Practically speaking
Digby and I have talked a lot about the mandate issue being presented by the health-care bill for months now, and a lot of great blogs have been hitting it too. A new poll done by Research 2000 for the PCCC and DFA says American voters will hate this bill if there are mandates and no public option.
If American voters aren't going to see any immediate pluses to their overall health care and are forced to pay into the mandates of the health care bill then how will the voters feel about the new outlay of cash? A good many will probably just pay the penalty instead of signing up and will be just as pissed, and that's coming from the left. The right-wing crazies will hate it even if it significantly helped their lives. so the debate has really focused on the differences on the left. We have captured the debate.
I know I'm a broken record on this subject, but I do think it's the thing most lacking from the insider conversations on HCR. Not that I really know, because I'm not an insider, but occasionally I get a wee sense of what's actually occupying staffers in various places. "Voters liking this thing" seems to be at best an afterthought.
It's sorta weird, really, because on most subjects it's the first thing they think of, both about the policy itself and the myriad imaginary attack ads that can be run based on the policy. If voters don't like this thing, it'll likely be repealed before most of it even takes effect, either because Republicans take over or because frightened members of a Dem controlled Congress do so. Sure, there's the optimistic view that it could be "made better" instead of repealed, but I'm not really feeling all that hopey.
No matter what the tosser Ron Brownstein says, liberal activists want health-care reform much more than Villagers can imagine, but we don't want it if it does nothing more than enrich insurance corporations and in the end never accomplish much of the goals that the defenders of the Senate bill are saying.
Lieberman and the Villagers are more interested in protecting the DC insider crowd than they are reforming health care for America.
And to show how lacking his argument is, Brownstein tries to paint us as the racists. Brownstein should check out a few teabagger rallies. And to dismiss the complaints we have as "ideological" shows how petty the elitists truly are.
Neo-feudalism is the coming thing.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Sometime about 1975 my dad handed me a copy of "Limits To Growth" which concluded there were (at that time) two possible scenarios for the 21st century.
A) Continue at the 1970 rate of population growth and industrial expansion, resulting in a massive dieoff from a peak population in excess of 10 billion to a manageable population of 3 billion
OR
B) Dramatically reduce population growth and industrial output, stabilizing world population at something like 8-10 billion.
I'm convinced the Corporate Rulers read the same book and decided to continue with Plan A, grabbing and hoarding resources with the intent that they and/or their progeny would be among the lucky 3 billion who survived the chaos of the dieoff holed up in their gated communities protected by private guards etc etc.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
I think they DO talk about this and have boiled it down to the numbers. The only people who will be forced to buy insurance are those who do not already have it. If the subsidies make the cost at least livable, then there will be a large number of people who will be glad to have the insurance. Even those who hate the mandate will have to look at what they're spending their money on - paying a fine is a total waste, whereas putting that same money toward insurance gets them... something.
By the time you boil all that down, the number of people who will hate the mandate, pay the fine, and then make a decision at the polls is probably small enough to ignore.
Marcy Wheeler has a good reply to what you written here
As does Glenn Greenwald here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Progressives don't have to sit and take the conservative nonsense
from conservatives in our Democratic Party and the RepubliKLAN party.
You influence a lot of people. Read what I have to say and if you like it tell people about this until we bust the conservative coalition in congress.
We're going to go after the friends of conservative Democrats and Republicans with a massive consumer boycott of those companies that give money to conservatives. People did that in South Africa and India and we're going to do it here.
I called these 2 organizations.
Omaha Steaks 800 228 2778
Nebraska Beef Council 800-421-5326
and told a person in both organizations, one a beef seller and the other an organization that promotes Nebraska beef that
I communicate with thousands of people on the net and that
UNLESS their CEOs get Senator Ben Nelson to get all Anti abortion language out of the final health care bill they can forget me doing business with them and also forget about me buying Nebraska bred beef at the Supermarket which I will make sure that the local Supermarket does not sell.
