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So now we got health care


Guest erpi

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You are right. Your government has been so corrupt, self serving and FUBAR for so long, when someone comes along with the intention to actually help its citizens, the idea is so foreign its scares people.

Up here, our current conservative government is cutting social programs and building super-prisons to hold all of the criminals they will be creating by forcing the poor into a life of crime. I'll take Obamacare any day of the week.

Please tell me one government program that is not FUBAR.

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Does socialism work in other first world countries? Lets ask Greece, Italy and Spain. The list of failing countries with socialistic policies are starting to line up. As Margret Thatcher said, " The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money."

I don't quite understand how you can go from one 'socialist' policy like universal healthcare, and then jump to a comparison with Greece, Italy or Spain. There is much more going on over there than just being a country with socialist policies.

In your reply to Jason's question I'm going to assume that you think universal healthcare will mark the demise of the US economy with possibly more social policies on the way. This swings both ways, capitalism hasn't been too friendly to the US economy has it?

Now, you still haven't explained why a universal health care plan wouldn't work in the US. I could be wrong here, but isn't the US the only first world / industrialized country in the world that doesn't have a universal health care plan in place? If other countries can do it, why can't the almighty US do it? IMO, Obamacare is headed in the right direction. Most countries with universal health care use mixed plans, and that seems to be working just fine.

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Does socialism work in other first world countries? Lets ask Greece, Italy and Spain. The list of failing countries with socialistic policies are starting to line up.

This is one of the main challenges of our public discourse; a complete and astonishingly absent capacity for critical thinking.

MIrror, you've equated the "Eurozone Crisis" with socialism?

Staggeringly ignorant reflection of reality, staggering....like pre-braces-falling-off-scene-Forrest-Gump-grade staggering.

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Here's a great (and brief) description of Obamacare (the term btw, I believe is a compliment, as in Obamacares) and how it will affect most Americans. As most will be able to see, the government is not providing free healthcare (except for somewhat expanding Medicare for those slightly above the poverty line).

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/us/health-care-act-questions-and-answers.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

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If the link doesn't work, here is the actual article from the NY TImes 6/30/12:

Consumer Questions on Health Care Act, and the Answers

By KATIE THOMAS

Q. Now what? The law is upheld, so where does it go from here?

A. Now the scramble to enact the law continues. Unless the law is repealed by Congress, most of the major changes take effect on Jan. 1, 2014. By then, states must have set up health insurance exchanges, where people can buy coverage. Insurers will have to offer policies to anyone who applies, including people with expensive medical conditions. And people who do not qualify for exemptions based on income or religion will be required to have minimum insurance coverage or pay a penalty.

Q. In what way was the Medicaid expansion “limited”? What is the meaning of this portion of the decision?

A. The Supreme Court’s decision means that the Medicaid expansion is now an option for states, not a requirement. If states do not participate, experts have speculated that it could create a subset of people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid — the exact threshold varies — but not enough to qualify for the tax credits that would help them pay for insurance. States will not have to pick up the added costs of the Medicaid expansion until 2016. After that, the federal government will gradually reduce its contribution until it reaches 90 percent of the costs by 2020.

Q. I’m unemployed and can’t afford health care, what does this ruling do for me?

A. Beginning in 2014, the law expands Medicaid to cover people who are under 65 and earn income up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $30,657 for a family of four in 2012. Families who make between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level — or $92,200 for a family of four in 2012 — will be eligible for tax credits for insurance plans that are purchased through state-run exchanges.

Q. My parents are screaming about higher taxes from the Affordable Care Act. Any figures for those who have health insurance through our employers already? What does this mean for us?

A. The law imposes tax changes that would affect some people who are covered through their employers, especially those in higher tax brackets. Beginning next year, the law increases the Medicare tax by 0.9 percent on earnings over $200,000 for individual taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. It also imposes a 3.8 percent tax on unearned income for high-income households.

