Thoughts about Healthcare Reform Bill?

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Originally posted by dennisbrownjr:
I guess I am a little ignorant on how you disagree without being disagreeable. Would you like to enlighten me? What do you mean when you say disagreeable?

You said, "You are right. It is not the uninformed raising the concerns. It is - thanks to foxnews, freedomworks.org, etc... - the misinformed that are raising the concerns." I guess I took exception to be called misinformed.

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But I will take a public option if that is the only bill that has a possibility to pass congress) while I clearly do not (clearly). One misconception that seems to be out there is that the two can co-exist. Economics 101, they can not (Again, source?). How can a private insurance company compete with the government which does not have to make a profit and does not have many of the costs a private for profit concern would have? (Have you ever heard of mutual insurance companies? You may be insured by one

So does this mean as an employer I could dump all of my healthcare expenses on the government? On CNN tonight they just reported that there will be a 35% surcharge for the new plan, meaning us will have deductables and still have to pay out 35%?

Not for nothing, however I think since this affects all of the people of the entire nation, the nation should vote on it, let Congress do their work and come up with three different plans, give us six months to look over every plan and then let the PEOPLE decide, not some buracrate who has great health insurance, pension for life, health insurance for life, and is out of touch with mid america, we are mid america right? It's our toil and labor that keep this country going! LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE!

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Originally posted by Old Glory:
Completely accurate.

As I said before, misinformed.

Palin's claim sounds a little like another statement making the rounds, which says that health care reform would mandate counseling for seniors on how to end their lives sooner. The truth is that the health bill allows Medicare, for the first time, to pay for doctors' appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues with their physicians. *This happens to be the same provision the Republicans voted for in the Prescription Drug bill in 2003* These types of appointments are completely optional, and AARP supports the measure. ... But that's not what Palin said. She said that the Democratic plan will ration care and "my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care." Palin's statement sounds more like a science fiction movie than part of an actual bill before Congress. [Politifact, 8/10/09]

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Originally posted by Art Post:

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But I will take a public option if that is the only bill that has a possibility to pass congress) while I clearly do not (clearly). One misconception that seems to be out there is that the two can co-exist. Economics 101, they can not (Again, source?). How can a private insurance company compete with the government which does not have to make a profit and does not have many of the costs a private for profit concern would have? (Have you ever heard of mutual insurance companies? You may be insured by one

So does this mean as an employer I could dump all of my healthcare expenses on the government? On CNN tonight they just reported that there will be a 35% surcharge for the new plan, meaning us will have deductables and still have to pay out 35%?

Do you have a link to this story? This is the first I have heard of such a surcharge.

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Heard it on CNN

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In the absence of such a restriction, I believe the power is assumed to be allowed.

Enumerated powers...

A very, very important concept. The power belongs to the people and specific amounts of power are delegated to the government.

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Originally posted by Old Glory:
I guess I took exception to be called misinformed.

I can certainly understand how that would appear to be an insult. I think DBJ was just pointing out there is a lot of information being circulated (Death Panels, $45,000 of treatment cap, etc.) that is being used to stir up emotion that is not based on fact.

My belief is that there are many, many reasons for people to be against the proposed health reform bill without adding the statements that are patently untrue, and adding them makes your argument seem invalid.

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Originally posted by JasonR:

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Originally posted by Old Glory:
I guess I took exception to be called misinformed.

I can certainly understand how that would appear to be an insult. I think DBJ was just pointing out there is a lot of information being circulated (Death Panels, $45,000 of treatment cap, etc.) that is being used to stir up emotion that is not based on fact.

My belief is that there are many, many reasons for people to be against the proposed health reform bill without adding the statements that are patently untrue, and adding them makes your argument seem invalid.

Well said.

First of all, I don't think anyone is saying that the plan calls for "Death Panels" only that the government is going to decide what treatment you will or will not get which could amount to the same thing. Secondly, the $45,000 value for one year of life is real in Great Britain, not misinformation. Don't assume that just because CNN didn't say it, that it is misinformation.

With the Orwellian acronym NICE which stands for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (www.nice.org.uk) has decided how much British government-run health care will pay for one additional year of life for a British subject.

The British single-payer bureaucrats arrived at the price of an additional year of life in the same way they decide how much health care all British people will get, through a formula called "quality-adjusted life years."

That means that if you're sick in Great Britain, government bureaucrats literally decide if your life is worth living and, if so, how much longer and at what cost.

