Forum Post: Obamacare is going to be run by...
Posted 12 years ago on April 10, 2012, 6:40 a.m. EST by toonces
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the IRS. Democrats have been trying to scare women by saying that Republicans are waging a war on women. Maybe Republicans should point out that Obamacare is a war on the individual that will be waged by the government using the bureaucracy of the IRS.
Actually, the IRS is a good agency. Responsive (they answer their phones quickly), they're always willing to work with taxpayers who are having trouble paying their taxes ... so all in all, I'd say the IRS is one of our finest agencies (so it would great if they administered this thing, but really all the IRS will do is collect taxes, Health & Human Services will run this program, but HHS is also a good agency ... for the most part). I understand reality doesn't play well in conservative quarters, I mean they like playing with snakes on Sunday (what more needs to be said) :)
Yes, the IRS mafia would be a perfect match for the Obama administration mafia to run the health care.
Can't be worse than the insurance mafia, bank mafia, oil mafia, military contractor mafia, et al, or wait, government/business mafia, same mafia (oh yeah) ...
It may be true that the Pres. could have avoided a credible Constitutional challenge if he employed a more conventional "block grant" approach. For example, tie state compliance with the individual mandate to Medicaid funding (and cut Medicaid funding by some amount, 15% has been ruled Constitutional in other cases, if states refuse to comply).
Or, a carrot rather than a stick approach (e.g. tax credits enabling individuals to purchase insurance through his newly created insurance exchanges), although the bill does provide subsidies.
Or, figure out a way to simply expand Medicaid to cover those who are working, but lack insurance (who otherwise wouldn't quality for Medicaid) i.e. a public option.
Of course many of these alternative ideas were rejected by congress (although I'm not sure if a tax credit approach was ever proposed). Nevertheless, we need to do something about this problem, and while the Healthcare Reform Act may be less than ideal in some aspects, at least it gets us moving in the right direction (and the extent to which it will burden industry is, to say the least, grossly exaggerated). I would personally prefer something which went further to decouple health insurance from employment, but I also recognize the wisdom of gradualism.
Actually many hospitals offer indigent care to poor uninsured people. I thought that if your income was low enough you could get a waiver and not buy the insurance at all, so the poor like me will still be uninsured? If you aren't really poor you could afford to buy whatever insurance you like. If you are middle class this Obamacare might be way cheaper than BCBS. If your home has been foreclosed on and you don't own anything of value for the hospital to take from you and you were just gonna stiff the hospital anyway, well Obamacare would be better to insure the hospital gets paid. And that's who its for, its not really to get healthcare to the people, its about making sure the doctors and hospitals get paid and making sure the American people all share in making that happen. BCBS makes lots of money, I don't see what would be wrong with the government making a buck or two for other things the people need. After all, I don't own stock in BCBS so anything they make as profit is wasted money.
the waivers that obama gave out were to unions.
And big corporations like McDonalds
If Republicans are perceived as having a war on women perhaps they might want to be a little more cautious in their selection of issues and the timing of the push for turning an issue into potential legislation. The ultrasound requirement that was pushed for in Virginia was quickly turned into political fodder. It might well have been over-reach, but time will tell the tale.
So, you don't want a doctor to do an ultrasound before an abortion, but you are okay with a bureaucrat deciding whether your mother is young and capable enough to be approved to get medical treatment. Democrats are the ones who hate women.
Actually, no I'm not ok with a board deciding what will be covered. At least not until I know who will comprise the board and what their guidelines will be. All that I DO know is that what we have now isn't working very well for a great many people. No one hates women. OK, except for the old Our Gang comedy boys with their "He-man Wimmin Haters Club" LOL!
... And the democrats spread the hate around to everyone.
Or maybe Occupy should point out that the United States is the only technologically advanced nation that does not provide health care for its citizens; that the 1%, nicely represented by the radical Republicans continue to wage war against the 99% by denying working people the most basic needs.
We provide it, just in the most inefficient and expensive way possible. No one is turned away from an emergency room.
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No one is denied treatment for a medical problem.
