Health Care Politics Thread

Obamacare reminds me of the times we have to use my Bard in DDO as the substitute healer. It's the health care you have when you don't have real health care!!

Unfortunately, that's not any different than what we already have.

(BTW, Obamacare is pretty much a term of disparagement and contempt used by conservatives—as was Hillarycare—just in case you didn't know.)

Hillary, Obama, what's the difference??!!

Corwin said:

Hillary, Obama, what's the difference??!!

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Wow. I don't think even I would go that nasty on Barack...

Only Bill can answer that question.

Yes, but do we really want to go there??!!

I guess this shows just how proud the dems are of Obamacare, eh?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100922/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_health_overhaul

Boccieri's ads don't mention his health care vote; none of the 219 House Democrats who support the legislation are talking about it in campaign ads. But several of the 34 Democrats who voted "no" can now boast of that vote, casting it as a sign of their fiscal responsibility or independence from Obama and party leaders.

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Yep, Republican't smear tactics work once again. It's the single thing they are good at.

And now Obama is trying to convince people that it was a step in the right direction (which I agree to for parts of it, excluding the requirements for coverage stuff).

Obama, White House boosting health law at 6 months

Thread necro, but this is simply too good to pass up:

http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/News/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=8302

During the hearing, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) questioned whether the law’s $500 billion in Medicare cuts were being used to sustain Medicare or fund the health care law. Secretary Sebelius responded, “Both.”

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Pitts said, “As Rep. John Shimkus pointed out, to pay for Obamacare’s new entitlements, more than $500 billion is taken out of Medicare. Meanwhile, the administration claims that these reductions are sustaining Medicare. The same dollar can’t be used twice. This is the largest of the many budget gimmicks Democrats used to claim Obamacare would reduce the deficit.”

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After all was said and done, about the only defense the dems had for this turd of a government mandate was that it would save the country money. Now, it turns out that even that saving grace is ultimately based on administration lies. Thanks a lot, Barack. Well done, Pelosi-ov.

By the way, I note that the mainstream media so far has made no mention of this fraud. Imagine that.

dteowner said:

1) Let people die.

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And they had better do it now, and decrease the surplus population!

Corwin said:

Hillary, Obama, what's the difference??!!

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one is a muslim, the other a woman

dteowner said:

After all was said and done, about the only defense the dems had for this turd of a government mandate was that it would save the country money.

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Wow! Another false strawman today, DTE? Having indigestion, or something?

Getting rid of insurance qualifications based on preconditions is one of the few values in the bill. I never believed the saving money BS. We all know that the mandate will cost coporations and the public more.

Health become a serious and important factor due to food problem in world so we never can revolution in any fields so we never generate healthy environment.

Interesting article. Makes a strong case for why conservatives could get behind the individual mandate.

Interesting indeed. I think where it misses the boat is that it's looking at the healthcare expense angle in a vacuum.

Individual responsibility is very important but the national debt hangs a very dark cloud over everything. We simply cannot afford Obamacare as passed (I'm willing to concede that the abomination that Pelosi-ov jammed thru might not be exactly what Barack intended, even if he had to support it in the end). Principles are wonderful, but ultimately you've got to "put food on the table" first.

On the philosophical angle, I'm not sure that "punishing the stupid" is sufficient justification for handing the government the keys, even if it does have a certain appeal. As the article discusses, there's a bit of a bind there, but it seems to me that most righties will put practical matters (limited government, fiscal solvency) ahead of philosophy (promoting personal responsibility) if a choice must be made.

On fixing Medicare.

Übereil

Some good points there, although the obvious slant (4 mentions of republicans, all negative, and zero mentions of dems) weakens the reliability of the entire piece. Similarly, I like the flawed logic in the "fee-for-service" section: "the current system doesn't work because doctors aren't monitored so we clearly need this new system which only works if doctors are monitored".

Sam Harris wrote a blog that resonated strongly with me, and I'm just paraphrasing what he said. The gist of it was that it would be awesome if we just cut the shit and took care of our own, because we have the ability. If we took charity and giving seriously, if we acted morally, we wouldn't have a health-care issue, much poverty, or a great deal of economic inequality. But we're really a bunch of selfish little kids, and so we have to have an institution force us to do the moral thing every once in a while, granted much less efficiently than if we had just done what we know is the right thing to do. I like the idea of the free market, but it seems like we're not socially mature enough to handle it, and we devolve into chicken-and-egg arguments of who's more responsible for the recent financial collapse: the Government, for enabling companies to gamble with the people's money, or the companies that did it, the government that bailed out the big banks, or the big banks who positioned themselves to be "too big to fail."

I don't disagree that government, as it is, is probably a poor choice to administer health care, but corporate America has been doing the most of it for some time, and they just fucking suck at it. BOTH institutions need to be changed, and I'm not averse to cutting government bloat and streamlining the process, but to turn all of our social services over to private business is just as poorly thought out, considering how clearly abused free market capitalism has been in the last 40 years. That's where a major disconnect, I believe, has been formed between liberals and conservatives. Our government has been TERRIBLE at utilizing taxpayer money fairly and responsibly, politicians have turned public office into a get-rich-quick scheme, and they game the system more often than many Americans are aware...

But corporate America hasn't exactly been the model of moral superiority, either...

Whenever the bottom line is money/profit, rather than service, you are going to have problems.

Now I'll put on my asbestos suit. The base issue in the US comes out of your policy of separation of Church and State!! 'Church', however you define it, for whichever religion or cult is, historically the basis of morality, giving, care, and originally, education. When you cut that out of the decision making process (gov't) and marginalise it in many people's lives, you can expect to have major issues. The two need to work in harmony, not separately, and in the US, they don't!! Just my educated, but extremely biased opinion!!

Yay! Let's have a theocracy!

Kidding aside, I think there is a good chance this may happen if the system collapses.