If it's more than $45,000, you're out of luck.

In the highest levels of the Obama Administration there is a theory of how to ration health care that is troublingly reminiscent of the British system of "quality-adjusted life years."

Dr. Ezekial Emanuel is a key health care advisor to President Obama and the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Earlier this year, Dr. Emanuel wrote an article that advocated what he called "the complete lives system" as a method for rationing health care.

The system advocated by Dr. Emanuel would allocate health care based on the government's perception of the societal worth of the patients. Accordingly, the very young and the very old would receive less care since the former have received less societal investment and the latter have less left to contribute.

"The Complete Lives System" would also consider the prognosis of the individual.

Quoting Dr. Emanuel: "A young person with a poor prognosis has had few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern that disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognosis."

When fully implemented, Dr. Emanuel's system, in his words, "produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated."

"Chances that are attenuated" is a nice way of saying the young and the old are considered less worthy of health care and, under this system, will get less.

The point is not that a health care rationing system like the one favored by Dr. Emmanuel will be implemented in the United States tomorrow.

The point is that, as in the British system, once government becomes the single payer or even the main payer of health care, what were once intensely personal decisions become public decisions. And as costs rise, government will look for ways to contain them.

The inevitable result of this pressure to control costs will be rationing, whether it occurs during this administration or the next. At some point, the government will be forced to deny care to those who don't meet the latest "quality-adjusted life years" cost-benefit analysis.

So the decision on what treatment to pursue that once would have been made by you and your doctor is now made for you by a bureaucrat using a formula - a formula to literally determine if your life is worth saving.

Societies don't arrive at this point overnight.

British health care was nationalized soon after World War II, but NICE, the health care rationing agency, wasn't created until the late 1990s as a way to control costs.

Today NICE routinely denies Britons life-prolonging drugs that are deemed not "cost effective" - drugs that are widely prescribed in America to treat cancer, Alzheimer's disease and other serious conditions.

The result, studies show, is that Great Britain's cancer survival rates are among the worst in Europe and lag behind the United States.

In our country, the road to dehumanizing, bureaucratic health care rationing begins with something called comparative effectiveness research (CER). It sounds completely innocent. In practice, CER means comparing different treatments for diseases to see which works best. And what doctor or patient would object to that, right?

The problem is that, in the context of a government-run health care system, comparative effectiveness research becomes a way to find a cheaper, one-size-fits-all approach to medicine that will limit health care choices for patients.

But don't just take my word for it. Congressional Democrats included $1.1 billion in the Stimulus Bill for CER. Report language explaining the bill noted that the treatments found to be "more expensive" as result of the research "will no longer be prescribed" and that "guidelines" should be developed to manage doctors.

Congressional Democrats also killed several amendments to the current health care bill that would have prevented CER from being used to ration care.


President Obama innocuously described the intended result of comparative effectiveness research like this: "If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?"

Listen to what the President is saying here. He's saying that the government is capable of determining which pill works best for you and should therefore only pay for that pill.

But this one-size-fits-all approach goes against everything modern medicine is learning about the genetics of the human body. Different individuals and members of different ethnic and age groups respond differently to treatments. More and more, treatment of diseases like cancer is highly individualized and based on a genetic analysis of both the patient and her disease. Science is leading us in one direction and the administration and the Congress are taking us in the other.

What if you get sick and your doctor says you need the red pill, but the government has determined that the blue pill is what works best for its budget? In a single payer health world, what do you do then?


Government bureaucrats limiting health care choices is terribly unpopular of course, which is why politicians use terms like "comparative effectiveness research" instead of "rationing."

Another method Washington uses to avoid complicity in health care rationing is the creation of government boards or commissions - like Britain's NICE - to do the job for them.

President Obama has expressed his support for using the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created to advise Congress on Medicare, to achieve cost savings under health care reform.

Because the commission's decisions could only be over-ridden by a joint resolution of Congress, it would be virtually unaccountable to the people - and nervous members of Congress could blame the commission for unpopular decisions.

Combine this kind of a commission with the "complete lives system" advocated by White House health care advisor Dr. Ezekial Emanuel and you end up with a government rationing board literally determining which Americans should live and which should die.

Supporters of government-run health care dismiss these worries as alarmist. They argue that because their big government health care bill doesn't overtly call for rationing, it is somehow illegitimate to talk about this danger.

