-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Republican, Conservative option for US Healthcare Reform
- Thread starter Engyo
- Start date
No preexisting conditions, portability, the ability to purchase health care across state lines, no caps for illnesses, tort reform, non profit clinics.
To counter you question, what exactly is our Presidents plan?
To counter you question, what exactly is our Presidents plan?
Kathryn
It was on fire when I laid down on it.
I'm not a Republican but I'll weigh in on this issue.
I agree with Rick on most of the above points. Those are the areas I'd like to see addressed, with the exception of no caps for illnesses (I think that would potentially bankrupt private insurance companies if there is not a correllating tort reform and also some sort of restructuring of the system so that doctors are not pressured or rewarded to perform unnecessary testing and procedures).
I would like to see something that helps the development of co-ops.
I would also like to see more emphasis on containing costs vie reform of the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. This "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" relationship is one of the most wasteful and costly aspects of our current system.
Doctors have to pay VAST sums of money to insure themselves against liability - this area needs to be reformed via tort reform.
People keep telling me to "read the plan and then I'll understand it." Are you kidding? WHICH plan (there are four)? Has anyone here actually read more than a few pages of these plans without throwing them up in the air and running screaming from the room?
Why can't President Obama give us the specifics of the plan in plain and simple English? He knows which points are the most important to the American people - why can't he take each of those 6 or 8 points and give clear, concise answers regarding his plan's position on those points?
I keep hearing what the plan ISN'T - I want to hear what it IS - from the horse's mouth, not from media spin. And that includes Fox spin.
I agree with Rick on most of the above points. Those are the areas I'd like to see addressed, with the exception of no caps for illnesses (I think that would potentially bankrupt private insurance companies if there is not a correllating tort reform and also some sort of restructuring of the system so that doctors are not pressured or rewarded to perform unnecessary testing and procedures).
I would like to see something that helps the development of co-ops.
I would also like to see more emphasis on containing costs vie reform of the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. This "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" relationship is one of the most wasteful and costly aspects of our current system.
Doctors have to pay VAST sums of money to insure themselves against liability - this area needs to be reformed via tort reform.
People keep telling me to "read the plan and then I'll understand it." Are you kidding? WHICH plan (there are four)? Has anyone here actually read more than a few pages of these plans without throwing them up in the air and running screaming from the room?
Why can't President Obama give us the specifics of the plan in plain and simple English? He knows which points are the most important to the American people - why can't he take each of those 6 or 8 points and give clear, concise answers regarding his plan's position on those points?
I keep hearing what the plan ISN'T - I want to hear what it IS - from the horse's mouth, not from media spin. And that includes Fox spin.
Smoke
Done here.
1) Abolish employer tax breaks for offering health insurance to employees.
2) Give taxpayers a tax cut in an amount insufficient to pay half the cost of health insurance.
3) Limit the ability of patients to sue for malpractice.
4) Require insurers to insure anybody who asks -- at a market rate.
5) Trust the market to work everything out.
6) Encourage people to eat right, exercise, quit smoking, and save money for future healthcare expenses.
7) Congratulate people for having the right to have any health care they can afford to pay for.
The Republicans have no conscience.
1) Make no concrete proposals; a real plan might fail in Congress. It's better to wait and see what Congress can come up with and see how it plays politically, rather than to make any actual policy proposals at this time.
2) Support no proposals that might possibly anger any mouth-breathing dittohead in Tulsa. Appeasing the Republican base is always an important consideration in Democratic policy decisions. If you anger the Republican base, you might lose seats in Congress at the midterm election, and that would have a detrimental effect on the Democratic Party's ability to accomplish anything when the time is right. That time is coming soon -- seriously, just like Jesus.
3) When the right-wing propaganda machine succeeds in convincing a substantial number of people that having a real healthcare system will ruin their lives and turn the U.S. into one vast Stalinist gulag, back down. Ignore the fact that the Democrats have majorities in both houses of Congress, and blame the party's inability to get anything done on the Republicans.
