Now that the taxpayers have a vested interest in everyone's health we need to ban things that lead to health problems like cigarettes and alcohol.
Or just do what the UK does and tax the hell out of cigarettes, putting the money back into healthcare. In theory.
And punish the poor tobacco farmers? Are you crazy man!
B/W
Many states already tax the hell out of tobacco and alcohol.
Can we start a "my country's tax is worse than your's thread?"
'cos seriously, Americans moan about taxes... but they have it eeeeeeaaaasy. No f*cking jokes.
Amen to that. I would be bowled over, nay, gobsmacked if a single US state taxes something like tobacco anywhere near the levels seen in the UK, never mind any of my less guilty pleasures.
Over ten dollars for a single pack here, right? And we're not paying those prices because tobacco is difficult to get hold of here...
Yeah the major supermarkets do it a bit cheaper but anywhere else (especially in London) and you're looking at around ten dollars a pack. That's with the current exchange rate, before the crash it was nearer 12 dollars. Add to that the average price of a beer and we're talking major investment for a night out.
Oh how little I knew what I was gett8ing into when I took those first fateful puffs by the bike sheds.
How do you feel like paying for someone that never worked a day in there life and had five kids, I know i don't wanna be the one paying for their health care. I work in houses all the time where the person is on welfare and getting free health care, but she has a 50 in high def tv in her house and laptop computers.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Hooray! One set of assholes outvoted another set of assholes!
I'd much rather have an absolutely minuscule amount of my income (I guess we're talking 0.00000000etc)contribute to her sprogs healthcare than be unemployed with five kids.
How do you feel like paying for someone that never worked a day in there life and had five kids, I know i don't wanna be the one paying for their health care. I work in houses all the time where the person is on welfare and getting free health care, but she has a 50 in high def tv in her house and laptop computers.
Just think of it that you are going to pay for it regardless of whether or not they have coverage -- if a.) they do have a plan and go in for the occasional checkup or b.) if they don't have a plan and roll up to the ER knocking on death's door. It's going to be cheaper in the long run if they go for a checkup with a slight pain rather than going to the doctor when they start turning blue.
How do you feel like paying for someone that never worked a day in there life and had five kids, I know i don't wanna be the one paying for their health care. I work in houses all the time where the person is on welfare and getting free health care, but she has a 50 in high def tv in her house and laptop computers.
yeah because there are millions of people like that. In fact the WHOLE country is made up 20% hard working people who earned everything they have and the majority of the country are lazy people not working. F*ck the people who cant afford health care, they ALL have high end consumer electronics in their houses...they should have spent the $500 they spent on that laptop and bought one month of health insurance...thieving f*cking bastards.
Generally, public health care should be seen as necessity for a society with basic humanitarian principles.
Problem is that wherever services or goods can be obtained free of charge, some people will figure out a way to abuse the system. Junkies will find ways to get to prescription drugs for free. People who are just too lazy to work will claim false medical problems that are difficult to detect and use the social and medical network designed to help people in need as a hammock.
In Germany there is a relatively high percentage of people who exploit the welfare and healthcare system simultaneously and not few of them breed like rabbits because the government pays premiums for each child.
I don't think any society wants to see children die or suffer serious damages because their parents don't have money for basic medication or a visit to the doctor.
But do you want to pay for some hillbilly receiving treatment by a specialist in "pain treatment" to score his oxycontin? What about people who out of their own free will stuffed themselves with tons of shitty food so they turned into giant sacks of fat who can't work but have a multitude of medical problems?
In Germany you're forced to participate in the public healthcare system unless you are self-employed. This public health care provides increasingly shitty service for ridiculously high cost. Your employer is forced to pay a portion of it and subtracts the rest from your paycheck before you get paid. This way as a worker, you are forced to pay for the medical treatment of retired and job-less people.
I'm curious how your public health care system is going to work out and how happy most of you are going to be with it on the long run. It will probably be impossible to reverse.
