Congratulations to my fellow Democrats

[BeAChooser]

Yet Clinton subsequently won a landslide in '96.

Yes, with the help of millions in illegal Chinese campaign contributions.

 

[Baylor]

Boy, if Obama can pull this off, he's going to show he's one heck of a president.

He did. Year 2 is looking good for Obama.

 

[BeAChooser]

i am curious as to why GOPers think insurance companies should be allowed to drop members when they get sick, not cover pre-existing conditions, and greatly raise rates even when they make enormous profits.

I'm even more curious why democrats think allowing someone to opt out of *coverage* until after they are sick should be called *insurance*?

And I'm curious why they think insurance companies make "enormous" profits?

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-insurance-industry-ranks-86-by.html

As the table above of Profit Margins by Industry shows (click to enlarge, data here for the most recent quarter), the industry "Health Care Plans" ranks #86 by profit margin (profits/revenue) at 3.3%. Measured by profit margin, there are 85 industries more profitable than Health Care Plans (included Cigna (CI), Aetna (AET), WellPoint (WLP), HealthSpring (HS), etc.).

http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/08/25/why-health-insurers-make-lousy-villains.html

Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent. By this measure, the most profitable industry over the past year has been beverages, with a 25.9 percent profit margin. Right behind that were healthcare real-estate trusts (firms that are basically the landlords for hospitals and healthcare facilities) and application-software (think Windows).

… snip ...

Among the large, for-profit health insurers, profit margins line up with the industry as a whole. UnitedHealthGroup, the biggest health insurer, had a 4.1 percent profit margin over the past 12 months. WellPoint, the next biggest, had a 4 percent profit margin. Aetna, Cigna, and Humana came in below that.

Health insurers turn out to be underperformers compared with the other parts of the healthcare sector. Pharmaceutical companies have a profit margin of 16.4 percent—seventh highest of the 215 industries that Morningstar tracks. Others segments of healthcare with margins well above the median include healthcare information (9.4 percent), home healthcare firms (8.5 percent), medical labs (8.2 percent), and generic drugmakers (6.5 percent).

The big money, in other words, isn't in the insurance industry. If it's anywhere, it's in the pharmaceutical industry. But the Obamanauts appear to have reached a kind of détente with Big Pharma in exchange for that industry's tepid support for some kind of reform. So Obama and his foot soldiers need to look elsewhere for black hats.

George Will - "[C]onfiscate all the profits of all the health insurance companies, with those profits you could finance our healthcare for 48 hours." (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-s...chools-reich-healthcare-and-todays-liberalism )

The truth is that democrats are scapegoating insurance companies for a problem that lies elsewhere. And a lot of that elsewhere is with government itself. Democrats are engaging in demogoguery for political purposes.

 

[BeAChooser]

It ain't perfect. It will require years of tweaking.

LOL! Like the European UHC countries have been doing for the last quarter to half century. And still are. And not more a decade ago the populace in many of those countries (like the UK) were still VERY unhappy with their system. Is that what we have to look forward to ... 30 to 40 years of tweaking why the government tries to finally get it right?

 

[BeAChooser]

Really, congratulations to all of us Americans. ... snip ... Twenty years from now ... snip ...

Twenty years from now we will look back and lament what creeping socialism did to this country and it's economy. We'll be seeing decades of GDP growth that is considerably lower than it would have been. And that will have consequences. One will be that Americans are going to be far less generous than they have been with each other and the rest of the world. We will be like ... well ... Europeans.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Most of my problem with doing this sort of legislation is the bureaucratic mess it too often becomes. I depend on subsidized student loans so I can finish my master's education, and I had bright futures scholarship that helped me avoid federal loans when I was an undergraduate. Thanks to both I can more or less finish my education.

A couple of things that stick out and I've had them thrown at me a few times with a "liberal" friend of mine at the college every time I've gotten into the healthcare debate with him:

The bright futures scholarship basically uses state funds to pay for whatever alotted amount the award offers. In my case my tuition was 75% paid for.

I have a Federal Loan currently covering the majority of my tuition costs for mt master's education

The school itself including other institutions within it are all at least partially state-funded.

In other words I was complaining about government intervention when some of the same practices are ones I already rely on are government subsidized, therefore my concerns over the health care debate contradicted my stance towards letting the government subsidize my tuition or the resources the school provides as a result of state funding.

But the schools' also been seeing budgetary cuts leading as well to cuts in the scholarship and tuition hikes over the last few years (my master's tuition already eclipses my maximum loan allowance to boot). In other words my "benefits" are decreasing because the state government is unable to pay for its complete budget.

Just curious what happens if this becomes a similar case with the new bill or plans later on amending it. Do we call it the unequal sharing of blessings or the equal sharing of miseries when the bureaucracy fails as it did in Massachusetts?

 

[332nd]

LOL! Like the European UHC countries have been doing for the last quarter to half century. And still are. And not more a decade ago the populace in many of those countries (like the UK) were still VERY unhappy with their system. Is that what we have to look forward to ... 30 to 40 years of tweaking why the government tries to finally get it right?

How old is America?

 

[BeAChooser]

You seem to be neglecting the pesky little fact that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that this legislation will actually significantly decrease the national debt over the next couple of decades.

You seem to be neglecting the pesky little fact that the CBO only prices a program based on the assumptions given them. And in this case one of the assumptions given them by the democrats is that Medicare will be reduced $500 billion dollars. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you, sucker.

 

[BeAChooser]

They could also move to any one of the other 1st world countries that have true universal Health Care.

And a considerably lower GDP.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

You seem to be neglecting the pesky little fact that the CBO only prices a program based on the assumptions given them. And in this case one of the assumptions given them by the democrats is that Medicare will be reduced $500 billion dollars. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you, sucker.

