Nelson and Lieberman and the rest need to grow the hell up. If we mandate insurance and don't include a public option, then ll we're doing is lining the pockets of the insurance companies.

/found out my insurance provider is a "non-profit" - could have fooled me

The only "option" here is whether we bend over and take it or let them ram Obamacare down our throats. Unless you can think of a third homoerotic metaphor that involves hot man-cock in one of our orifices.

FlashHarry: The Fourth Karamazov: The only "option" here is whether we bend over and take it or let them ram Obamacare down our throats.

i dunno, how about an option that's, well, an option: medicare for all. member-funded, deficit-neutral public insurance. if you like your private plan, fine, keep it. if not, pay into the public plan and be covered. it would lift a HUGE burden off american business and jumpstart the economy.

The first intelligent thing I've read on fark this morning!

lajimi: Any Blue Dog that votes against it will have two choices:
1. Pull an Arlen Specter and switch parties
OR
2. Print their résumés

So much this.

*Lieberman's already farked no matter what he does.
*Nelson's a Democrat in Nebraska. Nuff said.
*Lincoln's in a fight for her seat and a no vote will mean zero party support.
*Reid's political life depends on this bill staggering to Obama's desk. If it fails, Schumer or Durbin will take over in 2011.

The rest are pretty much going to have to reform the filibuster rules if they want to get much of anything else done.

So it's a coherent superposition of being alive and dead. For the love of god no one measure it because it will most likely become entangled with something.

/probably safe since no one reads those bills anyway

1 of 2 things will happen.

It will get sent to Obama

It will be defeated and Obama will press for them to start writing a new one which will still contain some government run insurance.

I think a lot of the higher ups believe that will be the only way true reform will happen.

Tunk87: I really don't understand all the love for Medicare or Medicaid. When my parents passed last year we, obviously, had to go through all of their financial stuff. We were stunned by the thousands they paid for Medicare supplemental insurance to pay for all the stuff that Medicare didn't. The other problem is common to both Medicare and Medicaid. They don't reimburse providers anywhere near the cost of providing services. It is somewhere around 60%. That additional 40% is passed on to everyone else.

Got a citation for this claim? I've seen it tossed around often enough, but never seen where a doctor or hospital sells a medicare patient at below cost. Below what another plan may pay or what the hospital might want to charge, sure. But below the actual COST of the hospital/doctor/whatever providing it, such that their business would make more money with 99 customers than they would with 99 + 1 medicare person? No.

Nelson also told me he wants stronger language prohibiting federal funds for abortion.

How about "No FARKING federal funds for abortion".

YES. YOU GO TO HELL, SOCIALISM! YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE!

FlashHarry: i dunno, how about an option that's, well, an option: medicare for all. member-funded, deficit-neutral public insurance. if you like your private plan, fine, keep it. if not, pay into the public plan and be covered. it would lift a HUGE burden off american business and jumpstart the economy.

Careful, you've posted something rational.

People don't react kindly to rational thought round these here parts.

Those insurance companies sure do have a lot of money to throw around, huh?

lajimi: Any Blue Dog that votes against it will have two choices:
1. Pull an Arlen Specter and switch parties
OR
2. Print their résumés

Ding,Ding,Ding We have a winner

I am hearing about this health care stuff in the news. I care more about beer and pussy. Would one of you Fark dorks explain Public Option to me.

The Fourth Karamazov: The only "option" here is whether we bend over and take it or let them ram Obamacare down our throats.

FlashHarry:i dunno, how about an option that's, well, an option: medicare for all. member-funded, deficit-neutral public insurance. if you like your private plan, fine, keep it. if not, pay into the public plan and be covered. it would lift a HUGE burden off american business and jumpstart the economy.

Well, there's still a possible scam.
You enroll in a ridiculously cheap private plan. Then, you get sick or injured seriously. You realize the coverage is shiat and the copay so high that you cancel it and switch to teh government plan. They fix you all up, foot the huge bill for a trivial premium, then you go back to the discount private plan.

Maybe they should start small, like legislation of the things that aren't working well in the current system. Keep it simple. They don't need to swing for the fences quite yet, then the pill will be easier to swallow later.

They should use one of those Death Panels and end the life-support for it.

GoSurfing: If they pass this, they can levy those fines against me. I'm not paying for their insurance.
Public Option. Seems like you could still have Private insurance.

/Justa guess.

One of two things is going to happen...

1. The public option will fail, and the price of healthcare will continue to go up.
2. The public option will pass, and the price of healthcare will continue to go up.

Get back to us when "healthcare reform" involves more than just shuffling around who pays while ignoring every tier in the massive health care industry except for the politically unpopular insurance companies.

KajakPro: GoSurfing: If they pass this, they can levy those fines against me. I'm not paying for their insurance.
Public Option. Seems like you could still have Private insurance.

/Justa guess.

You'll never change someone's mind when they've already copied and pasted so much.

positronica: One of two things is going to happen...

1. The public option will fail, and the price of healthcare will continue to go up.
2. The public option will pass, and the price of healthcare will continue to go up.

Get back to us when "healthcare reform" involves more than just shuffling around who pays while ignoring every tier in the massive health care industry except for the politically unpopular insurance companies.

