We're Only Going to Get One Shot at this

Krieg

And once again it is going to take an informed, aware minority to get this done. Generations of government educated Americans have, sadly, produced a population largely composed of government drones who believe that government has been, is, and always shall be the answer to life's greatest problems. These people simply are not aware enough to recognized the failures of government (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, The USPS, etc) and the successes of the private market.

Democrats are the party of control. They are manipulators of the mob. Democrats know that their key to power is control. The more control they exercise over the voters, the easier it is for them to manipulate those voters into keeping them in power. Right now Democrats know that they cannot realistically control your access to food, transportation or shelter. To be sure, there are elements of our society that depend on the government for those needs, and for them the government has food stamps, public transportation and welfare housing. Still the majority of people are self-sufficient in these areas and aren't going to stand by and watch the government take over these segments of our economy ... at least not yet.

Then there's health care. After World War II the Democrats set their sights on controlling health care. They knew it would be a long process, but they began immediately to set the stage. They adopted a general goal of making it difficult for people to obtain bona-fide health insurance policies on their own. An employer could buy the policy for you and take a tax deduction. You buy the insurance for yourself and NO tax deduction. This, of course, made insurance more expensive when bought individually. Various states started adding mandates to policies. You were denied to chose what areas of medical care you wished to insure .. the state made that decision for you. Maternity benefits became pretty much standard. When health insurance has to cover the ordinary costs of childbirth ... and insure everybody against that cost ... well, add up the bucks. In Connecticut health insurance is required to cover hair transplants. Do the math. This, of course, made insurance all that much more expensive.

OK .. I need to cut to the chase here. Over generations the Democrats have been working their magic ... making it more and more difficult and expensive for you to get health care and health insurance on your own ... all the while touting health care as a "right." Democrats have never bothered to explain how one person can have this "right" to a portion of another person's (the health care provider's) life or property ... but they've made it stick. Now most Americans buy this "right to health care" absurdity.

Democrats thought the time was ripe in 1993 after Bill Clinton won the election. They put his wife, the charming Hillary, to work developing a plan. The public hated it so much that it never even came up for a vote. Golly! What's to hate? Well, how about the fact that if you were to take your own dollars and pay a doctor for a visit out of your own pocket, both you and the doctor could go to jail? The beans got spilled and HillaryCare was dead.

Enter ObamaCare.

Democrats have been plotting this ever since the voter revolution of 1994. When they lost control of the House and the Senate to the evil, greedy Republicans they vowed that once they regained that control they would never again be placed back into the minority. They are trying to fulfill that vow with ObamaCare. You cannot believe these people when they tell you that they just want to set up a "public option" that will compete with private health insurance companies to keep costs down. The insurance companies have to make money, or at least break even, to stay in the game. The government doesn't. It can operate at a loss. How long do you think private insurance companies can stand up to that?
Well ... since Democrats are comparing the protestors at health care town hall meetings to terrorists, let me present this scenario. Let's talk the real terrorists .. the Islamic ones. It has been said that they only have to be lucky once. We have to be on guard constantly. And so it is with the Democrat takeover of health care. They only have to be lucky once. Just once if they can get some version of government health care passed, they'll be able to use that program -- as weak or strong as it may be - to chip away at the private sector year after year until control is complete. Those who believe in freedom - those who believe that the private sector can do the best job of delivering health care to the people (if the government would just get out of the way) are going to have to fight this battle time and time again. The last battle was 1993. It's now 16 years later and the Democrats smell victory. To Democrats government health care is the sweet smell of control. To us it's the stench of tyranny.

You must educate yourselves and fight. And in a decade or so you're going to have to educate yourselves and fight again. Maybe sooner. Freedom needs protecting. Tyranny does not.

kuzi16

Krieg:

Then there's health care. After World War II the Democrats set their sights on controlling health care. They knew it would be a long process, but they began immediately to set the stage. They adopted a general goal of making it difficult for people to obtain bona-fide health insurance policies on their own. An employer could buy the policy for you and take a tax deduction. You buy the insurance for yourself and NO tax deduction. This, of course, made insurance more expensive when bought individually. Various states started adding mandates to policies. You were denied to chose what areas of medical care you wished to insure .. the state made that decision for you. Maternity benefits became pretty much standard. When health insurance has to cover the ordinary costs of childbirth ... and insure everybody against that cost ... well, add up the bucks. In Connecticut health insurance is required to cover hair transplants. Do the math. This, of course, made insurance all that much more expensive.

