The open political discussion thread. Read the first post!

[JBougie]

Originally Posted by Kal-El

Wow, I don't know where to start. First off, you are a radical liberal based on the first post.

Second, you clearly haven't read the bill. Neither has anyone else in this country who supports it.

I'm tired of all the liberals so entranced by Obama's repetitive talking points
that give no information and details on the plan while blindly following the "change" because it must be better because he says so. He says the same things everyday. "You can keep your plan"...blah, blah, blah.

Obama is either lying with a bold face or hasn't read the bill himself. In fact, it's both.

READ THE BILL FOLKS!!!

There are so many things in there that you wouldn't believe could be implemented in America.

The bill clearly states that...

- rationing care for the elderly WILL take place (your parents and grandparents). They will receive end of life counseling instead of life saving treatment deemed too expensive by a bureaucrat.

- you WILL lose you private health plan and be forced onto the government plan as soon as you fall off you current plan for any reason (change job, employer changes, ect.).

- Private companies WILL die off as they are forced to compete with a system that doesn't need to profit and can go into infinite debt.

- Specialists will become very difficult to find and see as government will force an increase on primary/general care to save money. General practitioners often miss and misdiagnose that specialists find.

- Doctors and other medical workers will begin to leave or not enter health care because of lesser compensation and increased bureaucracy.

- Your taxes WILL go up to pay for the 10's of millions added to the system (even for the coverage of 10 million illegal aliens). There's not enough evil wealthy people in the world to pay for it all which the bill says it will raise taxes significantly. These include small business owners which will have to lay off millions of workers as a result. No problem.
It's actually poor people who employ everyone anyway.

I could go on and on but I need sleep.

Liberals don't think. All they see is "hope and change" and history being made with a black man in office. Therefore we must support him and his policies blindly. Anyone who criticizes him is racist. It's a good thing Bush wasn't criticized because imagine all the racists!

God help us.

Today, I realized how screwed we are.

They are having problems acquiring the promised funding of $225million from the Feds to deploy National Guard troops to the border for BORDER SECURITY (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090812/...l_guard_border) ... however, in NY the Feds gave $140million dollars to 'poor' kids so they could get school supplies. http://www.nydailynews.com/money/200...e_its_fre.html

Getting kids crayons is more important than the f'n security of our country?! Are you kidding me?!

[Bob Dog]

Big business playing little suckers

[NJBob]

It's a stinking shame that healthcare quality would diminish as healthcare officials will make less money. You'd hope that doctors and nurses and dentists become so because of their need to help mankind...not because of the money. I guess we haven't evolved as much as I thought.

[2+2]

It's death panels hiding outside people's windows looking for any sign of weakness that bothers me. lol But maybe there's a business opportunity here, teaching people how to look healthy 24/7 so their government doesn't haul them away.

Are the people sounding off at these town hall meetings for real? Someone is paying them to act like that, right? Gotta be. We can't be that stupid, we just can't.

We didn't let Wall St take over social security because we knew they're muck it up, and that was even before they screwed up the world economy. So why do we tolerate Wall St running our health care system?

[Bob Dog]

Read the bill? There is no bill. The are three proposed bills, all different. What you are presenting is corporate dog slop pretending to be T-bone. For eight years you foolish neocons swallowed any kind of nonsense that big money was able to construct and promolgate as long as it appealed to your sheepish sensibilities. It left our nation and our empire pretty much in ruin, as both were looted by corporate greed. Heaven help us if doctors make less money.. They only make about 40 times what a minimum wage earner makes, and about 10 times the median household income of an average american family.They what you to believe that anybody who would reduce the cash flow into their big deep pockets is evil and bent on your destruction and they're ready to spend hundreds of millions to convince you that it is so. Its sucker bait, and darned if you don't bite on it everytime.

[Kal-El]

Originally Posted by NJBob

It's a stinking shame that healthcare quality would diminish as healthcare officials will make less money. You'd hope that doctors and nurses and dentists become so because of their need to help mankind...not because of the money. I guess we haven't evolved as much as I thought.

Would you go to school for 8 hard extra years + interning and rack up a typical $300,000 in loans only to make an average living afterward?

