Healthcare battle 'isn't about me': Obama

bob_2 · 07-20-09 9:58 pm

Healthcare battle 'isn't about me': Obama If it is not why not attack the heart of the problem, tort reform, that adds such cost to the system? Why, because the trial lawyers got him elected. Sorry Mr. Obama, healthcare needs to be solved but not by bankrupting the USA. "Health Care Reform Begins With Tort Reform" <a href="http://www.politickernj.com/kateforcongress/19915/health-care-reform-begins-tort-reform" target=_top>http://www.politickernj.com/kateforcongress/19915/ health-care-reform-begins-tort-reform</a>

bob_2 · 07-20-09 10:16 pm

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:Given a choice between health care reform and a tax hike or no health care reform and no tax hike, 47% would prefer to avoid the tax hike and do without reform. Forty-one percent (41%) take the opposite view. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/healthcare/july_2009/cost_not_universal_coverage_is_top_health_care_concern_for_voters" target=_top>http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/bus iness/healthcare/july_2009/cost_not_universal_cove rage_is_top_health_care_concern_for_voters</a> If it's cost that citizens are concerned with, why doesn't Obama take on the trial lawyers?? (See above post)

elaine · 07-21-09 2:42 pm

So what? No one wants taxes raised; but everyone wants benefits, but without cost? If you or your family dislike paying for things, either you earn more, or spend less. There are only two ways. Presently, the insurance companies are the ones who have benefited so long from healthcare that they are fearful of losing that big income. Are you aware that Medicare Advantage, the insurer that Medicare patients may choose to cover their medical expenses, costs more than 10% for administrative costs? Why in ell would I pay that much more for getting the same benefits? Only those who are gullible will do so, and the same applies to the insurance companies today: they see their profit margins being greatly reduced if single payer, or Medicare-like operation is allowed. All the "pre-existing" conditions can, and are regularly eliminated from the insured, and often after presented a bill, the insured patient find he is denied payment--especially if it's deemed too costly. I'm all for sngle payer, and I bet everyone in this county whose been on Medicare, feels the same: make similar plan available to everyone. BTW,we Medicare patients PAY monthly for our coverage; and I also pay an additional amount for AARP Medigap insurance. What has been paid on the Iraq-Afghan war would easily cover health insurance for the entire nation! And that didn't take weeks of Congressional wrestling. Why is the U.S. more willing and ready to go to war than to care for its own citizens within its borders?

bob_2 · 07-21-09 6:36 pm

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!>quote:It is truly frightening that the President of the United States is pressuring Congress in an all-out media blitz to pass legislation that he flatly admits he has not read and is not familiar with. President Obama owes it to the American people to stop making promises about what his health plan will or will not do until he has read it, and can properly defend it in public, to his own supporters. <!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <a href="http://www.heritage.org/2009/07/21/morning-bell-obama-admits-hes-not-familiar-with-house-bill/" target=_top>http://www.heritage.org/2009/07/21/morning-bell-ob ama-admits-hes-not-familiar-with-house-bill/</a> This is about Obama apparently, all about Obama.

elaine · 07-22-09 1:25 pm

It's all about the American people: those who have lost both their jobs and insurance; those who cannot afford health insurance; and Congress who gets such excellent health benefits they have no comprehension of what the normal family confronts. Excerpted from NYTimes, 22 July: "Congress' health plan pays for routine expenses like office visits and vaccinations, for example, which is like auto insurance covering oil changes or new windshield wipers. As a result, the premiums are steep--upwards of $13,000 a year for a family (69% of which is paid by the government). "But the best of both sides' impulses could be combined into a new basic health plan for Congress, and here's how: First, make sure all members have primary and preventive care. This means regular checkups and health screenings, timely attention for urgen medical problems and the kind of wellness coaching that can help people quit smoking lose weight and reduced stress. "One approach would be to require senators and representativdes, most of whom earn $174k a year, to maintain tax-sheltered health savings accounts, which they would use to finance their praimry and preventive care. "To make such an approach work for all Americans, we'd need to supplement the accounts of people who couldn't afford to save the full amount, and of less healthy people, whose costs are higher. "We could then pair one of these plans with high-deductible insurance coverage for catastrophic care, but lilmit total annual out-of-pocket payments to, say, 15% of family income. For a member of Congress whose family had no other income, that limit would be $26k. If this kind of plan were extended to other Americans, a family earning $25k a year would have a limit of $3,750. "This plan would cut the cost of covering each politician by perhaps one-third." (after all, it's taxpayer funded) As it now stands, Congress is effectively insulated from the problem ordinary people face. They should "feel the pain" and legislate accordingly.