45,000 American citizens die each and every year due to lack of health insurance.
Medical bankruptcy the number one reason in the country for all personal bankruptcy filings in the USA.
I myself was denied medication for close to 3 months due to inability to pay and it has resulted in permanent disability. (I got ill, so I lost my job and my insurance, and have a condition that requires, for permanent maintenance, very expensive meds. One med alone is about $20,000 per year, and I need double the that.) In order to qualify for receiving any medication, I was forced to become so impoverished that i had to go on Welfare, one of the most humiliating things I have ever had to do in my life. That pays out a whopping $210.00 per month. And it has a 3 year lifetime limit. Since I am now disabled (partially) I can't work at most jobs, and filing successfully for SSI disability takes on average 1 - 2 years in my state.
If I can actually get a job I am able to do that does not provide insurance, I will no longer be able to get my medications. If I get a job with the usual 3 to 6 month delay in providing insurance, I will become more disabled (and experience unrelenting agonizing pain in the process, as i already do) making it likelier that I can't continue to function in the new job for long.
Under those circumstances I would be required to break the law and stay illegally on General Assistance while working, not reporting my job or income until the insurance kicks in, then making arrangements to pay back the $ thousands in meds I would owe the government, and hopefully not go to jail for fraud.
Wonderful system. One may not be denied emergency medical attention, but that does not include medications for chronic illness.
And if one gets the medical treatment, the likelihood is that one has to file for bankruptcy.
From CNN:
"Unless you're a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you're one illness away from financial ruin in this country," says lead author Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, in Cambridge, Mass. "If an illness is long enough and expensive enough, private insurance offers very little protection against medical bankruptcy, and that's the major finding in our study."
Woolhandler and her colleagues surveyed a random sample of 2,314 people who filed for bankruptcy in early 2007, looked at their court records, and then interviewed more than 1,000 of them.
They concluded that 62.1 percent of the bankruptcies were medically related because the individuals either had more than $5,000 (or 10 percent of their pretax income) in medical bills, mortgaged their home to pay for medical bills, or lost significant income due to an illness. On average, medically bankrupt families had $17,943 in out-of-pocket expenses, including $26,971 for those who lacked insurance and $17,749 who had insurance at some point.
Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.
"That was actually the predominant problem in patients in our study -- 78 percent of them had health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because there were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and uncovered services," says Woolhandler. "Other people had private insurance but got so sick that they lost their job and lost their insurance."
1.5 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Over 900,000 of those were medical bankruptcies.
About 50 million American citizens cannot get health insurance today.
The Affordable Health Care Act is a Godsend to tens of millions of people in this country. I can't wait for it to go into effect.
obama care is about control, if you're telling the truth , obamcare wont spend a penny on you, the panel will decide that your not worth the money. people dont die from lack of insurance.
People DO die from lack of insurance every single day. 45,000 people per year.
http://pnhp.org/excessdeaths/health-insurance-and-mortality-in-US-adults.pdf
I have become disabled as a result myself. This is not an ideological issue for me. It destroyed my ability to have an active, fully ambulatory life. And I may still die as a result.
What panel are you talking about? The legislation is about making access to health insurance available and affordable. Right now there is a state panel that decides what care it can afford to provide (and it is grossly underfunded) if a person is too poor to able to purchase health insurance. And a panel of private bureaucrats and actuaries in insurance companies decide what they will cover if you have a pre-existing condition. Their job is to make money, not provide access to health care.
Under the Affordable Health care provisions, I would no longer be denied insurance for either reason. I cannot be denied if I have a preexisting condition. I cannot be denied if I go over a certain profitable limit of care. I cannot be denied if I can't afford payments, because the government would subsidize my payments.
an appointed panel ( not doctors) will decide whether you get medical care or not. dont confuse health insurance with healthcare.
Don't confuse this legislation with healthcare reform either. It is insurance reform, period. There are no panels that limit the care anyone will receive, only panels that specify the minimum, as opposed to any maximum, an insurance company may provide and still stay in business.
it isnt insurance reform. Yes , there are panels ( of made up of appointed non doctors) that will determine whether or not a patient will get medical care. www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/19/obama-set-to-ration-health-care.aspx A board of 15 appointed people will be in charge of rationing healthcare.
