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House Approves GOP Austerity measures

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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby Livewire713 » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 14:13:57

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'O')K, I'm having a little cognitive dissonance about this issue.

The Repuglicans are proposing seniors be required to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be bad.

The Dimocrats passed a law which requires everyone else to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be good.

I'm having a little trouble seeing the difference here.


Have you ever had to deal with a Insurance company that refuses to cover certain treatments or pay bills that they should have covered? Ive spent hrs on the phone and online trying to have these things done, this was United Health Care. Going back and forth between the doctor and the insurance company to resolve issues that the insurance company should have paid for but they didn't. I really had to stay on top of every charge and I know that someone like my elderly mother would be unable to keep track of these expenses that the insurance company should be paying.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby careinke » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 15:28:37

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Livewire713', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'O')K, I'm having a little cognitive dissonance about this issue.

The Repuglicans are proposing seniors be required to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be bad.

The Dimocrats passed a law which requires everyone else to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be good.

I'm having a little trouble seeing the difference here.


Have you ever had to deal with a Insurance company that refuses to cover certain treatments or pay bills that they should have covered? Ive spent hrs on the phone and online trying to have these things done, this was United Health Care. Going back and forth between the doctor and the insurance company to resolve issues that the insurance company should have paid for but they didn't. I really had to stay on top of every charge and I know that someone like my elderly mother would be unable to keep track of these expenses that the insurance company should be paying.


No, I've pretty much had socialized medicine (military, retired) for my entire life. I'm pretty happy with it. Although once, champus refused to pay for my sons cleft pallet operation. After numerous arguments, we finally figured out the code the hospital put in was to set a broken arm and not for the a cleft pallet surgery. Champus thought $20,000 was a little excessive for an arm set.

I would have no problem with national socialized medicine for basic care. However, it would need to be limited. For instance routine face lifts, penis a breast enlargements should probably not be covered. Plus, we should eliminate the insurance companies from the equation. Everyone should get the same level of care. If you want more, then you pay for it out of your own pocket.

The government could pay for doctors education in exchange for say a six year commitment with pay equivalent to a military officer. At the end of five years, the doctor could go into private practice or remain in the new "Medical Corp." Doctors could be assigned to any place required, just like the military.

I would think the tax burden for this would be less than the cost of health insurance (no middle man). You would also have to eliminate the option of suing "Medical Corp" doctors. You would always have the option NOT to use the Medical Corp services, but their budget would come from the general fund. We could fund it by cutting the military in half. I believe we could continue to defend ourselves with by only spending half as much money on defense as the rest of the world combined.

Of course it will never happen. The Dims have been bought off by the insurance companies and Lawyers, and the Repugs have been bought by the pharmaceutical companies.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby careinke » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 15:30:39

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'O')K, I'm having a little cognitive dissonance about this issue.

The Repuglicans are proposing seniors be required to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be bad.


First of all, the voucher coverage will never be enough. The reason why Medicare works is because what private insurance company would be insane enough to insure old folks, especially with preexisting conditions? Secondly, a fixed voucher system is not about to keep up with rising costs.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'T')he Dimocrats passed a law which requires everyone else to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be good.

I'm having a little trouble seeing the difference here.


That is also with faults, but an insurance for all program is an adjunct to the already existing Medicare program, it doesn't replace it.


Then why not have just one health care system for everyone?
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby careinke » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 15:35:23

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'O')K, I'm having a little cognitive dissonance about this issue.

The Repuglicans are proposing seniors be required to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be bad.

The Dimocrats passed a law which requires everyone else to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be good.

I'm having a little trouble seeing the difference here.

It's because you're suffering from what's sometimes called "willful stupidity."


And you are suffering from clinging to paradigm that no longer works. So instead, you throw out insults to make you feel smarter. Little man....
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby Lore » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 15:37:26

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'T')hen why not have just one health care system for everyone?


The corporate oligarchy would never allow it.
The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
... Theodore Roosevelt
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby careinke » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 15:47:00

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'T')hen why not have just one health care system for everyone?


The corporate oligarchy would never allow it.


Unfortunately, I have to agree with you.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby nobodypanic » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 15:48:15

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'T')hen why not have just one health care system for everyone?


The corporate oligarchy would never allow it.

and yet we both know that's what should take place. it would serve as part of the solution of controlling healthcare costs. the other part of the equation is to find a way to place the brakes on the healthcare sector itself; it's intolerable that it should outpace the rate of general inflation by several factors.

i think the idea put forward here of a 'medical corps' is an outstanding idea. service to the republic and society can come in far more ways than joining DoD. personally i would take it several steps further and eliminate profiteering from the sick - no more for profit health/medical organizations, complete nationalization, but i am a pinko so....
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby americandream » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 17:42:58

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'Y')ou wouldn't know respect and tolerance were they to rear themselves directly in your headlights.