elaine · 07-22-09 1:34 pm

Health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another. In the United States, most health care is privately financed, and so most rationing is by price: you get what you, or your employer, can afford to insure you for. But our current system of employer-financed health insurance exists only because the federal government encouraged it by making the premiums tax deductible. That is, in effect, a more than $200 billion government subsidy for health care. In the public sector, primarily Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits, high patient copayment requirements, low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients and limits on payments to hospitals. Pharmaceutical manufacturers often charge much more for drugs in the United States than they charge for the same drugs in Britain, where they know that a higher price would put the drug outside the cost-effectiveness limits set by NICE. American patients, even if they are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, often cannot afford the copayments for drugs. That’s rationing too, by ability to pay. President Obama has spoken about his mother, who died from ovarian cancer in 1995. The president said that in the last weeks of her life, his mother “was spending too much time worrying about whether her health insurance would cover her bills” — an experience, the president went on to say, that his mother shared with millions of other Americans. It is also an experience more common in the United States than in other developed countries. A recent Commonwealth Fund study led by Cathy Schoen and Robin Osborn surveyed adults with chronic illness in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Far more Americans reported forgoing health care because of cost. More than half (54 percent) reported not filling a prescription, not visiting a doctor when sick or not getting recommended care. In comparison, in the United Kingdom the figure was 13 percent, and in the Netherlands, only 7 percent. Even among Americans with insurance, 43 percent reported that cost was a problem that had limited the treatment they received. According to a 2007 study led by David Himmelstein, more than 60 percent of all bankruptcies are related to illness, with many of these specifically caused by medical bills, even among those who have health insurance. In Canada the incidence of bankruptcy related to illness is much lower. Twenty years ago, the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, examined a proposal for installing seat belts in all school buses. It estimated that doing so would save, on average, one life per year, at a cost of $40 million. After that, support for the proposal faded away. So why is it that those who accept that we put a price on life when it comes to consumer safety refuse to accept it when it comes to health care? The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years. That suggests that saving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds last year the Gallup organization did ask Canadians and Brits, and people in many different countries, if they have confidence in “health care or medical systems” in their country. In Canada, 73 percent answered this question affirmatively. Coincidentally, an identical percentage of Britons gave the same answer. In the United States, despite spending much more, per person, on health care, the figure was only 56 percent

elaine · 07-22-09 1:53 pm

Every other nation with an advanced economy long ago secured universal health care for its citizens -- an achievement that the United States alone finds beyond the capacities of mortal man. It wasn't ever thus. Time was when Democratic Congresses enacted Social Security and Medicare over the opposition of powerful interests and Republican ideologues. In fact, our government used to actually pave roads, build bridges and allow for secure retirements by levying taxes on those who could afford to pay them. Congressional incoherence grows even worse on other issues. How to explain, for instance, the widespread congressional support for a bill that would require General Motors and Chrysler to keep all their dealerships open? This legislation is co-sponsored by numerous Republican conservatives who actually opposed the administration's efforts to keep General Motors and Chrysler in business. "Distribution, sí; production, no!" is by any standard a loony battle cry.

bob_2 · 07-23-09 8:05 pm

Democrats ban this mailing by Republicans: <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/pdfs/healthchart072309.pdf" target=_top>http://www.rollcall.com/pdfs/healthchart072309.pdf</a> Accurate or not???

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#1 07-20-09 9:58 pm