The GOP Health Care Reform Bill
The President’s Proposal for Health Care Reform
So these are the two proposals that have been posted online for your perusal. The Health Care Summit scheduled for this Thursday (two days hence) begins with these ideas.
Where will health care reform end up? Will the American people benefit?
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
“President Obama has been clear that his proposal isn’t the final say on legislation, and that’s what Thursday’s meeting is all about. But after a year of historic national dialogue about reform, it’s time for both sides to be clear about what their plan is to lower costs, hold insurance companies accountable, make health insurance affordable for those without it, and reduce the deficit. A collection of piecemeal and sometimes conflicting ideas won’t do.”
When ever I read or see a reference to making something more affordable by using a tax cut or credit.
I think how fooking stupid?
Either they think I am just that dumb or they are just that dumb!
Neither will help you buy something, all it does is that later on you can get some of that money back!
Kind of like you know if I had a millions to buy a Yacht I could be a Yachter!
Before you can buy something you first have to have the money it cost to buy it.
Well that is just the simple answer to the uninsured… all that have to do is buy insurance!
Next problem now?
I could be wrong because I couldn’t find any credible source to support it, but I was roundly castigated on DailyKos for saying that insurance premium tax credits were going to be something that you got refunded on your tax return. I was TOLD (yet unable to confirm) that the tax credits would be point-of-purchase to the insurance companies so that the poor would not have to come up with money that they don’t have. The insurance companies would be paid directly from the government. And that sounds like it would be a more reasonable fix and something that the insurance companies would prefer anyway.
Alas, I was unable to find the language that supported that. Anyone who can, I would appreciate it very much.
Both health care and health insurance suffers from the dark side of supply-side economics.
“I have it and you want to buy it so I set the price”.
And both are far too important to have it subject to such thoughts.
I’ve figured out (finally! took me long enough!) that President Obama never planned to support a public option. Without a public option you can forget the word ‘reform,’ and say minor regulations will be imposed.
Unfortunately, you are right about that. If you looked at his policy while he was just a candidate, you would have known that he did not support growth or creation of any government program in order to solve the problem.
It was confusing, though, because there were times on the campaign trail when the things he said SOUNDED like he might support a public option. But he never said so in a policy statement. Which is another reason that I supported Kucinich (laugh if you will).
Will the American people benefit?
No.
But American health insurance companies will!
I’ve given up. Let them (Congressidiots) play their silly games. I’m taking my marbles and going home.
Maybe we can begin discussing how best to survive in our third-world country — America. Share recipes for road kill, and home remedies…
Would this make us survivalists?
Only if we had good enough advice to share with one another. Otherwise…
When I hear Republicans talk about not wanting to pay taxes and not needing health care reform, I always ask them this question:
At a town hall meeting, Todd Tiarht told his constituents that the uninsured needs to go on Medicaid and they would then be covered for health care.
Pardon me, but isn’t Medicaid paid by taxes and if every uninsured goes on Medicaid, then how the hell are taxes not going to go up?
Isn’t every Governor in the country crying for help with their budgets and all the shortages of revenue and the never-ending demand for more services?
But yet these same self-proclaiming ‘smart’ Republicans applaud Tiarht for standing firm on no health care reform and fighting to keep them from paying taxes.
Unbelievable.
According to The Votemaster —
Obama has now posted his plan. It is based on the Senate bill, but has some changes, including:
* Eliminating the “Cornhusker kickback” special deal that Ben Nelson got for Nebraska
* Allowing tens of millions of Americans to choose the same plan members of Congress have
* Strengthening the Senate’s affordability provisions
* Keeping the excise tax on gold-plated plans but raising its threshold to $27,500
* Creating a federal authority to prevent unreasonable insurance company rate increases
* Closing the Medicare “donut hole”
* Using the Senate’s abortion provision, which is less strict than the House’s
As expected, it does not include a public option that everyone can sign up for, but by making the congressional plans (which are privately run) available to tens of millions of people, some competition is introduced into the system. The proposal does not include tort reform or allowing insurance companies to sell across state borders, something the Republicans favor. If you are looking for a detailed comparison of the Senate, House and Obama plans, here is one.
And the first thing Republicans will zone in on will be abortions. Bart Stupak (Democrat) has already come out against the plan.
And why? because it is a wedge issue that is their whipping boy for each and every election.
Republicans still don’t question why Bush and fellow Superior Christians never even attempted to overturn Roe v Wade while they were in total power in White House, Congress and majority of Supreme Court.
But, then again, most Republicans cannot tie their shoes without Rushbo telling them when and how to do it.