Over ten dollars for a single pack here, right? And we're not paying those prices because tobacco is difficult to get hold of here...
Here in NYC it's right around $10 a pack nowadays, $4.50 of which is state and city tax. I know that it is much cheaper elsewhere though, especially if you live in a tobacco growing state.
How do you feel like paying for someone that never worked a day in there life and had five kids, I know i don't wanna be the one paying for their health care. I work in houses all the time where the person is on welfare and getting free health care, but she has a 50 in high def tv in her house and laptop computers.
yeah because there are millions of people like that. In fact the WHOLE country is made up 20% hard working people who earned everything they have and the majority of the country are lazy people not working. F*ck the people who cant afford health care, they ALL have high end consumer electronics in their houses...they should have spent the $500 they spent on that laptop and bought one month of health insurance...thieving f*cking bastards.
Part of the basic Republican platform is that small government and free-market solutions are better than large government and extensive regulation/social programs. This version of health care reform is an expansion of social programs and regulation and as such, is anathema to the Republican platform.
In other words, teh poor people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and pay for their own health care.
Beyond the ideological issues, what Frum is referring to above is a specific kind of political gamble. If the GOP could defeat this bill, basically they demoralize the Dems and more importantly: Obama. At the very least, it would have given them momentum going into the fall elections with the ultimate goal being 1) forcing the Dems + Obama to have to compromise on any kind of legislative agenda for the next three years and 2) taking back both Congress and the White House by 2012.
A month ago, this didn't necessarily even look like a bad bet. You could be a more moderate Republican who thinks health care reform is a good idea but ultimately, you'd vote against this bill because, in the political long-term, it's better to embarrass and weaken the other side and then try to push through reform - on your terms - down the road.
The problem, as Frum points out, is that it became an all or nothing gambit and a rather cynical one. No doubt, they'll try to spin this somehow but for now, there's no other way to see this as anything but a huge L.
How do you feel like paying for someone that never worked a day in there life and had five kids, I know i don't wanna be the one paying for their health care. I work in houses all the time where the person is on welfare and getting free health care, but she has a 50 in high def tv in her house and laptop computers.
Duh dude they got those things with drug loot
b/w
I'm just stoked I get to see some death panels finally. I could refinish my whole living room with death panels. They would make the amber lamp really pop!
listening to the radio right now - these tea baggers are freaking the F*ck out, pure hysteria
sounds so sweet
FREEDOM DIED TODAY
rofl
this is so great, its like the day after the presidential election all over...very sweet
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
How do you feel like paying for someone that never worked a day in there life and had five kids, I know i don't wanna be the one paying for their health care. I work in houses all the time where the person is on welfare and getting free health care, but she has a 50 in high def tv in her house and laptop computers.
You are always going to get people who play the system. We all know this. The answer isn't "abandon the system", though.
If there are people in America - and I'm sure there are - who are unable to work because of illness they can't afford to have treated, or who live in perpetual fear of their existing medical condition worsening to the point they can no longer work (thus meaning they can't afford treatment, or even get it in the first place), or who have to hold down several jobs at once in order to pay for medical treatment for sick partners, family members or kids...well, from what I can gather, thanks to your government, their lives just became a little bit easier.
But do you want to pay for some hillbilly receiving treatment by a specialist in "pain treatment" to score his oxycontin?
In an ideal world? No. But in an ideal world, I wouldn't want my taxes to pay for ANYTHING that I don't like. That list is pretty f*cking long but let's just begin with "invading foreign countries under false pretenses."
I can't imagine any American being in agreement with how taxes get spent but ultimately, you accept the bad with the good. Any democracy is about living with compromises.
As for the notion that any public benefit system that be taken advantage of is true but that's not an argument against the public benefit. That's an argument for better enforcement.
Look, can't they just take the money they have been wasting on the banks, airlines and computer companies and just funnel like %5 of that to pay for healthcare? Or maybe just build one less stealth bomber this year.
