Here is a list of facts about the health care reform issue. This list is what I believe about the issue and the ongoing debate:
1)President Obama truly intends to improve the lives of all Americans by extending access to health care to ALL Americans - Not just the "well-off".
2)The rising cost of health care and health insurance is putting even basic health out of the reach of an increasing number of people.
3)The President's intent is to help the people without adequate access to care. He has no desire to take over the entire population's health care.
4)A workable plan will be an insurance-based plan with subsidies for lower income families so they can choose their own insurance with financial aid from the government.
5)No workable plan will be free. Someone will have to pay for it. The only way to pay is by taxes on someone.
6)The people most in need of help are the ones least able to pay taxes. There exists an income level above which the impact of a health care surtax or some other taxation is minimal the the family's quality of life/lifestyle.
7)Families with income above a to-be-determined level will have to pay the taxes to fund health insurance subsidies for poorer people.
8)People who oppose reform are being manipulated by outrageous statements funded by the rich people who simply do not want to pay for other people's health insurance.
9)People without access to health care are dying daily. Opposing reform increases the death rate and reduces the quality of life for those it doesn't kill.
10)I really believe there are wealthy people in the country who oppose reform because they do not want to share waiting rooms and hospital resources with poor people.
11)Statistics might establish a level of personal taxation needed to keep one person alive for a month. If you (with family income greater than say $200,000 refuse to pay this amount you are effectively killing someone.
12)If you have good insurance coverage that you are happy with, you should be allowed to keep it. that does not preclude paying some tax on that coverage based on income level.
13)The insurance industry is already the most effective rationer of care. We don't have to fear government rationing. How often do we hear of someone being refused treatment because the insurance they have won't pay for it.
14)I have reason to believe our streets could be safer if some marginal people had better care, including mental health care. Private insurance is notoriously limiting when dealing with mental health issues. We need some reform to promote better mental health care. I bet a lot of people believe I should get some help here.
15)The Medicare system has some significant problems but it does make use of private insurors to provide prescription assistance. Something similar to the Medicare system would help many people and it is paid for by deductions from recipient's monthly checks.
16)Opponents to President Obama are using this issue as a weapon against him with total disregard for the collateral damage to unfortunate people.
17)We were once a very powerful country when we combined our efforts. People around the world looked to us an an example. We can solve any problem through cooperation and compromise. We can be damaged from within by political wars with no purpose other than gaining power over someone.
18)People must think for themselves and stop being influenced by TV ads. Just think about how many lives could be saved by the money spent on the ads.
19)We all need to think about the reasoning behind the ads; think about the concept of spinning information to promote a viewpoint.
20) Everyone must look at who will be helped by reform and who will actually be hurt. The helped vastly outnumber the hurt - this cannot be denied. Maybe we need to look to our hearts instead of our bank accounts for the real story here.
dRp
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Have you taken the time to listen to pre-president Obama when he was all for a single payer system? That is his main agenda and when the votes were not going to be available, the count was dropped from 60 to 51 with Joe Biden casting the deciding vote, I feel that this manuever just shows how far the liberals will go to pass their agendas. I do not trust a government that will tell the American people one thing and then slide whatever they want done right in the back door. Thank goodness for the watchdog groups.
NO, I do not believe that babies born with abnormalities will be put to sleep or that older people will be euthanized; however, I do believe that with-holding of medical care to prevent death will be allowed.
You say that this can not happen in America, then, maybe, you should take the time to read their 1000 page or whatever it is, bill that is going through the house and senate. Nance Pelosi, President Obama, Joe Biden, and even Jennifer Grandholm, governor of the great state of Michigan are a threat to our way of life as we know it.
When our President asked for the citizen of these United States to forward e-mails that did not promote his healthcare act and basically turn in your fellow American for being un-patriotic because you do not agree with the changes that are being made, then yes, there is a major problem in our nation.
If you sit in a congregation for 20 years with a minister, then yes, you either know the full philosophy of that minister or you are dumb as a rock, and our president, is not an ignorant person. He even had the gall to play the race card with 80% of the U.S.A.'s voters being Caucasian. What part are the politicians not understanding about why the American people are so angry? It is not a race issue. It is the stance that he takes in the different political fields.
We are now faced with a government that we do not trust and they are infringeing on our constitutional rights every day. Our nation is so deep in debt that I doubt that I will live long enough to see us back to where our debt should be. Goodgrief, when the feds reached their limit on what they could borrow, they simply raised the ceiling on it again.
I do not believe that Americans have the right to free health care on the backs of the working public, nor do we owe it to the twelve million illegals in this country. I do not believe that every American has the right to own a home; thus, the reasoning behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That was a major catastrophe. I can understand losing a job or catastropic illness that might force a person into bankructcy once, but no more than that. Why should my tax dollars go to pay credit card bills or mortgages for people that have no clue what a budget is or how or why it should be used. The federal government is no example. They either borrow more money or print more money, but the ordinary citizen can not do this.
