Equity market says US Health Bill is killed

[Peephole]

What do you get to choose in the US that I don't get to choose in Norway or the UK?

I've heard you get to choose between a myriad of ways to get ****ed over.

 

[Magyar]

Your naivety is charming. Threatening to privatize Medicare because people don't support Obamacare would be political suicide for Obama. You see, swing voters don't care about ideological purity, or hell, even intellectual consistency. What you call exposing hypocrisy wouldn't be treated as such by voters. Because at the end of the day, voters are themselves a little bit hypocritical.

I guess you do have a point there, and that's kind of sad. But then what is the alternative because the only thing that is left as a possibility is such a small change that it makes no difference at all.


In the meanwhile Health care stocks rose again and I predict (not even worth CONSIDERING for the $Million) at least a double digit price increase for health care insurance coming down the pike as punishment recouping all the money they had to spend battling all the uppity people daring to strip them of their profits

 

[Ziggurat]

I guess you do have a point there, and that's kind of sad. But then what is the alternative because the only thing that is left as a possibility is such a small change that it makes no difference at all.

Open up health insurance to competition across state lines. It's politically a pretty easy sell (it's hard to really argue that it would make anything worse, and it's easy to see how it could improve things), and while it wouldn't solve all the health care problems, it would still be a significant change for the better.

 

[Magyar]

You don't need the majority of the people, you need the base. Republicans have purged their party, and their base is strong, lean, and on the offensive. They don't need answers, they don't need a plan; all they need to do is sit back and say no. The Democrats will destroy themselves.

Once enough seats are lost the talking point will be a comparison between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter....then game over the Democrats for 2012. Game over for Health Care reform for at least a decade, and even then it will fail using the same tactics.

The Democrats only have themselves to blame. Health Care Reform would have been a tough sell no matter what given the money behind the status quo, and the fact that the Democrats made it their Golden Calf didn't help matters any. I predict that within the next month or two Pelosi will hold a press conference, talk bad about the Republicans, say that "This isn't over, but we need to move on to the business of running the country" as an attempt to save face. It will be too late, there will be no reforms, and the American people will chalk Obama up to "meet the new boss same as the old boss." The Democrats will not be able to mobilize their people, and the Tea Baggers/Tea Partyers will. Any hope for change has been officially sacrificed upon the altar of bipartisanship.

Yea, sadly your predictions are probably accurate. But I think only in the short run and I think that your 10 years on the outside. Once the baby boomers start retiring in mass and healthcare costs continue to go up, medicaid/medicare bites the dust and sservicesstart to dissapear as predicted in the double digits per year for the foreseeable forever
http://www.kff.org/insurance/upload/7692_02.pdf while incomes will continue to stagnate as they have in the last 20-30 years (really since Reagan)

Then the same people who are screaming bloody murder about 'SOOOOOOCIALISM" (while collecting social security) will freak and demand their entitlements, but by then it will be too late.
The insurance companies have already seen the light. They'll suck as much profits as they can and then fold up shop
I am usually not a doomsday kind of person but I see some VERY bad things on the horizon if things go down the path you suggest above.

 

[fullflavormenthol]

Yea, sadly your predictions are probably accurate. But I think only in the short run and I think that your 10 years on the outside. Once the baby boomers start retiring in mass and healthcare costs continue to go up, medicaid/medicare bites the dust and sservicesstart to dissapear as predicted in the double digits per year for the foreseeable forever
http://www.kff.org/insurance/upload/7692_02.pdf while incomes will continue to stagnate as they have in the last 20-30 years (really since Reagan)

Then the same people who are screaming bloody murder about 'SOOOOOOCIALISM" (while collecting social security) will freak and demand their entitlements, but by then it will be too late.
The insurance companies have already seen the light. They'll suck as much profits as they can and then fold up shop
I am usually not a doomsday kind of person but I see some VERY bad things on the horizon if things go down the path you suggest above.

Oh I agree with you. I believe the insurance industry knows that their days are numbered in the United States, and they will drop many more people in the following decade. Lets compare it for the sake of argument to the Tobacco industry. They fought tooth and nail for years, and actually increased some of the more deplorable practices in the face of growing public outrage.

Socialism is the new Communism, or to put it more precisely, the new Red Scare. It is merely a talking point to convince the 50+ crowd to oppose any change to the status quo. Medicare, and SS will fail and leave these people relying on their children; and at that time outrage against the Republicans will hurt them drastically. At that time you will see Republicans begging for the individual mandate, and the exchanges. BUT...by then it will be too late.

