Are you aware of Obama's future health care plan?

I wonder if anyone of you is a US citizen, and updated about Obama's future health care plan for the US citizens, are you satisfied with it?

I have doubts on it since we are under the global economic meltdown, it may have a higher risk on their budgets...don't you think?

I'm looking forward to your opinions here. Thank you.

 

I have read into some of the health care bill that is currently in the works and I have to say I'm worried. Especially with the section that goes over end of life care. The bill basically states that you or your family would have to discuss all options with the government (or a representative) and basically they will decide your end of life treatment. Now that's scary. Who cares if you are suffering, in pain, etc. the government needs to save money!

Yea, our government and Obama have gone ape shit crazy.

No thanks....

 

Sounds interesting. Can you point me to that section, I don't think I am going to plow through the whole thing.

Edit: Never-mind, I found it myself: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION.
Nothing mandatory in that language requiring counseling of any kind, just a requirement that Medicare pay for it, if the patient chooses, up to once every 5 years. Much ado about nothing if you ask me.

 

Hmmm, I have to look again. I don't think that was the section I was reading. I'll see if I have time to browse through it all again today and find it. I know it was towards the end....

 

Scare Tactics! Right now the same situations that everyone is talking about happening with the government health insurance option is happening with the private insurance that people have now. The biggest difference is that the public option won't drop you for pre-existing conditions!

It's so ridiculous that people get so scared about these "possibilities" when what is happening RIGHT NOW is far worse than the worst BS scare tactics that the liars can come up with.

EDUCATE YOURSELVES.

Look at every single other country in the world that has a universal health care system. See that they have better health care results than we do while spending less money.

See that all of the LIES they tell you about "government run health care" are complete BS.

It's so infuriating to see their lies work so well on so many people. It's so sad to see people actively working against their own self interest to help the private health insurance industry make more money.

This is a battle of the health insurance industry against the American people. Choose your side wisely.

Donate To Help Get Health Care Reform Passed!

 

I understand the need and what people want, however I don't see how this can do it and I'm not liking what I see.

Many are saying the current plan will outlaw any NEW individual private plans. People with them already can keep them, but are not allowed to change them.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854
Where this would hurt is say someone decides to quit their corporate job and do freelance graphics design or contract work. They would not be able to purchase an individual private health insurance policy and be forced to go with the government (where are these "options" Obama spoke of?). Anyone who wants to be their own business, be an independent contractor, or the many other reasons people buy individual private health insurance policies. This could quickly kill the private insurance companies.

This is a HUGE step toward government control of even more of our lives. When the government begins to lose money do to poor management like they always do in their programs (*cough* Medicare spending and corruption/fraud) they will have to make cuts. Where will those cuts be? Rationing treatments, capping all Dr salaries and what doctor is assigned to what area and specialty. Do you REALLY need that treatment? Just like current insurance companies do, but with insurance companies, if they don't cover you, you raise hell and your friends and people who hear about it avoid using them for a policy... with the government, there's no incentive to treat you any better than a statistic and good luck just leaving them for another government lol.

What else do they do when spending goes crazy as health continues to decline do to a lazy lifestyle? Are they going to then make drinking and smoking as well as fast food illegal? There's already talk about taxing soda more just as they increased cigarettes.

When I think of government controlled healthcare I think of military hospitals and care centers. Where allergy tests are rationed and usually all gone by allergy season. Doctors are assigned. I got my wisdom teeth pulled by some asshole who couldn't numb me and it was pure hell, but what could I do? He was at my base for 3 days to pull 34 patients wisdom teeth I think it was. He had other people to do and had no time to keep trying different things to numb me so 3 people helped hold me down and he went to town. He wasn't going to be back in the area for 3 months and there were no other authorized doctors to do it. Imagine having to go to the Dr because it burns when you pee and the doctor assigned to you local area for these cases happens to be your father in law that hates you?

I'm hearing the bill is an attempt to be much more like Canada. While some may think the grass is greener over there, many more who study the facts will say otherwise.

I would recommend everyone read "10 surprising facts about American healthcare" http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649 Here are a couple examples:

Another good read is this one from a Canadian Dr talking about socialized medicine:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=270338135202343 where he talks about things like:

 

Your comparisons are flawed ad they are comparing socialised healthcare with private healthcare. It's like saying soup kitchens for the homeless are bad because people who go to steak houses are more satisfied with their meal.

