A Great Article on National Healthcare

[RubySlippers]

If you look at the one group that is impossible to expect to pay for health care if its demanded its the poor, many of whome work. In my area the majority of homeless work they sell newspapers in Sunday, do day labor or in one case takes money to clean up dog shit from properties and collects cans. I have to respect those people and think if one is trying offering health care might keep costs down.

And guess what if I would get really sick and need major care your still going to pay for it just after lower cost care would have been cheaper.

As for small business one could exclude them for a period of time say until they turn a profit as determined by the IRS at a fair level. The law could define that.

[Vekseid]

...I don't think you are disagreeing with Trieste as much as you think you are >_>

[RubySlippers]

Update on PBS the News Hour it looks like everyone seems to agree on a Medicaid expansion and the unisured families earning over $88,000 a year should be paying for their own coverage. So what we have to look at is the rest of the uninsured citizens.

All I know this passes I'm going to be sure never to earn more than the poverty limit minus $1.  Working sucks anyway so working part-time would be good and let me relax I should be able to get along on 20 hours a week. No really with that health care worry gone I can make enough to cover room & board and cover my few other needs if I get that.

I'm a big fan of the Idle Foundation and the Leisure Ethic, the less I have to work the better.

[Trieste]

So that others have to work harder to support you? That's pretty ridiculous.

[Serephino]

Interesting....  In this Medicaid expansion are they making doctors take it?  Cuz um yeah... you know what I had to go through to find a dentist that took it to do really crappy work that still hurts?

[RubySlippers]

I would, just say any provider taking Medicare has to take Medicaid.

And come on why should I be forced to work more because its expected, no one is making others work 40 hours at high paying jobs I just have simpler values, assuming Medicaid passes that would take the one reason I have to work so hard.  Some nice reading on the subject: http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/leisure/easy.html But I prefer to be productive not busy I feel if I work 20 hours that leaves more time to do other things like read or volunteer or other meaningful things I want to do.

[Trieste]

[There was originally a very long post here, but I have come to the conclusion that it's just not worth the aggravation, so I deleted what I had typed.]

Ruby, I hope you come to be a woman of great means one day, and I hope you have someone with precisely the same attitude as that living under your roof. If you enjoy it, fine with me.

[Vekseid]

Interesting....  In this Medicaid expansion are they making doctors take it?  Cuz um yeah... you know what I had to go through to find a dentist that took it to do really crappy work that still hurts?

A part of the expansion does involve increased payout rates, I believe.

All I know this passes I'm going to be sure never to earn more than the poverty limit minus $1.  Working sucks anyway so working part-time would be good and let me relax I should be able to get along on 20 hours a week. No really with that health care worry gone I can make enough to cover room & board and cover my few other needs if I get that.

I'm a big fan of the Idle Foundation and the Leisure Ethic, the less I have to work the better.

You do know that if this passes, it will be a holding measure before refinement, right?

Everyone knows that the current system hemorrhages an insane amount of money each year. Since it is essentially a make work industry - that is, it actively saps productivity - allowing health insurers to remain in business actually hurts America.

[Lilias]

I follow this blog very closely; this is the latest, brand spanking new, post. Being an octogenarian in full possession of her faculties lends the author an angle we don't often see.

[Trieste]

Honestly,  if I could , I would put the entire Republic party over my knee and give them a good spanking.

Oh my god, the mental image of one of the old scooter-grannies in the banner doing this to Rush Limbaugh just slays me! *dies laughing*

[Vekseid]

That's no good, he'd probably get turned on.

[Trieste]

Noooooo I hate you...

[HairyHeretic]

You could have Dick shoot him in the face at the same time. That'd cool him down a bit.

[Trieste]

... which kind of puts a new spin on 'moneyshot'.

[Oniya]

You could have Dick shoot him in the face at the same time. That'd cool him down a bit.

*takes this the wrong way and dashes for the brain-bleach* 

[Trieste]

See? Oniya was right there with me.

[HairyHeretic]

Either would probably work.

[Hunter]

I only have this to say.

We don't need a healthcare reform.  We need an INSURANCE reform.

[MercyfulFate]

The American healthcare system is a joke, seriously.