So we go from group tactical discussions, directly to personal insults.
Not surprising.


Don't dish it out if you can take it!

Typical Aussie sucking Rethug whingeing.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby americandream » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 17:50:02

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'M')ath > Politics.


I wish more people would acknowledge this truth. When expenditures are rising faster than growth; they are NEVER sustainable. You either fix them, or they fix you.

We're honestly about 20 yrs to late to fix them I think. To far down the pipe for anything we do to make a difference.

I'm not looking forward to being fixed; I'm pretty sure my family won't starve to death, but comfortable retirement? Not a chance in hxxx.


Hahahaha. Coming from a crowd who hand out socialised monies and tax breaks willy nilly to fat cats and yet deny that poor workingman his rightful benefits from the taxes he pays, wilfully misleading the poor sods through foreign owned dirt rags, is a bit rich. Let me remind you of the sorts of peoples you give tax relief to:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... t-20110411

America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes out as jet fighters, DEA agents, wheat subsidies and Medicare, plus pensions and bennies for that great untamed socialist menace called a unionized public-sector workforce that Republicans are always complaining about. According to popular legend, we're broke and in so much debt that 40 years from now our granddaughters will still be hooking on weekends to pay the medical bills of this year's retirees from the IRS, the SEC and the Department of Energy.

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size — a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.................

But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.

Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby americandream » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 17:54:56

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'T')itle should be "House votes to eliminate Medicare". But the Democrats in the Senate will never let it pass there. Even had it got past the Senate the President would veto it.

I thought Obama was selling us out. But now I see the truth. He knew they couldn't prevail, so he gave them enough rope to hang themselves.

Now every American knows what's going on and who is on who's side.

The Repugnants have shown their true colors and the next election will toss them out for good.


+1.

Whilst I am no lover of capitalists, I have to say the Rethugs take it for sheer cheek when it comes to complaining of lack of money whilst blissfully handing over working America's contributions of it's mates in Corruptica.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby Pretorian » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 18:06:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'O')K, I'm having a little cognitive dissonance about this issue.

The Repuglicans are proposing seniors be required to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be bad.

The Dimocrats passed a law which requires everyone else to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be good.

I'm having a little trouble seeing the difference here.

It's because you're suffering from what's sometimes called "willful stupidity."



Russians got a good proverb for you Pres, " One can piss in your eyes and you'll keep saying its a God-sent Dew". When someone rubs a decently-sized turd all over your face, it's still a turd, no matter what you want to call it.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby americandream » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 18:09:39

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'O')K, I'm having a little cognitive dissonance about this issue.

The Repuglicans are proposing seniors be required to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be bad.

The Dimocrats passed a law which requires everyone else to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be good.

I'm having a little trouble seeing the difference here.

It's because you're suffering from what's sometimes called "willful stupidity."



Russians got a good proverb for you Pres, " One can piss in your eyes and you'll keep saying its a God-sent Dew". When someone rubs a decently-sized turd all over your face, it's still a turd, no matter what you want to call it.


There's also another quite apt aphorism for this rambling:

Shit for brains.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby Sixstrings » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 22:14:36

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'O')K, I'm having a little cognitive dissonance about this issue.

The Repuglicans are proposing seniors be required to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be bad.

The Dimocrats passed a law which requires everyone else to buy health insurance to cover their medical costs which they will help subsidize. This is supposed to be good.


Well no, Obamacare isn't good. We should have single payer. Either that or let everyone buy into Medicare for a low, affordable premium.

The Medicare voucher thing is just the Republican's version of Obamacare, except they're sticking it to the old and really sick. So Obama greases the health insurer's palms on the one hand, the Republicans grease the other. See how that works? It's called "bi-partisanship."

Bottom line.. there's is NO ARGUMENT YOU CAN MAKE that can convince me it's a good idea to take Grandma's Medicare away from her in exchange for a partial voucher, and then push her out into the "private free market" where she's somehow supposed to pay the donut hole difference with the few spare pennies left from her SS check.

Come on guys, get real here. The truth is this voucher thing, unless it's designed to force people to go without treatment and just wither up and DIE, it can't save any money. Because all you're doing is dragging private insurers in for no good reason, and they're going to add profit-taking, CEO bonuses, lobbying fees, advertising budgets, and stockholder dividends into Medicare. How does that save any money?
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby Sixstrings » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 22:24:06

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Livewire713', 'I') really had to stay on top of every charge and I know that someone like my elderly mother would be unable to keep track of these expenses that the insurance company should be paying.


