Obamacare part 2

[Raeven]

Cthulhu, I quite agree, it could have been much better. I was a fervent proponent of the public option, because I understood that the only way to provide any meaningful competition to the health insurance companies that have gripped health care costs in this country by the balls for the last 50+ years. But I'm grateful for the inroads that the AHCA has made, even if they are not complete. I give enormous cred to Obama. He not only effected the greatest changes to our fucked-up health care system than anyone else has in more than 90 years. He did it while handling a few other little problems on his plate, too -- one being wrangling with an economy on the brink of utter collapse. Bill and Hillary couldn't manage it when times were rolling high. Is the work done? Of course not. The Dems acknowledged at the time they had to settle for half a loaf.

When you think about the complexity of our health care system, how many people rely upon it as it is currently constituted for their livelihood (and I am one of them)... well, it's like turning a rudderless ship. You can do it, but it takes a long time and it's a very awkward, challenging event. I don't expect the total change to occur within the rest of my lifetime -- which hopefully will be for at least another 30 years. (Assuming of course that Obamacare does its part to ensure I have that many more years. )

As a solidly middle-aged sole proprietor of a small business, I look forward to having some decent health insurance (something more than catastrophic coverage) for the first time in more than three years since my husband died. We had great group coverage through his company while he was alive. When he unexpectedly died, I was permitted to COBRA my coverage (for painfully expensive premiums, I might add) for three additional years. After that, I was on my own. I was turned down for regular coverage because of a "preexisting condition" about which I had nearly forgotten. (I suffer from spinal stenosis, a fairly common condition in middle age. My hands had begun to occasionally go numb in the night, so I went and saw an orthopedic surgeon about it. He told me what was happening and advised I would probably have to have surgery to address it at some point, but to try and delay that for as long as possible. I promptly put it out of my mind and live with the occasional annoyance of numb hands first thing in the morning. Now you know the big "preexisting condition" that put regular insurance coverage out of my reach!) I was thrown into the "high risk" category -- meaning I could pay the same company that had just turned me down for regular coverage a bunch more money for the same coverage. They simply priced me out of the market. My situation is not unique. They have done that to virtually every single person I know who had to seek individual coverage. Talk about a scam.

I am really, really looking forward to finally having decent coverage for a reasonable cost under the AHCA. ANYTHING will be an improvement.

[AtheistCreed]

Aww Raeven I'm so sorry to hear about your husband and the trouble you've gone through with insurance.

<3 sincere sympathy

The "preexisting condition" nonsense is absurd... Every human has a preexisting condition, it's called being alive. Insurance should not be a prerequisite for the medical technology that has been discovered to enhance the quality of people's lives.

To me, medical technology is a right, not a privilege, not a stock nor merchandise.

I don't think the doctors and scientists who are responsible for medical breakthroughs were thinking "Oh look how much money I can make by hanging this over the heads of dying humans"

Governments exist to help organize the nation and create structure, and ensure that money is dispersed appropriately for the greater good. I for one am all for regulated healthcare.

When people make a business out of gambling with human lives, it will never turn out okay.

---

Oh and that brings to mind this other fact.

Veterinarians take care of wild animals... who is paying their bill? The gorilla's mother? The dolphin's Jewish rapist (Bible reference: Deuteronomy 22:28-29)?

Obviously organizations who regulate these efforts pay for it. The U.S. government should regulate humanitarian efforts for their own country as much as they do for other countries.

No, they do it because it is their duty! They CHOSE that duty, and they have the technology and knowledge to help those animals.

Humans are animals, we're no different and deserve the same rights as wounded prairie dogs.

[Manowar]

Here is another problem I have with Obamacare, and I have said this on my other AHCA thread, Shouldn't someone who eats themselves to death or smokes themselves to death , etc have a huge premium and huge deductable? They don't give a damn and do what they want. people that are healthy have to pay for these losers, that is unfair.

manowar

[Isun]

That's why we tax Cigarettes so high, and if we would stop subsidizing corporations we would be fine financially in this country.

