Obama Healthcare town hall

wish2fish

wish2fish

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Dec 19, 2006
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Anyone get a chance to listen to the town hall yesterday (8/11)? I was in and out of the car so I didn't hear it all but there were 3 things I thought were interesting.

After his speech, President Obama went to the questions portion of the event.

The first person to ask a question was a state representative from Dover New Hampshire. Why is a politician getting a chance to address the president? This forum should be for the public.

around the 7 minute mark
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMnEmiHm6RU&feature=channel[/YOUTUBE]

In response to question about universal health care the president talked about universal health care vs single payer. They president addressed that question but went on to talk about the government getting involved in healtcare being unfair competition to the insurance companies the president used a comparison of the the post office to UPS and Fedex. Stating that the post office hasn't adversely affected the profitability of the those 2 companies. He even stated "Its the post office thats always having problems". Is that what we want for our healthcare?

around the 8:45 mark
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfsiBu8Wgyk&feature=channel[/YOUTUBE]

Finally they allowed a 13 year old to ask a question. It was a touchy, feely moment but please come back when you pay taxes and vote!
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOnc8bUwLF0[/YOUTUBE]

I'm not opposed to working on healthcare but lets get medicare and medicaid fixed first and then consider expanding to others. I also wonder if what the president says he wants and what the congress provides are the same thing.
 
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I watched the whole thing while I was in my office yesterday...

My biggest concern with this whole thing is how they keep saying "If you like your current health insurance, you can keep it." That is a big fat lie and I'm not sure why it is not being called out. If your health insurance is through your work, you don't pick your health insurance provider. Your employer does. As a business owner, I am going to always look to save money. If I have a choice between paying a private insurer 10K/year per family/employee or $3K a year... I'm going to put the "company plan" as the cheap one. That's why I hate this whole public option/government run plan. Many companies will switch to it to save money. One of the senators I was watching yesterday said she would support having all the federal employees (millions) all having to go on the government run plan. That means the people that work at NASA and such won't be on Blue Cross (or other private choices they had) anymore. There is no doubt in my mind that a government run plan will undercut public insurance companies and drive them out of business over the next 10 years.... then it's an easy choice to say "let's have a single payer system." I'm not stupid... there is a long term strategy here to wipe out private insurance and I think the words used by Barney Frank are "we need to put the country on a glide path to a single payer system."

I do think there are a lot of things broken in the insurance industry. I've seen a lot of them running small companies. If you have a 50 person company and one person gets cancer, the insurance company will jack up the rates for everyone. If you have one person get cancer and another have a heart attack, they will drop you. I've lived that scenario and it's wrong. But I think that can be easily fixed.

The other thing I see a lot of is when a small company is wound down/shut down. There is no such thing as a COBRA policy for the employees as the master policy no longer exists... people are literally tossed out on the street with little notice and no ability to get insurance even if they could afford it.

So.. I support fixing some of the problems... just like when the government mandated COBRA... but it needs to be done where viable private businesses can compete and be profitable. The government can't run anything right... name one program... just one will do.

One other thing... I really hate the "big drug companies are evil" talk. That's just ridiculous. I hear some of these politicians talk about how companies develop life saving drugs and should just give them away for the good of all mankind (essentially). That's BS. If I invest my dollars into something and from it comes a cure for cancer, I should be able to charge what I want for it... period... To paint them as evil because they do that is flat out wrong.
 
There is no question what Pres Obama is trying to do, if he has his way over time private health insurance will be gone.

How are they going to do this and pay for it, simple tax businesses so they are force to drop the private plans and join the Gov health plan.

It’s just sickening when caught in a lie all they have to do is say that is not what I said and all the sheep believe it even with the facts out their…

All of this spending is making me very nervous,

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk[/youtube]
 
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Four Suns said:
I watched the whole thing while I was in my office yesterday...

My biggest concern with this whole thing is how they keep saying "If you like your current health insurance, you can keep it." That is a big fat lie and I'm not sure why it is not being called out. If your health insurance is through your work, you don't pick your health insurance provider. Your employer does.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: Your right that is exactly the way it will go. It has happened to us every year and this was prior to this Healthcare bill.

Also don't expect any more drugs to cure anything. If you can't turn enough profit to pay for future development it won't be done and lives will be lost.
 
It is the things that are not actually in the bill that worry me. Much of it delegates the specifics to be determined by the various commissioners, panels, and boards that the bill creates later on. I see no mention that these folks will need to get legislation if they want to make additional changes, enact regulations, increase taxes (this includes "user fees"), or change the eligability or coverage requirements. It looks like they can do whatever the heck they please, with very little restriction.

I loved that tape of Rep. John Conyers asking (paraphrasing a little here) "What good would it do me to read the bill? I'm too stupid to understand it even if I did read it." :smt043:smt043:smt043
 
I guess my point in bringing this up was that there really wasn't a diversity of opinion in the room. A democratic state senator asks the first question and it turns out the young girl is the daughter of a obama financial supporter.
 
Four Suns said:
One other thing... I really hate the "big drug companies are evil" talk. That's just ridiculous. I hear some of these politicians talk about how companies develop life saving drugs and should just give them away for the good of all mankind (essentially). That's BS. If I invest my dollars into something and from it comes a cure for cancer, I should be able to charge what I want for it... period... To paint them as evil because they do that is flat out wrong.
Click to expand...

I work for a big drug company. Wish we could charge whatever we want for our products. Then they could pay me more and I'd have a bigger boat than Gary. Doesn't work that way any more than Ford or BMW can charge whatever they want. No matter how good a Mustang is, people will buy something else if Ford charged too much. Same with pharmaceuticals. There's almost always something else from a competitor that works about as well. Plus the insurance companies aren't going to pay whatever you want. They'll just deny access. Had to make up an investment of several hundred million when only a handful of people can afford the product. Prices simply must be reasonable. That doesn't mean cheap. It does cost a lot to discover, prove, and manufacture the stuff.

