Now, hold on there Xceler8. If you are going to try to make a case, at least use credible sources.

Your first link quotes Americans United for Change. They were founded in 2005 for the express intent of countering Bush's desire to privatize Social Security. It is a pretty far liberal fringe group ( the former president is now communications director for the Democratic National Committee).

Your second link is to an article quoting an attorney in a case that has not been decided. He shouldn't be fighting his case in the newspapers, and he is currently just looking for the deep pockets.

I didn't read any more.

MrJoshua wrote: 85% of the uninsured are American Citizens. So the new plan doesn't account for non citizens so knock 15% off of your uninsured numbers. Taking a 6 month snapshot is the way you get the absolute highest uninsured numbers you can. Many people go without insurance between jobs, or after graduating college and before employment, etc... A 1 year without insurance, or 2 year without measurement is more representative of the real numbers. Another thing your stat doesn't take into account is those who qualify for medicaid but are not currently registered.

..says the PAC for Pulling Numbers Out Your Butt. Any other numbers from you besides the one you make up on the spot? Citations would help us validate whatever viewpoint you want to express.

MrJoshua wrote: My "Feelings" are that the insurance industry is as big or bigger a problem than the number of uninsured. So you dont like my numbers, so what. Tell me how taxing us to pay for insurance for the 20-40% of the population who doesn't have it is going to reduce costs. You are attaching the IRS to a bloated health insurance industry to pay for exaggerated hospital costs and disguising it as a feel good program we cant afford to be without. Bah!

Your feelings might be right. I've said consistently that I think healthcare shouldn't be a for-profit industry. It's counter productive to the stated claim of helping people.

I'm not saying that creating healthcare for those who need it isn't going to lower costs. Quite the contrary. It's going to cost us billions most likely. The benefit is a healthier society. A stronger society. A society that cares for those who contribute to it but cannot pay exorbitant health costs to care for their families.

Find the value in there if you can. It won't benefit you directly but it will help out your grandmother, your future family, or your kids. It might already help your grandparents if they're on Medicare.

Come to think of it! Why are we supporting Medicare? Shouldn't we get rid of that if we follow your rationale to it's logical conclusion? Why should I have to pay for old people who can't afford their own medical bills!?

That's a joke son. Laugh when I say that. (said in my best Foghorn Leghorn)

SVreX wrote: Now, hold on there Xceler8. If you are going to try to make a case, at least use credible sources. (Edit) I didn't read any more.

I'll summarize:

4 - A girl who died because her insurance company denied her coverage for a liver transplant.

5 - Smaller business owner's business fails. He has had open heart surgery. He was denied coverage because of his "existing condition". Out of work and denied coverage he was in a bit of a pickle. It's ok. I'm sure he was lazy, had cable television, and was probably a democrat. Oops. I was wrong. "For the record, I am a staunch conservative who believes in socialized medicine." The democrat part was a joke.

6 - State rep Mike Simpson's daughter was diagnosed with lung cancer. Insurance denied claims and he sold everything to finance her care. He later declared bankruptcy. She still died.

7 - A judge rules against an insurance company denying long term disability. The ins. company argued that because the plaintiff sought work he must not need benefits. The plaintiff was bankrupt precisely because he couldn't work and sought some sort of job, that he couldn't perform and subsequently had to quit, because he couldn't rely on disability benefits he was due. The judge rules in the plaintiff's favor.

You mentioned before that I was scaremongering. Sure. I was bringing up scary stuff. My links prove that it happens. Every Freakin' Day. I'm not bluffing here.

The collective group of you who say we don't need healthcare reform, of some type, need to get your heads out the sand. We need something even if it isn't some form of socialized, government backed, health care.

I hear a lot "That's WRONG!" or "I don't want THAT!" but I don't hear a lot of "What we should do is this..." What solutions do the collective you have to fix this? I'm only saying we need to try something. What we have now is literally killing people.

Xceler8x wrote: The collective group of you who say we don't need healthcare reform, of some type, need to get your heads out the sand. We need something even if it isn't some form of socialized, government backed, health care.

Find me ONE person who said that the status quo is OK.

