So glad he decided to chime in:
Wading into the debate on a national health care plan, Senator John McCain said on Sunday that one way for Democrats and Republicans to reach a compromise would be for President Obama to abandon a government-run insurance program for the nation’s 49 million uninsured.
Interviewed on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican and 2008 presidential candidate, said that a public plan would cause many Americans to lose their private health insurance. Although he was not asked to explain, opponents of a government-run plan have previously warned that many employers would scuttle private insurance for their workers if such a program were enacted.
“Certainly if you have it, you shouldn’t have to lose it,” Mr. McCain said of private insurance. “But under the president’s plan, you would have to lose it in my view because of the government option. I believe that one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option.”
For those of you keeping track, John McCain had his health care taken care of by the government as a Navy brat. He then had his health care taken care of by the government when he was in Annapolis and his lengthy career in the Navy. He has had free health care his entire time in politics. But for a few years when he was a POW, and maybe some other years in between his Navy days and his first run for office, John McCain has had government funded health care as an option his entire life. His skin cancer was discovered at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Good enough for me, but not good enough for thee, I suppose.
Then again, there is nothing stopping you all from marrying a beer heiress, either.
Will
F#ck him.
licensed to kill time
I wish McCain would just disappear from the airwaves. He adds nothing to the discussion but reflexive resistance to anything Obama does or tries to do. Bitter much?
Robin G.
He is such a douchebag.
JackieBinAZ
His toughest health care choice is deciding which house to live in while he’s seeking treatment.
Radon Chong
My goodness, the harshness of these comments! I’m starting to think that maybe this isn’t going to be good news for John McCain.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I wish I understood why anyone gives a fuck what this foul tempered, pandering blob of dough has to say. Seriously, how can anyone look at this beady eyed larva and think anything other than Thank You Jesus for keeping this schmuck out of the White House!
Unless Navy does things differently, he could have gotten SOCI A L IST ARMY MEDICINE after he was discharged.
Spiffy McBang
“Then again, there is nothing stopping you all from marrying a beer heiress, either.”
You know, I keep telling people this, but they just look at me funny and lock the door again. I don’t understand why.
malraux
Can someone explain to me the basis behind McCain the Maverick or McCain the Moderate? I know it was big in the late 90s and early 00s, but beyond McCain-Feingold, what unique reaching across the isle did McCain do?
Wile E. Quixote
I wish that Obama would point this out. I’d like him to drop the hammer on McCain and point out that McCain has had government health care all his life, excellent government health care paid for by the US taxpayer.
jwb
Really, McCain’s just not worth getting upset about any more. You know he’s going to say something stupid. You know every serious (R) person is going to treat his utterances as deathly serious. And you know that those same serious (R) people will forget everything he said Sunday by Monday afternoon.
Derelict
McCain’s not alone in this sort of nonsense. Many of the right-wing friends get all or nearly all of their health coverage through the government–either Medicare or VA. And those are the ones screeching the loudest about the dangers of government-run healthcare.
Bizarre!
Persia
Although he was not asked to explain,
Of course he wasn’t. That might be journalism or something.
Jeezum Crow
I’m pretty sure McCain would have at least had VA healthcare benefits available to him after he retired from the Navy. But I’m guessing the Anheuser-Busch plan was probably a lot cushier.
Radon Chong
When do we get to the point of not only being thankful that Obama beat McCain, but also being glad that Bush did?
InflatableCommenter
You are being too kind to McCain, John. Really. The man doesn’t deserve the kind of praise you are heaping on him.
@Radon Chong:
In my case, right around summer 2000.
catclub
What Obama has mentioned once and few in the blogosphere
have followed up on is:
What would the GOP give IN RETURN for said compromise?
Hammer them on this.
Their votes? Taxes on the very rich? Lowered deductions for the very rich. Bueller? Anyone?
geg6
Seriously, folks. WTF is this guy doing on anyone’s show? I am flabbergasted every single fucking Sunday when that ugly old mug is pastered all across the airwaves. He got crushed in the election, he foisted that horror in high heels upon the nation, has repeatedly shown himself as a bitter and angry misogynist, and knows nothing whatsoever about policy, whether foreign or domestic. WHO THE FUCK CARES WHAT GRUMPY GRAMPY MCCAIN THINKS ABOUT ANYTHING? Arrrrrrgh! I hate that guy!
Just Some Fuckhead
Why would employers scuttle private insurance if there was a public option? Why would titans of capitalism willingly choose a socialist option? That doesn’t make any sense.
handy
McCain, John — news is great for!
PurpleGirl
After he left the Navy he had coverage from the VA. The only time he wasn’t covered by some government health care was when he was a prisoner. He’s a leech and a parasite.
Mike G
Let me get this straight. If there is a public option, it will be of course be helpmebabyJesus-awful and inefficient because it’s government-run and the private sector is so much better at everything. But employers will then abandon providing private insurance to employees. And this will be the government’s fault.
This must be the same thought process that went into choosing Sarah Palin as his VP candidate.
General Winfield Stuck
Once again I am glad I didn’t watch the Sunday Wankfest Pol shows. Along with the Silver Spoon Maverick, his mini-me Lieberman was wanking about how there was no reason to cover the uninsured during a recession. I’m sure he got that straight from on high.
Add in Death Panels and the Ringling Bros show at the Senate Finance Committee getting center stage along with the screaming nutters at town halls, and this has been an August for history’s ash heap;
Hurry up September.
arguingwithsignposts
Shorter John McCain: I Got Mine, F**k You.
Jinchi
John McCain had his health care taken care of by the government as a Navy brat. He then had his health care taken care of by the government when he was in Annapolis and his lengthy career in the Navy.
And, he’s wealthy enough to afford exorbitantly priced health insurance on the individual market if he should choose to do so.
But then, he probably doesn’t like the idea of throwing his money away.
arguingwithsignposts
@General Winfield Stuck:
FSM, Lieberman makes me sick. He must laugh and laugh when he thinks how much he’s pulled over on the democrats. He should have been kicked to the curb a long time ago and demoted to sole membership on the sub-sub-sub-subcommittee for cleaning the Senate bathrooms. I’d be more than happy if I never heard him or John IGMFU McCain speak again.
Sadly, as someone above noted, the Serious People in Washington will always give him a microphone. Assholes, all of them.
licensed to kill time
Those 49 million uninsured can just eat cake!
Nellcote
Looks like McCain got the Frank Luntz memo. Note the use of the term “government option” rather than public option.
Steve Benen says McCain’s been on the Sunday shows 11 times in the last 8 months. I sure seems like it’s been at least twice that much.
jwb
@geg6: No, you don’t understand how compromise works. Compromise is defined as Dems giving into Repubs demands—completely and without conditions. That’s why Republican actions are always the very definition of bipartisan.
Maus
“I wish McCain would just disappear from the airwaves. He adds nothing to the discussion but reflexive resistance to anything Obama does or tries to do. Bitter much?”
And really, though his daugher is progressive AS COMPARED TO FOX NEWS, she’s dumb and makes a zillion excuses for how horrible her father and his ideas are. It’s also sad how she plays at feminism while excusing his behavior.
de stijl
Those 49 million uninsured can just eat cake!
Cindy McCain sez:
If you take enough Percocet, you’ll forget you’re unisured!
The Grand Panjandrum
C’mon John, lighten up. He’s tough on all that pork!
And he was covered by the VA after he left the military. The VA is OK. Not great, but better than the coverage a lot of the uninsured have, if you want to call going to the emergency room coverage.
John McCain has been on the public plan for his entire life. Period.
licensed to kill time
@Maus:
Missy McCain would have no one listening to her if not for her last name. Another example of dynastic politicos/journalists with not much going for them but a recognizable name. Plus, she’s really irritating.
WereBear
Just got back from the grocery store, and two not-even-full bags of groceries cost about thirty bucks a bag.
It’s stuff like broccoli and bananas, major brand cat food and bread, and store brand paper towels and milk. Granted, it’s not generic rice and beans, cans, dented — but neither is it caviar and lark’s tongues in aspic.
That beer heiress option is looking pretty good to me right now. Present partner will just have to star in a modern remake of Back Street as Susan Hayward.
JGabriel
@Will:
Fixed to prevent misinterpretation from ambiguity.
.
dermotjm
“Although he was not asked to explain…”
That says all that needs to be said about ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
DougJ
He’s a serious person, though. You have to give him that much.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
There’s never any reason to spend anything on domestic issues. Good times, bad times, the one constant is we’re never allowed to spend anything towards solving actual domestic problems. The neoconservative budget hawks object, now, incredibly.
