ratbastid

Wow. Just.... Wow.

What you're saying, then, is that you can't respond to his facts? Gotta make a fag joke instead?

I'm trying to draw your attention away from the smoke-screen you're trying to throw up, and TOWARD the facts you claim to want to discuss.

One man's posturing is another's desperate attempts to have an actual discussion about something of substance.

Fucking pathetic.

Vigilante

Call it what you will. I posted an honest statement.
I'm asking him, without being completely direct, that I would like to see why the healthcare bill is good. Not 20 posts up, not in other thread, but right here right now. Why is it good?

I've been ignoring you. I apologize if that hurt your feelings. BTW that's not a "fag joke". A "fag" would laugh it off better than you did.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

roachboy

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Vigilante

Not a problem. I was just calling it as I saw it. Consider my previous dropped and forgotten.

I still would like to see Will, who is pushing this so hard, tell me why the healthcare bill is so positive. I think that is a fair request.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

ratbastid

I don't see that there's much productive left in this thread, frankly.

I don't plan to participate in it any longer.

Willravel

I don't buy this premise. You may not watch Fox News, but the idea that you and your sources of conservative information are entirely separate from Fox News influence hasn't been established. You're welcome to attempt to establish this, but the fact that most of your talking points reflect talking points from Fox News would seem to suggest that you're "of the type", as it were.
That's irrelevant. We're talking about a general perception, therefore I cited the most obvious symptom of a problem with objectivity. It's absolutely relevant to the subject at hand.
Are you suggesting that I'm using the ad nauseum tactic? How many posts do I have in this thread?
This isn't a proper way to debate. Either present evidence or refute either my evidence or my conclusions.

Vigilante

"Of the type"? I'm in Texas, in case you forgot. I don't have to watch Fox to have conservative influence. I don't talk to anyone about Fox, or about what Fox talks about. I don't read a newspaper (any paper) or watch any news. Seriously. none. If I see it on my google homepage, I see the title, realize that the title was basically a summary of the story anyways, and move on. I spend very little time on details of a topic for which I have no control and very little concern. I'm almost a blank slate, except for general society around me and its influences.

And you are objective? Is this a case of I'm right and everyone else is wrong unless they agree with me? I'd like to see that one hold up in general discussion. LOL

I didn't check. I was scrolling through, saw something that caught my eye, and went with it.

What evidence? I'm still waiting for some information from you that shows the benefits of social healthcare.

This isn't a debate class. This is pub discussion. http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...iscussion.html
You've already broken one rule, and still have yet to give some meaningful benefits that I requested, fairly, for consideration. I'm serious, I have read basically nothing on the bill, and I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking, quit beating around the bush and provide something interesting
It's not like you have to quote it (you technically can't anyways), just mention something that seems to stand out as good.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

scout

Everyone is towing the Obama line and making such a villain out of the insurance companies but not a bad word has been said about the doctors that keep raising their rates or the hospitals and drug companies that always have to outdo last years profit at any cost to you and I. The insurance companies are in business to make money just like the hospitals and drug companies. Why is it some people's monthly prescription of life saving medicine sometimes costs in the thousands? Not that the insurance companies are all that and don't share part of the blame but they aren't the only problem but for whatever reason no one seems to care about everyone else involved in high unaffordable health care

__________________
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
Thomas Jefferson

Willravel

I'm only going by what you post. You're a Second Amendment proponent, you're strongly in favor of individual rights, you follow the bootstraps philosophy, you feel "anything from the government is shitty" and when you feel cornered, you make personal attacks. These views strongly correspond with the professional politics of the right. If you're asking us to believe this is a coincidence, we'll have to simply agree to disagree on the point and move on.
This isn't a proper way to debate. Either present evidence or refute either my evidence or my conclusions.
All you had to do was ask:
First off, small businesses and individuals are having serious trouble affording private medical insurance right now, so much so (as I stated above) that it's the #1 cause of bankruptcies in the US causing about 1.5-2 million a year. This puts a substantial strain on our economy that would be lifted under the reduced overall costs of a public option. For evidence of this, we can look to every other industrialized country in the world, all of whom have a public option. Per capita costs for health care in places like France, Canada, the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Japan are less than half the per capita costs of the US. In other words, they all pay substantially less in taxes than we pay in insurance.