More like that the estimates are done relative to the CBO baseline, which doesn't necessarily translate to it being the proper benchmark.

 

[BeAChooser]

The CBO does not assume that. The CBO estimates that the bill will result in about $500 billion reduction in Medicare expenditures over the next 10 years.

Not true. There was NO analysis involved. The CBO's numbers are based SOLELY on the ASSUMPTION that Congress will actually cut Medicare in the manner the bill claimed and nothing more.

http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGJlNDU4M2ViZmY4ZjVkYjc2ZWJkNzYxN2NhNjg2MzI=

While the Finance bill includes almost $500 billion in Medicare cuts, the out-year budget score relies on Congress approving recommendations from a new Medicare Commission for even more Medicare cuts every year. CBO’s score acknowledges how tenuous the projected savings are. CBO wrote: “These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. … The long-term budgetary impact could be quite different if those provisions were ultimately changed or not fully implemented.”[vii] A similar provision was established by the Medicare 45 percent “trigger,” which provided a fast track procedure to reduce Medicare spending if general revenues were projected to cover more than 45 percent of overall Medicare costs.[viii] Since the trigger was enacted in the Medicare Modernization Act [ix] in 2003, Congress has never had the courage to actually use the procedures to reduce Medicare spending. If this history is any guide, lawmakers are likely to postpone or avoid cuts proposed by the Medicare Commission on a regular basis rather than affirmatively acting to approve the additional cuts.

If you were the least bit honest, you'd admit that these cuts aren't going to happen. So the claim that the Health Care bill will reduced the deficit is a LIE.

 

[Peephole]

LOL! Like the European UHC countries have been doing for the last quarter to half century. And still are. And not more a decade ago the populace in many of those countries (like the UK) were still VERY unhappy with their system.

No we aren't.

 

[Peephole]

If you were the least bit honest, you'd admit that these cuts aren't going to happen. So the claim that the Health Care bill will reduced the deficit is a LIE.

This is is just a retarded line of attack. If the U.S. Congress isn't prepared to cut Medicare, you're ****ed anyway. It's the one place where there have to be cuts, if the U.S. budget is to survive over the coming decades. Attacking this bill for trying to actually accomplish that is just ridiculous.

Start whining when it doesn't actually happen.

 

[Fishstick]

Ah yes, the "If it's not perfect RIGHT NOW why bother doing it at all!" reasoning. Surely if something requires tweaking after initial implementation it's not worth doing at all. Profits and status quo must come first!

 

[332nd]

Ah yes, the "If it's not perfect RIGHT NOW why bother doing it at all!" reasoning. Surely if something requires tweaking after initial implementation it's not worth doing at all. Profits and status quo must come first!

I would love to see that argument presented to the Founding Fathers...

"We are gathered here today to declare ourselves an independent nation"

"LOL! Like the Kingdom of Great Britain has been doing for the past 69 years. And still are. And the populace of GB (and other all other countries) are still VERY unhappy with their government. Is that what we have to look forward to... 69, 70, 100, 200 years of tweaking while the government tries to finally get it right?"

"Yes. That's what governments do. Here, play with this cup and ball... Don't worry about losing it! The ball's on a string!"

 

[Arisia]

The Dutch did a few years ago what should have been done here: they completely scrapped their former health care system and built a new one from scratch. Prior to this they had a UK-style single-payer system.

What system do the Dutch use now?

I'm interested in this answer, too.
And is what the Dutch have done something that could realistically be applied to the US healthcare system?

 

[Grizzly Bear]

This is is just a retarded line of attack. If the U.S. Congress isn't prepared to cut Medicare, you're ****ed anyway. It's the one place where there have to be cuts, if the U.S. budget is to survive over the coming decades. Attacking this bill for trying to actually accomplish that is just ridiculous.

Start whining when it doesn't actually happen.

Would you support making the same cuts to the health care funding if there were any significant budget shortfalls?

I'm interested in this answer, too.
And is what the Dutch have done something that could realistically be applied to the US healthcare system?

I'm guessing this is it. If so it sounds a lot like the public option (to me anyway) that the democratic party was trying to get back in November. The system Obama signed into law is tangentially similar in so much as it mandates the purchase of insurance.

 

[BeAChooser]

How old is America?

Yeah ... and in all that time what trillion dollar social engineering programs has the federal government actually gotten right? Social security? No. Medicare? No. War on Poverty? No. War on Drugs? No. Public education? No. You care to offer one?

 

[WildCat]

What system do the Dutch use now?

All persons are rewquired to purchase private health insurance (there are no separate programs for different groups of people, like Medicare, Medicaid, VA, S-CHIP, etc), premiums are subsidized on a sliding scale according to income.

Competition amongst insurance companies is fierce, most actually sell the basic policy consisting of coverages mandated by the government at a loss. They make up fot it by selling supplementary policies covering things like dental and vision plans, upgraded hospital rooms, etc.

The Dutch government, even though they have UHC, spends a lower percentage of health care dollars than the US government does. IOW, the US is already more "socialized" than The Netherlands.

 

[WildCat]

LOL! Like the European UHC countries have been doing for the last quarter to half century. And still are. And not more a decade ago the populace in many of those countries (like the UK) were still VERY unhappy with their system. Is that what we have to look forward to ... 30 to 40 years of tweaking why the government tries to finally get it right?

And what do you have against the systems in The Netherlands, Germany, France, and Switzerland? Do you think all UHC looks like Canada and the UK?

The Dems and GOP could have looked to Europe, and seen what works and what doesn't work. But neither party has 2 brain cells to rub together apparently... all we get from the Dems is stupid and all we get from the GOP is them sticking their heads in the sand and pretending there are no problems.