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I like the idea of having the actual providers compete for business on price and quality. I also understand that insurance companies can be helpful in handling underwriting and risk managment and other useful steps in the process. But we need to eliminate the practice of selling people insurance with the intention of collecting maximum premium revenue and spending the least possible amount on patient care. We should consider mutual insurance companies for health insurance if we can't get to universal care or medicare for everyone yet.
On some radio or TV cable stations such as MSNBC, I hear that Obama will do well because of health care. That this is wonderful. On other radio and TV stations, I hear that this is the best thing that could have happened to Republicans. That it will help them win in Novermber. People do not seem to know what the Affordable Care act will do for them. Many echo the right-wing talk shows in their comments.
Then others say that people need health care and that this is a good thing. I do. None seem to know about the Heritage Foundation plan for health care and that it even had a mandate in the form of a tax, and this was a Republican idea. Very few mention this. Ezra Klein on MSNBC shows the documents of the Heritage Foundation plan on TV last week.
The right-wing people talk as though the poor, or uneducated, or unemployed do NOT deserve health care and that they need to "get a job" - "take a bath"- and go get their health own care. They say they don't want to pay for your health care or education. It all sounds like the poor and uneducated are despised.
Strange, these people who complain about having to pay for health care for others never complain (for one example) about paying for prisoners to have health care, and for prisoners even just to stay in prison. They don't complain that they pay for the crooked politicians to have health care.
Health care is a deal-breaker for me. I will only vote for those who are for health care for all. And, Thank God for Bernie Sanders.
He is a gem of a person.
It's a step in the right direction.
Corporate money has dominated politics for well over a hundred years. These rulings just confirm that, and take one step further. The answer is and always been an engaged electorate.
As ever, most of the electorate will not fully engage until they are directly experiencing sufficient pain. What's interesting to observe will be just how much pain will be tolerated by which categories of Americans. The factional standoffs and unwillingness to compromise will certainly lead to more pain for some. But which ones?
RomneyCare is a baby step thats better than the current system. As a type 1 diabetic, I stand to directly benefit from this.
The theater around RomneyCare is something else. America has been dividing into factions at an increasing rate. Does anyone see compromise in the future? I see a literal blood bath as nearly inevitable.
I for one intend to stay out of it, and enjoy the show as long as I can. We're all bozos on this bus.
Shining written by: Jef
My soul exploded into a thousand strands of lighted love, and that love surrounded those who were there
My heart had broken open and left me to expand past my body infusing those lucky enough to witness
My love had included, accepted, and actively sought out the person asking for it to come forth
Bathing her in a bright glowing light which expanded into the bride and groom, then into everyone else
My thoughts had not done this, my head was not involved, yet my body knew what had happened and why
Love, pure love glowing, flowing outward was what occurred that day when my soul exploded into the sky
The sound of love crafted deep within the request I had received was the reason for this openness
The light of being alive, the light of acceptance, the light of my soul shone through and has never stopped shining
Today, still today I have not sought to turn off this newly infused perception of selflessness
Today, still today I love all life I see, I love you all, though I have never met you, never talked to you
The love I feel is not made of words; it is not made of concepts drafted on a screen or written with a pen
It is not based on some religionist dogma, it is not based on profit for greed, it is passion without bounds
It is the reason we are alive, it is based in selflessness, and it is founded on truth that love is alive and glows
Love is not a passing phase, love is not just for someday or someone or some way
Love is within your grasp and I ask you to feel it growing, glowing, consuming, overtaking all your senses
Reach out right now with your love, close your eyes and feel your soul, stop your thoughts which detract
Reach out and accept what I say without the words which you have been forced to believe in
Reach out and see that what I am saying is more than words, more than just an act seeking your votes
Your soul is exploding into a thousand strands of lighted love and that love is surrounding those next to you
Your heart can be broken open and expanding right now, see a glow, embrace it warmly, let go and shine
My love now includes everyone, love has accepted you today, and it has brought you here so you can seek it
Don’t let your thoughts slow it down, don’t allow your head to stop it, your body knows this to be true
Love, pure love flowing outward is what is occurring here today, let your soul explode, be enveloped, it is free
The sound of love is crafted deep within seeking the request that I ask for it to open, open your soul now
I seek not your wealth, I seek not your faith, I seek your understanding of what love is and can be, selflessness
Let your soul shine, let your defenses go, embrace life of all kinds and love that life in a unconditional flow
Today is the day of your redemption; today you are offered another chance, let your soul shine and glow
Today the season of love is starting again, today you could finally see, today you can let go and be freed
Our love can calm the stormiest seas; our love can brighten the world, just let it shine and explode for all to see
You Koch-Teapublicans have destroyed the GRAND OLD PARTY and the founders are turning over in their graves at what you have done to the USA. You continue to say the word Constutition, but haven't read it, or don't understand what you read? The affordable health care will and can be the right thing for our future generations, but only if the right gets off their ass's and does something for the USA instead of against the USA.