I recently lost my job and now have to go without healthcare for weeks while waiting for a COBRA continuation. Mind you I have some prescriptions I need, and physical therapy I also need to go to.

I've had enough surgeries and issues over the years that I've seen the ugly side of our healthcare system, and it is ugly. Anyone who wants it to stay the same either:

Is Rich

or

Is perfectly healthy

[OldSchoolGamer]

[There was originally a very long post here, but I have come to the conclusion that it's just not worth the aggravation, so I deleted what I had typed.]

Ruby, I hope you come to be a woman of great means one day, and I hope you have someone with precisely the same attitude as that living under your roof. If you enjoy it, fine with me.

Let's be fair here...if such a high percentage of the fruits of our labors didn't go to idle government bureaucrats and the corporations and wealthy elite, we probably could go to a 30-hour workweek and enjoy just as high a standard of living as we do today.

I'd be all in favor of that.  Is some CEO bailing out of a failing corporation with a $50 million "golden parachute" to go play golf for the rest of his life any less a slacker than someone practicing voluntary underemployment?

[RubySlippers]

SLACKER!?!?!?  >:(

I do volunteer work both at Hospice of Florida and at my local library in the Children's Programs, educate myself and still work I just don't find slaving away just for money as worth it. And my needs are simple a bed, internet and for me high speed dial-up is perfect, food, clothing (I shop at Goodwill and theHospice Thrift Stores a great deal), transportation (half price bus passes) and my library card. And a small amount of pocket money. The one thorn in my side is fraking health care even working alot of hours I couldn't get covered so why work that much. If I earn under a certain amount and have little savings the hospitals can't bill me and most providers that give me care give me cut rates so I'm better off uninsured.

What makes me an evil one Leisure Theory makes slacking a part of evolution that we simply due to our modern advantages don't HAVE to work so much if we don't want to. Some people want more things or a higher lifestyle so that is fine, its not a big deal for me if I have my basic needs covered.

On the health care bill the doctors, insurance companies, drug companies, states, hospitals all think they are getting SHAFTED and hate the bill that came out of the Finance Committee. So I am thinking this is a good bill since everyone feels fraked, that is usually a good sign.

[September]

Obama advisor Robert Reich explains what an honest liberal Presidential candidate would say about health care reform:

I'll actually give you a speech made up entirely, almost on the spur of the moment, of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is and a candidate will never say, but what a candidate should say if we were in the kind of democracy where citizens were honored in terms of their practice of citizenship and they were educated in terms of what the issues were and they could separate myth from reality in terms of what candidates would tell them:

"Thank you so much for coming this afternoon. I'm so glad to see you and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. And that's true and what I'm going to do is that I am going try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people but that means you,  particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people...you're going to have to pay more.

"Thank you. And by the way, we're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die."

"Also  I'm going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid---we already have a lot of bargaining leverage---to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents. Thank you."

Robert Reich: What An Honest President Would Say About Health Reform

[MercyfulFate]

I will say this about healthcare reform, if we come out of this with no public option and mandatory insurance, I might snap.

I've been through the medical ringer for years for problems, add to that I live in a state with mandatory insurance and it's aggravating to say the least. Mandatory insurance simply gives the insurance companies more money and customers, while not fixing the underlying problems. People without insurance may not have it due to cost, and forcing them to get something that could be $200 a month or thereabouts is cruel.

[Oniya]

Today in the mail, I got a flyer suggesting I might be able to get insurance for $55 a month. 

That's really nice, but I've got a family, which would push it up to around $168 a month - and as it is, we're starting to sell things around the house to make grocery money.

[Vekseid]

I will say this about healthcare reform, if we come out of this with no public option and mandatory insurance, I might snap.

I've been through the medical ringer for years for problems, add to that I live in a state with mandatory insurance and it's aggravating to say the least. Mandatory insurance simply gives the insurance companies more money and customers, while not fixing the underlying problems. People without insurance may not have it due to cost, and forcing them to get something that could be $200 a month or thereabouts is cruel.

Fortunately the mandatory insurance as proposed in the Baucus bill is a joke. Ideally, Reid will remove it entirely and AHIP can go fuck themselves sideways with a tetanus-infested rusty rake.

And deny themselves coverage over the resulting surgery and infection.