Obama's healthcare ideas?

So I don't have TV so I often browse CNN's website and I've been seeing a few videos on people being super critical over his wanting everyone to have health insurance.  That's the big part of the reason I wanted Hillary in office.

What do you all think about a health care plan in this country? 

I know Glenn Beck, who thinks he is a true spokesman for the GOP, was freaking out over just the idea a couple weeks ago when I got an e-mail of him on his show screaming at some poor woman who called him to talk about his opposition.  I wish I could find that video.

If I don't know you and I don't care if you live or die, why should I have to pay for your health care? Right no I want any excess money I have to go to  my local battered women's shelter , and health care for strangers takes away some of what I have to give the people I chose to receive it.

edit: PS - Glenn Beck strikes me as being and idiot.

So you prefer that your health care dollars line the pockets of the executives and stockholders of insurance providers?  Part of the reason that health care is so expensive in the US is that corporations take a cut as profit.  Personally, I'd far rather pay for someone else to get medical treatment than some executive's fourth car. 

We have a government health care system in the US.  It's called Medicare.  It is estimated to be underfunded by roughly 38 trillion dollars over the next twenty years.  Why would it make sense to expand it?

susiecue - you already pay that executive because of the government's mandate that employers provide health care coverage to their employees.  That cost trickles down to you in the increased cost of goods and services that you buy.  As long as there is a government mandate, insurance companies have no incentive to increase their efficiency, because employers are forced to buy their products/services whether they want to or not. 

ok so whats the freaking answer to everyone having access to good health care, or is not everyone entitled to good health care unless they can pay? im not saying obama's plan will address this, but i do want to know what plan will.

I personally don't know the answer to our problem right now.. but I do believe that health care should always be an issue.  There are people suffering right now because their jobs don't offer health care and they can't afford copays.  I think that health care should be offered to everyone with a job.. or if that person with a job has a family that they are the main/only support of income, then their family should be covered as well.  I also think retirees (people who worked at least 30+ years of their lives depending on what schooling they went through/tragedies they faced in their lives, etc.) should be covered as well.

Then again, I'm not a politician.. what do I know?

Original Post by octo-luv:

ok so whats the freaking answer to everyone having access to good health care, or is not everyone entitled to good health care unless they can pay? im not saying obama's plan will address this, but i do want to know what plan will.

 I don't think everyone is entitled to good health care, or good dental care, or or a new car every year, or a great looking guy with an awesome butt in their bed every night.  But when the guy with the awesome butt is legislated, I might change my mind about legislated health care.

Original Post by qaowk:

I don't think everyone is entitled to good health care, or good dental care, or or a new car every year, or a great looking guy with an awesome butt in their bed every night. But when the guy with the awesome butt is legislated, I might change my mind about legislated health care.

So it's okay that someone who works 40+ hours a week at a $10/hr job, has to pay rent (or mortgage), pay for groceries, car payment, whatever else, and just cannot afford even the cheap health insurance, should be denied treatment if their wife gets breast cancer shortly after their 2nd child is born?  She should just.. well, die?

Original Post by qaowk:

  But when the guy with the awesome butt is legislated, I might change my mind about legislated health care.

I don't know about your circumstances, but for most people, having a guy with an awesome butt in bed every night isn't necessary to keep themselves alive.

Original Post by santonacci:

I don't know about your circumstances, but for most people, having a guy with an awesome butt in bed every night isn't necessary to keep themselves alive.

I think it's a little strange to check out men's butts.  It personally reminds me of the possibility of him asking me to sodomize him with a strap-on.  Which I wish I had sometimes.

Original Post by katesorad:

Which I wish I had sometimes.

TMI...

Original Post by katesorad:

Original Post by qaowk:

I don't think everyone is entitled to good health care, or good dental care, or or a new car every year, or a great looking guy with an awesome butt in their bed every night. But when the guy with the awesome butt is legislated, I might change my mind about legislated health care.

So it's okay that someone who works 40+ hours a week at a $10/hr job, has to pay rent (or mortgage), pay for groceries, car payment, whatever else, and just cannot afford even the cheap health insurance, should be denied treatment if their wife gets breast cancer shortly after their 2nd child is born?  She should just.. well, die?

Is this a straw man argument?  Because it makes you sound completely clueless about how health care works in the US.

The wife will not be denied treatment.  If she goes into the ER, the hospital is required to treat her whether she can pay or not.  Hospitals pay millions, if not billions, every year in unrecoverable ER treatments.  If she needs longer term treatment, she will wind up on Medicare or Medicaid, which are paid for by the taxpayer.

Original Post by octo-luv:

ok so whats the freaking answer to everyone having access to good health care, or is not everyone entitled to good health care unless they can pay? im not saying obama's plan will address this, but i do want to know what plan will.

Question:  Who is to provide this health care you want everyone to have?

Original Post by santonacci:

Original Post by qaowk:

  But when the guy with the awesome butt is legislated, I might change my mind about legislated health care.

I don't know about your circumstances, but for most people, having a guy with an awesome butt in bed every night isn't necessary to keep themselves alive.

 and exactly why should I work to keep anyone alive if I don't care if they live or die?  I say work or die, unless you qualify for medicaid.  In that case, I'm already paying for your health care, so you're welcome.

