healthcare reform passed

[10sun]

Yeah, so have fun with it.

[KaiineTN]

Oh look! A Youtube video from Kaiine!



Most of you probably wont bother, but I thought this video made some very valid points in regards to healthcare. Not just Republican ramblings. He points out some particularly interesting things about assumptions the government makes when it comes to paying for it.

[Tossica]

Didn't bother.

[Yamori]

Just throwing in my 2cents to Kaiine's thing.

Even me being a a free market guy and all (not for the bill as it is), Arlos is 100% correct about what the republicans are doing in the senate and why. They literally filibuster almost every single bill (something like 90-95%), regardless of what it is or how good it is for the country. Like Arlos said, look at all of the bills that the House has passed (with bipartisan support) - they've all been uniformly filibustered by the GOP in the senate.

The reason why they are doing it is because they have an EXPLICIT policy. And their reason to do so? It is in their best interests to make the government (read: the democrat majority and Obama) look like utter fuckups who cant accomplish anything. People will become frustrated with the "bureaucracy" of government and will be more likely to vote for the party of "limited government" next time around. YES, they are truly that piggishly selfish and short sighted and hyper-partisan. They are literally selling out the ability to solve much needed problems for the sake of winning.

[Harrison]

I really don't think it would be any different were the tables reversed.

[Arlos]

I dunno, Harrison. Look at last time the republicans had the majority in the senate. The rate of filibusters today is VASTLY higher than back then. So yeah, I think it would be different, because it WAS different.

-Arlos

[Reynaldo]

honest healthcare question, not swayed one way or the other and pleaes answer objectively....

With the new law, how will it affect wait times at the doctor? Are clinics going to be forced to to accept Obamacare? For someone who's traditionally healthy like myself but pays into a company provided plan, when I DO need care, will it take me weeks longer to get in to see my doc?

Thats one of my biggest fears is (sorry to be blunt) that lower income people are going to set up tents outside clinics since their visits will be free / subsidized and I'll never get to see my doc when I REALLY need it.

[Arlos]

The only way that it will take you longer to see the doctor is if a ton of people buy into insurance plans that use the exact same clinics and doctor groups that your plan does. Since, statistically at least, new subscribers should be spread out fairly evenly, the odds that your particular set of doctors gets inundated, forcing you to wait weeks is extremely small. If you ever need an Emergency Room visit, you might even see a decrease in wait times, as more people go to primary care doctors for issues, and less use emergency room visits for everything.

Your second question, about clinics, is somewhat nonsensical. Remember, what the bill does is make it so everyone can sign on to health care insurance, and subsidizes it for people at the lower end of the income spectrum. These are still the same insurers that everyone is familiar with, though: Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Aetna, Wellpoint, etc. etc. etc. Therefore, there is no "Obamacare" for them to accept as such; everyone will be presenting an insurance card from an actual health insurance company. Even the completely poor are simply going to be added to the Medicaid rolls that already exist, and as a result, will go to the chains of state-run clinics and hospitals already used for their Medicaid programs.

So, since the health care exchanges and subsidies don't come online until 2014, you should essentially see no change whatsoever for the next 4 years. Once they do come online, you may, possibly, see some additional wait time, depending on how many new people sign on to insurance carriers that use the clinics and medical groups that you currently go to. The chance that that would translate to weeks of extra wait time is effectively zero, especially as anyone truly poor will get added to Medicaid, and will go to whatever clinic/hospital chains the states already use for their Medicaid patients.

Also, remember that you may notice some improvements as well. First, should you actually become seriously ill, it will now be illegal for your insurance to cancel your coverage because of it. (Yes, this used to happen, and frequently enough for there to be a industry standard term to describe it). Also for if you get seriously ill, there will no longer be any yearly or lifetime limits to how much your coverage will pay for. (so no worry about getting cancer, say, and need 2 years of Chemo, only to have your insurance stop paying after 9 months, leaving you owing hundreds of thousands if you keep going, but dying if you don't.) Furthermore, if you leave your job, you will be able keep your same insurance indefinitely, as long as you make the payments; no need to worry about COBRA running out, etc. Also, your insurance company will no longer be able to unilaterally raise rates whenever it sees fit. Lastly, if your insurance company doesn't spend at least 85% of all the money they take in on actual medical care, they need to refund you the difference.

Hopefully that answers your questions?

-Arlos

[KaiineTN]

Good info:

[Drem]

yeah great info nice post glad you posted that thanks a lot flink glad you can think for yourself flink WHAT IS YOUR JOB YOU STUPID HUMP

[brinstar]

arguing via youtube links... check
dodging employment questions... check
rhetorical irrelevance... check

[Harrison]

It's just as valid as someone arguing via a retarded screenshot of 4chan's /b/.

If anything, moreso.

[Lyion]

I dunno, Harrison. Look at last time the republicans had the majority in the senate. The rate of filibusters today is VASTLY higher than back then. So yeah, I think it would be different, because it WAS different.

