I started laughing uproariously after hearing Trump has already flopped. Now he wants to retain the dreaded "Obamacare" I agree the upcoming price hikes are obscene. I don't have it, a good friend recommended I look into getting it. My state Medicaid has terminated no thanks to Michigan bureacrats. I have no Medical insurance whatsoever and I just had a 3 day stay in a hospital here. I shudder contemplating the bill that stay just generated. Fucking government working as usual.
As far as I know, Trump is proposing keeping the rule that you can't deny based on pre-exisiting conditions, but dropping the mandate that you have to buy insurance. All that is impossible. He's clueless. So don't know what's going to happen.
Wish you the very best @Vince and hope things get resolved. Health insurance is a very big deal.
" Why can't we have health care for everyone like other advanced countries?"
-----------------------------
Exactly, feel very passionately about this. Couldn't possibly agree more. We may have to limit the amount of money that medical doctors make, as they do in the UK, which would be considered socialism here. Not in my lifetime.
Keep in mind Americans were suppose to keep their doctor and it wouldn't cost them a penny more. That was purported by Obama when the law was put in place 7-8 years ago. The jokes already been played on us, especially if you're an honest paying citizen which apparently was a money grab by the liberals. You're not forced to buy it when it is cheaper to take the penalty, because they can't deny your health care (AHCHSS).
The healthcare issue seems like a hard nut to crack/solve, I would prefer a market-based solution but IDK enough to know if one is possible - in my uneducated mind I felt ObamaCare came about b/c for decades politicians including probably most republicans were in the pockof the insurance companies ehich seemed to collude among themselves cor fheir best interest/profits at ghe expense of fhe Americwn people - not sure if Trump cwn do it but perhaps him not being in anyone's pockets may allow for a good market solution
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaa, look what's talking, Douchester, from what I'm told the messenger boys there on Wall Street are having you arrested for sexually abusing their male asses. ROTFLMMFAO.
Until we address healthcare costs in this country I don't think they'll ever be a good solution.
As Random already stated in the UK which has healthcare for everyone GP's make something like 70K-80K a year on average. GP's in this country average more than double that. With a big enough practice the sky is the limit. Start talking about specialists and the average increase dramatically. And it's not just salaries.
Classic Douchester: "Nobody here likes me? Think I'm more popular than you are... homo!"
(1) Seriously, is there *anyone* less popular on this board than Douchester? I can't think of anyone.
(2) The puerile ad hominem attack at the end is, of course, a total surprise. Who would have expected him to call someone a homo?
As a result of this post, I thoroughly expect to be the subject of some pseudo-psychological analysis -- and to be called a homo (or possibly a faggot).. Oh well.
Of course Trump is already flip-flopping. If you have no principles besides self-aggrandizement and accumulation of wealth, flip-flopping comes quite naturally.
Conservative Trump voters: Be prepared for four years of disappointment as his moderately liberal Democratic ideas, such as they are, assert themselves. Remember, Trump is a lifelong Democrat and frequent contributor to campaigns by Clinton, Schumer, Pelosi, et al. who has favored abortion rights, gun control, confiscatory taxation, open borders, and eminent domain for most of his adult life.
Liberal Trump opponents: Be prepared to be pleasantly surprised by how very "un-conservative" he will be as President.
The only good thing about Trump's victory is that it stopped the Evil Witch from Hell from becoming our Dark Empress.
Trump is starting to back off on all is ardent campaign promises. One subliminal promise he will keep is making the very rich much richer off the backs of the middle class. The very people that put him in office.
I have several relatives in the UK - trust me you do not want their "universal" medical care, I think a lot of Americans touting a similar plan are totally naive and uninformed.
MisterDouche is so dumb he doesn't even know what an "ad hominem" attack is. It is actually not insulting someone although dumb people like MisterDouche think that's what it is. What actually is using some characteristic about a person (doesn't even have to be an insult) to conclude their arguments is wrong. So for example
"vincemichaels is a homo" not "ad hominem"
"jester214 was born with no sense of humor" not "ad hominem"
"vincemichaels has AIDS" not ad hominem
"jester214 has no capacity for logic" no ad homimem
Examples of actual ad hominem attacks would:
"Ted Cruz was born in Canada therefore he is not qualified to talk about how American health care should" (note "born in Canada" not an insult but the the conclusion does not follow from this, therefore still an ad hominem).
