So why should I not be ticked off with the GOP right now?

[Myron Proudfoot]

Originally Posted by jeremyp
Confused Britisher here.

Notwithstanding that I can't understand how anybody can call themselves human and support a system that denies healthcare to people just because they are poor, I am also really confused by this situation.

One of my coworkers is a Tea Party supporter and he argues, with a straight face, that having to pay taxes that pay any benefits at all to another person is a form of slavery. It's not a matter of "OMG! The poor are buying crab-legs with food stamps!" If the government takes taxes from person A and then uses that money to provide food stamps to person B, they are enslaving person A.

 

[marplots]

Confused Britisher here.

Notwithstanding that I can't understand how anybody can call themselves human and support a system that denies healthcare to people just because they are poor, I am also really confused by this situation.

Well, we do have a system that does that already, either through medicaid or by way of getting treatment and then not paying your bills. The argument is about how to modify this system to shift the cost burden around a bit.

So the poor do get healthcare under both systems. What sort they get is different. Who pays for it is different (but not entirely). For most people, including the poor, not much changes.

 

[Travis]

As I've shown, the losers are the ones that have less income now because of Obamacare. The other losers are the ones paying more for insurance. Don't you never mind about them losers though, you got yours.

I'm sure the fact that Travis has health insurance will make those thousands of people with less income and higher insurance costs feel so much better.

I can believe some may pay less. Many people will pay more.

Oh and earn less. But, if they are not totally thrilled with their now worse off situation, they just must be greedy scum.

Sure, thousands of people now pay more for insurance and have less income. It's just great! Everyone loves it! Seriously, what part of "there are winners and losers" do you not understand?

That doesn't change the fact that some people don't want or need them, and now are forced to pay more for their insurance because they don't have a choice.

There are winners and losers with Obamacare. Travis is a winner. Good for him. Screw the losers with less income and higher insurance costs.

Hi there Neally. It may come as a surprise to you but I'm part of the same society as those people that will supposedly pay more. I pay taxes and do all the other stuff those people do. I just happen to have been born with some chronic conditions that, up until now, kept me from getting health insurance.

Do you really think that situation should remain so?

Sorry Travis, Neally doesn't think you should have healthcare, so 'some people' can save a few bucks. Terribly sorry.

You'll have to give up a chance at a healthy life without having to worry about going bankrupt if you get sick again.

That seems to be the case. But as I don't want to put words in Neally's mouth I've created this thread so he can be specific about it.

 

[Upchurch]

I used to believe that the ideal arrangement was for there to be a Democratic President and a Republican controlled Congress. My reasoning was that, broadly speaking, it was better to have a liberal executive who was willing to push the boundaries and a fiscally conservative legislature to rein him or her in through the power of the purse.

My error was in equating "fiscally conservative" with "fiscally responsible". These latest episodes with the sequestration and the shutdown has pretty much burned away any remaining illusions I had to the GOP's fiscal responsibility. It's been replaced with libertarianism and, I would argue, an extremist version of libertarianism at that.

So, I would amend the OP question somewhat: "What does the GOP actually have to offer now?"

 

[Dymanic]

I used to believe that the ideal arrangement was for there to be a Democratic President and a Republican controlled Congress. My reasoning was that, broadly speaking, it was better to have a liberal executive who was willing to push the boundaries and a fiscally conservative legislature to rein him or her in through the power of the purse.

My error was in equating "fiscally conservative" with "fiscally responsible". These latest episodes with the sequestration and the shutdown has pretty much burned away any remaining illusions I had to the GOP's fiscal responsibility. It's been replaced with libertarianism and, I would argue, an extremist version of libertarianism at that.

So, I would amend the OP question somewhat: "What does the GOP actually have to offer now?"

From Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles:

Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.

http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/ten-conservative-principles/

Whatever the House GOP extremists are, they sure as hell don't fit any standard definition of "conservatives".

 

[Bob001]

Well, we do have a system that does that already, either through medicaid or by way of getting treatment and then not paying your bills. The argument is about how to modify this system to shift the cost burden around a bit.

