If a child, even if they are illegal immigrant, shows up in an emergency room with tuberculosis and nobody is giving them treatment and then they are going back to the playground and playing next to our kids.
So, I think there is a basic standard of decency where if somebody is in a death situation or a severe illness that we are going to provide them emergency care. But nobody has talked about providing health insurance to illegal immigrants, I want to make that absolutely clear.
Obama basically contradicts himself — care for severe illnesses or life-threatening situations is what health insurance is for! Every time you go to the hospital, you are arguably in a life-threatening situation.
The best part is that one second later he says that his plan does not provide health care to illegal immigrants.
I want to point out that I am not particularly opposed to universal health care, I’m just what the President said.
“Do not let the Obama administration fool you with all their cunning Alinsky methods. And if you don’t know what that method is, I implore you to get the book ‘Rules for Radicals,’ by Saul Alinsky . Mr. Obama is very well trained in these methods,” he continues, citing a television campaign critical of the Republican Party and contentious town-hall meetings about health care reform.
“The real truth is that the Obama administration is professional at bullying, as we have witnessed with ACORN at work during the presidential campaign. It seems to me they are sending down their bullies to create fist fights among average American citizens who don’t want a government-run health care plan forced upon them,” Mr. Voight says. “So I ask again. Is President Obama creating a civil war in our own country?”
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/21/inside-the-beltway-68484451/
#60 Yeah, that’s a self contradiction…
Health care via private insurance is broken…but you can keep yours as long as you like…
#61 – Alfie the MegaParanoid,
Don’t worry, it’s just the end times … and we’re all hoping you get caught up in the rupture … the sooner the better.
#62 – Alfie,
Contradiction? Really? How about if we word it just slightly differently to reflect reality?
Health care via private insurance is broken. However, too many idiots don’t see that and want to stick with their current system. Let’s create a choice and as people see that the public option is better, they will move to it.
Why do you think the private insurance companies are so scared of a public option?
Because, they suck, they know it, and they want to keep on sucking all of our money out of the economy for as long as they can.
Emergency rooms are now required to provide service to *anyone* who shows up with a need for emergency care. That will not change under any proposed system of health care, nor should it.
#64 Your example is not analogous to Obama’s SELF contradiction.
And the polls show most Americans do not think their health care is broken…they admit parts of it, as applied to others, needs reform.
It would be easy to lower health care costs…allow competition nationwide among insurance companies, and remove Congressional mandates requiring all of us pay for care we will never use, or desire.
Costs would plummet.
Its best Comrade Obama not do anything…clearly this Congress and president can’t fix anything…
If only they will leave us and the economy alone, then it would recover.
I propose we grant them all a vacation…shut down government till 2010, when we vote those we can, out.
I wonder: would the Republicans be so against this plan if the public option would be voluntary? IE, you could sign up for free healthcare, pay your own way, or choose to go uninsured? (In much the same way as, say, you could call the police if someone broke into your house, file a civil complaint, or just ignore it.)
Methinks yes, but ah! There’s the rub, for it exposes the lie: This isn’t about Big Government getting all up in your business (After all – you can opt out of government’s nose in your business!), but about Big Business getting to keep its profit margins.
#66 – Alfie,
What the polls show is that 39% of people who are lucky enough to have insurance are dissatisfied with the amount they pay.
On the obvious assumption that we can add the 16% that do not have any coverage to that number, we’re at 55% dissatisfied.
http://tinyurl.com/lhx2ej
Note that they did not distinguish between satisfaction with medicare, medicaid, medi-cal, or the VA in those numbers. Nor did they check a difference in satisfaction among those with government insurance versus those with private insurance.
So, we have 55% dissatisfied now. Do you not call that broken? Even at only 39% dissatisfied, I call that broken.
As for competition, we have it now. Here’s a list of health insurance companies:
http://tinyurl.com/m8ma4h
* Aetna
* American Association of Retired Persons
* American Family Insurance
* American National Insurance Company
* Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield
* Assurant
* Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association
* Cigna
* Fortis
* Golden Rule Insurance Company
* Group Health Cooperative
* Health Net
* HealthMarkets
* Humana Inc.
