patrick.net

The current HCR law does nothing to fix the real problem, which is the cost of health care. Health care costs too much for two reasons: Lawsuits and health insurance. Get rid of both, and the cost of healthcare would quickly become reasonable again. Large companies and lawyers have found yet another clever way to steal money out of a system and make the poor fools in the system pay for their greed.

I am all for insurance, as long as it is used for what it was originally designed, which is to protect against a LOSS. Since when is a visit to a doctors office a loss? Yet all you critical thinkers out there are using your health insurance for simple things like doctor’s visits, cheap prescription drugs, and borderline elective procedures, and at the same time smoking, drinking, and getting fatter. Since so many of you abuse your health insurance, and the medical industry understands how it all works, they jack up prices, and you don't care, because it's covered under insurance. Let’s have health insurance to protect against catastrophic loss (cancer, accidents, serious illness, etc) and let everyone pay the actual cost for the normal, routine health care items. This would foster competition, and drive down costs dramatically.

We don’t need expanded health insurance, since it is a broken, predatory system. We need to reform the way health insurance is used. However, since Congress will never bite the hands that feed, we have the current HCR that expands the status quo. Disgusting.

MCM,

Thanks for you diagnosis. I have no idea how accurate it is, but you claim it's true and I must trust the diagnosis of any pundit I read on the intertubes. Please set about reforming the world around your viewpoint.

I suggest kill all the lawyers and insurance agents, problem solved!

Thanks!

Rich!!!

The Democrats have been rebelling the Republicans for over a 100 freaking years.
One damn time in our History that the Republicans rebel against the Democrats, and you guys quote the One Percenters, and talk about "Civil War", as if that is what this is all about.

Face it Liberals don't like being the new "The Man".

The Republicans are doing what the Democrats should have been doing 10, 9, years ago.

Why is it when Liberals challenge the Federal Government on "Marijuana Laws", "Gay Rights", "Abortion Rights", or just Civil rights in general. It's the good fight, when they want to invoke "States Rights". This one time when Republicans want to invoke that same spirit, you guys go "Natzi" killers on us?

Forcing people to pay for a service or a product, from a private entity, is huge Violation of Our Rights.
America only started accepting the whole concept of Privatizing some functions of Government, when it was "Tax" dollars footing the bill. Under a blanket of accepted sporadic corruption and mishandling, business as usual, with all of the other Pork in spending packages. We didn't have to worry about where the money was coming from. We were already paying taxes.

It takes on a whole different reality when you flip that and tell the Citizens you "MUST" purchase this goods and service from this company, or pay a fine and still not be medically covered. But being covered or not, is not the point. Being forced to pay in, IS.

IF you Liberals are not careful, THIS legislation will be Your own undoing.

Every stride and Victory that Liberals have made on state levels to exercise their rights to handle how they address their constituency, hinges on the out come of the Conservatives right to challenge this weeks Momentous Liberal Unilateral Victory.

That means the kaputz on all of this Legal Pot talk, married Gay Couples rights, Abortion rights on state levels. This means California.

There's not one Republican Vote on this thing. That gives them a lot of credibility in both Present and future Historical ponderance. Especially for 50% or more of the nation.

Vicente says

MCM,
Thanks for you diagnosis. I have no idea how accurate it is, but you claim it’s true and I must trust the diagnosis of any pundit I read on the intertubes. Please set about reforming the world around your viewpoint.
I suggest kill all the lawyers and insurance agents, problem solved!
Thanks!

Oh, now I get it!

I wasn't quite sure what to make of your reply, but I just read the "GOP Propaganda Reversed" thread, and now I understand. It is apparent that anybody that does not wholeheartedly support your precious HCR is a racist teabagging redneck, and hence it is beneath you to actually engage is discourse.

So, you quickly throw out a smart ass insult so you can get back to your gloating.

I'm impressed. Not.

MCM says

Since so many of you abuse your health insurance, and the medical industry understands how it all works, they jack up prices, and you don’t care, because it’s covered under insurance.