Hope that straightens you out, MisterDouche. Might be time brush up on your critical thinking/logic 101 skills.
Anyone who can count knew he knows nothing of the details.....even with subjects at least remotely close to his comfort range, he had no details at all. As soon as the election was over he started talking to people who actually know the reality of government policies.
Anyone who can count knew he knows nothing of the details.....even with subjects at least remotely close to his comfort range, he had no details at all.
-----------------------
+1 My exact thoughts.
Any high-school student could tell you that dropping the mandate but retaining the pre-existing conditions ban is mathematically impossible. We elected an ignorant clown with no grasp of the issues.
Per WetllWilly's comments, if memory serves me correct many of the same things were said of Ronald Reagan yet many considered him a great president - a President can often be like a CEO, he sets the vision and hires fhe right people to advice him and implement what needs to be done - and I personally don't mind anyone reversing themselves if they end up coming-up w/ the best possible solution vs just plunging straight-ahead w/ blinders on.
Those that hate Trump will criticize w/e he does even when he hasn't done anything yet to deam him a failure or a success.
This is kind of off topic but you guys just need to realize, you only won an election. In this country no one group gets a permanent hold on power, fortunately for all of us win or lose. If any one group were to be permanently in power the protests that you are seeing now would become an insurrection, and there would be blood running in the streets.
Some of you are trying to have it both ways by making statements like I didn't vote for him or her, but make no mistake about it if you did not vote for Trump than the vote you cast for either the Libertarian or the Green Party's candidate helped to elect Donald Trump no matter what you say your motivation was. The only votes actually cast against Donald Trump were votes for Hillary Clinton make no mistake about it.
Now as for Obama Care I have been against it since day one, because it was just a big giveaway, but not to poor uninsured folks, but to large corporate insurance companies that continue to make huge sums of money I believe the figure is like 12% of all healthcare dollars spent, end up in the bank accounts of an insurance company.
We need to get to a single payer system. Hillary's 1993 plan did a much better job of hiding the costs behind what employers are already typically paying. But her plan was so complex that the Right was able to pillory it.
Obama got his plan passed, and that places him above all Presidents before, since LBJ.
But with his plan people feel the costs. Need to go single payer.
Usually the problem with Great Society legislation versus New Deal Legislation is that the later when further, while the former made compromises to middle-class values, and so it is more objectionable and more vulnerable.
^^^ Perdect example of ad hominem. "Obama got his plan passed, and that places him above all other Presidents before, since LBJ".
Really? That qualifies him above all others? Based on what standard? GW Bush I put ahead of Obama because he actually fought for American's constitutionality, so I guess that places him above Obama.
Every Democrat since FDR has been trying to get us a national health care plan. Truman, Carter, and Clinton were not able to pass anything. But LBJ and Obama were. So now we need to defend those gains.
This is not in anyway in conflict with the Constitution, rather it is the fulfillment of what was intended, as applied in the modern era. It was like Bob Kerry of Nebraska said during his 1992 Campaign, that he wants a plan which will "cover every American", so that when one awakes in the morning in the United States, they are no longer part of the third world.
Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas would then adopt that as part of their platforms as well. But the focus on that started with Bob Kerry.
We would have had a universal health care system a long time ago, were it not for this country's horrible history of race relations and Richard Nixon being able to use this in his 1968 Southern Strategy.
So Gassagain, you've opened for the Pope? When was that? And was that before or after you became a talking head for Right Wing Hate Media?
I opened for the Pope because I was thoroughly vetted and deemed fit to be presenting worldly and quality comedy for the intellectuals of New York City.