But it is always legitimate to consider the long-term consequences of a government program. By refusing to have an honest debate of this issue - to explore honestly the consequences of the "painful choices" that all supporters of government health care say must be made - their argument boils down to nothing more than this:

Trust the government.

Trust the politicians who are passing 1000-page bills they haven't read.

Trust the leaders who are demonizing the citizens seeking to express their disagreement by calling them "un-American."

Trust the advisors who advocate sacrificing the weak and the old and then hide in the shadows.

Trust the government to know what's best for the most intimate, most personal part of you and your family's life: your health.

Also something that has gotten little to no mention is the new 8% payroll tax that will be placed on businesses with payrolls larger than $400,000 a year. I don't think there are many successful copier dealers with payrolls less than $400K. By the way, that's an additional $32,000 tax minimum on your employer which gets passed on to you.

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Originally posted by fisher:
Also something that has gotten little to no mention is the new 8% payroll tax that will be placed on businesses with payrolls larger than $400,000 a year. I don't think there are many successful copier dealers with payrolls less than $400K. By the way, that's an additional $32,000 tax minimum on your employer which gets passed on to you.

That can't be. Obama said he would not raise our taxes "one dime."

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What if you get sick and your doctor says you need the red pill, but the government has determined that the blue pill is what works best for its budget? In a single payer health world, what do you do then?

Again, we only have to look to what is already being done with Oregon's state run health insurance. Because the treatment for cancer was too expensive and the womans prognosis was not favorable, they refered her to the assisted suicide program where the cost to end her life was so much cheaper. Is this really what you want?

"Let me get this straight. We’re going to maybe have a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s nearly broke.

What could possibly go wrong?"

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Originally posted by CashGap:
"Let me get this straight. We’re going to maybe have a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s nearly broke.

What could possibly go wrong?"

CashGap - That has to be the greatest summary of an issue I have ever seen. Kudos

I agree with what I heard on the news today. One lady stood up and declared that if the plan is so good then all members of congress, and the senate should have the same plan!!!!!

CashGap -

Outstanding analysis and eloquent writing, my friend. I simply don't think we need the President trying to charge ahead with Health Care Reform right now, when we need to focus on the Economy. Everyone who bought into "change" for America by voting for the current President is getting 'change' for the worse.

methinks with the new estimate of an additional $2 trillion to national debt as reported yesterday the blue dogs will likely keep up their revolt.

methinkin "change" came in the form of Obama taking Vacation on Martha's Vineyard in a $30K per week Estate, where he will drink beer with Professor 'Skip' Gates, play golf at Farm Neck with Tiger Woods, and share a BIG meal with Oprah.

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Outstanding analysis and eloquent writing, my friend.

Well folks, I had the " around it to show that it was not my original work. I can't find the right source to give credit, I heard it somewhere, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Huffington Post or MSNBC.

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Originally posted by Old Glory:
Secondly, the $45,000 value for one year of life is real in Great Britain, not misinformation.

Actually, it is not fact. My source for the information that it is not true is the NHS (the healthcare service in the UK). Can you refer me to a verifiable source that contradicts them?

Google it...Below is an answer that I got when searching "Quality Adjusted Life Years" This reply is straight from the NICE Website.

FYI - You'll see below that it states "Generally, however, if a treatment costs more than £20,000-30,000 per QALY, then it would not be considered cost effective." £20,000-30,000 = $32,776 - $49,164


Measuring effectiveness and cost effectiveness: the QALY
With the rapid advances in modern medicine, most people accept that no publicly funded healthcare system, including the NHS, can possibly pay for every new medical treatment which becomes available. The enormous costs involved mean that choices have to be made.

It makes sense to focus on treatments that improve the quality and/or length of someone’s life and, at the same time, are an effective use of NHS resources.

NICE takes all these factors into account when it carries out its technology appraisals (TAs) on new drugs. Our expert review groups (comprising both health professionals and patients) examine independently-verified evidence on how well a drug works and whether it provides good value for money.

To ensure our judgements are fair, we use a standard and internationally recognised method to compare different drugs and measure their clinical effectiveness: the quality-adjusted life years measurement (the ‘QALY’).

How is this calculated?
Although one treatment might help someone live longer, it might also have serious side effects. (For example, it might make them feel sick, put them at risk of other illnesses or leave them permanently disabled.) Another treatment might not help someone to live as long, but it may improve their quality of life while they are alive (for example, by reducing their pain or disability).