I can’t see how this is going to help people get insurance. I know the cost of one of those plans. The one we had was an excellent one, and our payments weren’t very high for a family. But the government paid the largest percentage. Is that how this would work? Or will we peons be paying the full price? And if the former, I’m not sure even that’s such a big help to those who can’t afford monthly premiums as it is.
Like Wicked has said – a tax credit is not much help when you don’t have the money to pay for your portion of the premium in the first place.
What I want to see is this ridiculous current system we have where doctors and hospitals are charging inflated prices, getting low contract prices paid by insurance companies but yet they make self-payers pay the full inflated price.
That is so stupid!
Seems to me we need to get rid of the middle man – the insurance companies – and make the doctors and hospitals lower their costs to reasonable amounts and it would benefit everyone. Sounds alot like Medicare for everyone – huh?
Okay, I found the answer to my question.
For the first time in history, there will be limits on how much anyone will have to pay to receive health care coverage. And depending upon your income, you may be among the tens of millions of Americans who will get a tax credit to to help pay for your coverage.
You know, a tax credit doesn’t do squat if the money isn’t there to begin with. Totally worthless for many. Too many.
Don’t look now, but many Senate Democrats–including Harry Reid, I’ve heard–are reading the polls, and backing the inclusion of a public option.
While it might be possible to turn a few Northeastern Republicans, the end result needs to be a good bill. If necessary (and probably will be), there will either need to be a bill passed under reconcilation or going back to real, live filibusters, and instead of the faux mathematical standoffs we see today.
That’s not playing politics. That’s looking at reality.
P.S. The abortion provisions–in both houses–are presumptively unconstitutional, no matter what Bart Stupid thinks and, so long as Anthony Kennedy doesn’t flip on us, are dead-on-arrival at the Supreme Court.
That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be challenged before then.
And that also means that someone who can’t afford insurance (which is why they would need government assistance in the first place) would have to sue all the way to the Supreme Court in order to have that provision struck. Which would take years. And gestation lasts nine months so it wouldn’t do this person any good to sue anyway, even if they could afford it.
I am sure that is what they are counting on when they codify discrimination against women.
Not neccessarily: a thinking judge could get a preliminary injunction against enforcement of it from the start. It’s a no-brainer that it goes against current precedent.
But letting it pass into law would be wrong to begin with.
While it is true that a thinking judge would grant a preliminary injunction, in many jurisdictions judges are ELECTED not selected. No judge that would ever be up for election would probably want to be the one to grant the injunction.
But, in other jurisdictions, yes, you are right.
Rather than keeping all this fighting about abortion going on, why can we not agree to create a country that would encourage fewer abortions?
I’m afraid these anti-abortion supporters are living in La-La Land if they think that just because abortion is illegal, there will be no more abortions. That did not happen before Roe v Wade and it won’t happen if Roe v Wade gets overturned.
Our country is nearly bankrupt, our jobs are being outsourced more than being created, the jobs we still have are mainly lower wage jobs while the cost of living keeps rising and our current health care system is overpriced and unaccessible to many Americans.
And we have children having children. Could it be due to our oversexed society? Could it be we have too many child predators on the loose and some are in the very churches that go out and protest abortions?
But more than that – these anti-abortion supporters really think that women are choosing abortion as their birth control. They do not see abortion as a necessary procedure for any reason.
The anti-abortion supporters are never going to be happy until abortion is outlawed.
These people really don’t care if abortions are performed in the back alleys or hidden away in some hospital performed under a different terminology. They just don’t want to see a free-standing ‘abortion clinic’ doing business.
The old saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’ fits the anti-abortion supporters quite nicely.
“And we have children having children. Could it be due to our oversexed society? Could it be we have too many child predators on the loose and some are in the very churches that go out and protest abortions?”
Or could it be that the prevailing attitude in this country is that abortion is somehow EVIL and so many girls who are pregnant don’t even see it as an option anymore? How much easier THE CHOICE to have a keep a baby is for a teenage mother now. She wants to keep it, she would be EVIL if she had an abortion and she doesn’t want to carry it for nine months just to hand it over to someone else that she has no guarantee will be good to it? So, the choice to keep it is easy.
And then they and their babies are stuck with that easy choice because the very people that convinced them that abortion is evil will sooner see them and their babies starve than to give them aid for food and shelter. Oh, maybe if they agree to attend their church, come into the fold, so to speak, they might help them then. Otherwise–sinners should sleep in the beds they made, right?
So it is doubly important for all of us to stop repeating the meme that abortion is evil. I don’t like abortion, but I like to have a choice–this is sending the wrong message. Its a child, not a choice–this is untrue propaganda. It’s every woman’s choice to have or not to have a child–which is not a child until he or she is born into a welcoming world.