Q. Does the ruling that allows states to reject the expansion of Medicaid allow states to reject all expanded care in the A.C.A.?

A. No. The rest of the law stands. For example, states must continue to set up health insurance exchanges or the federal government may step in operate the exchanges itself.

Q. I’ve heard that I’m required to have insurance. When does that go into effect? And what sort of penalties will I face if I don’t comply?

A. Starting in 2014, most Americans will be required to have health insurance and could face federal penalties if they do not. Taxpayers will be required to indicate on their tax returns whether they have health insurance that meets minimal benefits standards, according to the Commonwealth Fund. If consumers do not have insurance by 2014, they would owe $95, or 1 percent of taxable income, whichever is greater. The penalty rises to $325, or 2 percent of taxable income in 2015, and then $695, or 2.5 percent of taxable income in 2016, up to a maximum of $2,085 per family.

Q. What does the law mean for retirees on Social Security and facing high drug costs?

A. The law shrinks the Medicare drug coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole” by requiring pharmaceutical companies to give a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs. Federal subsidies will gradually fill in the rest of the gap until it is closed by 2020.

Q. I am now being covered by a plan in New Jersey that covers people with pre-existing conditions. It ends December 2013. What will happen?

A. The high-risk pools that cover people with pre-existing conditions are intended to be a temporary measure until the rest of the law takes effect. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2014, insurers are no longer allowed to turn away customers with pre-existing conditions, and they must charge them rates that are comparable to other healthy people their age.

Q. What happens to employees receiving health insurance from small-business employers?

A. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from penalties that otherwise will be imposed for not covering their workers. Small businesses with fewer than 25 workers and average wages of less than $50,000 get tax credits to help cover their workers. The state health insurance exchanges, which go into effect in 2014, will also allow small businesses to buy coverage there.

Q. Will my insurance premium go up?

A. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that private health insurance premiums will increase by 5.7 percent each year, on average, from 2012 until 2022. But premiums would be getting more expensive with or without the Affordable Care Act. The budget office has estimated that, relative to what would happen in the absence of the law, premiums in the individual insurance market will be a little higher, employer-sponsored insurance premiums for big companies will be a little lower and employer-sponsored insurance premiums for small companies will stay about the same.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 30, 2012, on page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Consumer Questions On Health Care Act, And the Answers.

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When my daughter was living in Massachusetts after college she got a very nice heath insurance plan under the RomneyCare system for a little over $200/month, Blue Cross/Vision/Dental. It's an excellent system and the national one we'll have available starting in 2014 should be excellent too. Neither is a good as a single-payer system would be (Medicare-For-All), but they're a start.

I can only speak about people I personally know in Mass because I can't trust the spin from the politicians. People I know up there seem happy with it. I still can't get my head around the Republicans in DC that argue against health care, when they get government paid healthcare for life. Not till they leave office, but for life. Seriously why don't the Republicans in Congress vote to end the government/taxpayer sponsored healthcare, get off the dole, and make them shop for it like we do. We know enough of them have pre-existing conditions that would put them in the pool and subject to paying a lot and a major headache of paperwork. Ask my friend that had cancer what it's like to try to get health insurance once that is on your record.

To compare, I went through a broker to get the best deal, and was paying closer to $250/month for insurance. No dental, no vision. For dental, I went to a dental school. Great work, good price, but they are kind of slow. Don't wear glasses, so that didn't matter to me. I had Blue Cross personal choice, and like I posted they went from $20/$40 co-pay to paying nothing for the first $1,000/year of doctor/ER visits and $1,000 of prescriptions. After that $1,000 they still didn't pay what they previously had. I never got into that territory, so I forget what they would have paid. To maintain the coverage I used to have would have been more like $400/month. For somebody that got rid of my asthma and didn't have any medical conditions that required treatment, that's nuts. That was $3,000/year plus paying out of pocket for ever doctor visit and prescription that I needed. It made me not even want to go for checkups. I would spent $200 for 15 minutes of a doctor saying "yep, everything looks good". That doesn't include the hour+ in the waiting room and pretty much keeping me from working for the day.