You're full of shit if you think that prices are jacked up because people abuse their insurance. There are people with serious medical conditions who lack the funding to get treated. By the time it's serious enough to be treated by an admission thru the ER, the cost is astronomical. I guess that you'd consider this abuse?

Healthcare should never, ever be an option.

elliemae says

MCM says

Since so many of you abuse your health insurance, and the medical industry understands how it all works, they jack up prices, and you don’t care, because it’s covered under insurance.

You’re full of shit if you think that prices are jacked up because people abuse their insurance. There are people with serious medical conditions who lack the funding to get treated. By the time it’s serious enough to be treated by an admission thru the ER, the cost is astronomical. I guess that you’d consider this abuse?
Healthcare should never, ever be an option.

Am I full of it? Sure would like someone to prove me wrong.
I got no problem with using insurance for catastrophic illness/accident. After all, that is what insurance is for.
I got a problem with with the government using health insurance as a way to force everyone into a system that artificially supports the high cost of healthcare, and penalizes the responsible, and rewards the irresponsible. To me, it is kinda like the mortgage bailouts.
I would be a lot happier if the government were to provide a means for affordable healthcare (not insurance!) to more people, and impose a tax to pay for this new program.

elliemae says

MCM says

Since so many of you abuse your health insurance, and the medical industry understands how it all works, they jack up prices, and you don’t care, because it’s covered under insurance.

You’re full of shit if you think that prices are jacked up because people abuse their insurance.

Real world example that says I am not full of it:
A vision insurance (which is form of health insurance) that I am familiar with will pay $150 per year for glasses,and another $100 per year for exam. I shop around, and find I can get an exam for $49, and I can go online and order some brand new glasses for $39. Total cost: $88. So I contact insurance, and ask if I can go the $88 route. Nope, these cheaper providers on not on the blessed list. In order to use insurance, must use approved provider. So I contact approved provider, and guess what? Exam is only $110, and new glasses are only $170, so yippee!, I only have to pay $30 dollars out of pocket.

So I got a choice:
I can pay $30 for new glasses, and $280 goes in the system.
Or I can pay $88 for new glasses, and $88 goes into the system.
How many folks will go the abuse route, and pay the $30 to keep the overpriced system running, since it is only $30 out of pocket?
I paid the $88 and cancelled my vision insurance.

Now this may be too simplistic, however, lets examine actual health insurance for a minute...
How many of you out there that have health insurance know how much your doctor billed for your last visit? That right, dig through some receipts, read some fine print, dig through your insurance statements, and let me know what you eventually find.
But if I were to ask what your doctors visit co-pay is, I am sure I would get an immediate answer: $5, $10, $25, whatever.

Extend this out for the cost for surgeries, procedures, vaccinations, etc. Nobody really cares about the real cost billed, everyone only cares about co-pays and out-of-pocket costs.

This is the first part of the abuse I hate.
Second part of the abuse is the folks that refuse to take care of their health (smoke,drink,get fat, etc) and think they are entitled to an insurance that shields them from the consequences of their bad choices.

We have a right, I might even say an obligation, to start asking every doctor, and every hospital, every clinic how much they are charging, and to start questioning why it costs so much, and start patronizing providers that are not entrenched in the pseudo-health insurance schemes.
More honest healthcare is what we need, not more insurance.

I don't want benefits. It is immoral to take resources from other people, even if you give them to me.

15 new taxes, 150 government agencies, 16000 IRS agents to enforce, 2000 uses of the phrase "as the Secretary shall determine" in the legislation. Open-ended power grab.

AMA reports 80% of health costs are related to behavioral choices people make: drugs, obesity, alcohol, sedentary lifestyles.
Government health care forces healthy people who make good decisions to work to subsidize the bad decisions of others. Bad decisions are rewarded, people who make them shielded from the consequences of their decisions and behavior.

Controls will then be implemented to regulate population behaviors so as to control costs. Only certain behaviors will be controlled; Big Macs may get scarce, but be sure that every effort will be made to keep gay bath-houses open as billions pour into the urgent AIDS issue. There will be the favored and the unfavored.

