President Obama Pushes for Health Care Reform, Pushes Back Against Opponents

Fact; 85% of Americans health care is provided by their employers.
Fact I watched R- Sen. J.Boehner slamming his fist on a podium claiming, no government entity will dictate to HIM WHO or WHAT doctor he can see.He's right. Regardless of what healtcare looks like in the future, his coverage is not changing.Good stage.

IE; Bill's employer has had the same insurance carrier for years.Times are hard and he looks at what other opportunities are out there. His employer finds a better plan? Cheaper, Higher deductables? Who knows. But he decides to switch plans to United Health Care.
Nancy, one of Bill's employees has been seeing the same doctor for years. After the switch she calls her doctor to schedule a routine appointment. She gets there,is examined by her usual doctor. On the way out, Nancy hands over her new health care card and her co payment.
Dr. James does not accept United Health Care members. he's not in their system.
Nancy is responsible for the full cost of the visit. She must also find a new gyn. doctor, one who is on her NEW plan.
Who is telling Nancy what doctor she can or can not see? It's the Health Insurance Company.
Mr. Boehner's theatrics had little to do with you, me, or his constiuents. It's all about theatre with politicians on both sides of the isle.
So stop the name calling. No one politician is better than the other. They ALL take orders from CORPORATE AMERICA'S CEO's.

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Example

It's amusing that most SHEEPLE vote against their own best interests.
It's more important for you all to diss Obamma or praise him. Claim any new health care bill will be socialistic.
Folks, stop baaaing, turn off the talking heads, don't listen to the politicians, read. Open your eyes to what is really going on ion the world around you. Stop playing the blame game. Stop calling each other names. We are all we got. If Americans continue to dumb themselves down any further, your CORPORATE obermeisters will have everyone working for $8.00 an hour.
Where have all the manufacturing jobs gone? Over seas.
America does not build anything anymore.
We buy things. 70% of America's G.D.P. is consumer spending. Levi Jeans closed its last manufacturing plant in the United States three years ago.

When are you SHEEPLE going to understand the provisions of the health care bill have not yet been written nor voted upon?
The cost to do the bill is what is creating the stir, and no one knows how to get the uninsured insured.
So to those of you talking about the good and the bad provisions of a new health care policy, forget it. As of now there are NO provisions. Just a bunch of ideas that will need to be forged into a plan suitable to our elected officials bosses, the CEO's OF THE CORPORATE WORLD.

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H. Edward Hannaway earns 1,170,087 in salary. As CEO of CIGNA H. Edward Hannaway earns an additional $1.5 Million in stock options priced below the fair market value of the current shareprice. Throw in the private Jet, o% loans for his home and $4,000,000 home. You do the math. No, I'll do the math.
Eds,tri daily compensation is $3,130,000, divided by 12 and then divided by by 30, times 3.
Ed earns $37,000 every THREE DAYS. Not a bad living. This number makes up part of the 40 cents of every dollar that is wasted in our Healthcare system.

Ed, is not the highest paid CEO in the health care industry.

Suffice to say ED does not earn in three days what most Americans earn in a lifetime. But there are tons of CEO's who do. So Ed earns more in three days then most under executive employees earn in a year.

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Many an administration has fallen into the deep abyss of health care reform, but none have had the political capital and forces that support the Obama administration. The recent 2009 proposal has probably the best chance to get approved that any in the recent past. The question is will health care reform in America work?

I do not want nationalized healthcare, why can't we make some changes in a slow thoughtful manner and review the unintentional consequences rather than ramming this through like we did the stimulis package and now find it was a waste of money and the unintended consequences was overspending on special interest because no one read or thought through what they were doing.

Why would the US want to invite bankruptcy and corruption with the "free healthcare" that works so poorly in Russia and is a waiting-line DMV system in much of the rest of the world? Bribes help the wealthy push to the front of the line in government care where free healthcare is worth even less than free advice. Remember when the borders open the lines will get longer and rationing tighter.

We are 37th in healthcare, but pay more than any country in the world for it. We have the richhest doctors, and billions are made in CEO pay and corporate profits, on the backs of the sick. ALL, repeat ALL, of the top ten counties have some sort of nationalized healthcare. Of course, with so many making such a ('scuse the pun) killing off of healthcare here, there is a roar of protest, but the truth is that our privatized, for profit non-system is a disaster. We need to stop with the knee-jerk reactions and learn what is working in those top countries, those with the most accessible, effective systems. We should be one.

Yes, the average European country maxes out at about 50%. However, their VAT rates average about 22% - that's a healthy chunk of change.

The post-Obama rates for 2010 will be 39.5% plus about 10% state tax - or about 50%. If more tax brackets are added on - as he seems to be itching to do, we will go much higher than the 50%. We also have FICA or self-employment tax, and the runaway Alternative Minimum tax which hits 20 million middle class Americans.