When all is said and done, we are going to be the products of our own greed where everyone thinks that the government and taxpayers should take care of them and give everyone a free ride, but you know, someone has got to do the work!
to Anonymous:
Like most of the opponents to health insurance reform you are more focused on the war against liberalism than on the humanity of helping people in need. There are valid arguments for opposition to "liberal agenda" and real differences in the approach to government. This issue is about much more than just conservatism versus liberalism. I see much of the opposition to reform using a volatile issue as a weapon against Obama. There are people suffering unecessarily (myself included) because the present system has failed them. We can (and must) put aside philosophical differences and work out a solution. Blind opposition might force a solution that grates on your sensibilities for years. Cooperation allows you to make the medicine more palatable to the anti-liberal community.
I know that you live in TN. Did TN CARE not prove to you that a government run health system will be a complete disaster? After all, TN Care was the test run for the national health care.
Let me tell you what I personally know about TN Care. I found myself without health care due to a loss of employment. I tried to buy TN Care and it was not available to me. Why, you may ask. The reason was because my husband had access to health insurance at his place of employment. It did not matter to them that we could not afford the premiums on me.
Another instance of the great TN Care scenario is that I have a very young friend who suffers from seizures. He had TN Care until he became employed and gained a good health care plan. His primary care physician told him that now he could write him a good anti-seizure prescription. Why could he not do that before? Is it the fact that free government insurance of any kind always uses not the most effective but the cheapest medicines that they can get by with?
Here is another personal friend that I know who draws $1400.00 dollars a month disability and has been on TN Care. Oh, sounds like a lot of money, but figure a house payment, utilities, food and a family. This man is dying because due to no fault of his own, the lining of his lungs are becoming hardened to the point that the lungs will not expand and collapse like they should while breathing. This is not due to smoking and the doctors do not know what causes this problem. He was put on a list for a lung transplant, and yep, you guessed it. TN Care dropped him because he was drawing too much money.
I am not against health care reform when it comes to pre-existing conditions being taken out of the equation. I also know that people, like myself, do not have tests run, simply because of high out of pocket expenses. People are losing their jobs everyday and if you do not have a job, therefore, you sure cannot afford COBRA. The costs are astronomical. A person sure can not afford to get sick with no health insurance, at all.
My dad fought in WWII and Korea and he had private health insurance from his place of employment. He developed pancreatic cancer and he tried to use the VA hospital. This was many years ago, and perhaps, their care of the patient has improved, but he checked out of the VA hospital and went back to using his private insurance.
These things that I have stated here are the reasons that I am against a national government run health insurance. I have never seen anything positive come from this and the middle-class taxpayers end up footing the bill.
I firmly believe that Americans should take care of Americans that have fallen on hard, tough economic times,but please forgive me if I do not want to pay or have my great-grandchildren paying for free health insurance, food stamps, utility bills, and housing for people that want to make it a way of life.
This generation now does not want to make concessions to make things happen. It seems that everyone thinks they are owed something from the moment they are born and that is just not the way it is.
If we are to stand as a nation, we must make our voices heard and take back the American jobs that have been sent to foreign countries. If we were to tax the imports high enough, it would no longer be lucrative to send their foreign made products to the U.S.A. Alas, it is too late because we owe too much money to these foreign nations, so that idea is not plausible. Keep in mind that Sam Walton built Wal-Mart on the principle of Made in the U.S.A. What do Americans produce today because you are hard pressed to find it at Wal-Mart?
Tenncare was a disaster and provides a very good lesson on how NOT to do things. The fact that people have been denied health insurance for arbitrary reasons by Tenncare is one reason we need a system that works. I have been denied Tenncare because My unemployment checks put my income too high. With a combination of chronic conditions I am uninsurable at any price in the private sector. I am too young for medicare. I actually have no option but to suffer and die prematurely.
My concept of a public option provides insurance coverage for any person who decides to take the public option instead of one of the many competeing private insurance plan available. The public option might well be the best/only option for people like me. People who select the public option would pay for it with premiums subsidized by their ability to pay. The public option will be expensive to people with no need for premium assistance.
I see one way to pay for this is to tax private insurers based on the restrictions they choose to apply to their coverage. A healthy young person will be able to find a private insurer with rates quite low. The low rate insurer will pay a tax for the priviledge of limiting his clients to young healthy people.
We might even provide a public subsidy for people with limited income so they can choose a private insurer instead of the public option.
Reguardless of what the final plan looks like it must address the existing problem of private insurers denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, ability to pay, age...etc.
Discussion and compromise are the tools to generate a workable and generally acceptable plan. there is no honor in allowing the status quo to continue just to spite Obama or because your afraid someone you don't like might get insurance. Government must have resources to provide the services a civilization needs. We m,ust be will to pay our taxes AND to be part of controlling how the money is spent.
DRP
The main problem that I can figure out with my limited knowledge is exactly what you state. If the federal government taxes private insurance, then how long will it be before the employers find that it will be cheaper on them to pay a tax than to help an employee fund their private health insurance. That means that only the very wealthy will have access to any type of decent insurance and the rest of the American public will be stuck with government run national healthcare.