Cost control via behavior regulation will always be only partly successful, so at the same time rationing will become part of daily life, with committees from the 150 agencies constantly tweaking rules about who does and doesn't not get health care and when. Decisions formerly made by millions of people in consultation with their doctors will now be made by committees.

The 1800s saw the abolition of slavery of the culturally weak. Immediately the masters cast around for new slaves to live off of, instead enslaving free men as communism and socialism rose from the rubble of slavery abolition. The timing and trace from one into the other is direct. The trick was getting free men to enslave themselves ...

If someone gets diabetes in Vermont because they like Mountain Dew and hate the feeling of exercise, why is someone in Florida obligated to work all day so as to send a big chunk of his effort to pay for the other person's care?

Keep in mind, there is nothing stopping the worker from VOLUNTARILY sending that person a check every month ... but why must it be mandated, such that if the worker doesn't pay for the sick person through taxes, government agents come to his house with guns, take everything he has and put him in jail?

Is the worker not effectively a slave to the sick person's desire for Mountain Dew and hatred of exercise? Why should he be a slave to the sick person?

Government Health care is IMMORAL. It is slavery. It is plunder. It is theft.

atritium says

If someone gets diabetes in Vermont because they like Mountain Dew and hate the feeling of exercise, why is someone in Florida obligated to work all day so as to send a big chunk of his effort to pay for the other person’s care?

I was just reading a study about how Mountain Dew has been proven to cause diabetes, lack of motivation to exercise, and a propensity to live in Vermont - and was wondering how to weave it into an interweb forum conversation.

Thank you!

>That's a sixth grade level argument, so it's no wonder these people aren't taken seriously. A portion of everyone's taxes are spent on things they don't agree with, but claiming to be a slave is just plain silly.

Exactly the opposite. Government healthcare reflects the desire of the child to be taken care of, to make the government into a surrogate parent.

Adults recognize life involves risks; there are no guarantees; and that is GOOD. Freedom ends when people are forced to support the needs of others, because the needs of others are unlimited.

The state cannot act as a surrogate parent, because the state by definition is a "psychopath" -- it acts without regard to the individual (something parents do), but instead according to policies specifically designed to disregard the individual in favor of an assumed "average".

It is IMMORAL to demand money (i.e., time and effort) from some people so as to support other people. You are free to do so voluntarily. Why do you want to make it mandatory that some people should be forced to support other people?

You yearn for the security of childhood, a Mommy and Daddy who will always be there to make the boo-boo better? Healthy adults do not.

It's not a matter of agreeing with it, it's the fact it is IMMORAL. It is theft. It is plunder.

atritium says

It is IMMORAL to demand money (i.e., time and effort) from some people so as to support other people. You are free to do so voluntarily. Why do you want to make it mandatory that some people should be forced to support other people?

Right, imagine I'm a slave of all those who can't protect themselves. I (a healthy man with military training, who can just carry a loaded M14 with me everywhere, M16 would be even better) am forced to pay for police, whose only use is to fine me for speeding. I'm a slave of idiots who own wooden boxes (they call houses) that burn nicely, - I'm forced to pay for fire departments to protect them.

It's insane to think about all those of whom I'm a slave.

It's immoral, Immoral, IMMORAL, IMMORAL!!!

atritium says

It is IMMORAL to demand money (i.e., time and effort) from some people so as to support other people.

And there it is. That is the crux of the argument.

I guess my question to you is--if/when you get cancer, you're OK dying if no one will volunteer their money to pay for your treatment?

tatupu70 says

atritium says

It is IMMORAL to demand money (i.e., time and effort) from some people so as to support other people.

And there it is. That is the crux of the argument.
I guess my question to you is–if/when you get cancer, you’re OK dying if no one will volunteer their money to pay for your treatment?

Or actually are you OK with paying your premiums for a lifetime and you are 60 and get cancer and you'll die without treatment, but the treatment costs so much money that your insurance company denies you because now you cost too much and only sick people get insurance so there isn't money for you to get treatment, so you die without treatment or even pain meds to ease your death?

I don't want government health benefits. If I get cancer, that is my problem, not yours, not some guy in Pennsylvania who works 40+ hrs a week to support his family.