People in Canada and the uk can have private health care which is of exceptional quality, but we also have systems in place for those who can not afford private cover or who don't want it. But then, even with nationalised health if you need treatment urgently you get it. You only have to sometimes wait when your condition is trivial. And if you don't want to wait you are free to go private.

 

What are you talking about? Are you just wanting to argue cause you're bored? I am comparing current US healthcare including private and free clinics with other country's systems over all including their private, public, and whatever else. The numbers below don't single out any specific group within a country.

This is VERY relevant as it is comparing how many people have done early detective work for a potentially tragic condition. The one with the higher % obviously has an easier means of obtaining checkups with the system in their country. If you look at the mortality rates of those with these cancer conditions, the US is lower due to early detection and less waiting for treatment.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=270338135202343

This would not happen in the US with our current healthcare. I don't care if the people above are public or private, or self treated or anything else you can come up with. It happens in that country and that's all that matters when we're being told our healthcare will be moving in this direction.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649

This says A LOT for our healthcare system and how ahead it is as well as good reason why we have to wait much less for specialists. Since we're trying to be like the other countries (our government is telling us it's more like Canada's system), does this mean we're going to begin falling back with the others?

Great to hear, however, you're disregarding the fact that these people are waiting months to get a lump checked out which increases their chance of death. It's great that once they're actually showing signs of dying they get treated lol...

Yes I'm comparing two completely different healthcare systems, that's the point. I'm not singling out just the public option in one country, it's the over all that these numbers came from no matter how badly you want to believe otherwise. If you want better numbers, travel the world with your own team polling these people for your own. When they tell us our system will be more like another's system, that's what you do, compare the amount of people slipping through the cracks and hating their current system to put it in perspective. You're scientific you keep claiming, so stop getting butt hurt over your country looking bad and look at the numbers.

Will some people be helped with the change? Yes, it's very likely there will be some helped. But our government is pretending nobody will be hurt by the change. When you compare the facts side by side it sure appears many will and that's not even going into the potential crazy costs involved.

 

I say. Bring it! Government healthcare is better than private no care.

 

You clearly didn't read anything in the thread or research healthcare by any means.

Since you have a Ron Paul avatar, at least read what he has to say about this plan: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/07/obamas_health_care_plan_will_b.html

I would love to see the statistics of this "no care" you talk about compared to other countries with government care.

Is that what you call no care?

Then there are the people that argue the US life expectancy which is directly related to our freedoms and lifestyle vs. our healthcare.

Then there are the people that argue that people are uninsured (46 mil I believe the count was). When it was researched, it was shown, of this 46 mil # they came up with:

-10 million are ILLEGAL ALIENS (they are only “Americans” in the loosest sense, and to include them in these numbers is misleading).

-8 million are young and won’t buy it b/c they are healthy and don’t want to pay for it or use it

-10 million make more than 75,000 per year and STILL WONT BUY for whatever reason they have

-9.4 million are between jobs and are classified as “temporarily” uninsured, but for the sake of putting the “rosiest” picture on the Big Government argument, we won’t deduct these people from the numbers.

And on top of that, these people are still covered by free clinics as well as the fact that hospitals can not deny patient emergencies.

There are ways to fix this much better than this plan appears to be. Just open your eyes to the other options like Ron Paul's even.

 

Yea, I don't get that either. Your quote doesn't mesh with your avatar. You really can't be a hardcore Ron Paul supporter and be FOR government healthcare. The two don't mix....

 

You want scare tactics? Try these out:

Obama told NBC news on 7-21-09

Obama told ABC News on 7-23-09

How have their predictions through scare been in the past?

Do you remember the administration telling everyone they had to pass that stimulus package or we would see an over 8% unemployment? Well, it passed and now where's unemployment? Answer= over 9.5%

The government can't manage anything like this for crap. How often do you see Medicare coming even close to the predicted budget put forth? What does that tell you? Tells me the government is a joke.

 

I think this video says it all: 450,000 Doctors Support Health Care Reform.

***Stop Listening To The Health Insurance Industry Lies***

This is a battle between the American people and the health insurance industry. It's a battle over what's more important: The health of the American people or the outrageous profits of the health insurance industry.