[Kal-El]

A question for the liberals. Would any of you honestly travel outside of the US for medical treatment? It's a really simple question.

Honestly, I don't expect the left to answer because the debate would be over.

[Bob Dog]

Hell yes, and don't go calling me a liberal just because I am not a fool and a sucker for the corporate propaganda machine.

[ChinoCharles]

Originally Posted by Kal-El

A question for the liberals. Would any of you honestly travel outside of the US for medical treatment? It's a really simple question.

Honestly, I don't expect the left to answer because the debate would be over.

No, I wouldn't. What difference does it make?

And no, I'm not a "radical liberal." I just don't understand how anyone in their right mind (no pun intended) can look at the health care systems in other countries and think ours makes a stitch of sense. I'm not just drinking BO's kool aid on this. I think he's missing some big points in all of this. Nobody is talking about tort reform, and thats kind of baffling, but I'm still content to do the best we can. Nothing isn't the best we can.

Of course, we have "the best health care in the world." Please! We have the best DOCTORS and NURSES in the world, no doubt. Health care? I don't think so. Typical American ethnocentrism... talk about a preexisting condition. Can't take a good example from another country because if you aren't under the stars and stripes, you don't matter. Wake up. This is working seemingly everywhere but here.

[RedRide]

There is no "biil" to read, only corporate/right wing lies!

There is now an unholy alliance between those who hate Obama and the health care insurance industry lobby. They both are propogating nothing but the most rediculous lies in attempts kill any sort of healt care reform.

The fact the health care insurance industry in behind all the lies is well doumented and can't be denied by anyone who has a couple of brain cells and seeks the truth!

[TLyttle]

Kal-El asks a couple of questions there: No one is denying that doctors work hard to get their degrees, but so do engineers, nurses, and many others whose purported goal is as lofty as a doctor's. Most of them do NOT make as much as doctors do. And please don't tell me that all doctors are worth the money they make: even without living down there, I have seen many examples of MDs that I wouldn't let work on a cow. They were the ones who chose their profession, and mouthed the Hippocratic Oath, with the dollar signs dancing in their eyes. Canadian doctors make good money as well, but they somehow remember that helping people is what it is really all about.

As far as travelling outside the US is concerned, let us tell you one more time: the US system is 40% more expensive than the Canadian system (and EVERYONE is covered) with no difference in competence. We don't all live in igloos here, sir, and have paved roads; our hospitals are as up-to-date as most in the US with as many competent physicians and nurses on staff. Perhaps you should do a bit more research, develop some perspective on this subject simply by learning how the rest of the world operates. Not all your medical research should come from Faux News....

[elmo]

? for you TLyttle,

if Canadian health care is good why does the manager of our Toronto office take his family across the border to Buffalo and pay out of his pocket for health care ??

[ChinoCharles]

Answer: because our medical schools are some of the best in the world and they produce the best doctors in the world. A public option won't change that.

Cleveland, Ohio. Small market, one of the best cancer clinics on Earth. One example of many.

[mo_feezy]

The bill clearly states that...

- rationing care for the elderly WILL take place (your parents and grandparents). They will receive end of life counseling instead of life saving treatment deemed too expensive by a bureaucrat.

- Private companies WILL die off as they are forced to compete with a system that doesn't need to profit and can go into infinite debt.

- Specialists will become very difficult to find and see as government will force an increase on primary/general care to save money. General practitioners often miss and misdiagnose that specialists find.

- Doctors and other medical workers will begin to leave or not enter health care because of lesser compensation and increased bureaucracy.

- Your taxes WILL go up to pay for the 10's of millions added to the system (even for the coverage of 10 million illegal aliens). There's not enough evil wealthy people in the world to pay for it all which the bill says it will raise taxes significantly. These include small business owners which will have to lay off millions of workers as a result. No problem.
It's actually poor people who employ everyone anyway.

What I don't understand is why anyone uses these things as a point of contention. Do you think these things don't already happen? They DO already happen. Insurance companies have their own death panels, and theirs are consistently denying coverage to 50% of those seeking coverage. 50% of the people who have paid their insurance bills out of their wages for many years are denied coverage when the companies decide it's too expensive. It isn't insurance if they can only insure you will be covered 50% of the time.