Right? Of course.

Life involves anticipating and dealing with such things. There is risk. Only children think otherwise and expect to be shielded. Mature adults realize and relish the risks and opportunities of life.

Catastrophic insurance can have a role if freely chosen. But insurance as a mechanism of payment has created the problem you find. If it weren't for insurance, no one could afford $8000 MRI tests. There would be enormous pressure to find ways to lower the price so people could pay for them.

Instead, prices are now negotiated by disinterested parties. There is no "price discovery" mechanism; the hospital merely has to persuade the insurance company what the charge should be. And what does the insurance company care whether it's real or not, as long as they remain financially viable?

So medical costs rise to level that only insurance can pay for, because insurance is the only customer.

Without insurance, we could have $50 MRIs instead of $8000 MRIs. But instead, liberals want more of exactly the same thing that makes healthcare so expensive in the first place -- insurance that insulates people from cost and so removes any need to lower cost.

Do you see conservatives out there seeking to ban you from voluntarily helping your neighbor with his medical bills? Go ahead and mail a check to the sick lady Idaho you read about in the paper, if you think it will help her. Who is stopping you?

But why do you want to use the government to force people to pay?

atritium says

I don’t want government health benefits...

I wasn't talking about government health benefits. You neglected the appropriate question for the bill that just passed and what it would mean to repeal it. Answer the question:

Are you OK with paying your premiums for a lifetime and you are 60 and get cancer and you’ll die without treatment, but the treatment costs so much money that your insurance company denies you because now you cost too much and only sick people get insurance so there isn’t money for you to get treatment, so you die without treatment or even pain meds to ease your death?

michaelsch says

atritium says

It is IMMORAL to demand money (i.e., time and effort) from some people so as to support other people. You are free to do so voluntarily. Why do you want to make it mandatory that some people should be forced to support other people?

Right, imagine I’m a slave of all those who can’t protect themselves. I (a healthy man with military training, who can just carry a loaded M14 with me everywhere, M16 would be even better) am forced to pay for police, whose only use is to fine me for speeding. I’m a slave of idiots who own wooden boxes (they call houses) that burn nicely, - I’m forced to pay for fire departments to protect them.
It’s insane to think about all those of whom I’m a slave.
It’s immoral, Immoral, IMMORAL, IMMORAL!!!

Criminal aggression is different in that it is the only reason governments are formed; to provide law and order and protect citizens from predators.

Without it law enforcement, there is anarchy by definition: people imposing their will on other people.

Without government health insurance, there is only people living their lives but without imposing their will on others.

This is why mandatory government health insurance is immoral.

atritium says

michaelsch says

atritium says

Criminal aggression is different in that it is the only reason governments are formed; to provide law and order and protect citizens from predators...

Again,

I wasn’t talking about government health benefits. You neglected the appropriate question for the bill that just passed and what it would mean to repeal it. Answer the question:

Are you OK with paying your premiums for a lifetime and you are 60 and get cancer and you’ll die without treatment, but the treatment costs so much money that your insurance company denies you because now you cost too much and only sick people get insurance so there isn’t money for you to get treatment, so you die without treatment or even pain meds to ease your death?

simchaland says

atritium says

I don’t want government health benefits…

I wasn’t talking about government health benefits. You neglected the appropriate question for the bill that just passed and possibly repealing it. Answer the question:
Are you OK with paying your premiums for a lifetime and you are 60 and get cancer and you’ll die without treatment, but the treatment costs so much money that your insurance company denies you because now you cost too much and only sick people get insurance so there isn’t money for you to get treatment, so you die without treatment or even pain meds to ease your death?

It depends what the insurance contract was. If they were following the terms, I wouldn't have a legitimate complaint.

The problem would lie with my paying premiums on a lousy policy which is my problem, no one elses.

I would avoid all but catastrophic insurance if I could. And would look at it carefully if I did get it.

Note that I have been required by law to pay social security tax, although I have known all along the money is immediately spent and the system will be bankrupt by 2019-2020 unless tax rates go to 60-70%, the US defaults, or inflation is allowed to run at 15-20% a year for years on end.