Lets just say, that even without heath care - we are paying quite a bit. Our current rate of indebtedness is not sustainable, and will call for higher taxes beyond what I've just described at some point.

Mr. Oliphant, you will notice that our own Ryan_C, Mr. Take on All Comers, won't touch your comment. He has no real answer for the tort reform argument, so he will go after what he considers lower-hanging fruit to get his quota of responses for the day. It's hard to work in "all right wingers lie" in response to your sensible call for tort reform.

"I do believe they still average more than 10%."

Nope, the OECD countries in Europe have an avg unemployment of 9.2%.

"During the Bush years libs complained when unemployment ranged from 4.5-5.5%. And yes I know it climbed a bit higher at the very end."

That was because the U6 figure for that time was still quite high.

"all due to the massive social spending that discourages work and output with the massive 60-70% plus tax structure."

This lie again?

Even with VAT, taxation tops out at 50% for most countries...much like our country.

"Which is of course why last sunday, across the board in the euro elections they threw out the tax and spenders and moved right."

Record low turnout and outwardly racist right wing parties gaining seats.

Woo-hooo.

hey don't extend life of a senior with multiple failures like intubation as example. Anyone in the business of paying claims knows that single most expensive bill in NICU for newborns and seniors in acute intensive care / hospital.
These decisions were made based upon cost vs. quality outcome. Are we as a nation prepared to make that type of decision or definition of when to incubate a newborn or a senior? To define the conditions? With a litigious society I think not. This is why we need tort reform. Without tort reform medical provider costs will never drop. Liability costs with medical providers are nearly half of operating expenses. With health insurance carriers it translates to about 10% of every premium dollar collected.
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Lawyers groups contribute more to democrats than the unions do. There is no tort reform in the health care bill, and there won't be.
Just as Obama moves to limit the pay of business leaders he has not moved to limit the salaries of Union bosses, he has only given the billions of tax dollars in rewards as with the auto company takeover, while small investors, such as the Indiana teachers retirement plan lost everything.
Obama is nothing if not self serving.
There will be no tort reform and in fact I think we can be certain Obama will find a way to increase medical costs by force unionizing healthcare, as they are trying to do with card check now and with Fed Ex (another attempt to ruin a company that is not unionized, in case you haven't heard)

"So if you claim that some countries are less than our 9.4% and climbing that ain't saying much!"

So even though they have better health care and less unemployment, we're still #1 right?

Posted by: Ryan C | Jun 12, 2009 2:02:40 PM
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I do believe they still average more than 10%. Any of the unemployment rates you quote are very high. During the Bush years libs complained when unemployment ranged from 4.5-5.5%. And yes I know it climbed a bit higher at the very end.

So now, because we have under the Obama spending and massive debt plan, excluding health care and the bankrupt social security and medicaid, we have a huge 9.4% unemployment rate you suddenly think rates with a low of 7.1 percent are good???
You must be kidding.
7.1% the lowest listed, most are higher, is still an extremely high unemployment rate, and theirs is chronic, not a recent occurence, all due to the massive social spending that discourages work and output with the massive 60-70% plus tax structure.
Which is of course why last sunday, across the board in the euro elections they threw out the tax and spenders and moved right. They know their social experiment has failed, but Obama is too stupid to change course. He is a looney megalomaniac.

Massive social spending for rationed health care, that is wholly unnecessary as opposed to plugging the holes will be just another massive spending disaster of the Obama administration.
There is no plurality of the public that wants this. The public is evenly split on this topic.

They are evenly divided because the details of the horrific survival rates and long waits for treatment, if approved at all, have trickled down the general public.
And while Obama's personal approval remains high, the approval of his actions and spending are not.

The public is on to this moron's inexperience and socialist agenda and the spending is frightening the public.
Every step of the way Obama has lied, I mean miscalculated the cost and results of his massive, quadruple the deficit spending. While he boasts that he will cut the deficit in half he neglects to tell us it will still be double what he inherited.

NONE of which includes a fix for social security and medicaid, which means there is still tax and spending to come.

None of what he tells the public about savings with a government run health care plan is true. He is lying like he did with the auto disaster.

Time to see the details and assumptions for this rationed health care plan, have an independent analysis and not rush headlong into this disaster because Obama is afraid if the details leak no one will want this.

In fact a plurality of the public would like to rescind the rest of the stimulus spending too, because it did not save or create jobs and keep unemployment at or below 8% as Obama claimed.

Teddy Kennedy would not have received any treatment for his cancer had it occured in any of the national health care countries you mention.

