Very well thought out and written. I used this same saying, “Can’t see the forest for all the goddamn trees.” just today talking to a co-worker about the bill. I think it’s rushed and too quickly rammed down our throats.

Nothing is lost by sitting back a minute, thinking things ALL THE WAY THROUGH, and getting it right the first time; instead of , “LETS GET THIS DONE NOW!”

I sure as hell hope the govt don’t require me to buy it without making an affordable option available. I can only afford about $30 a week. Right. OK that’s nice. If they require me to buy health insurance (which I’m sure will cause the rates to go even higher) I don’t know what I’ll do.

And my friend in the UK tells me “I don’t know how good I have it” and how bad universal health care sucks- I want to smack him. The UK has healthcare about as good as ours in terms of hospitals etc- we got our crappy infested hospitals over here, too, and they have some damn nice ones. So STFU I say! Come over here with your chronic condition and see how well you fare.

speaking as a canadian:
i don’t know why you guys are fighting this healthcare reform so much. ANYTHING has got to be better than what you have now, don’t you think? do you REALLY think this is just an “ad campaign designed for failure?” i’m pretty sure the millions of people living way below the poverty line are sick and fucking tired of sharing bite sized pieces and damn rights, they want the whole turkey right now.

i would rather have our long canadian wait times and KNOW that i am going to get in to see a doctor in a few days, whether or not i have the $50 co-pay. and yes, our healthcare system is still broken in some areas; it is far from perfect – especially wait times for surgery and to see a specialist. and yes, i pay $140 a month for extended health care coverage for my FAMILY OF FIVE. FIVE PEOPLE. no deductible. that gives me, amongst other things, 80% prescription medication coverage for medications not covered by my provincial health program. do you know what a difference that makes?

you’ve worked hard to have your own business and i am *not* taking anything away from that, redhead, but there are millions in america who haven’t been given the same opportunities to pull themselves up by the bootstraps to the point where they can afford to buy insurance. what about them? what about the children or of those people?

“I understand there are those who do not have health insurance” i don’t think you do. i don’t think you know what it’s like to choose between groceries and heart pills.

maybe YOU can afford $168 a month with a $1500 deductible for half assed healthcare. how many people do you think can afford that? does a poor person deserve to die because they can’t afford the hospital bill to have heart surgery? should a kid suffer because mom and dad have sold everything they own and can no longer afford leukemia treatment?

you asked who are the target beneficiaries of this bill? PEOPLE WHO CAN’T AFFORD HEALTHCARE AND THEREFORE, DON’T HAVE ANY. the target demographic IS NOT YOU. unfortunately for you, there are too many people living in america in 3rd world conditions who don’t have access to affordable healthcare, and so healthcare reform is going to come along and fuck up your personal healthcare even further.

as a person who grew up below the poverty line, i can say for damn sure that i am grateful for socialized healthcare. i had minor, typical, childhood health issues; i cannot imagine what it would have been like if i had to suffer with chronic, major health problems.

I vote right, because I hate taxes, but I believe that in a country as prosperous as ours, every citizen, and every legal visitor, has a right to receive reasonable health care. The current bill does not do that. Instead, it will make the declining coverage my retired parents have cost more and more. It sucks.

as for DADT, abortion, etc.: I’m for anybody who want to serve, regardless of gender or orientation. Abortion OK before 3 months, after if the mother or child’s life is at risk. Recreational drugs (including alcohol and nicotine,) gambling, prostitution, premarital/extramarital/gay/group sex IS NOBODY’S BUSINESS BUT YOUR OWN, as long as nobody gets hurt. I have to live within my means; how hard is that to understand once someone is elected to Congress.

Don’t get me started.

IMO this whole thing was framed wrong from the start. Obama et al really thought we cared about poor people. Hahahhahaha. This was a middle class issue and should have been framed that way. Maybe as a single person you don’t get what families are going through, but even for professional people earning good dual-career salaries, dependent premiums are rarely covered by employers any longer. So even if you’re making a combined income of $150K, who wants to pay $900 per month for insurance premiums to get your spouse and kids covered? All Obama had to do was say that out loud, bec lots of people paying that aren’t making close to $150K.

And yeah, the entrepreneurs. And all the tradespeople. The mechanics, therapists, hair dressers, leg waxers, acupuncturists…start asking your service people… how many of them, even when they themselves provide some health-related service, can afford (or get, due to pre-existing conditions) insurance? All Obama had to do was start mentioning Suzy Stylist. Or those of us who want to go half-time at work, so we can pursue, say, a dream, like writing a novel or playing in a band, but would lose benefits bec they start at 32 or 40 hours…. Ah, that pursuit of happiness thing. All Obama needed to do was FRAME it.

Not about poor people, because even the recently unemployed struggling to make COBRA payments or those recently uninsured don’t THINK of themselves as poor. But about the middle class and middle class FREEDOMS. The freedom to put that $900 toward college instead of health insurance, say, so you don’t have to hit up the federal government for financial aid later…

So, the strategy should have been, and the Dems should have realized this, to pass the *most comprehensive package possible that would deliver the most tangible benefits to the most people as quickly as possible* in the fastest possible timeframe. IE, in 6 months, to take effect immediately, not with some 2014 rollout. Because the best hope for everyone was for even the skeptics to see rapid results *in their pocketbooks* as quickly as possible. Prove the concept. Demonstrate the value. You were paying $900 for your family 6 months ago? Well, now you’re paying $200. You couldn’t get insurance before? Now you can, for a price you can afford. End of story. Get it in place before the mid-term elections. Done.