Things need to be improved. Replacing one huge, inefficient, overbearing beurocracy with methods that cause price inflation with another huge, inefficient, overbearing beurocracy with methods that cause price inflation is not a solution.

In reply to Xceler8x:

You are confusing denying coverage with denying care.

One is a denial of medical treatment by a doctor (which is pretty rare), and one is a denial of financial compensation by an insurance company (which happens every day). I said care, not coverage.

Your links said insurance coverage was denied. Hey, guess what? It happens in government socialized systems too. Just ask Canadians who are sometimes denied care for particular treatments because they are too old, too weak, or there simply isn't enough money in the system.

Our screwed up over-priced bloated system will not get any better by replacing it with a bigger, more screwed up, more expensive, more bloated system.

I got your reform:

1: All doctors visits are customer pay at $XX.00 each visit. 2: All ambulatory care and emergency services are covered by an insurance program that you pay 10% of your annual taxed income to an insurance company or to a government entity, your choice which company. 3: Extra policies that cover elective surgeries (bariatric, rhinoplasty, etc.) are available. 4: Testing and diagnostic resources are to be price capped. 5: Rebuild the clinic system to help reduce the work load the Ers are seeing.

No one gets priority coverage over another person.

10% of taxable income for health care? Shheeezus.

I thought giving everyone coverage was going to lower costs, not increase it.

Oh and is this going to include the bottom 40% of wage earners that already don't pay income tax?

DILYSI Dave wrote: Find me ONE person who said that the status quo is OK. Things need to be improved. Replacing one huge, inefficient, overbearing beurocracy with methods that cause price inflation with another huge, inefficient, overbearing beurocracy with methods that cause price inflation is not a solution.

EXACTLY. Those of us against are just saying the proposed plan is hardly the answer. But good job of continuing to twist things Xc3l8rated.

Quoted from This right wing article

Is the Large Number of Uninsured in the US a Crisis? The US is the only developed country in which a substantial subpopulation is nominally uninsured. Although this is said to be a crisis because the uninsured lack access to health care, the number of uninsured, and its consequences, are not clear. The most widely used estimates of the number of US uninsured are from the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS). It estimates that 47 million people were uninsured for the entire year in 2005.32 The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), another Census Bureau survey, estimates about half that number. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) also generate lower estimates.33 Many experts believe the CPS estimate is actually an estimate of the number of uninsured at a point-in-time. It is similar to the point-in-time estimates of SIPP (43 million in 2002), MEPS (48 million in 2004) and NHIS (42 million in 2004).34 Page 7 Like unemployment, uninsurance is often transitory: 75% of uninsured spells last one year or less and 91% last two years or less.35 Although the fraction of the population with health insurance rises and falls with the business cycle, since 1990 the CPS estimate has fluctuated between about 83 and 86% insured, despite an unprecedented influx of immigrants with uninsurance rates 2½ times that of the native-born population.36 Guaranteed issue laws, state high risk pools, and retroactive Medicaid eligibility make it increasingly easy to obtain insurance after becoming ill.37

Of the 46 million nominally uninsured, about 12 million are eligible for such public programs as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). 38 They can usually enroll even at the time of treatment, arguably making them de facto insured. About 17 million of the uninsured are living in households with at least $50,000 annual income. More than half of those earn more than $75,000, suggesting that they are uninsured by choice.39 Although 36% of people in families with incomes under 200% of the poverty level are uninsured, 44% have private coverage, and there are reasons to believe that expansion of private coverage is a better avenue to greater access to care than expansion of public programs.40

