Passing Health Care Reform in the Senate

[gopher]

"See the August, 2008 DNC platform [op cit] which won the election for him and the Democrats."

And lied about ever since then.

You do have a point there.

The Democrats gave their word that we would have it right away. Now it is time for them to stop kissing up to the GOP and to get the damn deal done.

 

[ironsides]

Ironsides, ‘economist Thomas Sewell’? Surely you jest. Thomas Sewell is a well known right wing journalist, who writes regularly for the website, WorldNetDaily.

When it comes to politics or economic, Sewell is firmly out of the mainstream, way out on the right wing fringe. He is another Star Parker (whom you gleefully quoted on the other thread).

If you want to quote writings from right wing journalist as Gospel truth, that is your right, of course. But don’t be surprised if somebody points out that they indeed are right wing journalists, out of the mainstream.

But fair is fair, there are a lot here that quote left wing journalists as Gospel (maybe not Gospel) truth who are out of the mainstream also. I misspelled his name though, should have been Thomas Sowell.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

But fair is fair, there are a lot here that quote left wing journalists as Gospel (maybe not Gospel) truth who are out of the mainstream also. I misspelled his name though, should have been Thomas Sowell.

Well, I don’t. And I tend not to believe the columns by columnists who have an obvious political bias, whether of the right or the left. You wouldn’t see me quoting from James Carville, Bill Press etc.

Journalists like Thomas Sewell or Star Parker do serve one purpose. Reading them (and I do, occasionally) tells me what the right and the far right is thinking on any particular issue.

However, when I want to get facts, I stick to neutral, highly reputable, reputable sources like CNN, BBC, CBC etc.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Duplicate Post

 

[YukonJack]

SirJosephPorter attacking Dr. Thomas Sowell is akin to a bedbug attacking an elephant.

 

[ironsides]

How about Pelosi and gang wanting to tax those (individuals as well as companies) who have great health "Cadillac" plans in order to help pay for those who don't? I don't care what anybody says, that women is insane. I know they voted her in, but we have to look at who they are. A state that bankrupted itself with taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

SirJosephPorter attacking Dr. Thomas Sowell is akin to a bedbug attacking an elephant.

You mean like you attacking Obama or Pelosi?

 

[GreenFish66]

Re - Universal health care for 1 and all - Re -Edited

Re - Universal health care for 1 and all - Re -Edited

With no public Health care option ..Under this Baucus bill .The weak and poor will be fined and forgotten ..It's sad political B.S....It sickens me to watch this issue unfold anymore .. The abuse tax paying slave drones have to go through in America, is unconscionable /unbearable /disheartning/disgusting .It's not only a sham but a shame ..
　
Does America/your communitee /your neighbour care about you and yours in times of hardship ,when you need their assistance the most?..For better or worse ?Does Uncle sam want you !?
　
Apparently Only if your rich,healthy and have the $$$$ to pay for it...Otherwise you'll be fined and left to suffer out on the street ,ignored ,washed away into the gutter ,where others will eventually ,unknowingly,drink and share, in the illness/disease of your accumulated misfortune.
　
How could one want to live in such a self absorbed culture? ...It is unsustainable /unimaginable to me....All will suffer for their non-compassionate , self centeredness ... Should be ashamed U.S. politicians/ republican capitalists/ blind folded followers/Spineless democrates..Find your voice Americans /shout it out.. and demand health care 4 all..It is the right thing to do.For the betterment of all/America as a whole.
Drop the commi/socialism B.S..I thought all lived in a democracy in America ..I can see clearly now that this is not the case..America is for the priveledged/greedy/self serving few who will take, but will not give ..Proudly they hold themselves high ..Lifted and bolstered up by standing on the heads of the poor ...!...I thought Obama was different ?I know he is..He's just too Nice(?)..Get a back bone man and Lead.. Give a voice to those who can not be heard .That's what you were elected to do.!
　
Many great empires have fallen due to disease/famine /poverty ..Let history be your conscience..So we all can have faith/prosper into the future...I am passionate about Universal health care for all...I will never change my stance on health care for all.!..A public heatlh care plan has been tried , tested and found to be the best system for all .. ..It is the only true solution .There is no middle ground ,on health care, without a public plan ... Only high ground and rising flood waters ...Only with life boats, preservers and a plan can most/All be saved!.
　
Peace...

