6 replies to this topic

[purple]

For those living in the United States, do you believe Obama's Health Care Plan should be passed? Why or why not? If not, do you have a better plan?

[The Economist]

I don't get it, why is this thread referring only to those living in the U.S.?
The rest of us are not allowed to express an opinion?
OK thanks

[purple]

I assumed that most others not living within the United States would not be affected, and therefore not be as interested. But of course, if there are those who live outside the United States and have an opinion, I'm not stopping you from voicing it =]

[IBS09]

While I think a bill ultimately needs to be passed, it is best to wait a month or two longer to hammer out the details. Even the general outline of the bill is currently unclear (for instance, is there going to be a public option?), so no one can really form a final opinion yet. However, I do think a bill needs to be passed to combat rising premiums for health insurance and start to close the gap for the 45 million uninsured in America. Congress needs to figure out all the causes of inefficiency in the current health care system and address those problems. To name a few, I can think of high medical malpractice costs, unnecessary tests by doctors caused by the "pay-by-quantity" payment system, and denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Given the current, highly partisan political environment in the health care debate, the health care plan should emphasize controlling costs and eliminating unjust insurance practices rather than universal health care, which I'm not too sure can be achieved now given the recession, wars, and US debt. Remember, Vietnam and 70's stagflation sunk the LBJ plan for a "Great Society" of liberal government. Obama needs to make sure the recession and Afghanistan doesn't do the same to his ambitions. Maybe he should hold off gov't health care for the masses until we have less on our plate.

[Magster]

It's not fair that I can have good health care coverage because of where my parents stand in society, while other people get left out. Who's to say I'm any better then them! People who don't have health care tend to stay away from doctor visits, even if they truly need them, which can cause whatever medical problems to worsen to a point where it'd be even harder and more costly to get help. Recently, the public option seems to have been taken out, put back in, etc. I'm not really sure what's going on anymore! All I know is that the public option would greatly improve the lives of the millions of Americans without health care. The private insurance company's habits of denying coverage because of 'preexisting conditions' or capping the amount of money they can utilize when they do become very sick are wrong. My english teacher recently finished her series of surgeries she needed to get well again (something was wrong with her intestines and she had to have a bunch removed). At first they thought it might be cancer and her insurance company went out and said that if it's cancer, she only get $1mill for the rest of her life to pay for treatment, etc. So even if the cancer treatment hadn't used up all the money, she'd have next to nothing left for when she got older and more vulnerable to illnesses. That is a horrible thing to do, and they have full rights to do so! We're required fair CAR insurance, why can't we have good health insurance too! I don't think my car is more important then my life...

[KenzieOakes]

Magster, on Sep 10, 2009 - 00:49, said:

It's not fair that I can have good health care coverage because of where my parents stand in society, while other people get left out. Who's to say I'm any better then them! People who don't have health care tend to stay away from doctor visits, even if they truly need them, which can cause whatever medical problems to worsen to a point where it'd be even harder and more costly to get help. Recently, the public option seems to have been taken out, put back in, etc. I'm not really sure what's going on anymore! All I know is that the public option would greatly improve the lives of the millions of Americans without health care. The private insurance company's habits of denying coverage because of 'preexisting conditions' or capping the amount of money they can utilize when they do become very sick are wrong. My english teacher recently finished her series of surgeries she needed to get well again (something was wrong with her intestines and she had to have a bunch removed). At first they thought it might be cancer and her insurance company went out and said that if it's cancer, she only get $1mill for the rest of her life to pay for treatment, etc. So even if the cancer treatment hadn't used up all the money, she'd have next to nothing left for when she got older and more vulnerable to illnesses. That is a horrible thing to do, and they have full rights to do so! We're required fair CAR insurance, why can't we have good health insurance too! I don't think my car is more important then my life...

Cons

■Barack should be over making jabs at President Bush by this point.  The line about healthcare spending being “less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans” under the previous administration did nothing but entertain a few liberals and further alienate conservatives.
■The Ted Kennedy nostalgia was not needed.  That just fires up the opposition because Democrats are clearly using his death to further the cause.
■There were a few outright lies; the bit about the majority of Americans supporting the healthcare reform bill comes to mind.  A simple trip to RealClear Politics dispells that.
■The whole chapter about the deficit not increasing a penny should probably be let go until he can show us what and where he’s going to squeeze money from.  It’s hard to believe that we’ve got $900 billion we can just slide around to suit this new healthcare system.
■The idle threats towards those that misinterperate the bill at the end of the speech could definitely have been cut.  It reminded me of when your in high school and that guy gets to be hall monitor and tries to write you citations for things off campus.
■Some of the sketchier provisions are still in the bill: Public option and mandatory health insurance, to name a few.

[Sandwich]

Except for the cost sourcing thing and the fact a few sections remain slightly sketchy, all of those are just public perceptions of people with opposing political views, though, so they're not really cons to the plan, they're just cons for public opinion. At the end of the day, public opinion doesn't really mean squat versus what's the right or the wrong thing to do. I've seen quite a few little news clips on TV recently and although a lot of people do have a reasonable grasp of what's going on, there're tonnes of people who've got completely the wrong end of the stick when it comes to public health systems (even if people were threatened, which is obviously extremely inappropriate, it has to be said people do seem pretty liable to misunderstanding it).

Once logistical problems are sorted in terms of finance and access (to my understanding there are presently inadequate safeguards when it comes to policing illegal immigrants taking advantage of what will become effectively taxpayer's money, which is a big issue to sort out), I fail to see how opposition can be maintained which isn't simply an extension of "I-have-money-therefore-the-right-to-be-healthy" selfishness. In a society of equal opportunity and access without discrimination which cares for all its members, the lack of social provision for what is effectively the key to a person's quality of life is pretty mind-boggling if you've not been bought up assuming that health is something you have to be able to afford. After all, people don't get ill on purpose, and the present state of the USA (and plenty of other countries worldwide, of course) with so many millions of people unemployed is a pretty desperate scenario. Changing the way this operates would be serious and life-saving social reform to help people who're effectively neglected by society. I'm not sure it's fair to say there ought to be no urgency to this, despite the financial turmoil of the way things are going - if you assume that a lot of people have health insurance based on their jobs, right now there has to be a record number of people who're uninsured.