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Carmelite101
Guest
Can someone here explain to me how this new bill is not a governement-takeover of health care? I was on another forum and everyone on there seems to think it is not. Maybe I’m the one who’s wrong?
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ComputerGeek25
Guest
Some say it is, some say it isn’t…
Depends on your vantage point I guess…
Many people (over 50% of people interviewed in various surveys) believe this is a bad bill, for one thing.
I could see how it is a backhanded way to get people against insurance companies. Also, if the government was serious about reform there are better ideas.
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jjdrury81
Guest
The number of people signing up for PRIVATE insurance plans is going to rise exponentially.
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jc-servant
Guest
People are going to be able to either keep the insurance they have or buy private insurance using the negotiating power that the federal government already uses on behalf of its employees to get a lower rate than someone would be able to get if buying the same private plan as an individual up until now. Congress actually gave citizens the same options to buy a private plan from multiple choices of insurers that they and other federal employees have had for years. If government had “taken over” health care it would have been a “single payer” program like in many countries where the government provides the health care through an agency, not by allowing people to buy private plans. Calling it a “government takeover” can get people excited and raise the ratings on news or talk shows, but it is not really accurate. There were some people who wanted single payer but that is not what became law.
One of the things that is going to happen that some people object to is that several years down the road people will be required to get some type of health insurance plan whether it is a private plan subsidized in some manner for people with less income or a private plan through an employer (like many of us have already) or a private plan that someone goes out an purchases with (hopefully) a lower premium than they would otherwise be paying (because of the group rates the federal government gets).
I understand that people don’t like being told to do something, but it already happens in many areas of our life and that is part of the role of government whether we like it or not. It is not the end of the world nor the end of our democracy. We still get to vote on a regular basis and if we don’t like something then we need to register and vote and support candidates who will do things differently. Our Founding Fathers objected to the leaders in England imposing things on them when they didn’t have a vote to choose those leaders. We still choose our leaders and even if the majority at a certain time does not share our belief in how things should be done, it is still a validly elected government that we can wait out 2 or 4 years and legally change those in charge. (I don’t want this to go off track into political discussion about current politics because this is not the correct forum for that type of discussion.)
Regardless of the hot button issue of the moment some things never change. We are required to keep certain levels of sanitation by not tolieting on our yards or dumping our trash everywhere. We must get certain shots to prevent the spread of deadly diseases like polio. Our pets must get shots to prevent the spread of rabies. We must get a driver’s license so that (hopefully) all drivers on the roads have at least a minimum level of skill and knowledge. The examples are endless. What they all have in common is that the government has an interest in keeping society safe and functioning for the common good. From the beginning of our country the government’s power to take these types of actions have been recognized. The debate has been where is the limit of this power and that is where the judicial branch sometimes steps in to provide the check and balance to the executive or legislative branch if they try to overreach.
I can see the argument for requiring that people get some level of health insurance whether they choose to buy something very basic and low cost with a high deductible or something that is more comprehensive. In my work I see literally many 100s of people every year who don’t have any form of insurance or only the sketchiest policies that don’t help because they don’t have the savings to cover the high out of pocket costs before the policy kicks in. Many of them apply for government disabiltiy programs when they only need prescriptions and primary care for chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension. Without those medications and basic care they have a very hard time maintaining a job because they feel too ill, but they just don’t have the money for the medicine and needed lab work and primary care visits. **Taxpayers already have to pay for such people **but in the most costly form of any medical care because they wait until their condition gets bad and show up in the emergency room. They can’t pay the bill, so all of us have higher costs dumped on our insurance or if we pay completely out of pocket on us directly. There is another group of people who have the money to buy insurance but choose not to because they feel they are healthy and don’t need it. However, when someone like that has a car accident or something happens at work and worker’s comp won’t pay for all needed care (or sometimes for any care), then they are at the ER and applying for disability also. They are not disabled because they have something that could be corrected pretty easily if they had basic insurance to cover that recovery over a few weeks or months. Without health insurance many of them go from being productive workers to living with relatives or homeless due to the inability to get enough care to return to the workforce. It hurts all of us when we lose the productivity (and taxes paid) by these lost workers and it hurts when they rack up ER bills that could have been avoided by requiring some basic health insurance.