I don't get how people are fine paying ridiculous amounts of money to fund military actions they don't believe in yet scream murder if there is any possible social good to come out of a government program.
But do you want to pay for some hillbilly receiving treatment by a specialist in "pain treatment" to score his oxycontin?
In an ideal world? No. But in an ideal world, I wouldn't want my taxes to pay for ANYTHING that I don't like. That list is pretty f*cking long but let's just begin with "invading foreign countries under false pretenses."
Currently the only way poor, sick, or injured people without health insurance can get treatment is through the ER. Not only is that more expensive, but it leads to people putting off treatment until the very last minute.
Hopefully this is the first in many steps to help people care for themselves better.
How do you feel like paying for someone that never worked a day in there life and had five kids, I know i don't wanna be the one paying for their health care. I work in houses all the time where the person is on welfare and getting free health care, but she has a 50 in high def tv in her house and laptop computers.
You are always going to get people who play the system. We all know this. The answer isn't "abandon the system", though.
If there are people in America - and I'm sure there are - who are unable to work because of illness they can't afford to have treated, or who live in perpetual fear of their existing medical condition worsening to the point they can no longer work (thus meaning they can't afford treatment, or even get it in the first place), or who have to hold down several jobs at once in order to pay for medical treatment for sick partners, family members or kids...well, from what I can gather, thanks to your government, their lives just became a little bit easier.
How is this a bad thing?
Can we just take a reality pause for a second?
CONGRESS DIDN'T PUT IN PLACE A PUBLIC OPTION. What we saw yesterday wasn't "public health care reform" so much as it was "health insurance policy reform." I'm not say there aren't large public implications, but this whole "I don't want my tax money going to pay for [fill in the blank of current social scapegoats...used to be Black people, now it's fat people]" is kind of assuming we just socialized medicine in America. And no, we didn't.
But do you want to pay for some hillbilly receiving treatment by a specialist in "pain treatment" to score his oxycontin?
That's not how it works, at least here in Florida, home of the 'Pain Management' centers. Any 'real' doctor who prescribes 'pain' medication rarely prescribes anything stronger than 7.5 Percocet, even for major surgery. All the Oxy/Roxy pill-heads get their supplies from 'Pain Management' centers which are nothing more than just-enough-to-be-legal drug dealers. I know, as they're on nearly every block here in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. It's so insanely easy to get hundreds of those high-dosage synthetic heroin pills... and the only thing those 'clinics' take is cash, they're not interested in healthcare coverage.
But do you want to pay for some hillbilly receiving treatment by a specialist in "pain treatment" to score his oxycontin?
In an ideal world? No. But in an ideal world, I wouldn't want my taxes to pay for ANYTHING that I don't like. That list is pretty f*cking long but let's just begin with "invading foreign countries under false pretenses."
I can't imagine any American being in agreement with how taxes get spent but ultimately, you accept the bad with the good. Any democracy is about living with compromises.
As for the notion that any public benefit system that be taken advantage of is true but that's not an argument against the public benefit. That's an argument for better enforcement.
I was just throwing out a few examples that came to my mind... I'm all for public health care and the good it does will without a doubt be much larger than the damage caused by a hopefully small percentage of abusers. Hopefully the people in charge did a good job investigating what was done wrong in countries that had public health care systems for a while.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
kind of assuming we just socialized medicine in America. And no, we didn't.
Erm, so what did happen?
Yeah, what did happen? If it isn't anything as radical as that, why are so many people on the right acting as if the next stop is a gulag in every town?
kind of assuming we just socialized medicine in America. And no, we didn't.
Erm, so what did happen?
Yeah, what did happen? If it isn't anything as radical as that, why are so many people on the right acting as if the next stop is a gulag in every town?