We won't get a say in our own health care, the government will decide for us. Anyone who wants a hint of what is to come should read dem. Tom Daschles book. He is the tax cheat that Obama had wanted to run Nat'l health care.
READ Daschle's book. It will scare the daylights out of you when he tells us it is patriotic to die for your country and he doesn't mean fighting in the military.

I sit on the board with Utah association of Health underwriters and for health insurance reform. Several interesting changes took place with H.B. 188 passage earlier this year that seems all too familiar on the federal level. The spirit of the bill allows private market place remedies. It essentially guarantees insurance providers a "no loss" or "no gain" over competing carriers in the insurance exchange portal which is On the surface it seems not to be attractive to participating carriers (voluntary at this point). But you have to understand the carriers’ goal is to cover their administration fees. That can be accomplished now. The other half of the equation is providers and their billing practices that need to be reformed. That is on the agenda. Keep an eye on Utah because the national health care debate seems much the same ground we have already covered.
In the beginning of a state sponsored program addresses issues on a local state level that the federal level might look at. Coming from an underwriting background I know where the dime falls. I am of the opinion that large waste occurs from providers billing for procedures that developed "no outcome". Insurance carriers are not the only bad guys on the block. In most of our purchasing decisions....don't we pay ONLY when we know that we will get a desired outcome? Why is it if you ask the doctor how much this test or procedure is he doesn't know? Shouldn't providers be held to a transparent cost standard?
You must be in the health care business from some touch point to make statements of fact in face of historical proposed changes. When you are in the system from any touch point (insurance, provider, hospital, Medicare or patient) you get it because of real time experience.
I often quote the Switzerland health care system as an example of tough questions that we will have to face at some point down the time line. Did you know that premature babies there are not resuscitate upon birth if they cannot draw breath? Did you also know that is the same with senior care with system failure? They don't extend life of a senior with multiple failures like intubation as example. Anyone in the business of paying claims knows that single most expensive bill in NICU for newborns and seniors in acute intensive care / hospital.
These decisions were made based upon cost vs. quality outcome. Are we as a nation prepared to make that type of decision or definition of when to incubate a newborn or a senior? To define the conditions? With a litigious society I think not. This is why we need tort reform. Without tort reform medical provider costs will never drop. Liability costs with medical providers are nearly half of operating expenses. With health insurance carriers it translates to about 10% of every premium dollar collected.
I don't think we are hearing about tort reform because most of the house and senate are lawyers. In the healthcare system there is no total innocence. Insurance executives with bonuses, doctors overbilling, hospitals overbilling because the street gang thug got dropped at their door with no insurance.

"So if you claim that some countries are less than our 9.4% and climbing that ain't saying much!"

So even though they have better health care and less unemployment, we're still #1 right?

"Germany, Spain, Great Britain, France all have very high unemployment rates."

"Unemployment in the 16-member euro region increased to 9.2 percent from 8.9 percent in March, the European Union statistics office in Luxembourg said today. That was the highest since September 1999 and exceeded the 9.1 percent rate expected by economists, according to the median of 29 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey."

Germany's unemployment in May was 8.2%

France's unemployment in April was 8.8%

Great Britain's unemployment in May was 7.1%

Spain is very high at over 17%.

"If you consider high cancer death rates, high heart disease death rates (compared to ours)"

2008 - "Where you live plays a role in cancer survival, according to a new study that shows the U.S., Japan, and France recorded the highest survival rates among 31 nations for four types of cancer. Algeria had the lowest survival rates for all four cancers.

The highest survival rates were found in the U.S. for breast and prostate cancer, in Japan for colon and rectal cancers in men, and in France for colon and rectal cancers in women

In Canada and Australia, survival was also high for most cancers."

Looking at stats from 2005, US ranked 13th in death rate from heart disease with quite a few countries with nationalized healthcare ahead of them including France, Spain & Japan.

MNM- Of course you are referring o the current 9.4% and rising unemployment rate caused by Obama's massive spending.
Remember when this liar Obama told us to hurry, hurry, hurry and pass his stimulus so that we could keep unemployment below 8%-------i think you meant to say that this is still Bush fault, not Obama! i mean didn't you get the memo, our state run media and NYT is still putting the blame on Bush, come on- get on the "blame Bush/Republican" bandwagon! sadly, it will always be Bush/Converatives/republicans fault as long as the messiah is president.

"Of course you are referring o the current 9.4% and rising unemployment rate caused by Obama's massive spending."

Actually I could be referring to two months ago when you first started posting this right wing lie and I refuted it but today works as just as well.

You will not like nationalized health care! we are already experiencing it thru medicare/medicaid (gov't health care) and it is not effective! more and more doctors are opting out of medicare/medicaid because they are not getting reimbursed on time. the long wait for an open appointment just to see a dermaologist, if you are lucky the closest available appointment is Jan 2010.
the American physician association recently announced that they do not support socialized health care.