BleepingComputer.com: Two hurdles!

We have two major hurdles to do our best to overcome!
The Health Care bill and Cap & Trade the ramifications of either will be disastrous for our nation. They are admitting that Cap & Trade will put utility bills through the roof, there also seems to be extremely little doubt about the sham of the health care bill buying the US in even more debt.

Through all the health car talks one major point jumps out! No one goes uncared for in this country, between the Hippocratic oath and laws all get treated. We all get to pay the bill and have for years, but again no one id denied care!

Except for this individual! http://www.redcounty.com/michelle-obama-an...dumping-chicago
Very interesting change of heart for her don't you think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well OldPhil no one seams to want to reply to your post. I will because I agree with you. I was hoping for some one to disagree. Of the two I think Cap and Trade is the worse. Every thing that is made, shipped, stored, ect. will have a C/T tax on it. One way or the other there is a carbon trail. Cap and Trade certificates, bonds, stocks, ect. will be traded on the world market and as they go up in price so will every thing else. This is nothing but a global Conn game if passed. This sound like Mr. Madeoff created it.

I guess the US citizens have got their hurdling gear on! I never did understand the US healthcare system before and it seems to be about to go into a level that is even more beyond my understanding. Now it sounds like Obama has looked across the pond and decided that some of the great British health service system, (which is costing us as tax payers an inordinate amount and is in some ways becoming less efficient and needs a total over haul) is just what the doctor ordered with a double helping of taxes and fines to boot! So what is going to happen to the carbon taxes or what ever they are called? will they go into helping the US to create less carbon emissions, or is it as I suspect, another avenue to get money? If the report in the link posted by Oldphil is true, sadly, Michelle Obama's actions are typical of many leaders.

Health care reform, especially in the form of a public option, will help reduce costs all around. First, it's like adding a new insurance company to the market - a new competitor, with better prices, will help force the other competitors to offer more competitive prices. This is good for the consumer.

The other thing that will be good for the consumer is the drop in premiums pretty much across the board. And it would be astonishing with a single-payer program as well. Medicare is expensive because it takes care of primarily old and sick people. More money goes out than in. But when you add everyone into the risk pool (public option, essentially, should be "meidcare for everyone") prices on premiums will drop because the overall risk is lowered. I know *I* would enjoy a drop in my premiums.

The CBO also said that over 10 years, the public option that was originially offered is defecit neutral. It costs the taxpayers nothing more than what we were already paying.

On the non-fiscal side of it, I also think a public option/single payer model would be the most ethical thing we could do. To my knowledge, the US is the only health care market in the world where people are allowed to actually profit on someone else's illness and misery. (Pre-existing conditions and recision are horrible practices that literally kill people when they are denied necessary care, but they're so good for profits.) Insurance should be a non-profit venture, or it should be a government-regulated single-payer model.

. . .

I'm not currently educated enough on cap-and-trade to offer an opinion. I'm not just picking and choosing points to defend. I just don't have that information to make an argument with.

I really do not know a lot about the proposed health care bill as it keeps changing but the two things I have known about it bug the crap out of me. One, the last draft that I knew about totally screwed seniors and that is not right. Two, most people who do not have health insurance do not have it because they cannot afford it and this bill forces them to have it. If they could not afford it before they were forced to have it, they won't be able to afford it after being forced to have it either so I do not get how that is going to work.

Cap and trade is a ridiculous scam perpetrated for feel good reasons here in the West.
There has always been a class of people that need to protest or find fault. The Nuclear power protesters did not get into high gear until after the Vietnam War protests stopped. Many of the same people needed a new cause to be against.
(Don’t read this as being pro the war or nuclear power. It is a comment on many of the people protesting both.)
Even if Climate change is absolutely true with out China participating in a solution it will not matter what we do here. Our cars and (what is left of them) factories are now some of the cleanest in the world.
In regards to health care
I have been self employed for many years. Always had insurance. Amazingly complex and expensive to navigate as a private person. I found a payment stub ( Not Mine) from Blue Cross from I believe 1960. Premium was $10.00 per month. At that rate who need the government! For the last 10 years my wife worked for a school system. Her Blue Cross family plan costs the school district $22,000 per year.
If you own a house or other assets you need insurance. It is true that a hospital is required to treat you with out it but they will attach everything you own if you cannot pay. This problem is bigger then the average persons ability to deal with. Doctors and Hospitals have billed insurance companies since the early 50’s. The rates they charge have little to do with what people can afford. Health insurance is nothing more then a form of private tax.
In a perfect world fiscally responsible statesmen would have designed a fair and reasonable solution. They would take the best parts of European, Canadian and Japanese systems. Fix the parts that are lacking and end up with an American plan that would take care of our citizens and be an example for the rest of the world.
Sadly this is not to be. Politics will drive whatever cobbled together monstrosity they are creating.
I am still in favor of their efforts though. You do not see the Canadians or Europeans protesting to do away with their government health care plans and go to private insurance.
Nawtheasta

