Is it Obamcare or Teddycare? Options

[MarkD]

Either way, it's still the same. No pun intended.
Either way, no matter how bad anyone thinks our current system is, that mess that is slowly emulsifying into shape in D.C. is even worse. Leave it up to politicians to be highly educated, but unable to grasp simple concepts with regard to public programs.
One thing that bothers me more than any other is that the Dishonorable Senator Ted Kennedy has his name on this growing bill. With his illness, I don't know just how much actual input he is having on it, but that means it could be considerable as well as it could be none.
This brings up a scary thought. I don't know how many readers of this forum recall the 1970's. The H.M.O. era. "Health Maintenance Organization".
This was the brainchild of the Dishonerable Sen. Ted Kennedy. (Remember chappaquiddick, anyone?) It turned out to be such a complete disaster that it was allowed, via new bills and ammendments to the original structure, to morph into the system we have today.
Now, if the same individual who was the driving force behind the first total disaster is being allowed to have input to this new attempt at destroying that which is left of the American medical insurance industry, what can we expect to come out of this witches brew, currently being stirred up in Washington D.C.?
Too many of the so-called provisions that have so far been released in news bites scare me enough to give me cause to be pretty apprehensive about whatever bubbling brown swill will wind up on the presidents desk. And we know that whatever he gets, he will sign. He isn't going to read it. He isn't going to know what is in the bill. He is only going to sign based on what he has been told by some of the crafters of this thing that pretends to be FOR the American people.

I'm not going to sit here and in a few words try to design a perfect medical insurance plan that is custom designed to fit all people. I know better. Yet, that is what Congress is attempting to do. To make it worse, it will be forced on everyone. Anyone who can't afford to buy it will be fined in their income taxes, as it stood a couple weeks ago.
With limited payments to doctors, clinics and hospitals etc. the supply of doctors, clinics and hospitals etc. will decline. This will inevitably result in rationed medical treatment availability.
It is becoming evident that certain procedures will be dis-allowed because they cost more than the perceived benefit. This, regardless of whether that procedure could help YOU personally.
Look at what has happened in England and Canada for evidence of the effects of socialized medicine. Some people there like it. Usually the ones who aren't using it. I've heard and read enough horror stories to pretty well confirm my own feelings on this new pile of horse dung they're inventing in Congress right now, as I type this.

I hope someone can give me some reason to change my mind, but I don't see much hope for us, between this turkey and the cap and trade bill being worked on at the same time. That, which will do no good for the general populace anywhere, but will enrich government and give it ever more power.
Is this the change people want? I don't think most people were thinking this way when they voted for change. I don't think they knew what they were hoping for. I think they just liked the sound of change we can believe in. Well, now they can believe it, alright. It is here, and here to stay for a long time.
Mark D.

[FunkyAl]

Cut the guy some slack, Mark. It's been six months. It took Bush eight years to ruin your country.

[MarkD]

Well, first of all George W Bush didn't ruin the country at all. It might look that way from the socialist states of Euro, but over here it was pretty much status quo. That, because though I'm not especially a fan of former President Bush, he left the population alone. He didn't push for new restrictions on the public. We don't need more restrictions. We're restricted enough already.

Now, to medical insurance.
Just a few reasons why this current medical insurance bill is something that should be trashed;

Number 1, by far - On page 16 of the bill there is language that forbids private insurance companies from selling new medical insurance policies to people after the starting date of the Obamacare. Meaning, only people with existing policies will be allowed to have insurance with a private carrier. Once you need to switch policies, or lose your job and need to find a new policy, you are out of luck. You are then FORCED to use Obamacare.

2) All people are forced to use Obamacare as mentioned above because everyone is forced to buy the insurance. You do not have the option of using your own cash to pay a doctor. You must use the federally approved insurance plan. No other option other than to not use medical facilities at all.

3) To pay for this so-called insurance, confiscatory taxes will be instituted which will affect all economic classes. Not just the wealthy, as they try to say. Unemployment will increase as companies who cannot afford to buy insurance for their employees let all but the most necessary employees go. The economy will tank even farther. You watch. You'll find out I'm right, if this thing goes through. It takes more words than I feel like typing to fully describe it, but this is a very dangerous bill.

4) None, or almost none of the people we elect to congress have read this bill, and they are unlikely to read it before they vote on it. Obama is pressuring his people in congress to bring this to a vote before the end of the month. Why the rush? Because if members of congress have time to actually study this bill, they will certainly vote against it. Basically, they're trying to pull a fast one. How can any member of either house vote on such a bill without first reading it? But these people will do just that. Some of them will.