32 C. DeNavas-Walt, B.D. Proctor and J. Smith, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006,” Current Population Reports no. 60-233 (Washington DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2007).
33 N. Chockley, H. Pirani and K. Kushner, “A Primer on the CPS Estimate of America’s Uninsured,” NIHCM Brief (Washington DC: National Institute for Health Care Management, 2006).
34 Chockley, Pirani and Kushner, “A Primer on the CPS Estimate of America’s Uninsured.”
35 R.J. Mills and S. Bhandari, “Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2002,” Current Population Reports no. P60-223 (Washington DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2003).
36 C.H. Lee and S.M Stern, “Health Insurance Estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau: Background for a New Historical Series,” (Washington DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2007), http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins /usernote/revhlth_paper.pdf (accessed 23 May 2008). “National Health Interview Survey. Early release,”
Page 17
(Hyattsville, MD: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 2007) Figure 1.1 Percentage of persons of all ages without health insurance coverage at the time of interview: United States, 1997-September 2006, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/200703_01.pdf (accessed 23 May 2008); C. DeNavas-Walt, B.D. Proctor and J. Smith, “Income Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2006,” Current Population Reports no. P60-233 (Washington D.C: U.S. Census Bureau), p. 19.
37 L. Wachenheim and H. Leida, The Impact of Guaranteed Issue and Community Rating Reforms on Individual Insurance Markets (Brookline, WI: Milliman, 2007).
38 “The Uninsured in America,” R30-03-014 (Chicago: BlueCross BlueShield Association, 2003).
39 C. DeNavas-Walt, B.D. Proctor and J. Smith, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007,” Current Population Reports no. 60-235 (Washington DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2008); H. Kuttner and M.S. Rutledge, “Higher Income And Uninsured: Common or Rare?” Health Affairs 26, no. 6 (2007): 1745–1752 (published online November 2007; 10.1377/hlthaff.26.6.1745).
40 M.K. Bundorf and M.V. Pauly, “Is Health Insurance Affordable for the Uninsured?” Working Paper no. 9281 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2002); J.C. Goodman et al. Handbook on State Health Care Reform (Dallas: National Center for Policy Analysis, 2007).

Just ask Canadians who are sometimes denied care for particular treatments because they are too old, too weak, or there simply isn't enough money in the system.

When you find them, I'd like to hear about that too. I've never seen that happen.

suprf1y wrote:

Just ask Canadians who are sometimes denied care for particular treatments because they are too old, too weak, or there simply isn't enough money in the system.

When you find them, I'd like to hear about that too. I've never seen that happen.

Ouch...

suprf1y wrote:

Just ask Canadians who are sometimes denied care for particular treatments because they are too old, too weak, or there simply isn't enough money in the system.

When you find them, I'd like to hear about that too. I've never seen that happen.

If you haven't seen it, you likely will: http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1878506&sponsor

Even if you don't live in Vancouver, there are reports from other nationalized healthcare systems that they're going broke as well.

The way to truly fix health care would be to involve insurance less, and have people be more accountable and aware of what the actual costs of care are. Unfortunately, individual accountability is not something that Washington pushes (understandable, they're not very good at it themselves), and the current bills take even more onus off of the patient and put it onto the evil insurance companies.

Combine an increase in personal accountability with tort reform, and you'll see real changes in our medical care delivery system, but it'll be through educating people and involving them in their own care, not giving everything to everyone all of the time, whether they need it or not.

What we should do, if we're going to mandate anything (something i'm fundamentally opposed to), is mandate HSA's, and encourage Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHP's). For those of you who are not familiar with CDHP's, they are medical insurance plans with significant deductibles, usually starting around $750 for an individual and $1,500 for a family. They are tied to lower premiums, because dollar one comes out of your pocket, not the insurance companies pocket.

What this leads to is the patient seeking out a smarter delivery of care. The patient will wait until the morning to see their doctor for their sore throat instead of going to the emergency room for that same sore throat. By doing this, the patient is further establishing a record with their practicioner, as well as seeking out more appropriate care (leave the emergency rooms for the bleeding, dead, and dying).

This also leads to discussions between the doctor and the patient, as the patient is responsible for paying for the first dollars of tests performed. This helps in that you're not having unnecessary tests performed (my wife was x-rayed last summer when she had blood poisoning. We knew that she hadn't fallen down, or done anything to break any bones, but the doc forced an x-ray to insulate himself from any liability issues).

This all works together, and it's a slow process, but it's the only way to get things back under control. Currently most patients have no incentive to care about the unnecessary costs of medical care, because they don't pay for the bulk of their insurance or the bulk of their care, at least not transparently.

For anyone thinking that CDHP's will result in a failure to perform wellness procedures (colonoscopy/checkups, etc), that's what the HSA is for.

The answer to containing medical costs is definitely not enlarging the current system, that's for sure.