[Creed of Heresy]

Here is another problem I have with Obamacare, and I have said this on my other AHCA thread, Shouldn't someone who eats themselves to death or smokes themselves to death , etc have a huge premium and huge deductable? They don't give a damn and do what they want. people that are healthy have to pay for these losers, that is unfair.

manowar

Just because 1 out of 30 abuses the system, doesn't mean you shut down the system. You do not damn 29 to continued poverty and struggling and hopelessness of their situations just because $4 of your yearly taxes are going to help pay for some fat-ass to eat himself to an early grave unless you're a morally bankrupt individual. You're basically stating that Obamacare is bad because human whales and super-smokers will be on it along with everyone who genuinely needs it.

Honestly, you can't account for other peoples' choices. Such is the problem with having a wide selection of personal freedoms for a population; some of them are going to use their freedoms to be hedonistic self-destructive parasites. Just how it is. Nothing you can really do to differentiate between someone who is 500 lbs. from overeating, and someone who is 500 lbs. because of diabetes. The amount of money it would take to provide the clearly defined lines, and to enforce them, would far outnumber the costs of just letting such people be on the program.

If it becomes a pervasive problem, of course, where expenditure mandates removal of such individuals, then it'll happen, but for now, it's just not fiscally reasonable to start drawing even more lines and writing up even more litigation for such minor issues.

[Jackalope]

So, while we're talking about throwing people under the bus who make some unhealthy choices you don't agree with, how about we do the same for everyone who's lifestyle puts them at greater risk?

Oh, I know, let's look at people who are high risk for HIV infection!

Do we really want to take this line to it's logical conclusion?

I for one do not.

[Manowar]

Here is another problem I have with Obamacare, and I have said this on my other AHCA thread, Shouldn't someone who eats themselves to death or smokes themselves to death , etc have a huge premium and huge deductable? They don't give a damn and do what they want. people that are healthy have to pay for these losers, that is unfair.

manowar

Just because 1 out of 30 abuses the system, doesn't mean you shut down the system. You do not damn 29 to continued poverty and struggling and hopelessness of their situations just because $4 of your yearly taxes are going to help pay for some fat-ass to eat himself to an early grave unless you're a morally bankrupt individual. You're basically stating that Obamacare is bad because human whales and super-smokers will be on it along with everyone who genuinely needs it.

Honestly, you can't account for other peoples' choices. Such is the problem with having a wide selection of personal freedoms for a population; some of them are going to use their freedoms to be hedonistic self-destructive parasites. Just how it is. Nothing you can really do to differentiate between someone who is 500 lbs. from overeating, and someone who is 500 lbs. because of diabetes. The amount of money it would take to provide the clearly defined lines, and to enforce them, would far outnumber the costs of just letting such people be on the program.

If it becomes a pervasive problem, of course, where expenditure mandates removal of such individuals, then it'll happen, but for now, it's just not fiscally reasonable to start drawing even more lines and writing up even more litigation for such minor issues.

I never go to doctors, ever. I have not been to a doctor for anything since 89 or 1990 so this bothers me more than it would you or someone else. If you are a bad driver you have to pay higher premiums or a big deductable, so why not this? That would be fair. I have heard it said that socialism punishes hard work. I workout a lot and not a day goes by when i don't count calories or my macros but I have to pay for lazy fat asses. You may not agree with me but can you see my point? If everyone thought like me we would not have a problem and healthcare would cost a fraction of what it does now but people don't give a F@#
Manowar

[Raeven]

Wow, you've got it all figured out, don't you, Manowar? I gather we should put you in charge of deciding who is a "lazy fat ass" and who isn't, yes? Ok. Here's the single mom over here, her husband got hit by a bus and she's left now with three young children, working two jobs, can't afford dependent care let alone a gym membership, and between doing laundry, making meals, looking after her home and all the rest, she just doesn't really have time for working out a lot. How much shall we penalize her? She's a "lazy fat ass" within your definition, is she not?