Because “throwing money at the problem” is only very, very bad when we’re talking about taxpayers funding some practical and achievable domestic objective. Throwing money at Iraq for what is going to be better than a decade, best case, is completely responsible and prudent.
Uninsured in the US rank well below Iraqis, in terms of priorities. They’re dead last.
licensed to kill time
Obama should fundamentally agree to disagree with McBitter’s profound idea for a “compromise”.
JenJen
All kidding aside, “This Week with John McCain”, outside of watching George Stephanopolous’ hair blow in the dusty Grand Canyon breeze as he interviewed the host of his show, John McCain, could have been worse.
The dual team of Krugman & Reich, for example. Beats the hell out of Sam Donaldson being the token liberal, for my nickel.
Maus
“Another example of dynastic politicos/journalists with not much going for them but a recognizable name.”
I don’t really see how she’s any less knowledgeable than any other pundit, though.
b-psycho
Actually even some people who support the plan have said in polls they think that’ll happen. The thing about it is that the “private” plans tend to be such ripoffs that they could care less.
I personally would be shocked if a lot of “private” plans didn’t get dropped after passage. It’s not like the companies with those plans want to keep them.
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: To be fair, there is actually an argument to be made here, with two options. The first idea is that the public option is so awesome and cheap that private insurance won’t be able to compete: nobody in their right mind would want to pay more for worse care, so of course everyone will want the public option. (Here there is also some side arguments about the public option being artificially lower in price due to some magical “subsidies”; and ponies.) So because the public option is so awesome, by the logic of greater winguttia it is the worst thing evah. The second idea is that the corporations are actually scumbags which are looking for any excuse to cut health insurance and so will use the existence of any public option to dump their plans, forcing all their employees to the public option.
Triumph
@Persia: of course he wasn’t, Curious George was out on vacation with him, hiking around with Jr. McCain. I wonder if George had time to try out the tire swing on his western jaunt?
Another thing (one of many, obviously) that makes my head want to ‘asplode all over my living room when I’m watching Republicans these days is when they bring up the length of a bill as if that’s something terrible. Yes, because dealing with a terribly complex issue like global warming/cap and trade or healthcare can reasonably be accomplished in something less than 1,000 pages… oh wait, these are the same lackwits who gave us a “budget proposal” delightfully free of those pesky numbers earlier this year. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.
licensed to kill time
@Maus:
Sadly, quite true. It’s just irritating how she suddenly appeared on the public scene and is somehow taken quasi-seriously…..reminds me of another person, hmm….what was her name? I think John McCain had something to do with her elevation to the national stage as well….she hangs around with moose and stuff, wish I could remember her name…
b-psycho
@malraux: It was less him being a “moderate” than his rivals in his own party using that kind of description against him to stroke the base.
On that note: anyone else here think the concept of discernible “moderates” is bullshit anyway? People believe what they believe, no one with any sense arbitrarily splits stuff down the middle just for the sake of it being the middle. If someone is a “moderate”, you can find SOMETHING that they deviate on unless they’re just intellectually lazy.
PeakVT
@malraux: McCain won the Villager primary in 2000 by being chummy with reporters while saying a few non-Republican sounding things. Thus, mavericity was granted. His actual voting record, while certainly not the most conservative, is still solidly Republican. The only thing he has really bucked the party on is campaign finance.
Jay in Oregon
@Jinchi:
You’re assuming that he can get private coverage, even exorbitantly-priced, because of pre-existing conditions.
Ann B. Nonymous
Wait till he dies, and the necrophilia begins. “There stood John McCain, FIVE FEET TALL!”
shelley matheis
Leelee for Obama
I won’t waste my beautiful mind thinking about John McGrumpy. However, I must tell you that the only thing I still hold against Al Gore is that he made it necessary for me to vote for that pusbucket Lieberman.
Legalize
John McCain would be virtually uninsurable if he didn’t have his public option. Fuck off and Die, old man.
Linkmeister
@shelley matheis: “how come he can’t sell this plan?”
It would really really help if there was one specific plan on the table, rather than five separate committees’ efforts (I’m assuming Senate Finance never succeeds in coming up with one). It’s a lot easier to sell a product (duh) if you know what it will and won’t do.
FlipYrWhig
If everyone in the US had the level of care John McCain had while he was a POW in Communist Vietnam, it would be a substantial improvement.
malraux
But the only reason he seemed to care about campaign finance was the fact that he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That and campaign finance is a process story more than a policy story so its something the press corps cares about more.
Mark S.
Speaking of campaign finance, did McCain-Feingold do anything useful? From what I can tell, PAC’s are now called 527’s, there’s more verbiage at the end of political ads, and money still decides elections. Am I wrong?
Chris Johnson
Oh come on- don’t be so fussy about WHICH government ;)
arguingwithsignposts
@licensed to kill time:
If only she’d stuck to her original goal, but I guess the name McCain doesn’t grease the wheels as much in the music world.
I’m all for people getting engaged in politics, and trying to make better for themselves, but is the entire Village nothing more than a giant circle-jerk of nepotism and elite networking? No wonder they pat each other on the backs so much.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
Just another day at the office for wingnuts. Make some more millionaires and blow up some brown people, and you pretty much have made the right wings gods happy.
With the extra bonus of thwarting Nazi libtards from giving healthcare to average Murrikins/
kommrade reproductive vigor
Ya think? “Look out Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Obama wants to take away your bullshit HSA and replace it with full coverage!”
Ooo, scary.
JenJen
@Mark S.:
Sadly, no.
Mike in NC
There was an amusing bumper sticker way back in 2000: “McCain, Not Cocaine”. But had the old bastard prevailed against first Bush and then Gore, today we’d be fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and probably China.
Mark S.
@Mike in NC:
Don’t forget about Spain and Russia.
Jackie
Actually I believe that Mr. McCain was covered by the navy health plan during his POW stay. His problem was lack of access.
Leelee for Obama
@Jackie: OK, that made me laugh out loud! Well done!
Comrade Mary
Trying to be fair here …
From what I can see, an increasing number of businesses have been dropping insurance for their employees because it’s getting too damn expensive.
If the public option does go through, we may see even more businesses sigh with relief and dump their programs, telling themselves that there is an option for their employees now. (Of course, these businesses should also move some of their saved costs to employee compensation, but I’m not holding my breath.)
These employees will choose a plan from the public option that in most cases will be cheaper and better than what they had. Getting more people in the pool, healthy and ill, is also good for people in the public option as a larger number of currently healthy people help defray costs for the currently ill. However, some healthy people will think that their gold-plated employer plan would have stayed a gold-plated plan if they had actually gotten very ill. That’s debatable, but many people seem to think their current employer coverage is A-OK and there’s no way to go into an alternate universe and test this hypothesis. So if the public plan seems like 14k instead of 18k, these people will be unhappy.
So …
– Some unspecified number of businesses could drop their plans because of some combo of costs and the escape hatch of the public option. Opinions will vary a LOT about how much of this increase in deleting coverage is due to which factor.
– Many people will be pretty damn happy with their new public option plans.
– Some people will be unhappy with their new plans for a variety of reasons, including nostalgia for a plan that was never tested.
– Any bumps in the road with the public plan will be screamed about by the usual gang of idiots.
Did I miss anything?
kay
More and more I think the only way to get Congress focused on the reality of this is to just unilaterally cancel that part of their employment package that includes government-guaranteed health insurance.
I’d like to pull pundit’s too, but I know we can’t do that. I would start with Chris Matthews, if I could do that, because I’m fair and bipartisan, and he’d make a big fuss.
Lou Dobbs is ancient and probably riddled with various risk factors. Maybe him.
Roger Moore
@jwb:
Not quite. The argument is that corporations are looking to cut costs. If the public option is really cheaper, then companies will have a strong incentive to drop their current insurance and put their employees on the public plan. I think there’s some truth to that argument. Of course if the proponents of the public plan are correct, and it’s cheaper because it cuts overhead rather than because it cuts service, moving employees onto the public plan is a win, not a loss, but “all change is for the worse” conservatives aren’t going to buy that.
Leelee for Obama
@Roger Moore: I am not sure of this, but it’s my understanding that the public option is not necessarily automatically available to businesses, especially large ones. The small businesses have more opportunity. It’s not open season to begin with, and there was a post yesterday on GOS showing how a private plan might actually cost an employee less. I think I saved it-I’ll check.
mai naem
John Sydney McCain has literally had big bad gubmint care since his birth. He was born on base or ship in Panama. His daddyo was an Admiral so he really has had gubmint care all his life except as a POW and even then he had the North Vietnam big bad gubmint care. He is a nasty little man who is only interested in ruining Obama’s administration and getting himself reelected.