Second, people living under public health care systems aren't turned down for profit, as the public option is not for profit. If you're ill in any way, you're treated. As much as the right is scared of the big bad R-word (rationing), the fact is that it's actually quite rare even in Canada. We have some friendly canucks right here on TFP that can personally attest to the effectiveness of their system vs. our for-profit system.

Third, this isn't socalized medicine. Just like in Canada, it's simply a doctor running a private practice that happens to be insured by the government instead of a private insurer. It's more similar to Medicare than NHS.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, you get to cover everyone. No more will people have to choose between paying $400 a month or running the risk of having to pay a $12,000 medical bill for an accident.

There's a lot more, but I figure this is enough to digest for the time being.
The reason debate class worked so well is that it kept people on point and it prevented people from using fallacious arguments.

Vigilante

Yes, this is good. We obviously have a little personality clash going on, but this is good stuff.

Now, I've talked to a few canucks and friends of canucks who have claimed to have had to come to the US for medical treatment. What's going on there? I'm not real interested in having to go to Mexico for some cancer treatment or something, know what i mean? I didn't ask at the time, so I'm curious as to why this occurs.

I just had a discussion with a good friend of mine who happens to be a med student in NY. He had some interesting points as well. I'll cover that later.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Willravel

This is an interesting case. It's incredibly rare for a Canadian to come to the US for medical care, but it does happen. Sometimes people from the US go up to Canada for medical coverage, too (some going so far as marrying Canadian citizens for coverage). Why do Canadians come to the US for coverage? Some areas of Canada are very sparsely populated and due to Canadian medical regulations or perhaps temporary shortages don't have a huge amount of doctors at their disposal, which leads some to travel for medical coverage. Also, some procedures are considered to be quite unimportant and are thus prioritized lower in Canada. Who do Americans go to Canada for coverage? It's cheaper, it doesn't take into account bad credit or preexisting conditions, and if you're involved in a serious accident, they treat you almost immediately (just as in the US), but it doesn't cost you a dime (among other reasons).


It should be said, however, that the instances of Canadians coming to the US for health care are incredibly low but are reported so often by pundits that they seem common. Last I saw, it was around 50 Canadians per year. When you consider the population of Canada is about 33 million, you're just as likely in a year to be hit by lightening as you are to be a Canadian coming to the US for health care.

Baraka_Guru

People go to Cuba for medical treatments.

In Canada, sometimes people go elsewhere so they don't have to wait, sometimes its because the treatment isn't available. Either way, they're doing it outside the system for one reason or another. This is not a unique kind of circumstance, and it in no way suggests that universal health care is a failure or doesn't work adequately to maintain a healthy population.

As will suggested, it's the exception, not the rule.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Charlatan

Some Myths about Canada and its Health Care system:

1. Myth - Canadian taxes are high mostly because of our health care
The truth is that taxes are nearly equal in the US and Canada. Canadian taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. but Canadians have many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

2. Myth - Canadian Health Care has a massive bureaucracy
Actually it is the US that currently has the most bureaucratic health care system. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

[b]3. Myth - the Canadian system is incredibly expensive
Canada spends 10% of its GDP on health care for 100% of its population. The US spends 17% of its GDP but leaves 15% with no coverage (and many more with inadequate coverage). As it works out, the US system is considerably more expensive and part of the reason is that those who are uninsured and underinsured still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.

What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.

4. Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it. (death panels and the like)
While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks — unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

5. Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.
There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists' care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S.

