it's an ages old tactic. Demonize your opposition, dehumanize it and contrast anything similar to well known "evils" or "failure" to the point that if you say it enough, make the comparison enough, people will start to mentally associate Obama with say, Marx, or Hitler, Health Care reform with Death Camps & Socialist Policy. It's fucking absurd that it even works, because to the higher minded individual, to them it just looks like raving lunatics going "My god, the president has a red shirt on, red is the color of satan, and fire, and demons, oh my god, he's the anti-christ!"

I seriously want a baseball bat and immunity for a day sometimes.

It's a problem with politics right now, people aren't even representing facts, just feelings.

Factually speaking, if Obama came up with a valid self sustaining plan for public health care, the first reaction by repubs is to envision the worst case scenario and compare it to socialist policy, or go "my god, it's just like the French!" and I'm sure you guys remember the debacle over "Freedom Fries"

Why is it so hard for them to just go "well mr president, I reviewed the plan and section blah blah is going to be a problem, it simply wont fund this bill properly, the negative impact of this passing would be..."

but they wont do that, they get all emotional, go outside and encite the teabagger party to start yelling and jeering and shouting racist remarks, don't even read the bill, and just shut it down out of ignorance and polarity.

That's what I don't get. If socialism is so "evil" or ridden with "failure," then why is Canada's "socialized" banking system now the model for the world?

I have noticed a lot of people complaining about the personal mandate. I understand the sentiment behind this and why it would make some feel uncomfortable, but the policy logic is extremely compelling.

To be specific, the personal mandate and the coverage of pre-existing conditions go hand in hand. It is difficult to have the latter without the former, else the revenue model breaks down.

If we cover pre-existing conditions but there is no mandate, then people can sit back and wait to get ill before acquiring insurance. Then, because you can't be denied for a pre-existing condition, the insurance company is forced to take you and begin paying out for you immediately. The trouble is that the incentives create a situation where at any given time, everyone who is paying their premiums is drawing 10-100x that amount in benefits, while those who would normally represent the healthy many, whose premiums ordinarily subsidize the sick few, would have an incentive to stay out of the picture. After all, why bother paying insurance unless (until) you are sure you will use it?

The plan is not even remotely affordable without the personal mandate. The mandate is necessary for the bill to be economically sound.

Ok. This thread is about *specific* things you do or don't like about the healthcare bill that was just signed by Obama. What you want to talk about is completely different. Could you please start your own thread, and have a conversation about what you want to talk about on *that* thread instead of this one? Maybe you could reference this thread and say "thread x got me thinking about the similarities I find between the healthcare bills and some other bills...here's what I think, what do you think?".

I find your derailment of the thread very rude. I would like you to please stay on topic in this thread.

I will find you the part of the bill that states that the government will be in control of the hospitals, it's that simple, the government will be in control of the hospitals, clinics and doctors that accept the new government health care and those hospitals that do not accept the government inclusive health care insurance will be penalized. You will have to pay for private insurance at a higher premium to be able to cover private hospital fees. It's in the bill.

I'm going to assume the quotes you give are what you say they are.

What it really says is that The Secretary, et al "shall develop reporting requirements" for use by a "group health plan" (etc) - ie, the insurance company uses the reporting requirements. Which, given that nothing I've read overturns patient privacy laws, means reporting not on specific people, but on the system as a whole- trends, outcomes, etc.

What are they reporting on, exactly?

"...plan or coverage benefits and health care provider reimbursement structures that..." "(A) improve health outcomes through...."
- various methods, nothing sinister
‘‘(B) implement activities to prevent hospital readmissions..."
- "hospital readmission" means they didn't fix me the first time and I had to go back. Sounds like a good thing to prevent.
‘‘(C) implement activities to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors..."
- Improving patient safety and reducing medical errors are good.
‘‘(D) implement wellness and health promotion activities."
- Also good.

I don't see anything bad here - if there was something to indicate the patient privacy or doctor/patient privilege were being overridden, then it would indeed be catastrophic - but the text of the bill that you quote here plainly states that the reporting is on the *benefits* or *reimbursement structures* that the insurance companies provide - not on patients themselves.

Unless there's something in the next section you quote. Let's go take a look.

For what it's worth, the phrase "highly trained" does not appear in the part of the bill you cite, nor does "our blessed help".

Again, nothing you've quoted even hints that individuals will be monitored or reported on in any way - the reporting is on the insurance companies plans, and how those plans effect patient outcomes and health. The reports could describe which plans include a smoking cessation program, and the effectiveness of the same, which can be studied without violating patient privacy in any way.

Again, I don't see anything that violates patient privacy here.

Ok, so this is true government-provided healthcare - not regulated private insurance like what the bill is talking about. Nothing in the bill has anything to do with 'government provided' healthcare. This bill is not about government healthcare at all - there is not even a public option In your situation, the government-provided healthcare came with strings attached - things to help ensure that patient compliance is high. Even in this case, I don't see anything that violated your privacy - I'm guessing that patient privacy laws for your son's medical records were not violated. You probably had to maintain compliance with the treatment plan in order to continue to receive free care. I'm also guessing you had the option to seek private care for your son at your own expense at any time, free of any government interference (except, for instance, the government regulations on the healthcare providers, like the aforementioned privacy laws, and requirements that the provides be certified and otherwise regulated).