That is, I am compelled to fund a Ponzi scam I know I will never get any return from because it is mathematically impossible.

Am I OK with that? It's another form of slavery.What I would be OK with is if the program was immediately cancelled. This would cut the loses and allow me to start using that money to plan for my retirement myself, instead of lighting it on fire en route to totally bankrupting the country by having the government force me to let other people spend it under threat of imprisonment.

atritium says

Am I OK with that? It’s another form of slavery.What I would be OK with is if the program was immediately cancelled.

We all accept that you're not okay with a lot of things. Can we move on now that you've had your tantrum?

There is no where else for you to move on to. You are done.

Social security is another manifestation of the liberal desire to make the state into a surrogate parent.

Mature adults plan for the future and don't need social security. The thought is vaguely disgusting.

But because liberal thinking instead emanates from childhood security issues and emotional structure, they cannot envision the world of adults who take responsibility for themselves. Hence all these mandates from Mommy and Daddy government ... now with guns to back them up.

atritium says

It depends what the insurance contract was. If they were following the terms, I wouldn’t have a legitimate complaint.
The problem would lie with my paying premiums on a lousy policy which is my problem, no one elses.

lol. I'm sure you would just shrug your shoulders and start writing your will after the insurance company dropped you. Especially since you've been paying premiums your whole life. Give me a break.

tatupu70 says

I’m sure you would just shrug your shoulders and start writing your will after the insurance company dropped you. Especially since you’ve been paying premiums your whole life.

That's what's going to happen with social security. That's what happened at the fall of the Soviet Union.

All these liberals programs will fail because they have a child's understanding of resources dispensed by Mommy and Daddy after appearing from nowhere.

The real world is based on things like conservation of energy, conservation of mass, conservation of momentum, not magical appearances from nowhere.

Money for insurance has to come from somewhere. Trace where it comes from and where it goes and learn what mature adults have learned.

atritium says

There is no where else for you to move on to. You are done.
Social security is another manifestation of the liberal desire to make the state into a surrogate parent.
Mature adults plan for the future and don’t need social security. The thought is vaguely disgusting.
But because liberal thinking instead emanates from childhood security issues and emotional structure, they cannot envision the world of adults who take responsibility for themselves. Hence all these mandates from Mommy and Daddy government … now with guns to back them up.

A little fixated on mommy & daddy, aren't we? Were you breast fed?

atritium says

michaelsch says

atritium says

It is IMMORAL to demand money (i.e., time and effort) from some people so as to support other people. You are free to do so voluntarily. Why do you want to make it mandatory that some people should be forced to support other people?

Right, imagine I’m a slave of all those who can’t protect themselves. I (a healthy man with military training, who can just carry a loaded M14 with me everywhere, M16 would be even better) am forced to pay for police, whose only use is to fine me for speeding. I’m a slave of idiots who own wooden boxes (they call houses) that burn nicely, - I’m forced to pay for fire departments to protect them.

It’s insane to think about all those of whom I’m a slave.

It’s immoral, Immoral, IMMORAL, IMMORAL!!!

Criminal aggression is different in that it is the only reason governments are formed; to provide law and order and protect citizens from predators.
Without it law enforcement, there is anarchy by definition: people imposing their will on other people.
Without government health insurance, there is only people living their lives but without imposing their will on others.
This is why mandatory government health insurance is immoral.

There are no differences (moral differences) between criminal aggression, aggression of infections, aggression of peoples' own cells or their immune system, nature aggressions like hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, floods, etc.

They are all emergencies and any sane society has MORAL obligations to deal with them.

>There are no differences (moral differences) between criminal aggression, aggression of infections, aggression of peoples’ own cells or their immune system, nature aggressions like hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, floods, etc.

>They are all emergencies and any sane society has MORAL obligations to deal with them.

No. Aggression requires intent. Infections, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, etc., are events. They have no intent, no aggression, only power. A hurricane has no moral nature.

People have intent ... criminal aggression is the intent to of one person to impose his or her will on another.