Mike P
@Will: Comments closed after this. Nothing more to be said.
Flagstaff
??? “But for a few years when he was a POW… John McCain has had government funded health care as an option his entire life.”
Actually, he had government health care during those years, too. Maybe that’s what his reference point is.
Nutella
arguingwithsignposts asks:
Yes.
Person oc Choler
I would whoop for Obamacare if the program would deliver to everyone the health care that members of the House, Senate, and Whitehouse dwellers get and will get for the rest of their lives.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Wait a second.
Wasn’t John McCain’s whole “healthcare reform” platform during the campaign based on taxing employer-provided health benefits?
And didn’t most policy analysts conclude that this would lead to the end of the employer-based insurance system?
I don’t know why anyone listens to this guy.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
And as far as the public option goes, isn’t it paired in HR 3200 with a penalty to businesses for not providing health insurance for their employees? As long as the penalty is more than the actual cost of healthcare, employers will provide it; otherwise everyone will end up on the public plan. And I don’t think anyone has proposed a penalty less than the cost of health insurance…
kay
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
It was, and conservatives want to end the employer-based system because it allows users to not consider real out of pocket costs. That’s the argument. It’s the tried and true “you use too much healthcare, you slob, because you’re not paying for it!” argument.
We’re basically listening to arguments from people who, if they had their druthers, would end Medicare and employer-based health insurance, scaring people who rely on Medicare and employer-provided health insurance.
Amazing, right?
T. O'Hara
Which category of dissent does this fall in? Is McCain fear mongering, unamerican, committing treason, or bearing false witness? Are you going to boycott him?
Why is it so hard to address the substance of an argument, and why is it essential to attack the messenger instead? Does it bother anyone here that about 80% of the us public agree with him?
Ash Can
I’d like to know why the hell George Stephanopoulos would see any value in having John Fucking McCain on his show in the first place. How many people who would otherwise tune in to his program would say, “John McCain? Who cares?” and either change the channel or turn the boob tube off entirely and go do something productive?
Seriously, I’d like to know what kind of ratings John McCain gets. I’ve got to think that Stephanopoulos wouldn’t be getting good numbers with McCain because the people most likely to watch would be busy hosting or guesting their own TV blabfests during that time slot and wouldn’t be able to tune in.
General Winfield Stuck
@T. O’Hara:
Wrong question as usual. The question is, will McCain boycott health care reform, thereby denying access to those who weren’t born into privilege and have not been covered by GOVERNMENT healthcare since they swam out of the womb/
Warren Terra
McCain’s idea would work, but the private sector can’t provide the 49,000,000 beer heiresses (and heirs) needed, especially in a downturn. I’m open to compromise: we need a Public Beer Heiress Option.
Rainboskies
1. There ARE NOT 47M Americans w/out health insurance-est. is around 9M.
2. NO ONE in America is without health CARE;its against the law for hospitals to refuse people
3. Obama’s budget was off a cool 2Trillion deficit (we’re broke…)
4. Kerry is married to a ketsup-heiress….so what?
5. If John Cole would get from behind his Dell, he perhaps could volunteer to serve this country and get his freakin health care for free, too.
Oh my gosh, look!! Sarah Palin just scatched her ass!!
vhh
Slight correction to the main post. John McCain has had US gov’t supplied health care ALL his life except for his time as POW (when his health “care”, such as it was, came from the N. Vietnames gov’t). His father was a renowned Navy Admiral, he went to Annapolis, then served as a naval aviator (where he crashed in five airplanes, including the time he was shot down over N. Vietnam, an interesting record ), then after his repatriation, he was detailed to the Pentagon. When he retired from the Navy (a week or so after hifather’s death, an interesting coincidence) he would have still been covered by the VA as a former POW. And then, he re-joined gov’t as a legislator. No one should listen to anything McCain says suggesting that gov’t health care is faulty in any way.
kay
@Ash Can:
Your employer was going to lose the tax deduction for health insurance and then you were going to get a tax credit to mandate a purchase of a single policy from the health insurance industry, which would be cheaper than the huge pool your employer currently buys into, by some magic voodoo process that McCain never explained.
It was really hard Right, and radical as hell, but insurers loved it, understandably so, right?
Huge pool ‘o cash dedicated to health insurance purchases, and just the whims of the industry to guide it.
El Cid
We boycotted John McCain last November.
Betseed
The public option is a compromise. We’re allowing insurance companies to keep existing and to justify their existence by actually offering the services they are paid to provide. If Obama had kept single payer on the table rather than trying to negotiate with insurance company terrorists, things would be really different today.
AhabTRuler
@T. O’Hara: Lies, damned lies, and statistics? Whoulda thunkit?
AhabTRuler
Errrrr…, ah, never mind.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Is he still worried about the Whole Foods CEO choosing to piss off his customers, and his customers then choosing to not shop at his store(s)?
Why is this my problem, again? Remind me why I have to shop at Whole Foods. It’s, like, First Amendmenty, right?
Next they’ll think the Second mandates a gun purchase.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
Dumbass troll, Cole spent ten years or so in the Army/How many did you spend.
And before you start barfing up right wing talking points, providing links to back up your nonsense is required.
such as — only 9 million uninsured.
And serving primary care health care thru emergency rooms is just one element of the insane system we call health care today in this country. A very very costly clusterfuck that needs changing.
Warren Terra
Also recall McCain’s other private-sector health care experience: POW-obsessed rich guy Ross Perot paid for the care of McCain’s crippled first wife, the one McCain abandoned. Some reform ideas there?
kay
@Betseed:
McCain’s radical on health care. Not personally, of course, but for other people, he’s a real risk-taker.
He wants you to reach your maverick potential.
Mike G
If the public option does go through, we may see even more businesses sigh with relief and dump their programs
What I don’t get is why the business wing of the Repigs (apart from the HMOs) isn’t behind the public option if it will save them some money. US health care costs are a major factor in our declining competitiveness vis a vis other nations.
Or are the Repigs in Congress down to just the Jeebus-nutzoids, war-fetishists, pathological government-haters and cash-and-carry whores owned by the insurance companies? They seem perfectly willing to loot their own pockets to uphold an anti-government ideology.
Rainboskies
To General: I spent 10 years in the Army with the Berlin Brigade, Ft. Eustis, VA and in Hawaii (brain freeze, I cant remember the post name); 25 years ago. Yes, emergency room care should be for bleeders, heart attackers and flat-out cold; not a flu/broken finger, etc–wait until you can get to a free clinic or a doct office (get a collection from family/friends/church) if you have no money. Im just sick and tired of paying for everybody else looking for a free ride.
In a new study by former Congressional Budget Office Director June O’Neill, commissioned by the Employment Policies Institute, it was determined that 43% of people counted in the overblown 47 million uninsured estimate actually have incomes of at least 250% of the poverty level (averaging about $65,000) and could afford to purchase private health coverage. They are not insured because they choose not to pay for insurance. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the people in this 43% pay for dinners out, cell phones, cable TV and many other “higher” priorities
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/07/15/2009-07-15_we_cant_cure_health_care_if_we_misdiagnose_the_disease.html#ixzz0P3OfJxPH
Beyond the fact that nearly half of the purported uninsured could actually purchase health care coverage if they so chose, there are other rarely mentioned groups being included in the bogus 47 million statistic. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber estimates that illegal immigrants constitute 13% of the uninsured population. Kennedy’s bill, or any likely health care bill for that matter, would not cover undocumented and illegal workers, so it makes no sense to include them in our uninsured head count.
Immigration, not health care, reform is required in order to address that 13%
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/07/15/2009-07-15_we_cant_cure_health_care_if_we_misdiagnose_the_disease.html?page=1#ixzz0P3OrsNWI
Mark S.
@Rainboskies:
By who, Rush Limbaugh? This is the best explanation I’ve found on the subject. 47 million might be right, if you subtract non-citizens and factor in that it’s a 2007 estimate, when the economy was doing better.
@Mike G:
I don’t get it either. Especially small businesses.
John S.
My, we sure do have a lot of shiny new trolls!