You have been paid to say NO, NO,NO, TO THE USA, AND IT IS ABOUT TIME YOU SAID NO TO THE KOCH BOYS. You continue to rant about giving more tax breaks to the wealthy/corporations, and can not see that the real problem is GHW Bush's greatest service country in the world. His service country only produces minimum wage part time jobs, and those that work them are all at the poverty level or below and that has deminished the middle class tax base. You do not want Capitalism regulated, but twice now unregulated Capitalism turned into GREED and once sent the USA into a great depression, and the next time sent the USA into a great ressesion.
Are you KTP folks just to dam dumb to see the picture, or do you just want to destroy the USA/WORLD? Take a lesson from FDR, who said to his congress, "CAPITALISM IS THE GREATEST TOOL IN THE WORLD, BUT LEFT UN-REGULATED IT WILL DESTROY THE WORLD." Yes his congress did put regulations in the books and from 1937 to 2001 the USA was the biggest and best country in the world. Then the Supreme Court gave the Presidents Job to GW Bush and the first thing he did was to de-regulate everything and walla he put us into the greatest ressesion.
It is time for the Koch-Teapublican Party and those that drink their cool-aid to wake up and join the rest of the citizens of the crippled USA and rebuild what we once had. hankk MI
I live in Canada as a duel citizen. I am amazed at the crap I hear from Michigan rightwingers. You would think that the commie hoards have landed and are taking over the US. I have never heard so much clap trap in my life. The US has a great medical system provided you are in the top 2%. My wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in Dec/11, the surgeons removed a 13cm cyst Feb/12 and has been declared cancer free. Cost to me $0. Health panels, NO, choice of doctor, YES, age, sex,race has nothing to do with health services. The sicker people go to the head of the line. Is it perfect, NO, would I change it, NO. Is it expensive, YES. Mind you, we don't spend half of every tax dollar on the military. Canadians don't believe in "every man for themselves" more like "1 for all and all for 1."
We NEED attention on the courts NOW. In my case, I have a judge who is a defendant under a RICO charge, because this allowed judge allowed IndyMac bank to commit fraud on the courts, through an unlawful declaration. Yet, this judge refuses to recuse himself and my disqualification was denied, because I supposedly didn't meet the reasonable person test. Amazing? This judge is NOW implementing procedural tricks to try to water down my case. It is AMAZING!! The level of judicial abuse that is taking place in California against the homeowner, and especially pro per litigant is unconsionable and should be illegal. Our courts are already bought and sold by the banks, yet no one is talking about it. SEEKING MEDIA ATTENTION IN CALIFORNIA ON A CORRUPT JUDICIAL. PLEASE HELP. Cheryl@medicalworks.com
I don't begrudge the "lowly family practice physician, nurses & hospital workers". They are all trying to make a living and doing what they have chosen to do and are very valuable to us all. The people that need to be blamed are the people who are highly (perhaps read "overly") paid with obscene salaries and bonuses (CEOs and other top execs)...or the Wall Street gambler who is driving up costs and prices. Do you know the real reason why we have to pay nearly $5.00 (more or less) for a gallon of gas? Wall Street! The same goes for everything else.