 

[a_unique_person]

That's my conclusion too. Awesome ****-up by the geezer in chief IMO. Tragic too IMO relative to the ideas of a year ago but I don't live there so meh.

Nominally in charge. It's like herding cats from where Obama sits.

 

[Frank Newgent]

Watch the Republicans let a health-care bill be signed. How else can they campaign to have it repealed as a strategy in the mid-term elections.

 

[Peephole]

Open up health insurance to competition across state lines. It's politically a pretty easy sell (it's hard to really argue that it would make anything worse, and it's easy to see how it could improve things), and while it wouldn't solve all the health care problems, it would still be a significant change for the better.

This is a good idea, but it's obviously not even close to comprehensive health more care reform. Ironically enough it would be much harder to implement in a comprehensive bill.

 

[fullflavormenthol]

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Republicans will fall in line behind the principles of the national party. If anything the Democrats have shown themselves to be more concerned with hanging on to power than actually doing anything.

We will get Health Care Reform only when todays liberals become tomorrows conservatives, and that might take awhile. Well until all the old people die, and the boomers have to deal with paying their own way for medical care. Although...I think I will switch to a hard line Libertarian perspective then, and devote my time to lecturing them on how they should have planned ahead. I will call it the youth tax, and villianize it as socialism to pay of those lazy boomers looking for a hand out.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Republicans will fall in line behind the principles of the national party.

You say that like it's something to be admired. Personally, I find voting along party lines to be rank cowardice (from both sides). You should be looking out for your constituents, not being a puppet of your party.

 

[fullflavormenthol]

You say that like it's something to be admired. Personally, I find voting along party lines to be rank cowardice (from both sides). You should be looking out for your constituents, not being a puppet of your party.

I am sorry I didn't mean to write that like I had anything good to say about the Republican Party. I have nothing but distain for them for the most part, but unfortunately when you have a force divided by X going against another force unified; the force divided will always lose. Hence all you will be left with is an ever increasing right oriented government, which means Corporations having the same rights as individual citizens, and a **** you attitude towards those citizens too poor to be able to buy the proper influence.

I apologize for accepting that I will never have enough influence to have a stake in the game. I know other members will look down on me for that, but I am tired of working under some allusion that this will pay off. So hey, whatever.

I apologize to you because obviously you are commenting on the issue of the apparent admiration of the voting along party lines (which I am against), and I am commenting on my general hatred of everything. Sorry.

 

[ZirconBlue]

I am sorry I didn't mean to write that like I had anything good to say about the Republican Party. I have nothing but distain for them for the most part, but unfortunately when you have a force divided by X going against another force unified; the force divided will always lose. Hence all you will be left with is an ever increasing right oriented government, which means Corporations having the same rights as individual citizens, and a **** you attitude towards those citizens too poor to be able to buy the proper influence.

I apologize for accepting that I will never have enough influence to have a stake in the game. I know other members will look down on me for that, but I am tired of working under some allusion that this will pay off. So hey, whatever.

I apologize to you because obviously you are commenting on the issue of the apparent admiration of the voting along party lines (which I am against), and I am commenting on my general hatred of everything. Sorry.

No apologies necessary. I don't quite hate everything, yet, but I'm working on it.

 

[ZenFountain]

That's my conclusion too. Awesome ****-up by the geezer in chief IMO. Tragic too IMO relative to the ideas of a year ago but I don't live there so meh.

The possibility of no HCR isn't Obama's fault in the slightest, the fault is entirely with moderate Senate Democrats + Lieberman who refused to get on board with a good bill that had a public insurance option, stronger regulation of the insurance industry, reductions in Medicare Advantage subsidies and tax increases to pay for it all responsibly. Instead they purposefully let it spiral into the current steaming pile of poo while fickle independents turned on them. This is exactly why Obama wanted the bill "rammed through" way back in August, there wasn't anything to slow down and talk about.

 

[fullflavormenthol]

The possibility of no HCR isn't Obama's fault in the slightest, the fault is entirely with moderate Senate Democrats + Lieberman who refused to get on board with a good bill that had a public insurance option, stronger regulation of the insurance industry, reductions in Medicare Advantage subsidies and tax increases to pay for it all responsibly. Instead they purposefully let it spiral into the current steaming pile of poo while fickle independents turned on them. This is exactly why Obama wanted the bill "rammed through" way back in August, there wasn't anything to slow down and talk about.