In case you didn't realize I have also sold out Madison Squate Garden. If I was only right wing biased, then why would so many adoring liberals enjoy my comedy and help sell out my shows? It's because I speak from middle America, not extreme radicalism like you do from the left. I also stay away from the extreme right comservatives because they aren't funny in the least bit. Too serious about God and is being his disciples. You need to get out of San Jose for a while and see what the country is really about.
Gassagain, so your opening for the Pope was specifically in NYC, and then I take it that it was once only. And B16 or F1?
And was this before or after denigration of the poor became a central part of your world view?
Do the people who sell out your shows understand what your views actually are? Does the Pope understand this?
And then, do you think that because a majority of people see something a particular way, that that means that that way is right and that everyone else should follow that?
And then as far as how people in other areas of the country might see things, are you referring to White Americans only? Like there are all sorts of stereotypes about Southerners. But most of those only really apply to White Southerners.
We have a plurality of ethnic groups, and we also have large groups of immigrants in various places.
SJG
Eamonn Fingleton, commentator for Forbes, about why Trump will not be able to accomplish his goals on trade and other policies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eIWpKn6…
He's not flip flopping. He wants to get rid of it all except keeping the ban on insurers denying coverage based on pre existing conditions and kids staying on parents healthcare plan until age 26. Everything else bye bye.
Trump ran his campaign claiming that he was going to repeal that disaster Obamacare and replace it with something much, much, better. However, Trump probably Googled "Obamacare" for the first time after he won. The reality is that you either deny coverage to up 22M people, or suffer the massive voter backlash. There's some speculation that Obamacare will be repealed immediately, but the funding will not be cut until after the 2018 elections. Best of both worlds -- satisfy the GOP base but fuck enrollees later on, after the election.
Nobody knows what's going to happen. Repeal and Delay article by Jonathan Chait:
Both parties will probably end up being realigned, after this disastrous election. And Hillary Clinton's 1993 plan was probably better than Obama Care.
But for right now, we need to find ways to keep the pressure on. Either the Constitution gets amended now to dump Trump, or he gets impeached not too far out.
LOL! One final point and I'll leave this thread. This is a big deal.
Trump ran his campaign stating explicitly that he didn't want to touch entitlement programs like Medicare. But Paul Ryan wants to privatize Medicare and raise the Medicare age. It looks like it's on:
It's probably working-class white dudes who benefit most from Medicare and they're the ones who voted for Trump. So they voted for a candidate who will help kill a government program they need the most. Sad, but amazing.
The problem with all of this is that people are not voting their interest. They don't want people to have healthcare and good paying jobs, or to be sending kids to college.
They want people to be settling disputes with gun fights.
I keep bumping this thread because it's a subject that interests me. There's an estimate out that trump has taken 141 positions on 23 major issues. He's taken eight different positions on Obamacare. It's as if he's just started to realize that stripping 10M people of health insurance will cause a major voter backlash. He's just coming to the realization that keeping pre-existing conditions *is* Obacmacare. His knowledge of the issue is worse than the average middle-school student.
@RandomMember if you really want to call attention to the fact that these Trump voters are uninformed point out how Mr. Trump has insulted every member of the intelligence services by calling the rapist and liar Julian Assange more reliable,and believable, then all of the patriotic members of all the intelligence working to keep all of us Americans safe. I will side with the Democrats on this one, let them repeal the Affordable Care Act and then go fuck themselves using china shop rules, (you break it you own it). Talk about being full of shit, fuck all of them with their I got mine attitude fuck them all those bastards.
@Mikeya I'm not so sure that it's the libs that are the ones getting it seems, like he's making fools out of the folks that voted for him. Looks to me like he pulled off the biggest con job in American history.
I agree with Jester that we probably should look at getting prices (Costs) under control. I have been following some Physicians forums and blogs since the election. There is lots of interesting information out there on the topic.
Hey Mikeya I agree Obamacare is terrible that's not the point. Trump tweets something in the morning and in the evening while he has his mouthpieces defending that he completely undermines them with a contrary tweet. There's less here than meets the eye, all the signs, the misdirection the flipping, the flopping, the glib smack talk, don't you recognize when you are being conned.
It sounds iike Obama didn't read up on the history of PPOs and HMOs.
