Hillarycare

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[emap]

Most likely that will be something like driving, you have to have a license and insurance on the car you are driving. Except in the case of insurance, you can't get a job, or vote or join a political party without having insurance.

Not to say this will happen even if she is elected president. As I said before, she is simply saying I care for everyone and I want everyone to have medical insurance, until I get elected, then you all can piss off.

 

[Katyusha]

Read the part that requires every person to get health insurance.

If you dont get insurance, how does she force you to get it? What if youre self employed or wealthy? Does she confiscate the money from your bank?

The state of Massachusetts already requires all of its residents to have health insurance the same way that states require everyone who has a car to have car insurance. I haven't the least idea how that's enforced but maybe Hillary thinks she can enforce a national plan the same way.

As for affordable coverage for everyone, it's sorely needed here. However, I thought they way her plan discusses FEHB very early on was misleading; it doesn't cover just Congress but it wouldn't surprise me if Congress has access to something in FEHB that no other federal employee does.

The problem, though, is that although FEHB is good (and it IS good), even it isn't particularly affordable for every federal employee. If I read that right, she's thinking about expanding FEHB in some way so that it covers all Americans, not just federal employees. The premiums are the premiums, they aren't contingent on what you're making. A lot of federal employees' annual raises and step-increases, particularly if they're lower down in the General Schedule (GS-7 and below, for instance) or their agency's pay band system, have gotten more than eaten up by increases in their insurance premiums in the past and so they've taken home less and less every year.

For the past two years our premiums have remained the same but we don't know why that is. The administrators of FEHB or even Congress may have done something to freeze premiums, or the insurance companies may have realized that they were in danger of losing their contracts with the government if they didn't quit with the ridiculous annual increases.

If Hillary wants to use FEHB as a means to provide health coverage for all Americans, then she's got a LOT of revamping to do, and that includes actually being able to curb costs everywhere. The problem with the cost of healthcare in this country is not solely limited to ridiculous insurance practices; it's also related to the pharmaceutical companies charging ridiculous prices on everything, including hospital equipment and testing materials, not just drugs. It's related to the hospitals being for-profit, and gouging patients with insurance to pay for those without and without any means at all to pay (yes, that does include illegal immigrants). It's a very, very complicated problem and I'm not sure her solution will actually solve anything, even if it does pass muster with Congress. It might make things worse.

That said, I don't know what the solution is. I'm not in favor of systems like Canada's or England's, and I'm not totally in favor of leaving everything privatized either. Certain types of regulation are needed but they smack of stifling capitalism, which this country is scared to death of doing.

 

[Liar]

The state of Massachusetts already requires all of its residents to have health insurance the same way that states require everyone who has a car to have car insurance.

And if I live there, I can choose to not have a car. Can I choose to not have a health?

 

[amicus]

I truly and sincerely hope you peeps get the socialized medicine you cry out for.

When they begin to draft doctors and nurses and force college students to study medicine, when they, like they do social security, medicare, medicaid, employment compensation, out of your paycheck, without your consent, in any amount they choose, without your permission, I hope you get all that.

I hope you enjoy the black market atmosphere that will arise as you cannot schedule an appointment within a year, when you cannot find prescriptions drugs and no pharmacists to dispense them and they draft pharmacists into federal service.

I hope you enjoy that quota's on geriatric and pediatric care is portioned out so that the healthy working population can continue to support the system.

Since there will not be a free country left for the qualified to flee to, I imagine they will take whatever they can salvage and move into the hinterlands and doctor their families and no one else.

I truly hope you get what you want.

Amicus...

 

[emap]

Ami do you really think that she would actually follow through with this? When was the last time anyone who ever got elected by saying our education is broken and I want to fix it has actually done that???

How many people who get elected by saying I shall end crime has ended crime? Well OK so that is impossible anyway but how many actually lower it throughout the city or state?

Or say, remember way back when Kennedy was running for president and Nixon was the vice president, Kennedy got elected by saying we have less nuclear weapons than Russia, I shall fix that. Nixon could only say we have more than they do because at the time it was highest security, the informant still living in Russia at the time.

Did we build more nuclear weapons? Well yes but only to replace the outmoded missiles. Not to say Kennedy was a bad president of course, just using it as an example, what a person says to get elected and what they do after is incredibly rarely the same thing.

 

[amicus]

Ami do you really think that she would actually follow through with this? When was the last time anyone who ever got elected by saying our education is broken and I want to fix it has actually done that???

How many people who get elected by saying I shall end crime has ended crime? Well OK so that is impossible anyway but how many actually lower it throughout the city or state?

Or say, remember way back when Kennedy was running for president and Nixon was the vice president, Kennedy got elected by saying we have less nuclear weapons than Russia, I shall fix that. Nixon could only say we have more than they do because at the time it was highest security, the informant still living in Russia at the time.