By the way, I want to be clear that I'm not judging you for not being able to afford coverage for your son, if that is in fact the case - when my first son had severe asthma, I couldn't afford care either, and I was very glad for the government-provided care that he could get, despite all of the things that I could complain about in regards to it.

Having to rely on government assistance sucks - as it should! If the government really provided for everything we need, there would be little incentive for us to better ourselves. As it is, the only thing that the government is providing for you in this bill is a subsidy - so you can afford buy private, private, private insurance. The bill also introduces various regulations on the insurance companies, preventing them from doing various 'evil' things. It also, *also* provides a big, big stick for us - if we don't buy insurance, we get hit with a hefty tax. I like taxes about as much as you do, but I understand the reason for this one - just as I might be fined for engaging in risky behavior such as speeding on the interstate or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, I'm taxed for rolling the dice on my health insurance.

To be honest, it seems to be that you're taking the point of view that the government is out to get you, and hunting for things in the bill that could be interpreted that way. I take the point of view that the government is neither good or evil, but made up of people who mostly care about America, and want what's best for the country and it's citizens - I might disagree completely with their philosophy and approach, but I still think they're mostly on our side.

---------- Post added at 11:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:01 PM ----------

I agree and understand, but I would still rather something like a public option in place to go along with the mandate - it seems to me that something like that would help keep the private insurance companies in line.

I agree with this, I don't like it, but it is necessary to make the numbers work in this bill. Republicans say they want to expand coverage by making healthcare cheaper. I was really hoping they had a way to do this and still allow for covering pre-conditions and 30+ million uninsured. The major things they offer are tort reform and state line competition but the estimated savings are not even close to accomplishing this. Once they actually published their counter bill they didn't even try to and would only cover 3 million uninsured and allow the insurance companies to continue denying coverage to those who have pre-conditions when they have lost their insurance because of job loss, etc...

This is again just patently false. There is no "government will be in control of the hospitals" and there is no "government health insurance." I would think that after you realize that what you are saying about the bill is outright false you'd rethink your stance. But it is clear that whatever is in the bill is irrelevant, that you will just ignore it when people point out that what you say is false.

Man how can you even say that? Don't you know the US is number one in the world for everything? You need to watch more Fox News and listen to more talk radio. I'll go find you some links where you can stream them live on-line.

---------- Post added at 09:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 AM ----------

I agree too. The problem is more complex then either side tries to make it sound. Everything these days has to fit into a sound bite to get people on board. Solutions to this problem, if they come, will come from policy wonks. Policy wonks are boring and people don't like boring they like simply, short and fast answers. And answer where they don't have to pay anything for the solutions are absolutely the best kind of answers. The parties (yes, both of them) make every attempt to hide the cost of things. Lot's of people on the right, as well as many on the left, thought Afghanistan and Iraq were great ideas. Very few wanted to pay for it, simple solution take the cost of the wars out of the budget and borrow the money to pay for them. Do it that way and you can not only go to war, you can cut taxes at the same time. Brilliant! Unless of course you're a member of the future generation left with the tab.

The health care bill will be the same if it's not a "pay as you go" thing. Which will be hard to do as many people have health care and are happy with it. A lot of those people have no interest in paying for someone else's treatment. I mean who wants to pay for the health care of some pot smoking, alcoholic person who eats at Burger King daily and weighs 450 lbs? I'm certainly not that thrilled about it. But I think for every person who fits that category there's likely eight to ten others who were hard working honest people who got cancer (or something like it) and exceeded their life time policy limit, lost their job and are now screwed. Those people I'm more then happy to pitch in for, how do you separate the two categories? I have no idea. I do know we can't keep doing what we did with the costs of the wars and keep going further and further into debt. I also don't think the current system is working for anyone other then the wealthy and the insurance companies.

The whole situation reminds me of a local debate in Oregon several years ago. The state voted for mandatory sentences for violent crimes and sex crimes, great idea. They even voted to build (and pay for) more prisons to house such inmates, another great idea. The debate started when the state decided to use land it owned to build those prisons. Turns out property owners near those selected sites were, let's say, less then thrilled. So after years of debates, town meetings and petitions. Most of the new prisons were built on land the state didn't own and so far away from the main population centers that transportation costs of inmates tripled. "We want to lock up violent criminals."... "HELL YES!"... "We want you to help pay the cost"... "Mmmm, okay. I guess if that's that it takes." "We want to build the new prisons near your community."... "FUCK YOU!"

And in that debate, same as the health care debate, both sides came up with ridicules claims to support their position. Just like the above "20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms." Why be honest when your point can be made better by making shit up that many will swallow as truth and go to war with you as a result? And yes I firmly believe the left has done the same thing with this issue. Why? Because the truth is less appealing to both sides.