People go to the ER for a sore throat? I didn't go to the hospital after I wrecked my sport bike at the track and was knocked out and limping. I showed up to my normal doc the next day and he told me what I already knew, "Yes, you have a concussion, yes you banged up your hip."

Is it just that we've turned into a nation of gigantic whining nancies?

USA Today has published a horror-story that a Canadian woman relates how the US health-care system simply sucks - link posted below.

Ironically, in an apparent effort to be-smirch the entire US health-care system, the article actually exposes a Canadian private insurer as the main culprit. It appears that insurers everywhere (not just the US) need to address some really big issues.

The end-result is that the woman's personal account shows the US system works extremely well and it's the insurance side that needs major "tweaking". It's not the most effective way to convince people that the entire health-care system has to be overhauled.

Here's the article link:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/column-the-truth-about-canadian-health-care.html

There's some entertaining and thought-provoking commentary on the article (plus other current subjects)here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574374723282846800.html

If you haven't seen it, you likely will: http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1878506&sponsor

To save everybody the trouble, the headline reads something MAY happen. Nothing has, but someday it may. Nice try.

suprf1y wrote:

If you haven't seen it, you likely will: http://www.vancouversun.com/story_print.html?id=1878506&sponsor

To save everybody the trouble, the headline reads something MAY happen. Nothing has, but someday it may. Nice try.

If the facilities don't close it's because of additional funding made available. Those funds likely either come from philanthropical, private sources or the Canadian government (the more predictable source).

Additional expenses for non-budgeted governmental spending can be covered by increasing the costs of services, reducing/curtailing services, increasing taxes, or by employing deficit-spending. Seems like a no-win situation.

It's the old "You can't have it both ways." scenario.

In reply to oldsaw:

The Vancouver Sun IN PARTICULAR is known for 1) Being liberal and 2) Using the most scare tactics out of any of the "Sun" brand of newspapers to get people to read it. They are (IMO) making it out to be alot worse then it is.

HiTempguy wrote: In reply to oldsaw: The Vancouver Sun IN PARTICULAR is known for 1) Being liberal and 2) Using the most scare tactics out of any of the "Sun" brand of newspapers to get people to read it. They are (IMO) making it out to be alot worse then it is.

Thanks for an informed perspective, but how does that alter my observation?

If the article was intended to scare people, "bad" on the editorial staff. If the article portends the future, does that dilute what I posted?

As always, "Just askin?".

oldsaw wrote:

HiTempguy wrote: In reply to oldsaw: The Vancouver Sun IN PARTICULAR is known for 1) Being liberal and 2) Using the most scare tactics out of any of the "Sun" brand of newspapers to get people to read it. They are (IMO) making it out to be alot worse then it is.

Thanks for an informed perspective, but how does that alter my observation? If the article was intended to scare people, "bad" on the editorial staff. If the article portends the future, does that dilute what I posted? As always, "Just askin?".

Welcome to Canadian politics 101.

suprf1y wrote: Welcome to Canadian politics 101.

That summed up what I had posted and then was deleted (and replaced with that quote thing). Thanks Mike

HiTempguy wrote: ....I had posted and then was deleted (and replaced with that quote thing)

How did that happen?

z31maniac wrote: 10% of taxable income for health care? Shheeezus. I thought giving everyone coverage was going to lower costs, not increase it. Oh and is this going to include the bottom 40% of wage earners that already don't pay income tax?

DILYSI Dave wrote: Find me ONE person who said that the status quo is OK. Things need to be improved. Replacing one huge, inefficient, overbearing beurocracy with methods that cause price inflation with another huge, inefficient, overbearing beurocracy with methods that cause price inflation is not a solution.

EXACTLY. Those of us against are just saying the proposed plan is hardly the answer. But good job of continuing to twist things Xc3l8rated.

I don't know, my wife and I pay about 18% of our income for our current insurance. A co worker of hers pays 100% of her wages to her insurance company for coverage. It greatly depends on how much you make with a sliding scale. If you make 1.3bn then 10% is a big friggin chunk o' change that helps make up for the guy making $7.25/hr.