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In other words, we will all be contributing so that the sick amongst us can receive health care. How civilized.

My concern for the health of our country is that people get to doctors BEFORE things get really bad. I have done too many interviews with people that said "I didn't go to the doctor because I knew we couldn't afford to fix whatever it was if it was bad, and if advil could fix it, I would have wasted money we don't have on a doctor visit".

The friend with cancer I mentioned above was uninsured at the time. He didn't have insurance and didn't want to go to a doctor to spend money he didn't really have to treat what he thought was an ulcer on his tongue. He finally went when it got creepy looking. They tried surgery, twice. He lost 2/3 of his tongue, they slit his throat to remove his lymph nodes. After the second surgery he got chemo and radiation. He was put in the insurance pool, but still had to borrow over $200k from his family just for medical bills (not including everything else). It was that or die.

I'm not going to defend his decision to wait that long to go to the doctors, but his actions are frighteningly uncommon in America. If he had gone sooner, it would have been relatively minor surgery to cut it out. Just the tongue, no throat slit (still has a huge scar), no chemo, no radiation. He would still speak clearly and wouldn't have all the other side effects of the ordeal.

He's a writer/director that lost a film project because his investors pulled out. To be honest two years later he is probably just getting his stamina back enough to be on set *if* somebody is willing to risk financing him.

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You are right. Your government has been so corrupt, self serving and FUBAR for so long, when someone comes along with the intention to actually help its citizens, the idea is so foreign its scares people.

Up here, our current conservative government is cutting social programs and building super-prisons to hold all of the criminals they will be creating by forcing the poor into a life of crime. I'll take Obamacare any day of the week.

You are right, our government is corrupt and has strayed so far from it's original intent that it is literally FUBAR. But I must say that your post is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Wouldn't it be great if the government actually got out of the way of business's and let them grow with out penalizing them. Then there wouldn't have to be so many social programs because people would have jobs. People want to create jobs - the gov. stifles job growth. People want to work - the gov. pays people not to work. FUBAR wouldn't you say?.

Quick story, I know of a business in CA that made car do-dads by milling them out of aluminum. The California version of the EPA contacted the owner and said that when he was milling the aluminum it released a toxin. The Cal/EPA said they don't know how to correct that problem but that the company would have to pay them a $2000/month fine anyway. No solution but pay the fine or be shut down. It was extortion much like the mob selling business's fire insurance. The company moved to Indiana. 350 jobs lost in CA.

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Thanks Billy for posting this article from the NY Times. This health care plan is certainly better than what we have now in the USA. I'm sure it can be improved upon like all things in life. Personally I'm open to entertaining any plan, but these loudmouth blowhards who want to oppose all government and offer nothing in the way of new ideas or options are just paid mouth pieces for the big money that wants to keep things as they are.

CrewC

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Here's five:

The US Army

The US Navy

The US Air Force

The US Marine Corps

The US Coast Guard

It is the gov. job to protect us from foreign invaders. But are you saying that the Armed Forces are run efficiently? Money is not pissed down the drain? I don't think that a liberal like you would a defend that point. What about NASA? Turns out that private enterprise has demonstrated that they can do it more cost effective.

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Thanks Billy for posting this article from the NY Times. This health care plan is certainly better than what we have now in the USA. I'm sure it can be improved upon like all things in life. Personally I'm open to entertaining any plan, but these loudmouth blowhards who want to oppose all government and offer nothing in the way of new ideas or options are just paid mouth pieces for the big money that wants to keep things as they are.

CrewC

Don't you think Tort reform would lower medical costs? There's one idea and I'm not even a paid mouth piece.

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Don't you think Tort reform would lower medical costs? There's one idea and I'm not even a paid mouth piece.