 

[ironsides]

Why is it we keep looking to Federal Government for ways to fix things. Just look what they have done in the past.


The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775 - They have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.



Social Security was established in 1935 - They have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.



Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - They have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke..



War on Poverty started in 1964 - They have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked.



Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - They have had 44 years to get it right; they're broke



Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - They have had 39 years to get it right; it is broke



Trillions of dollars in the massive political payoff called the TARP bill of 2009 shows NO sign of working at the level that was promised. Big business have taken their share and still the layoffs come. Again why?

 

[GreenFish66]

American (universal)public health care option, Dead ?.Never ..It has garuanteed health care coverage.

Without an American public health care option .There is no health Care. Only a mandatory insurance option for high risk people?

How many unworkable/ineffecient/superficial insurance options does one country need?It's all about self centered /ignorant greed.

A bill with no public health care option has no teeth ,but the public do and will ,eventually see through all this B.S...

Those who do not stand 4 the rights/health/freedom/necessities/promises they were elected 2 stand 4, by their trusting public/4 real change/ 4 what they truly believed in will get bit in the *end(*ass).

Say what you mean ..Mean what you say..Stand for what you truly believe in and it is possible..

Peace ..Yes we can.!


You said it Ironsides

 

[ironsides]

Health care reform is indeed a topic that dominates discussion in the United States of America at the moment, so I thought that I would watch some television and read some news on the issue so as to be more knowledgeable during debate and conversation. However, one of the noteable issues that came up today was the statements, by several members of the Republican Party of the United States, that for reform to pass in the Senate, the support of at least around eighty senators would be needed.

It looks as though the Republicans are making up the rules as they go along.

Perhaps I’m mistaken, but my understanding of the workings of the United States Senate is that the support of 51 senators is needed to pass a piece of legislation (as that would be a majority of senators, and therefore the threshold needed to pass). The only exception to that rule, as I understand it, is that the support of sixty senators would be needed to invoke cloture on a debate. There is no precedent for a need for eighty senators, or anywhere near that, to pass a piece of legislation, despite whatever might be suggested by The Honorable Senator Orrin Hatch (Utah), The Honorable Senator Michael Enzi (Wyoming), and The Honorable Senator Chuck Grassley (Iowa).

The Democrats have the numbers to pass health care reform themselves.

The Democratic Party of the United States holds 256 seats in the House of Representatives (a majority of 39 votes), enough to pass health care reform despite conservative opposition. With the Senate, the story is much the same, where the Democrats command sixty seats (with the two independent senators caucusing with the Democrats, giving the Democrats a majority of 9 votes) to be able to not only pass health care reform with a majority, but to invoke cloture to halt extraneous opposition debate.

The "health care crisis" in the United States is bogus. If the primary issue is quality of care, it is a fallacious issue. Medical care in the United States is indisputably the best in the world.

If the primary issue is the cost of medical care, then put tort reform on the table. Defensive medicine arguably accounts for at least a third of all physician and lab expenses.

If the primary issue is expensive insurance, let us discuss "catastrophic care" insurance instead of "first dollar" coverage. Ordinary folks fear impoverishment not from routine office visits and treatments but from over-whelming illness or injury; insurance against these catastrophes much less expensive.

If the primary issue is the "uninsured" then we should consider buying them basic HMO policies which, at roughly $4,000 per year for 12 million people amounts to $48 billion, a small fraction of the trillion dollar cost of the current proposal.

I can only conclude that the administration's proposals reflect not a response to a real crisis but an ideological commitment to a serious social transformation. We endorse such profound change at our peril.

 

[normbc9]

I get suspicious when I hear that the legal counsel for Max Baucus is a former major Health Care insurer representative who probably has a vested interest in this issue. I don't know what to believe any more but I do know the US system has to be corrected. I now hear that Medicare has an unfunded liability of over five trillion dollars. That too may be scare talk. This has become a major issue and all I can do is hope those in Congress can get it right and that is just wishful thinking.