Public option will lower cost; how? Having the government as a insurance co, as a option, lets take a look at that. A insurance co. that doesn't have to make a profit. When they go into the red ink all they do is raise taxes or cut services. There is no option after a while because there will be no more insurances companies. They can't and won't compete with a no profit the hell with the red ink we will just print more money government. So the option goes away. If this new bill passes it will take billions from Medicare and stick it in the new program to make it look like it's saving money. Kind of like what Mr. Madeoff did and got 150 years in prison. All kinds of tricky book keeping. The only government paid for health insurance that works is the one that all the members of Congress and there staff have. Just let the rest of us have that one. It must be a very good plan because if this bill passes Congress is not effected they keep the one they got and not the new one. That should say volumes to every body. If this new plan is so great why doesn't Congress want it for themselves? Another scary thing is when The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi on T.V. told her members just to pass the new bill that they will have time to read it later. It just doesn't feel good to me passing bills that effects all of us with out reading it first. Here is my idea where to start Medicare. By all reports there is between 30 to 40% waste and fraud it Medicare. Where talking 30 to 40% of billions. Lots of money. The government should take care of that problem to show the rest of the country they know what there doing on the health care subject. Passing a health care bill for the whole country with 30 to 40% waste and fraud is not going to lower cost. From my understanding there is no tort reform in this new bill and that will help keep the price high. Can't do that because it will step on one of the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, lawyers. As it is now if doctors and hospitals don't use every test they can think of needed or not the lawyers will have a legal papers in the mail in short time and that will keep the cost high and growing. Without tort reform there is no lowering of cost of any health plan.

Just a little funny that seems appropriate

Maxine on Health Care.....

Let me get this straight......we're trying to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke.

What the hell could possibly go wrong?

Every news paper in the country should put on the front page Stang777 last post. That won't happen because most of them lean way left. Your right one the money Stang777!

I agree that they are both problems:

We do need to correct (or reform?) our Health Care concept since what we had before this Bill was signed was not working well for all and was heading for insolvency. This current Bill is, as AT&T, Caterpillar, John Deere, and maybe others have pointed out, is a "job killer" at a time when what we need is exactly the opposite. Additionally, the increased expense won't help that long term move toward insolvency.


We do not need any sort of "Cap and Trade" legislation that focuses on Carbon Dioxide emissions since, as some have noted above, our CO2 emissions are not causing any negative impact on the climate.

As many scientists have said: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Quoting 'Layback Bear' date='Mar 20 2010, 02:45 PM' post='1680678']
"Public option will lower cost; how? Having the government as a insurance co, as a option, lets take a look at that. A insurance co. that doesn't have to make a profit. When they go into the red ink all they do is raise taxes or cut services."

That sounds suspiciously like our NHS in Britain

Please note; carri is from Yorkshire, England. carri can speak on the health care system in England more than I can but from what I have read IMHO we don't want it or anything like it.

I hope that the bill which has passed will be a step in the right direction.

On one hand I feel it is very watered down; no single-payer system means that the market still has no corrective force to help bring down its over-inflated prices.

On the other hand a lot of important changes have been made. No longer can "pre-existing conditions" be held against people; this should never have been legal in the first place.

At first glance, something doesn't quite sit right with me about the concept of required health insurance. This is mainly based on sentiment, on cultural beliefs ingrained into most of us. Moving forward I think we are going to have to rethink such sentiment. After all there is logic to mandatory insurance; one of the reasons costs are so high is that the many millions of people who don't have coverage wait to get treatment until their conditions are far worse and far more expensive to fix. If everyone had basic preventative coverage we could improve overall health while decreasing health care costs.

I find it hard to accept the argument, "what if I don't want any coverage? Isn't that my right?" Hey, I guess you have the right to climb Mt Hood without proper training or gear; yet rescuers have to risk their lives and spend millions of tax dollars to save you if you get into trouble, so there are no clear lines between your rights and those of others. And, in this country, if you have no insurance a major health indecent will ruin you. You or a family member gets cancer? You can lose your home and retirement and everything you've worked for your whole life.

But then, part of the reason American health care cost so much is that Americans are so unhealthy. If we were to pass laws that were designed to move people toward healthier behavior we'd all benefit, but at what cost? Many would find such laws "Orwellian." So we have to find a line between personal freedom and overall good. It's a fine line to walk; but again, rethinking our values now and then is a good idea.

Yes I hope that this new health care bill will be good for America. As I said before it kind of reminds me of how we as British people have to pay National Insurance Contributions (NICs)which originally in 1911 when the British National Insurance Act was passed, was meant as a contributory insurance scheme against sickness and unemployment. In 1946 it was expanded to include some aspects of social welfare like old age pensions. When the NHS was formed in 1948, health care became less dependant on what people had contributed via the NICs. Over the years there has been more changes and more people have to pay for things that were once 'free' such as dental care, optical/eye care and prescriptions. People have the option to take out private health care schemes as well as making NICs. If you are employed you are required to pay.

Personally I think that for many years the British NHS has been one of the best health care systems available in the world to people regardless of social class, employment status, age or contributions; however currently the British NHS is in crisis, and continues to eat mountains of taxpayers money with workers stretched thinly, and top heavy management that seem to embrace every 'foreign' failed scheme of administration and working. I could go on... I don't blame you for not wanting what we have Layback Bear. Hopefully, Mr Obama and the US government will learn from the problems the the British NHS has.

Unfortunately when the person paying the bills is replaced with an “entity” be that private insurance or the government costs will go up. The motivation to look for the best price is lost.
I have no good answer. All I know for certain is that based on where we are today health care costs will easily wipe out a family if you do not have insurance.
My father in-law had a defibrillator implanted last month. An over night stay in the hospital cost $104,000.00 USD. Defibrillator alone was $87,436.22. It is about the size of a pack of playing cards ( I made a joke and asked what the $.22 cents was for)
Thankfully they have Medicare and private insurance. Without that they would have had to sell their house.
Now we are all thankful that modern technology is hopefully going to add years to his life. Again I say that I have no good answer. But if we want the advantages of modern medicine we have to have a way to pay for it that is fair for all.
Regards
Nawtheasta