So the poor do get healthcare under both systems. What sort they get is different. Who pays for it is different (but not entirely). For most people, including the poor, not much changes.

That's partly true. The really poor can get Medicaid, but many people earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to pay for health insurance, often because their employer doesn't offer group insurance and they can't afford individual policies. And if you don't have health insurance, you have to find someone who will treat you on your promise to pay up in the future. Emergency rooms have to save your life whether you can pay or not, but if you need surgery or chemotherapy or long-term treatment for a chronic condition, you have to get it from someone who won't ask for an insurance card and who doesn't care whether they get paid. Good luck. Medical bills are the primary reason for filing for bankruptcy in the U.S. And according to this study, 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes....-of-insurance-to-45000-us-deaths-a-year/?_r=0

Thousands of people line up to get free care at clinics from Remote Area Medical, an organization created to deliver aid to third-world countries until the founder discovered the vast unmet need in the U.S.
http://www.ramusa.org/
http://focusforwardfilms.com/films/37/

It's a Republican meme to say "everybody gets health care." What's more accurate is that "Everybody gets some health care sometime maybe."

 

[marplots]

That's partly true. The really poor can get Medicaid, but many people earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to pay for health insurance, often because their employer doesn't offer group insurance and they can't afford individual policies. And if you don't have health insurance, you have to find someone who will treat you on your promise to pay up in the future. Emergency rooms have to save your life whether you can pay or not, but if you need surgery or chemotherapy or long-term treatment for a chronic condition, you have to get it from someone who won't ask for an insurance card and who doesn't care whether they get paid. Good luck. Medical bills are the primary reason for filing for bankruptcy in the U.S. And according to this study, 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes....-of-insurance-to-45000-us-deaths-a-year/?_r=0

Thousands of people line up to get free care at clinics from Remote Area Medical, an organization created to deliver aid to third-world countries until the founder discovered the vast unmet need in the U.S.
http://www.ramusa.org/
http://focusforwardfilms.com/films/37/

It's a Republican meme to say "everybody gets health care." What's more accurate is that "Everybody gets some health care sometime maybe."

That's true. What we could say is that "Our system treats the very poor, and if you aren't very poor, it will aid you in becoming so."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

One of my coworkers is a Tea Party supporter and he argues, with a straight face, that having to pay taxes that pay any benefits at all to another person is a form of slavery. It's not a matter of "OMG! The poor are buying crab-legs with food stamps!" If the government takes taxes from person A and then uses that money to provide food stamps to person B, they are enslaving person A.

It's common ideology-blindness: A failure to see the bigger picture such as, the long term benefit of preventing a criminal from developing. It's almost as if such persons can't see that the world they live in would be an awful place if we didn't have a mix of public and private funding.

They can see the welfare queen but she's not the one with the hand in their pocket, the lobbyists are making sure those hands all come from the corporate sector.

As for the ACA, cost shifting of hospital's bad debt to paying customers is invisible, mandatory health insurance is visible.

 

[Kestrel]

The House Republicans gave the keys to the Freshmen. They have now driven the bus through the fence and over the flower beds and are heading straight for the cliff.

Meanwhile, the Fox News reporter is saying that nothing bad will happen.

 

[Kestrel]

It seems that in those grueling three day work weeks, the Republican House never managed to get any appropriations bills to the President's desk for a signature. In most cases, they couldn't even get them out of the House. They couldn't even pass a frigging farm bill.

 

[marplots]

Meanwhile, the Fox News reporter is saying that nothing bad will happen.

That has to be a first for Fox News.

 

[marplots]

Funny thing on C-Span just now. Jesse Jackson is speaking live and makes a huge deal about "there is no law called Obamacare" and has the audience repeat back to him (several times) the correct name for the law, "The Affordable Healthcare Act."

Gotta love that Jesse Jackson.

 

[Kestrel]

Funny thing on C-Span just now. Jesse Jackson is speaking live and makes a huge deal about "there is no law called Obamacare" and has the audience repeat back to him (several times) the correct name for the law, "The Affordable Healthcare Act."

Gotta love that Jesse Jackson.