Patients don't like it when their preferred physician and hospital aren't either "in network" or covered at all.
Providers like to have physicians opt out or hospitals opt out, if the costs to include them are outside allowable limits.
If physicians and hospitals know that patients will complain and not accept plans that don't include all of the physicians and hospitals, and they know it, they they can charge anything and the HMOs and PPOs need to include them.
That's even before we add employers into the mix.
So, no, you probably can't keep your doctor. Mr. Obama was naive or stupid or lying.
Dominic that is completely correct that is why I have been saying before they even passed it Obamacare that it was a giveaway of money to the insurance companies. Figure out how to eliminate the insurance companies not play roulette with patients lives which is what both the left and the right is doing. That my friend is the real problem.
Anyone following the announcement of TrumpCare? After 7 years of railing against Obamacare, it has all the same ingredients as Obamacare -- except it's watered down to guarantee a death spiral. Instead of a mandate that everyone must buy insurance, there's just a 30% penalty if you have a gap in your health insurance. Instead of subsides, TrumpCare has tax credits that don't help low-income people enough. Poor, healthy people won't sign up (why should they?) and the remaining sick pool will jack up insurance prices out of sight. Death spiral.
The passing of the ACA is either a demonstration of Obama and the other progressives' ignorance, or their malice. I suspect both were at play. No one apart from the pitifully weak-willed Canadians seem happy with universal healthcare. Obama's campaign promises and whip promises about how universal healthcare would be crafted, enacted, and operated were all lies. Virtually every single statement.
I do believe that everyone should have healthcare, but if you gamble with not having coverage then you need to pay the price. The problem is accessibility and affordability. My wife is a neurologist. Standard income for neurologist is between $180K-250k. Then you deduct the premiums for malpractice insurance. Lawyers to review service contracts with hospitals. The required continuing medical education from the boards. Materials, tools, and equipment. The charges that Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance refuse to reimburse. The $500,000 in debt she had when she graduated medical school. There's a lot of moving parts that need to be considered when get trying to improve healthcare coverage in America. A single payer system is not the solution. Punishing the providers or decreasing compensation is the dumbest idea possible. I suspect that the ACA was written to fail. The expectation was that people would be panicked at the collapse that the government would have to create a universal single payer system. Instead, it is mostly reviled, thankfully. The republicans MUST follow through in their promise to repeal and replace, but they must find something that preserves accessibility without destroying affordability and quality.
^^^So how do you fix the system 12% comes off the top that's going directly to the healthcare insurance industry, then comes 25% approx to other insurers to cover the malpractice then another 5-7% goes to legal fees that is north of 40cents out of every dollar spent on health care actually being stolen from the care side of the equation. I get it you don't like single payer let's see you Republicans come up with a quality well run system providing good outcomes with only having 60cents out of every dollar, you guys break it, you own it, but until you are willing to work with the democrats and come to a suitable compromise we are all fucked. That in a nutshell is the real problem, not the stupidity that is happening right now but roll up your sleeves and do some work.
@Che my bad I was including gammanu in my response but you have a good working knowledge of the insurance medical paradox. I have been saying as long as anyone would listen that the ACA was no damn good and made even worse because the industry that profits the most had a finger on the scale. My opinion is with all of the complications that there are, Medicare or something similar, as much as many don't like it is the only way to get the insurance companies, lawyers, and big pharma companies under control. In order to get a handle on costs, regulations and outcomes the entitie that controls the system needs to be patient oriented and provider friendly and insurance companies ain't it. My opinion that's all.
^^^ That is a great reason for our elected officials to run as far away as possible oops I forgot that is their natural inclination. But I don't disagree with you, yet at some point something must be done I sure as hell don't want the foxes to be the ones minding the henhouse. Might you have another suggestion ?
Che, I don't like your namesake, but I like your thinking. Thanks for correcting me on my perception of the Canucklehead healthcare system. There are enough Canadians that winter here in SWFL that I should be able to find some to drill down with and learn more.