We are not actually talking about health care reform. We are talking about government health insurance, not universal health care. If our peer nations can provide health care to all of their citizens, we can do it as well.

These "grassroots protesters" and "teabaggers" are actually just puppets of the corporate mechanisms operating in our country. The media covers their behavior and makes it seem like it is happening much more than it actually is.

[Kal-El]

Originally Posted by mo_feezy

We are not actually talking about health care reform. We are talking about government health insurance, not universal health care. If our peer nations can provide health care to all of their citizens, we can do it as well.

These "grassroots protesters" and "teabaggers" are actually just puppets of the corporate mechanisms operating in our country. The media covers their behavior and makes it seem like it is happening much more than it actually is.

Your right, this isn't about health care, it's about insurance.

It's about government control and once they get this, they'll be able to control a greater part of our lives because our lifestyle most greatly effects the cost of health care.

Another obvious question. How's that budget doing for Medicare and Medicaid? Since they're doing so well, let's go ahead with this proposed Medicare for all. After all, the government is known for cutting costs and doing things most efficiently. Hello????????

Where does this confidence in government come from? My head is about to explode over this stupidity. They are bankrupting our country into oblivion and liberals want to hand it all over to government? That's hope and change?

People, we are quickly losing our country. The place where individual freedom and liberty has created the greatest level of wealth and prosperity and a lifestyle which has always been the envy of the world. It's "The American Dream". I never heard of the socialist dream.

I know Obama is trying to close them, but please open your eyes!

[gokartride]

From what I observe the government is far less of a problem than people try to make it out to be.

[Kal-El]

Originally Posted by TLyttle

Kal-El asks a couple of questions there: No one is denying that doctors work hard to get their degrees, but so do engineers, nurses, and many others whose purported goal is as lofty as a doctor's. Most of them do NOT make as much as doctors do. And please don't tell me that all doctors are worth the money they make: even without living down there, I have seen many examples of MDs that I wouldn't let work on a cow. They were the ones who chose their profession, and mouthed the Hippocratic Oath, with the dollar signs dancing in their eyes. Canadian doctors make good money as well, but they somehow remember that helping people is what it is really all about.

As far as travelling outside the US is concerned, let us tell you one more time: the US system is 40% more expensive than the Canadian system (and EVERYONE is covered) with no difference in competence. We don't all live in igloos here, sir, and have paved roads; our hospitals are as up-to-date as most in the US with as many competent physicians and nurses on staff. Perhaps you should do a bit more research, develop some perspective on this subject simply by learning how the rest of the world operates. Not all your medical research should come from Faux News....

Canada is infamous with loooong waiting times. In America, if I need surgery today or tomorrow, I get it with no problem. I'm not put on a waiting list for 6 months like Canada.

In Great Britain, they are already denying things like breast cancer treatment for women leaving them to die.

Plus, you mention our high cost. Yes, there's some waste that needs addressing. Conservatives are pushing for tort reform and LESS bureaucracy which are two huge cost factors. This new plan will greatly increase bureaucracy.

Plus, one thing to keep in mind is, is that the best of something is almost always the most expensive.

[Altitude]

Originally Posted by Kal-El

Plus, one thing to keep in mind is, is that the best of something is almost always the most expensive.

Problem is we do NOT have the best healthcare but we DO have the most expensive.

Healthcare should not be a for profit industry due to the inherent conflict of interest. These corporations routinely make decisions on whether or not to cover a particular claim, decline coverage for pre-existing conditions etc. all in the name of profit. As it stands now MONEY is more important than an individuals health and if you don't see a problem with that then I would question your humanity.

The fact remains that something must be done and I applaud Obama and the Dems for at least trying since Reps never seem to do anything about healthcare when they are in charge (except trying to get rid of Medicare/Medicaid.)

There are those that believe a society is formed to improve the lives and benefit all. There are others that view society as an impediment to their own aspirations. I'm proud to be in the former category.