5) The CBO has already determined that there is no evidence that this bill will result in actual lessening of the costs of medical treatment, based on information available so far.

6) Other members of congress have another plan that might be a better one, but they aren't even getting a chance to lay it out to the public. Why? I don't know anything about it, but I've heard it's there. We need another option besides the one that has been floated to us.
I'm not against a better system of financing medical treatments. But it has to be something that the country can afford. Which brings us to...

7) It has been said that this new national plan will be too expensive and will bankrupt the country. The promotors of the plan say that's nonsense. They'll just raise taxes enough to make sure there's enough money, no matter how much it takes.
Well, it was just announced today that the state of Massachusetts has announced that their universal plan, the first in the nation and that which the Obamacare plan is based upon, is short of money and medical care must be cut. They are now disallowing payment for medical care for legal immigrants to save money. If nothing else, THAT should be a warning sign to the nation that this particular ill-advised plan needs to be further scruitinized and seriously modified and changed before it is allowed to become the law of the land. Why? Because this plan will be subject to the same financial problems as the Massachusetts plan.

Yes, something needs to be done about the cost of medical treatment in this country. But it needs to be done the right way. Not just anything that comes along. What we have now will suffice a little longer while we work to get it right.

and:
8) Always remember that the system we have today was brought to us courtesy of our Federal Government. They keep telling us how bad it is. What will they be saying about this current turkey in a few years, if it is passed into law?

I urge everyone to contact all the congress people in your state to vote NO NO NO on this bill. It is almost as dangerous as the so-called Cap and Trade bill. They can do better, and they need to do better and they MUST do better.

Mark D.

[FunkyAl]

It might look that way from the socialist states of Euro

That made me laugh a bit, Mark.

Change needs patience and openness to new ways. It's quite normal that it causes anxiety at first. Sometimes you can't even see where those new ways will lead to. Give it time, Mark. Relax. In the end, it might be the right thing. And if not - then you can still say: "I was right". And Obama wasn't.

[FunkyAl]

Always remember that the system we have today was brought to us courtesy of our Federal Government. They keep telling us how bad it is. What will they be saying about this current turkey in a few years, if it is passed into law?

Well, a part of your system caused one of the most disastrous worldwide economic crises. Just because it's old and worked in the past doesn't mean it can still work today, in our modern society. Things change. Systems and rules change. You call it 'progress'

[MarkD]

Hi Al
Well, relaxing and just letting it happen is not in my nature. Of course it WILL happen, but at least I will know I did what I could to keep it from happening.
Note, though, that I am not afraid of change, nor am I against change. But for me to embrace change, it needs to be a change for the better. And that doesn't mean that I hope it is for the better, it means that the proposed change needs to show proof that it really will be for the better.
This proposed piece of legislation has too much wrong with it to be able to convince me that it is a change for the better.
The news from the Congressional Budget Office confirmed my worst fears about it.

As I did say in my first post, what we have isn't any good either. So we do need to change the system. And I am not against a government involvement in the medical insurance business. But it should not be forced, rather it should be an available option. It should also be only for those who have no other option for medical insurance from the private sector. But it should be universally available to those who need it, and subsidized by the government based on the economic situation of the individuals involved.
It should contain legislation that limits lawsuits and punitive damages against doctors and other medical treatment providers in a way that still offers redress to patients yet protects the medical industry as a whole from nuisance lawsuits and over the top financial awards. This will never happen because many or most congressmen are lawyers themselves.
But it should happen, regardless.

