Sirpopopop
Member
I remember earlier in the year on the old forum we had some good links on his policy. As I recall, this is what caused Loki to change his vote. Does anyone still have them? I could use em just about now...
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Anyone got any links dealing with Bush's Health Care Policy.
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Cerebral Palsy
Banned
You mean like cutting funding to medicare/medicaid so tax breaks can be given to the wealthy? Or keeping the government out of the pharmaceutical industry, leaving it in the hands of greedy, corrupt corporations?
Sirpopopop
Member
No I mean something tangible. Let's cut the sarcasm, the plan speaks for itself. Particularly I'm looking for links on how his plan is going to be severely over budget. We're talking in the hundred billions here, or at least that is what I remember.
Edit: You see, I've been combing the web looking for tangible links about his health care plan and what his exact language is, yet I've found zilch. All I've found is opinion. I haven't found articles about him going over budget with the plan, I've scarce found a mention about that little tidbit. All I've found is opinion and contrasts with Kerry's plan. Even then the discussions of Bush's plan are vague at best.
Edit: You see, I've been combing the web looking for tangible links about his health care plan and what his exact language is, yet I've found zilch. All I've found is opinion. I haven't found articles about him going over budget with the plan, I've scarce found a mention about that little tidbit. All I've found is opinion and contrasts with Kerry's plan. Even then the discussions of Bush's plan are vague at best.
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
Edit: dp
Sirpopopop
Member
this post is no longer really necessary. Edited the content into the post above.
Sirpopopop
Member
Yeah... it sucks.
Now give me some good links about Bush's Health Care policy. The stuff from 6 months ago that was posted on the GAF would be best FYI.
Now give me some good links about Bush's Health Care policy. The stuff from 6 months ago that was posted on the GAF would be best FYI.
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
Sirpopopop said:
Any healthcare plan is going to be "severely over budget," considering how fucked the situation is right now in America. I'd say it's more important that it works. Oh, and I fail to see the sarcasm in my first post.
Edit: Bah, not really a good link. Should have read the whole thing. Still searching.
Haddonfield
Banned
thats funny that democrats complain about that healthcare plan... considering it was basically written by democrats a few years ago... and bush stole it.. except he cut a few things, so if its over budget, the democrat plan would have only been worse in that regard.
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
Haddonfield said:
Sigh, it's not the cost. At this point do you think there is any cheap solution to our healthcare problems? I think it's more that Bush has horrible policy.
Bush's healthcare policy kicks ass. You know those people who can't afford helath care or insurance? Well now they get a bank account for the money they don't have. It's quite brilliant. One wonders why if, you can put money away to pay for shit , why don't you have insurance?
FYI Bush has a spot on his site for his take on his policy. If you want more info, just type Bush Healthcare plan into a search engine. Plenty of good links popped up for me.
FYI Bush has a spot on his site for his take on his policy. If you want more info, just type Bush Healthcare plan into a search engine. Plenty of good links popped up for me.
Sirpopopop said:
I don't vote; I've never insinuated that I would, nor that-- if I did-- a single issue would be enough to sway my vote one way or the other (except in exceptional circumstances). Just so you know...
For what I feel would be a sensible health care plan for all involved persons, see this thread. It also involves some discussion as to the factors that currently drive up costs. Beyond all the other issues I have with socialized medicine (Kerry's ultimate goal, even if not explicitly stated), one should ask themselves whether our government has ever proven that it can effectively and efficiently (read: keeping costs down) run a national program (see: welfare, medicaid/care, the social security fiasco etc. for examples of government mismanagement); yet people think that somehow-- with healthcare, which would likely be their biggest undertaking yet-- they're gonna be sensible, equitable, and rein in their tendency towards bureaucratic excess. Color me skeptical.
Is there a crisis? Sure. Is it quite as large as some would have you believe? In some respects yes and in some no. Do people who legitimately cannot afford it deserve subsidized care of some sort? Certainly-- nobody of any humanity would argue that they don't. But it's the entire system that's broken, not just one's "insurance status". See the thread I linked to for what I feel would be fair and equitable solutions to the problem, and why I feel that way. I know you didn't ask, and that this thread had a specific purpose, but if you're interested (hey, you did mention my name-- it's the least you owe me
)...Sirpopopop
Member
Cerebral Palsy said:
Yeah... I should have edited the 'sarcasm' part. I guess what I meant is that I could do without the bitter rhetoric.