SVreX wrote: In reply to Xceler8x: You are confusing denying coverage with denying care. One is a denial of medical treatment by a doctor (which is pretty rare)

Not really. Unless it's an emergency, you won't get care unless you have insurance or can prove that you can pay out of pocket. See my previous posts.

Summary: Colleen gets rear ended while sitting at a stop light. Insurance company for the guy at fault agrees to pay all damages. She needs back surgery. Doctors have told her that no one will do the surgery because she doesn't have health insurance, even though the auto insurance company has agreed to pay. So the doctors won't do the surgery until she settles and has the money, and the auto insurance isn't going to settle until after the surgery and everything it done. Catch-22. So now we had to hire a lawyer to argue with them, while she's been walking with a cane, unable to work, unable to stand for more than 5 minutes, unable to do much of anything, for the last six months. The system is berkeleyed.

If you trace my comment back, you'll find it was a specific reference to very narrow circumstance.

Mr. Xceler8x stated that a poor person's child could die because an insurance company would deny care.

Xceler8x wrote: A poor person's child should die because we're too cheap to offer adequate care? That or we are ok with an insurance company denying care until the child is too far gone to be saved? There is a special place in hell for someone who refused to help those who can't help themselves all while they have the very means to do so.

To which I responded that he was exaggerating, and that medical care is general not denied to poor children in danger of dying. If one does die, I would not blame the insurance company for denying coverage, I would blame the doctor for failing to follow through with his hypocratic oath to provide care.

I very much agree that the system is berkeleyed, and find it upsetting that Colleen is having trouble getting care. But I don't see too many doctors choosing to let kids die.

xceler8x said: ..says the PAC for Pulling Numbers Out Your Butt.

I've tried to stay off this thread, as it makes my blood pressure jump, and as one of the zomg!50millionuninsured! I can't afford a visit to the ER right now.

You've asked for proof that "the president lied."

Here ya go:

http://cis.org/HealthCare-Immigration

I LOVE this one, as it quotes one of my favorite books, "How to Lie With Statistics:"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/26/how_to_lie_with_statistics_--_again_97189.html

If you'd like to dig through the census bureau's "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007" report; the one that Obama gets his "50 million uninsured Americans" number, and extrapolate the data on your own, it can be found here:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf

Also keep in mind, many people CHOOSE not to have health insurance. Some are young, healthy, and don't feel that they need it. Some live in households making over $70,000 a year, and CHOOSE not to have it, either because they don't feel that they need it, or they're unwilling to make very small changes in their spending habits in order to pay for it:

http://www.kansasprogress.com/wordpress/index.php/2009/06/19/census-bureau-40-of-uninsured-residents-in-united-states-make-50000-or-more-every-year/

Millions more were between jobs at the time of the Census study, and were without insurance for less than six months.

Regardless of whether or not you think this is "Brown Data," the fact is that the initial "50 million" number (which was simply rounded up from the 46-47 Million that's now thrown around,) is a hyper-inflated number specifically designed to frighten, and/or tug on the heart-strings of voters.

So yes, you were lied to. When that didn't work, the liberal propaganda machine came out with this "THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN" tag line, which Democrats and Republicans both have whole-heartedly embraced.

The focus then shifted to "How much will it cost?" Moving the debate from "Is this really necessary?" to "It's going to happen, and here's how we're going to pay for it!"

Now that the class warfare looter party is realizing that the majority of the American public isn't buying what they're selling, the tagline is no longer "Healthcare Reform," but "Insurance Reform," and the focus has shifted from covering the uninsured, to how the EVIL RICH INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE STEALING MONEY FROM "HARD-WORKING AMERICANS."

And here we are. Buying into it hook, line, and sinker. We're not talking about the fact that we're hovering around 10% unemployment, or the fact that we're now heavily engaged in TWO wars in the Middle East, or the fact that we now have roughly 3 dozen "Czars," that have popped up out of nowhere, some of whom are self-proclaimed Socialists.

Nope. We're talking about how we need to FORCE every person who lives in the U.S. to buy health insurance. Fan berkeleying tastic.

shovel, don't come in here with all your facts and logic and destroy so many people's Utopian view of life.

Go back to listening to Slayer you heathen! as i put on my headphones to listen to South of Heaven