Did we build more nuclear weapons? Well yes but only to replace the outmoded missiles. Not to say Kennedy was a bad president of course, just using it as an example, what a person says to get elected and what they do after is incredibly rarely the same thing.

~~~

You make some interesting observations emap and a rather good general thesis, that is, well, not hopeful, rather stating that whoever is in power cannot really do much to change things in a substantial way.

But since I am waxing poetic this night, this late night, I may as well continue...

I suggest, or propose, that in theory at least, there is a point where the cummulative effect of past policies will dictate future events.

I have have the luxury, in my life time, of many things, one of which was to earn a living through contemplation and exposition of my thoughts and I appreciate the society that permitted that. In that pursuit, I have learned that I tend to see things that are about to happen because, well, basically, cause and effect.

Everything, I think, has its breaking point. While the United States may survive a four or eight year term of left wing politics, it also may not as the accumulated problems will eventually reach a crisis point.

For just one example, I think most do not realize the dependence modern society has on affordable energy, be it electricity or gasoline or petroleum for plastics. The energy crisis is upon us and should there be a major crisis in the middle east, not only the US, but most of the modern industrial societies would be hard pressed to provide sufficient energy to continue the living standard as it now is.

The health care crisis brought about by a huge lump in the curve of retiring baby boomers, has already stressed the mechanics of a quasi socialist system of care instigated by medicare and government insurance plans. The health system is dreadfully short of doctors and nurses and medical professionals and there is no quick and easy answer for resolution save rationing care according to political motives.

You may not have noticed but food prices are soaring as grain products, not just cereals but animal feed and protein based agricultural products are being diverted to subsidized clean fuel alternatives, all, political decisions that have side effects not foreseen.

And although I do appreciate your vision of recent history, wherein no matter what was done or not done, things continued along, I forecast a time when it begins to falter and I think that time is near.

Each passing year is a new chapter in human history, not necessarily destined to repeat the past but to open a new era that we know nothing about and few can even imagine.

Okay...thas enough...likely too much...sorry...


Amicus...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[emap]

Well yeah, the whole everyone is equal communist ideal in action.

Actually that is a common problem in any country with a universal medical system. The people in office or rich are the ones who get good service, everyone else is stuck on a waiting list.

Well not always, depends on what you need done, and if you are dying pronto or not.

Ami your silly, I do most if not all of the shopping around here. I am intimately familiar with the rising prices on food. Not literally intimately of course, though have to admit there are a few pretty darn cute or handsome people working in the stores I visit, and well intimately getting to know it sounds pretty good.

So funny thing, I am pretty sure I said the same thing you just did about the sad state of the countries under carriage. Though I talked more about the electric system than anything else. We use electrc for heat and air conditioning here so everything else is a don't really care.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[R. Richard]

OK, let's review what Hillary proposes.

1) Health insurance will be mandatory. [There are estimated to be some 10 to 20 million illegal aliens in the US currently. How does Hillary propose to force people who are here illegally and stay off the record as much as possible to purchase health insurance? Please address the reasons why the illegals are here illegally in the first place.]

2) Everyone will get the same coverage. [Does Hillary mean just like in Canada, where there are routinely waits of more than a year for basic services? Of course, there are for pay clinics in Buffalo, Detroit and Seattle where the rich Canadians can get health care when they want it. Does anyone believe that Chelsea Clinton will have to wait for health care just like everyone else? If so, where do your kids go to get a $100K per year non-job, just like Chelsea?]

3) Hillary's plan will eliminate waste. Right, there will be mandatory health coverage, with the providers guaranteed pay, regardless of the level of service. However, service won't suffer. [If anyone believes this last, do take a course in simple economics.]

4) What will the insured do when the system collapses and Hillary says [as with her $5,000 per child at birth plan] "It was just an idea?"

 

[emap]

James I already covered that in my post just above yours that you replied to.

R again, do you really think that Hillary would even try and push this through congress? As it stands now doctors and hospitals are under staffed and overworked. The one I visit when I am sick I sit around in the waiting room for an hour or so, he was the one given to me by the insurance. He also happens to be the only spanish speaking doctor in the area, Lots of spanish speaking mainly people in my area, and the doctors, he is 4 miles from me.

Of course I live in a state where illegal aliens outnumber the americans, at least it seems that way where I am. They mostly are not violent, just really nice people trying to make their way here. Many actually can get a Visa because they have children born here, though most don't bother.

Ok I can't help it, I gotta address the reason for the illegals being here in the first place. Ever seen the mexican economy? It gets better the farther south you gocountry wise, but still not that good and many people still live in rickety shacks. For the US to cut down on the illegal aliens just from mexico and south they would have to turn their economies around, create millions of jobs and basically turn south american into well america in terms of jobs. I don't think that will ever happen.

 

[R. Richard]

R again, do you really think that Hillary would even try and push this through congress? As it stands now doctors and hospitals are under staffed and overworked. The one I visit when I am sick I sit around in the waiting room for an hour or so, he was the one given to me by the insurance. He also happens to be the only spanish speaking doctor in the area, Lots of spanish speaking mainly people in my area, and the doctors, he is 4 miles from me.

I think that Hillary would at least try. She tried in 1993 and even a Democrat controlled Congress rejected the idea. Sooner or later, one of Hillary's harebrained schemes would make it through Congress and destroy whatever it touched. The issue of illegal alien coverage under Hillary's plan is just one of the impossible barriers to an insane plan. JMHO.

 

[cloudy]

Does Hillary mean just like in Canada, where there are routinely waits of more than a year for basic services?

Unless you're native, then there's a health center staffed with doctors and nurses right there on the reserve (within walking distance of the house, actually). No appointments are necessary, although they would prefer that you have one.

You are seen by a doctor or a nurse practitioner within thirty minutes of arriving, and any prescriptions you are written are filled for free at the drug store in town.

Payback's a motherfucker.

 

[R. Richard]

Unless you're native, then there's a health center staffed with doctors and nurses right there on the reserve (within walking distance of the house, actually). No appointments are necessary, although they would prefer that you have one.

You are seen by a doctor or a nurse practitioner within thirty minutes of arriving, and any prescriptions you are written are filled for free at the drug store in town.

Payback's a motherfucker.

I would instead say that payback is long overdue!