Well... in regards to plans being over budget. It's one thing to be over the budget, it's another when you are running over budget and we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. Someone's gotta be held accountable for witholding that piece of information.
Loki - As I recall, you said that you were so disgusted by the plan that someone needed to be held accountable for it
. Before that came out, I think we could have placed you in the Bush camp. Maybe you might not have voted for him, but you did defend him before the plan. Unfortunately I can't get the post, because it's deleted. So, it's your word against mine. I guess that means this is one argument that I'll drop, since there won't be any conclusion.Now onto that topic you linked to - Funny that... my dad paid over 100K in hospital expenses last year.
Fragamemnon
Member
Dubya's health care plan is very similar to the one that Denny the Hutt has been pitching around for some time, and that Newt "Bangin' the Gavel and the Aide" Gringrich had a hard-on for when he was ahead of the House.
The cornerstone is to provide tax breaks to people who pay for health insurance premiums through "Medical Savings Accounts". Basically, you can put a set amount of money aside tax-free to help pay for deductibles and premiums. Businesses would get rebates to help put money into their employee's HSAs.
The end goal of this is pretty clear. Currently, the US has an employer-based health care program, where the employer selects a program or set of programs and helps pay the premiums, with the rest being paid by the employee. The new system would allow, if the employee chooses, the employee to choose whatever health care program they want and pay for it out of the HSA. The whole trend here is to control costs for the employer and pass the grunt of rising health premiums onto the employee, using the smokescreen of "you can choose your coverage" and tax-free income. Big business wants out of the health care premium sharing business *very* badly and what big business wants, the GOP will attempt to provide. There is also a provision to
It's coupled with an initiative to move people off of high premium, moderate to low deductable programs to low premium, higher-deductible programs through prodiving tax deductions for individuals choosing to get those kind of programs. This is intended to help out insurers, who benefit more when catastrophic injuries and illness occur. It's those kind of catastrophic injuries and illnessses (along with pharmas) that cause health care premiums to go through the roof year after year. You save money as long as you don't get really sick, but if you do, you're fucked.
Another plan is to allow small businesses to federate themselves for the sake of getting buying power for affordable health care (which is then paid for through HSAs). The idea again is for small businesses to negotiate a better price (this is debatable if it would work, it's more of a happy-feely talking point thing) for their employees and then use the above ideas of HSAs and tax breaks to get the monkey of premium sharing off the back of small business.
Bush's plan is very reliant on the free market competing and driving health care costs down through competition. If people can choose whatever program they want, then they can choose a program that runs itself more efficiently than another program.
What happens here is a horrible crunch. Healthier people flock to the HSAs and tax breaks to save money. Traditional programs have less healthy people, and their premiums rise and rise because of that. It offers no real changes for the existing pharma extortion of the American people, and wouldn't help very many people who can't afford health care actually be able to, because if you're scraping to make ends meet tax breaks won't do jack for you because you're biggest taxes are at the sales/payroll/local/state level and not the federal level. You don't actually *get* any help if you're in the lowest bracket of people who can't afford insurance.
Bush's agenda is radical-and it sounds good until you start A) seeing where it is going (to free employers from the burden of helping their employees get insurance, and leaving big pharma to rape and pillage) and B) seeing that it's not going to pan out, and doesn't really do a dent to help the 45 million Americans without insurance.
It's a grand free-market experiment. I remember our last grand free market experiment under the Bush administration. In fact, it's still going on-it's Iraq. And what a success that's been.
The cornerstone is to provide tax breaks to people who pay for health insurance premiums through "Medical Savings Accounts". Basically, you can put a set amount of money aside tax-free to help pay for deductibles and premiums. Businesses would get rebates to help put money into their employee's HSAs.