Or what about the woman I know who works out faithfully every day, watches every bite she puts in her mouth but is still a large person? I'm pretty sure she's a "lazy fat ass" by your standard. How will you verify that she works out every day? How will you keep track of her 1,400 calories per day self-imposed limitation? Or is it easier to just penalize her because she doesn't fit into your definition of a non-"lazy fat ass"?

What about the guy like you, who never goes to doctors, ever, but who maybe works in a high-risk profession, like fire fighting? Clearly, you are a much higher risk to cost the health insurance companies more for your medical care than, say, the guy who sells you the insurance. Hey!! Maybe we should charge you a premium, too!! Makes sense to me!!

What about the guy who partied like a brain-damaged test monkey in his youth, but became a Mormon at age 25 and hasn't let liquor pass his lips or smoked anything since? But he turns up with lung cancer at age 60. Thumbs up? Or thumbs down?

Or what about the guy like my late husband, who died unexpectedly costing the health care system nothing, because for his whole life he fit within non-"lazy fat ass" standards of height/weight appropriate configuration, was active and fit -- but dropped dead one day of a heart attack because he couldn't leave the red meat alone? Penalty for him? Yes? No? Who gets to decide how much red meat is "too much?"

Are you starting to get my drift? Who arbitrates the "lazy fat ass" status? And who keeps track of who is being a "lazy fat ass" and who isn't? Have you yet worked it out that enforcement of your "lazy fat ass" standards would cost far more than it will cost to just cover all the "lazy fat asses?"

Health status simply isn't measurable in the way that good or bad driving is. Do you get that? Me, I wish we could penalize people who haven't sufficiently developed their critical thinking skills.

[Creed of Heresy]

Why not this? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the government is not a profit-motive-driven organization, for one. Again this comes down to a matter of bureaucracy. People whine incessantly about how complicated and overburdened bureaucracy can get, but then they want MORE bureaucracy for anything that gets put in place that they see as spending their tax money on those who are "unworthy" of the welfare payments they get. The reason why they don't is because the difficulty that would have to go into discerning different "levels," so to speak, of those who are willfully self-destructing themselves through excess. I mean, really, how do you really gauge just how much someone is smoking daily, or how much they are consuming in food, and whether or not their weight is a biological problem? More to the point is, how do you gauge that efficiently and without having to send someone to see a doctor who would have to be paid by the government to check this sort of thing? Your average doctor visit costs like $200 before most co-pays, which is MORE money that's going to come out of the taxpayer's pocket, while increasing workloads on doctors who, by the way, will also need to be certified by the government for this sort of thing which costs even MORE money, plus you'd have to pay the government employees who would be needed to process and file the paperwork, which would cost more for the buildings that would have to be built or rented and staffed for them...

Starting to see the problem, here? Again, were this truly such a problem that doing all of that WOULD save money, I think the government actually would do this. Why? Because each bureau has to fight for their resources during every budgetary allocation. They start showing they're hemorrhaging money, they DO actually start getting cut until they fix the problems.

Now, you never go to the doctors, and that's good for you, but just how old are you, exactly? And what do you think working out and counting your calories will mean if you get, say, lupus? Or how about leukemia? What about cancer, or a stroke, or a pulmonary embolism, or a tapeworm, or a heart attack, or a disease of the digestive tract? Or what if one of those people who can't afford health care and is grossly impoverished and unable to eat a healthy, balanced diet that your privileged white ass can clearly afford consistently gets tuberculosis due to such conditions because whiners like you refused to give them any assistance because of a few hyper-smokers and fat-asses, and they happen to cough as you're running by them and you get TB, too? What if you're running and you aren't paying attention and you get hit by a car?

