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House releases health care reform bill

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Friday, July 17. 2009
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Leaders in the House of Representatives have released their comprehensive plan for reforming health care this week.

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#1 cats on 07/17/09 at 08:46 AM
Well, this is an interesting idea but I have been hearing for years that our health care system is broken. I have heard promises for years, that the Administration will take steps to fix what's broken.
I want to see the nuts and bolts- how is this going to work?
Explain each and every flawed area in our health care system and then explain exactly what steps will be taken, how long it will take to overhaul the old way of doing things and how the Administration plans to pay for it.
Most importantly, how is this going to change anything for me?
Talk is cheap, I'm old enough to be sick of talk. Show me change.
#2 KFC on 07/17/09 at 09:02 AM
I like the expression "reducing cost for all"[email protected]! It will end up costing all of us that WORK. I think America is starting to wake up too bad they are 9 months too late. There were a few boo's the other night at the Allstar game, they will only start getting louder. Hard working tax paying Americans are tired of the govt throwing their tax money away and rewarding those that don't pay taxes and punishing those who do by raising them. We all better hope that the "cap and trade "doesn't pass.
#3 Andrew Odom on 07/17/09 at 09:11 AM
I don't want socialized medicine. I don't want anyone telling me what doctor I am to "report to." I have lived in a country with that system and it left people fearing a visit to the doctor. I simply don't want that.

Likewise, I don't want doctors to quit practicing because they feel it isn't a lucrative trade. Not all doctors get paid millions. I am aware of that. I am also aware that doctors spend enormous amounts of money to go to school and to serve in residence before ever possibly gaining their own practice so I certainly want them to be justly compensated.

However, I don't like hearing that drug manufacturers post record breaking profits quarter after quarter and that the majority of Americans live without health insurance at some point in their life. It simply isn't fair.

I want to see a system that is not funded by one sector and abused by another. I don't want to see emergency rooms used as Medicare "doc in the box" facilities.

How do we fix it? I am not completely clear on that yet. But I will continue to post. Perhaps through dialogue we can all put together a system "by the people, for the people."
#4 Jenny on 07/17/09 at 10:09 AM
I agree, I don't want socialized medicine either. Yes ,we all have the perception that doctors make tons of money. Look at the time they spend in school and the money it cost to do what they do. After school they intern long hours and years before they can practice on their own. Also the mal-practice insurance they have to pay is high cause of people love to sue. If the govt gets involved then you will see less doctors. Why be a doctor and have the govt tell you who you will treat and how much to charge. The problem as I see is not the doctors as much it is the insurance company's but the drug companys. Pills in general are outragous and why are generic so much cheaper than the real one when they are the samething. But what are you going to do, the drug companies are private and supposed to make money, just like the oil companies and we complain when gas goes up and then we see Exxon posting a $12 billion profit.
#5 Andrew Odom on 07/17/09 at 10:40 AM
Excellent points 'Jenny.'

I think we should first enact legislation to ban drug companies from making campaign contributions to any government party. It is illegal and unethical to allow drug companies (feel free to replace with oil companies, waste companies, banks, etc) to control legislation.
#6 hsr0601 on 07/17/09 at 10:44 AM
In case the health care reform provides the general public with peace of mind, the rising mental stress or illness caused by financial instability may bend the curve surprisingly,
in combination with kicking out the 'keep eating habit' to forget the deep-seated instability and apprehension, I guess.
'Work or Break' health system with no brake or safety system might be one of the biggest hidden causes of mental stress, obesity or overweight threatening the overall economy, I cautiously suppose.
#7 Tom Rauch on 07/17/09 at 10:59 AM
I'm in good health except for an eye that was injured when I was much younger and a Barret's esophagus. My blood pressure is perfect, I have not smoked since I was 18, my cholesterol is excellent. I'm a non-drinker.

I pay about 11,000 a year just for myself for a policy that makes me use HMO's. I can not get coverage for my good eye because I have an eye that was injured by concussion. I sometimes wait six months to see a specialist, or at least two months minimum. My out of pocket per year is generally about $2000.

My opinion is people whining about nationalized health care probably do not have close personal friends in countries that have national care, and do not pay their own insurance or insurance for employees.

I pulled a tendon in a finger recently. I went to an emergency facility. I then had to go to a local doctor, 1 week wait. Next I had to go to a specialist, one month wait. There was no possible way to talk to the first specialist. I had to drive back in on another appointment. That first specialist had me do something that did not work, so I had to go to a different specialist. The first one, at Piedmont medical, never did transfer my records.