Also, nearly every pharma company has a program to put name-brand products within reach of everyone who needs them by offering free or deeply discounted product based on actual need and ability to pay. Not sure how that qualifies as 'evil.'

I know someone who works in clinical trials management. She put in extra effort to maintain product availability for someone whose disease symptoms completely disappeared during a phase i (maybe a phase iia; I forget the details.) trial. Nothing this patient tried worked at all. Normally a phase i or a phase iia trial isn't to prove effectiveness, just to determine what's safe. She didn't have to do it and it's a real pain in the butt to continue someone's medication for a product that hasn't been approved. It's also expensive because of monitoring and providing the product free. But companies do that because it's the right thing.

Sorry, but I'm damned hard pressed to think of anything that the government does simply because it's the right thing to do.

Best regards,
Frank C
 
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Any Senator or Congressman who votes for a bill that contains an "End of Life Counseling" provision seriously needs End of Term Counseling.

The Congressman from Nashville, one of the Blue Dogs, cancelled an appearance at a local middle school because he thought demonstrators might upset the children going back to school. Another Blue Dog here in our state isn't talking in public anytime during the August recess. I wonder how much of this anger will make its way to the polls in November 2010?
 
wish2fish said:
I guess my point in bringing this up was that there really wasn't a diversity of opinion in the room. A democratic state senator asks the first question and it turns out the young girl is the daughter of a obama financial supporter.
Click to expand...

of course not, it's a scripted political ad to sell their stupid plan. if it goes through, hopefully before too much damage is done it can be reversed after the 2010 elections......hopefully it doesn't go through.....
 
there are stupid people in this world on both sides. why do i get the feeling, that there is more to this than the story will ever tell. not sure if anyone remebers in the 2004 election, there was a photo of a girl sitting on her dads shoulders with a bush sign being ripped out of her hands by a younger man? he turned out to be ther brother, and it was staged.

can't help but wonder if this was, and hope so. i don't like the man, but that goes too damn far. if you can't respect the man, respect the office. and leave his family out of it....and vote him out next time.

we're all americans. we can disagree. we can fight with information, not hate. i pray no one takes to violence. that will destroy all of our rights.

in the past week, we've been called nazis, racists, klansmen, mobsters, and shills for the reps and insurance companies. why? 'cause they can't argue with the truth. all we've gottta do is what we're doing. it looks more and more like it's working. violence will solve nothing. if this news story is true, i hope they prosecute this bonewhead to the fullest extent of the law. if it's staged, i hope the whole world finds out what a phony this man is.
 
I agree. We can't tolerate that kind of behavior regardless who happens to be the Prez at the time. I certainly don't like the man, but I certainly don't like people threatening to do him harm, either.
 
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Having quite a few German friends, I can tell you that just as we here don't always see eye to eye with "the press", neither do they. The last time that I saw one of them, he had flown over here to get cataract surgery at Johns Hopkins. Seems that cataract surgery is an "elective" surgery over there. The government wouldn't pay for it. They also forbade him to go out and pay for out of his own pocket.

They elephant in the room is this. You can either not buy insurance and pay if you get sick, buy insurance and pay the deductable if you get sick, or do neither and get hauled into the ER if you have to. You will get treated in all 3 circumstances. Where's the friggin' "crisis"? Oh yeah.... If the government didn't steal so much money out of people's paychecks every week, everyone would be able to buy insurance. Its really a tax crisis. How abouts we fix that first?

I go to Johns Hopkins for all of my care. Sure, I end up paying a little more out of pocket, but I'm getting world class, best in class care. I don't want the Government's help.
 
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My sister was married to a guy in the Army and they were stationed off-base in the UK. After one experience with their medical system, whenever the children needed medical attention, she got on a flight to Germany and took them to the medical facilities on a U. S. post.


Saw this on WSJ this morning. It's pertinent.

An Anesthesiologist's Take on Health-Care Reform
Expect a two-tier medical system and needless ER deaths if Congress and the White House have their way.

And this (Yes, I'm cleaning out my in-box) also from the WSJ.

Great Moments in Socialized Medicine
"A young mother gave birth on a pavement outside a hospital after she was told to make her own way there," reports London's Daily Mail:

Mother-of-three Carmen Blake called her midwife to ask for an ambulance when she went into labour unexpectedly with her fourth child. But the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city's nearby Royal Infirmary. Her daughter Mariah was delivered on a pavement outside the hospital by a passer-by, just before ambulance crews arrived.

The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, reports on how the National Health Service treated an older patient:

A family has won £130,000 from an NHS trust after it refused to pay for their mother's care fees, claiming her Alzheimer's was not a health issue. NHS Worcestershire ruled that Judith Roe, 74, did not qualify for NHS funding because her condition was a "social" rather than "health" problem, even though she was so ill she could not make a cup of tea and regularly left the stove on.

She was forced to sell her £200,000 home to pay her £600-a-week nursing home fees, which would have been funded if she had been categorised correctly. Mrs Roe's family appealed to the Health Service Ombudsman, which ruled that Mrs Roe's assessment had been incorrect and her treatment should have been funded by the NHS. NHS Worcestershire has now reimbursed them for six years of care.

April Fool! argues former Enron adviser Paul Krugman:

In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but over all it appears to provide quite good care while spending only about 40 percent as much per person as we do.

So don't worry. Even if ObamaCare denies you the medical treatment you need, your story will be false.

Best regards,
Frank C
 
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