Random: "After 7 years of railing against Obamacare, it has all the same ingredients as Obamacare"
I haven't look at the details, but that's what I was expecting. The Repubs would make a few insignificant tweaks, but keep the gist of it all the same and claiming a great slaying of a mighty dragon.
Are you really married to a medical doctor, @GammaNut? Did she go to an American medical school, or to some quack diploma mill in the Caribbean? With all the goofy bragging about paying strippers for sex on TUSCL, being married to a neurologist really *is* something to brag about. Still, the whole concept is mind-boggling. Do you sit in bed at night talking about all the “porch monkeys” at the office? Does she share your conviction that LGBT folks have a “genetic defect?”
I do believe that MDs deserve to be very highly paid, and I’m sympathetic to what @GammaNut said about reducing compensation for doctors. If we ever get there, single-payer healthcare would result in pushing many doctors into the middle class.
Obamacare has plenty of problems but we now have 20M people with insurance that didn’t have it before at cost of only about (1/2)% GDP. The newest Trump proposal has the main features of Obamacare, but in a weaker form that is guaranteed to fail and doesn’t satisfy the left, the right, or the hard-core Libertarians. It doesn’t satisfy anyone.
You either believe that we have a moral responsibility to provide coverage to the disabled and the poor or you don’t. The invisible hand is never going to provide universal coverage on its own. Without any coverage, sick people will go to the emergency room at taxpayer expense, and we’ll pay for it anyway.
Depending on what actually gets passed, you figure 10-15M will lose their coverage under TrumpCare. Maybe half of those voted for Trump, and many are poor working class white dudes in rural areas. They’ll lose their health insurance and their manufacturing jobs will never come back. It will be interesting to see if the GOP can prevent a massive voter backlash – maybe by starting a war.
@Che wrote: " The first is my hatred of those who use the force of government to rule over the masses. "
------------------------------------
Ya know, @Che writes very well and it's not that what he writes is right or wrong. It's that uber-Libertarians come off as having absolutely no human compassion. It's not that government is trying to "rule the masses." What's at stake here is a minor re-distribution of wealth so that poor and disabled people don't drop dead in the streets when they have the misfortune of getting ill.
Right now, repeal and replace looks to be DOA. Lets see if they can regroup, my bet is their going to lose a Presidency and a lot of Congressman and Senators are finished. This is going to be a major FUBAR !
Having listened to VP Pence, Rep Gutierrez, and some other true conservatives speak about it yesterday, I have a lot of hope that the government will replace the disastrous Obamacare with something that is truly sustainable and helps all Americans equally. As long as it can be forced past the lefty progressives and globalists like McConnell and Ryan, I think you TUSCL commies are going to be eating a lot of crow.
Q: Why isn't House Speaker Ryan pushing for "high risk pools?" Isn't this what he was saying years ago? Isn't the high risk pools, funded by taxes, how Alaska fixed it's health care model (and Alaska has a lot of really "sick" people, right?).
This is just an observation, I’m not criticizing physicians and surgeons pay rate but health care prices have just been exploding for many of the reasons Che cites and there may be other factors. 1. It seems that the lower 14% or so of the population has trouble paying for preventive care and services (and nutrition & lifestyle). I agree with RandomMember that this portion of need can likely be trivially paid for. 2. We have fantastic healthcare but if you are in the lower 80% it’s pretty much hard to pay for anything beyond preventative and basic services ($230/visit) without insurance. The prices passed onto consumers are just obscene and completely out of line with incomes and savings rates.
I’d like to see the prices get lower. That would help with the healthcare cost issue. I’d also like to see (over)consumption go down, too. I’d also like to reward people like myself who work hard, eat right, and lead a healthy lifestyle. The three things you’re supposed to do. Most of the $$ should be going to physicians and surgeons not medicines and bureaucrats and executives.
I’ve switched over to a HSA for as much as I can for things. It’s like the only choice I have in this fkd up insurance market we have.
Last night ,the new bill passed, untouched, through the Ways and Means Committee. The bill's getting rushed through without any objective input from the Congressional Budget Office. It's a watered down version of Obamacare that has no hope of working in practice. If it gets through, the Republicans will own the healthcare mess that follows.