Bullshit. It was the same political lying Crap the GOP is doing now. The Dems overtly lied just like the GOP is doing, just nastier and with more coverage. I'm cool, because that's politics.

The rate of filibusters is higher now because the Dems aren't doing anything bipartisan whatsoever. They wouldn't bother to send bills to W that would be vetoed. However, there was bipartisan work done. Now bills are passed with zero GOP votes, such as the healthcare one which was snuck in via a Senate appointee in a very ambiguous manner, it screams volumes about where we are. Hopefully enough Dems will be booted out of congress this fall to allow for a measure of bipartisan support to be required before game changing bills are passed.

Way to level personal attacks on Flink for stating his opinion. I noticed most of you dorkfucks offered no real opinion, outside of being the fucking sheep you are.

[Arlos]

Um, how would the democrats send bills to W to get vetoed if they were the MINORITY party? Care to explain this? And yes, there WAS bipartisan work done. This was because the GOP was slightly less polarized then than it is now, and the Democrats were actually willing to occasionally put good policy ahead of naked political gamesmanship, nor did they have the ...balls/arrogance... to be willing to do what the GOP is now, which is simply say NO to everything.

I repeat what I said before: Look at the reality of what the GOP has been doing in the senate. They have literally filibustered THEIR OWN BILLS. Bills sponsored by Republicans have been filibustered by the GOP simply because Obama has said something to the effect of "Hey, that's not a bad idea, lets work on that".

Also, did you ACTUALLY follow the health care process? The Democrats bent over BACKWARDS trying to get bipartisan input from the GOP. The GOP simply refused to play ball. This thing got dragged out for months and months longer than it would have if it was simply a partisan exercise. People like me on the left were getting FURIOUS as to how far they kept bending the plan and how much they kept drawing out the process to try and get the GOP engaged, when it was obvious very early on that they had no intention whatsoever of ever doing so. Also, one thing you neglect to mention, is that THIS health care bill is VERY close to the REPUBLICAN health care plan presented by Bob Dole back in the 90s, in response to Clinton's health care proposal! This isn't Single Payer, like those of us really on the left would have liked, this is the direct descendant of a REPUBLICAN plan.

Lastly, what was shady about how this was passed? The original bill was passed by 60 people in the senate. The house passed it, and then budget-related changed were passed through the senate using the EXACT same mechanism that Bush passed his tax cuts. Where was the GOP's complaints about costs and the deficit then, when the first 2 tax cuts were predicted to increase the deficit by about 1.5 trillion? Meanwhile, this plan is predicted to CUT the deficit by 1.3 trillion and somehow it's too expensive? Excuse me?

In all seriousness, what is there to despise about this bill, unless maybe if you're a tanning booth addict or are making 250k a year in stock dividends?

For the vast majority of people who already have insurance, there are no negative changes whatsoever. Just positive ones, like being able to keep kids on your policy, no more cancellations just because you get sick, no more massive rate hikes without justification, no more lifetime or yearly coverage limits... For the uninsured this actually lets them GET insurance, especially if they were uninsurable before due to pre-existing conditions.

Yeah, I can see whining about the individual mandate. But that's pretty silly, honestly. You're already required to have car insurance, or face a fine. Massachusetts has a individual mandate and I haven't heard about stormtrooper squads obliterating all personal liberty in Boston recently, have you? How is this different? (and don't trot out any tired "states-rights" claptrap. The primacy of state's rights has been dead since the civil war, and we're not turning the clock back 150 years.)

Oh, and point to me where I engaged in ad hominem attacks on anyone, or failed to actually state and support my own position? Yes, I agree that trying to argue by simply posting youtube videos is intellectually lazy in the extreme, and he would be taken far more seriously if he could write a cogent supported argument on his own, without cut and pasting from another source. But have I insulted him? No. Oh, and I do chuckle a bit at the hypocrisy of slamming people for ad hominem attacks on Flink, only to follow that up with one of your own...

-Arlos

[brinstar]

glad i'm not the only one that noticed that

personal attacks

dorkfucks

fucking sheep

suck it, shitbreath. also, since when does PSOTING TEH UTUBES = stating opinion?

[Lyion]

I never ad hominem. Fuck you all.

If one agrees with an article or video, posting it is relevant. Just because some douchenozzle doesn't like a person doing it doesn't change that.

The healthcare bill was passed by an appointee from Mass while the elected Senator waited in the wings, with zero GOP support and the elected Senator disagreeing with it. That's about as backdooor as one can get. Reconcilation on a bill that was backdoored is also unethical by any standard. It's hardball, nasty politics by a nasty group.

The Dems have had control of the house and Senate for the last 4 years. Prior to that they had enough seats in the Senate to provide for stopping any real votes. That's not really comparable to having a huge filibuster proof majority.