Democrat summary of the legislation):
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care and will create the transformation within the health care system necessary to contain costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has determined that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, is fully paid for, provides coverage to more than 94 percent of Americans, bends the health care cost curve, and reduces the deficit by $118 billion over the next ten years, with additional deficit reductions in the following years.
Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes immediate changes to the way health insurance companies do business to protect consumers from discriminatory practices and provide Americans with better preventive coverage and the information they need to make informed decisions about their health insurance.
Uninsured Americans with a pre-existing condition will have access to an immediate insurance program to help them avoid medical bankruptcy and retirees will have greater certainty due to reinsurance provisions to help maintain coverage.
New health insurance Exchanges will make coverage affordable and accessible for individuals and small businesses. Premium tax credits and cost-sharing assistance will help those who need assistance. Insurance companies will be barred from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions, health status, and gender.
A substantial investment in Community Health Centers will provide funding to expand access to health care in communities where it is needed most.
The Role of Public Programs[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expands eligibility for Medicaid to include all non-elderly Americans with income below 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), with substantial assistance to States for the cost of covering these individuals.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act maintains current funding levels for the Children?s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for an additional two years, through fiscal year 2015. Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Health Care
Congress is committed to protecting and strengthening the Medicare program for America?s seniors. Medicare is a sacred trust with seniors and people with disabilities, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will ensure that trust is preserved. The cost of inaction is unacceptable for seniors and the Medicare program that serves them; without action, the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund is expected to go broke in just over seven years. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will make Medicare a stronger, more sustainable program.
Medicare currently reimburses health care providers on the basis of the volume of care they provide rather than the value of care. For each test, scan or procedure conducted, Medicare provides a separate payment, rewarding those who do more, regardless of whether the test or treatment contributes to helping a patient recover. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes a number of proposals to move away from the ?a la carte? Medicare fee‐for‐service system toward paying for quality and value and reducing costs to America?s seniors.
Preventing Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act promotes preventive health care and improves the public health to help Americans live healthy lives and help restrain the growth of health care costs over time. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will eliminate co-pays and deductibles for recommended preventive care, including preventive care for women, provide individuals with the information they need to make healthy decisions, improve education on disease prevention and public health, and invest in a national prevention and public health strategy.
Health Care Workforce[/b]
Currently, 65 million Americans live in communities where they cannot easily access a primary care provider, and an additional 16,500 practitioners are required to meet their needs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will address shortages in primary care and other areas of practice by making necessary investments in our nation?s health care workforce. Specifically, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will invest in the National Health Service Corps, scholarship and loan repayment programs to expand the health care workforce. The bill also includes incentives for primary care practitioners and for providers to serve underserved areas.
Transparency and Program Integrity[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will provide consumers with information about physician ownership of hospitals and medical equipment as well as nursing home ownership and other characteristics. The bill also includes provisions that will crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP and private insurance. Finally, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will establish a private, non-profit entity to identify priorities for and provide for the conduct of comparative outcomes research.
Improving Access to Innovative Medical Therapies[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will establish a regulatory pathway for FDA approval of biosimilar versions of previously licensed biological products. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will also expand the scope of the existing 340B drug discount program, so that patients at children?s hospitals, cancer hospitals, rural hospitals and in other underserved communities have access to medicines at lower cost.
Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS)[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will make long-term supports and services more affordable for millions of Americans by providing a lifetime cash benefit that will help people with severe disabilities remain in their homes and communities. CLASS is a voluntary, self-funded, insurance program provided through the workplace. For those whose employers participate, affordable premiums will be paid through payroll deductions. Participation by workers is entirely voluntary. The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the program, which has been revised from earlier versions, is actuarially sound.