The QALY method helps us measure these factors so that we can compare different treatments for the same and different conditions. A QALY gives an idea of how many extra months or years of life of a reasonable quality a person might gain as a result of treatment (particularly important when considering treatments for chronic conditions).

A number of factors are considered when measuring someone’s quality of life, in terms of their health. They include, for example, the level of pain the person is in, their mobility and their general mood. The quality of life rating can range from negative values below 0 (worst possible health) to 1 (the best possible health). (See the box below for an example of how this works in practice.)

What about cost effectiveness?
Having used the QALY measurement to compare how much someone’s life can be extended and improved, we then consider cost effectiveness – that is, how much the drug or treatment costs per QALY. This is the cost of using the drugs to provide a year of the best quality of life available - it could be one person receiving one QALY, but is more likely to be a number of people receiving a proportion of a QALY – for example 20 people receiving 0.05 of a QALY.

Cost effectiveness is expressed as ‘£ per QALY’.

Each drug is considered on a case-by-case basis. Generally, however, if a treatment costs more than £20,000-30,000 per QALY, then it would not be considered cost effective.

How a QALY is calculated
Patient x has a serious, life-threatening condition.

If he continues receiving standard treatment he will live for 1 year and his quality of life will be 0.4 (0 or below = worst possible health, 1= best possible health)
If he receives the new drug he will live for 1 year 3 months (1.25 years), with a quality of life of 0.6.
The new treatment is compared with standard care in terms of the QALYs gained:

Standard treatment: 1 (year’s extra life) x 0.4 = 0.4 QALY
New treatment: 1.25 (1 year, 3 months extra life) x 0.6 = 0.75 QALY
Therefore, the new treatment leads to 0.35 additional QALYs (that is: 0.75 –0.4 QALY = 0.35 QALYs).

The cost of the new drug is assumed to be £10,000, standard treatment costs £3000.
The difference in treatment costs (£7000) is divided by the QALYs gained (0.35) to calculate the cost per QALY. So the new treatment would cost £20,000 per QALY.

Math is not my strongest asset, but let's try this.

Standard Treatment: .083 years (since you said 1 year of life, I'm assuming your theoretical patient would die in a month without treatment)

New treatment: 1 (1 year times 1 (best possible health).

Therefore the new treatment leads to .907 more QALY

The cost of the new drug is assumed to be £10,000, standard treatment costs £3000.
The difference in treatment costs (£7000) is divided by the QALYs gained (0.907) to calculate the cost per QALY. So the new treatment would cost £7,717 per QALY.

So in this case, one year of life costs $12,000 and would be acceptable.

Seems the differentiating point is the fact that the treatments are compared vs. "standard treatment" results. Therefore, 1 "year" of life is not worth $45,000 if the result otherwise would be death.

In the example you posted the result costs $32,000, the person lived 3 more months. Straight math would put that at $128,000 for a year instead of $45,000. Of course if it increased their quality of life significantly, there'd be even more expense allowed.

I can't beleive you are doing this. First of all, the example was theirs not mine but truthfully, I DON'T CARE what value is set. I care that the government feels they have a right to set that number at whatever. Doesn't that bother you. If it were your child, would you be OK with a government bureaucrat telling you that your child's treatment is denied because it is too expensive?

So, after everything I've read, it seems to me that government should not be involved in health care?

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Originally posted by Old Glory:
I can't beleive you are doing this. First of all, the example was theirs not mine but truthfully, I DON'T CARE what value is set. I care that the government feels they have a right to set that number at whatever. Doesn't that bother you. If it were your child, would you be OK with a government bureaucrat telling you that your child's treatment is denied because it is too expensive?

There has to be limitations. The question you need to ask is who is creating the limitations? Do you think your insurance company will pay for everything (try reading the exclusions section of your policy)? We are represented by members of our government. We are not represented by our health care company. The major problem in America is that so many people are underinsured. Most middle class Americans are insured through their employers. They have one choice, and they do not have a representative in that particular health insurance company looking out for their needs. Do you think they can afford to go find private insurance on their own? Premiums and co-pays are rising to the point the average person cannot afford a hospital visit. Their health deteriorates until they have to go. Next thing that happens is another bankruptcy. The public option simply gives people another option, as opposed to filing bankruptcy due to medical bills. Do you think avoiding countless bankruptcies may help the economy? Middle class people are the consumers, the driving force of this economy. If they spend less on health care they will have more to spend on consumer goods, which spurs the economy. Seriously, what is wrong with giving less fortunate people an option??? Where is your heart? Is the extra money you spend on gas for your boat and a double tall latte more important than another person's life?