I love how know we need politics to be nice, after the Dems were outright lying and spreading political bullshit propaganda from everything to the intel on the Iraq War to tax cuts to social security reform that clueless types jump on board of due to their partisan nature. Again that's fine, that's politics. It's comical that you try and portray the DNC as the good guys. Of course, since you hate anything moderate or conservative, Arlos. The DNC are evil lying election stealing fucksticks. Then again, so are the GOP.

Since you are just quoting the DNC talking points like a good sheep, I won't bother to debate you on the bill. Feel free to watch Flinks videos that answer everything you've said. That'd require actual discourse and not just regurgitating the left wing tripe. Heaven forbid.

Better, watch as large companies start taking huge charges and laying off even more people in the middle of a recession. I sure hope nobody actually does need a job in the near term future here, as most groups freeze hiring first when they have to pay huge sums to the government.

[Drem]

oh look it's lyion the conspiracy theorist. regurgitating fox news like a good little sheep

i love how the further away from center you get you run into maniacal lunatics like lyion that think everything's a farce but he knows what's really going on and everyone else is just a sorry ol' sheep

i work with a guy like you lyion. but he rambles on and on about blackwater/Xe and goes on and on about how corrupt the republicans and Bush are. he's annoying as fuck. just like your self-righteous posts above

[Arlos]

I love how you keep saying I hate moderates and conservatives when nothing could be further from the truth. I DO dislike most of the GOP, but they stopped being Conservatives in the classic sense a LONG time ago. As a good friend of mine who is so far to the right that one of his favorite political speeches ever was that famous Pat Buchanan speech at the republican convention many years back has said several times: "To be conservative means you have to actually be interested in CONSERVING something." In all seriousness, at this point he hates the GOP even worse than I do.

Hell, I was actually really impressed by that recent David Frum article recently. http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/22/f ... index.html So much so, in fact, that I emailed the link around.

It was intelligent, well written, and while I didn't agree with him on much of it, especially his belief that it is a foregone conclusion that the taxes in there would be expanded to hit more and more people, I had vast amounts of respect that he was able to clearly articulate his positions, argue for them with non-histrionics, and make very persuasive points. The piece was clearly written with the assumption that people reading it were capable of independent thought, and was highly respectful to BOTH sides even as he disagreed, and it was actually self-critical of mistakes his own side made, which is VANISHINGLY rare these days. If all conservatives were more like him, this would be a far better country.

Now, what was his reward for actually attempting to argue a point using reason and not dogma, and to actual;y be somewhat self-critical when necessary? In short, to act like a real adult having a political discussion? He got FIRED from his conservative think-tank position the next day. Kicked out on his ass.

Now you try and tell me that the political establishment of the Right these days is interested in actual policy discussions and reasoned, learned debate. And I will laugh in your face because there is manifest, crystal clear evidence that that is absolutely untrue. Period.

Oh, couple other things where your "facts" are utterly wrong.

You have your timeline screwed up on the health care votes. It passed the senate with 60 votes long before the special election put Brown in office. They were in process of doing the committee negotiations to reconcile the two bills between the house and senate when the special election happened. If you will actually look at the history, at the time, they discussed having a vote to merge the two bills while the appointee was still in office, but before Brown was sworn in, to get it passed before Brown could join a filibuster. The Democrats decided against that though, as that WOULD have been shady. To repeat, though, the initial vote was WELL before the special election ever happened. So you can't say the new senator waiting in the wing opposed it, as the democrat "waiting in the wings" certainly did not, and could very well have been elected over Brown.

And "the dems had enough seats in the senate to stop any real votes"???? Excuse me? Barring a filibuster, all the GOP needed during Bush's terms were 50 votes to pass ANYTHING in the senate. So, how, exactly, could the Democrats stop ANY vote, real or otherwise, unless they were in a majority, which they WEREN'T in the time period I'm discussing? Riddle me that, Poindexter?

Oh, and I love how the GOP changed terminology to fit its talking points. Remember back in 2005, they were threatening to do away with the Filibuster altogether, and that was termed the "nuclear option"? (while at the same time, they had passed multiple GOP initiatives, including Bush's deficit exploding tax cuts using Reconciliation.) Suddenly, when the Democrats were poised to use reconciliation, the talking point on Fox, across right wing radio, and by the GOP were suddenly referring to RECONCILIATION as the "nuclear option"? Now that was pure comedy. Funny how reconciliation wasn't worth commenting when the GOP was using it to vastly expand the deficit, and suddenly is "ARMAGEDDON" on a bill that's going to reduce it by over a trillion dollars, eh? Oh yeah, intellectual honesty, that's the GOP bylaw. absolutely. really. definitely. uh huh. riiiiiiight.

-Arlos

[Jay]

Oh shit talk. Now you got Arlos all riled up. You're making him break his usual 3 paragraph format.

[Arlos]

I don't know what

you are

talking about.


-Arlos