Litlebritdifrnt
I just love it when people who have been covered by government paid health insurance their entire life get all “keep government out of this” wonky. It truly is bizarre, I see it around here all the time, the retired marines, who have been sucking on the government teet since they were old enough to join up are now complaining about people being “supported by the government.” Now don’t get me wrong, they put in their time, they deserve it, but please don’t go to Tea Party meetings when your entire lifestyle is paid for by the government. I mean where do you think your retirement check and free medical care comes from?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Rainboskies:
Immigration reform, tort reform, tax cuts! Did I leave anything out? This message has been brought to you by Right Wing Talking Points, wholly paid and sponsored by the insurance industry, big business and very wealthy people.
Rainboskies
Ya know LittleBit, I dont mind wealth, but I DO mind GREED, there is a difference.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
Well, then, if your 9 million number were correct, and it’s not, then what is the problem with making it possible for the other 9 million to be insured with affordable Public Insurance. Such a low number wouldn’t likely cost that much, and wouldn’t be enough to seriously undermine private carriers.
If you say no way, I’m tired of paying for people who want stuff free, which you did say (which is largely untrue as most will pay something, per the working poor) then you are saying those people can just drop dead, or wait till they nearly drop dead and go the emergency room’
This is what your saying and what makes you and me different. It makes you a callous selfish asshole. And me a bleeding heart, I suppose. So be it.
IndieTarheel
@arguingwithsignposts:
Those aren’t their backs, and that ain’t patting, neither.
John Cole
@Rainboskies: I’ll show you my DD 214 if you show me yours.
So which Glenn Beck Meetup group do you belong to?
Warren Terra
Rainboskies, I’ve a deal for you: we cover the whole darn country for less than our gov’t already spends on care for some. That’s what the UK does (per GDP), with results at least as good as the USA.
John Cole
Also, Rainboskies has no clue what he/she is talking about.
SiubhanDuinne
@ Mike in NC / 5:54 pm
OTOH, in 2000 Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, AK, and a Buchanan supporter (and why does THAT little factoid not surprise me?). Unlikely Johnny Mac would have selected her as his running mate if he had prevailed over W, and we all would have been spared the starbursts and stupid of the past year. At least from that particular source.
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole:
I’ll bring my long form 214 along just in case.
arguingwithsignposts
@Rainboskies:
Oh, THAT Employment Policies Institute:
A study by June O’Neill, who happened to be in the CBO from 1995-1999. I wonder who was in control of congress during that time?
Shiny new trolls, indeed.
wasabi gasp
McCain’s proctologist drew a presidential seal on his colon.
General Winfield Stuck
@arguingwithsignposts:
Thanks< I figured it was just another phony wingnut research outfit.
Rainboskies
@General
Did you read the report? Also including in the 47M are 6M of children that qualify under CHIP, but are not enrolled; 4M who qualify under Medicare and/or Medicade, but are not enrolled.
Getting Federal and State government regulatory powers, which are driving-up insurance costs, to allow us to buy insurance across state lines, cafe-style plans, etc, would be a first step.
We dont have to spend Trillions. Remember, Medicare/caid is already broke……
The Saff
@Mike G: I wonder the same thing. I work for a multi-national corporation that paid $5.5 billion in 2007 for healthcare to its employees. And that’s a big part of what’s caused the domestic auto industry so much pain.
Mark S.
@Rainboskies:
I was wondering who Kristen Lopez Eastwick was, who wrote the article you cited. She works for Richard Berman, a sleazy lobbyist who has a lot of people who think he’s an asshole, including his own son.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
And did you read the following comments that show the NYDN’s and it’s story source as bullshit, and you as their bullshit carrier.
@John Cole:
@arguingwithsignposts:
Please leave the astroturfing at the door..
Rainboskies
@John Cole
Do you know what a 71D, is? That was my MOS.
I was pointing out, since YOU made the comment, about McCains free health care. Geez, he did serve our country! I have no idea if you serve/served in the military. But with your statements, I have to wonder….
Rainboskies
Okay, folks…..Google/Altavista, whatever, but there are numerous references to the figure of 47M being incorrect.
MarkS referenced an article, I read it, but that was a Census Question of either “yes” or “no” if you have health insurance. Not WHY don’t you have or do have health insurance. So, I couldn’t really put much weight in that figure. (Even they mentioned that illegals were probably included in that 47M.
Warren Terra
@ Rainboskies
Regulation of the insurance industry drives up its costs in exactly the same sense that the industry now refers to money spent providing care as “Medical Losses”.
Better Trolls, Please.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
Just as their are numerous references to Death Panels, Obama born in Africa, and ACORN Assassins.
Rainboskies
@ArugingWithSigns
I might be shiny but I’m not new; 48 years, young.
@General
You love to name call…
arguingwithsignposts
@Rainboskies:
There are numerous references on Google/Altavista (?!?!?) saying that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen, but that doesn’t mean they are correct.
John Cole
@Rainboskies: I was combat arms, not behind a desk. Keep wondering if I served, REMF.
And what Glenn Beck meet-up group are you in?
And is your honest-to-goodness solution to the health care crisis to tell everyone to join the military or Congress? You do know that would mean everyone is receiving single-payer health coverage. That sounds socialistic. Also, a 300 million man Army is probably pretty expensive.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
LOL, sometimes, a little. When it’s fitting.
JK
John McCain can suck my dick.
He’s a warped, frustrated, old man who should have been voted out of office years ago.
Fuck John McCain, his trophy wife, and his bigmouth asshole daughter.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Rainboskies:
This entire thing is brought about by greed. As if you didn’t know, it is brought about by the greed of the wealthy who do not want to pay another 1% in taxes so that the poorest of the poor can get some sort of access to a decent health plan, ya know if you are making 25 million a year is another 1 or 2% in taxes a year going to stop you from buying another yacht? Really? It is all about greed of the top earners in the US, and their influence in congresss and the senate. It is ALL about greed, once people get hooked on money it is worse than any recreational drug, they are addicts, they have to have MORE.
Rainboskies
@John Cole
I’ve cut/paste, from your cited report. As you see, numbers come from census; I dont put much weight in that. They also point out, that their numbers “overlap”; again, questionable.
Various analyses have tried to decipher just who the uninsured are. These are the main conclusions, with the caveat that there is overlap in these numbers:
So how many uninsured people are out there, facing those risks? The most frequently cited estimate, 45.7 million in 2007, comes from an annual census survey
kay
@Rainboskies:
The point of the public option was not to cover poor people. They’re already covered. It was to drive down costs by providing a non-profit alternative to for-profit health insurers who don’t have to compete on cost. Health care can’t continue to eat one out of every six dollars. That’s money that can’t be spent, or invested, but instead goes to health care costs. That’s just not a sustainable model for a country.
They could compete on efficiency of delivery, but they don’t have to, because they have virtual monopolies. Instead, they deny claims, or deny policy holders who make claims coverage, and make money that way.
Next year, health care costs for the insured will go up, and more employers will drop coverage, because that has happened every year since the last time we tried it, in 1993. It isn’t fixing itself.
That’s the cost of doing nothing. One of every six dollars. Should we wait until it’s one of every three dollars?
tc125231
@Rainboskies: I don’t know if you noticed, but McCain did not built up a sweat about Iraq vets being screwed on health care and benefits right and left.
McCain voted AGAINST WEBB’s Veteran’s Benefits bill.
os for Congress, they should have access tp the same “free market” health care they want to foist on everyone else.
Worthless assholes. You too.
Rainboskies
@LittleBit
Greed can be found in every sector of trade, churches, government, etc. But wealth, in itself, is not bad.
If you want to see Greed, look-up info. on how much each Congressperson,Prez/Vice gave to charity and you can see greed. You probably give more, as a percentage to your income, than some of these clowns.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
It’s the best way we have, even if not perfect. Surely better than partisan estimates you cited. And this census was done largely by a republican administration The weight I put on that is likely being higher than 47 million.
And if you were around illegal immigrants, one thing you would learn, they generally avoid census takers and few would talk to them about anything.
arguingwithsignposts
@kay:
Point well made. I was just about to add a similar thought to this. The 47 million (even if you take away a few million and call it 40 million – and let’s not forget that those numbers were bandied about BEFORE the current recession/job losses) are not the only people suffering under the current health insurance system.
The individual insurance system is rotten to the core, and even if you mandated that companies could not decline people with pre-existing conditions or rescind coverage for people who got sick, or lifted the cap on lifetime benefits, without some sort of competitive structure, that’s just a license for insurance companies to print money (especially if you include an individual mandate – a sure way for Democrats to lose elections).
I don’t know anybody who believes that health care should be *free.* even in countries where there is “soc ial ized” medicine, people pay for it through their taxes. I think what most progressives want is a system that is equitable and doesn’t excessively penalize people for getting sick.
