Feds to design health insurance for the masses

[MountainMan]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government is taking on a crucial new role in the nation's health care, designing a basic benefits package for millions of privately insured Americans. A framework for the Obama administration was released Friday.

The report by independent experts from the Institute of Medicine lays out guidelines for deciding what to include in the new "essential benefits package," and how to keep it affordable for small businesses and taxpayers, as well as scientifically up to date.

And so the transition to socialism begins

The GOP candidates need to speak out against this today while it is again in the news.

[fettpett]

what now libs? I thought Obamacare was all about making it cheaper but the Government wasn't going be all up in your business and making you take anything specific

[Wei Wu Wei]

hmm, I can see why people would oppose this.

How would you feel about a middle alternative, where the federal government can provide their own insurance policy something like medicare for people who want government health insurance, and let people with private insurance have whatever they are willing to pay for?

After all, I agree with many people here that the government should not require people to purchase private health insurance (the mandate), and I can understand why people want to pick their own plans based on their own needs and budgets.

This way, the government can provide a barebones package for people who don't want to buy private health insurance and people who do want it can purchase whatever they like.

[fettpett]

hmm, I can see why people would oppose this.

How would you feel about a middle alternative, where the federal government can provide their own insurance policy something like medicare for people who want government health insurance, and let people with private insurance have whatever they are willing to pay for?

After all, I agree with many people here that the government should not require people to purchase private health insurance (the mandate), and I can understand why people want to pick their own plans based on their own needs and budgets.

This way, the government can provide a barebones package for people who don't want to buy private health insurance and people who do want it can purchase whatever they like.

you don't fucking get it. IT"S NOT THE GOVERNMENTS JOB TO PROVIDE HEALTH INSURANCE

it's unaffordable

[Novaheart]

And so the transition to socialism begins

The GOP candidates need to speak out against this today while it is again in the news.

I guess that all depends on how you define socialism.

Since medicine crawled out of the cave (let's say since electricty was installed in hospitals) the public has paid taxes which literally hand profitable drugs, facilities, research, and technologies to the medical profession. We also help pay for some doctors to go to college, and completely pay for other doctors to go to college. We act as guinea pigs while doctors are in training. Most of which might be called the roots of socialism in medicine, or the roots of medicine in socialism.

And by and large, we have no problem with that except when the beneficiaries bitch that they aren't making enough.

What we have a problem with is handing over a giant slice of the health care dollar to insurance companies, so that some people have comprehensive medical care while others go to hospital emergency rooms, often after it's too late in the game.

.

[fettpett]

What we have a problem with is handing over a giant slice of the health care dollar to insurance companies, so that some people have comprehensive medical care while others go to hospital emergency rooms, often after it's too late in the game.

.

and who's fault was it with all the mandates that each state has? oh right...the State Governments

[Novaheart]

it's unaffordable

No it isn't. We're paying for universal care, we're just not getting what we are paying for.

I find it amusing when people who say that no one should be turned away from a hospital, or go on about the "charity once did this" routine, then are adamant that we can't afford to provide healthcare for all Americans. Which is it? Are we doing it, or can we not do it? Go down to your local housing project and tell me which one of those children you want to take off medicaid, which little asthmatic you want to snatch the rescue inhaler from. Pick one, now.

Then go to the nursing home and tell me which one of those people should be cut off. Which one of them isn't worth the price of admission? Which one is simply waiting to die and consuming resources in the process? Pick a granny, now.

You have a problem and you need to resolve it rather than continue in the BS cycle. That problem is that you are trying to justify your own greed and selfishness because you think it is consistent with your political philosophy. No, donating to your neighborhood church so that middle class kids can ride horses in the mountains at camp is not charity, it's deductible. Charity isn't putting a roof on some artifact of our cave dwelling ancestors. Charity is putting yourself in the place of the recipient.

[Wei Wu Wei]

you don't fucking get it. IT"S NOT THE GOVERNMENTS JOB TO PROVIDE HEALTH INSURANCE

it's unaffordable

If the government works for the people, then the people decide what the government's job is.

Also it's not unaffordable, it's about priority. The wars on the middle east have cost us over a trillion dollars, with some estimates over 3 trillion.

According to CBO estimates, the Bush tax cuts cost around $1.5 Trillion

We're spending between 1-3 Trillion dollars on wars while cutting $1.5 Trillion dollars in taxes mostly for wealthy people, and then saying we don't have enough money to provide health insurance to regular working class people.

There's also the bank bailouts but you get my point.

When it comes to cutting taxes for wealthy people, bailing out banks or major corporations, or invading a couple of countries and fighting decade-long wars, there is no question whatsoever about the cost, but when it comes to providing much needed help to working class families, it's suddenly a problem.

[Wei Wu Wei]

If an uninsured person grows ill, but it is not an immediate emergency, they will often avoid seeing a doctor because they cannot afford it out of pocket. If they grow more ill because of their lack of care, they end up in an emergency room where they must be treated, and if the illness is worse the treatment is usually more expensive (especially for things like surgeries).

If they have no money, they still aren't going to pay the bill, so who does? Everyone else.

It makes far more fiscal sense to pay less money to provide these people with affordable insurance so they can get proper treatment so everyone else doesn't have to pay for high-cost emergency care.

[Novaheart]

and who's fault was it with all the mandates that each state has? oh right...the State Governments

This isn't a game or a pissing contest between you and I.

When I was transferred out of the special care unit in my recent hospital stay, my new room mate was a man who had come to the hospital because he had not urinated in three days. He had to have an emergency catheterization, and was then dialyzed. He was now a kidney patient. But he was not going to be discharged from the hospital anytime soon because he had no health insurance and the dialysis centers don't take people without health insurance. So the social worker was trying to expedite his application to medicare and medicaid so he could be discharged. The infuriating thing about this is that this man already knew he was diabetic. Had he had proper medical care, his doctor would have picked up on his failing kidneys in time for him to prepare for dialysis without undergoing dangerous catheterization and an extend hospital stay. This man had a prosthetic lower left leg, and yet he worked as a lawn care laborer. So he didn't qualify for anything until he was on what might have been his death bed. You can't convince me that this is the right way to do this.