You are just a angry blowhard for the right IMO mirror man. As for tort reform, I'm sure it would be a good part of any national health plan for the USA. Also just for the record there will still be 16 million citizens without health insurance in the US even with the new plan. I feel this is a work in progress and not some holly grail perfect on inception.

CrewC

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Don't you think Tort reform would lower medical costs? There's one idea and I'm not even a paid mouth piece.

If tort reform was valid and needed, why was it presented in a completely dishonest way? Watch the doc Hot Coffee for some interesting points about it. I day played on the doc, that's how i heard the other side of the story that wasn't in the media.

Also flash back to the George Bush state of the union speeches where he kept saying we needed tort reform to stop frivolous lawsuits to protect big business err the economy. I watched that speech and more than once he referred to asbestos lawsuits as an example of frivolous lawsuits. Knowing that his #2, Dick Cheney, was a VP at Haliburton and signed off to buy out a buddies company that had a stack of impending lawsuits for asbestos exposure, that makes everything he said suspect and far from unbiased. Again, a shady way to trick people into supporting tort reform instead of an honest presentation. I'm not saying there may not be some sort of sensible cap on settlements, but when the side pushing for it can't be honest, the whole case falls apart.

As for health care, every other 1st world country has it except the USA. Heck, it was even set up in Iraq because that's just how it works EVERYWHERE but here.

If you want to get down to pure money and skip the humanity part, I still think it would be cheaper. It's a fact that it is cheaper to fix a medical problem early than wait. With access to basic health care, hopefully people will address problems sooner when they are easier to manage. As is, people go to the ER with massive problems they had been ignoring, get (sort of) fixed up, and owe $100k in medical bills they will never pay off. That defaulted bill has been passed off on everyone else for decades now.

We don't even want to open the can of worms that is preventing many of the problems in the first place by somehow getting people to eat better diets.

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Do you think people become Dr's because of love of medicine? Are you a sound guy because you love it? The answer to both is NO. Money is why people become Dr's and record sound for a profession. How long would you work on movie sets if they didn't pay you? Not long because you'd starve. The best in their field get the most money. You get more customers if you're the best... because of reputation. Less customers if you're a hack.

I get your point, but this is a horrible example. Comparing Dr's and Sound mixers is like comparing apples and oranges. Sure they both pay, but one pays far better than the other. I love being in sound and working in TV and Film. Sure it pays better than flipping burgers, but I will do this for flipping burgers wages before I ever flip burgers. People are attracted, at least after the childhood "I want to help people" aura is gone, to become doctors because of the HUGE salaries. People become sound mixers because they love either the film making process, or love sound, or both. If they wanted to make HUGE salaries in the movie business they would all be above-the-liners. And this is even a bad example because doctors salaries are far more guaranteed then even above-the-line folks. Nothing is guaranteed in our business.

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This is one of the main challenges of our public discourse; a complete and astonishingly absent capacity for critical thinking. MIrror, you've equated the "Eurozone Crisis" with socialism? Staggeringly ignorant reflection of reality, staggering....like pre-braces-falling-off-scene-Forrest-Gump-grade staggering.

Please enlighten us on the REAL problem as to why Greece is failing.

Here's just one interesting article I found which states corruption and entitlements as culprits:

http://www.thedailyaccount.com/Why-Is-Greece-Bankrupt.php

I like how your phrase, "Eurozone Crisis", softens the blame of a shit storm.

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I get your point, but this is a horrible example. Comparing Dr's and Sound mixers is like comparing apples and oranges. Sure they both pay, but one pays far better than the other. I love being in sound and working in TV and Film. Sure it pays better than flipping burgers, but I will do this for flipping burgers wages before I ever flip burgers. People are attracted, at least after the childhood "I want to help people" aura is gone, to become doctors because of the HUGE salaries. People become sound mixers because they love either the film making process, or love sound, or both. If they wanted to make HUGE salaries in the movie business they would all be above-the-liners. And this is even a bad example because doctors salaries are far more guaranteed then even above-the-line folks. Nothing is guaranteed in our business.