Markup Of : Subtitle __: Budget Reconciliation Legislative Recommendations Relating to Repeal and Replace of Health-Related Tax Policy
. . Wednesday, March 8, 2017, at 10:30 AM
85 comments
Latest
Wish you the very best @Vince and hope things get resolved. Health insurance is a very big deal.
http://www.vox.com/2016/11/11/13602818/t…
http://thetruthdivision.com/2016/03/epic…
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Exactly, feel very passionately about this. Couldn't possibly agree more. We may have to limit the amount of money that medical doctors make, as they do in the UK, which would be considered socialism here. Not in my lifetime.
Keep in mind Americans were suppose to keep their doctor and it wouldn't cost them a penny more. That was purported by Obama when the law was put in place 7-8 years ago. The jokes already been played on us, especially if you're an honest paying citizen which apparently was a money grab by the liberals. You're not forced to buy it when it is cheaper to take the penalty, because they can't deny your health care (AHCHSS).
Go fuck yourself.
Oh wait, you can't do that, you don't have a dick. LMAO
As Random already stated in the UK which has healthcare for everyone GP's make something like 70K-80K a year on average. GP's in this country average more than double that. With a big enough practice the sky is the limit. Start talking about specialists and the average increase dramatically. And it's not just salaries.
(1) Seriously, is there *anyone* less popular on this board than Douchester? I can't think of anyone.
(2) The puerile ad hominem attack at the end is, of course, a total surprise. Who would have expected him to call someone a homo?
As a result of this post, I thoroughly expect to be the subject of some pseudo-psychological analysis -- and to be called a homo (or possibly a faggot).. Oh well.
Conservative Trump voters: Be prepared for four years of disappointment as his moderately liberal Democratic ideas, such as they are, assert themselves. Remember, Trump is a lifelong Democrat and frequent contributor to campaigns by Clinton, Schumer, Pelosi, et al. who has favored abortion rights, gun control, confiscatory taxation, open borders, and eminent domain for most of his adult life.
Liberal Trump opponents: Be prepared to be pleasantly surprised by how very "un-conservative" he will be as President.
The only good thing about Trump's victory is that it stopped the Evil Witch from Hell from becoming our Dark Empress.
I'm doing backward somersaults to escape it.
"vincemichaels is a homo" not "ad hominem"
"jester214 was born with no sense of humor" not "ad hominem"
"vincemichaels has AIDS" not ad hominem
"jester214 has no capacity for logic" no ad homimem
Examples of actual ad hominem attacks would:
"Ted Cruz was born in Canada therefore he is not qualified to talk about how American health care should" (note "born in Canada" not an insult but the the conclusion does not follow from this, therefore still an ad hominem).
Hope that straightens you out, MisterDouche. Might be time brush up on your critical thinking/logic 101 skills.
"Obama is black therefore his
Idiot #1: "nobody here likes you"
then just a couple of posts later "I like Dougster" (meat)
Idiot #2: "Agree nobody likes Dougster!"
So I guess that we have to conclude that every number greater or equal to 1 is 0?
This will be his first of many reversals.
-----------------------
+1 My exact thoughts.
Any high-school student could tell you that dropping the mandate but retaining the pre-existing conditions ban is mathematically impossible. We elected an ignorant clown with no grasp of the issues.
*SMH*
Those that hate Trump will criticize w/e he does even when he hasn't done anything yet to deam him a failure or a success.
Some of you are trying to have it both ways by making statements like I didn't vote for him or her, but make no mistake about it if you did not vote for Trump than the vote you cast for either the Libertarian or the Green Party's candidate helped to elect Donald Trump no matter what you say your motivation was. The only votes actually cast against Donald Trump were votes for Hillary Clinton make no mistake about it.
Now as for Obama Care I have been against it since day one, because it was just a big giveaway, but not to poor uninsured folks, but to large corporate insurance companies that continue to make huge sums of money I believe the figure is like 12% of all healthcare dollars spent, end up in the bank accounts of an insurance company.