6. Myth: Canadians are paying out of pocket to come to the U.S. for medical care.
Most patients who come from Canada to the U.S. for health care are those whose costs are covered by the Canadian governments. If a Canadian goes outside of the country to get services that are deemed medically necessary, not experimental, and are not available at home for whatever reason (e.g., shortage or absence of high tech medical equipment; a longer wait for service than is medically prudent; or lack of physician expertise), the provincial government where you live fully funds your care. Those patients who do come to the U.S. for care and pay out of pocket are those who perceive their care to be more urgent than it likely is.

7. Myth: Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.
Single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government.

8. Myth: There aren't enough doctors in Canada.
There are plenty of doctors in Canada. The problem is one of geographic location rather than numbers. There are not enough doctors in the more rural or remote areas. This is also true of the US system as well and not a symptom of single-payer system.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

rahl

I was listening to Rush the other day(i know i know, i just like to hear the latest bat shit crasy things he says) and he suggested that if the current bill is passed, in ten years time there will still be 17 million people uninsured. Will, you've read the bill, do you know if that is the case or just more BS?

Willravel

H.R. 3200 is about voluntary public health care coverage If those 47 million currently uninsured choose to go with it, no one will be uninsured in 10 years, if some decide to remain uninsured, they'll be uninsured. Most of us on the left, myself included, are a lot more interested in a single payer system—which H.R. 3200 absolutely is not—which would be compulsory.

rahl

I figured it was more bs.

Willravel

It's not BS insomuch as it's a part of a larger strategy of fearmongering. For whatever reason, many people on the right are absolutely convinced that because the government does screw up from time to time—which I readily admit it does—it will absolutely screw up everything without exception and any time that the government gets more responsibility it's a step towards Nazi-style fascism. These fears, which are almost entirely unfounded, are reinforced at nearly all levels of conservative controlled media with a consistency that would make Adolf blush with envy. And man, could that guy blush.

While it's possible that through many changes the US government could sink towards a place where Nazism once was, it's almost certainly not going to happen because of an attempt to offer a public health care program. For evidence of that, we need not look any farther than our friends to the north, the Canadians. They're not living in an Orwellian nightmare or are entering the first phase of state/military sponsored social Darwinism and military expansionism. Things are actually doing okay up there right now. It's not a perfect system, but it's really quite nice and I *think* that if more Americans really understood how well it worked we would be able to get over this hurdle and on to more pressing matters.

rahl

I just can't understand how a party that is seemingly not in power currently is able to rally such a following, and cause the dems to take out the public option. This seems to be a recurring thread, Democrats backing down even when they have a clear majority. They should be able to pass this and many other pieces of legislation on their agenda.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Willravel

Part of it has to do with how afraid many conservatives/Republicans/evangelicals are of President Obama and part of it is that the Democrats haven't been good at asserting themselves in well over a generation.

Barack Obama is half black, his middle name is Hussein, he's slightly to the left of Bill Clinton, and he happened to take office during a time when nationalization of certain market entities is the only real way to go to prevent decades of recession/depression. He's the perfect storm of scary leftism, and he's easy to caricature by those on the right. The hilarious thing (at least imho) is that he's not really all that liberal. He's a centrist, he plays a lot of things safe, and he's not quite as powerful a leader as we need right now. It makes me wonder what the right would be doing if we elected a Franklin D. Roosevelt instead of a Jimmy Carter.

As far as the Dems are concerned, Clinton, who is to be perfectly honest more of a centrist than a liberal, only did as well as he did because he demonstrated this interesting combination of fiscally conservative and socially moderate that was closer to the comfort zone of the right. Until he had a sex scandal. For some reason, most Democrats only have testicular fortitude when they have support from the left, the center, and the right. Without that, they're quivering masses of insecurity and fear. This, more than anything else, is why I'm not a Democrat.

Vigilante

I would say, as a conservative, I guess (I'm not really that conservative compared to most that live around me) that the reason the right is afraid of agreeing with anything that Obama pushes is that they fear the give an inch, take a mile concept will come into play. If they give him one thing, he may run wild with the rest. I'm not saying I agree with that logically, but it has run across my mind from time to time. If it runs across my mind, it must run across others as well.