Revenue Provisions[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is fully paid for and reduces the deficit in the next ten years and beyond. The revenue provisions in the bill focus on paying for reform within the health care system. This is accomplished by tightening current health tax incentives, collecting industry fees, and slightly increasing the Medicare Hospital Insurance tax for individuals who earn more than $200,000 and couples who earn more than $250,000. This increase will not only help fund health care reform, but, when combined with other provisions in the bill, will also extend the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by nine years to 2026. The bill also includes a fee on insurance companies when they sell high cost health insurance plans, designed to generate smarter, more cost-effective health coverage choices. Changes to health care tax incentives include capping FSA contributions, conforming definitions of deductible medical expenses and changing penalti
es for HSA spending that is not devoted to health care. The industry fees reflect responsible contributions from industries who have long profited from health care and who will benefit from the expanded coverage of millions of additional Americans under health care reform. The bill also assesses a small excise tax on indoor tanning services. Together, these revenue provisions represent a balanced, responsible package of proposals that bend the health care cost curve by putting downward pressure on health spending.
kind of assuming we just socialized medicine in America. And no, we didn't.
Erm, so what did happen?
Yeah, what did happen? If it isn't anything as radical as that, why are so many people on the right acting as if the next stop is a gulag in every town?
Because health care is a political minefield and they're hoping the left blows themselves up with it.
Seriously, let's just go over this history again:
Invading two countries and putting America into a deep, long-lasting series of foreign conflicts with no clear sense of what the longterm outcome will be? No big deal.
Forcing insurance companies to insure those with pre-existing conditions or those otherwise unable to afford their own insurance? DEATH OF AMERICA.
What's about to happen in regards to health care is a big deal in terms of its short-term political implications and long-term social consequences. It's going to impact people's wallets one way or another (but not until 2013; slick move!) But if people are having trouble understanding why this was supposed to be Obama's Waterloo or some other bloated metaphor, it has very little to do with what's actually at stake IMO. What you have is a very visible issue but more importantly, it's visible and politically exploitable.
I mean, the single highest expenditure is not health care or education but defense. The amount of money we spend on the military is unfathomable. But you almost never hear about this being an issue to anyone besides the far left. Military spending is not that politically exploitable unless you're proposing to slash it, in which case, you open up the vulnerability of being accused of being "soft on national security."
Health care is incredibly exploitable regardless of what the stakes are. That's why in a nation that already runs socialized health care in the form of Medicaid, you have f*cking idiots ON MEDICAID, protesting about "the government running health care."
BTW: all this Tea Party, anti-health care reform shit is going to look softbatch compared to the shitstorm that's going to rain down once Congress starts tackling immigration reform.
I'm willing to let my tax money be used to help analog_tape with his mental disability
I care about my fellow man like that
I have no mental disability. As a matter of fact I work my ass off and pay over $3,000 a month for my mortgage, my sons daycare and health coverage do you see me asking for help. No.
I'm willing to let my tax money be used to help analog_tape with his mental disability
I care about my fellow man like that
I have no mental disability. As a matter of fact I work my ass off and pay over $3,000 a month for my mortgage, my sons daycare and health coverage do you see me asking for help. No.
Comments
Yeah the major supermarkets do it a bit cheaper but anywhere else (especially in London) and you're looking at around ten dollars a pack. That's with the current exchange rate, before the crash it was nearer 12 dollars. Add to that the average price of a beer and we're talking major investment for a night out.
Oh how little I knew what I was gett8ing into when I took those first fateful puffs by the bike sheds.
Couldn't give a shit.
I'd much rather have an absolutely minuscule amount of my income (I guess we're talking 0.00000000etc)contribute to her sprogs healthcare than be unemployed with five kids.
Just think of it that you are going to pay for it regardless of whether or not they have coverage -- if a.) they do have a plan and go in for the occasional checkup or b.) if they don't have a plan and roll up to the ER knocking on death's door. It's going to be cheaper in the long run if they go for a checkup with a slight pain rather than going to the doctor when they start turning blue.
yeah because there are millions of people like that. In fact the WHOLE country is made up 20% hard working people who earned everything they have and the majority of the country are lazy people not working. F*ck the people who cant afford health care, they ALL have high end consumer electronics in their houses...they should have spent the $500 they spent on that laptop and bought one month of health insurance...thieving f*cking bastards.