 

[ironsides]

This Congress looks like it is going to ram some sort of health care plan down our throats no matter what we want. It is a Democratic Liberal thing that the people are dummies and government knows best.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

The "health care crisis" in the United States is bogus. If the primary issue is quality of care, it is a fallacious issue.

That is only your opinion, ironsides, the crises is far from bogus. If you remember, somebody put up the statistics here, which said that half the bankruptcies in USA are field because of excessive and unforeseen medical costs.

Medical care in the United States is indisputably the best in the world.

Yeah, right. That is why USA ranks near the bottom among the developed countries, when it comes to most of the indicators of good health (life expectancy, infant mortality, life expectancy without any disease etc.). It is the best in the world for those who can afford to pay for it, those with the Cadillac plan. For everybody else, there is rationing (by insurance companies), pre-existing conditions (which are not covered by the insurance), sometimes bankruptcy for inability to pay the excessive medical costs.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I get suspicious when I hear that the legal counsel for Max Baucus is a former major Health Care insurer representative who probably has a vested interest in this issue. I don't know what to believe any more but I do know the US system has to be corrected. I now hear that Medicare has an unfunded liability of over five trillion dollars. That too may be scare talk. This has become a major issue and all I can do is hope those in Congress can get it right and that is just wishful thinking.

Norm, CNN did a feature on the Senate committee vote. They showed that all the members of the committee, all the senators received money from insurance companies. But those who voted down public health option, they got 10 million $, while those who voted against it, got only 3 million $.

Of course, CNN wouldn’t make any direct accusations. But the reporter asked at the end, ‘Did the insurance companies get value for their money? You be the judge.’

Well, in my opinion, the Senate Committee vote was bought and paid for by the insurance companies. They got their money’s worth and more.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

This Congress looks like it is going to ram some sort of health care plan down our throats no matter what we want. It is a Democratic Liberal thing that the people are dummies and government knows best.

They better pass something, ironsides. Otherwise next year will be a repeat of 1994. They must be able to take something to the voters, claim that they passed health care reform, while the Republicans ignored it for 12 years. So if the Democrats know what is good for them, they will pass something.

 

[ironsides]

The "health care crisis" in the United States is bogus. If the primary issue is quality of care, it is a fallacious issue.

That is only your opinion, ironsides, the crises is far from bogus. If you remember, somebody put up the statistics here, which said that half the bankruptcies in USA are field because of excessive and unforeseen medical costs.

Medical care in the United States is indisputably the best in the world.

Yeah, right. That is why USA ranks near the bottom among the developed countries, when it comes to most of the indicators of good health (life expectancy, infant mortality, life expectancy without any disease etc.). It is the best in the world for those who can afford to pay for it, those with the Cadillac plan. For everybody else, there is rationing (by insurance companies), pre-existing conditions (which are not covered by the insurance), sometimes bankruptcy for inability to pay the excessive medical costs.

There is absolutely no rationing of medical care in the U.S. For some pre-existing conditions it is almost impossible to get coverage with out having to pay a higher premium. With all our so called faults, your system just cannot react fast enough to be on a equal with the U.S. system. I will admit that in major cities health care is pretty much the same, but when were talking about suburban and rural areas, your health care is almost non-existent. Our system maybe expensive to maintained, but at least it is there all the time for us. In Canada rather than fix what is wrong with you, the usual tactic is to prescribe a drug. Have a pain, here take this drug, no concern for what is causing the pain. No time for checking you out because it is more important to move as many patients thru as possible each hour for Government re-imbursement.

How come there is no mention of the Canadian crisis of lack of doctors. "A Canadian crisis is growing as the number of family doctors is shrinking. The problem is rural and urban, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Currently, more than 4 million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor and the situation is expected to get worse over the next decade.
Canadians who do not have a family doctor are less likely to receive basic medical services, such as a yearly check-up, according to a Statistics Canada study released this year."

http://www.fims.uwo.ca/newmedia2005/default.asp?id=189


Not really much different from what you read about the U.S. except that we have doctors at the moment. Who knows how many we will have after Obama finishes with us. But those doctors we do have are much better than most of the so called hacks I have seen traveling around. thru Europe.