Every other industrialized nation has some form of guaranteed health care for all its citizens. The fact that we don’t speaks volumes, but not in a good way.
Rainboskies
@tc…
Im too lazy to verify this, but I’m sure whatever bill he voted against, had other appropriations attached, that he didn’t want to vote for.
You know how it works, we need defense spending, so tack pork to it, and it’s sure to pass!!
JK
@Rainboskies:
Leave Sarah Palin’s ass alone. Speaking of asses, how the hell can you respect John McCain when he chose a running mate who was dumber than a horse’s ass?
El Cid
A lot of social scientists have done a lot of high level research, statistical evaluation, and publication about the Census. It’d probably be worthwhile to look into that before cavalierly dismissing Census statistics.
Are there other publicly available yet comprehensive sources of national information which can tell us about what amounts and types of health insurance people have? What are they?
You know who seems to find Census information important and reliable for their research?
AHIP, the lobbyist and research arm of the insurance industry. AHIP cites Census figures repeatedly in their own publications, such as this one (PDF here) on how many people have insurance in the U.S. Strangely enough, AHIP lists 16% of Americans as being uninsured, or roughly 47-48 million Americans.
Rainboskies
@Kay
Im not sure what the OBJECT of health care reform is…wasn’t it first to cover the uninsured? Or was it to rein in those selfish insurance providers? Or was it to stimulate the economy….I forgot. Which one was it??
We may be spending alot for health care, but damn, it DOESN”T take TRILLIIONS of dollars to do it.
kay
@Rainboskies:
Here’s a number you can use for your analysis on whether your hypothetical 65k earner can purchase an individual policy, and it comes from the Bush Administration.
5% of gross on health insurance cost is “reasonable”, for families. I know that because President Bush instituted a rule change in 2007 that mandated states to institute and collect something called a “medical order” in child support calculations. I have a nifty little computer program. They have to buy a policy if one is available for 5% or less of gross.
5% of gross is Bush’s “reasonable”. Now find me a family policy for 5% of 65k gross.
gwangung
Which covers more people than we do, does it at a lower cost and manages to keep costs down to a better degree than the US system does.
The fact that too many reform opponents don’t know this and refuse to believe it (and will go as far as calling the Israeli system “hitler-like”) is a national disgrace.
El Cid
A comprehensive approach, such as that being suggested by progressive Democrats, accomplishes all 3. This is not confusing, and it hasn’t been for the last 70 years in most nations.
kay
@Rainboski
Use 5% of gross. If you were an unmarried or recently divorced individual in my state with children that’s the measure of “reasonable” health insurance cost, and that’s where the mandate kicks in.
How much of your gross is reasonable for health insurance cost?
President Bush settled on 5%. I like his number.
gwangung
Is this the same kind of scam as the creationists pull? Trying to induce doubt and muddy the water about the methodolgies despite not having the foggiest idea of what these doubts mean?
Rainboskies
@Kay
eHeathinsurance.com
I entered a family of four and came up with Aetna BlueCross, $30 doctor visits, $2500 ded, for $3,384-thats your 5% of $65T
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
Here is a teachable moment. Remember when those small government goopers passed the Prescription Drug bill. None of it was paid for with cuts or generated revenue. It went straight to the national debt. Same with all of Bush’s tax cuts and the cool trillion for the Iraq debacle.
The health care reform bill is set to cost around a trillion for ten years. All of that, except for about 250 billion has been covered with cuts and savings, and a tax increase back to the Clinton years rates for wealthy people., Or about a 4 percent increase for them. And the rest will be paid for before it will be passed. The expiring tax cuts that would return the the Clinton year levels are not even being counted because Obama has said he wants to keep them.
Do you remember the Clinton years, when everyones boat got financially raised?
Rainboskies
@JK
I only voted for McCain because I didn’t like the alternative all that much.
Rainboskies
@Gwaang
Because the census question did not ask WHY you dont have insurance. We cant say that all 47M who responded, CANT get health insurance just that they dont HAVE IT……
Rainboskies
@John Cole
Yes, I had a desk, the grunt units processing Article 15s, flaggings and court-martials. I meant no disrespect, only responding to your posting.
There’s many tweaks that can be made to lower health care costs and get more people under some insurance. But, NOT from the federal government and not spending trillions doing it either.
Rainboskies
@General
Yep, Reps and Demo have screwed most everything they get their grimy hands on.
Corner Stone
@T. O’Hara:
So you’re saying that some 36 million uninsured Americans are worried that their healthcare will get worse by making a change to the system?
Rainboskies
@ElCid…..dream on
Mike in NC
Peace and prosperity are sooooo overrated.
Corner Stone
@Rainboskies:
I love the smell of free rides in the morning. Smells like…victory.
Corner Stone
@General Winfield Stuck:
Is this some damn dirty euphemism for the illicit sex type talk? How much for a little boat raising action?
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
No argument here from past behaviour. But my point is that dems are doing it different now, or trying to, and making an effort to pay for their spending on something that will change the dynamics of health care spending that the present status quo is leading us off the fiscal cliff. You just know you oppose it and want to keep things the same. This is blind fealty to an ideology that isn’t working. A service like health care will not fit in the free market mode for ever. Because people can’t choose not to get it, lest they die.
El Cid
@Rainboskies: Dream on, what? What the hell does that even mean? What, me pointing out that the insurance industry cites the same figure of uninsured in the U.S. that you regard as unreliable? Dream on, what? Is that some sort of a witty comment in your head?
El Cid
Oh, nit wit means ‘dream on’ that, say, industrial operations like automobile manufacturing wouldn’t benefit from not having the most expensive health care expenditures per employee in the world. Or that somehow it’s some modern miracle, rare in teh Urf, for a modern nation to provide all its citizens with health care that won’t bankrupt them. Or that somehow it is teh impossible to regulate the insurance industry so that, perhaps, the users are less screwed?
Enough. I’m buying tissue paper and diaper stock for when this health care reform passes and right wing pseudo-libertarians go off and cry and poop themselves again.
Rainboskies
@General
Yes, Im against adding everyperson 24 years and older(children and those in college up-to 24 are covered under either an existing govern plan, or under a family plan private insurance) under a government-paid plan. We cannot afford it, the Congressional Budget Office (bi-partisan) has proved that.
kay
@Rainboskies:
Well, no, that wouldn’t satisfy President Bush’s HHS. The deductible plus premium is 10% of gross.
One cannot run a family properly paying 10% of gross for health insurance costs. I don’t know where President Bush’s HHS came up with 5% of gross. I imagine they used census numbers plus any revelations gained in mandatory morning meeting Bible study, but that’s a reasonable number for a family to dedicate to health insurance, and they imposed it on all fifty states, with a rule change at the Agency level, and no debate. States had to write and initiate enabling legislation by July of 2008, and they did that.
President Obama has afforded you the opportunity to rant and rave at town hall meetings. President Bush just imposed “5% of gross” with a rule change, but as I said, I accept his number, and think we all should rely on it.
El Cid
CBO’s estimate of HR3200 had it net costing about $24 billion a year. And that’s without any sort of repair of the Medicare payment system. (Look on page 2 of the CBO’s evaluation of HR3200).
$24 billion / year. Yeah. We can afford that.
Rainboskies
@ElCid
I was referring to entry#135. How Congress will accomplsih three goals after reforming health-care. They couldn’t fight themselves out of a wet paper bag.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
I know when to stop banging my head against the wall. So you can hold on to your false narrative and we will pass reform anyways.
arguingwithsignposts
@kay:
Glad I wasn’t drinking when I read that.
@Rainboskies:
But if a person under 24 ever isn’t claimed on the parents’ insurance, they are no longer eligible for insurance coverage (I know, I were one), and not all are covered under existing gov’t plans, either. Witness the fight over the expansion of SCHIP to an additional few million children – that wouldn’t have been needed if they’d all been covered.
El Cid
Okay. Huge modern governments like Costa Rica’s can manage health care reforms but we can’t cause like government is bad and we’re all 19th century farmers and shit look at the US Postal Service it takes like 2 days for them to send a letter cross country for less than 50 cent when you could pay UPS to do it for $5.
arguingwithsignposts
BTW, Paul Krugman on This Week with George Snuffalufagus:
“the argument against the public option is sheer nonsense.”
