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Health care............


MarcM

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Granted, if something happens and they don't have any insurance they're screwed beyond belief, but I think people should have the ability to screw up their own lives.

That is only true to a point ... if they don't have insurance and something happens to someone else because of them, they have now wrecked someone else's life. Been there. :P

Working in the industry I do (pharmacy for seniors, I work for one of the truly big guns) I see a lot of these things close up & I don't like it. Due to the circumstances of my family the healthcare issue (or lack of) has been a big one for some of them as well. Nothing is perfect and granted there are things about the bill I'm not crazy about, and there are tons of things about the bill we don't even know. And yes, it's going to cost. However, these 10 items, that are immediate, all will be in effect within 6 months:

Ten immediate benefits of HCR

1.Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday

2.Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions :rockon:

3.No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage

4.Free preventative care for all :rockon:

5.Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.

6.Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.

7.The “donut hole†closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors. :rockon:

8.Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments. :rockon:

9.Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

10.AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick. :rockon:

All of those things are just plain right, and should have been law long ago, no matter what it took to get it done. Taking the good with the bad, I think the good weighs more. And I'm going to pay for it, just like everyone else.

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(Bernie Sanders’ amendment)

That's my boy! One of the two independents in the Senate :thumbsup:

Anyways, I know there won't be anything that will make everyone happy. Never will. What really bugs the living bejeezus out of me is the rhetoric all these extremists are using. Shouts of tyranny and communism. It really bugs me. There are so many people I've met who really don't know what they're protesting, all they know is they're Republicans, and the Republicans don't like this bill. In the same way, I've met a bunch of people who have no idea why they're for the bill, all they know is they're Democrats and the Democrats support the bill.

Yet another reason I cannot stand party politics. People are happy to believe in something but too ****ing lazy to actually know what they're talking about. They say "Oh, the (Democrats/Republicans) support this so I do." And to be honest, one of the worst things that's happened to our younger generation is The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Now, I love both of those shows, they're hilarious, but in a survey I read, about 80% of people in their late teens-20s get their news from either show. And both are ridiculously slanted. Thus, the most information some people in their late teens to early 20s get on the political issues they're so passionate about is what they hear one of two comedians say.

A wise teacher of mine once told me "Never talk politics or religion with anyone. Everyone thinks they're an expert." It confuses me that so many people think they're such experts on politics. Sometimes people are as much expert on politics as they are on quantum physics. Yet when you ask them about quantum physics they say they don't know anything but ask them about politics and they'll happily tell you their opinion and what your opinion should be.

Ughhh people. Sorry the above rant is so long. And perhaps slightly incoherent.

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Ahh, but it helps in identifying the idiots.

while having lunch with someone last week, I was telling them about my interview with Asher Roth, and how he had broached the subject of politics (in a very general sense - not offering any opinions).

The response I got was immediate and shamefully unsurprising: "He's probably a democrat." To which I responded, "He didn't say, and I didn't ask."

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Maybe some of you lived in Europe or have relatives living in Europe. Healthcare is a normal thing there (here). It's just a necessary thing. I'm not a communist nor a christian but this is just common sense and social progess. A bad time in life could happen to you too and you and your family might need it.

2.Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions :rockon:

4.Free preventative care for all :rockon:

7.The “donut hole†closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors. :rockon:

9.Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

10.AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick. :rockon:

:bow: :bow: :bow:

All of those things are just plain right, and should have been law long ago, no matter what it took to get it done. Taking the good with the bad, I think the good weighs more. And I'm going to pay for it, just like everyone else.

My thoughts exactly.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

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The contention with this particular legislation comes not necessarily from partisan politics - though partisanship was evident in its passage - nor in its kneejerk "justified or wrong" descriptives by both leaders or blind followers; but was birthed in the uniquely American inheritance of self-reliance and innate distrust of creeping governmental control, in place since the founding of the nation, reflected in its first rudimentary flag "Don't Tread On Me."

It would be inaccurate to compare the results of European (including Canadian or South American) models of universal health coverage to what was passed in the USA on Sunday, because the citizens of all other nations have historically relied upon the benevolence of their government leadership for their well-being. Through the footprints of hundreds of Old World generations, todays citizens are accustomed to acquiescing to the cooperative of leadership and measuring best results before making adjustments to policy, where oversight is multilayered. Americans, for the most part until a single generation ago, have been primarily lifestyle self-determinant, self-governed and intolerant of formal government intrusion into their decision making processes.

From what I can ascertain, the bigger complaint about this legislation is not about its potential for corruption or inefficiency (though as a now U.S. federally managed entity, that is a possibility if not an inevitability) nor that perhaps in trying solutions more problems can be created (another hallmark of all governments) but that it is the first time the U.S. government has attempted to order all its citizens, "You must purchase this!" Americans just naturally seem to chaff at being told on what they MUST spend their money. It was only extraordinary cicumstances that created the IRS, which has grown inexorably until now a fully necessary, but seemingly abhorred part of American life.

The fear of something like a new IRS being breathed into life by elected representatives of a free people seems to me to be the underlying reason why, according to polls, the majority of Americans are opposed to this legislation as it was passed on Sunday. No one seems to be complaining that affordable, sustainable and adequate healthcare is a great goal. It's simply that uniquely American fear of a feeling that erosion of freedom of choice may be taking place.

We shall see where this all takes the American experiment. Bane or benefit, it certainly adds some spice to the mix!

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