Is that rational? Of course not! And I don't think that is the case, but it's just something I'm tossing out there.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

powerclown

New Gallup Poll Shows More Conservatives Than Liberals in Every State.

The horror...

samcol

It's because the Dem's didn't do it Bush administration style. To get this amount of bullshit to pass you have to do it after a huge crisis and promise people that this is the only way to solve it. IE you have to do this after the swine flu kills tens of thousands not introduce it randomly at the beginning of a term. Also, you can't use vague rhetoric to explain a bill that contains over 1500 pages (is that the latest count I don't even know).

I do agree with you, however, that the Dem's backing off seems to be a reoccurring theme. Even now that they have the majority it still feels odd. No backbone at all with these people.

This political backlash in the town hall's does have at least one good outcome. It has forced debate about this bill. No bill this massive should be pushed through as quickly as it was going to happen without discussing it.

__________________
It's time for the president to hand over his nobel peace prize.

Willravel

Not trusting the "other side" isn't necessarily about rational/irrational, it's more about crossing ideological waters. As a moderate collectivist, I'll probably never understand extreme individualism like that associated with anarchocapitalism, but I'm honestly trying. How can I provide an objective view of a given situation if I can't, when necessary, step outside of whatever ideologies and principles have emerged as a part of the development of my perception? I can't. Moreover, how can I speak to someone with a different ideology without the ability to put myself inside that ideological though process? I can't.

Speaking only for myself, I was concerned that, with the GWOT after 9/11, President Bush was going to take a lightyear given all the power he was given by congress. He did take things waaaay too far, obviously, but he could have done a lot worse. Would he have been more likely to be overthrown had he gone further? Probably, but that doesn't always stop the more tyrannical-minded in our society.

Vigilante

You have a point on Bush. I was prepared to join any cause, should he declare a 3rd and probably more permanent term. I was honestly half expecting him to try that.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

dippin

Maybe because "conservative" vs "liberal" are broad terms hard to define, much like the "pro life" label.

support for keeping abortion legal has remained in the 60s and 70s percentage wise, a majority of the population support cap and trade, a majority support allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the US, a majority now supports at least civil unions for same sex marriage, social security and medicare are as popular as ever, and so on and so forth.

The "conservative" and "liberal" labels mean nothing at the level of policy.

Now, to get back to the issue at hand, I find it simply absurd that of all the elements of the bill, the part with a public option that is federally mandated to break even every year and cannot negotiate special deals is the one that is getting killed off. I mean, how can anyone who supports reform be against an additional option that is mandated to be self sufficient? That right there is the best example of the lobbying power of insurance companies.

Derwood

it's the irony of the right; providing a public option that drives competition with the private insurers is the very essence of free market capitalism, and yet the private insurers are doing everything they can to sabotage it. In other words, free market capitalism is the ideal unless your pockets are being lined by a company who isn't willing to compete

Rekna

I was thinking about this today. An appendix removal (one of the most common and basic surgeries) costs 10's of thousands of dollars. A breast augmentation costs a few thousand dollars. What accounts for the factor of 10 difference in cost?

Is it that one is life threatening and the other isn't? Is it that insurance covers one and not the other?

rahl

It may be that a breast augmentation isn't life threatening so you have ample time and multiple doctors to choose from so the competition drives down the prices. You don't have much choice when your appendix bursts and you need treatment right away. There's no competition there to choose from so they can charge whatever they want.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Rekna

So in the case of life and death the free market does not work? Does this then suggest the government should add regulations to protect the population when life and death health care is involved?

rahl

The free market doesn't have a chance to work in this case. And I don't know what regulations the govn't could enact that would help.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Rekna

I lot of people wouldn't like this but one solution would be to set a maximum price for such operations. Someone in the process is taking more than their fair share and we need a way to stop that. This would also have the effect of lowering insurance premiums (unless it is the insurance company that is taking more than their fair share).