There is only one reason why "hospitals charge $29.00 for an $.80 box of tissues" (as mentioned on tonight's Bill Maher Show) is because they can get away with it. You can try to make me sound like I am attacking the "lowly family practice physician, nurses & hospital workers" (not my words anyway..that was from the article I quoted) but they are not the ones who are participating in a widespread SF Bay Area medical scam consisting of wealthy doctors who have invested in this company that rips off the insurance companies and the people who have to pay the increased premiums as a result of it. These participating doctors refer their patients to out of network doctors, also part of the scam, who charge 10 times the usual cost of performing the procedures and bill the insurance companies. It is not the "family practice physician, nurses & hospital workers" who have bilked the government (our taxes) through Medicare scams. It was rich criminal doctors.
Another part of the reason why hospital costs are so high is because of the expensive real-estate and equipment they must buy. And behind every piece of equipment or other supplies is another over-compensated CEO and other top execs and wealthy stock-holders. Our whole system is top heavy with a minority of fat-cat criminals who wheedled their way into those cushy positions and is teetering on the verge of collapse. And collapse can only result in total resignation of the masses into cowering servitude or they can rise up and rebel against their oppressors. It has happened before and it will happen again. I mean if people finally realize that they are backed into a corner and will die anyway, if they don't stand up and defend themselves, then we may have a chance of changing things that will benefit the masses rather than a few lucky, selfish, and megalomaniacal ones.
ObamaRomneyCare is a Trojan Horse sent by the Capitalist Thugs to make us all wish we were dead. All your money...or your life? For some, maybe...for others, it's all your money..then your life..because you won't be able to afford to keep on living anyway after your life savings are slowly sucked out of your bank accounts. You'll be so poor you won't want to live anyway.
The trick is for the people to be made to believe that the Conservatives hated the bill (remember, it was a conservative idea before it was adopted by Obama) and the Progressives loved the bill.
And, of course, the Dems and Repubs are in competition for votes but they, bottom line, are controlled by the super elite capitalists. The trick is to fool the people and distract them with this faux democracy. Some Liberals or Progressives can't stop grinning ear-to-ear thinking they won. It would truly be fantastic if that was the case. But I think there are a lot of myopic and overly impressionable liberals who will eventually realize that they have been had.
The one thing the ruling elite don't want to happen is for an all-out revolution...where the ruling elite get all their means of production, property, and bank vault contents confiscated by the people...or worse. And so the Republicans, who want to win but still must kowtow to their ruling elite puppet-masters, play this role, which suits their nature anyway, of selfish and vile creatures. This drives most people into the Democrat camp believing that these politicians are their only choice. Of course, they are being deceived into justifying a crooked and rigged system that has as it's true purpose the enslaving of the masses. And, this pandering of false hope keeps the people from acting in the only manner that will elicit a real change in their favor.
Great blog, Thom!
Do you have any documented facts for this assertion? Because I'm not certain that the "lowly family practice physician, nurses & hospital workers are being left out of your so-called "enrichment" scheme. And, if the health care top dpgs are indeed being enriched at our expense, what do you propose doing about it?
"The real losers in the latest Supreme Court decision, however, are the people of the United States. Not those who will be required to go out and buy some over-priced, minimal coverage, rip-off insurance plan offered by the private insurance industry, or to pay a “tax” to the IRS for not doing so, but everyone.
This is because the Affordable Health Care Act is not affordable. It does little or nothing to control health care costs, which are destined to continue to gobble up an ever increasing amount of the total US Gross Domestic Product as well as of corporate profits and families’ incomes.
The new federal version of Romneycare simply prolongs the day when the US finally does what it should have done decades ago, should have done during the first Clinton administration, and should have done at the start of the Obama administration: namely expanding Medicare to cover all Americans.