Rainboskies
@Kay
You said Bush imposed “this” on all states, what do you mean?
kay
@Rainboskies:
I have a larger point. Why do you think President Bush imposed a federal rule change on all 50 states mandating that they verify health insurance coverage for those with children who are over 150% of the poverty level? Why do you think President Bush came up with a “medical support order” and snuck it in the last year of his Presidency?
He had to do it through child support, because he needed to give state courts jurisdiction to enforce a federal order, so it only applies to those who are unmarried with children, weirdly and unfairly, actually, because state courts have jurisdiction there.
Because he knew our system was broken, just like every Republican in Congress knows it’s broken, and he knew the status quo was unsustainable.
This is going to happen.
It’s unsustainable for the country at more than 5% of gross, because we need you to spend and invest on other things, or the wheels of commerce grind to a halt.
arguingwithsignposts
And David Frum even looks like the douchbag he sounds like on Marketplace.
General Winfield Stuck
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yep,, top shelf snark. Bravo Kay!!
gwangung
@Rainboskies:
This is not a remedial reading class.
Rainboskies
@General
Im not saying we dont need reforms. Why is that if I dont agree that nationalized health care is not a good idea, I’m not for health care reform, at all??
I’m self employed, and dropped my plan, to spread my money to things like food, gas, etc. I’m taking a chance, but thats MY chance, not yours or my neighbors. Guess I’ll have to pay out of pocket if something comes up. When the economy gets better, I’ll pick up my insurance, again. I don’t want government hand-outs. America is starting to be the biggest plantation EVAH!
Wile E. Quixote
@Rainboskies
Well according to this website 71D is the MOS code for a legal specialist. Are you bragging about that? Dude, you were a chairborne ranger, a lazy REMF bastard.
kay
@Rainboskies:
He did it through a rule change, at the Agency level. It’s not uncommon, although this one was fairly radical. My state’s enabling legislation (the legislation they write in your statehouse to “enable” a federal order) went into effect in July of last year.
We just made deadline. There are millions of child support “obligors” who are mandated to purchase health insurance, or pay 5% of gross to the child support “obligee”. It’s a court order. No debate in Congress. Just an unfunded mandate.
It was very sneaky of Our Former President, but probably necessary.
You are going to be mandated to purchase health insurance, and soon. The only question is how much is it going to cost, what is it going to cover, and who picks up the difference between purchase price and 5% of gross.
Corner Stone
@Rainboskies: Uhm…I’m not a veteran or anything but…does the VA go away after a while?
JK
@Rainboskies:
Voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin was absolutely, positively unforgivable. You should be ashamed of yourself. You voted for a lying sack of shit and a stupid sack of shit.
The Republican party wants to turn this country into a DUMBOCRACY.
Any sentient being, regardless of his/her misgivings about Obama, should be fighting the Republicans before they dumb this country down to the fucking STONE AGE.
kay
@Rainboskies:
But you won’t pay out of pocket if something comes up, and it’s even a little bit terrible.
You’ll get the health care, then discharge the unsecured debt in bankruptcy, like everyone else.
Not that I blame you. You can’t make payments on hundreds of thousands in debt and live like a human being.
Wile E. Quixote
@kay
I’d love to see Obama do just that. Issue an executive order revoking all health care for members of Congress, they get paid $174k a year, so buying their own health care out of pocket should be no problem for them. Then make a speech saying that he felt that members of Congress weren’t working hard enough to deserve taxpayer funded health care and that he revoked it to save money.
arguingwithsignposts
@Rainboskies:
Sadly, no. if you get a serious illness which costs, let’s say, $100,000, we’ll all be paying for it through higher insurance premiums while you file bankruptcy for medical reasons. And then – unless there is some kind of reform – you won’t be able to get ANY insurance for that pre-existing condition.
And it’s also not just YOUR chance if you have children.
I assume you’re fairly healthy. People who have serious health issues don’t usually make good glibertarians.
Rainboskies
@CornerStone
I didn’t retire from the military, I spent 10 years. I think I can go to the VA, but I’m not sure what my benefits would be. I’ve never looked into because quite frankly, I’ve had other options and VA care just doesn’t appeal to me (long lines, aging facilities, etc) That’s government run-care for you!?
arguingwithsignposts
@kay:
I’ll just shut up now. You’re making the same points quicker, and with more knowledge than I’m able to muster at this point in the evening.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts: What? This almost seems to suggest you are implying the glibertarians amongst us have never faced an actual real life situation that caused them to reconsider their dirty stupid and childlike worldview.
They’re the toughest MF’ers out there till the metaphorical rent comes due.
Corner Stone
@Rainboskies: They caught you at that bar on 3rd street huh? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
El Cid
Small business owners with sufficient willpower make sure and not get expensive illnesses or injuries until they can afford insurance again. It’s the American way.
kay
@arguingwithsignposts:
Do you think conservatives and pundits are over-playing their glee with the second engineered demise of health care reform?
I do. I think it probably has to get done in spite of conservatives ‘n pundit opposition, but still, it’s unseemly how thrilled conservatives and pundits are when the “FOR SALE” sign on Congress shows, publicly, don’t you think?
It’s almost my patriotic duty to oppose them :)
Ash Can
@Rainboskies:
The hell it is. If you have an accident or develop an acute illness, who do you suppose pays for your emergency care?
You’d better hope that when that time comes, your health profile hasn’t changed, or that you’ve grown much older. Remember, private insurers are all about maintaining the bottom line, and if they see any reason AT ALL to believe you might make a substantial claim against your policy, they’ll deny you coverage.
Then figure out a way to afford your private insurance coverage, like you say other people should, so that none of the tax dollars the rest of us are paying have to be used to get your sorry ass hammered back into shape if you fall off your roof and get taken to a publicly funded hospital.
Sasha
And thus, all supporters of the public option should refer to private insurance as “for-corporate-profit insurance”.
kay
@El Cid:
He better incorporate,fast, or his brand new hospital creditors will grab the small business.
Wouldn’t it just make more sense to reform health care? My goodness. We can’t do this the easy way? All this misery and angst, and for what? So Republicans can regain Congress and sit on their ass for another two years, while carefully avoiding health care?
Rainboskies
@Wiley…I pay my bills. My house is paid, I have savings and a business. I don’t think bankruptcy would do me much good.
@Kay
I understand your point that if I didn’t pay my bill, others will. Basically, a nationalized health care plan, does the same thing. Our premiums would pay for those that cant, those who are ill due to their own choices (i.e. obesity, liver malfunctions due to pills,liquor,etc you catch my drift) and those that simply wont.
Get rid of the first barrier, too many mandates in the insurance sector that are keeping costs high. And then put caps on malpractice (its working in Texas), let us buy presp. drugs out of country, if they are cheaper, etc. Many, many, things can be done before we think about adding more to the rolls.
Jackie
@Rainboskies: Oh for gods sake. If you have a heart attack, or a ,car accident , or discover cancer, you are not paying for that out of pocket. Hell ,if you decided you can’t afford insurance, you can’t afford to get your appendix out.
You aren’t going to refuse to go to the hospital and you aren’t going to pay your bill. You are going to lose most everything in a bankruptcy. The hospital and doctors who take care of your glib ass are going to pass the cost on to those of us who do pay for insurance.
The difference between me and you is I refuse to punish all the people who simply can’t pay what it costs because my knickers get in a knot that a few people are lazy ass slackers. Most people who don’t have insurance are exactly like you, they work and they can’t afford it. Get over yourself you are not mister he man independent. You depend on the social safety net too. Have to good grace to admit it.
Wile E. Quixote
@Rainboskies
Great, so not only were you a goddamned REMF but you’re also a stupid hypocrite. Here’s the thing Rainboskies, you can drop your health insurance coverage because of government interference. You see a law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act or EMTALA. See EMTALA requires any hospital emergency room to provide you with treatment if you show up at their door. So if you have a bad accident, or a stroke or heart attack or any number of other things you can go to your local hospital’s emergency room and they’re required by law to treat you, regardless of whether or not you can afford to pay.
Now, if it weren’t for that pesky federal law you could have a nasty accident or a heart attack or stroke and show up at your local hospital’s emergency room and the admissions staff could say “Well, we don’t think you have the ability to pay for the care you’re going to require, so you’ll just have to die in the gutter. Here’s a complimentary copy of Atlas Shrugged to read as you bleed out.” See, you’re not really taking your chances at all because of the safety net that EMTALA provides.
