If Obama was not a socialist, he would not be trying to give every illegal alien top notch health care and spending money like he actually had it to spend.

Today, we give health care to illegals.

If Obama cared so much about “redistributing the wealth” , why doesn’t he give any notable amount of money to any charity.

For international intellectuals (not corrupt college professors) Obama is worse than Bush. Chile’s last three Noble prize winners said that Obama’s plan will help their country more than the US. International countries don’t understand why he is so sorry, it’s because I believe he is trying to be a world icon more than our president.

In 2 years, all of you will wish W was president again.

Social Security, Medicare, USPS, food stamps (you can buy almost anything), public schools, campaign finance: doesn’t the government have enough to “overhaul”

This Obama quote scares me the most: “But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that’s not making anybody’s mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, THAT ATLEAST WE can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

WHO IS “WE”? I don’t want to let the doctors know ANYTHING, to the contrary, I want them to let ME know something. By the way, Obama admitted that if his family were ill he would pay for the best healthcare. Kind of reminiscent of a politician who advocates public schools yet sends his children to a private one. Disgusting

Did Andrew not read the statistics on current healthcare numbers, or does he just no believe them?

OC please stay on this issue next year

It would also be nice if you socialists could see some light between “the current mess” and “WHOO GOVERNMENT YES!”. Or if you noted that the current mess is largely due to governmental policy.

1 – Corporations can deduct health care premiums but not payroll from their taxes.

2 – Medicare is such a large player that they set reimbursement rates to a very high degree.

The first problem gives employers a big incentive to buy health insurance instead of pay higher salaries AND means that employees are not really the customers that insurers are interested in servicing. To BCBSTX I am nothing. My employer, however, is a a hugely lucrative client. Whose interests do you think they’ll serve?

The second problem leads to the sort of waste we see because doctors are compensated by test/procedure etc. An office visit doesn’t garner anything from Medicare or an insurance company – but doing a lot of tests does. Furthermore, insurance companies model their “standard” payment rate based on what Medicare pays. So despite having 100% Preventitive care coverage for dentistry I end up paying $30 every time I go to the dentist. The incentive structure thereby created is terrible for patient outcomes. Also consider that in one of the most costly areas – geriatrics – gerontologists typically make less money than GPs despite additional years of training because office visits aren’t reimbursed through medicare at a very high rate.

If these reforms are so grand, and will be so great, why not test them out on Medicare first so we can see? Medicare is wasteful, bloated, covers people who in no way need care…and everyone knows this, why not reform it and see how that goes then tackle the rest of the market? I’m guessing for reasons of political economy – The elderly vote, you can’t reform medicare without pissing off its beneficiaries, and then you lose elections.

Although I do have to wonder, given the results of this poll exactly why this is a MUST DO NOW ZOMG issue.
Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!

It would also be nice if you socialists could see some light between “the current mess” and “WHOO GOVERNMENT YES!”. Or if you noted that the current mess is largely due to governmental policy.

1 – Corporations can deduct health care premiums but not payroll from their taxes.

2 – Medicare is such a large player that they set reimbursement rates to a very high degree.

The first problem gives employers a big incentive to buy health insurance instead of pay higher salaries AND means that employees are not really the customers that insurers are interested in servicing. To BCBSTX I am nothing. My employer, however, is a a hugely lucrative client. Whose interests do you think they’ll serve?

The second problem leads to the sort of waste we see because doctors are compensated by test/procedure etc. An office visit doesn’t garner anything from Medicare or an insurance company – but doing a lot of tests does. Furthermore, insurance companies model their “standard” payment rate based on what Medicare pays. So despite having 100% Preventitive care coverage for dentistry I end up paying $30 every time I go to the dentist. The incentive structure thereby created is terrible for patient outcomes. Also consider that in one of the most costly areas – geriatrics – gerontologists typically make less money than GPs despite additional years of training because office visits aren’t reimbursed through medicare at a very high rate.

If these reforms are so grand, and will be so great, why not test them out on Medicare first so we can see? Medicare is wasteful, bloated, covers people who in no way need care…and everyone knows this, why not reform it and see how that goes then tackle the rest of the market? I’m guessing for reasons of political economy – The elderly vote, you can’t reform medicare without pissing off its beneficiaries, and then you lose elections.

Although I do have to wonder, given the results of this poll exactly why this is a MUST DO NOW ZOMG issue.

A “competitive marketplace” in which some of the actors involved are the beneficiaries of massive amounts of taxpayer dollars is not particularly “competitive,” is it?

Let’s say I’m a kid with a lemonade stand. In order to stay in business and turn a profit, I have to charge 75 cents a cup and my lemonade better be nice and cold and served up with a smile.

Let’s say I have a friend who also has a lemonade stand, only his dad is a rich bank robber that takes other people’s money and gives some of it to my friend. Since my friend doesn’t have to worry so much about his bottom line (he can purchase all his ingredients and cups and such with some of the money his father, who’s enriched himself on other people’s money, gives him), he charges 25 cents a cup. Moreover, my friend isn’t in the lemonade business to make a profit. He’s doing it as a “service to the community”, because everyone is “entitled” to lemonade. He badmouths my business because I’m “greedy” and want to make money selling lemonade, instead of basically giving it away for a pittance to all comers.

Eventually, my 75 cent lemonade can’t “compete” with his 25 lemonade, and I fold. But once his subsidized lemonade has run me out of business, things go downhill in the neighborhood.

Sometimes his service isn’t very snappy. Sometimes his lemonade’s left over from yesterday. And sometimes he accidentallyexposes customers to HIV and hepatitis.

it would eliminate exorbitant executive salaries

I can’t imagine why anyone would think that the government telling private companies how much they can pay their employees would be “socialist” in any way. As for eliminating “advertising costs”, I’m not sure “the new GM” got the memo on that one.

If we have a public option that focuses on health and prevention rather than an acute care, injury/illness model, we can consistently lower all other costs because someone will work with a doctor to determine how to stay healthy.

So, more frequent visits to the doctor will “lower costs”? An ever-increasing cohort of long-lived seniors will “lower costs”?

These provisions will lower rates so dramatically and give doctors so much more freedom… etc., ad nauseam

The “public option” is a subsidized trojan horse that, despite its thin veneer of “compromise”, will only have the effect of increasing government control over a(nother) large sector of the economy.

Reciting talking points from the President’s health care website and pretending that subsidies aren’t, by their very nature, anti-competitive doesn’t really do much to change that.

It’s like you’re trying to make a case for the FreeCreditReport.com band being the most artistically uncompromising musical entity of the last 20 years, or something.

The OHA, if vested with real authority, would be an incredibly effective option in a competitive marketplace. Isn’t that what Sakaki and Vincent want?

Here’s why it’s the best option: it would eliminate exorbitant executive salaries, advertising costs, underwriting expenditures and all the other rate-hiking elements of an HMO that have nothing to do with delivering health care. If we have a public option that focuses on health and prevention rather than an acute care, injury/illness model, we can consistently lower all other costs because someone will work with a doctor to determine how to stay healthy. These provisions will lower rates so dramatically and give doctors so much more freedom that private insurance options will have to follow suit in providing better quality care at affordable rates.

This is pragmatic policy that works within the existing health care marketplace. It’s just that the competition are dinosaurs. And they know it. To drag your feet on a public option is simply corporate welfare. By not advancing on this, we’ll be bailing out the CEOs that understand they’re going to have to take a pay cut (“What?! I’m only going to make 60% more than my average employee?! Harumph!”) to stay competitive.

It’s not a government entity. It’s not socialism. To say that is to really prove a near-unbelievable degree of idiocy.