Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Fixing Healthcare

Pretty effective ad that Heritage Foundation is running...they also have a lot of good resources over at Fixhealthcarepolicy.com

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow. openly admitting that they are asking the great unwashed public, because they have literally nothing? 'i dont like obama's plan, but we all know that the current system is full of waste, padding, and outright insanity. not to mention that it fails to cover the citizens of the country. we have no ideas, so send us one!'

yep, sounds like the GOP. the party of no, the party of no ideas... and still 50M+ people w/out adequate insurance. now there's a party we can get behind in the future!

(hey i have an idea for u rumbler. submit a video. tell them you think we should substitute magic and prayer for real healthcare! and of course tax cuts for the pharma industry! now there's a winner in the marketplace of ideas! let's see how far the GOP can fall!)

Marty Heflin said...

Funny...if disjointed in your logic and once again poor in grammar and spelling.

We all DON'T know what the problems of the current system are - don't throw that assertion out there. We have the finest, most advanced health care system that is the envy of the world. Room for improvement? Of course...but go talk to the Brits and Canadians and see how much they like their system. You are too dense to realize a blatant power grab when you see one...just so long as you can bask one day longer in the aura of "the One!"

Your 50 million number is nonsense. There are lot of people who CHOOSE not to have health care given their stage of life. Further, that number typically includes illegal immigrants. Get your facts right. I thought liberals were all about "CHOICE" just not when it gets in the way of economic and eventually social control.

Anonymous said...

choice means that if you want health insurance, you can afford to have it. if i were to leave my job, i would have to pay COBRA $1,200/month. that is over twice as much as RENT. maybe you really are a rich-ass lobbyist for big pharmaceutical (i seriously doubt it, they tend to choose more educated people, but what do i know...) - that would certainly make your convoluted thought process at least marginally more understandable.

but seriously. have you ever spent time in a hospital, getting charged $30 for an aspirin? i have... and it was $30. EACH. you have a boner for the statement that our health care ois soo good, and everyone envies us. but that is bull(stuff). it is only great IF YOU ARE RICH. if you are't, i bet you would rather have canadien coverage, or even FRENCH coverage, than die of a preventable illness.

See how I am right, and you aren't?

Feels good to be right.

And bvefore you whine about a power grab (who exactly is O grabbing power FOR? you have this grand conspiracy theory thing going, but who is the puppetmaster in your shadow cabal? the illuminati? the church? the kichen appliance institute? you are never clear on that part...) you should realize that there are many, many people for whom there is never going to be an artificial heart, or a xenograft, or an fMRI in the future. and those people dont think america's health care is so great.

remember the part where there are people other than you in the country? you would prevent a woman's right to choose, but once that kid is alive... if he ain't rich, let him die?! you are either for LIFE (all of it) for everyone, or you are a free-for-all supporter... but you cant have both.

Anonymous said...

Goddam Mr. A - you obviously aren't smart enough to realize there are options outside of COBRA...but that requires thinking for yourself,not relying on Big Daddy Gov'ment to take care of you.

$30 for an aspirin? Show me the friggin bill pal, that's what patient advocates are for. If you would get your head out of your ass long enough to realize that YOU are responsible for your own fate and well being you might be able to survive in the modern world. But oh, no - you need your Daddy, Obama and the Feds to bail you out of your own sorry life.

Move to France or Canada you loser, let us continue to rely on ourselves and freedom!

Anonymous said...

spoken like someone who has never, ever been anything but middle-class lucky.


as much as it is bad karma to say, i wish you or someone close to you loses insurance coverage and then gets something debilitating. I bet after a few months of near-starvation coupled with the end of your credit rating forever, would shift your paradigms around.

get out of your shell. are some people uninsured intentionally? sure. are some people the victims of circumstance and a truly horriffic insurance industry/lobby, and doomed to a life of abject misery over their healthcare? also yep. you just dont care. (and this from the guy who is supposed to be the 'social conservative' moral leadership. and you wonder why nobody believes the conservative movement about anything...)

oh, and COBRA is the only option if you have anything declared 'preexisting'. that's all you get. you really must work for big pharm. NOBODY in the real world actually LIKES their insurance coverage... except, apparently, you. i find that strange.

Marty Heflin said...

Classic! What a great contrast between the Statist thought process: "I am helpless without the government," and the Individualist perspective: "just get the government out of my way."

Classic too in the view on life: if you succeed you are just "lucky." No, luck may play a part, but 98% of it is good hard work and looking out for oneself, not waiting for a handout.

Of course there are some that cannot get adequate care and if that was the purpose of "health care reform," I would be all over it. Problem is, that's not what this is about. This is about MANDATING that everyone get health care whether they want it or not. IT is about setting up a Federal "competitor" in a free market where the same "competitor" sets the rules and can subsidize itself off of the taxes of everyone else.

You want to start reducing costs in this country? 1) Tort reform! Not going to happen with your liberal pals in office, they are owned by the trial lawyers' association. 2)De-regulate - let pharmacists become a line of defense in the health care matrix and take some of the burden off emergency rooms. Whatever you do, a sane person would implement steps gradually to see their effect and cost. Oh no, we are just going to lock-stock-and-barrel barge into the health care business with the weight of the Federal Government. Great solution.