Oh, and if you think you’re going to pay out of pocket for catastrophic care think again, you can’t afford to. I spent eight weeks at a level one trauma center after a motorcycle accident. I had insurance because unlike you I’m not a stupid, hypocritical piece of shit. Total cost for my hospital stay? About $450,000. But you’re choosing to not carry insurance, which means that if you have an accident or something unforeseen comes up you’re going to end up free-loading on the medical system. You won’t be able to pay your bills, forcing the hospital to write down the cost of your care and take a loss and driving up the cost of everyone else’s care. You might think that you’re not taking anyone’s handouts but the fact is that you’re a worthless, contemptible free-loading sack of shit.
arguingwithsignposts
@kay:
Oh, definitely. I think they overestimate how much the “IGMFU” plays with the general populace, many of whom have family members who have had to face the weight of astronomical health care costs, massive amounts of health insurance paperwork, layoffs and job insecurity, etc.
An overwhelming majority of Americans in poll after poll have said they favor an overhaul of the health insurance system. They may not agree with the particulars, but they agree about reform.
And the GOP and their pundit enablers will be seen as the obstructionist asshats they are if HCR doesn’t get through. Quotes like those from Not-President McCain and Joe LIEberman will be played over and over and over in the upcoming campaign cycles. And I pray to the FSM that Baucus, Conrad and their ilk get caught up in that tsunami.
It would be like winning the lottery if Grassley got tossed out on his bitter old ass.
gwangung
Yes, I catch your drift that you really haven’t thought this through. And that you really don’t know what you’re talking about. (Caps on malpractice DON’T work. Anywhere. Even in Texas).
Rainboskies
@Ash Can
Good idea which definetly needs done. Mandate that insurance companies cannot deny you for preexisting. But as you know, you’re premimums will be higher, but you at least will have insurance.
gwangung
I mean, how COULD malpractice caps work, when they’re making up under 2% of health care costs….
arguingwithsignposts
@gwangung:
You and your damned reality-based facts.
El Cid
Taxes paid to fund the military are permitted in my aesthetic conception of democracy but since I have decided that this does not apply for stabilizing the delivery of health care at lower costs to the citizens and employers, then my repetition of the word ‘freedom’ overrides all your votes.
Corner Stone
@Rainboskies:
Please, please, please – I’m begging you. Please provide any link under the sun that backs this up.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ash Can:
Thank you Ash for answering Rainboskies nonsense about being his chance and decision. He sounds like he’s fairly healthy right now, but like everyone else that lives, it;s only a matter of times something goes wrong, sick or accident.
And Rainboskie. If you make low enough money to where you worry about buying food over insurance, you will be covered by the VA. And likely for 100 percent. with no copay
arguingwithsignposts
I think it was Rep. Weiner (unfortunate name if ever there was one) who made the point on Morning Joke that the health insurance industry adds absolutely NOTHING to the health care equation other than driving up costs, denying care, and making sure a sizable minority of Americans can go broke if they get ill. When you think about it, it’s entirely true, which is why the GOP shouts “lalalalalala I CAN’T HEAR YOU! CAPITALISM! AMERICA!” whenever someone brings it up.
Single payer is the simplest solution, but that would deny that magical free market we hear so much about but never see in practice.
kay
@Rainboskies:
The way to limit malpractice insurance costs is to limit malpractice.
It’s like saying we’ll lower building costs by barring recovery for negligent contractors. There is simply no reason that physicians should not be held liable for the mistakes they make. It’s not personal. If the guy who installed my windows puts them in backwards he makes me whole or I sue him. I have damages, he makes me whole. It’s a hard world, and doctors aren’t special.
Malpractice is a red herring. You like numbers. Go look at some numbers.
I have to go to bed, and go to work, because as sure as the sun rises tomorrow, without reform, my out of pocket costs for health insurance/care are going up next year.
Every year since 1993. Less covered, higher cost, and less money I can put into other things, and therefore keep the magical commerce wheel rolling.
Let’s wait until it’s 25% of gross. That’ll be GREAT.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: I’m sensing something here…something sarcastic…nope, wait. That was the fish I tonight from Luby’s. Carry on all.
Rainboskies
@Wiley
Wow!! Glad I dont offend easily. Yes, I dropped my plan. Sorry you were in a motorcycle wreck. Guess I could say what an idiot you are to even have a motorcyle, but I won’t.
See, we all have to pay when two-wheeled, crotch rockets are on the road and somebody gets hurt.
Corner Stone
@arguingwithsignposts:
Oh, I don’t know. It’s obvious there are a lot of dicks in Congress. Wouldn’t it be a relief to be able to stand up and cast a vote for a Weiner for once?
gwangung
Good, then a) you’d be blaming the victim. It’s a really stupid way to argue something and b) totally missing the point.
I leave it to you to figure out what the point is.
Demo Woman
@kay: I just started reading all your comments and they are precise and logical..
I too have to get some shut eye but I’m checking back in the morning to see if Rainboskies provided a link to Texas’ savings on malpractice caps.
Rainboskies
Lower caps on malpractice suits, lowers insurance rates, brings in more doctors to the region, and therefore, lowers patients costs.
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/772074.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-95477357.html
Physicians practicing in The Golden State will find a medical malpractice atmosphere that is much improved in recent years. A major tort reform measure has limited payouts to plaintiffs, and malpractice insurance premiums have declined significantly in California. (Covermd.com)
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
For those scoring at home, my card reads BJ Regulars over Rainboskies by verbal TKO in the 6th.
The ref should have thrown in the towel by the 3rd, but Rainboskies kept staggering around upright despite being on queer street.
Demo Woman
@Rainboskies: I misunderstood, I thought that you had a chart showing how it lowered premiums.
gwangung
@Rainboskies:
Uh, did you read what you’re citing? What you say the articles say and what the articles actually say are two different things.
Rainboskies
I have enjoyed talking with each of you. Im not against insurance reform, but a total take-over of government run health. If state/federal government had a total collapse, what would we do? We would have to help one another, be innovative, rely on God and carry on. I want to see the government less, not more. The government doesn’t create wealth, it spends it.
Good night.
(by the way…I’m a “birther” teehee)
gwangung
Well, that just proves my point. A lot of us are sadists who enjoy a battle of wits with an unarmed man and who like dynamiting fish in a barrel.
Though I do say that he’s putting up a VERY pathetic defense.
Jackie
@Rainboskies: Of course you are. None of us thought you had the brains that god gave a goose. Or for that matter the compassion.
gwangung
Translation: I am getting my ass kicked from here to the West Coast and I’m getting out when the getting is good.
(This is a shame, because I would have loved to see how this yo-yo would deal with the government-run health systems in other countries, which covers more people at lower costs and smaller rate increases in health care).
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@gwangung: Kind of like how my cats (4 of them) play with the big Texas bugs and the lizards before dispatching them.
gwangung
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: I think the regulars here are more merciless than cats with certain classes of prey….
Fulcanelli
@Rainboskies:
It appears we have something in common. My situation is similar to yours and I don’t want to have to rely on gov’t handouts either. But if we’re gonna bitch about gov’t handouts lets put ’em ALL on the table.
If a gov’t handout disguised as a taxpayer subsidized, lower cost, decently run health insurance option for the public helps keep people from dying for a lack of health care or families from going bankrupt after wiping out everything they own because of illness, I believe that’s a good, necessary handout and you should too. So stop feeling sorry for yourself.
However when a gov’t handout is disguised as dozens of different types of subsidies, tax breaks, and favorable corporate tax laws which facilitate foreign job exportation and off shore tax evasion resulting in billions in lost corporate federal and state tax revenue and that’s not even taking into consideration the personal income tax revenue lost from lost domestic jobs, then it’s wrong and why we’re in the mess we’re in. Corporate handouts like this go right to investors’ bottom line, and these investors could be anywhere in the world, not just the US. This is a bad handout, it fucks us both and should piss you off to no end.
They’re the same thing, a gov’t handout. It’s only a matter of who’s getting it. Case in point: Goldman Sachs paid 1% federal income tax in 2008 by restructuring off shore. One fucking percent.
Fix the corporate handouts and the funding for the personal will be more than taken care of by a long shot. And bring better sauce next time, tool.
El Cid
Umm…. FREEEEEEDOMMMMM !!!!
Karen B
Boy does it ever look good seeing President McCain in print.
He should be our President, instead of the “incompetent one”. Apparently, “that one” is running scared, as is the person who wrote this article, otherwise he wouldn’t have spent the time writing this seething article which frankly isn’t saying anything of importance. As a matter of fact, I already forgot what it was about! McCain in 2012!!!!