Like government healthcare, where people INTEND to deprive others of their freedom so as to live at their expense. They believe their life and health is more important than the life of the person they are having the government forcibly take from. They have the exaggerated sense of their importance ... the raw, naked ego of the child who demands what he wants.

Lack of government healthcare is a world where people are simply living their lives in response to the world as it comes (good and bad), as they choose. That is freedom. Sometimes bad things happen along with good.

I may get cancer, but I can't justify -- nd am repulsed by the thought of -- forcing other people to work and pay for the event, as if I was a dependent child.

atritium says

I may get cancer, but I can’t justify and am repulsed by the thought of forcing other people to work and pay for the event, as if I was a dependent child.

I'd recommend you file some paperwork then so you are never treated for sickness or injury, unless you are conscious and able to agree to said treatment and it's payments. Just so we don't find you crushed to a bloody pulp and paralyzed in an accident, and mistakenly take care of you over and above your dollar value.

atritium says

Lack of government healthcare is a world where people are simply living their lives in response to the world as it comes (good and bad), as they choose. That is freedom. Sometimes bad things happen along with good.

Yes--I believe they have a few countries like that in Africa. Perhaps you should check them out?

>I’d recommend you file some paperwork then so you are never treated for sickness or injury, unless you are conscious and able to agree to said treatment and it’s payments.

Tried, but employer will only let me opt out of the program while still requiring I pay anyway. I wonder why that is (rhetorical question, I already know the answer).

As I said, there is a role for catastrophic insurance to handle accidents, etc.

>Yes–I believe they have a few countries like that in Africa. Perhaps you should check them out?

Yes, I've already been to Africa ... and see our future there, once the $74 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities the US government has racked up on liberal utopian fantasies come due as it will over the next few years.

The US distinctive was guarantees on citizens freedom from tyranny of the state.

This does not exist in Africa (never mind health care), and is only cruising on momentum in the US but essentially ended in the minds of the citizens who want government to take care of them at the expense of everyone else.

atritium says

Money for insurance has to come from somewhere. Trace where it comes from and where it goes and learn what mature adults have learned.

There are now a lot of news reports out there of companies that will be taking large charges against earnings this coming year, such as AT&T reporting it will need to charge $1B.

michaelsch says

There are no differences (moral differences) between criminal aggression, aggression of infections, aggression of peoples’ own cells or their immune system, nature aggressions like hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, floods, etc.
They are all emergencies and any sane society has MORAL obligations to deal with them.

If it is true that there is no moral difference between something that is a purposeful action by one person against another and something that occurs naturally (often with eventual beneficial effects on nature if not on people), then how is it possible for you to argue that there is any "MORAL" obligation for anything at all? And based on what "MORAL" code, religion, or philosophy do you claim such an obligation?

Mebbee I'll be his social worker! I can ask how he feels and explain the out-of-pocket costs.

Nomograph says

Until you get cancer, at which time you will cry for treatment like, well, like a dependent child who failed to take responsibility for themselves.

I say this with 100% confidence. Ideological convictions go right out the window when they require you to die.

I take this as an example of being unable to imagine what an adult life is like.

Well, I've been trapped out in a blizzard in -50 deg. Antarctica for 4 days with the 100 mph winds ripping the panels off the tent and no possibility of rescue ... don't recall crying for help like a dependent child. Nor did the Brits we pulled out of the crevasse they had fallen into during the storm, despite having to amputate blackened fingers due to frostbite.

Freedom comes with risk and there's more to an adult life than waiting at home for someone to send you a check taken at gunpoint by the government.

I notice how none of my questions in the messages above were answered. Instead, it turns to content-less personal attacks. I take this to mean there are no answers.

Remember, no conservative is out there preventing you from mailing a check to cover the medical costs of someone. Go ahead. The problem is this need to FORCE other people to do so. The belief you know better how to spend their money than they do.

There's a provision in the bill ("ommunity Living Assistance Services and Support Act") that will start extracting $150-$240 a month from everyone's paycheck next year to go into a fund for long-term care.