* Independent Health
* Intermountain Health Care
* Kaiser Permanente
* LifeWise Health Plan of Oregon
* Premera
* Principal Financial Group
* Regence Group
* Scott & White
* Shelter Insurance Companies
* Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
* UnitedHealth Group
* Unitrin
* Wellpoint
So, we see what the so-called free market (not that we’ve ever actually had one for anything) has given us. Why expect change from the people that got us where we are?
Doing the same thing again and again and again and expecting different results each time is a definition of insanity.
#67 – Alex,
I wonder: would the Republicans be so against this plan if the public option would be voluntary?
It is. Sign up for it or any plan you like. Even with the increase in people signing up for health insurance, the insurance companies know that most will not choose private insurance, so they oppose this. A public option would show just how bad they are and give an option for something better. They can’t have that. And, apparently, the own all of the repugnicans and quite a few democraps, so the insurance companies win.
They also have a great propaganda machine. Look at how many people right here on this blog are convinced that paying more for less than every other country in the world is a good thing.
Yum. Kool Aid.
Here’s the only poll I was able to find that compared satisfaction with medicare versus private insurance. Note that they asked people about billing and access problems. Medicare recipients are far more likely to require medical care than those with employer funded plans, the latter group being on average much younger and healthier.
Still, even with a younger healthier crowd having private insurance, they reported more access problems and more billing problems than those in the medicare group.
This sure sounds to me as if medicare beats the crap out of private insurance.
Can anyone find a poll from gallup or some other major polling institution? I can’t. I wonder why.
http://tinyurl.com/m4qpnt
I did find this comparing satisfaction with health coverage in U.S., Canada, and Britain.
http://tinyurl.com/nveq7k
I know you’ll be shocked, but once again, the U.S. system is the worst. Both of the single payer systems kicked our ass.
>Let’s create a choice and as people see that the public option is better, they will move to it.
Not sure why people don’t accept this when it comes to light bulbs.
MikeN,
Same reason as smoking, the person making the choice to smoke or use high energy light bulbs is affecting others with their behavior. Choosing to stay with expensive private companies that offer worse coverage than the public option hurts no one but oneself.
Second hand smoke causes cancer. Similarly, drinking is legal, but drinking and driving kills others, so it is not.
Air pollution alone kills 70,000-130,000 people in the U.S. alone every year. And, climate change is worse. Ocean acidification may turn out to be still worse.
So, it’s about who you’re affecting.
That said, I would rather see a stiff carbon tax than specific laws about light bulbs. Associate the real cost of carbon’s damage with the emission of carbon and people will make intelligent choices automatically.
#57 — How about non-profit organizations, as in Switzerland? I’d be OK with that.
I’ve always been skeptical of the whole “Christian Nation” deal. But I must say, that if they gave “Usury” the same emphasis as they are now giving “Sodomy” I’d sign on in a nanosecond.
It seems to me that for-profit insurance is tantamount to usury.
(Oh, and I wouldn’t want Uncle Sam to be the “non-profit” insurer)
#73 – Somebody,
I’d be OK with the Swiss system. It’s one of a great many better ways to do things than our present system. Of course, no system is perfect. But, our system is literally the worst in the developed democratic world. Nothing else even comes close to being as bad as our system by any measure one chooses.
The thing is, socialism kind of works in Europe because the political class on the whole takes the idea that the state should basically serve the people. (Not that they don’t vacillate between Smurf ™ socialism and goose-stepping socialism from time to time.) Here in the states though, the political classes absolutely do not agree with the whole “public servant” concept. These are people who see themselves as being in their prime earning years and intend to give “winner take all” its most literal interpretation. When they do talk about socialism, it’s just for the rubes. Its usually something in the “socialized risk, private profit” vein. They do manage to keep a straight face somehow.
#76 – Somebody,
And yet, who do you know who has opted out of medicare? Who do you know who turned down their social security check? Do you know anyone who uses netflix? How has their experience been with the U.S. mail?
