Health Care Legislation: USA

[Just Lucky]

Originally Posted by D33RHUNT3R

Ya how dare the insurance companies try to stay in business... ..
I'm mean after all Obama intend for them to go bankrupt instead... this is nothing more than a Backdoor to single payer government controlled death panels ...

Other than the figments in right wing propaganda you mention here, the only "death panels" I know of in this country are the ones operated by the health insurance companies. They have been responsible for the deaths of people I loved.

For example, some these criminal scum are going to deny insurance to children so they don't have to cover pre-existing conditions in a few. If it were about staying in business, all of the insurance companies would need to do it. This is about profits at the cost of suffering and the death of your fellow citizens and human beings.

I am strongly in favor of death panels. I would like to kill the lack of compassion that has become so popular amongst some in this country. I'd like to transplant some empathy into those folks. We can start with thawing the ice water which must flow through the veins of the insurance executives mentioned above.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by jeffandbecky

With only a 30% approval on the Democrat health care package, I like the odds...

So you're waiting for it to drop almost 10 points from where it actually is, then?

RealClearPolitics - Election Other - Obama and Democrats' Health Care Plan

(And that's letting you throw in conservative Rasmussen. Probably costs a point or two all by himself!)

[Rissask]

Originally Posted by ryberg

...yes?

sorry!

I was thinking of the stories about how the sky high obesity rates in Scotland and the challenges and burdens it places on the system.

Nearly every adult in Scotland is burdened with at least one major lifestyle risk factor, and 55 percent of the population are coping with three or more, according to a study released Friday.

Looking at five health-threatening behaviours - smoking, heavy drinking, lack of exercise, poor diet, obesity - researchers found that twice as many Scottish men and women face a triple threat or worse than in any continental European country in which a similar study has been done.


Only in England and the United States are levels of risk even remotely close.

Scotland tops list for lifestyle health risks: study - Health & Families, Life & Style - The Independent



the same issues are of course in the US and Canada and England, to varying degrees.

According to research compiled by America Sports Data Inc. in the United States, 3.8 million people weigh in at more than 300 pounds, over 400,000 people (mostly males) carry over 400 pounds, and the average adult female weighs 163 pounds.

Also, according to the National Institute of Health, approximately one-third of all hospital patients weigh 350 pounds or more. In fact, bariatric surgery volume skyrocketed from 16,000 cases in 1992 to 103,000 cases in 2004.

Because of their physical size, these patients often cannot use standard wheelchairs, waiting-room armchairs, blood pressure cuffs, hospital beds and gowns, or M.R.I. and CAT scan machines. Likewise, X-rays might not penetrate far enough into their bodies to produce useful images, causing possible care delays.




For these reasons, architects are facing new design challenges. They are beginning to realize the need to accommodate more bariatric patients. Newly constructed hospitals and healthcare faciilties also want to incorporate these design elements from the start.
Safety incidents, such as toilets collapsing, chairs breaking, patient beds malfunctioning and wheelchairs that cannot roll under the weight of severely obese patients, are inspiring hospitals to respond. Healthcare equipment and furnishing manufacturers have also had to respond to the situation by creating a whole new line of equipment that caters to severely obese patients.

Facilities must change to accommodate obese patients - - Managed Healthcare Executive

Certainly people need to take more responsibility for their health. Think of the extra money this costs all of our systems, because of something preventable like obesity....this is pretty ridiculous, embarassing, sad.... take your pick.

[gingele]

Originally Posted by D33RHUNT3R

Insurers May Stop Offering Child Plans - Local News - Sacramento, CA - Sacramento - msnbc.com


In California, one of the major parts of the federal health care law may end up backfiring.

Some insurance companies say as soon as the law takes effect, they'll stop writing new individual policies for all children.

Calls about the new legislation keep coming into a health care hot line in Sacramento.

The nonprofit that runs the hot line say callers are particularly interested in the part of the law that says starting Thursday, insurers can no longer deny coverage to children who are sick.

"They want to make sure that their child -- who probably has a pretty serious health condition -- has health care," Jennifer Smith from the hot line said.

Now, two major insurance companies -- Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna -- say if forced to sell to sick children, they prefer to sell no child policies at all.


Let see how many jobs that will cost ?

Originally Posted by D33RHUNT3R

Ya how dare the insurance companies try to stay in business... ..
I'm mean after all Obama intend for them to go bankrupt instead... this is nothing more than a Backdoor to single payer government controlled death panels ...

Jobs lost? Private insurance companies staying in business?

