This is not a political rant. This is not about bashing Obama. This is just going to be a few comments and then some questions. If someone really has the answers, please tell them to me.
First of all, the massive stimulus was passed with lightening speed because we had to keep unemployment from going over 8.whatever. It is now 10.whatever, higher than in more than 25 years. Now I will be the first one to say that there was no way the present administration could look into the future and know for sure what would happen, so I don't blame them for that. I know that all politicians say whatever they think we want to hear so we go along with them.
Many supporters of Obama were in favor of this stimulus and how quickly it had to be passed - without most of those who voted for it knowing everything they were voting for - and without the transparency we were promised by candidate Obama.
Okay, it passed, and it didn't do, for the unemployment numbers, what they claimed it would do. As I said, I don't hold that against them because it was just more politics as usual. Maybe it will work out in the long run, but the bottom line is they weren't able to accurately predict the future.
Now there is healthcare. We are given figures on how costs can be reduced and how much it will cost. Again, we are not given the transparency that we were promised, unless we are attorneys and have a lot of reading time on our hands.
My questions are these:
1. If there is so much money to be saved by making the system more honest, why hasn't it been done with the existing Medicare?
2. How can I believe that this administration really knows how much healthcare will cost?
Now I believe everyone should have healthcare, and I'm willing to pay my share to help people, but do we have enough "rich" people in this country to pay for it? Or are they going to have the same shelters and means to avoid taxes that the really rich always have, so then the burden is on those of us who are struggling to get by? How do they know just how much this is going to cost us, and I don't just mean money?
Another question: why do so many just blindly accept what they are told about how the government can run healthcare?
Cash for Clunkers was a mess. Getting flu vaccines to the people who need them is a mess. Social Security is a mess. Medicare is a mess. What makes us believe healthcare would not be a mess?
Programs like Social Security and Medicare were started with the best of intentions to help people, and they have helped. But they certainly have not been well run and are SUBSTANCIALLY over what they were projected to cost.
How are we supposed to believe that government healthcare would be any different?
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Yawp
davyboy
Caroline Hagood
Salon.com
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And I have to say that it isn't true that conservatives don't want healthcare, period. There are many of us that do. We just want it to be feasible and not make things worse.
Again, thanks for stopping by, and my sincere sympathy for what you are going through now.
All administrations pay the best and the brightest to tell them the facts. They pay people to work on this every day until the job is done. On the topic of health care, they are looking at countries who have been using health care systems for years, so it's not all speculation. The reason I believe government health care would be better is because I've lived in Japan and England and seen it work and I've lived here and been failed.
I am more puzzled by the fact that people mistrust the government when it tries to do good, like providing proper health care, but trust them they do harm, like going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's not a "fact", as you say, that printing trillions out of thin air (btw, nobody knows the recipients of that money yet, ask Ben Bernanke) will eventually lead to more jobs. I'd call it "highly controversial" that such a strategy will lead to more jobs :)
But we agree everywhere else.
Marcelleqb, the only thing I have to correct you on is when you said I assume that medicare is more dishonest than private healthcare. I don't assume any such thing. My only point was that if there was a way to eliminate the fraud in Medicare, why hasn't it already been done? I don't want them to tell me they can do it, I want them to prove it to me, especially before we assume we will have all this "extra" money. If I said to you that if you give me a thousand dollars I will lose 50 pounds, would you give me the money up front or would you make me prove I could lose 50 pounds first?
President Obama has been building one on the dark side of the moon. The whole thing was started by JFK.
The extra money from increased taxes to pay for 'health care' will be used to finish the fleet.
It's simple, really.
The honest truth is, this whole "health care" debate is really nothing more than the government doing a lot of haggling and pheneggling to make it look like they are reducing the greed and corruption that the insurance industry has ALWAYS given us, the same way the banking industry has always given us greed and corruption from their end.
The honest truth is, nothing substantial will change, and what few small changes are made will be erased in a decade or two, because we never addressed the reality of the problem, that it is the greed and corruption of the American people who has ALLOWED the insurance industry, the auto industry, the banking industry, the real estate industry, the tech industry (any industry that has ever created a "bubble' that eventually burst) to victimize us and take our money and our lives.
They can turn Medicare into universal healthcare in 24 hours. The only solution is a government-run universal healthcare system. The best part is when you tell an American that America is the only country in the civilized and uncivilized world that does not have national healthcare, he/she will proudly say, "They're socialists man, we're the best man; we're Amurca."
The idle middle-man (insurance companies, for example), the backbone of American Capitalism, will continue to TAKE money from you forever...legally. The voters and the politicians vote for the insurance companies. When the MAFIA takes money from you, at least, they provide a service.
Free Healthcare and free higher education, the bare minimum any nation should offer, will never, ever...ever happen in America.
Great argument, Kyle.
Rated.
I don't know how to stop Medicare fraud specifically. Fraud occurs in all medical systems. If we had a government health care system, like the VA, it wouldn't occur at all.