Spread the word please.
You can see further actions at http://WWW.DEMOCRATZ.ORG
I refuse to pay a fine. Let the mother fuckers try and collect it!
We'll all just go to jail with Keith Olbermann.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
is going to collapse anyway at some point. NOTHING is being done to prevent medical treatment costs from skyrocketing. The health insurance companys even know they can't afford to pay the full amount!
They hassle you for just a god dam root canal let alone $500,000 and up medical costs!
What we are doing is bailing out Insurance Companies before they need a bailout just like every other god damn Corporation that collapsed last year.
We may as well mandate everyone to buy a damn car or some half assed product some Corporation needs to dump to survive.
Think of the Health Insurance Racket. Corporate medicine and their R+D divisions set's the price for their "products", doctors, nurses, high tech gadgetry, drugs, needles, wrist bands, beds, toilet paper, tissue, etc . . insurance takes your money, decide what they want to pay, you pay the rest (thanks bud your on your own now!) . . what a scam. What a freaking scam.
Sorry!
We're discussing Health Care, not Dental Care, OK?
They are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
we've gone through the same shit with my wife's Medical Insurance.
But it really sucks .. I mean .. it's INSANE !!
Dental Care is NOT Health Care???
Fact: The leading cause of death among early American colonists was absessed teeth.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
a Root Canal is a serious and absolutely necessary medical procedure. Otherwise one could die from the infection. It OUGHT to be covered by medical plans, without all the deductions and whatnots- Its just as important, if not as urgent, as an appendectomy.
requires the services of an oral surgeon it certainly comes under the heading of health care where I'm live.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
...have painfully reminded me of how stupid Americans generally are.
-and when you consider that they can't get factual news from "the media" it isn't surprising they disengage, or live in rage and fear of they-don't-know-what; just waiting for Fox with their Glen Becks and Orileys to point them in whatever direction Murdoch wishes.
The ONLY way mandated purchase of private health insurance can work is if:
1) There is STRICT regulation of the health insurance industry, right down to specifying either that they must be non-profit OR that some percent (over 90) of premiums must go to paying for health care;
2) Massive subsidies for the lowest income, disabled, etc.
But I don't see a snowball's chance in hell of the necessary regulation of the private insurance industry.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
(insurance corporation) was once the 18th largest public company in the world. Even after the bailout AIG reported a fourth quarter loss of $61.7bn . . President Barack Obama, who voted for the AIG bailout as a Senator . . need we say anymore?
Insurance company, brokerage or lobbying company?
Emanuel was named to the Board of Directors for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac") by then President Bill Clinton in 2000. His position earned him at least $320,000, including later stock sales.[31][32] He was not assigned to any of the board's working committees, and the Board met no more than six times per year.[32]
During his time on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities.[32][33] The Obama Administration rejected a request under the Freedom of Information Act to review Freddie Mac board minutes and correspondence during Emanuel's time as a director.[32]
Christmas Day . . Congress passes historic Health Care Reform Bill! Trumpets!!!!!!
practical arrangements they can to comply with Federal Law we all know what that mean$.
You get a second job to pay for health insurance and if that doesn't work out you figure out how to break or dodge the rules. Maybe Congress can give citizens some tips on how to skirt and dodge and break the rules with impunity they are the experts.
to be at best an afterthought."
There is a line in "Yes Prime Minister" where the Prime Minister explains his priorities.The voters can throw me out in four years,my backbenchers, he says, can vote me down this evening. Voters, in effect, have the least say in any political system. All politicians tend to see only the problem immediately before them. Sadly in the US this is principally fund raising for the next election. Voters get no consideration until an election nears when campaigning makes actually do anything legislatively impossible.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Yes!!! We got Change!! Health Care!!!! Obama's the man!!! as the mid terms become the next center of focus.
Rarely.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
1 - utilizes the free market to make sure the free market can overturn Roe v. Wade since the Judiciary and the Congress can't.