Instead of going for this option when he had broad and enthusiastic support as the newly elected president, Obama deliberately shut out all discussion of the Canadian-style approach to national health coverage — a national program of government insurance for all, with doctors’ rates and hospital charges negotiated by the government — and instead devised a scheme that leaves the whole payment system in the hands of the private insurance industry, and effectively lets doctors and hospitals charge what they can get away with.
Obama did this because he was a huge recipient of money from all sectors of the health care industry — the insurance companies, the hospital companies, the American Medical Association, the big pharmaceutical firms, and the medical supply firms.
ObamaRomneyCare is at its core an enrichment scheme for nearly all elements of the Medical Industrial Complex, with the possible exception of the lowly family practice physician, nurses, and hospital workers….."
http://mosquitocloud.net/why-the-obamacare-ruling-stinks
Thom -- To say that Robert's vote was due to epilepsy medications is patently ridiculous & frankly discriminatory -- epileptics do not need any more discrimination than they are already subject to -- which, believe me, can be considerable. My late husband was epileptic for about 40 years due to a fall on the ice in December 1965, when he cracked his head on a sidewalk. He always had trouble holding a job after that, until we just decided it might be better to just tell prospective employers that he was epileptic. That made matters even worse, because he was not then hired. So, if Roberts is epileptic & heads the Supremes despite this disability, more power to him -- however his medications do not cause him to be more reasonable or unreasonable than his natural inclinations would dictate -- trust me.
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I'm all for the part of the bill that keeps Insurance companies from turning you away because of preexisting conditions. But that part will eventually disappear or be watered down very soon.
The part that will stay... is forcing everyone to shell out lots of money for the insurance premiums. And insurance premiums, contrary to what we've been led to believe, will go sky high. That's what happens when you have a monopoly...and in this case we will have no "free market" competition when the government strong-arm enforcers cram this thing down our throats. The insurance companies will be able to charge us whatever they want...and believe me...they will!
There is no part of the bill that keeps these insurance companies from charging whatever premiums they want. And someone... say with cancer or some other terrible disease... could be told "Your disease is very expensive... and since we cannot turn you down...we will accept you but be prepared to pay a lot of money in premiums....and too bad...but since the government has mandated that you have insurance, and since all the other insurance companies have the same inflated prices, you will just have to give me all your money! Maybe you can sell your house?" "Maybe you can sell your kids?" "Got a spare kidney you want to sell?"
There could have been a public option to keep these insurance companies in check...the government providing a real competition alternative. But, of course, Obama and his co-conspirators gave that idea up right off the bat. The administrative costs of Medicare (single or low double digits) compared to the private insurance company (double digit...overly paid CEOs and other execs and stockholders).. are much, much lower.
By the way, 911 was an inside job! And if you're dumb enough to believe otherwise, you're dumb enough to believe that the right-wing Roberts, miraculously, letting this bill pass was not a smoke and mirrors trick. While the people keep their eyes on one hand..the other hand works its magic....in this case evil magic.
"Ayn Rand had nothing to do with this??"..
..read...inform yourself-Milton Friedman, "Chicago Boys", Greenspan=all Ayn Rand devotees-the entire Wall $treet economic disaster rests at the feet of false "free market should regulate itself" LIES. How is it "free market" when Wall $treet, through "high frequency trading"=front running (illegal) and unequal access to markets, let alone split between financial sector and markets, are perpetrated?
Do you realize 2001, "derivatives" valued under $2 trillion, but by 2007, $600 trillion? ALL related to false "free market should regulate itself" deregulatory legislation..of Wall $treet-6 banks of whom own 95% of "derivatives", 80% of which kept in London=financial center of world..