I realize that everyone should have health insurance; thus, lowering the cost of doctor and hospital bills because then they will not have a certain amount that they have to write off for non-pay. My biggest question to you is how do you propose that the government can do this? Your rationale in your last blog just did not compute when you consider that once the government passes the public option for the good of the people,how long will it take for us to actually be forced into a government run national health-care program for everyone except the super wealthy?
I am not against anyone; however, I do resent the fact that 12 million illegals are in this nation with access to healthcare, schools, social security, etc. and the American public foots the bill. You also made reference to people wanting to spite President Obama. If he came up with any really great ideas, then I would gladly accept them. I really do not trust him or Congress because it seems that they want to swing with whichever way the wind is blowing in the tide of public opinion. If you believe in something, say it and stick to it and if you do not get elected next time, oh well, guess the people did not like the way you voted on issues. Do not keep on doing belly-flops like I have been watching and hearing. Politicians do this to get themselves re-elected, short and simple.
I agree with the fact that we need health care reform. I do not know the answer as to how we are going to get there. I do not think that the public option that the blue dog democrats are going to shove down our throats is the answer. I believe that it will be the beginning of the end of private healthcare in the USA and of quality healthcare for people of all ages unless they are really wealthy. Canadians are coming into the US to get healthcare and government-run health care in other countries is not working. With the federal government handling social security, VA hospitals, Medicare, and other programs that are bankrupt or on their way to being in that predicament,how do you propose that they could actually handle government run healthcare. Do you not know that by the time you fell through the cracks in their systems, you would not need their healthcare anymore.
You make a very valid point. There must be a level of taxation on private insurers that allows them to maintain their ability to compete with the government plan. Also, since the government plan covers people the private plans deny coverage to the unsubsidized premiums for the government plan will always be higher than the private plans. An employer will have no incentive to pay the higher premium. There is a lot of wiggle room for every entity concerned except the government. There should be no denial of coverage for any otherwise uninsured American Citizen (or possibly any child)under the public option. The premium charged for the coverage will always be based upon the insured's ability to pay.
It might even be possible for an employer to pay a fixed amount to each emploee toward that employee's coverage and the employee can select his own insurance plan based on price and coverage. Just one possibility of many.
My main point today is: we, as a country of intelligent individuals (when we are not in mob mode), can work out a plan that works. At this point in the process no-one has all the answers. Ihave ideas and suggestions but I don't have the bean-counter skills to calculate actual premium amoounts or progressive subsidy levels. There will certainly be a significant net cost to the government for coverage for the people who cannot qualify for or afford private insurance. The medicare system, with all its flaws, still has some good points. It is too controlling and the gap (or donut hole if you will) is plain stupid and almost deadly. If you have had any recent experience with private insurers you will likely have come up against hidden restrictions that limit your options and/or increase your cost. These are the tools private insurers use to promote profitability. They have that right. They should pay something for that right in order to help the people who fall out of their coverage. A private insurer that is willing to accept all comers with no more restrictions than the public option will have no taxes applied. Hell, we might even give a subsidy, who knows. The details are what we should be working on - not who to blame or who's killing Grandma.
DRP
Someone will always find ways to manipulate any system. We should not make it so complicated that it becomes unusable. We can provide for substantial penalties for abusers.
Science Politics and Religion are great topics for discussion. I do not know the answers and most of the time, I do not know the questions. I do know that in a civilized society, we all can agree to disagree on a semi-intelligent format. I do not agree with a lot of what you have to say and you do not agree with me, but we do manage to have an intelligent discussion on the pros and cons that we see with the problems of healthcare in the USA. For that, I am grateful. It gives me the chance to actually read a differing opinion and consider it with an open mind.
As for killing grandma, well, the news today is not looking real good for grandma or grandpa. I believe that these folks that you are supporting in the political arena are trying to cut medicare by one billion dollars. Those monies cut will be to the cardiologists and cancer doctors.
You and I are the same age and both have health issues, so truthfully, we are no longer really desirable in today's workforce. We get lip service, but what it boils down to is that we do not have that many productive years left. This is the same thing that I see happening with this government run health care public option. When you stop being an asset, then you become a liability, and no one wants you in the workforce or taking up extra space on earth that could be given to a younger, productive human being. Is this not the way that Hitler did his cleansing of the human race? He confiscated weapons, and then destroyed the young that were sick or had physical problems and the old and weak.
I am not paranoid, nor am I frightened for myself or for you; but I am terrified that future generations will pay the price for decisions made by this president and congress. A done deal is just that. It will stay a done deal if the American public allows these things to pass without making their voices heard. There comes a time to say NO and then there is a time to say Hell, No!!! This is what all the town hall meetings from New York state to Michigan, Texas,Virgina,Pennsylvania,and others too numerous to mention have finally said. Much to Nancy Pelosi's chagrin, the American public has said Hell, No!
Post a Comment