To be fair, the Ryan plan says it'll leave your mother alone but give YOU the shaft when you're old and feeble. Oh, the Republican plan is also raising the age for Medicare by a few years.. which they will continue to raise down the line as you get closer to it. You'll probably never get Medicare at all, they'll just keep raising the age. Let it "wither on the vine" like New Gingrich said.

While they say this won't affect today's elderly, you can't trust them. If seniors fall for this, if they let Republicans get their corrupt little fingers in Medicare then we all know what will happen -- give it five years, we'll be in another "deficit crisis" and they'll start ratcheting up that voucher age.

Frickin' vouchers, it's their answer to everything.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 23:40:17

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Livewire713', 'I') really had to stay on top of every charge and I know that someone like my elderly mother would be unable to keep track of these expenses that the insurance company should be paying.


To be fair, the Ryan plan says it'll leave your mother alone but give YOU the shaft when you're old and feeble.

Also it'll be giving me the shaft when my mom is olf and feeble. Impoverishing the children is not really going to benefit the parents.

And of course the obvious question is that if this system has any merit, why not implemenet it tommorrow?

The followup question is what company will sell health insurance to someone 80 years old with a couple of heart stents and diabetes?

And where would the savings be coming from in terms of efficiency.

What it comes down to is the GOP and the Tea Party is being run by disgusting sociopaths and sadists.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby dinopello » Sun 17 Apr 2011, 00:01:57

I forget who it was (maybe Alan Simpson) but I heard someone describe the problem correctly - that is that the current medicare system (affordable healthcare that covers to end of life) was too successful. It enabled too many people to live much longer - this cannot be sustained. The longer you live, the more health issue you have that can be treated and the more cost. It's a dilema that is hard to get out of. The right hand list is a bitch.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby careinke » Sun 17 Apr 2011, 00:58:12

Poor preston he feels so inadequate he can not even make a single post without badmouthing someone. Hopefully it is therapeutic for him and gives some measure of relief. So easy to criticize, so hard to come up with any kind of original solution. Hopefully when he grows up he will figure out it is not a zero sum game.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby Sixstrings » Sun 17 Apr 2011, 01:05:04

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'A')nd of course the obvious question is that if this system has any merit, why not implemenet it tommorrow?


It's politics of shameless self-interest.. "support my plan, it won't screw you over just your children and grandchildren." Will be interesting to see how the elderly react to this. In years past they've been a strong voting bloc, but I'm thinking the whole country is sleep-walking now.. first the unions go out with barely a whimper, now the oldsters are up next for the GOP steamroller.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he followup question is what company will sell health insurance to someone 80 years old with a couple of heart stents and diabetes?


The caveat is that no health insurer will provide *genuine* healthcare to 80 year olds with a couple heart stents and diabetes. It'll be called "insurance" but won't be worth the voucher it's printed on. If Medicare must be cut then just do it straight up, it's a double whammy to also give it away to private insurers -- now money that used to go to treatment will be diverted to CEO bonuses and shareholder dividends.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd where would the savings be coming from in terms of efficiency.


There will be no savings. They'll cut Medicare outright plus give it away to private insurers so that's just an additional cut. Bottom line, Medicare has lower overhead and is more cost efficient than any private insurer out there.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat it comes down to is the GOP and the Tea Party is being run by disgusting sociopaths and sadists.


The real irony is that so many old folks are Republican. Don't they realize where this is headed, they're going to lose their Medicare. 8O
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby astronomer » Sun 17 Apr 2011, 01:30:50

I love it when Obama makes claims like "Paul Ryan's plan will end Medicare as we know it"
Obama is smart enough to know that ending Medicare "as we know it" has to be done because it's going bankrupt. He's also smart enough to know that pretending Medicare is fine will help to get him re-elected. He'll worry about our country going bankrupt after Nov 2012. After all, not being a two term president is down right embarressing and that matters more than anything.
Last edited by astronomer on Sun 17 Apr 2011, 01:32:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: House Approves GOP Austerity measures

Unread postby mos6507 » Sun 17 Apr 2011, 01:31:11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', 'P')oor preston he feels so inadequate he can not even make a single post without badmouthing someone. Hopefully it is therapeutic for him and gives some measure of relief. So easy to criticize, so hard to come up with any kind of original solution. Hopefully when he grows up he will figure out it is not a zero sum game.


The same critique could be made of just about all the active posters on this board.
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