Ultimately this boils down to a failure of character. The country was built by people who took risks, moving out to take a continent.

They would find our current country tangibly insane: everyone with their hand in everyone else's pocket, convinced they are getting a great deal, even that it's the civilized way to be.

The modern citizens brains and characters are so warped, they can't even recognize the impossibility of what they are trying to do (get something for nothing). Or don't care, thinking they can get theirs before it all falls apart.

It's been building for a long time, but the very success of the settlers of this country made it possible to shield subsequent generations from reality and infantalize them. There are are almost no mature adults to serve as role models and open people's eyes to the realization of what they have become.

Here's another glimpse of the future: the Senate of the United States of America just voted 57 to 43 to provide Viagra coverage to sex offenders. Aren't you glad your tax dollars will go for a such an enlightened program? How many minutes a day will you have to work to be sure a sex offender has his supply of Viagra from the government?

To their credit, then then exempted themselves and most leadership in Washington from the health programs they are MANDATING for the rest of the country. This should cut back on the support going to sex-offenders, but still ...

Why would they want to exempt themselves if it is so good? They know the answer very well.

Instead of medical decisions being made between millions of patients and their doctors, medical decisions will be voted on by committees, sometimes looking at the bottom line, other times in response to pressure groups.

What makes you think you will get your cancer treatment when you need it? Suppose they are highly over budget and need to cut back ... which do you suppose they will vote to cut first, the program for noisy, politically-connected AIDS groups or for responsible citizens with boring old cancer?

atritium says

Well, I’ve been trapped out in a blizzard in -50 deg. Antarctica for 4 days with the 100 mph winds ripping the panels off the tent and no possibility of rescue

Great interweb access in that thar antartica...

atritium says

Here’s another glimpse of the future: the Senate of the United States of America just voted 57 to 43 to provide Viagra coverage to sex offenders. Aren’t you glad your tax dollars will go for a such an enlightened program?

C'mon dude,at least stick to the facts. Next you'll be spilling about the death camps for seniors again or something... if you ahve an argument, great, lets hear it, but how long until we can just move past the BS...

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/03/24/dems-vote-for-viagra-for-sex-offenders-and-other-stories/

"Republicans have something of a free shot in the reconciliation bill. Democrats have already signaled that they will whip against any amendments and changes to the bill, in an effort to pass it intact and send it directly to the President, avoiding another vote in the House. So Republicans can write virtually any amendment, forcing Democrats into terrible votes, without much consequence, knowing they will be defeated and providing campaign ad fodder.

Some Senators are better at writing such amendments than others. David Vitter’s amendment concerned no federal funding for ACORN, an organization that just folded on Monday. But Tom Coburn has brought this kind of poison pill penning to something of an art form. His list of particulars this time is kind of a thing of beauty. Start with the first:

No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs To Sex Offenders – This amendment would enact recommendations from the Government Accountability Office to stop fraudulent payments for prescription drugs prescribed by dead providers or, to dead patients. This amendment also prohibits coverage of Viagra and other ED medications to convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders, and prohibits coverage of abortion drugs. (Note: the creation of exchanges could allow sex offenders to receive taxpayer-funded Viagra and other ED drugs unless Congress expressly prohibits this action – see additional background attached)

The creation of exchanges could allow blind people to receive taxpayer-funded eyeglasses, or Floridians to receive taxpayer-funded Snuggies. That’s all for the implementation phase, making this amendment superfluous and ridiculous. But the campaign ads saying “Senator X voted for Viagra for sex offenders” is priceless. This is how Coburn got firearms allowed in national parks in the middle of a credit card bill.

..."

atritium says

Instead of medical decisions being made between millions of patients and their doctors, medical decisions will be voted on by committees, sometimes looking at the bottom line, other times in response to pressure groups.

...and again, c'mon, at least respect the discussion enough to write with some degree of honesty.

What Shangri-La of direct patient/doctor communcation-land do you live in? It's not the US. I can't remember when the last time in the US I went to a doctor and didn't hear "Okay, we'll just run this by the insurance company and see what they approve..." when it was anything more than an bottle of aspirin being prescribed.