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Originally posted by Old Glory:
If it were your child, would you be OK with a government bureaucrat telling you that your child's treatment is denied because it is too expensive?

As DBJ said, there are already limits on care. My insurance has limits on care and of course I'd be upset if my child's care were to encounter those limits, but that's the way it works.

I sincerely doubt any insurance would approve a procedure that would only extend your life by one year if the cost was judged to be "too high".

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Originally posted by dennisbrownjr:

My comments are in brackets [...]

There has to be limitations. The question you need to ask is who is creating the limitations? Do you think your insurance company will pay for everything (try reading the exclusions section of your policy)? [At least there is a policy to read.] We are represented by members of our government. We are not represented by our health care company. [But I can fire my insurance company.] The major problem in America is that so many people are underinsured. [Especially the illegal aliens.] Most middle class Americans are insured through their employers. They have one choice, and they do not have a representative in that particular health insurance company looking out for their needs. [I do, why don't you?] Do you think they can afford to go find private insurance on their own? Premiums and co-pays are rising to the point the average person cannot afford a hospital visit. [Mostly because 50% of everything they make is going to taxes.] Their health deteriorates until they have to go. Next thing that happens is another bankruptcy. The public option simply gives people another option, [If you choose to believe that side of their story.] as opposed to filing bankruptcy due to medical bills. Do you think avoiding countless bankruptcies may help the economy? Middle class people are the consumers, the driving force of this economy. If they spend less on health care [Would they?] they will have more to spend on consumer goods, which spurs the economy. Seriously, what is wrong with giving less fortunate people an option??? [Like they are dyeing in the streets now.] Where is your heart? Is the extra money [Extra money??? Even if there were such a thing, it is mine isn't it?] you spend on gas for your boat and a double tall latte more important than another person's life?

[

Let's nationalize the food industry, have you seen the cost of groceries lately? Think of the poor starving children. By the way, my contributions each year are in the 5 figures...are you doing your part?]

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Originally posted by JasonR:

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Originally posted by Old Glory:
If it were your child, would you be OK with a government bureaucrat telling you that your child's treatment is denied because it is too expensive?

As DBJ said, there are already limits on care. My insurance has limits on care and of course I'd be upset if my child's care were to encounter those limits, but that's the way it works.

I sincerely doubt any insurance would approve a procedure that would only extend your life by one year if the cost was judged to be "too high".

Insurance companies have no choice but to approve it if the policy says its covered. And they can be sued in the court of law if you feel as if you have been wronged. That is a significant difference in government run health care...no accountability and no recourse.

Old Glory, please edit your previous post. Your comments appear in the "Quote" section making them appear to be DBJ's comments.

I put my comments in quotes. I would think that there would be a greater likelihood that his comments would be associated with me. Obviously, neither is intended nor acceptible. I will use brackets instead of quotes...let me know if you feel this is still problematic.

"It is, I guess, politically correct, widely believed, that to say that American health care is the best in the world. It's not. There's a much more complicated story there. For some kinds of care... rescue care. Yes, we're the best in the world. If you need very complex cardiac surgery or very advanced chemotherapy for your cancer or some audacious intervention with organ transplantation, you're pretty lucky to be in America.You'll get it faster and you'll probably get it better than in at least most other countries. Rescue care we're great.

But most health care isn't that. Most health care is getting people with diabetes through their illness over years or controlling the pain of someone with arthritis or just answering a question for someone who is worried or preventing them from getting into trouble in the first place. And on those scores: Chronic disease care, community-based care, primary care, preventive care. No no, we're no where near the best. And it's reflected in our outcomes.We're something like the…

We're not the best health care system in the world in infant mortality rates. We're like number 23. There is an index that is used in rating health care systems, which is the rate of mortality that could have been prevented by health care. There are at least a dozen countries with lower rates of preventable mortalities than the United States and not one of those countries spends 60 percent of what we do on health care." Reference

Let's sum up all the arguements against reform:

Tort reform This is a complete red herring distraction. The right states tort accounts for 10% of health care costs. This number is based on the Kessler-McClellan study. “When CBO applied the methods used in the study of Medicare patients hospitalized for two types of heart disease to a broader set of ailments, it found no evidence that restrictions on tort liability reduce medical spending. Moreover, using a different set of data, CBO found no statistically significant difference in per capita health care spending between states with and without limits on malpractice torts.” By the way, the GAO and CBO both say there is no other study that even comes close to these findings. Sounds a little suspect to me.