Let's see. Aetna, which is one of the companies mentioned in your article above that will now refuse to insure children with pre-existing conditions via child-only policies, paid it's top executives the following:

AETNA executive compensation 2009 -

Chairman/CEO: $18,058,200.00
President: $12,627,800.00
CFO: $8,739,200.00
SVP, Strategic Planning $3,959,030.00
SVP: $1,468,520.00
BOard of Directors (12 outside members): $2,684,949.00

For a grand total of $47,537,699.00 paid out by Aetna in 2009 for executive compensation.

Source: p. 60, AETNA 2010 Proxy Statement


Yeah, cry me a fuc!*ng river. Company is clearly so painfully close to bankruptcy they simply could not afford to insure sick kids.

Screw the approximately half-million or so sick kids whose parents don't have group health plans. Talk about "death panels"!

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by gingele

Jobs lost? Private insurance companies staying in business?

Let's see. Aetna, which is one of the companies mentioned in your article above that will now refuse to insure children with pre-existing conditions via child-only policies, paid it's top executives the following:



For a grand total of $47,537,699.00 paid out by Aetna in 2009 for executive compensation.

Source: p. 60, AETNA 2010 Proxy Statement


Yeah, cry me a fuc!*ng river. Company is clearly so painfully close to bankruptcy they simply could not afford to insure sick kids.

Screw the approximately half-million or so sick kids whose parents don't have group health plans. Talk about "death panels"!

Thank you!

I'm glad I wasn't the only one with a reaction to being more worried about big health insurance companies' salaries than sick children being denied coverage for treatment they need!

[eccentrictinker]

From yesterday's Examiner

Six months ago, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rammed Obamacare down the throats of an unwilling American public. Half a year removed from the unprecedented legislative chicanery and backroom dealing that characterized the bill's passage, we know much more about the bill than we did then. A few of the revelations:

» Obamacare won't decrease health care costs for the government. According to Medicare's actuary, it will increase costs. The same is likely to happen for privately funded health care.

» As written, Obamacare covers elective abortions, contrary to Obama's promise that it wouldn't. This means that tax dollars will be used to pay for a procedure millions of Americans across the political spectrum view as immoral. Supposedly, the Department of Health and Human Services will bar abortion coverage with new regulations but these will likely be tied up for years in litigation, and in the end may not survive the court challenge.

» Obamacare won't allow employees or most small businesses to keep the coverage they have and like. By Obama's estimates, as many as 69 percent of employees, 80 percent of small businesses, and 64 percent of large businesses will be forced to change coverage, probably to more expensive plans.

» Obamacare will increase insurance premiums -- in some places, it already has. Insurers, suddenly forced to cover clients' children until age 26, have little choice but to raise premiums, and they attribute to Obamacare's mandates a 1 to 9 percent increase. Obama's only method of preventing massive rate increases so far has been to threaten insurers.

» Obamacare will force seasonal employers -- especially the ski and amusement park industries -- to pay huge fines, cut hours, or lay off employees.

» Obamacare forces states to guarantee not only payment but also treatment for indigent Medicaid patients. With many doctors now refusing to take Medicaid (because they lose money doing so), cash-strapped states could be sued and ordered to increase reimbursement rates beyond their means.

» Obamacare imposes a huge nonmedical tax compliance burden on small business. It will require them to mail IRS 1099 tax forms to every vendor from whom they make purchases of more than $600 in a year, with duplicate forms going to the Internal Revenue Service. Like so much else in the 2,500-page bill, our senators and representatives were apparently unaware of this when they passed the measure.

» Obamacare allows the IRS to confiscate part or all of your tax refund if you do not purchase a qualified insurance plan. The bill funds 16,000 new IRS agents to make sure Americans stay in line.

If you wonder why so many American voters are angry, and no longer give Obama the benefit of the doubt on a variety of issues, you need look no further than Obamacare, whose birthday gift to America might just be a GOP congressional majority.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: Examiner Editorial: Obamacare is even worse than critics thought | Washington Examiner

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by eccentrictinker

From yesterday's Examiner

Read more at the Washington Examiner: Examiner Editorial: Obamacare is even worse than critics thought | Washington Examiner

The way you keep posting links to and excerpts from these embarrassingly biased pieces, one would think you believe they have something worthwhile to say!

[melliedee]

While the entire health-care reform legislative package is extremely controversial and contentious, The American Legion has taken a position on one aspect only: maintaining the autonomy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Defense's health-care delivery systems.


"It is going to be a long, drawn-out legislative process, but America's veterans can rest assured that their benefits will be protected. That I personally guarantee," said Hill.

Hill confident health plan won

[eccentrictinker]

Originally Posted by ryberg

The way you keep posting links to and excerpts from these embarrassingly biased pieces, one would think you believe they have something worthwhile to say!

Which assertions in the article are false, Steve?

Or are you just making a general statement that all negative news re Dem policy is/are lies?