The end goal of this is pretty clear. Currently, the US has an employer-based health care program, where the employer selects a program or set of programs and helps pay the premiums, with the rest being paid by the employee. The new system would allow, if the employee chooses, the employee to choose whatever health care program they want and pay for it out of the HSA. The whole trend here is to control costs for the employer and pass the grunt of rising health premiums onto the employee, using the smokescreen of "you can choose your coverage" and tax-free income. Big business wants out of the health care premium sharing business *very* badly and what big business wants, the GOP will attempt to provide. There is also a provision to
It's coupled with an initiative to move people off of high premium, moderate to low deductable programs to low premium, higher-deductible programs through prodiving tax deductions for individuals choosing to get those kind of programs. This is intended to help out insurers, who benefit more when catastrophic injuries and illness occur. It's those kind of catastrophic injuries and illnessses (along with pharmas) that cause health care premiums to go through the roof year after year. You save money as long as you don't get really sick, but if you do, you're fucked.
Another plan is to allow small businesses to federate themselves for the sake of getting buying power for affordable health care (which is then paid for through HSAs). The idea again is for small businesses to negotiate a better price (this is debatable if it would work, it's more of a happy-feely talking point thing) for their employees and then use the above ideas of HSAs and tax breaks to get the monkey of premium sharing off the back of small business.
Bush's plan is very reliant on the free market competing and driving health care costs down through competition. If people can choose whatever program they want, then they can choose a program that runs itself more efficiently than another program.
What happens here is a horrible crunch. Healthier people flock to the HSAs and tax breaks to save money. Traditional programs have less healthy people, and their premiums rise and rise because of that. It offers no real changes for the existing pharma extortion of the American people, and wouldn't help very many people who can't afford health care actually be able to, because if you're scraping to make ends meet tax breaks won't do jack for you because you're biggest taxes are at the sales/payroll/local/state level and not the federal level. You don't actually *get* any help if you're in the lowest bracket of people who can't afford insurance.
Bush's agenda is radical-and it sounds good until you start A) seeing where it is going (to free employers from the burden of helping their employees get insurance, and leaving big pharma to rape and pillage) and B) seeing that it's not going to pan out, and doesn't really do a dent to help the 45 million Americans without insurance.
It's a grand free-market experiment. I remember our last grand free market experiment under the Bush administration. In fact, it's still going on-it's Iraq. And what a success that's been.
Sirpopopop said:Loki - As I recall, you said that you were so disgusted by the plan that someone needed to be held accountable for it
Not to be argumentative, but I really have no idea where you got the impression that I was going to vote for Bush (or vote at all). Sure, I've been labeled a "conservative" around these parts before (I am "socially conservative" in many respects, particularly in terms of culture), but I've never-- not once-- stated that I was going to vote; in fact, I've repeatedly stated quite the opposite: that the system is broken, and I will not lend to it an air of credibility that it entirely doesn't deserve by my participation. I can get you at least 3-5 posters in here who have seen me state as much repeatedly, going back years. So, again, I'm not really sure where you got that from...
What's your point? (I'm not angry or being dismissive, just curious as to why you'd state that, beyond the fact that Lonestar mentioned that figure in that thread; the figure itself wasn't the bone of contention anyway, though).
Sirpopopop
Member
I gave you a real world example of a case which exceeded the 100k mark, that's all. So you can just drop the none part
.Edit: Thanks Frag... So basically if you get sick, it's a case of a high premium and a high deductible. Man... old folks must be loving this plan.
Sirpopopop said:I gave you a real world example of a case which exceeded the 100k mark, that's all. So you can just drop the none part
So you're saying that incurring $100K in medical costs in a single year isn't exceedingly rare? (and it would be even rarer if costs came down; many of the factors that cause cost inflation are examined in that thread) Who would exceed such a number? Perhaps severe dialysis patients, cancer victims needing frequent chemotherapy, and other chronic illnesses, or elderly people who are frequently hospitalized. I'd wager that it's < 1% of the population.
So yes, I would say that it is very rare; I stand by that, your anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. Even if it is the case that some people ring up that much in charges, that has little bearing on what I was speaking of in that thread. Unless your dad makes over $900K per year, I wasn't suggesting that he pay that bill in its entirety. So if your only point was to show me that it does happen, and to make the semantic case that I should drop the "never" ("slim to none" is just a phrase, btw-- I'm well aware that there are folks who procure $100K of services in a single year), then fine. If it was to attack my stance as expressed in that thread, well, that doesn't quite do it. I'm not sure which point you were tying to make, so I figured I'd speak to both of them.
Btw, whatever it is that your dad has, I hope he's well. Must be something serious.
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