If everyone thought like you, we'd have a lot of morons thinking that running around and counting their calories meant that we can all avoid disease and injury because we'd all have a lot of morons thinking that everyone's immune systems, anatomy, biology, metabolisms, and genetic predispositions are all perfectly equal and that circumstances have nothing to do with the REAL reasons people go to the hospital, which are typically because diseases that can't just be dealt with by our immune systems tend to happen to people by the hundreds of millions in this country, along with the various other failings caused by the imperfection of the human anatomy that lead to debilitation that, untreated, can cause extensive, permanent damage, or death.

You think that because running around a lot and wasting your time obsessing about your caloric intake, you're not getting the diseases and maladies that people actually do go to the hospitals for? Correlation != causation, ever heard that before? It fits very well: Your running and counting will not stop nor treat any of the maladies I listed above should they come to pass. The most you are mitigating the risk of is heart attack and heart disease. Congratulations! Now see if you can outrun cancer.

Healthcare would cost a fraction of what it does now... *chuckles and shakes his head* Yeah. YOU have the magical cure-all to our society's health problems, and that cure-all is running and counting calories. Please. Get off your pedestal. The reason people don't give a fuck about how you think is because people like you are idiots. Simple solutions to insanely complex problems are not solutions. You speak like someone who spends their entire time running and obsessing over their calories as opposed to studying how the world works and what lands individuals into certain circumstances of their existences. In other words, if I want opinions on how to run a marathon, I'll come to you. If I want information on how to deal with the rising costs of medical care and coverage and health issues in this country, I'll speak to one of the rest of these guys in this thread.

[kılıç_mehmet]

Just because 1 out of 30 abuses the system, doesn't mean you shut down the system. You do not damn 29 to continued poverty and struggling and hopelessness of their situations just because $4 of your yearly taxes are going to help pay for some fat-ass to eat himself to an early grave unless you're a morally bankrupt individual. You're basically stating that Obamacare is bad because human whales and super-smokers will be on it along with everyone who genuinely needs it.

Honestly, you can't account for other peoples' choices. Such is the problem with having a wide selection of personal freedoms for a population; some of them are going to use their freedoms to be hedonistic self-destructive parasites. Just how it is. Nothing you can really do to differentiate between someone who is 500 lbs. from overeating, and someone who is 500 lbs. because of diabetes. The amount of money it would take to provide the clearly defined lines, and to enforce them, would far outnumber the costs of just letting such people be on the program.

If it becomes a pervasive problem, of course, where expenditure mandates removal of such individuals, then it'll happen, but for now, it's just not fiscally reasonable to start drawing even more lines and writing up even more litigation for such minor issues.

I never go to doctors, ever. I have not been to a doctor for anything since 89 or 1990 so this bothers me more than it would you or someone else. If you are a bad driver you have to pay higher premiums or a big deductable, so why not this? That would be fair. I have heard it said that socialism punishes hard work. I workout a lot and not a day goes by when i don't count calories or my macros but I have to pay for lazy fat asses. You may not agree with me but can you see my point? If everyone thought like me we would not have a problem and healthcare would cost a fraction of what it does now but people don't give a F@#
Manowar

Well,how can one abuse a truly national healthcare system? No one goes to a doctor unless they really have to.
I say that a fully nationalized healthcare system would be of a better quality, and of lesser burden to the people.

And of course there is the question of how healthy the American population is. Even if a person is fat as fuck, or is a chain smoker, bound to get lung cancer, I don't think that really fits into abuse though.
What fits into abuse is that unhealthy food habits continue to be propagated in the US.

Of course, everyone must pay heed to a public contract when public healthcare systems are set in motion. That is, not eating or smoking themselves to death. Not being fat is really not a hard thing to do. You don't need to visit a gym in order not to be fat.
Lazy fat asses on the other hand are a social problem, not an individual problem, they should be treated on the social scale, which is done by proper social engineering.
How? Schools, of course. Every student in a school should be accountable of being involved in at least one type of sports according to their ability.
Students must be taught to eat good food, and be healthy. On the other hand, today's America gives people the right to be fat, and well, some even propagate that being fat should be considered "okay".
However from what I heard, unhealthy food in the US is easier to get to than healthy food is. So what can you do?