Obamacare! Good or Bad?

[Brentucky]

KD - you just described our current plan.

Still I think making smoking illegal is the way to go.

but coca cola, fast food, and alcohol should definitely stick around, right?

[KD]

KD - you just described our current plan.

Still I think making smoking illegal is the way to go.

but coca cola, fast food, and alcohol should definitely stick around, right?

a high ball and french fries!

[ynot]

smoking is already illeagal almost evewrywhere but your backyard and a couple truck stops.

[ScrmnPeeler]

When you rely on the government for food, housing, and health care; you are no longer a free man living in a free land.

[rhunt]

KD - you just described our current plan.

Still I think making smoking illegal is the way to go.

but coca cola, fast food, and alcohol should definitely stick around, right?

yep - smoking related illness is a major reason for the high healthcare cost we see today.

[Crankmas]

It certainly seems that its the price increases that have placed health care in the spot-light, not that energy, education and the amount of money it takes to block the release of a $10 document these days haven't gone up concurrently- perhaps if people could get employed and educated it might help them choose healther lifestyles and risk factors such as obesity, alcohol and drug abuse would drop with positive results. Placing the legislative members under the care of the plans they vote for could be the layman's best hope for an even shake. I look for any bill that obama signs to be challenged soon enough when he is exposed as ineligible to be president anyway.

[charlie]

I'm not saying it's easy, you were the one that said it was simple. I am saying it absolutely has to change because you are already paying 2.5 times as much as any other industrialized nation for other people's healthcare in your taxes. That is separate from what you pay for your own. We as a nation are already socializing healthcare, just for far less of the population than most countries and we pay way more than all of them. If we're already paying, shouldn't we reap the benefits of a healthy society?

Go to your local VA hospital and see how long it would take them to get an MRI and knee surgery. Ask anyone with a marginal healthcare plan how much it would cost for that MRI and surgery. I know how much it would cost in Canada or France or Germany, because I have family in those places.

I have no problem with people paying for the services they require. I have a problem with someone selling you an 84 metro and charging you for 2010 audi, and passing the cost on to me when they can't pay it.

And do you really think the goverment can do anything more efficiently than the private sector?

I work in Fortune 500. We have different challenges but are no more efficient than government when it comes to providing services/product. The only thing we do better is find the lowest cost provider to manufacture and/or provide service with marginal concern for quality and maximize quarterly profit by sacrificing long term outlook.

Call me crazy, but health care providers should be at least as concerned about services provided as the profit margin. Publicly traded HMO's and pharmaceutical companies with billion dollar marketing budgets don't seem like a problem to you?

[Crankmas]

good point Charlie- where does profit fit in this agenda?- who and /or what and where/when do they/it make it? medicaid and medicare, social security and illegal immigration are examples of programs the federal government currently operates, are we happy with the performance of these? can we expect better performance when the government adds healthcare to the mix? unfortunately politics instead of leadership has the upper hand

[bcombs]

Just got the updated insurance information from my employer on the effect of the healthcare overhaul. In 2011 my current insurance plan will be deemed a "cadillac" plan. The net effect is that my max pre-tax contribution into a health savings account goes from 5K to 2500. Other than that, no change.

Wasn't I one of the millions of insured who were going to get fucked by this?

[michaelarmand]

Be patient Brad, your time will come....

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2010/05/0 ... -coverage/