You have swallowed the right wing Cool Aid. The false issue of rationing is a proven lie. The legislation is insurance reform. What we have NOW is rationing, by the for-profit insurance companies.
obamacare is all about control over people, it has nothing to do with healthcare. YOU dear, are the kool aid drinker.
You can keep repeating your inanities, but it doesn't make them any truer.
Not quite true.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/12/health-care-bill-bankruptcies/
27% of those bankruptcies only showed $1000 in total medical bills out of pocket expenses. $1000 should have been handled fairly easily for most patients, so the thought is that many factors went into declaring bankruptcy.
OK, downgrade what i wrote by 27%. So the final number is "only" 700,000? Does that make it any more acceptable? Does that make our system a shining example to to the world?
45,000 people still die every year due to lack of health insurance. 50,000,000 still can't get heath insurance. Tens of millions of people are still sicker than they should be because of it. Hundreds of thousands of people (like me) still become disabled due to lack of access.
And even among that 27% you cited, medical costs were still a contributing factor, even though it may not have been the sole factor. It should be NO factor in a civilized society, and isn't one in ANY other country in the developed world.
So, not quite true? Maybe, but overwhelmingly too true nonetheless.
And we have 40% obesity. Cut that down and our healthcare costs go WAY down. Pool in smoking and it drops precipitously. And I read those stats. There is a link but by no means is it cause/effect.
You cant get Medicaid?
I could only get Medicaid Part G (which does not cover much of anything at all, except, thank God, the medications) after I qualified for welfare, which limits my income to $210.00 per month by law. If I make more than $1082.00 per year beyond the General Assistance, I lose my health care. (Yes, you read that correctly: It is a per year amount.) And I cannot continue to take those meds without 6 yearly bloods since they have some very nasty side effects (like terminal cancer, liver failure, etc). Those tests are not automatically covered, nor are appointments with the specialists I need to see on a regular basis who write the scrips, so the likelihood of my being able to continue receiving meds is compromised.
40% obesity is due, in large part, to poverty. Cut poverty and increase access and affordability to healthy food, and a good part of that problem would go away as well.
But the issue is not obesity. It is what a society is required to do. Libertardians don't recognize that there even is such a thing as society, and the right wing simply likes to assign blame to the poor. A more enlightened approach, one taken by every developed nation on earth except the USA, is to make reasonable access to quality health care care services a given for the entire population. They also have a more robust social welfare system, significantly reducing the rates of poverty. The other issues, like obesity, can then be tackled more effectively. How any Europeans do you see who are obese, compared to the USA? (Yes there are other issues that contribute, like the structure of the food industry, and cultural lifestyles, but American poverty is a significant factor in obesity.)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=relationship+between+poverty+and+obesity&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=uUKHT4X7K9K70AHx7IzHBw&ved=0CCAQgQMwAA
What's more, even if someone lost weight, under the current system, if they are poor (or even lower middle class) or have a pre-existing condition, they can't get health insurance. So the issue of obesity is a misdirected one as far as the access to health care is concerned. Going to the emergency room for healthcare is not only the most inefficient and most costly way to get health care - for the entire country, since someone has to pay for that care - but does not deal with the issues of chronic conditions, and does not provide medications.
In social science, one can rarely pinpoint cause and effect. But multiple points of correlation give results that are, as scientists lie to say, of very high confidence.
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"40% obesity is due, in large part, to poverty. Cut poverty and increase access and affordability to healthy food, and a good part of that problem would go away as well"
This is such a crock. You are apologizing for lazy behavior! You cant prove this in any way. I can prove the exact opposite and easily. You or i or anyone can right now walk into any Costco and buy a fresh whole cooked and seasoned chicken for $5. Asparagus is $1 pound for fresh whole stalks. Head of lettuce and fresh carrots is another dollar. So for $7 you can feed very well and healthy a family of four.