Generally, public health care should be seen as necessity for a society with basic humanitarian principles.
Problem is that wherever services or goods can be obtained free of charge, some people will figure out a way to abuse the system. Junkies will find ways to get to prescription drugs for free. People who are just too lazy to work will claim false medical problems that are difficult to detect and use the social and medical network designed to help people in need as a hammock.
In Germany there is a relatively high percentage of people who exploit the welfare and healthcare system simultaneously and not few of them breed like rabbits because the government pays premiums for each child.
I don't think any society wants to see children die or suffer serious damages because their parents don't have money for basic medication or a visit to the doctor.
But do you want to pay for some hillbilly receiving treatment by a specialist in "pain treatment" to score his oxycontin? What about people who out of their own free will stuffed themselves with tons of shitty food so they turned into giant sacks of fat who can't work but have a multitude of medical problems?
In Germany you're forced to participate in the public healthcare system unless you are self-employed. This public health care provides increasingly shitty service for ridiculously high cost. Your employer is forced to pay a portion of it and subtracts the rest from your paycheck before you get paid. This way as a worker, you are forced to pay for the medical treatment of retired and job-less people.
I'm curious how your public health care system is going to work out and how happy most of you are going to be with it on the long run. It will probably be impossible to reverse.
Hey, maybe it is cheaper here:
2010 1 x 20 cigarettes: ?6.13 ($9.23)
tax burden: ?4.67 ($7.04)
tax incidence: 76%
tax incidence was at a high in 2001 (80%).
don't listen to this guy - he has a guest house
Beyond the ideological issues, what Frum is referring to above is a specific kind of political gamble. If the GOP could defeat this bill, basically they demoralize the Dems and more importantly: Obama. At the very least, it would have given them momentum going into the fall elections with the ultimate goal being 1) forcing the Dems + Obama to have to compromise on any kind of legislative agenda for the next three years and 2) taking back both Congress and the White House by 2012.
A month ago, this didn't necessarily even look like a bad bet. You could be a more moderate Republican who thinks health care reform is a good idea but ultimately, you'd vote against this bill because, in the political long-term, it's better to embarrass and weaken the other side and then try to push through reform - on your terms - down the road.
The problem, as Frum points out, is that it became an all or nothing gambit and a rather cynical one. No doubt, they'll try to spin this somehow but for now, there's no other way to see this as anything but a huge L.
Duh dude they got those things with drug loot
b/w
I'm just stoked I get to see some death panels finally. I could refinish my whole living room with death panels. They would make the amber lamp really pop!
sounds so sweet
FREEDOM DIED TODAY
rofl
Thanks Barry!
this is so great, its like the day after the presidential election all over...very sweet
You are always going to get people who play the system. We all know this. The answer isn't "abandon the system", though.
If there are people in America - and I'm sure there are - who are unable to work because of illness they can't afford to have treated, or who live in perpetual fear of their existing medical condition worsening to the point they can no longer work (thus meaning they can't afford treatment, or even get it in the first place), or who have to hold down several jobs at once in order to pay for medical treatment for sick partners, family members or kids...well, from what I can gather, thanks to your government, their lives just became a little bit easier.
How is this a bad thing?
In an ideal world? No. But in an ideal world, I wouldn't want my taxes to pay for ANYTHING that I don't like. That list is pretty f*cking long but let's just begin with "invading foreign countries under false pretenses."
I can't imagine any American being in agreement with how taxes get spent but ultimately, you accept the bad with the good. Any democracy is about living with compromises.
As for the notion that any public benefit system that be taken advantage of is true but that's not an argument against the public benefit. That's an argument for better enforcement.
I don't get how people are fine paying ridiculous amounts of money to fund military actions they don't believe in yet scream murder if there is any possible social good to come out of a government program.