Another two weeks wait plus six weeks wasted with a bad treatment. Now two months later all is fine, but Blue Cross paid for multiple X-rays of the same thing because doctors would not transfer X-rays. They paid for multiple visits because doctors did not talk with me or each other. All this time I'm paying co-pays and trips.

The last doctor did the right thing and fixed the problem, but it took six months.

Contrast this to my friend in Australia. He lives way out in the middle of nowhere in a town of 200 people. He had a back problem. He made one call and was transported free to a medical center. He got immediate care, his total cost was $20, and he had no delay.

I have friends in New Zealand, England, Canada, and Australia that get excellent care and do not wait as long as we do here. Even a friend from Chile has excellent health care, and that nation is very poor. None of them complain, and two are doctors themselves. They have nice houses, lots of cars, and plenty of income.

Right now the USA ranks about 37th in health care, depending on the source. For example look at this one from the WHO:

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

I think most people in the USA listen to the rhetoric instead of looking at facts. We don't have an exceptional system, we don't have exceptional care. All we really have is exceptional cost.

Over the past 40 years we have moved far away from being number 1 in almost any area, from education to health care. This is because we allow the money to influence our opinions instead of looking at facts.

Our system is broken. It needs an overhaul.
#8 H B on 07/17/09 at 11:54 AM
I hear, and I agree, I dont want Socialized Medicine.
This Bill is, in my opinion, a step in that direction.
I do not wish to have a bureaucrat between myself and my Doctor,
and this in my opinion is what is fixing to happen.
Back in the 70's there was a movie Soylent Green. Which medicine and nutrition came from persons who were euthanized by the
government.
I get the cold feeling we are headed that way.
#9 Mary on 07/17/09 at 12:34 PM
The problem begins and ends in Washington. All they know to do is spend,spend,spend. Look what Biden said today talking about the stimulous"we had to spend to keep the country from going broke". Common thoughts in Washington cause they don't live in the real world. Time for us to do something in 2010.
#10 Paul on 07/17/09 at 01:05 PM
You can't write anything short.
#11 John Wright on 07/17/09 at 01:13 PM
Tom, I'm glad to hear someone else say that, I have friends all over the world as well and I have never heard any of them complain about there national healthcare. I also know in England if you have a good employer they offer you private heath care as well so if you want to you may go see a private doctor or specialist. I also enjoy the fact that they reimburse you for your travel expenses to get to the doctor. When was the last time someone's HMO told them to travel 200 miles to se a specialist and then paid them for the trip.
#12 Anonymous on 07/17/09 at 06:34 PM
Sounds good to me. If you are happy with your insurance, keep it. If a medical problem will bankrupt your family, maybe help is finally on the way.
#13 Anonymous on 07/17/09 at 06:47 PM
Just think, if the medical practice is run by the government, then that would make doctors, nurses, etc. government employees. ...Scary.

To see how the government handles health care already, go to a V.A. hospital sometime and look around. If they can't treat our veterans any better, do you honestly think we'll be any better off?
#14 Sheila Tolley on 07/17/09 at 08:58 PM
X-rays belong to you, Tom. Doctors and hospitals cannot refuse to give copies of them to you. I have just been through six surgeries myself. Your friends around the world are telling you smiley face stories. I have friends over the pond also, all of them are not happy. The last family I stayed with pays a flat FIFTY PER CENT taxes on their income. The answer lies somewhere in between. You seem smart to me. How much money can be cut from our penal system alone? Give me your best guess?
#15 Steve the Rational One on 07/18/09 at 05:46 AM
H B says he does not want the government bureacrat between him and his doctor. I am sorry to say that it's too late: the government already regulates the health care industry up one side and the down the other. In addition to government regulation, however, the choices doctors and other professionals make are governed by insurance companies. I think the problem with health care is insurance; those companies do not have the same accounting rules as other firms, and so they stash your premium dollars away all over the place and claim to he losing money. As long as we have health insurance, rates will continue to rise. Do you really think, for example, AIG was nearly bankrupt? Really?