The proof is overwhelming: Universal health care is far more effective and far less expensive than the system we have now. The scare mongers on the right want you to believe this is some untested new idea. Nothing could be further from the truth. National health care plans have been used effectively in every other western country in the world. Most of them have been around for over 60 years! It's time to catch up with the rest of the world.

Whenever you hear scare mongering from the right, you need to realize it's based entirely on LIES. They only care about keeping the current broken system around so they can continue to suck the blood of the American people. These vampires must be killed.

 

I like looking at and considering both sides of an issue, DO YOU Zibblu? That's not another one of your sites you're link spamming is it? If you're going to answer one of those questions, please answer both.

I support health care reform as well, just not in the terms of this bill as many others agree. If you truly believe this bill is going to save people, back it up with what lacking areas it will fix and how while addressing the issues it will cause and costs involved, otherwise you're providing no value to anyone other than yelling garbage from one side.

We've all seen how horribly wrong Medicare has gone due to fraud, abuse, restrictions, and management. How is this going to be different considering it's to be run by the same government?

 

I agree that our healthcare system is broken. I believe I'm a good example, to be honest, as I've endured more physical hell I than I ever thought I would, and I lay it squarely at the feet of a system that gives insurance companies free rein, among other things, to engage outright fraudulent docs to protect their (the carrier's) interests, and thereby utterly screw patients desperately needing effective care. ("Independent Medical Examiners" - "IMEs" - are typically anything but independent. They are hired guns, paid handsomely by carriers to outright commit fraud - because it's cheaper to pay an asshole $3000 for 10 minutes of his fraudulent time, than to provide for proper care).

At the same time, I think it's important to see the "other" side's perspective, as well. I know from talking with my own treating physician - a good man - what they go through. I also know from the years I worked in med mal defense. Doctors get hosed. A lot of good doctors get hosed, by bullshit med mal claims, and with the cost of med school through the roof, at the end of the day, believe it or not, there are many well-trained, compassionate physicians who just say to hell with it because of the inordinate costs of maintaining a practice. As written, the current plan will only worsen that tendency, in my opinion.

My quick and dirty: end the culture of frivolous med mal claims - protect the right to litigate just claims, while stiffening the penalties (for litigants, and for slimeball attorneys seeking to profit from such claims) for frivolous and/or serially frivolous claims; gut the cost of medical education, but make it an incredibly high threshold for obtaining that education; end the hegemony of carriers in dictating care, and requiring "turn and burn" billables.

 

The biggest problem with the bill is that NO ONE HAS READ IT! This includes Obama himself.

From what I have read myself, I am finding more and more things that hint at euthanasia, genocide, and of course spending money.

Some other difficulties I see have to do with how its paid for. The suggestion is in place that I will pay upwards of 4.5% more in income tax because:

A. I have health care (which I pay for out of pocket and pay income tax on already)

B. Make over a certain amount of money.

How on earth can you fix health care by asking the very people that pay for it already and provide it already to their employees to pay for people that choose not to?

An even larger problem in the plan is that there is no real stipulation banning illegals from gaining access to this "free" health care. Certain estimates indicate that up to 1/3 of the total cost of the plan may stem from illegals that will benefit from it.

Other things that bother me? Barry's never worked a day in his life in the private sector. Barry's never worked at a fast food joint. Barry's never owned a business. Barry has not even read his own 1100 plus page bill. Heck, Barry admits, even regularly jokes that he's "never had to pay for health care". His has been free, and he wants yours to be free to. To do that, you have to be like Barry. A dependent.

The problems with health care are not:

Access to it. Everyone has that.
Quality of care. Its the best in the world.

The problems with health care are:

Costs related to a lack of tort reform. ie. ridiculous lawsuits, etc.
Insurnace Fraud and rising insurance costs as a result.
Expensive malpractice insurance.
Corruption and fraud in the industry, both at the hospitals and the insurance companies.

What needs to take place "if" and only IF the government is going to control certain aspects of it is:

Price controls.
Tort reform.
An end to statistics based underwritting and actuaries.

Make it affordable, not free. When you make it free, everyone loses. Just look at Canada and most of Europe. Want to see an example of failure? Look at what's been done elsewhere. Why are we so hell bent on doing the same thing that has failed again?

If it failed once, its always going to fail. That's bad business. Something Barry and company have no idea about.