Obama got his plan passed, and that places him above all Presidents before, since LBJ.
But with his plan people feel the costs. Need to go single payer.
Usually the problem with Great Society legislation versus New Deal Legislation is that the later when further, while the former made compromises to middle-class values, and so it is more objectionable and more vulnerable.
SJG
Really? That qualifies him above all others? Based on what standard? GW Bush I put ahead of Obama because he actually fought for American's constitutionality, so I guess that places him above Obama.
This is not in anyway in conflict with the Constitution, rather it is the fulfillment of what was intended, as applied in the modern era. It was like Bob Kerry of Nebraska said during his 1992 Campaign, that he wants a plan which will "cover every American", so that when one awakes in the morning in the United States, they are no longer part of the third world.
Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas would then adopt that as part of their platforms as well. But the focus on that started with Bob Kerry.
We would have had a universal health care system a long time ago, were it not for this country's horrible history of race relations and Richard Nixon being able to use this in his 1968 Southern Strategy.
So Gassagain, you've opened for the Pope? When was that? And was that before or after you became a talking head for Right Wing Hate Media?
SJG
Leonard Cohen - The Partisan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S34cVkL6…
In case you didn't realize I have also sold out Madison Squate Garden. If I was only right wing biased, then why would so many adoring liberals enjoy my comedy and help sell out my shows? It's because I speak from middle America, not extreme radicalism like you do from the left. I also stay away from the extreme right comservatives because they aren't funny in the least bit. Too serious about God and is being his disciples. You need to get out of San Jose for a while and see what the country is really about.
And was this before or after denigration of the poor became a central part of your world view?
Do the people who sell out your shows understand what your views actually are? Does the Pope understand this?
And then, do you think that because a majority of people see something a particular way, that that means that that way is right and that everyone else should follow that?
And then as far as how people in other areas of the country might see things, are you referring to White Americans only? Like there are all sorts of stereotypes about Southerners. But most of those only really apply to White Southerners.
We have a plurality of ethnic groups, and we also have large groups of immigrants in various places.
SJG
Eamonn Fingleton, commentator for Forbes, about why Trump will not be able to accomplish his goals on trade and other policies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eIWpKn6…
Because the Patriot Act is the very epitome of "constitutionality".
Nobody knows what's going to happen. Repeal and Delay article by Jonathan Chait:
http://tinyurl.com/zk2yb8v
But for right now, we need to find ways to keep the pressure on. Either the Constitution gets amended now to dump Trump, or he gets impeached not too far out.
Steve Bannon
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/quotes-from-…
SJG
Trump ran his campaign stating explicitly that he didn't want to touch entitlement programs like Medicare. But Paul Ryan wants to privatize Medicare and raise the Medicare age. It looks like it's on:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/201…
It's probably working-class white dudes who benefit most from Medicare and they're the ones who voted for Trump. So they voted for a candidate who will help kill a government program they need the most. Sad, but amazing.
The problem with all of this is that people are not voting their interest. They don't want people to have healthcare and good paying jobs, or to be sending kids to college.
They want people to be settling disputes with gun fights.
https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kans…
SJG
LOL!
Hope there's enough backlash to impeach the idiot.
Bend
Over
Here
It
Comes
Again
Patients don't like it when their preferred physician and hospital aren't either "in network" or covered at all.
Providers like to have physicians opt out or hospitals opt out, if the costs to include them are outside allowable limits.
If physicians and hospitals know that patients will complain and not accept plans that don't include all of the physicians and hospitals, and they know it, they they can charge anything and the HMOs and PPOs need to include them.
That's even before we add employers into the mix.
So, no, you probably can't keep your doctor. Mr. Obama was naive or stupid or lying.
It's fkd up.
I think Obama admitted he was lying.
Anyone following the announcement of TrumpCare? After 7 years of railing against Obamacare, it has all the same ingredients as Obamacare -- except it's watered down to guarantee a death spiral. Instead of a mandate that everyone must buy insurance, there's just a 30% penalty if you have a gap in your health insurance. Instead of subsides, TrumpCare has tax credits that don't help low-income people enough. Poor, healthy people won't sign up (why should they?) and the remaining sick pool will jack up insurance prices out of sight. Death spiral.