Very true. It really isn't Obama's failure. It is a failure (or success?) of those moderate Democrats. The type that had this vision of a bipartisan bill in which everyone would be happy...god it is like writing about the fantasies of children when trying to discribe that. No legislation will ever be bipartisan...someone always has to lose in the process. Hopefully within the next decade the Democrats will either wake up and realize that or do a purge like the Tea Party has done to the Republicans.

 

[Ziggurat]

The possibility of no HCR isn't Obama's fault in the slightest, the fault is entirely with moderate Senate Democrats + Lieberman who refused to get on board with a good bill

Well, that's rather a matter of opinion isn't it? The blue dogs didn't get on board because they and their constituents didn't think it was a good bill.

Damn politicians, responding to the desires of the public. What do they think this is, a democracy?

 

[WildCat]

The system is flying apart at the seams and everyone who looks at the numbers knows it. The free market is not going to solve this problem, largely because as far as the free market is concerned there is no problem. If a carpenter making $40k a year choses not to pay $20k a year for health insurance for his family of five, that's not the fault of the market is it? It also doesn't help that heathcare costs don't seem to respond to the usual market forces. One way or another, change is going to come sooner rather than later.

Err, there would have to be market forces at work before anything could respond to them.

There is little to no competition in either health care delivery or health insurance, and that is by government design at the state and federal level.

If you want to see actual competition look at the Netherland's model.

 

[Random]

Damn politicians, responding to the desires of the public. What do they think this is, a democracy?

Well, they were not responding to the public. A big reason the bill lost support was that it was not ambitious enough. It has been painful watching the last year as Dems kept watering down the bill, watched it poll lower, watered it down again, watched it poll lower...

All so they could try to win the support of some moderates who were going to vote against it anyway.

Doesn't really surprise me though. Soon as I heard he was sitting down with the Pharmacuetical and Insurance lobbies I knew it was either doomed or not going to work. You have to screw over at least one and probably both of those lobbies if you want to fix healthcare.

 

[WildCat]

Well, they were not responding to the public. A big reason the bill lost support was that it was not ambitious enough. It has been painful watching the last year as Dems kept watering down the bill, watched it poll lower, watered it down again, watched it poll lower...

All so they could try to win the support of some moderates who were going to vote against it anyway.

Doesn't really surprise me though. Soon as I heard he was sitting down with the Pharmacuetical and Insurance lobbies I knew it was either doomed or not going to work. You have to screw over at least one and probably both of those lobbies if you want to fix healthcare.

"watered down"? That's an interesting way to put giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry, unions, bribes to Louisiana and Nebraska, appeasing the trial lawyers, kowtowing to the quack industry and other woo called "alternative medicine", assuring big business keeps their leg up on small businesses by not only keeping but entrenching the idiotic employer-based health insurance system we have, keeping the fee-for-service system which drives up health care costs, letting the AMA continue to control medical school enrollment thus ensuring shortages of doctors who can then demand higher pay and at the same time makes medical schools expensive... the list goes on and on.

Remember in school when you half-assed a paper and your teacher gave you a low grade and insisted you could do better, despite your protests? And then you found out that you could do better? It's time to hold Congress' feet to the fire and insist that they do better. They will kick, they will scream, they will insist that this was "the best we can do", and they're full of horse manure.

They can do much, much better. But they won't unless US voters force them to.

 

[332nd]

"watered down"? That's an interesting way to put giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry, unions, bribes to Louisiana and Nebraska, appeasing the trial lawyers, kowtowing to the quack industry and other woo called "alternative medicine", assuring big business keeps their leg up on small businesses by not only keeping but entrenching the idiotic employer-based health insurance system we have, keeping the fee-for-service system which drives up health care costs, letting the AMA continue to control medical school enrollment thus ensuring shortages of doctors who can then demand higher pay and at the same time makes medical schools expensive... the list goes on and on.

Remember in school when you half-assed a paper and your teacher gave you a low grade and insisted you could do better, despite your protests? And then you found out that you could do better? It's time to hold Congress' feet to the fire and insist that they do better. They will kick, they will scream, they will insist that this was "the best we can do", and they're full of horse manure.

They can do much, much better. But they won't unless US voters force them to.

^ This.

 

[Ziggurat]

Well, they were not responding to the public. A big reason the bill lost support was that it was not ambitious enough.

Uh... no.

It has been painful watching the last year as Dems kept watering down the bill, watched it poll lower, watered it down again, watched it poll lower...

That's not what made the bill sink. What made it sink is the public hearing more and more about it. And the more they heard about it, the less they liked it. Had the democrats gone the other direction, the poll numbers would have dropped even faster.