An interesting article for those that think all dr's make big bucks.

http://benbrownmd.wordpress.com/

And to think that most people on this forum bought a 332 and a g3 system and they were deemed mixers.

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If tort reform was valid and needed, why was it presented in a completely dishonest way? Watch the doc Hot Coffee for some interesting points about it. I day played on the doc, that's how i heard the other side of the story that wasn't in the media.

Also flash back to the George Bush state of the union speeches where he kept saying we needed tort reform to stop frivolous lawsuits to protect big business err the economy. I watched that speech and more than once he referred to asbestos lawsuits as an example of frivolous lawsuits. Knowing that his #2, Dick Cheney, was a VP at Haliburton and signed off to buy out a buddies company that had a stack of impending lawsuits for asbestos exposure, that makes everything he said suspect and far from unbiased. Again, a shady way to trick people into supporting tort reform instead of an honest presentation. I'm not saying there may not be some sort of sensible cap on settlements, but when the side pushing for it can't be honest, the whole case falls apart.

As for health care, every other 1st world country has it except the USA. Heck, it was even set up in Iraq because that's just how it works EVERYWHERE but here.

If you want to get down to pure money and skip the humanity part, I still think it would be cheaper. It's a fact that it is cheaper to fix a medical problem early than wait. With access to basic health care, hopefully people will address problems sooner when they are easier to manage. As is, people go to the ER with massive problems they had been ignoring, get (sort of) fixed up, and owe $100k in medical bills they will never pay off. That defaulted bill has been passed off on everyone else for decades now.

We don't even want to open the can of worms that is preventing many of the problems in the first place by somehow getting people to eat better diets.

Be careful you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

By the way, holding Iraq up as a shinning beacon doesn't bolster your point.

If you want to get down to pure money and skip the humanity part, I still think it would be cheaper. It's a fact that it is cheaper to fix a medical problem early than wait. With access to basic health care, hopefully people will address problems sooner when they are easier to manage. As is, people go to the ER with massive problems they had been ignoring, get (sort of) fixed up, and owe $100k in medical bills they will never pay off. That defaulted bill has been passed off on everyone else for decades now.

From the stories I've been told by people that live in socialized medicine countries, popping in to be quickly seen at a Dr's. office is as rare as hens teeth. Stories of 3 month waits.

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It is the gov. job to protect us from foreign invaders. But are you saying that the Armed Forces are run efficiently? Money is not pissed down the drain? I don't think that a liberal like you would a defend that point. What about NASA? Turns out that private enterprise has demonstrated that they can do it more cost effective.

C'mon Mirror, NASA? They spent 50 years doing the testing and research. Of course private industry can come in at this point and do the basics for less. Speaking of NASA, what planet do you live on anyway? It seems to be full of mean selfish people who do not understand the concept of government, insurance or a little something called 'the common good'.

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The Apollo Program

The GI Bill

The Emancipation Proclamation

Works Project Administration

The Space program - private enterprise just showed they could do it cheaper

GI Bill - I agree this program is a good incentive. Haven't delved into the workings of it though.

The Emancipation Proclamation - Not a program but an Executive order. By the way, did you know that Lincoln's plan for the slaves after the war was to ship them all off to Granada and let them start their own country?

Works Project Administration - Most things have good intentions. The New Deal that FDR implemented was controversial and still is to this day. Did you know that you couldn't get fired from a WPA job. Because of that, it was called the "We Piddle Along" program. "This is a sarcastic reference to WPA projects that sometimes slowed to a crawl, because foremen ... had no incentive or ability to influence worker productivity by demotion or termination. ... A typical joke was repeated in Harper Lee's 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Bob Ewell, the resident slacker of Maycomb County, is described as "the only person fired from the WPA for laziness."

http://economistsvie...ew_deals_w.html

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