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by eccentrictinker

Which assertions in the article are false, Steve?

Or are you just making a general statement that all negative news re Dem policy is/are lies?

No, I'm making the observation that it's a highly biased piece of writing, rather than something to be taken seriously by rational people, as is clear from the tone of its very first sentence.

Why don't you indicate which claims in it are true? After all, it appears explicitly as an opinion piece or editorial, and backs up none of its claims with any sort of sources to look at.

So again the question, given all these things, is why one would take it seriously in the first place.

[eccentrictinker]

Originally Posted by ryberg

No, I'm making the observation that it's a highly biased piece of writing, rather than something to be taken seriously by rational people, as is clear from the tone of its very first sentence.

Why don't you indicate which claims in it are true? After all, it appears explicitly as an opinion piece or editorial, and backs up none of its claims with any sort of sources to look at.

So again the question, given all these things, is why one would take it seriously in the first place.

Ok, Steve, here's the deal. The assertions made in the article have been repeated in a number of national newspapers and on TV news/opinion programs. I've not seen anyone yet refute the assertions.

A sentient person might be led to believe that these assertions are true.

If you have inside knowledge that any one of these assertion are false, I'm all ears.

Nice dodge, BTW.

[ryberg]

Of course, when you look into who's behind the paper in question, it's no surprise to see such out-and-out bias in their editorials:

Phil Anschutz's conservative agenda

One night last week at The Dubliner, an Irish bar near the Capitol, an unassuming Denver billionaire who has quietly made himself a player in Washington’s relatively small media world, had dinner with his editors.

It was a rare D.C. visit by Philip Anschutz, ranked by Forbes as the 37th richest man in America. But Anschutz’s ownership of The Washington Examiner, a daily tabloid, and The Weekly Standard, probably the nation’s most influential conservative magazine, has given him a megaphone for his right-wing views on taxes, national security and President Barack Obama that the 130 or so companies he owns have not provided him...

He started the Examiner in early 2005 as local competition to The Washington Post, but with a clear ideological stamp. When it came to the editorial page, Anschutz’s instructions were explicit — he “wanted nothing but conservative columns and conservative op-ed writers,” said one former employee.

And recently the paper’s politics have become more pronounced while adding a stable of writers plucked from conservative outlets and think tanks...

Really, would you spend a lot of time on it if I presented you with a Michael Moore film and said you should take note because this is really the stuff and what in it is inaccurate, anyway? as if there was no question of the source's political views biasing his take on reality?

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by eccentrictinker

Ok, Steve, here's the deal. The assertions made in the article have been repeated in a number of national newspapers and on TV news/opinion programs. I've not seen anyone yet refute the assertions.

A sentient person might be led to believe that these assertions are true.

If you have inside knowledge that any one of these assertion are false, I'm all ears.

Nice dodge, BTW.

Answer my last question.

Come on, 'fess up: you guys don't want bipartisanship at all! You just want partisan types who agree with you to win.

[ryberg]

Well there is this. From your piece:

» Obamacare allows the IRS to confiscate part or all of your tax refund if you do not purchase a qualified insurance plan. The bill funds 16,000 new IRS agents to make sure Americans stay in line.

but a quick search also turns up this:

Q: Will the IRS hire 16,500 new agents to enforce the health care law?

A: No. The law requires the IRS mostly to hand out tax credits, not collect penalties. The claim of 16,500 new agents stems from a partisan analysis based on guesswork and false assumptions, and compounded by outright misrepresentation.

Then on a totally separate point, there is your piece ignoring the whole Stupak affair and the executive order banning the use of federal money for abortions. And you'll note that this is not even mentioned, which of course is another problem with such biased sources: not just that what they do say may be wrong, but that they may leave out many other important aspects and further bias things that way.

Maybe you can find more to undermine these points in response, too. The point is, the piece you presented is so obviously not even trying to present a realistic picture of things in the first place. It's like death by a thousand cuts with you guys. Just keep throwing out claims enough, and keep making them false enough, that nobody will possibly be able to keep disproving them or showing their bias, and you'll win by default.

[jeffandbecky]

Originally Posted by ryberg

So you're waiting for it to drop almost 10 points from where it actually is, then?

RealClearPolitics - Election Other - Obama and Democrats' Health Care Plan

(And that's letting you throw in conservative Rasmussen. Probably costs a point or two all by himself!)

I'll take the odds with your numbers any day. A 14 point spread is a major landslide victory. The only poll that counts is the one in November and I feel GOOD.

Now that just a few of health care plan provisions have gone into effect, love to see the insurance companies stop writing new policies. For the left, bad, greedy company. For the right and independents, sure sign that government control is right around the corner.

I like the odds and the angles. Thanks for posting the link. See you in November.