Obama's Healthcare Reform- Thoughts?

[InternalPrimate]

I think it's a relevant point. The minority must have its rights protected even when it's unpopular to the majority. I 100% stand by that.

[old man]

I agree with protecting the rights of minorities and providing equal benefits to everyone, but taking away one person's rights to satisfy another's isn't an improvement.

[GriskaGyoran]

All these politic that nobody likes. In other words, this sucks. I'm going back to Russia.

[Knuckle Duster]

"Hey man, what doctor are you here to see?"

[Joe Redifer]

I posted this on another forum so I might as well post it here, too. Sit back and relax, here I go:


I think everyone agrees that there are a few good ideas in the new law; universal access and prohibiting insurance companies from denying/dropping people with pre-existing or chronic conditions are good ideas. If addressing these issues was the only thing the new law did, it would be a step in the right direction.

I've seen estimates reported in the Wall Street Journal that it would take about $25 billion a year to give insurance to those who can't afford it and cover the costs for those who have been dropped by insurance companies for being too expensive. That would be $250 billion over ten years. That's billion with a "B", as in "boy", "bitch", "bastard", etc. This new law is going to cost four times that. So, where is the other three-quarters of a trillion dollars going? Special interests and government bureaucracy. Here's an example of special interests; starting in 2013, health care plans at companies will be charged a 40% tax to help pay for ObamaCare. Unless you work for a union, that is. The vast majority of union workers have plans as good or better than most companies' but they don't have to pay the tax until 2018. Why? Reward for supporting Democrats in last year's elections. The worst offender of special interests was the so-called "Cornhusker Kickback" where a senator from Nebraska refused to cast the 60th vote in the Senate unless a provision was put in the bill forcing the other 49 states to pay for Nebraskan's medicare forever. This was removed in the "reconciliation bill" but Obama is still bragging about how this bill was so popular that it received a "super majority" vote in the Senate. The new law creates a new Health Care Commissioner, something called "comparative effectiveness panels" (whatever the hell that is) and a new Medicare Advisory Board all of which will cost tens of billions of tax dollars with no improvement in health care that I can find.

The non-tax cost is really idiotic. Since the new law doesn't really do anything to control health care costs, it has to find a way to pay for giving every person in the country the same medical care no matter how much the cost goes up. The way it does this is by forcing everyone in the country to buy health insurance, as discussed earlier. To help make this stick, every company that employs over 50 people will have to provide health plans and their employees will have to sign up for them. The government will determine if these plans are "beefy" enough and, if they're not, will fine the company up to $2,300 per employee to make up the difference. If you or I or anyone else decides not to sign up for a health care plan, we will be fined, so the government gets its money either way. The estimates I've seen for the non-tax cost of ObamaCare are $1.5 trillion dollars on top of the $1 trillion in new taxes. Just last week, AT&T was forced to take a $1 billion charge to earnings for its short-term non-tax cost to implement ObamaCare. The folks at CNN are reporting the non-tax cost isn't real; try telling that to AT&T!

So... the costs started the day the bill was signed and the government is collecting. Maybe the really worst thing of all is that even four years from now, there won't be universal coverage. Senior citizens will have worse medicare, millions of people (mostly the very poor) won't have any care at all and insurance companies will still be able to limit the annual amount they have to pay for any person's health care. This is why I think this is mostly a political power grab and not at all a program to help those in need and improve everyone's health.

The three biggest things currently driving up healthcare costs are (in order) rampant law suits, limited competition among insurance companies and skyrocketing compensation of certain health care professionals. Obama likes to say that lawsuit awards are only a small percentage of the overall cost of healthcare. What he leaves out is that most doctors run about twice as many tests as are required to treat their patients just to create "evidence" that they didn't act irresponsibly or neglectful. Everyone's health care premiums would have gone down if the law had done what Texas did ten years ago which is to limit pain and suffering awards to $200,000. I feel really bad for the dude who had the wrong finger amputated by a careless surgeon but I don't think he deserves $10 million to help comfort him (call me heartless).