 

[ironsides]

I get suspicious when I hear that the legal counsel for Max Baucus is a former major Health Care insurer representative who probably has a vested interest in this issue. I don't know what to believe any more but I do know the US system has to be corrected. I now hear that Medicare has an unfunded liability of over five trillion dollars. That too may be scare talk. This has become a major issue and all I can do is hope those in Congress can get it right and that is just wishful thinking.

This unfunded medicare liability of over 5 trillion dollars is because during the President Johnson era till now Congress has been allowed to take money out of the program to use for other goverment programs. In their eyes there was so much money there that Medicare/Social Security would never be able to use it.

Three-quarters of the money that's collected in Social Security taxes goes right out the door again in the form of benefits to Social Security recipients. The surplus that isn't needed to pay benefits is loaned to the federal government to pay for other programs.
In return for this loan, the trust fund gets IOUs in the form of special-issue, interest-paying Treasury bonds. The interest isn't paid in cash, however; the Treasury issues the fund additional bonds for the interest amount. In 2006, the fund was credited with more than $102 billion in interest; the total value of the securities is about $2 trillion.
The problem, of course, is that the government now owes the trust fund so much money -- and relies on its surplus so heavily -- that real problems will be created when it comes time to cash in those IOUs. Uncle Sam is going to need to find another source of income to replace the surplus (or cut spending, or borrow money from somewhere else), plus come up with cash to pay the bonds it's already issued. Maybe another so called stimulus package. We must be the dumbest forms of life on this planet for allowing our governments to do what they do to us.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

There is absolutely no rationing of medical care in the U.S. For some pre-existing conditions it is almost impossible to get coverage with out having to pay a higher premium. With all our so called faults, your system just cannot react fast enough to be on a equal with the U.S. system. I will admit that in major cities health care is pretty much the same, but when were talking about suburban and rural areas, your health care is almost non-existent. Our system maybe expensive to maintained, but at least it is there all the time for us. In Canada rather than fix what is wrong with you, the usual tactic is to prescribe a drug. Have a pain, here take this drug, no concern for what is causing the pain. No time for checking you out because it is more important to move as many patients thru as possible each hour for Government re-imbursement.

How come there is no mention of the Canadian crisis of lack of doctors. "A Canadian crisis is growing as the number of family doctors is shrinking. The problem is rural and urban, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Currently, more than 4 million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor and the situation is expected to get worse over the next decade.
Canadians who do not have a family doctor are less likely to receive basic medical services, such as a yearly check-up, according to a Statistics Canada study released this year."

http://www.fims.uwo.ca/newmedia2005/default.asp?id=189


Not really much different from what you read about the U.S. except that we have doctors at the moment. Who knows how many we will have after Obama finishes with us. But those doctors we do have are much better than most of the so called hacks I have seen traveling around. thru Europe.

All that is very well ironsides, and I can understand you being patriotic and being proud of your health care system. But that doesn’t explain why USA spends more on health care, much more than any other country and why it achieves such poor results.

USA is near the bottom (among developed countries) when it comes to life expectancy (low), infant mortality (high), life expectancy without a disease (low). I remember reading the statistic somewhere that life expectancy in Canada without a disease (how long a person lives before a serious disease strikes him/her) is 73, much higher than that in USA (offhand I don’t remember the American number).

Proof of pudding is in the eating, you could glorify your health care system (and trash other health care systems) to your heart’s content, I could do the same for Canadian system. But when it comes to bottom line, when you look at what the system actually achieves, look at the health indicators, American system is found sorely lacking.

 

[ironsides]

Being patriotic has nothing to do with it, American health care though costly is the best in the world, there is non better (Some will pay for the best). Now the distribution of that health care is another matter. We still have family general practitioners bringing their old style medical care to the rural area's, running small clinics etc. Hard to get young or experienced doctors to work for lower pay in the outback so to steak. These are in need of upgrading, but due to cost will remain just as they are today.