When I see the TV news clips of angry Americans shouting at Town Hall meetings on health care reform, "I want my America back!", I'm not sure at all I understand what their complaints have to do with health care. I've been paying private health care-- with a very high deductible that scarcely gets touched by any benefits at all-- for years: in a word, it sucks. Every year the cost goes up and the benefits go down. Dealing with my insurance provider is WORSE than talking to the government: you know from the very first conversation, once you wait through endless "help" cues on the automatic response, that they are against you-- whatever it is you want from them. I tried to add a college age son to my private health care policy: the fact that his records showed he had taken a prescription drug was the "pre-existing condition" that allowed the insurance company to keep him off my policy. So he is uninsured. The people darkly hinting of conspiracies that the government can't do anything but screw up the economy and wreck public health are the same people who, in power, pushed the economy off the rails. Congress will soon be releasing its detailed facts on health care reform. The sooner, the better.
14 comments:
Gimleteye You are right on many points but what you percieve as a solution is nearsighted and simplistic. Folks on both side think the government (obama/Bush whoever) can wave a magic wand and solve this issue. Please read this brief history of US healthcare that will give everyone a better sense of how we got here and then maybe a better Idea of how to get out of this mess.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1094/is_n2_v28/ai_13834930/?tag=content;col1
Why, why, why, if this government run plan is so great are the Obamabots resorting to this?
http://lonestartimes.com/2009/08/13/obama-camp-plants-fake-doc-che-fan-at-jackson-lee-forum/
WTF!!!
You want your America back? What America is that? Everyone looks back so fondly of the past. Let me tell you about the past:
Police shooting protesters at the National Convention in Chicago.
People fighting in lines a mile long for gasoline.
Interest rates on homes at 14%
Hostages in Iran
Watts Riots
Aurthur McDuffe Riots
Shootouts at Dadeland
Altamont Music Festival
3 mile Island
Love Canal
The War Draft
Leaded Gas
Oh, the Good Ole' Days, when everything in America was great.
Time is a strange prism through which we look.
m
Oh... you meant when Health Care was better.
What do you mean, your morning sickness is too much Mrs. Smith? Try this Thalidomide, it will help with the symptoms.
Or when a diagnosis of Breast Cancer was a death sentence?
Maybe back to the days when Polio was a problem,
or when kids got encephalitis
or maybe the good old days when a diagnosis of depression got someone a frontal lobotomy, or maybe shock treatment?
m
Yes, it's better that we sit back and do nothing, like we did for the last 8 long, long years.
There's a good reason why "The Bachelorette" is a favorite of this pitiful country that has been dumbed down to the point of absolute lunacy.
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Anon,Rick and M, I don't mean to interrupt your watching American Idol or whatever "reality" show you prefer (Obama Idol maybe?). But the article I had the link to (if you had bothered to read it, remember reading? Ahh the cherished memories), is about the evolution of the US heathcare system from the late 1800s through today and how certain policies have led to our current batch of problems. The article is well researched and documented. The article is not about the practice of medicine or the advancement of prescription drugs.
Get a grip and stop hanging on Obama's jock or in Anon's case relying on right wing blogs its embarrasing.
M
And I'm supposed to believe that government run healthcare cured all these ills? PLEASE people die in Canada, England France etc from all sorts of stuff, and don't get me started with Cuban healthcare system. M? hmmm Is that you Michael Moore?
Save the Twinkies!!!!
This just in.
Palin 1
Obama 0
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/finance-committee-to-drop-end-of-life-provision-2009-08-13.html
Through today, Cato? The article is dated 1993. You are living in the past, now aren't you?
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Cato,
I definitely think you're way too new to EoM if you think I'm a fan of the new administration.
My point is, the problem with the current health care system is the bureaucracy, not the quality of medicine or care, and you can't fix that by putting the Federal Government in the middle of it.
m
Rick the article is on the "history" of healthcare in US so the fact that it was written 16 years ago is actually a good thing, it also shows that people haven't learned a damn thing in that period of time. Rick there are works that are hundreds of years old that are still pertinent today (you find them in BOOKS). I do not live in the past I learn from it. Thats what supposed to distinguish us from lemmings, mosquitoes, Roaches, Bush, Obama, Pailin and Pelosi.
M my sincerest apologies for my unwarranted transgression. Can you play Pop Musik?
The people who are saying leave health care alone are lunatics. We are paying through our nose for thousands of emergency room visits. It gets passed on to us. The health insurance companies are making obscene profits. My health care insurance costs are higher than any other expense I have. How is that okay? We need a change and thank you Obama for trying. The Clinton's tried and were tarred and feathered too. The health insurance lobbyists and the Republican TV pundits are winning with their smear campaign.
The end of life health directive that the Republican's are bashing as death to seniors: It is a living will which records YOUR WISHES so YOU can decide if you want heroic measures at the end of life not the hospital. Get a grip people and a dose of reality.
Cato: The fact that you reference a history of healthcare that omits the the last 16 years and have the temerity to say that it represents "the evolution of the US heathcare system from the late 1800s through today" I think pretty much shows us just how relevant a perspective you have on the actual challenges we are facing today.
Good day.
.
Now now genius please tell us exactly how this Obama plan or Hillary care will save us? By switching the burden from insurance policy holders to taxpayers? Sounds like a big shell game to me. And in the end it will be even more expensive than it is today and eventually a visit to your doctor will resemble a visit to the DMV (and you'll be taxed into your next life, so if and when you reincarnate even if its in another dimension you'll owe the IRS) Yes the system is broke and no doing nothing won't fix it either.
But quite frankly I don't see Obama's plan fixing things either. Other than Rick reading the date on it has anyone read the article? It does shed some light, trust me.
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