yes

Politicians are already one of the main reasons why medical insurance is so expensive. Insurance is designed to cover risks but politicians are in the business of distributing largesse. Nothing is easier for politicians than to mandate things that insurance companies must cover, without the slightest regard for how such additional coverage will raise the cost of insurance. If insurance covered only those things that most people are most concerned about-- the high cost of a major medical expense-- the price would be much lower than it is today, with politicians piling on mandate after mandate.
Since insurance covers risks, there is no reason for it to cover annual checkups, because it is known in advance that annual checkups occur once a year. Automobile insurance does not cover oil changes, much less the purchase of gasoline, since these are regular recurrences, not risks.


HERE is a link to an essay by Richard E. Ralston titled "Who Broke Health Care?"
and one titled Profits Lower the Cost of Health Care in the Long Run

kuzi16

i wish i could find the article to link it up here and to be sure i was correct in its numbers, but i cant find it so ill just sum it up.


in the 20 years leading up to the inception of medicaid, heath care costs doubled. in the 20 years after medicaid heath care costs went up eightfold. im sure there were other factors... i just cant seem to remember where i saw this and i cant find it anymore... it doesnt mean much without a source...

jpclotfelter

Democrats have done a very good job of demonizing anybody who goes into business and turns a profit. What they don't understand is that it is this love of money that has created a competative environment and brought the quality and standards of everything to a higher level. I want my medical provider to be profit seeking. I want my doctor to understand that if he doesn't provide a level of care that I am satisfied with I will take my business elsewhere. Imagine if there were one car company in the world. That car company would have no incentive to provide a quality product because they would know that you would have no choice but to buy their car. I know that the immediate outcome of this healthcare legislation would not be a one payer system but eventually it would lead to that. Employers would eventually stop offering health care because it would be cheaper to just pay the penalty. Private insurance companies would go out of business because the government option would be appear to be cheaper...I promise you, it will be more expensive in the long run. Can you put a price on freedom?

Vulchor

jpclotfelter:

Democrats have done a very good job of demonizing anybody who goes into business and turns a profit. What they don't understand is that it is this love of money that has created a competative environment and brought the quality and standards of everything to a higher level.

Im sure we are including the quality seen in the financial markets over the last 2yrs due to the idea of competition and deregulation as well.

jpclotfelter:

I want my medical provider to be profit seeking. I want my doctor to understand that if he doesn't provide a level of care that I am satisfied with I will take my business elsewhere

Don't worry, your Dr. is profit seeking and well aware of this. However, your options are becoming more and more limited with Dr's leaving the field because they hate dealing with insurance companies.

jpclotfelter:

I know that the immediate outcome of this healthcare legislation would not be a one payer system but eventually it would lead to that....Private insurance companies would go out of business because the government option would be appear to be cheaper.

First, there is no way to say it would ever lead to that except for a few sound clips or stories used by the right as fear tactics..just like the death panels. The right wing does know how to use fear against us better than anyone, lets not forget terror level aqua marine or whatever it was.Also, by your own logic that with a love of money making things competitive, private insurance companies would never go out of business because their love of money would help keep them finding ways to do it cheaper or more effective----while just having more competition on the market in th form of the demonic socialist govt. program that no one wants (like the two no one wants now---Medicaid and Medicare)...sounds like another car company on the market to me.

PuroFreak

Vulchor:

Also, by your own logic that with a love of money making things competitive, private insurance companies would never go out of business because their love of money would help keep them finding ways to do it cheaper or more effective----while just having more competition on the market in th form of the demonic socialist govt. program that no one wants (like the two no one wants now---Medicaid and Medicare)...sounds like another car company on the market to me.