The actual name is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

 

[marplots]

The actual name is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

That's what made it funny. He's making this huge deal about using the proper name, and then miscalls the name. Repeatedly. Not even the approved, shortened version, "Affordable Care Act."

 

[davefoc]

...

As for the ACA, cost shifting of hospital's bad debt to paying customers is invisible, mandatory health insurance is visible.

I have not wanted to comment on the ACA discussion going on in this thread. I think it is irrelevant to the issue, but I would like to agree with this comment.

As an apartment owner, I see quite a few credit reports in the course of a year. The most common source of bad credit among young people that I see is unpaid healthcare bills. Hospitals seem to put the bills out for collection very quickly which I presume means that if the hospitals ever get reimbursement it is at a rate of something like 50 cents on the dollar. I am in the camp that would prefer a libertarian solution here, if you can't afford health care you either don't get it or a charity supplies it.

But that isn't the problem we face, most people seem to favor forcing hospitals to accept patients that are unlikely to be able to pay them if the person has a serious condition. Faced with that reality allegedly uninsured people are actually insured people with inefficient insurance. Even if one favors a libertarian approach to healthcare, the reality is most people don't. Given that, opposing some kind of universal health insurance is akin to sticking one's head in the ground and ignoring reality.

 

[fuelair]

There is no reason at all that you should not be thoroughly incensed at the republickers.
I guarantee that!!!!

 

[theprestige]

Also, why you keep forgetting that the people that pay more also get added benefits and coverage. If you just state that they pay more, you are technically speaking the truth, but not the whole truth, and since you have been known to be partisan, it's fairly obvious that you omit it out of dishonesty.

Actually, Neally has explicitly acknowledged and addressed it at least once, in the very post you're replying to.

Also, why [do] you keep forgetting that it's possible for people to decide that they don't want or need the added benefits and coverage, and that they'd prefer to keep that money and spend it on something else that they believe will give them greater value?

I could buy a cadillac insurance plan, but if you forced me to do so and justified it by telling me I was getting all the benefits of a cadillac insurance plan, I might be a little irate. I'd also probably take you to task for completely ignoring the fact that I don't want or need a cadillac insurance plan, and I have better things I could be spending my money on.

No, if you want to convince me I should spend my money on all the things you want me to have, you'll have to do a whole hell of a lot better than simply telling me I'll have all the things you want me to have.

You keep ignoring this, and accusing people who acknowledge it of being dishonest, and it's no wonder so many of us would rather shut down the government than see your scheme realized.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I think everyone should be forced to buy a minimum requirement of health-insurance. It doesn't matter if you'd rather get less insurance so you can pay for a video-game. Health care is a societal issue.

 

[theprestige]

I think everyone should be forced to buy a minimum requirement of health-insurance. It doesn't matter if you'd rather get less insurance so you can pay for a video-game.

Or a retirement fund. Or a life insurance policy. Or some other health care benefit that I actually need but isn't included in your plan. Or a college degree. Or a licensing exam for my profession. Or a business permit. Or my daughter's prom dress. Or my son's prom dress. Or the homeless shelter in my community. Or the library in my community. Or a really good violin. Or a home improvement project. Or a self-improvement project. Or any one of ten thousand other things uniquely more relevant to me as a free citizen with the right to dispose of my own property as I think best.

Health care is a societal issue.

Then raise a tax for it.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Or a retirement fund. Or a life insurance policy. Or some other health care benefit that I actually need but isn't included in your plan. Or a college degree. Or a licensing exam for my profession. Or a business permit. Or my daughter's prom dress. Or my son's prom dress. Or the homeless shelter in my community. Or the library in my community. Or a really good violin. Or a home improvement project. Or a self-improvement project. Or any one of ten thousand other things uniquely more relevant to me as a free citizen with the right to dispose of my own property as I think best.

Exactly. The Heritage Foundation plan of insurance mandates is needed if we don't have a single-payer system.

Then raise a tax for it.

That's exactly what we should do. Are you advocating for a UCH/single-payer system?

The PPACA is the way it is because of the Right's unwillingness to support single-payer.