I do believe that everyone should have healthcare, but if you gamble with not having coverage then you need to pay the price. The problem is accessibility and affordability. My wife is a neurologist. Standard income for neurologist is between $180K-250k. Then you deduct the premiums for malpractice insurance. Lawyers to review service contracts with hospitals. The required continuing medical education from the boards. Materials, tools, and equipment. The charges that Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance refuse to reimburse. The $500,000 in debt she had when she graduated medical school. There's a lot of moving parts that need to be considered when get trying to improve healthcare coverage in America. A single payer system is not the solution. Punishing the providers or decreasing compensation is the dumbest idea possible. I suspect that the ACA was written to fail. The expectation was that people would be panicked at the collapse that the government would have to create a universal single payer system. Instead, it is mostly reviled, thankfully. The republicans MUST follow through in their promise to repeal and replace, but they must find something that preserves accessibility without destroying affordability and quality.
I haven't look at the details, but that's what I was expecting. The Repubs would make a few insignificant tweaks, but keep the gist of it all the same and claiming a great slaying of a mighty dragon.
I was going to say that it would take an act of congress, but that hyperbole would be lost in this case.
Are you really married to a medical doctor, @GammaNut? Did she go to an American medical school, or to some quack diploma mill in the Caribbean? With all the goofy bragging about paying strippers for sex on TUSCL, being married to a neurologist really *is* something to brag about. Still, the whole concept is mind-boggling. Do you sit in bed at night talking about all the “porch monkeys” at the office? Does she share your conviction that LGBT folks have a “genetic defect?”
You’re wrong that Obamacare is “mostly reviled:”
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/314…
I do believe that MDs deserve to be very highly paid, and I’m sympathetic to what @GammaNut said about reducing compensation for doctors. If we ever get there, single-payer healthcare would result in pushing many doctors into the middle class.
Obamacare has plenty of problems but we now have 20M people with insurance that didn’t have it before at cost of only about (1/2)% GDP. The newest Trump proposal has the main features of Obamacare, but in a weaker form that is guaranteed to fail and doesn’t satisfy the left, the right, or the hard-core Libertarians. It doesn’t satisfy anyone.
You either believe that we have a moral responsibility to provide coverage to the disabled and the poor or you don’t. The invisible hand is never going to provide universal coverage on its own. Without any coverage, sick people will go to the emergency room at taxpayer expense, and we’ll pay for it anyway.
Depending on what actually gets passed, you figure 10-15M will lose their coverage under TrumpCare. Maybe half of those voted for Trump, and many are poor working class white dudes in rural areas. They’ll lose their health insurance and their manufacturing jobs will never come back. It will be interesting to see if the GOP can prevent a massive voter backlash – maybe by starting a war.
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Ya know, @Che writes very well and it's not that what he writes is right or wrong. It's that uber-Libertarians come off as having absolutely no human compassion. It's not that government is trying to "rule the masses." What's at stake here is a minor re-distribution of wealth so that poor and disabled people don't drop dead in the streets when they have the misfortune of getting ill.
I’d like to see the prices get lower. That would help with the healthcare cost issue. I’d also like to see (over)consumption go down, too. I’d also like to reward people like myself who work hard, eat right, and lead a healthy lifestyle. The three things you’re supposed to do. Most of the $$ should be going to physicians and surgeons not medicines and bureaucrats and executives.
I’ve switched over to a HSA for as much as I can for things. It’s like the only choice I have in this fkd up insurance market we have.
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/event/mar…
Markup Of : Subtitle __: Budget Reconciliation Legislative Recommendations Relating to Repeal and Replace of Health-Related Tax Policy
. . Wednesday, March 8, 2017, at 10:30 AM
^^^ This document might be more readable than the one I posted earlier.
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-conten…
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-conten…
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-conten…
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-conten…
^^^ There are other documents that mention repeal of the taxes and the mandate.
(Trying not to post "fake news.")