Duh.

And now, that they’re trying to ram something, whatever the hell it is, because you’re right, we have *no idea what it is* down our throats, with no real definition and a distant rollout… how are they going to get any kind of approval rating for this?? They should be going point by point and telling the middle class how it’s going to benefit us. Not because it’s going to save us money by getting poor people out of the emergency rooms. But how is it going to lower my premiums, free me to go into partial early retirement so I can write that novel, or go freelance if I want, help my neighbor save for college, help my other neighbor open an acupuncture practice…. HOW…. tell me, tell me now, point by point. Because the longer you stay silent, the more I suspect it will do NOTHING for me.

This might not be true. But they aren’t saying otherwise.

This is where the Obama administration really fails, as has been analyzed multiple times in the NYer and elsewhere. They don’t get the PR thing. They wait and wait, and then, when it’s almost too late, deliver an eloquent, hypnotic speech… Kind of like that boyfriend you had that said just enough of what you wanted to hear to string you along… till you were about to break up, and then he said just enough again…

I spent THE SAME in healthcare this year that I spent in taxes. Not counting alt-med, even. That tells me that taxes can go up or healthcare costs can down, or both.

Oh, yeah, one other thing… I agree that you should be looked at as a person…and that your activity level is a plus, even if you engage in dangerous stuff like climbing (is it really more dangerous than skiing? Doubt it.)…probably not less dangerous than being a high-stress corp exec who DOESN’T exercise. On the other hand, there’s a good chance that your life circumstances could change with time and this philosophy could bite you. You get more tired, exercise less, get more stressed out. You wind up having to take care of two dying parents and two dying in-laws, and just don’t have time for yourself, and meanwhile you go through menopause and you never really back in the groove, who knows. You have the energy to exercise if only you had what it took to get into your exercise clothes… Seen it happen. Anyhow, doesn’t take much to set off an avalanche, as you know.

Everyone’s an insupportable risk, really.

@Hillary – Thanks for stopping by! And who knows – maybe this article on our “adult” oriented website will make it around to people who are in a position to direct legislation and shape policy. Especially since everyone knows I have saltwater boobs now

@nirvank – Always great to see you here and thanks for your thoughts!

Politically I’m a strong undeclared (as I think everyone should be – but that is another topic). I do lean left though – especially these days. Socially I’m a jay bird and fiscally I’m reasonable as I know spending is needed – and more than just on the military and roads/bridges.

But enough about me.

Fiscally speaking a single payer system is the cheapest. But obviously people are afraid of being turned into a ‘socialist’ nation. Even though there are socialist aspects to our nation no one wants to call out. But single-payer is unachievable anytime soon.

So we’ll take that off the table and just talk about reform as you mentioned.

The issue of healthcare needing reform isn’t new. It’s a half a century issue and taking healthcare reform one step at a time would be ideal, but it can’t be done.

In my life time, since the mid 70′s, only 2.5 people have been serious about HCR… Bill/Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama. Which leaves 4 years of a DEM, Carter, and 20 years of REP administrations have resulted in no action on HCR. This includes the members of Congress over those years. If someone doesn’t start the ball rolling with a decent chunk of reform, it won’t be addressed again for potentially another 15+ years (the gap between Clinton’s push and Obama’s)…. As odd as this sounds, getting a decent chunk of HCR at once and working to fix that legislation in small parts would be easier, in my opinion.

Why Congress/Government will never work like a corporation is because of lobbyists. If I sit on the board of directors for Microsoft, I don’t have Apple pushing me to direct M$ to go another way. Congress isn’t like that. Insurance companies, drug companies, and various other lobby groups want what is best for them, not for the shareholders (the US people) and the lobbists line the pockets and reelection campaigns for the politicians. If Apple lined my pockets to push M$, I may be accused with corporate espionage.

Regulation is needed. Denying someone that is willing to pay for healthcare insurance is not the intent of HEALTHCARE. Last time I checked Healthcare was around to make/keep people healthy and well. Supposedly that is why doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc join the profession. Putting a Healthcare companies bottom line over the healthcare of an individual is sadistic and goes against the meaning of healthcare.

This goes along with the increasing number of medical bankruptcies – ~300,000 out of ~900,000 are attributed to insurancers pulling the rug out of the covered person when the individual needs the insurance the most. Anecdotally, I’ve known 4 people that have had their insurance pulled out from under them right after they were stricken with a grave illness. All have had to fight their way back from medical bankruptcy because of it.

Apologizes as my post is probably disjointed as I’ve been distracted by other things… But in short healthcare insurance companies need to realize what they are insuring. Ideally both sides would sit down and figure out the better solutions, but currently one side likes to filibuster items they end up voting for later, or like spreading fibs to dissuade the public – like death-panels. Don’t get me wrong the other side isn’t free of fault either, but we need to start somewhere and probably somewhere big and work from there…

Full disclosure:

I give Obama credit for sticking to his guns. Most politicians would have given up long ago (Clinton) on an issue that is complex and has no singular face to rally against.

Also my wife and almost all my in-laws work in the healthcare field. I’ve also had excellent insurance all my life. From my parents, to my large corporation jobs, to my small business, to my out of pocket expense… So maybe I have nothing to complain about, but I do see a wrong with the industry.

I won’t try to diminish the role that insurance companies play in some of the problems and there definitely needs to be some reform there, I admitted that already.

What about the actual costs of the surgery itself? Is there any room or way to reduce the actual cost of services?