I do not know what the overall solution is, but health care should not be a for-profit business like auto sales or housing construction. When it comes to health care companies, the profit motive opens the door to unethical and immoral practices. In health care, capitalism has led us down the wrong road.
#16 Sheila Tolley on 07/18/09 at 10:55 AM
Just get 'Old Doc" off Gunsmoke. Tell obama to tend to America business instead of kissing foreign butts. Quit advertising ridiculous new medicines on tv to make 90 year old men want sex. Let the old people die let the young people work. And shut the Hell up about needing obama and his gang of jokers to control our every decision. Eat food instead of dyes and imitation bacon bits. Let your immune system got off your artificial crap and you will only need doctors when you break a 90 year old leg while doing your morning somersaults.
#17 H B on 07/18/09 at 06:43 PM
I have never had a problem getting coverage, and in the last 5 years I have had 3 major operations, one of which, I spent a month in the hospital. Thank God no Bureaucrat made a decision to whether I would get the proper treatment or not.
I didnt go looking for a panacea I just want to get well, and the health problems corrected. I know I cannot be a 16 year old again.
I am 70 now. I am not looking for the problem in the woodpile, I am looking only to solve the problems I have. When I was working full time our company was purchased by a British company, and they could not understand why health care was so easy for us. Makes you wonder what is broken
#18 Anonymous on 07/18/09 at 10:38 PM
American health care is American business you unbearable douche bag. You should see if your insurance pays for psychiatric help and let others have an intelligent discussion for a change.
#19 Anonymous on 07/18/09 at 10:44 PM
The medical system in this county needs an overhaul. Maybe not for someone 70 years old who has health care locked up in a socialized system, but for the working people and those who employ them who are stuck in the free market world of pay as you go.

If I was an illegal alien worker using a fake social security number I could pay no taxes and get free medical. If I earned minimum wage I could get earned income tax credits (cash in my pocket) and have our Government pay my medical. If I didn't work at all I could have free medical care.

The people getting shafted in all of this are the middle class working people and owners of small businesses. We rank 37th in the world in health care.

Why are we so proud of this system? Because the system tells us they are great, and we believe them.
#20 Sheila Tolley on 07/19/09 at 08:26 AM
Do you not have enough foresight to see that The Government is trying to make every decision for you. They will start by telling you which PA you are allowed to see. That is Physician's Assistant in case you haven't heard. Then years down the Yellow Brick Road that you have imagined, you will not find The Wizard of Oz, you will find the person that is a doctor because your government told them that is what they will be. That is after you give your 50% tax to your government. Hold on to that douche bag you got...obama may want to give you an enema when he takes everything else you own. Dirtbag.
#21 anonymous 2 on 07/19/09 at 10:16 AM
that is rite.the gov needs to pay for all the young ppl because we did not give away the jobs, it don't matter if ppl are americans or not. that is the old days.it don't matter if mexico comes back in the u.s. as long as we do not have to work. we need medicine and obama is seeing that we get it.it took a black man to do it for us too.he will feed us to.
#22 Anonymous on 07/19/09 at 11:54 AM
I don't care what you call it, but here are some facts from the World Health Organization:
Of the industrialized nations, the US spends more on health care per person than any other nation whether the money is out of pocket or taxed. Yet the US has one of the lowest life expectancies, higher infant mortality rate & higher incidences of cancer and heart disease.

Our system of health care needs fixed
#23 Sheila Tolley on 07/19/09 at 12:46 PM
It is because Americans want to go to a doctor, get more medicine and be happily ever after. It don't work that way. Try eating the right foods.
#24 Tom Rauch on 07/19/09 at 02:02 PM
Sounds like Sheila wants to socialize the food supply by getting an FDA that actually works for our health instead of allowing the food industry to decide what to put in our food.....

Like someone else said, we have the most expensive system in the world and we rank way down in life expectancy and overall health. I wonder why we want to protect that system?
#25 Sheila Tolley on 07/19/09 at 07:16 PM
Damn Tom...Just last week the complaint was that the baby boomers were living too long. We old timers got to get the hell out of the way so the illegals have room to move in. Get with the program. China decides what to put in your food. In very few more years they will be telling you how many yen to pay for it also. I don't trust any government now. Do You? I love the United States and our military that sacrifice for us. Not this group of clowns up there in The White House. If you want to see your government run medical system take a trip to one of the roach infested Veteran Hospitals.
#26 Sheila Tolley on 07/19/09 at 07:35 PM
Six spine surgeries Tom in 18 months. All my doctors wanted to do was give me more pain medicine. I told them "If I wanted to be a dope addict, I would buy medicine off the streets." I wanted to be fixed, to work, to be able to move again, walk again. You try putting a pain pill in one hand and an apple in the other and see which one will sell first. Do you really NOT BELIEVE that the average American diet sucks? Chicken is pumped full of hormones to grow them up quicker and get them to The Colonel. That's why there are no teenagers anymore. Their bodies are rushed through puberty so fast, they had to create new syndromes for them. Put kids on meds because they got so much crap in their system, they cannot even think to take their medicine.
#27 Tom Rauch on 07/19/09 at 08:21 PM
Force congress and senate to use the same system we all use, and make it a uniform care system that includes our veterans. Force everyone to be treated the same as the people making the rules. When they start drinking from the same pool as the general population you can bet it will be a good clean system that works.