Yea, but I still see option 2 as the more likely one to involve further reform in the future.

It would probably still be alive today if we had universal health care.

positronica: Get back to us when "healthcare reform" involves more than just shuffling around who pays while ignoring every tier in the massive health care industry except for the politically unpopular insurance companies.

If you do away with unpaid medical bills you'll take care of the major factor in increasing costs.

GoSurfing: I'm not paying for their insurance.

and I wouldn't pay for your fire department

so another politician is using the bill to attention whore... this is not news

Hay guys guess what? I'm an Amuuurkan living in a foreign country and there's a mandatory national health insurance here... but also private insurance that's thriving! OMFG!

Single payer

That's where everyone with a job pays for everyone without a job or legal citizenship right?

That's a single payer? Sounds like a worker's paying for lazy ass people.

Sadly those who are employed, able, capable and willing are now out numbered by the lazy.

Eventually you run out of people to help freeloaders.

vaconex: That's where everyone with a job pays for everyone without a job or legal citizenship right?

That's a single payer? Sounds like a worker's paying for lazy ass people.

Sadly those who are employed, able, capable and willing are now out numbered by the lazy.

Eventually you run out of people to help freeloaders.

You show an amazing lack of faith in the American work ethic.

GoSurfing: Or we could just keep it the way it is.

so that people continue to go bankrupt due to being sick? So that people go without medical care?

vaconex: That's where everyone with a job pays for everyone without a job or legal citizenship right?

Uh no.

Eventually you run out of people to help freeloaders.

yes because no one who has a job is ever denied health insurance.

FlashHarry: nelson is a real farking scumbag.

This ... anti-abortion? Is it still 1879 or what?

/He needs to switch to the knuckle-dragging party ASAP ....

GoSurfing: why would you allow the corrupt politicians run MORE of your life?

how does making sure everyone has health insurance translate into government running health care?

Our healthcare system works.

so why are so many mentally ill people suffering owing to a lack of care?

UNC_Samurai: Nelson and Lieberman and the rest need to grow the hell up. If we mandate insurance and don't include a public option, then ll we're doing is lining the pockets of the insurance companies.

/found out my insurance provider is a "non-profit" - could have fooled me

you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

GoSurfing: Bad analogy. The fire department provides a worthy service that I'll gladly pay my taxes towards. Not all taxes are bad. We need to maintain the roads and infrastructure. That makes sense. Having the government run EVERY farking aspect of your life doesn't. Our healthcare system works. That's what most of you want to deny. You can get medical care in this country. Furthermore, why would you allow the corrupt politicians run MORE of your life? Have you seen the waste of a typical government agency? You people biatch and moan about the ineptness of those say at the TSA yet you think this same government is going to run healthcare better than on a for-profit basis.

8/10

FlashHarry: The Fourth Karamazov: The only "option" here is whether we bend over and take it or let them ram Obamacare down our throats.

i dunno, how about an option that's, well, an option: medicare for all. member-funded, deficit-neutral public insurance. if you like your private plan, fine, keep it. if not, pay into the public plan and be covered. it would lift a HUGE burden off American business and jumpstart the economy.

A few years back A southern U.S. state lost a bid for a KIA factory even while offering huge subsidies and tax breaks. The winner of the bid was a city in Canada that offered no subsidies. The rational was, that over time the burdens of the healthcare industry here would negatively offset any initial benefits.


I don't want to see people in the greatest country in the world die because big pharma might miss their payout and quarterly expectations. But I think we should be at the point where "real conservatives" should be able to recognize "competitive disadvantage". Or is it all teh ebil libruls, you betcha?

/This is a disaster
//Something has to be done

GoSurfing: KajakPro: GoSurfing: If they pass this, they can levy those fines against me. I'm not paying for their insurance.
Public Option. Seems like you could still have Private insurance.

/Justa guess.

Or we could just keep it the way it is. There is no rush to solve the Social Security crisis. There is no rush to solve immigration. This is all bullshiat. Yet, there people with such enlightened opinions such as: "FlashHarry: nelson is a real farking scumbag.

People like that need to be spoonfed by the government, they want to be told when and where they can shiat, they want to be told what to do.

Health care reform is hardly something that first popped up a few months ago you know.

If you want to argue in favor of the status quo, make an argument for why it is good or better than a proposed change. I don't know what rush you are talking about, and I don't know wtf social security (Which I agree, is hardly in a crisis state) has to do with our health care in the US. But lets say you are correct, and this coming reform will be a net negative and thus doing nothing would be preferable. So lets do nothing now, but when should things be changed in the future? I hope you aren't arguing that nothing should ever be changed until we are actually in a position that we DO have to rush.

Immigration is a problem that needs to be handled on the hiring end most of all, and the borders second, and trying to address it in a health care reform bill is just stupid. The only reason immigrants are mentioned at all is because when you are the party of no and you want to screw your opponents over more than anything, it makes good sense to force them to choose between accepting the pissing off the anti-immigrant crowd with allegations of free health care for mexicans, or you make the bill more of a mess by having it address immigration and jam checkpoints into a health care system that really doesn't need more paperwork. Its a shameful political ploy.