Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Federal Appeals court upholds Healthcare Law
Topic Started: Nov 9 2011, 01:50 AM (1,906 Views)
Chris
Member Avatar
Fire & Ice Senior Diplomat
[ * ]
There was an economist, from Norway or somewhere up that way, who a couple years ago gave a talk on global warming. He started off with let's assume it's true, OK, so what should we do? Throw billions at it? OK. But what about healthcare, poverty, crime, overpopulation, tyranny, and a world of other problems? We just don't have the resources to solve all these problems.

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.
~P.J.O'Rourke
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chris
Member Avatar
Fire & Ice Senior Diplomat
[ * ]
But let's get back to the topic some want to distract us from. And the freedom to choose...

ObamaCare: Flawed Policy, Flawed Law
Quote:
 
...A poll taken this August by AP-National Constitution Center found that 82% of Americans say the federal government should not have the power to require Americans to buy health insurance....

Oops.

And the law?
Quote:
 
But what about the mandate as a matter of policy?

The law would never work as the drafters intended. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against the individual mandate in August, accurately described it as "toothless." The penalties—$695 a year or 2.5% of income once fully implemented in 2016—are too weak to induce people to sign up for insurance policies that the Congressional Budget Office estimates could cost $20,000 a year for a family of four.

The mandate is also weak operationally because few believe that the federal government will have the political will to actually seek out and penalize people who don't sign up for insurance.

Crony capitalism?
Quote:
 
Health insurers warned that provisions in the law requiring health plans to sell policies to anyone anytime ("guaranteed issue") at artificial rates ("community rating") would drive up premium costs dramatically unless the individual mandate were included in the law to require both the healthy and the sick to purchase and maintain coverage.

Unintended consequences...
Quote:
 
The law already is increasing costs for workers and taxpayers. Millions of people will lose the coverage they have now. Its massive new entitlement spending will blow apart any efforts to trim the federal deficit. And states are rebelling against implementing its coverage expansions.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

Quote:
 
There was an economist, from Norway or somewhere up that way, who a couple years ago gave a talk on global warming. He started off with let's assume it's true, OK, so what should we do? Throw billions at it? OK. But what about healthcare, poverty, crime, overpopulation, tyranny, and a world of other problems? We just don't have the resources to solve all these problems.


The question is which of those problems will end up costing more by not doing anything? Offloading the problems onto our grandchildren is selfish & shortsighted.
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

Quote:
 
I don't pay attention to the ins and outs of the Canadian healthcare system, but I have read some articles in the Vancouver paper claiming the system is going broke there. Taxes are already sky high so where would the money come from to pay for the projected cost increases? Higher taxes? Cuts in service and availability? Diversion of funds from other programs?


Sure, Canada is under the same demographic pressures affecting the rest of the western world. The problem is everyone needs health care, and surveys show 90% of Canadians do not object to paying for the current universal system, and it is supported by all political parties, as the most cost effective solution, which if you look at it logically, it is. However, there do need to be some changes to cut back on the nickle & dimeing which is the major cost. Canadians do have a choice to go to private clinic for any procedure that is nto covered or may be delayed, and pay, so in some respects there is a 2 tiered system. However everyone is covered for the basics and no one this country is going to lose their home or savings because they have to pay for a surgical procedure and that is something we value highly as a society.
Quote Post Goto Top
 
ImaHeadaU
Member Avatar
Fire & Ice Senior Diplomat
[ * ]
Pat
Nov 11 2011, 12:43 AM
Without the presumed belief that healthcare coverage is ordained from a divine being, why would a country spend 50% of it's revenue on this one program?
What country is doing that? Certainly not Canada.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chris
Member Avatar
Fire & Ice Senior Diplomat
[ * ]
telcoman
Nov 11 2011, 04:48 AM
Quote:
 
There was an economist, from Norway or somewhere up that way, who a couple years ago gave a talk on global warming. He started off with let's assume it's true, OK, so what should we do? Throw billions at it? OK. But what about healthcare, poverty, crime, overpopulation, tyranny, and a world of other problems? We just don't have the resources to solve all these problems.


The question is which of those problems will end up costing more by not doing anything? Offloading the problems onto our grandchildren is selfish & shortsighted.
They all will. And paying for them by raising the national debt only doubles down on the burden our children and theirs will face. It's simply unsustainable. Government at work.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chris
Member Avatar
Fire & Ice Senior Diplomat
[ * ]
telcoman
Nov 11 2011, 04:55 AM
Quote:
 
I don't pay attention to the ins and outs of the Canadian healthcare system, but I have read some articles in the Vancouver paper claiming the system is going broke there. Taxes are already sky high so where would the money come from to pay for the projected cost increases? Higher taxes? Cuts in service and availability? Diversion of funds from other programs?


Sure, Canada is under the same demographic pressures affecting the rest of the western world. The problem is everyone needs health care, and surveys show 90% of Canadians do not object to paying for the current universal system, and it is supported by all political parties, as the most cost effective solution, which if you look at it logically, it is. However, there do need to be some changes to cut back on the nickle & dimeing which is the major cost. Canadians do have a choice to go to private clinic for any procedure that is nto covered or may be delayed, and pay, so in some respects there is a 2 tiered system. However everyone is covered for the basics and no one this country is going to lose their home or savings because they have to pay for a surgical procedure and that is something we value highly as a society.
Can you explain two-tier? What I saw was a combination of "public" and private spending (see chart post 68).
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
tomdrobin
Member Avatar
Fire & Ice Senior Diplomat
[ * ]
Personal responsibility and freedom is certainly a desireable goal. Perhaps government should never have got involved in encouraging employers to furnish health care insurance by giving tax breaks, and of course allowing employees a tax free benefit. Were there no such thing ever as insurance, and everyone paid their own bill, we wouldn't have the horrendous cost problem we have now. And, perhaps medicare and medicaid were well meaning programs that had unintended consequences. All of those well meaning programs have effectively driven health care costs out of sight. As for what to do, it is really too late to turn back the clock and start over. Basically we have to make the best of a bad situation. There is no real free market in health care, it's an expensive broken system that is gradually pricing customers out of the market. So, from a pragmatic viewpoint the only way to control costs now is for government to intercede.

It is no different than entitlement programs like ADC and food stamps. Once the dependancy has been created, you can't just turn the clock back and remove the entitlement. It's like feeding wild animals, once they become dependant on you, if you remove the feeding tube, there will be intolerable suffering. These problems aren't going to just disappear by cutting the funding.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Chris
Member Avatar
Fire & Ice Senior Diplomat
[ * ]
"it is really too late to turn back the clock and start over"

Continuing in the same unsustainable path will only lead to collapse of the entire corporate-state system so many have come to depend on. Not to add to the pessimism of your last post, Tom. :-)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · Fire And Ice General Discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Website Traffic Analysis