When my uncle was running a lumber company in Louisiana, he had a choice of about ten companies that he could buy their healthcare plan from. This is artificially limited by current law which doesn't allow interstate commerce in health care plans. If a smart guy in Kansas can offer a plan for 25% less than the dumb guy in Louisiana, I think he should have been allowed to buy from the Kansas guy. The current law keeps in place the prohibition in interstate commerce.

Finally, I think that the compensation of doctors, some nurses and specialists has gotten out of control. Through my connections at CU I've heard of a number of docs who have a goal of being worth $50 million by the time they are 50 years old. I like that they save lives and all of that nonsense but I don't think they should make that much. Part of what drives this is limits by the American Medical Association on the number of certifications they allow each year. There would be a lot more doctors competing if not for this limitation. The new law is going to try and limit what all health care professionals make by limiting the amount the government is willing to pay (i.e. the $500 billion Medicare cuts). I think this is just going to drive expensive operations and procedures into the private sector. Rich people will get access to the best surgeons, etc. and everyone else will be standing in line waiting for the ones who got C's and D's in medical school.

Obama is bragging that this new law will reduce the deficit over the next ten years. He is right! After raising taxes by $500 billion and cutting another $500 billion from Medicare benefits the government gets a few billion dollars more than it will pay out. That makes it all worth it!

[Knuckle Duster]

The ship is sinking, Obama's just keeping everybody from rocking the boat on the way down. Radical things need to happen and stimulate job growth and I think the biggest fear here is the perceived road blocks this new bill sets up.

To that end, You can't buy american and kill trade with china, you will cripple your dollar. You also can't rely on imports, so manufacturing needs to happen again. This is all bullshit though, that won't solve anything or happen without the dreadful government getting involved.

Everybody shits on Obama and the democrats for spending what is necessary for short-term sustainability, and nobody wants taxes to go up. That's all fine and dandy, but weather or not Obama implements accountability via government 'intervention' laws/regulations and raises taxes himself isn't the problem. His successor surely will need to do it, if he doesn't.

I'm rambling, but it's not hard to understand. GWB was no Regan, the 8 year tax vacation & 2 wars have brought your country 10 years from the breaking point, the 'bills' are due now or then, you might as well pay less for them now.

American culture is so hell bent on being 'Free and different' than other similar nations, but to the point of self destruction? No thanks, Raise the taxes responsibly and find new ways to be competitive globally.

[old man]

Everyone knows some things need to be regulated, the problem is they keep 'regulating' the wrong damn shit.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Feeling way too lazy to read people's posts or actually participate at this moment, so here's a quick copy n paste from the gentleman from Texas.

by Ron Paul

With passage of last week’s bill, the American people are now the unhappy recipients of Washington’s disastrous prescription for healthcare “reform.” Congressional leaders relied on highly dubious budget predictions, faulty market assumptions, and outright fantasy to convince a slim majority that this major expansion of government somehow will reduce federal spending. This legislation is just the next step towards universal, single payer healthcare, which many see as a human right. Of course, this “right” must be produced by the labor of other people, meaning theft and coercion by government is necessary to produce and distribute it.

Those who understand Austrian economic theory know that this new model of healthcare will cause major problems down the road, as it has in every nation that ignores economic realities. The more government involves itself in medicine, the worse healthcare will get: quality of care will diminish as the system struggles to contain rising costs, while shortages and long waiting times for treatment will become more and more commonplace.

Consider what would happen if car insurance worked the way health insurance does. What if it was determined that gasoline was a right, and should be covered by your car insurance policy? Perhaps every gas station would have to hire a small army of bureaucrats to file reimbursement claims to insurance companies for every tank of gas sold! What would that kind of system do to the costs of running a gas station? How would that affect the prices of both gasoline and car insurance? Yet this is exactly the type of system Congress is now expanding in health insurance. In a free market system, health insurance would serve as true insurance against serious injuries or illness, not as a convoluted system of third party payments for routine doctor visits and every minor illness.

While proponents of this reform continue to defy all logic and reason by claiming it will save money, I worry about cataclysmic economic events. Already investors are more reluctant to buy US Treasuries, fearing that the healthcare bill, along with other spending, will cause government debt to explode to default levels. I had the opportunity last week to address my concerns with both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, especially about the potential for the coming serious inflation. I am not optimistic that these important decision makers truly understand what is coming, why it is coming, and how best to deal with it.

The Federal Reserve finds itself in an unprecedented and unenviable position. To keep up with government spending and corporate irresponsibility, it has increased the monetary base by nearly $1.5 trillion since September of 2008. Excess bank reserves remain at historically high levels, and the Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned to over $2 trillion. If the Fed pulls this excess liquidity out of the system, it risks collapsing banks that rely on the newly created money. However, if the Fed fails to pull this excess liquidity out of the system we risk tipping into hyperinflation. This is where central banking inevitably has led us.

The idea that a handful of brilliant minds can somehow steer an economy is fatal to economic growth and stability. The Soviet Union’s economy failed because of its central economic planning, and the U.S. economy will suffer the same fate if we continue down the path toward more centralized control. We need to bring back sound money and free markets – yes, even in healthcare – if we hope to soften the economic blows coming our way.

[albertwigs]

We need to address the underlying causes of why those costs are spiraling upward. But, in the end, they passed a bill creating (so called) universal health care but I think what we will get in the end is higher costs for all and making an already complex process of getting and paying for health-care even more complicated and difficult to navigate.I agree each and every reforms of the Obama Health care System.

[j_factor]

I don't understand how mandating health insurance is some sort of liberal evil now, when 17 years ago it was the Republican alternative to Clinton's health care proposal. I'm not in favor of the mandate myself, but there's nothing else in the bill that I'm really against. The only "Medicare cuts" are with Medicare Advantage plans, which I always thought were too much of a sweetheart deal to begin with. The insurance companies will have increased costs due to having to allow anyone on their plans and no longer being able to impose annual or lifetime limits. But the increase in premiums that will cause should be offset by the new federal subsidies. I would prefer a public option to balance market rates or some kind of regulation, but whatever. In terms of what this bill does, I don't have much of a problem with it. In terms of what this bill doesn't do, I could rant all day.

Ron Paul's rant makes no sense. This isn't even a baby step towards single-payer. I know lots of people who want single-payer, and none of them are satisfied by this bill. The gasoline analogy makes no sense either. And of course he has to come out of left field with a swipe against the Federal Reserve, because it's clearly responsible for all evil in the world. Fun fact, Russia's economy since the collapse of the USSR has done worse than the Soviet Union historically. Not that I'm advocating a Soviet-style economy. But this isn't anything remotely like the Soviet Union. Ron Paul either doesn't know what this bill does, or he doesn't know the meaning of "central economic planning".

[Metal_Sonic]

Now that half a year has passed, has anyone changed their minds about this or have they completely forgotten?

[Joe Redifer]

I have not changed my mind nor have I forgotten. Health care does need to be reformed, but not like this.

[Da_Shocker]

AT&T made 30 billion dollars last year http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10443306-266.html

That 1 billion is money they can wipe there asses with.

[Metal_Sonic]

I feel America should have social healthcare. We should all be able to walk into a hospital, get treated for whatever we need, walk out with never receiving a bill in the mail. Sure we should pay taxes for it but we should never pay for treatment or drugs with our own cash(if that makes sense). We should all bear the burden. Our tax dollars pay for police officers who keeps up safe from criminals, our tax dollars pay for firefighters that keep us from dying in flames so why not doctors? 16% of people are afforded the right to be safe from crime and fires but not health? Does this make sense?

The system we have now only serves to fill the pockets of the insurance companies that are responsible for us being the nation that is ranked 37th in the world in health care though we spend the most for health care. That to me isn't right. Do away with them and make something better.

I have zero place in a political discussion.

[Da_Shocker]

Well America hates communism and muslims (not all but at least half) yet probably 90% of the things we use and buy come from a communist country and and i'm sure at least 60% of our oil comes from the muslims. So we do things here that IDK what to call it lol.