So, I think we’re fine with socialized programs in the U.S. once they are in place. We just always resist them going in. Try to take away medicare and medicaid, you’ll have as much trouble as if you try to expand them to include the rest of us.
Perhaps we the idiots don’t know what we want until either A) we already have it or B) a corporation runs a huge propaganda campaign to convince us that we want it their way.
Note that we always fall for the latter. How else would you explain McDonald’s?
#70, Scott,
I like Pollster.com for finding polls, especially tracking polls from different sources. I keep it bookmarked as a reference tool.
For consumer satisfaction, after a quick search, I found this where Medicare, Medicaid, and Medicare advantage all come out far ahead of private insurers. As you correctly point out, the elderly and Medicaid use medical facilities far more than do healthier people that are still able to work.
(summary of CAHPS))
http://tinyurl.com/nv28dy
(Kaiser Foundation Study 2003)
http://tinyurl.com/ltlbhg
The CAHPS survey for 2007:
#54, Further proof that liberals have zero respect for individual rights; it’s all about the collective.
The reason why Republicans have been losing seats in Congress is because they’ve become as bad as Democrats in regards to fiscal responsibility. After Bush was elected, they got drunk with power. They assumed a Republican president would never veto legislation from a Republican congress . . . and they were right. Bush couldn’t find his veto pen if his life depended on it. It it weren’t for the war in Iraq, he would have been a one-term POTUS just like his father.
Even though the Democrats have stated that illegal immigrants, will not have access to Americans health care, it can easily be compromised by fraudulent use of stolen ID. BUT WE ALL SEEM TO FORGET, THAT IF THE DEMOCRATS PASS A PATH TO CITIZENSHIP–OR BLANKET AMNESTY. AS NEW CITIZENS ALONG WITH THEIR EXTENDED FAMILIES. THEY THEN WILL BE ABLE TO CONVENIENTLY ACCESS–HEALTH CARE–WITHOUT ANY RESTRAINTS? NEVER, EVER PAYING A SINGLE PENNY INTO THE SYSTEM.
Everybody in the workplace must be carefully vetted for inconsistencies with a progressively upgraded E-Verify. Even without stealing into the reformed health care system by federal law the taxpayers must support illegal immigrants for emergency medical services. Foreign nationals use this mandatory law, as an excuse for any kind of minor injury or illness.
The travesty that drives the faltering health care system is of course money. Everyday our televisions are monotonously inundated with adverts about new drugs and medicine. Personally I’m sick of the continuous kaleidescope of ads, trying to program our brains to buy another boring antihistamine? We should also question the majority of Republicans, why there are rumors of a dark conspiracy? Could it be that that these people have a cemented interest in killing any type of reform? How many of these politicians have secret stocks in multi-bed hospitals, greedy profiteering insurance firms or the pharmaceutical industry. THE QUESTION THAT MUST BE ASKED IS, WHO HAS VOTED AGAINST A PUBLIC OPTION? WHICH POLITICIANS HAVE A FINANCIAL STAKE IN KILLING ANY REFORM? IS THERE INFORMATION THAT ANSWERS THESE QUESTIONS? THINK ABOUT IT?
My health care experience was mainly in England and Australia and prior to the mass immigration invasion was positively first class. FIRST CLASS AND EXEMPLARY!
Of course the status quo doesn’t want any change in the trillion dollar medical complex, because it could strictly confine a multitude of new common sense laws? Sadly, I have listened to lies sprouting from the special interest lobby over the airwaves for weeks. Trouble is, a majority of the American people believe this tripe that we are constantly bombarded with?
We are still conveying many entitlement programs to illegal aliens and their families, with extorted taxes.We have always been the recipients of business welfare and likely always will be, because the pariah businesses that hire illegals, never pay anything to their support. GET RAW ANSWERS AT NUMBERSUSA Tell those in WASHINGTON no more AMNESTIES. USE ATTRITION TO DEPORT THEM THROUGH E-VERIFY, 287 G, NO MATCH SOCIAL SECURITY LETTERS AND LIGHTENING ICE RAIDS. CONTACT YOUR POLITICIAN 202-224-3121 AND DEMAND NO WEAKENING OF CURRENT LAWS?