The attempt to squash lawsuits is itself an infringement on freedom- infringing the rights of the people to seek redress via the courts. The comment was made that people suing should pay up front for to sue, which is ludicrous as that is the arrangement between the client and their attorney. Another comment asserted that if they lost, the complainants should pay the court costs... all well and good- in theory, but a middle class family seeking redress, and should they lose, would be bankrupted easily when faced with the financial might of an insurance company or major health care operation. In short- frivolous lawsuits aren't the issue- but are being used to derail reform.

abortion. Not even mentioned in the bill, yet some of the rightwing antiabortion crowd would derail the whole fix simply because they THINK that abortion would be part of any health care package? In any event, at this time, legally, abortion is a medical option. Period.

- Don't want govt bureaucrat interfering in my choices. We already have INSURANCE bureaucrats interfering. I consider the govt personnel more accountable. There is NO accountability from the insurance company when they deny coverage, kick out pre-existing conditions, etc

- health saving accounts. This is one item cited by the GOP as blocked by the Democrats. But what works? There is NO credible evidence that these type of "savings accounts" work- not for education, not for any other issues- when the USA has the lowest savings rate in the world and many people that NEED health insurance don't even have the disposable income to actually create an HSA. In short, this was an action by Republicans that would make no real difference or reform, but just an attempt to say they did something.

- For-profit insurers cannot compete with PUBLIC OPTION. No kidding. So what?

First, folks, the PROFIT MOTIVE is, at root, in direct conflict with getting you the best or correct care (this isn't to say it's bad or good- it just IS...). Everything does NOT need to be a profit generating operation. For people to think that they are better off, will be healthier, and get better service from a for-profit insurer is NOT proven by the facts in the real world and simply a resort to ideological mindset. INSURANCE COMPANIES DO NOT PROVIDE CARE - THEY CAN ONLY APPROVE OR DENY THE PAYMENT OF CARE.

So, I pose this question that I found no one can give me a legitimate answer to. What is the purpose of for-profit Health Insurance entities?

- Cost. People kept whining about the deficit and how we cannot afford this reform. That too is a distraction argument and NOT relevant. HEY- it's a BIG BUDGET- this healthcare bill is NOT the only item on the budget. To say we can't move forward on health care due to costs when so many other items are on the budget is like saying, "I can't go get my antibiotic medicine. I just don't have the money because I need to keep my cable TV." It's a matter of priorities. We can implement health care, and if the budget is an issue- cut some other items. Don't hold up the real need because other things are already budgeted.

There are people that beleive healthcare is a privlidge and others who believe health care is a right.

I had a brother die of a heart attack brought on by diabetes at the age of 46. He was working a low paying job, no health benefits and at times was no able to afford his medications that he needed.

I think at some point the government does need to step in and make health care and medications affordable to those who need the help. I find it so hard to beleive why perscriptions medications are so expensive, if you are out of work and you get sick what are you to do?

Maybe the time is right for a federal 2% sales tax to fund general healthcare.

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Originally posted by Old Glory:

[

Let's nationalize the food industry, have you seen the cost of groceries lately? Think of the poor starving children. By the way, my contributions each year are in the 5 figures...are you doing your part?][/QUOTE]

We already have Food stamps, Government cheese, and other such programs? Your comment is typical of the right. Elude that the government will take over everything if we have a public option. It just won't happen. People need to keep in mind that the public option is not just for the UNinsured (Medicaid is already in place), it is designed to help the UNDERinsured, as well. This, in my opinion, is the bigger problem.

Well, it's been almost three months since we started this discussion. I learned a heck of alot from this discussion and what I've heard on the news. In one instance, I feel that the healthcare bill could be a good thing, and on the other hand I feel that we can't afford the debt. I saw a congressman on tv state that 23 new agencies will be created because of this bill! Is that for real, if so I may have to move to Washington, so I can get my fair share of the money that's going to be spent!

Your thoughts?

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Originally posted by Art Post:
and on the other hand I feel that we can't afford the debt.

According to the non-partisan CBO, the health reform bill does not increase the debt. That's why it is always described by the president as "fully-funded".