We can still use the VA. We can send illegal aliens and lifetime welfare people to those hospitals. This way everyone will get the care they worked for and earned.
#28 I KNEW IT on 07/20/09 at 10:06 AM
I knew you was that person that sit here all day roamimg the computer.So you know where to go, to get good medicine mmmm....See obama trying to help people like you, you need mental help, physical help, and a leg just take the help.
#29 Gary on 07/20/09 at 05:28 PM
I know people in England and Canada that hate the health care system. They have told me that the system is fine if you want to die. All of that makes no difference because other people will say they know people that love the system. I guess then that the comments are a wash.

My opinion is that our healthcare system is destined to fail with any rushed plan. It mirrors the bail-out plan. Everyone is rushing in to it but no one is taking the time to study it. That seems to be Obama's plan on everything. Do it and let the chips fall where they may. It's not smart business.

The Declaration of Independence wasn't conceived in a few months and neither was our Constitution. It was discussed and studied and put under a microscope. People worked together to do what was right for a country. Today it is one party pitted against another party and the majority rules.

The president is just a figure head. The real power is in congress and the senate. Everyone should call or e-mail their representative and senator and tell them to slow down. If healthcare reform is an absolute necessity, work together until all the members can develop a plan they can all agree on. Right now it all appears to be a show of leader ignorance to do anything to gain votes regardless of what it does to the country. A few congressional members have put themselves on a pedestal for the others to bow down to and show their respect to them for something, anything, right or wrong.

Our leadership needs to stop making politics a race to get a bill signed. They should work for and respect the people that elected them. That’s not happening today.
#30 Tea Party Supporter on 07/20/09 at 08:35 PM
If the current healthcare bill passes, how many small businesses will be forced to close because of high taxes, how many jobs will be lost, how much more unemployment will be paid out to these people. I think it is not fair to put most of the cost on the rich either. This is America where we should be allowed to make money if we do it honestly and not be forced to pay for everyone else's healthcare. I like our Constitution but it seems to me that it has been put on the back burner where it is going up in flames just so certain agendas can be passed. I don't like that our politicians rush these bills thru without so much as reading them and trying to inform us all as to what they are voting on. Another thing that I don't like is that some of these amendments are attached to other legislation as a bargaining chip in order to get it passed. It just doesn't seem very fair or transparent to me for them to be hidden in other legislation. Why do we want the government to run our healthcare? I think I am able to manage my own better than having to have the government step in and tell me when and if I can even see a doctor or a specialist if I need one. I have heard many say that our healthcare system, flawed as it may be, is still so much better than the Canadian and European plans. I can't understand how, if we have been living with it for so many years, why it has to be voted on for change in a short time span or else something very tragic is going to happen to us all. I think we can spare enough time for it to be read, researched, shown to the American public and then have a vote.
#31 Enoc Sioul on 07/22/09 at 04:29 AM
What makes you think it will close small businesses? Obviously we can’t count on businesses to provide us with the option of health care. Over the last several decades business have been shifting the cost of health care to it’s employees by splitting the cost and agreeing to programs that rise the deductible to where it’s becomes too expensive or lacking any reasonable coverage. If a person looses their job by no fault of their own they should not lose the ability to insure their well being. The cost of COBRA is way out of reach for the average worker. I am sure supplemental coverage will be available to those who feel they must have it. As it stands right now, my medical fate is at the mercy of the profit margin in a bean counter’s spread sheet. That scares the beegeebees out of me more that a nation wide health care program.
#32 tbu on 07/22/09 at 08:44 PM
Did everyone tune in for the President?

Is he not just the GREATEST you have ever listened to? Personally, I think we finally have a President for the people and it's about time. I never thought I would live long enough to feel this way. I can only hope every man, woman and child will come together to help create an atmoshere for our success.

President Obama is a true leader, a uniter not a divider. He makes me want to do something good for the Country...God bless the U.S.A.
This dude has all the right stuff, the U.S. has a chance to shine again.
#33 What did you say? on 07/22/09 at 10:00 PM
Obama is about the biggest BS'er I have ever heard. What was so great? We still don't know how it will be paid for. When asked some questions by his adoring media fan club, he went around the world and I still don't know what the heck he said. We don't know any more now than we did before he spoke. It seems apparent though that all our medical records will be sent to Washington so that someone there, and not a health professional, will be able to decide whether or not we need medical care, which kind we need and where we can go and get it. As a senior citizen, if I need any kind of major surgery or extensive treatments, I can be told I am already too old and my treatment denied. I don't buy all this wonderful treatment that our neighbors have, too many are travelling here to get treatment they have been denied in their country. I know, some of you know others who just love there healthcare system and I am proud for them, but I want them to keep it. I don't want it.
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