As far as the world economic situation goes, it was not the system in whole that the USA has, but rather changes made in the 1990's by the Clinton administration, combined with suddenly increasing petroleum prices. Either of those things could happened on their own and the economy would have withstood it. But with both happening it all went too far.
The changes in the 1990's were intended, in effect, to allow anyone anywhere to obtain a mortgage on their own home. It opened up the mortgage industry, by law, to people who had little chance of qualifying for a house mortgage in the past. That situation of the past was considered discriminatory to people who lived in so-called "red lined" neighborhoods.
With everyone getting mortgages, and almost no limitations, there were people who could barely meet the payments. Some failed right off, but most were able to struggle along. But when energy prices tripled and quadrupled, people could no longer meet their financial obligations along with all the other increasing costs in their lives.
So they defaulted on their mortgages.
To make it worse, there were a large number of unscrupulous mortgage companies that started up out of the blue, in order to cash in on this new bonanza. The gave mortgages to unwary people who didn't understand how the system is supposed to work, and they were screwed totally, eventually unable to pay and they lost their homes.
When all this started to happen, it also began dragging the economy as a whole down. People lost their jobs, and at that point even those who were eminently qualified for a home mortgage began to default on their mortgages. This all snowballed to the situation we have today.
Adding to that, many banks lent money well beyond the limits they should have held. Cash reserves were depleted on the assumption that they'd get more back in the end.
Some of the large banks were on the verge of bankruptcy when the government gave them money to stay in business. Unfortunately, the government forced all the big banks to take the money, whether they needed it or not. Most banks did not want any money at all from the government. But once a business has government money, it is also under the thumb of the government. Thus, the government made them take money.
They are just now being allowed to pay it back in small pieces at a time.
Banks such as Wells Fargo (a company I dislike greatly for other reasons) had operated their business in a solid manner, and had no need for money. In fact, they had the cash to purchase Wachovia bank, which was not in such good shape. Whatever else I think of Wells Fargo, they do run a good tight ship. I, personally, will never bank there, though.

Now, to his credit, George W. Bush did see this coming. He went to congress and asked for legislation to change the overly liberal banking laws, and for legislation that would hopefully forestall the inevitable. Congress, while they humored him on many issues, refused to do anything about this one. Just like they refused to do anything about medical insurance and Social Security while he was in office. That was all due to political maneuvering rather than any sense of duty to country.
Bush, for his own fault, did not try hard enough to get something done with regard to the banking laws. He has lamented on this himself, and said that he now wishes he had pressed harder.

Changing channels here,
The situation is likely to only get worse during the next few years if it continues on the path the Obama administration has taken over the past few months. At first, I was sort of impressed with what he had been doing. I was all for the government aid to the car manufacturers. But when he actually did the deed, I was apalled. I was for the government to issue loan guarantees to GM and Chrysler in the same manner as they issued loan guarantees to Chrysler back in 1979.
But instead, he basically forced the sale of Chrysler to Fiat, (Fix It Again Tony) which will spell the certain demise of Chrysler ( another subject entirely) but will open the USA auto markets to yet another foreign car maker.
With GM he took a different approach, seeking to have the government itself own a huge portion of a private manufacturing company. This, it seems to me, should be illegal as it puts the government in direct competition with private industry. But regardless, he also gave another equally large segment of the company to the auto trade union, UAW. They didn't have to pay a dime for partial ownership of the company. They were simply handed ownership. The original shareholders of General Motors? Pretty much left out in the cold.
Some of what was done might have been necessary to help break the union strangle hold on the company. That is the primary reason for the bankruptcy that was filed, thus the forming of a new company with almost the same name. Except that now we all call it Government Motors instead of General Motors.
How this will all play out in the long term I can't foresee. I don't like the start of it, but it might all work out ok in the end.
But I am pretty nervous about GM, with the government forcing them to sell of some of their most profitable lines.
Another thing that bothers me is that I know nothing about what is being done with regarding to the separate divisions of GM that the public never hears much about. Things like engineering, testing labs, proving grounds, parts manufacturing, warehousing, etc. To survive in the industry, the company needs to have complete ownership of these things. And in losing a lot of profitable lines, thus having lower cash flow and lower profit in real dollars, how can they afford to pay for top engineering talent as they have in the past?
I suspect that the engineering in their product will suffer, and their products will begin to show the change.

That rant over, back to why I'm afraid for the economic situation if the Obama continues on its current course.
Just the other day, vice president Joe Biden did another one. He made a speech in which he actually said that for the country to avoid bankruptcy, the government needs to spend more money. I'm sorry, but his rationale for that does not hold water. If this is the actual thinking of the Obama administration, then I really and truly am frightened for the future of the country, and by extension my own future.

Well, I've gone on long enough. I hope you get my point. I'm not against change, but it needs to be proper change.

Mark D.

[FunkyAl]

Damnit, Mark! Do you write all this yourself? I have to take some more time for this which I ain't got now. I'll get back to it.

Do you have your own political blog? You should create one, seriously.

[MarkD]

Hi Al
I do take the blame for that which bears my signature. So far, nobody's bothered to use my name on something I didn't do. Not that I know of, anyway.

Actually, I really have little to no desire to start any sort of blog. More than that, I wouldn't have a clue how to start one.
About all I use the internet for is to visit a few discussion forums, mostly railroad related and then this one and an electronics one. I read news from established network news sources on the web. Other than that, and occasional google search and sometimes ebay. That's it. No downloads of media or anything else.