2 - kicks about 15,000 people off of Medicaid/Medicare and other state-run public health agencies.
3 - mandates those people (and the rest of us) to buy private health care.
4 - forces the rest of us to pay for the private/HMO health care coverage that poorer citizens can't afford, since that apparently ISN'T socialized communist fascism but Medicare/Medicaid is?
5 - doesn't actually address pre-existing conditions and coverage caps. allows a variety of opt-outs and caveats for HMOs to deny coverage.
6 - does nothing to address the millions of people already bankrupted by medical costs who are still in need of medical coverage.
7 - fails to address skyrocketing HMO coverage costs. couple this with the fact that we all HAVE to pay for health care coverage, and it inadvertently allows private enterprise to "raise taxes" at their leisure, with no explanation and no recourse.
***
sigh ... meanwhile our white house is still bombing little kids in Iraq and Afghanistan, they're still extraordinarily renditioning non-citizens and torturing them, they're still tapping phones and snooping on emails, they're still neglecting to create and save jobs, they're still allowing banks to further damage the citizens.
part of me almost wishes I'd voted for McCain/Palin at this point. if for no other reason than to just expedite the inevitable revolution or apocalypse.
This bill will insure that the right wing lunatics get elected in 2010 & 2012 and just go ahead and finish us off. Why keep putting of the inevitable.
This whole health care debate has left me in tears. Just received my annual increase on my insurance premium -- went up 28.7%. I now have to pay $1110/month for my premium. Can't afford this. Will become one of the uninsured. All my emails, phone calls and letters to my representatives, to those representatives I thought stood for us (Weiner, Sanders, etc.), and to the White House, evidently meant nothing.
I'm not rich by any means .... but Canadian Single-payer Healthcare means at least I am free from this crazyness ... please dont stop fighting for the average person!
I'm Boycotting NewsCorp! Heres what not to buy: http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php?c=news...
As a Canadian, closely watching the health care debate in the US, the absurdity of it leaves me just aghast.
The most obvious, simplest and most efficient solution, the single payer health care system, was from the outset, off the table.
Instead, what was proposed was a nebulous "public option", which was never really defined, but would have been some kind government owned insurer of last resort. For some of your right wingers, both Republicans and Democrats, this smacked too much of socialism, and was therefore unacceptable.
Then a comprise was made. Instead of a "public option", there would be a "public buy-in" to Medicare for Americans 55 year of age and older. This too was too much for Joe Lieberman, and this too, was taken off the table.
So what was left.
The idea that government mandates would force Americans to buy health insurance from private health insurance corporations, and for those who cannot afford the premiums, tax dollars will be used to subsidized there premiums, with the insurance companies setting those premiums.
You already have the most expensive and inefficient health care system in the developed world, and it seems that your legislators have found a way to make it even more so.
Here in Canada, no politician with hopes of actually being elected, no matter how right wing they are, and we certainly have our share of right-wingers, would promise to dismantle our single payer system and bring back private insurance companies.
is an abomination (err ... Obama-nation?) and is only going to get worse. Federal mandates & fines for coverage under private for-profit healthcare insurance without either patient cost constraints, elimination of pre-existing condition clauses, annual & lifetime caps on coverage, or subsidies for low/no income patients is nothing less than legalized extortion. It is a fiscal boon to the only parties who will benefit, the Healthcare Industrial Complex and their political lackeys, and as such reinforce the judgement that the USA is now a fascistic Corporate State -- socialized risk and privatized profit.
Believe you me, I had considered immigrating to Canada at one point. Further investigation of conditions in Canada led me to reconsider. It would appear that Canada has "caught" the USA neoconservative "disease", in regard to (1) Harper as PM, and (2) the application of USA law against Canadians for actions not even illegal in Canada (eg. the case of Marc Emory). The final "nail in the coffin" of my deciding against Canada was already made for me, with Canada's draconian point system for immigration there. I believe I might be better off considering immigration to France as a political refugee.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
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