General Winfield Stuck
@Rainboskies:
This is the thing with Rainbow and his ilk. They think the government is run by Alpha Centaurans and not by other Americans, many of which .making the big decisions are voted on to do so by us. Just another example of wingers needing to have an enemy of some sort to get them up in the morn. And when more democrats get elected then the govment is eviiiil and not doing want they want so they take their ball and go home, screaming soshulist and traitor the whole way. Little WATB:S with guns.
Keeps us with something to blog about I suppose, but so many of them means some days the stupid wins.
arguingwithsignposts
@Rainboskies:
You laugh, I feel a certain pity, like the pity one feels for an uncaring asshat who was exposed to Ayn Rand at too young an age to realize it was self-serving bullshit.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@gwangung: I have co-workers who use the phrases “government-run health care” and “socialized medicine” all the time. The doctors aren’t going to become government employees. Use of these phrases betrays either abject ignorance or dishonesty. It’s pretty easy to figure out which. If people continue to use these constructions, they become dead to me conversationally on this issue.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@gwangung: I have co-workers who use the phrases “government-run health care” and “socialized medicine” all the time. The doctors aren’t going to become government employees. Use of these phrases betrays either abject ignorance or dishonesty. It’s pretty easy to figure out which. If people continue to use these constructions, they become dead to me conversationally on this issue.
El Cid
Again, with the 19th century yeoman farmer fantasy bullshit.
arguingwithsignposts
@El Cid:
Grade A snark, there. It is to laugh.
Wile E. Quixote
@Rainboskies
Corner Stone
@Wile E. Quixote: Not to get in the way of a righteous rant here or anything, but why should the rear echelon peeps be denigrated? Because he called out Cole without knowing his service record, or just because, that’s why!
You do understand the concept of the long tail right?
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and Rainboskies, I’m not easily offended either. See if I were all of the other people who have said stupid shit and told me that it’s my own fault for getting hit by a truck while riding my motorcycle would either be dead or learning how to walk with prosthetics after I had blown their legs off with a shotgun blast. Ditto for all of the lunkheads who have told me that what happened to me was part of some divine plan.
El Cid
Happy joy news for those sane, not fringe, centrist Dems, via the L. A. Times:
***************************************
Reporting from Washington – Lashed by liberals and threatened with more government regulation, the insurance industry nevertheless rallied its lobbying and grass-roots resources so successfully in the early stages of the healthcare overhaul deliberations that it is poised to reap a financial windfall.
The half-dozen leading overhaul proposals circulating in Congress would require all citizens to have health insurance, which would guarantee insurers tens of millions of new customers — many of whom would get government subsidies to help pay the companies’ premiums.
“It’s a bonanza,” said Robert Laszewski, a health insurance executive for 20 years who now tracks reform legislation as president of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates Inc.
arguingwithsignposts
@El Cid:
See, this is the ultimate irony of all the tea-bagger nonsense. They play right into industry hands, and by doing so give MORE of their taxes away to industry.
Man, these people sure know how to fuck things up for the rest of us, eh?
El Cid
@arguingwithsignposts: And then they can come back and argue how right they were, that the government can’t do anything, so now we need to remove all those oppressive regulations we just put on.
Corner Stone
@El Cid: Fuck yeah!…uh, what now?
Mark S.
I’m sure it will be, which is why I won’t support anything without a strong public option. I also liked this tidbit at the end of the article:
Fuck these guys.
Wile E. Quixote
Corner Stone. I don’t have a problem with REMFs. Some of my best friends were REMFs. No I just have a problem with the REMFs like Rainboskies who put on airs and then try to show what tough guys they are by saying “Oh yeah. I was a 71D. Do you know what that is?” I mean for fuck’s sake, trying to prove how tough and manly you are by citing your military career as a low-level clerk in the JAG has got to be one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever seen.
I met some really, really tough guys while I was in the Army. Special Forces types, Rangers, guys who had served multiple tours in Vietnam in the infantry and the thing I learned from this is that the guys who are tough don’t need to tell you how tough they are, in fact they’re pretty quiet about it. I also met guys like Rainboskies who thought that because they were in the same organization with all of these incredibly tough guys that they were incredibly tough as well, and unlike the real tough guys they’d tell you how tough they were, which was laughable until it became annoying.
Corner Stone
@Wile E. Quixote: And a lot of my best friends are black.
Just kidding you. I see some REMF bashing and I wonder why peeps got a prob with the guys who keep their guns/tanks/tummies full while they kill the momsers.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.:
As opposed to a public option that can’t bench its own bodyweight? What the hell is a strong PO? Is that anything like “robust”?
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
Geez, you hang out at this blog and you’ve never heard anyone refer to strong and weak public options? A strong public option would let most people join, and it would be huge which would theoretically drive down costs. The weaker public options wouldn’t allow many people to join and might take the form of co-ops. This article does a pretty good job of explaining it.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cornerstone:
Strong public option = keep the insurance cos. honest (at least in theory) by bargaining on a national scale to lower costs.
And fuck Tom Daschle, too.
how many of these formerly elected M-Fs ever just move back to their home state and, you know, do something other than suck off the taxpayers’ teets?
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: Ok. As long as it’s not a “robust” public option. Or a vigorous one. Or a stout, rough, rude, or boisterous public option.
Point being, these adjectives get a lot of play but they never seem to actually make a lot of sense. Public Option seems to equate to the hotness scale on an MTV reality show where your ex-lovers get to pick your next date.
arguingwithsignposts
@Corner Stone:
I prefer the kick-ass public option, myself.
Mark S.
Also, I think a strong public option would allow in almost anyone who wanted to join it. The weaker versions wouldn’t, so if you worked at Wal-Mart and had their crappy insurance you would be stuck with it. I can’t find it now, but I remember reading one of the proposals coming out of the Senate would make only like 2 million people eligible for it.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
Would you prefer a tumescent option?
b-psycho
Yeah, obviously McCain & the like using government-option was focus group, but IMO both it & the use of “for-profit/corporate insurance” in place of “private” are more honest. “Private” assumes no state involvement whatsoever (the for-profit insurance industry should really thank the state for even existing), & “public” interprets the government as equivalent to the entirety of the citizens subject to it, when in practice it represents jack squat beyond the interests of whoever holds its power & their friends.
If an institution is collectively controlled with neither government nor corporate involvement, then I’ll call it public w/o quotes.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: Well fuck yeah.
BDeevDad
My Congressman Duncan Hunter (the son, not the dad is the same way) and has the same tortured logic on his web page.
Anne Laurie
@arguingwithsignposts:
I am reminded of Dilbert telling his Pointy-Haired Boss, “You majored in Art History, so you could look at slides of naked women.”
And of Frank Zappa explaining “Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for the benefit of people who can’t read.”
bob h
I was waiting for George S. to ask McCain yesterday about whether he approved of the psychotic screaming, assault-weapon brandishing, and death threats at Democratic Town Halls. I’m sure this mavericky man of courage would have taken on the Viper Militias, right?
I look at this empty, cowardly old man, formerly an esteemed leader, and find it hard to believe in the American future. There are times when being a Baby Boomer has its consolations in that you probably will not be around for the worst of the horror.
Bobby Thomson
This particular lie seems to be flying under the White House radar. The lie is that if you change jobs or you add someone to your policy, you’re forced into the public options. The lie is based on (1) language in HR 3200 that grandfathers policies out of the exchange and (2) people who don’t know how to read bills. If the policy loses grandfather status, it just means the carrier has to sell it through the exchange and open themselves up to (weak) competition. It doesn’t mean the private carrier can’t sell the policy anymore.
This lie seems to be gaining traction and I’ve never seen anything on any of the FAQs about it.
T. O'Hara
No, the question is, will Democrats find any actual cost reductions, or will we be reading more stories like this one:
General Winfield Stuck
@T. O’Hara:
You and your pals have no room to critic Obama or anyone else about reckless spending and ballooning deficits. Your guy made it necessary to deficit spend just to dig out of the hole he dug via epic irresponsibility on many fronts.
10 year spending projections are notorious for being wrong. A lot can happen in that time that can change the equation considerably.
henqiguai
@Rainboskies (#196):
Idiot. Everyone who has responded to your arguments is right; you, on the hand, are simply spinning out drivel (‘cept me; I’m just being argumentative).
On that motorcycle thingie; yes, I too think ‘cycles are idiotic, but I’ve not yet been elevated to that God-King of the Universe© slot I’ve had my eye on. But if you think a ‘cycle accident is the only entry onto Wile’s path, I invite you to meet up with a big ole pickup, at speed, while in any “sensible” econo-car currently available.