Anonymous said...

are you being deliberately obtuse again? 'lucky' here meaning 'your company still exists'. doesnt matter how smart/hardworking you are, there are millions at the moment that are victims of circumstance. (what about all the people NOT working on securitized mortgages at WaMu or whoever. their company is gone, they had no say in it, and now are hosed.)

stop w/ the 'I am helpless without the government' crap, too. I am saying that the gov't is COMPLETELY ABLE to assist, and given the competition, will force existing insurers to play ball fairly.

you and yours whine ceaselessly about 'having the government between you and your doctor' as if 'having the insurance company between you and your doctor' is somehow BETTER. it is THE SAME. only with the gov't there is at least transparency, as well as a far larger pool for the risk-pooling algorithms to work with. Stop watching FauxNews and actually LISTEN TO OBAMAS PEOPLE for a sec. You might learn something. (And you can even see for yourself he doesn't have horns and cloven hoofs! WOW!)

This is yet another one of those 'just because you dont get it, doesnt mean the rest of us dont get it either' moments.

Marty Heflin said...

Sigh. More anonymous ranting about this thing called "life." Note to file - the government cannot protect you from life happening. Companies come, they thrive, they fail. Employees get promoted, the lose their jobs. It happens and the Feds cannot protect you from that. Even in your Utopian Communist state that you dream of party members had the dashas while the rest of the prols did the work.

I love the logic that having the government as a competitor (the one that sets the rules) will somehow level the playing field. You really have no idea how the capitalism works do you? No, my friend, it is you that needs to get off whatever drugs the Obamistas are feeding you that prevent you from seeing the truth behind a bald power grab. It works great in Cuba too!

Anonymous said...

what is with the insistence on calling my opinion 'communist'? i somply want the gov't to provide a public healthcare OPTION. if you like your insurance... good for you. but if you dont, and you join with a hundred million other people... do i have to explain how risk-pooling works? costs come down, insurance is available for those people who get hit in the face with 'life' ... and everyone is happy.

What the deuce are you so insane about? this is exactly what we need to do.

Do you really work for the insurance/pharm indistries? How else can i explain your insistence on defending insurance companies as they screw YOU out of money too! You whine and complain in apoplectic rage about a single dime of $ the gov't takes from you (but i bet you do still use the interstate sytem and the post office, among assuredly a lot else), but then you defend the current system of insurance? EXPLAIN YOURSELF. It makes no sense at all. You should be delighted to see some competition getting that good ol' 'invisible hand' moving again.

and i know you will just reply with 'but it is the government! WAAAAA!' - so i will reiterate: how the deuce is it better to have an insurance company (a FOR PROFIT entity) between you and your doctor than a REVENUE NEUTRAL public system? it is all the same thing, only one is CHEAPER. you get to keep MORE of you own $. Isnt that what most of the voices in your head are screaming about all the time???

Someday i will diagnose the short circuit you base your logic on... and then maybe we can get someplace.

Marty Heflin said...

Boy, truth hurts...you don't like being called a "communist," but you want the Federal Government to take over a sixth of the GNP. A government "option" begets government control. For God's sake man, they can't run a cafeteria.

You have this childish rage against all corporations as if there is some evil plot that they have to "screw" you any way they can. It's called "making a profit," and they are entitled to do that. You are the consumer and you are free to take your business elsewhere, but once the government is in the game guess what, Mr. Risk Pooler, they become the low cost option and crowd out everyone else. No competition, no control, rationed health care. It hasn't worked anywhere it has been tried...hell, the Canadians and Europeans are begging us not to do it. They survive off our innovation which will go right out the window under government monopoly.

You who are so pro-abortion and want the "government out of our bedrooms!!!" Why are you so keen to hand off your medical records so they can ration your care unless you vote the way they want you to?

Show me ONE Federal program that has come in on budget, on time and that has not become a permanent fixture that we have to pay for..may of which are non-constitutional. There isn't one, but because you continue to believe in the fluffy purple unicorn world of Obama where all things are wonderful, you think somehow things will be different? And you accuse me of "magic," funny.

Anonymous said...

wow. you really do, dont you? (work for the industry, i mean). If the 'profits' are from over-inflating their costs... (they are), and from denying coverage to people who need it most (yep...), then it is NOT a sustainable model. so competition, where they are no longer allowed to do that, will force them to either play ball or get out of the game. and dont pretend that somehow it will collapse everything that exists. come on old man... the post office will deliver your crap, but so will fedex and ups. they learned to compete. see how smart i am?

This is the same argument you hear from the anti cap-and-trade people. 'these companies need to make a profit!' - but if to make a profit you must artificially alter your circumstances (either by denying coverage and inflating costs, or by polluting) then it is NOT a sustainable model. This is not rocket science. this is econ 101. take all costs into account, and recalculate... which models can still make a profit when the true costs are included?

and who cares about who has your medical records? when the existing insurance companies have them, they use that data only to drive their costs down (read: deny coverage for anything preexisting, deny coverage to high-risk people, and so forth). if everybody's plan is to screw us, then what does it matter? id rather have it cheap.

One program, huh? how 'bout social security. the SSA is damned efficient. nobody's checks are ever late, it does/did exactly what it was designed to do, and is still funded today. it will die off soon, just because of demographic imbalances, but that is/was a wildly successful social program. and i bet you collect your check, just like your parents did before you. people like you whined ceaselessly before its inception... but it worked. poverty among the elderly dropped like a rock. peoples lives are/were better.

"but it's the government! WAAA!"

whatever. your strange conspiracy theories about black helicopters making your medical decisions for you are retarded. never happen. a public option will change the math, companies will adapt, and we all win. or, you know, we can do exactly the nothing we are doing now, and wait till it is a crisis. now there's a plan..