 

I think that's flawed thinking. It is precisely bad business to believe this notion, in my opinion. If "it" failed once, learn why it failed, improve on it, and make it better next time. Ask "failed" entrepreneurs - the very fact most entrepreneurs lose at least once, learn, pick up the pieces and try again, is the very heart of entrepreneurship and tenacity.

I do not paint all systems under the same, wide brush. There is much for us to learn from the French system, in my opinion, for reasons I've gone into before.

 

The problem with this is the Pharmaceutical Industrial Congressional Complex.

Swine Flu anyone? A million infections - 200 people dead.

The normal flu?

Why the fuck are you all going to get a vaccine for Swine Flu when it is one of the least potent ever? Because they're scaring you to. The only time I had a flu vaccine in the 90s I ended up sick for a month. My 85 year old grandmother and 80 year old grandfather don't get flu vaccines, and never have.

Lets run the numbers.

H1N1A (So called Swine Flu): 1,000,000 infections, 238 dead.
H5N1 --(avian seasonal Flu): 1,000,000 infections, 100,000 dead.

So if the H5N1 virus went pandemic and infected 100,000,000 people, it would kill 10,000,000, That's 10% by the way. If it infected a billion, a hundred million would die.

H1N1A becomes a pandemic? It would kill 238,000 people or .02%. At an infection rate of one billion, it kills 2.3 million.

So which would you rather have for a pandemic? The normal flu, which will kill a hundred million people after a billion are infected, or the Swine Flu, which would kill 2.3 million after one billion are infected?

Also, mortality rate might be lower than that, as some of these deaths are not confirmed.

 

Reseg your revised "statistics" reflect nothing but a) the populations willingness to be screened and b) the screening proceedures required to actually get medical cover.

The fallacy you have commited is that more = better. Ie, more people have medical treatment, ergo, the treatment is better.

If in socialised medicine people aren't recieving the treatments/proceedures as and when they need them then that needs to be resolved. But it's certainly not a valid reason for throwing out a system that has given millions of people medical treatment they would have no other way of recieving. If one person buys a bad steak do we conclude that steaks are bad? No, we prove the means by which they are produced.

 

We both have private and public options. But in our country the private options are where the majority are and the ones who can't afford it go with free clinics. Hospitals can NOT refuse treatment. Where this is bad is that people want the mint on the pillow service of private and therefor pay a lot for it.

In your case the majority go for public service and those that can afford it and are trying to get better service or bypass a long wait pay out of pocket for private if it's allowed for what they need. However, those that can't afford private are stuck waiting in lines for months sometimes. These people get completely screwed if it's something they need checked out that leads to something major and is EXACTLY WHY my above stats show a higher level of mammograms (for example) in the US. People can just GO and have it done, it's not a matter of waiting in line for months.

Now why completely change your healthcare when you can work on fixing those people stuck waiting? Sure go for it, do what you want. But same goes for us, why completely change our system when it's proving itself as superior in the level of satisfaction and our ability to get checkups done and lower mortality rates on stuff like cancer? We need to fix our problems like the illegals, pre-existing conditions, and greedy lawsuits driving prices way up and coverage down. Completely changing it over to another system that shows to have a higher mortality rate for cancer, longer lines, and potentially even MORE expensive isn't a fixall answer.

Is it true in the UK, your system refuses to even give radiation treatment to women over 65 with breast cancer? Is it true in the UK, your system refuses to even attempt life saving procedures on some very premature babies born alive? In the US this is not the case at all, nobody gets priority over another due to their survivability chances for treatment to save money.

SO the worst case scenario in the US is someone has to go to a crappy free clinic and or build a lot of debt to have a procedure. Worst case scenario in the UK is you might have to wait 6 months to have a routine test done to see if you have cancer in which case could ultimately make the difference of life or death... is this correct? The people are saying it's true and the "statistics" directly show it by how many mammograms are being done and the mortality rate. If you're saying they have less mammograms because they don't want them, well why is that? They don't want the hassle and wait? It doesn't matter WHY, as there's no denying it's somehow related to the system itself.

If you feel our system sucks compared to yours show me why with the facts not your "feelings" on it. Americans are fat and lazy right? It should be easy to twist facts to make us look bad by having higher levels of heart attacks or something due to our fat, lazy nature that could somehow be misrepresented and shown as a healthcare problem. You're not even trying to do that.

More is better with mammograms and many other procedures. Last I checked, there was a direct coloration between early detection and mortality rates. If not checked, how do you know? An at home science kit?