I care about my fellow man like that
Hopefully this is the first in many steps to help people care for themselves better.
Can we just take a reality pause for a second?
CONGRESS DIDN'T PUT IN PLACE A PUBLIC OPTION. What we saw yesterday wasn't "public health care reform" so much as it was "health insurance policy reform." I'm not say there aren't large public implications, but this whole "I don't want my tax money going to pay for [fill in the blank of current social scapegoats...used to be Black people, now it's fat people]" is kind of assuming we just socialized medicine in America. And no, we didn't.
Erm, so what did happen?
That's not how it works, at least here in Florida, home of the 'Pain Management' centers. Any 'real' doctor who prescribes 'pain' medication rarely prescribes anything stronger than 7.5 Percocet, even for major surgery. All the Oxy/Roxy pill-heads get their supplies from 'Pain Management' centers which are nothing more than just-enough-to-be-legal drug dealers. I know, as they're on nearly every block here in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. It's so insanely easy to get hundreds of those high-dosage synthetic heroin pills... and the only thing those 'clinics' take is cash, they're not interested in healthcare coverage.
I was just throwing out a few examples that came to my mind...
I'm all for public health care and the good it does will without a doubt be much larger than the damage caused by a hopefully small percentage of abusers. Hopefully the people in charge did a good job investigating what was done wrong in countries that had public health care systems for a while.
Yeah, what did happen? If it isn't anything as radical as that, why are so many people on the right acting as if the next stop is a gulag in every town?
Democrat summary of the legislation):
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care and will create the transformation within the health care system necessary to contain costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has determined that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, is fully paid for, provides coverage to more than 94 percent of Americans, bends the health care cost curve, and reduces the deficit by $118 billion over the next ten years, with additional deficit reductions in the following years.
Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes immediate changes to the way health insurance companies do business to protect consumers from discriminatory practices and provide Americans with better preventive coverage and the information they need to make informed decisions about their health insurance.
Uninsured Americans with a pre-existing condition will have access to an immediate insurance program to help them avoid medical bankruptcy and retirees will have greater certainty due to reinsurance provisions to help maintain coverage.
New health insurance Exchanges will make coverage affordable and accessible for individuals and small businesses. Premium tax credits and cost-sharing assistance will help those who need assistance.
Insurance companies will be barred from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions, health status, and gender.
A substantial investment in Community Health Centers will provide funding to expand access to health care in communities where it is needed most.
The Role of Public Programs[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expands eligibility for Medicaid to include all non-elderly Americans with income below 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), with substantial assistance to States for the cost of covering these individuals.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act maintains current funding levels for the Children?s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for an additional two years, through fiscal year 2015.
Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Health Care
Congress is committed to protecting and strengthening the Medicare program for America?s seniors. Medicare is a sacred trust with seniors and people with disabilities, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will ensure that trust is preserved. The cost of inaction is unacceptable for seniors and the Medicare program that serves them; without action, the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund is expected to go broke in just over seven years. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will make Medicare a stronger, more sustainable program.
Medicare currently reimburses health care providers on the basis of the volume of care they provide rather than the value of care. For each test, scan or procedure conducted, Medicare provides a separate payment, rewarding those who do more, regardless of whether the test or
treatment contributes to helping a patient recover. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes a number of proposals to move away from the ?a la carte? Medicare fee‐for‐service system toward paying for quality and value and reducing costs to America?s seniors.
Preventing Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act promotes preventive health care and improves the public health to help Americans live healthy lives and help restrain the growth of health care costs over time. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will eliminate co-pays and deductibles for recommended preventive care, including preventive care for women, provide individuals with the information they need to make healthy decisions, improve education on disease prevention and public health, and invest in a national prevention and public health strategy.