Sodomy is cool

It isn't that people should be denied health care. It is the implications for the country's population if health care is run by the government. Look at other countries who have tried this. It doesn't work. The states that have implimented it are bankrupt. People from Canada come to the USA for health care because they are put on a waiting list. I want the freedom to go to the doctor of my choice, when I choose. I don't want the government having that kind of control over my body. Sure they say you can have private insurance still, but there will be an extra fee and eventually private health care will be so expensive that it won't be offered through benefits at work, therefore forcing you to use government coverage. What we have isn't perfect, and it needs improved, but it is disturbing how fast Obama is trying to push this through (while he still has the politcal clout to do it.) It needs more time and study, thought and reflection. Congress needs time to actually read the thousand plus pages they will be given this time......

Original Post by makemusique:

It is the implications for the country's population if health care is run by the government.

This is irrelevant, nobody is proposing that the country's healthcare be run by the government.

Original Post by makemusique:

Look at other countries who have tried this. It doesn't work. The states that have implimented it are bankrupt. 

Every Canadian I know think their system is pretty good.  The states that have some sort of public healthcare may be bankrupt, but so are the states that haven't, so it seems that healthcare isn't what's causing it.

Original Post by makemusique:

People from Canada come to the USA for health care because they are put on a waiting list.

And people from the US go to Canada for prescriptions, so it works both ways.  And people in the US are put on waiting lists too, last time I made a doctors appointment I had a 3 or 4 month wait just to see a physicians assistant.

Original Post by makemusique:

I want the freedom to go to the doctor of my choice, when I choose.

Good luck with that, I'm upper-middle class with private insurance and I still can't see see the doctor of my choice when I want (and my doctor's financial incentives are to get me in and out as quick as possible, not to provide me with the best possible care).

Original Post by makemusique:

I don't want the government having that kind of control over my body.

You'd rather have someone at an insurance company who's salary is dependent on how much care he/she can deny people having control over your body?

Original Post by lysistrata:

Original Post by octo-luv:

ok so whats the freaking answer to everyone having access to good health care, or is not everyone entitled to good health care unless they can pay? im not saying obama's plan will address this, but i do want to know what plan will.

Question:  Who is to provide this health care you want everyone to have?

um well my taxes have gone to many more things that are less important than people keeping healthy.

and anyone i know from canada (im sure the canadians here can speak up too) do not have it as bad as some would say over here. again, maybe i just know the lucky canadians, i dont pretend to know everyone's situation.

Original Post by floggingsully:

Original Post by makemusique:

It is the implications for the country's population if health care is run by the government.

This is irrelevant, nobody is proposing that the country's healthcare be run by the government.

Actually, they kinda are.  Not only are they talking about the "public option," but the government has already decided when your employer has to provide you with insurance and your states decide what that insurance consists of.  The government has severely limited the market for health insurance.

Original Post by makemusique:

Look at other countries who have tried this. It doesn't work. The states that have implimented it are bankrupt. 

Every Canadian I know think their system is pretty good.  The states that have some sort of public healthcare may be bankrupt, but so are the states that haven't, so it seems that healthcare isn't what's causing it.

Original Post by makemusique:

People from Canada come to the USA for health care because they are put on a waiting list.

And people from the US go to Canada for prescriptions, so it works both ways.  And people in the US are put on waiting lists too, last time I made a doctors appointment I had a 3 or 4 month wait just to see a physicians assistant.

Last I checked, people from the US go to Mexico for prescriptions, but I think there are other reasons for that.

Original Post by makemusique:

I want the freedom to go to the doctor of my choice, when I choose.

Good luck with that, I'm upper-middle class with private insurance and I still can't see see the doctor of my choice when I want (and my doctor's financial incentives are to get me in and out as quick as possible, not to provide me with the best possible care).

Your doctor's options are curtailed by the insurance companies.  They are the ones who pay him, which means that the insurance company is actually his customer, not you.

Original Post by makemusique:

I don't want the government having that kind of control over my body.

You'd rather have someone at an insurance company who's salary is dependent on how much care he/she can deny people having control over your body?

Personally, I'd rather people have a lot more freedom to choose whether or not to buy insurance, and tailor their insurance to their specific needs.

Original Post by octo-luv:

Original Post by lysistrata:

Original Post by octo-luv:

ok so whats the freaking answer to everyone having access to good health care, or is not everyone entitled to good health care unless they can pay? im not saying obama's plan will address this, but i do want to know what plan will.

Question:  Who is to provide this health care you want everyone to have?

um well my taxes have gone to many more things that are less important than people keeping healthy.

and anyone i know from canada (im sure the canadians here can speak up too) do not have it as bad as some would say over here. again, maybe i just know the lucky canadians, i dont pretend to know everyone's situation.

The canadian system works just fine for the average canadian.  Where it does not work well is in cases where people need exceptionally expensive or innovative treatments - they are simply not available.  The US has always been ahead of the rest of the world in developing new technologies, treatments, drugs, etc.

Incidentally, canadians also don't have the same problems with obesity and obesity related disease as the US does.

Original Post by lysistrata:

susiecue - you already pay that executive because of the government's mandate that employers provide health care coverage to their employees.  That cost trickles down to you in the increased cost of goods and services that you buy.  As long as there is a government mandate, insurance companies have no incentive to increase their efficiency, because employers are forced to buy their products/services whether they want to or not. 

No, I don't.  I'm in Canada.  My point was that people make a (very good) living doing something I consider morally deplorable - doing their best to prevent people from getting health care while being called a 'health insurance provider.  To my mind, there's something wrong when these executives make more money than the doctors doing the real work.

Personally, I don't really care what the US system is because I'm not subject to it, but I do find it bizarre that people think it's a good idea to have health care as a for-profit business.  Guess I'm just a socialist at heart.