Its laziness pure and simple. I went yesterday and got a Carls Jr hamburger, it was $5. Where do the poor eat? Carls Jr. American poverty is NOT, I repeat, not the reason for obesity.
Did you go to a single one of the articles I linked you to? Even one?
The link between poverty and obesity is an established fact. There are neighborhoods where asparagus is considered an exotic food: it is simply not available. What is available, and cheaply, are inexpensive but empty calories. What's more, people working two, three jobs with kids at home don't have the time to cook fresh foods: it is a poverty issue. Do some reading before you comment.
Finally, that ha NOTHING to do with the health care bill, which is designed to make health insurance more available and affordable to tens of millions of people. Your harping on obesity is pure misdirection: it has NOTHING to do with that legislation, or the current unavailability of affordable health care for 50000000 of your fellow citizens.
I did and they had a bunch of reasons, with laziness right at the top.
Chuck steak is a $1/pound, i just went online. Round steak is a dollar a pound.
Here is a list of foods in Brooklyn of all places. Anything there look out of the reach of a minimum wage family? NO.
http://foodcoop.com/go.php?id=90
No sorry it is a lifestyle issue, not poverty. Healthy foods are far cheaper than fast food. You do however have to spend time buying them and cooking them.
Really? I posted a link to a couple of dozen articles, and you claim to have read them in five minutes?
You are full of shit.
Fatty chuck steak is $1 a pound (not in my neighborhood, btw) and asparagus is $3.99 a pound. Which one of those two contributes more to obesity and heart disease? And who has time to cook after 12-16 hour days at work at minimum wage jobs?
Read the damned articles. They say NOTHING about laziness. From the very first article's introductory paragraphs: ..." there is an inverse relation between energy density (MJ/kg) and energy cost ($/MJ), such that energy-dense foods composed of refined grains, added sugars, or fats may represent the lowest-cost option to the consumer......A reduction in diet costs in linear programming models leads to high-fat, energy-dense diets that are similar in composition to those consumed by low-income groups. Such diets are more affordable than are prudent diets based on lean meats, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit."
3rd article, FIRST SENTENCE: "Food insecurity, the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, may be associated with disordered eating and a poor diet, potentially increasing risk for obesity and health problems."
From the fourth article: "Highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the United States are found among the lower-income groups. The observed links between obesity and socioeconomic position may be related to dietary energy density and energy cost. Refined grains, added sugars, and added fats are among the lowest-cost sources of dietary energy."
Lifestyle issue my ass.
And what, again, does ANY of this have to do with the Affordable Health Care bill?
Chuck steak isnt fatty, nice try.
You have to put in effort, not money to eat right. My mom did it.
http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2010/01/how-many-people-are-on-food-stamps.html
Plus 41 million get food stamps and dont work so time spent cooking should never be an issue. I win again.
Nice try though. So money isnt an issue, and there is plenty of time to cook since they are unemployed, so what fables are you gonna spout now?
3/4 of the poor are working. Most work far in excess of 9-5. Many have two and even three jobs.
Are you going to read the articles or not? Or will you just lie one more time and say you did without actually doing so? Did you even bother to read the excerpts I pasted right here?
As to your link. How many people there are on food stamps has zero bearing on either your argument or mine. All it indicates is that there are more people than ever in need. (Like we didn't know that.) It is not an article, scientific or otherwise, that speaks to the relationship, established, between obesity and poverty. Lack of money and time, food insecurity,lack of local (their locality, not yours) availability of nutritious food - in other words, poverty - are central to obesity.
You are not at all interested in facts. You are interested in judging yourself superior to poor people. It is typical of right wing ideologues and egomaniacs.
And what, for the FOURTH TIME, does this have to do with the Affordable Health Care Act?
(And btw, chuck is 15% - 20% fat. How much fat does your beloved asparagus have? And vegetables are as much as 4 times as expensive, and contain fewer calories - an important consideration when one is food-insecure - what would the typical poor person feed their families? 3 or 4 spears of a vegetable or a hamburger? Which one leads to more weight gain?)