Health Care Workforce[/b]
Currently, 65 million Americans live in communities where they cannot easily access a primary care provider, and an additional 16,500 practitioners are required to meet their needs. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will address shortages in primary care and other areas of practice by making necessary investments in our nation?s health care workforce. Specifically, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will invest in the National Health Service Corps, scholarship and loan repayment programs to expand the health care workforce. The bill also includes incentives for primary care practitioners and for providers to serve underserved areas.
Transparency and Program Integrity[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will provide consumers with information about physician ownership of hospitals and medical equipment as well as nursing home ownership and other characteristics. The bill also includes provisions that will crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP and private insurance. Finally, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will establish a private, non-profit entity to identify priorities for and provide for the conduct of comparative outcomes research.
Improving Access to Innovative Medical Therapies[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will establish a regulatory pathway for FDA approval of biosimilar versions of previously licensed biological products. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will also expand the scope of the existing 340B drug discount program, so that patients at children?s hospitals, cancer hospitals, rural hospitals and in other underserved communities have access to medicines at lower cost.
Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS)[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will make long-term supports and services more affordable for millions of Americans by providing a lifetime cash benefit that will help people with severe disabilities remain in their homes and communities. CLASS is a voluntary, self-funded, insurance program provided through the workplace. For those whose employers participate, affordable premiums will be paid through payroll deductions. Participation by workers is entirely voluntary. The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the program, which has been revised from earlier versions, is actuarially sound.
Revenue Provisions[/b]
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is fully paid for and reduces the deficit in the next ten years and beyond. The revenue provisions in the bill focus on paying for reform within the health care system. This is accomplished by tightening current health tax incentives, collecting industry fees, and slightly increasing the Medicare Hospital Insurance tax for individuals who earn more than $200,000 and couples who earn more than $250,000. This increase will not only help fund health care reform, but, when combined with other provisions in the bill, will also extend the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by nine years to 2026. The bill also includes a fee on insurance companies when they sell high cost health insurance plans, designed to generate smarter, more cost-effective health coverage choices. Changes to health care tax incentives include capping FSA contributions, conforming definitions of deductible medical expenses and changing penalti es for HSA spending that is not devoted to health care. The industry fees reflect responsible contributions from industries who have long profited from health care and who will benefit from the expanded coverage of millions of additional Americans under health care reform. The bill also assesses a small excise tax on indoor tanning services. Together, these revenue provisions represent a balanced, responsible package of proposals that bend the health care cost curve by putting downward pressure on health spending.
Because health care is a political minefield and they're hoping the left blows themselves up with it.
Seriously, let's just go over this history again:
Invading two countries and putting America into a deep, long-lasting series of foreign conflicts with no clear sense of what the longterm outcome will be? No big deal.
Forcing insurance companies to insure those with pre-existing conditions or those otherwise unable to afford their own insurance? DEATH OF AMERICA.
What's about to happen in regards to health care is a big deal in terms of its short-term political implications and long-term social consequences. It's going to impact people's wallets one way or another (but not until 2013; slick move!) But if people are having trouble understanding why this was supposed to be Obama's Waterloo or some other bloated metaphor, it has very little to do with what's actually at stake IMO. What you have is a very visible issue but more importantly, it's visible and politically exploitable.
I mean, the single highest expenditure is not health care or education but defense. The amount of money we spend on the military is unfathomable. But you almost never hear about this being an issue to anyone besides the far left. Military spending is not that politically exploitable unless you're proposing to slash it, in which case, you open up the vulnerability of being accused of being "soft on national security."
Health care is incredibly exploitable regardless of what the stakes are. That's why in a nation that already runs socialized health care in the form of Medicaid, you have f*cking idiots ON MEDICAID, protesting about "the government running health care."
BTW: all this Tea Party, anti-health care reform shit is going to look softbatch compared to the shitstorm that's going to rain down once Congress starts tackling immigration reform.
I have no mental disability. As a matter of fact I work my ass off and pay over $3,000 a month for my mortgage, my sons daycare and health coverage do you see me asking for help. No.
BOOTSTRAPS!