One of the things that is going to happen that some people object to is that several years down the road people will be required to get some type of health insurance plan whether it is a private plan subsidized in some manner for people with less income or a private plan through an employer (like many of us have already) or a private plan that someone goes out an purchases with (hopefully) a lower premium than they would otherwise be paying (because of the group rates the federal government gets).
I understand that people don’t like being told to do something, but it already happens in many areas of our life and that is part of the role of government whether we like it or not. It is not the end of the world nor the end of our democracy. We still get to vote on a regular basis and if we don’t like something then we need to register and vote and support candidates who will do things differently. Our Founding Fathers objected to the leaders in England imposing things on them when they didn’t have a vote to choose those leaders. We still choose our leaders and even if the majority at a certain time does not share our belief in how things should be done, it is still a validly elected government that we can wait out 2 or 4 years and legally change those in charge. (I don’t want this to go off track into political discussion about current politics because this is not the correct forum for that type of discussion.)
Regardless of the hot button issue of the moment some things never change. We are required to keep certain levels of sanitation by not tolieting on our yards or dumping our trash everywhere. We must get certain shots to prevent the spread of deadly diseases like polio. Our pets must get shots to prevent the spread of rabies. We must get a driver’s license so that (hopefully) all drivers on the roads have at least a minimum level of skill and knowledge. The examples are endless. What they all have in common is that the government has an interest in keeping society safe and functioning for the common good. From the beginning of our country the government’s power to take these types of actions have been recognized. The debate has been where is the limit of this power and that is where the judicial branch sometimes steps in to provide the check and balance to the executive or legislative branch if they try to overreach.
I can see the argument for requiring that people get some level of health insurance whether they choose to buy something very basic and low cost with a high deductible or something that is more comprehensive. In my work I see literally many 100s of people every year who don’t have any form of insurance or only the sketchiest policies that don’t help because they don’t have the savings to cover the high out of pocket costs before the policy kicks in. Many of them apply for government disabiltiy programs when they only need prescriptions and primary care for chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension. Without those medications and basic care they have a very hard time maintaining a job because they feel too ill, but they just don’t have the money for the medicine and needed lab work and primary care visits. **Taxpayers already have to pay for such people **but in the most costly form of any medical care because they wait until their condition gets bad and show up in the emergency room. They can’t pay the bill, so all of us have higher costs dumped on our insurance or if we pay completely out of pocket on us directly. There is another group of people who have the money to buy insurance but choose not to because they feel they are healthy and don’t need it. However, when someone like that has a car accident or something happens at work and worker’s comp won’t pay for all needed care (or sometimes for any care), then they are at the ER and applying for disability also. They are not disabled because they have something that could be corrected pretty easily if they had basic insurance to cover that recovery over a few weeks or months. Without health insurance many of them go from being productive workers to living with relatives or homeless due to the inability to get enough care to return to the workforce. It hurts all of us when we lose the productivity (and taxes paid) by these lost workers and it hurts when they rack up ER bills that could have been avoided by requiring some basic health insurance.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Not exactly.
This is not a direct government takeover of healthcare per se. But that will be the end result and, I believe, by design.
Fundamentally, what it does is make insurance more expensive for some and subsidizes it for others. It makes insurance companies underwrite more risks than previously, and allows the government to make them take on whatever risks the government wants them to take on. Obviously, the end result of this will be to make insurance more expensive; perhaps prohibitively so.
Since there is a minimal fine for not having insurance, and since one can get insurance even if one is already sick, it is probably, for many if not most people, cheaper to simply not buy insurance at all until they actually need it. This will also drive costs up.
In my opinion, the idea is to make private insurance fail altogether. In that event, the government will be in a position to impose the “public option”, which basically will allow the government to go into the insurance business and drive all other insurers out and become the only insurer.
Since “he who pays the piper calls the tune”, the government will then be in full control of healthcare in the U.S.
The liberals on here will fuzz this all away, but total government control (the “public option”) is what they really want and will admit to it if pressed.
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Reid
Guest
I call it neo socialist - the current bill has the feds tellings the insurance companies how they are to operate, how much profit they can make and the list goes on…
I personally believe it will blow up the system and the government will be there to save us all - I believe this is the new plan - others believe that the government simply wants to control all aspects of healthcare without actually running it.
Either way I am disappointed in the leadership of the American Catholic Church - the Church teaches against socialism but seemed to be okay for this bill as long as it did not include abortion - sadly it includes abortion language in the bill.
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