You just keep piling on the accusations, huh? I wonder if this is how the Nazis would have sounded against the Jews if we had message boards in the 30s...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2010/08/13/f-taylor-poverty-obesity-children.html
http://athleticbusiness.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=3435&zoneid=7
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thecrescat/2012/03/obesity-poverty-5-organic-eggs-and-the-decision-to-be-self-sustaining.html
"Poor people in general, whether receiving food stamps or not, struggle with making their dollar go as far as humanly possible when it comes to putting food on the table. Families living in poverty stricken areas of urban cities are even farther worse off. Grocery stores in these area often have poorly stocked produce and meat departments. I lived in a poorer area of Norfolk, Va after college where there wasn’t a real grocery store within walking distance. Many times I shopped at a local convenience store which carried limited food items and no vegetables; fresh, frozen, or canned, at all.
After I became more professionally established and my income reflected it, I moved to a more affluent area of the same city. Across town, on the other side of Norfolk is an equally urban area by the Chrysler Museum called Ghent. No one living in Ghent was buying their groceries from a corner convenience store, trust me. They were purchasing their food from one of the many available markets within close proximity to their homes and paying top dollar for their locally grown produce and organic meat."
The CNN report:
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH
The report that these news reports are based off of:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/american_journal_of_medicine_09.pdf
"BACKGROUND: Our 2001 study in 5 states found that medical problems contributed to at least 46.2% of all bankruptcies. Since then, health costs and the numbers of un- and underinsured have increased, and bankruptcy laws have tightened.
METHODS: We surveyed a random national sample of 2314 bankruptcy filers in 2007, abstracted their court records, and interviewed 1032 of them. We designated bankruptcies as “medical” based on debtors’ stated reasons for filing, income loss due to illness, and the magnitude of their medical debts.
RESULTS: Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.
CONCLUSIONS: Illness and medical bills contribute to a large and increasing share of US bankruptcies. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. • The American Journal of Medicine (2009) xx, xxx"
This study was done by The American Journal of Medicine. What group did the FactCheck.org report? Are either of these groups partisan or biased in anyway? How about verifying the data from either?
So we have dualing links. Big deal. That Medical Journal is not one I recognize at all. factcheck is fairly well known.
I trust a bunch of scientists and doctors WAY more than a bunch of political pundits.
It isnt a bunch of doctors or scientists. Its Medical professors and its peer review structure is unusual.
They have PhDs... What degrees do factcheck researchers have?
When I had no insurance I had a dislocated elbow.
One emergency room visit later I had a 7k bill on my hands.
Two people pulling my upper and lower arm apart. 7k.
This is completely unacceptable.
were you refused treatment?
No. Who would possibly turn down 7k for 5min worth of work?
So it wasn't the insurance company that caused you to pay the 7k, it was the health care provider. Think we need to reign in HC providers? Maybe then the price of HC insurance will come down.
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Funny, I have never had any trouble having access to health care. Where in the United States do you live?
Please, learn to read; try the Dick and Jane Primer. I wrote "provide" not allows access to.,
Why shouldn't you provide for your own health care?
The affordable care bill does not provide health care, it mandates that you buy insurance that will pay for health care.
Why don't you just go out and buy the health care insurance now?
Why shouldn't you provide for your own health care?
The affordable care bill does not provide health care, it mandates that you buy insurance that will pay for health care.
Why don't you just go out and buy the health care insurance now?
Please take time to look at one American's view of Finnish Healthcare :
Further, also try to reflect upon http://occupywallst.org/forum/what-is-obamacare-by-paul-craig-roberts/ .
When Society (remember That Word ?!) is actually motivated by 'The Public Good' as well as efficiency and evidence ; reason and respect & 'love and logic' .. myriad marvelous opportunities may open up for all of The Citizenry !!!
ad iudicium ...
Bull Shit!!
http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-gop-double-down-on-the-war-against-women-girl-/
You are exactly right Jif, that site is bullshit propaganda! Nice catch!
http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-gop-double-down-on-the-war-against-women-girl-/
This? No, you have it backwards again, Elmer Gantry.
Unite and Win! Unite and Win! 2010 Never EVER Again!!