I don't claim to know everything that is going on, but I do agree that something has to happen. As Thoth says, we should be able to have healthcare and higher education for everyone. I just am afraid that anything the governmen does will be some half-assed thing that really helps few people.
Sadly, I don't think the politicians on either side really care about us. The Republicans don't want people to die anymore than the Democrats do, but I don't think either party really cares all that much about the quality of our lives.
Like many I am afraid. I'm afraid of my husband losing his job. I'm afraid of losing everything we have ever worked for. I'm afraid of how much it is going to cost to send my son to college (we've been lucky he's gone to community college the first two years). I'm afraid that after we spend thousands and thousands of dollars on his education he will not be able to find a job.
I know there are people out there who are afraid, too, of the same things and even more important things.
I just don't know if the government can, will, or even really wants to make things better.
I almost wish Andy's stories were real. I'd much rather be a ninja kicking the ass of some bad guy (or even a good guy) than worrying about things I have no control over.
Thanks to all for writing.
1- A good one. I think we need to add universal insurance AND improve Medicare. I was disappointed in Bush for not letting Medicare negotiate drug prices and in Obama for conceding that to Big Pharma so quickly.
2- Predicting the cost of programs like this is at best an inexact science. Should we not do anything simply because we can't be guaranteed of what it might cost down to the penny?
For me, the more pertinent question is can we live with the knowledge that 45,000 Americans die every year simply because they have no health coverage? Personally, I welcome anything that reduces that number. Maybe we can't get to zero, but we can't let perfection stand in the way of the possible. Is this a perfect bill? No. But I find it preferable to the status quo.
I fail to understand conservatives displeasure with Social Security. It has given dignity and independence for two generations of seniors and relieved their children from the financial burden of caring for them. What is so broken about it? We have to tweak it occasionally and raise the tax every 20 years or so, but I think it has been a success story.
Currently our health care system is going from bad to worse. The status quo is not an option. The bill that the House just passed seeks to address some of the most immediate pressing problems. With all the obstruction that congress has faced, I'm pleased to see them taking action.
I appreciate that you have posed these honest questions and have received comments courteously. I hope that others can find it in themselves to follow your example. Thanks.
Thanks for stopping by and answering my questions and posing some of your own.
Tom, thanks so much for stopping by and giving your thoughts. Thanks especially for realizing that this post was not some trap I set to get people to come here so I could blast them for what they believe.
If you will look up the standard profit percentages for various industries, you will see the health insurance does not make a 30% profit. They make 2.2% profit margin.
Robert Kelley,
You said 45,000 people die each year because they don't have health insurance. If you are correct, then all we have to do is wait until next year then everybody will have insurance because that is the number of uninsured according to Obama. Problem solved, or do we have our facts wrong someplace?
Also if Social Security is so great how come if you were to work dor the city of Galviston, TX you would get the same benefits and a retirement check that is several times higher than you get from SSA? Why did the federal government take away the ability of communities to opt out of the SSA?
Scanner,
If you will check you will see that by percentage of claims files, Medicare and Medicaid are the two biggest at denying claims. It's not the private insurance companies who are afraid of being sued for turning you down.
It used to be that public workers (and Congress itself) could opt out of SS. That loophole was closed long ago to get more people paying in, obviously. Not sure what Galveston was doing that worked so well, but that isn't an option any more.
Among American men, heart-attack deaths in 2004 stood at 53.8 per 100,000. In Canada, 58.3 men per 100,000 died of cardiac arrest, while coronaries buried 69.5 of every 100,000 British males.
The fatality rate for breast cancer, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis and Lancet Oncology, is 25 percent in the U.S., 28 percent in Canada, and 46 percent in Great Britain.
Among those diagnosed with prostate cancer, 19 percent die of the disease in America. In Canada, 25 percent of such patients succumb to this disease. And in Great Britain - an Anglophone NATO member and America’s closest ally - prostate cancer kills 57 percent of those who contract it. That is triple the American fatality rate.
I applaud you for the format and posing the question ...
1st. again with the stimulus ... if you want to understand this you have to again go throug keynes, through chicago, through vienna and through tokyo ... if you want to understand it. i know it sounds odd, some of it, but, first Bush and Cheney thoroughly and completely mismanged the first stimulus/giveaway, BUT it stopped the market from crashing, then the far from perfect Obama stimulus went out, managed though rushed- because thats what stimulus plans are, emergency rush jobs- it is a damn emergency and you have to rush or the market crashes, then you lose ten fold jobs ... so, we try and influence the flow of money to keep the markets up so you dont lose more jobs ... then, the part you dont like for some reason, the government gives people jobs to fix things and everything slowly rights itself, no pun intended ... thats how it works and these are not political hacks they are the best economists in the world who model the 29 crash and recovery ... proving, without any question, laizze-faire is absurd and a mixed economy wins in the long term every time ... finally, so much of the info you post comes, indirectly from corporations, especially right now health insurers ... why would you believe them K?
Bravo!