You are forgetting something here that was mentioned earlier. The government can opperate year after year at a loss but insurance companies can't. This bill as it is written will stop all insurance companies from writing any new policies or making any changes to existing policies. Thats like telling the car industries they can stay afloat, but they can't make any new cars or make any changes to current models... or you could apply the exact same thing about any other business. They are trying to cripple the industry.

jlzimmerman

To be quite fair, both the GOP and Dems are equally responsible for .gov intervening in our lives too much. Once people stop being so loyal to their political affiliations they'll realize that both parties are more alike than they are different. Bush's Patriot Act anyone? (Obama supports wire-tapping btw) Just an example. Many Conservatives can't even consider themselves Republicans anymore because they're not one-in-the-same these days. I think this is the reason why the Libertarian party is growing in size.

With that said, the leftist Congress and White House have taken a new giant leap to ensuring individual liberties, responsibilities, and accountability is taken from every American. Why think for yourself when .gov will do it for you? The Federal government has the Constitutional obligation to protect its citizens, NOT provide for them. We have the freedom to succeed as much as we do the freedom to fail....ON OUR OWN. Our nation is on a path that's completely opposite of the reason our nation was founded in the first place.

Supporters of the bailouts and greater regulation fail to realize that real free-market Capitalism was not allowed to run its course. There's no such thing as "too big to fail" in Capitalism. You *** up, you go bankrupt. Period. Instead, we keep these archaic-thinking companies around and not let corporate Darwinism do its job for the sake of saving some jobs. Sure, we would have had higher unemployment, but that would have been temporary while the lesson would have been permanent, and the money saved from not having to bailout corruption could have gone to States that had higher unemployment due to failing businesses (i.e. Michigan). But our principles are pushed aside for the sake of short-sidedness.

kuzi16

Vulchor:

jpclotfelter:

Democrats have done a very good job of demonizing anybody who goes into business and turns a profit. What they don't understand is that it is this love of money that has created a competative environment and brought the quality and standards of everything to a higher level.

Im sure we are including the quality seen in the financial markets over the last 2yrs due to the idea of competition and deregulation as well.

deregulation had nothing to do with this. the housing and lending markets were at their most regulated point in history (up to that point).

Given the broad scope of government intervention in the U.S. home mortgage sector through the GSEs, the maze of other agencies—such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB), and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO)—and the cascade of Congressional acts—such as the Fair Housing Act (1968), the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), the Community Reinvestment Act (1977), the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (1975), the National Affordable Housing Act (1990), the Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act (1994), the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (1994), and the American Dream Down Payment Act (2003)—it is simply ludicrous for anyone today to speak of the U.S. mortgage sector as having been a fully “free” market before the latest crisis. Only more ludicrous is the claim that the few free elements still remaining, but not the interventions, caused the crisis.

here is an article entitled " But Don't Businesses Need to be 'Regulated'?"

Vulchor:

jpclotfelter:

I want my medical provider to be profit seeking. I want my doctor to understand that if he doesn't provide a level of care that I am satisfied with I will take my business elsewhere

Don't worry, your Dr. is profit seeking and well aware of this. However, your options are becoming more and more limited with Dr's leaving the field because they hate dealing with insurance companies.

...and they will be even more limited when the government "option" is the only option left.
this is the exact problem with canada's system right now. the doctors are leaving because they dont want to deal with the government and they cannot profit from the government no matter what they do. this creates a shortage of doctors, and ultimately waiting lines.

many doctors already hate medicaid because of of poorly it is run, and cant make any profit off of it. Doctors have families they need to feed as well.

if insurance only covered risk based medical needs, not routine check ups, ( as insurance is designed to do) then much of the cost of insurance would go down.
50 years ago, that is how it worked. you go to your family doctor, get a physical done, pay CASH and move on with life. its an expected expense. no need for insurance here.

wanna talk health care reform? lets start with that concept.

Vulchor:

jpclotfelter:

I know that the immediate outcome of this healthcare legislation would not be a one payer system but eventually it would lead to that....Private insurance companies would go out of business because the government option would be appear to be cheaper.