Do you realize 2001, financial sector amounted to 19% of U.S. economy, but today=41%? (paper debt) google up William K Black, who did investigation-prosecution (over 1000 went to jail) of S & L scandal, or his University of Missouri associate Michael Hudson and listen-read-learn..Hudson-"Debt Deflation In America", for only one example...here's documentation:
http://cje.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/4/563.full
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/derivatives-the-quadrillion-...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz1b__MdtHY
sir,
no offense (and I voted for Obama-before he became bushbama-I am the "professional left") but you should derive more information on the state's attorneys general sell-out of Wall $treet foreclosure fraud...and Holder's role, along with bushbama's...and read this on international healthcare rankings:
http://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-health-insurance-around-the-world...
sir,
Read Paul Thompson's, "The Terror Timeline"...Thompson is who "families of 911 victims" used info, to initiate phoney 911 commission in the first place-Thompson met with families, and with Kissinger (I have the video), asked questions, whereby Kissinger immediately left the room, didn't answer, and refused to chair commission. There is not one bit of testimony from 911 commission in the book on 911 commission-too many lies were told to record them...(I have video of some of that, as well)
But if you really, really want to chase 911 (beyond Building 7 and Pentagon video-tell all), google up "Buzzy Krongard", and read for a week...you won't believe it...
The real issue will be the Constant fights to improve the Plan. if we don't get a majority in the House/Senate/Courts, this will go on for years. They will need to tweek it - however, big the pkg is now, it is not in its final form...a living document. We need to remove obstacles - the New Right - who are working for the Health Industry, Pharmaceuticals, Insurance Companies, Medical Assoc, etc.. We need to get corporations out of our gov't!!! I am overjoyed that we got this through the Courts!! And, yes, I'm afraid of how the New Right can abuse the "mandate" position - if they win.
This is a sad day for America when Republicans resort only to lies instead of showing they care for true American values which include honesty, justice, integrity, and honor. They have embarrassed themselves and proved to those who watch them carefully that they are fully in the pocket of their corporate masters. They seem to want to take away the vote from everyone who disagrees with them. This is a very sad day especially their act against Eric Holder who is a very honorable man.
As a cancer patient, I breathed a sigh of relief and was, frankly, surprised with the law being upheld, especially from this Corporate Court. The second greatest worry of the cancer patient, after the worry your cancer will come back, is coverage for the future--the pre-existing condition thing or being kicked off or denied coverage.
I hope people wake up to the fact that the conservatives (and their lapdogs the rethuglicans) are interested ONLY in securing a lock on power and making the American people beholden to corporations and the wealthy. To destroy the education system. To dumb down the population so that we'll accept whatever they deem fit to pay, which would be NOTHING if they had their way. The elderly should wake up to the fact that rethuglicans are coming after their social security and medicare.
I just want to shake every person I hear talk lies and trash about the Affordable Healthcare Act. Get the truth out there--how this will impact the lives of every day people.
Thom--You're sounding like a shill for Obama and the Dems. I haven't heard you lately since I'm in L.A. so I hope you're still willing to criticize Obama--even if we support him over Romney. Obamacare does some good things but it is a conservative, Repub idea with the mandate originated by The Heritage Foundation. It does not adequately address the two most important factors in buying insurance--premium costs and benefits. It also does nothing to control actual healthcare costs. It is a giveaway to the insurance industry like Medicare Part D is a giveaway to the drug companies.
We don't know if all the predictions that are being made will come true. We can support it but should continually point out its flaws and advocate Medicare for All. I also have a problem with the individual mandate.
Roberts' decision was a political one. He wants to avoid his court looking like it's political. I believe he wanted to uphold it for the above reason and since it is beneficial to the insurance companies but didn't want justify the use of the commerce clause. His tax argument is flimsy, at best and can lead to unintended consequences since it is supposedly "taxing" someone for not doing something. Just because SCOTUS calls it a tax doesn't mean it is a tax.
Obama care compared to 911. You know there are more folks in this nation on both sides of the isle who doubt the official explanation of 911. There are more credible skeptics and more respected doubters than supporters of the commission report. Former high ranking officers form each major branches of the miitary, former decorated fighter pilots. Airline pilots, first responders, family surviivors mainstream entertainers, national security FBI and CIA members, and the ranks are growing exponentially.