Republicans' #1 Priority...

My post wasn't addressing the uninsured, but rather those who abuse their coverage.

How exactly does someone abuse something they don't have?

They don't. The insured abuse their coverage. And, the newly insured who aren't educated as to how the plan is designed to be cost effective AND deliver proper medical care, will naturally abuse their insurance plan. For further information regarding this concept, research this with managed care carriers. If you are looking for one of your arguments, maybe you can lure someone else to entertain you.

it seems from most of these responses, that posters would be okay with the health reform, if it was paid for...but, I wonder. This article seems to get to the heart of the debate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/business/economy/15leonhardt.html?_r=1&hp

Guaranteeing people a decent retirement and decent health care does more than smooth out the rough edges of capitalism. Those guarantees give people the freedom to take risks. If you know that professional failure won?t leave you penniless and won?t prevent your child from receiving needed medical care, you can leave the comfort of a large corporation and take a chance on your own idea. You can take a shot at becoming the next great American entrepreneur.

With every previous major expansion of the safety net, history has had a chance to prove the naysayers wrong. It may yet in the case of universal health coverage. But the decision now seems to rest with the nine members of the Supreme Court.

The reason that emergency rooms are currently packed to the gills is due to a lack of health care. If you don't have the money to go to the doctor when symptoms then you wait until you going to die or can't take the pain anymore. At that point the ER has to take you regardless of ability to pay.

Thus, medical care does, in fact, exist for uninsured Americans already.

One of the provisions of the health care bill is that it eliminates co-pays for preventative services and makes it a non-deductible item for Medicare.

So if you are on Medicare, a scheduled doctor visit and preventative care are free, but an ER or other type of visit will cost you money.

That goes into effect Jan 1, 2011.

it seems from most of these responses, that posters would be okay with the health reform, if it was paid for...but, I wonder. This article seems to get to the heart of the debate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/business/economy/15leonhardt.html?_r=1&hp

That was a surpirsing good article. 😀 He makes a good case on that last bit. But Leonhardt shouldn't be so concerned about the SC.. they've shot down quite a bit of very damaging legislation over the years similar but even more far reaching than this, and we have come along just fine without it.

As far as the mandate is concerned, from a little bit of reading of the actual bill (posted in another thread), it seems insurers can enforce waiting periods when people sign up. So there may still be incentive to purchase even if the mandate gets shot down by a supreme court ruling.

Personally, I feel an expansion of the Commerce Clause for this mandate is not worth the risk. I would prefer we solve this problem in other ways without forcing people under penalty of law to purchase a privately produced product or service. This goes against everything we believe in as far as personal responsibility and freedom is concerned.

We should also not gloss over the costs. This is going to be expensive for all of us both in terms of federal dollars spent to pay for it (most of which will likely be borrowed seeing as how that seems to be the way we finance the federal government these days) and in terms of state budget dollars spent which we will have to pay for as soon as the bills come due.

As far as the mandate is concerned, from a little bit of reading of the actual bill (posted in another thread), it seems insurers can enforce waiting periods when people sign up. So there may still be incentive to purchase even if the mandate gets shot down by a supreme court ruling.

Thanks for looking that up. It had to be in there as anything else could bankrupt the system.

I heard a discussion recently about the Mass. program (don't remember who or where)...the essence was that the Mandate is not necessary to make the reform work - apparently, they no longer have the mandate in Mass. but, it was necessary to get the insurance industry to sign off on the legislation.

Read another article yesterday (I will see if I can find it and post) saying that most of the "special interests" are supportive of the reform law...so, it will be interesting to see what happens. IMO there is a lot of waste in the health care system...and we might be well served if someone was spending more time and dollars investigating the fraud and expense...and actually doing something about that. I know there are people in this country smart enough to find a way to fund a health care system that is fair--knowing how to fund it is not the problem; being willing to fund it is the issue.

They don't. The insured abuse their coverage. And, the newly insured who aren't educated as to how the plan is designed to be cost effective AND deliver proper medical care, will naturally abuse their insurance plan. For further information regarding this concept, research this with managed care carriers. If you are looking for one of your arguments, maybe you can lure someone else to entertain you.

You're still wrong, most insurance plans charge far more for emergency care than they do routine care. A local hospital is currently on the verge of bankruptcy from the uninsured using the ER for care. They aren't on the verge of bankruptcy because to many insured people are using the ER. In fact check this out ER Wait Time - Gulf Coast Medical Center that's the average wait time at the for profit hospital that doesn't take uninsured patients. Interesting that their wait time (when I checked) was 20 minutes despite all those insured people abusing their services.

BTW, if you want to be taken seriously don't jump in a thread, drop a bomb, and then run away giggling.

tee, hee, hee

BTW, if you want to be taken seriously don't jump in a thread, drop a bomb, and then run away giggling.

SWGB modus operandi?

SWGB modus operandi?

yes, he is direct to a fault. and he is wonderful.

yes, he is direct to a fault. and he is wonderful.

He is wonderful! As are you! :wave: