be subsidized for buying the insurance. So it's not like they have to pay premiums completely out of pocket.

To echo you: Did Obama do away with maximum policy coverage? YES HE DID. Co-pays go away for preventative care.

How does this prevent bankruptcies? Would you rather pay for a $500k surgery out of pocket, or pay $2-5k a month for insurance and let the policy handle the surgery costs? By shifting peoples obligation from the total cost of care to an insurance payment, that will help many avoid bankruptcy.

>> ^joedirt:

The only thing this does is say.. We will fix the uninsured problem. YOU MUST BUY HEALTH INSURANCE. poof problem solved.
It's like passing a law that says you will be fined if you are caught sleeping on the street. poof homeless is SOLVED!
This is just assholish to say, go buy insurance, then everyone will be insured. Also they are putting the burden on states to come up with how to handle people who cannot afford the $10,000. What will happen is outrageously expensive insurance plans, and also insurance that has gotchas and really covers nothing. They will just have a plan that only pays out like $5000 then it is all out of pocket. There is nothing to prevent them from doing this until like 2018.. and even then they will just take the fines.
Please explain to me how does this prevent someone from going bankrupt? Imagine you already have health insurance, even good coverage.. Plenty of people do and they are being screwed daily by insurers. It will be no different. Did Obama do away with co-pays and deductibles and maximum policy coverage? NO HE DIDN'T

I gotta say, I have a real love/hate relationship with the way liberals refuse to unify.

Psychologic is right. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson deserve the credit for what became the final demise of the public option. They're the ones who committed to joining a Republican filibuster of the Senate bill until it was stripped.

It's true that if there had been even one Republican who came out in favor of it, it would've been passed (probably only 61-39, but it'd pass), but that's a fantasy universe where good policy ideas on the left attract votes from the Republican side of the aisle.

I'm not sure that Obama being more engaged about the public option would've gotten it through. Maybe if we had some way of making Obama angry, and getting him to turn into The Rock Obama, he could have played hardball with Democrats, and threatened them with primary challengers, stripping them of chairmanships, etc. Ultimately though, I'm not convinced he really had any stick to wield against either Nelson or Lieberman. There's no other Democrat who could hold onto a Senate seat in Nebraska other than Nelson, and Lieberman seems to have simply been looking for an excuse to join the Republican party ever since the netroots successfully helped Ned Lamont beat him in the Democratic primary in 2006.

I'm honestly not sure there are 51 votes for it in the Senate. That campaign to get signatories to a letter for passing the public option under reconciliation petered out around 40 or so Democrats, and that was counting a lot of people who didn't actually sign the letter, just people who made approving noises about the idea. That makes me think that whether or not there are 51 Democrats who wanted the public option, there weren't 51 willing to try to use reconciliation to pass it.

It's my opinion, as a really, really avid follower of all this, that we just didn't have the votes for the public option.

I'm shocked and pissed about that, and I definitely think the nearly 20 Dems who were only for the public option when it was subject to the filibuster need to be ran through the wringer, but we go into these things with the Democrats we have, not the ones we wish we had. I'm all for a Congress entirely composed of Graysons, Weiners, Sherrod Browns, with a couple Sanders and Kuciniches, but we're a long way from that now.

I think this bill was the best deal we could have gotten in the 111th Congress.

It does not implement any level of government price setting (i.e. its 0% socialist). However, it does collect taxes from the rich, and uses the money to buy insurance for the poor.

It puts lots of new restrictions on insurance companies to make sure their profits come from serving their customers well, not from denying them care. Same for doctors and hospitals, it will make an attempt to change their incentives towards being based on patient outcomes, and not number & size of procedures done.

It does not, and will not solve every health care problem in the country, but it's going to vastly improve the state of our health care system, and provide care to a huge number of people who didn't have access to it, or who couldn't afford it until now.

It's not perfect, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

I think the main effect this bill will have is that we'll keep reforming our health care system as we go. The public option isn't dead, it just didn't get baked in from the start. We can keep pushing for it, and working to elect people who will fight for it, and working to defeat people who helped kill it...like Joe Lieberman.

If I am not mistaken, this bill makes preventative care free.

At the end of the day in the U.S., I cannot see a doctor, unless I have a means to pay.

I recently moved, and found a new primary physician. On my first phone call to his office, before they would even talk about an appointment date and time, I spent 10 minutes on the line while the receptionist verified my insurance information and ability to pay. I know that this is a common occurrence.

This bill provides the means for more people to be able to pay. I also prevents, in the case of severe illness/injury, for people to go bankrupt. That's a huge step forward in my book, though not nearly enough. I wanted a public option, too, BTW.

>> ^rougy:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/longde" title="member since April 8th, 2009" class="profilelink">longde:
But insurers are only middlemen. They don't fix broken bones. They don't perform mammograms or change bedpans.
This didn't change anything about health care. It changed the routes and byways that are now mandated by the writ of law to make sure 30 million previously uninsured people are insured as long as the same private insurers that we all hated for so long remain the middlemen.
Real health care would have a provision for free yearly or biannual checkups for all adults. That would be an act of health care by providing a means of preventative medicine, which saves lives.
Real health care would have a provision about prenatal care.
Real health care would have a provision that reigned in pharma's ability to charge Americans $100 for drugs it sells in Mexico and Canada for $10.

Actually Obama personally intervened to make sure a public option wouldn't happen. Besides the fact that he excluded any group that wanted a public option from meetings throughout, he also personally lobbied congressmen against Dennis Kucinich's bill that would allow states to pursue a universal health care system on their own.
Corporate interests = Buy. Obama = bought. The people = Consumers. Consumers = Buy what they're sold.

You, obviously, must possess health insurance regardless of the bill's passing.

It's a step in the right direction, and better than nothing.

>> ^joedirt:

32 million AMericans are going to have to come up with $10,000 to be gouged by insurance companies.
There is zero health care in the bill, only more costs and mandatory pork for insurance industries.
Zero price caps. Zero caps on deductables or co-pays.
Anyone who thinks the Health Insurance bill is good is an idiot, or a black President.

i would call the public option more than "just an aspect of it"