Derwood

Pub Discussion be damned....I'm not starting another thread on this:

Mike Enzi, Gang Of Six Republican, Admits He's Simply Blocking Health Care Reform


and here's a shocker, look at Enzi's main campaign fund contributors:

Rekna

I agree about the public discussion. This thread has gone on quite a long ways as a public discussion but I think it is time for it to grow into a normal thread so that useful discussion can continue. Mods is it possible to take off the public discussion tag?

I found this video interesting:

Cynthetiq

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-+-{Important TFP Staff Message}-+- PUB DISCUSSION Rules have been lifted by request of the OP.

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Bill O'Rights

That's a lot of good, and very useful, information that you've provided. Thanks. It does seem, to me, that Canada gets the finger pointed at it, all too often, as an example of a public system in chaos. I'm really not sure why, other than most Americans really have no clue, and therefore accept that Canada's healthcare sucks. You are not the first Canadian here to put us to rights on what is really going on up north. Some of us are listening. The problem is that I do not trust the U.S. government to get it right. If your healthcare really is as good as you've described (not that I don't believe you, but for something this important I really want someone a lot smarter than myself to look into it first) then I would have absolutely no problem at all with the U.S. copy and pasting the Canadian healthcare system, and replacing the words Canada with U.S.A., Province with State, kilometer with mile, bacon with ham, and centre with center. But...that's not going to happen. Why? Because we didn't think it up first. We'd rather fuck it all up that admit that someone else got it right and got it right first.

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"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

aceventura3

I don't know what the President is going to say tonight, but there is still the potential that he or someone can sell me on the public option. I simply have questions and need to understand how they plan to address the potential consequences of having a public option. My gut tells me a public option will lead to a single option and that eventually it will bankrupt the country.

First, I need to know if a public option is going to play under the same rules as private options, how will the public option avoid adverse selection (meaning the sickest or people with the biggest needs ending in the public option and the private carriers cherry picking the healthiest people)?

If the public option can operate at lower costs what will prevent everyone from moving from the private sector to the public option? If the public option can not operate at lower costs what is the point of the public option?

Who is going to run the public option? Where is the expertise going to come from? Are they going to cannibalize employees from the private sector? If so, why do they think the public option will be run different than companies in the private sector?

Is the public option going to be regulated by each state the way the private sector companies have to be regulated? If so, how are they going to address the issue of portability?

With the public option what is going to prevent abuse, for example, if I am healthy I don't participate - if I come down with a medical issue, I sign up, get treated and then cancel. If they don't have pre-existing condition restrictions, guarantee issue or no waiting periods - I think this would be a problem.

In states where one private insurer has 60-80% market share, do they understand why that is true? Why do they think other carriers have decided to opt out of those markets? If private insurers are forced to compete with the public option on price, will that destabilize the financial stability of the entire market in that state? What safe guards are they going to put in place to guard against that?

I have more questions and I actually hope Obama or someone begins to go a bit deeper into the issue rather than them saying if you don't support what we want, you just don't like us or you don't support us so you don't think we need to do anything.

__________________
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"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Derwood

Speech over.....strong enough for you, ace?

rahl

there are still many problems with the plan. One being if the president wishes to make all insurance companies accept everyone regardless of pre-ex's, minimize out of pocket expenses, and have no anual or lifetime maximums then premiums are going to skyrocket. they have to or insurance companies are going to go bankrupt, there's no way around that. If they have to pay out more than they take in then that equals bankruptcy, it's simple math.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"

Derwood

incorrect. there is plenty of room for cuts within private insurance (which have been mentioned repeatedly in this and other threads). you can start by not making health insurance decisions based on profit margins and stock holders

rahl

There's no way around it unless you have a single payer system, which obama said is not in the cards at this time. Without a single payor system he can't decide for a company whether or not they can seek profits.

__________________
"Your life is Yours alone...Rise up and live it"