First, there is no way to say it would ever lead to that except for a few sound clips or stories used by the right as fear tactics..just like the death panels.

im not sure if you have read page 16 of the house version of the bill.

there is a provision that private health care cannot be changed or new policies created after the public option becomes law.

the text of page 16:

1 SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT
2 COVERAGE.
3 (a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COV
4 ERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of
5 this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable cov
6 erage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health
7 insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance
8 coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the
9 first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:
10 (1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.—
11 (A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in
12 this paragraph, the individual health insurance
13 issuer offering such coverage does not enroll
14 any individual in such coverage if the first ef
15 fective date of coverage is on or after the first
16 day of Y1.
17 (B) DEPENDENT COVERAGE PER
18 MITTED.—Subparagraph (A) shall not affect
19 the subsequent enrollment of a dependent of an
20 individual who is covered as of such first day.
21 (2) LIMITATION ON CHANGES IN TERMS OR
22 CONDITIONS.—Subject to paragraph (3) and except
23 as required by law, the issuer does not change any
24 of its terms or conditions, including benefits and
25 cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day be
26 fore the first day of Y1.




so much for not wiping out the private insurance option.

this is saying that once the bill is enacted, you can keep the policy you have as long as zero changes are made, and insurance companies cannot issue new insurance. this leaves you with one "option" and that is the government "option"

if everyone is on the same health care plan, and it is paid for by one entity (the government)
... sounds like single payer to me.

you can say that those clips are "scare tactics" all you want. sound clips mean nothing. the bill is everything. and that bill eliminates private insurance. Full bill text

Vulchor:

The right wing does know how to use fear against us better than anyone, lets not forget terror level aqua marine or whatever it was.

this is a red herring fallacy. it has nothing to do with THIS argument. we can argue that later, lets not be distracted now.

Vulchor:

Also, by your own logic that with a love of money making things competitive, private insurance companies would never go out of business because their love of money would help keep them finding ways to do it cheaper or more effective----while just having more competition on the market in th form of the demonic socialist govt. program that no one wants (like the two no one wants now---Medicaid and Medicare)...sounds like another car company on the market to me.

the difference is this:
private insurance companies, just like every other private company in the market, must turn a profit to stay solvent.
the government does not
if you do not have to turn a profit you can offer identical goods cheaper than the people that do have to turn a profit.
but as i explained above, this is a moot point. there will be no private insurance by law in a few years anyway. the bill makes new insurance or updating insurance illegal.

Vulchor

Why I (or anyone) continue to talk about any of this is baflling to me...Everyone (myself included) is so entrenched in their own feelings, nothing can be accomplished. Every study, fact, or query from numbers put forth by the W.H.O. down to the feelings of Dennis Miller cannot be agreed upon as fair or accurate by anyone. Instead we spend time arguing fiscal opinions that not even the most enlightened economists and financial thinkers cannot come to an agreement on. For perhaps the first time ever for me, I can understand why so many people could give 2 $hits about anything political. I hope I never get to that point, but I can actually understand why some people do.

kuzi16

Vulchor:

For perhaps the first time ever for me, I can understand why so many people could give 2 $hits about anything political. I hope I never get to that point, but I can actually understand why some people do.

i find this statement interesting. it looks to me that more people are getting involved now than have been in a long time, not the reverse.

you do have a good point that we are all entrenched in our ideals. in the past, (for the most part) everyone was able to think what they wanted and live their lives accordingly. to a point, it did not matter what anyone thought.
this case is different. in this case, people that dont want to be part of a program are going to have no choice but to be. this is a violation of individual rights.
private health care/insurance makes me happy. i want to be in pursuit of that.

the 10th amendment says:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

it says nowhere in the constitution that the government can, or should take over or run any private industry. the above quoted 10th amendment actually says that its is not the governments job/problem/responsibility/right to do anything of the sort.

jpclotfelter

Kuzi, I have forwarded a link for this forum to the White House so that they can decide if this counts as "fishy". I'm sure that all of our personal information will be handed over to the Department of Homeland Security as individuals who are engaged in conversations that are critical of the "Enlightened One". We should be expecting visits from men in black suits any time now.

kuzi16

if standing up for individual rights is "fishy" then im a fishy guy.


it may sound a bit over the top but...

give me liberty or give me death.

jlzimmerman

I emailed the Constitution to the white house last week. That chicken scratch is a bit fishy me thinks.

Krieg

Just had a some visitors last night from 2 guys dressed in black...anyone know what this is about?

Lasabar

Krieg:

Just had a some visitors last night from 2 guys dressed in black...anyone know what this is about?

Was one of them Wil Smith?