4) Promise that if more Democrats are elected in the midterm election, the party will really be able to get something done.
5) Regardless of how the midterm election turns out, don't do anything to rock the boat before the election of 2012.
6) Beginning in January 2013, repeat steps 1 through 4.
7) If the Democrats do really well in the midterm election of 2014 -- if they are able to capture, say, 90% of the seats in Congress -- they will have a window of approximately five months (November 2014 through March 2015) to get something done, bearing in mind of course that it would be imprudent to do anything very dramatic, as it will be necessary to begin pandering to the Republican base again no later than Easter 2015.
The Democrats have no balls.
Last edited:
yossarian22
Resident Schizophrenic
Deregulate.
tumbleweed41
Resident Liberal Hippie
Sure, like McCain proposed....
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." John McCain, 2008
Because deregulation in banking, as John said, was so successful.
John McCain is such an enthusiast about financial market deregulation that he was bragging about his plan to make the health care system as awesome as the financial system.
themadhair
Well-Known Member
Stop anything the democrats are trying to do regardless of how much it will hurt the country.
While we are being honest, the republicans have no brains. There, I said it.
Engyo
Prince of Dorkness!
The problem with starting over is that there are literally millions of people who have made health care their life's work and career, based on our current system. Any truly significant overhaul requires far greater thought than an August recess' worth of town hall shouting matches. First it requires getting to SOME sort of concensus on doing a major overhaul in the first place, and we can't get even close to that, it seems.
themadhair
Well-Known Member
Kind of hard to do when the opposition party are vetoing everything left right and centre.
Alceste
Vagabond
Whoah now, hang on a second. I've just learned that by far the stupidest part of the current legislation - the Health Insurance Exchange (expensive, complicated and pointless) - actually is the Republican plan. Ye Gods! How unbelievably cheeky! Cram a complicated and ridiculous non-solution into your opponent's bill and then start screaming your head off about how complicated and ridiculous the bill is now that it includes your idea.
T-Dawg
Self-appointed Lunatic
Eh, I won't dismiss this claim just yet, but do you have any sources on this other than Huffington Post? From what I've heard and read, they're pretty similar to CATO, except with a liberal agenda...
Although I don't doubt that the Republicans would do such a thing XD. Honestly, I think the reason they put fluoride in our water supply (fluoride is a toxic chemical that damages the brain and lowers IQ, among other things) is so that people will remain republicans, preventing the democrats from getting a one-party system XD.
EDIT: Eh, I just skimmed over that article... where does it say that they're cramming a ridiculous non-solution into their opponent's bill? It looks like they're trying to make a bill of their own.
Although I don't doubt that the Republicans would do such a thing XD. Honestly, I think the reason they put fluoride in our water supply (fluoride is a toxic chemical that damages the brain and lowers IQ, among other things) is so that people will remain republicans, preventing the democrats from getting a one-party system XD.
EDIT: Eh, I just skimmed over that article... where does it say that they're cramming a ridiculous non-solution into their opponent's bill? It looks like they're trying to make a bill of their own.
Last edited:
Alceste
Vagabond
Hiya. You need to do a bit of deductive reasoning to see it. It helps that I have recently read the bill as it is currently being considered, and a substantial portion of it is dedicated to the creation and administration of a "Health Insurance Exchange" - a one stop shop run by the government where participating private insurers can market their product on the condition they don't turn anyone down. The "Health Insurance Exchange" is also the outlet where the democrats hope to market their own competing product: the public option. That is the bill, as it sits, today.
The article you've just "skimmed" was written in May 2009 and includes (in case you didn't notice) a 14-page outline of the "Republican proposal" - written by Republicans - for your own perusal and consideration.
So, equipped with these verifiable facts: that the "Health Insurance Exchange" was tabled by Republicans 3 months ago as an "alternative" to the Democratic plan, and that the proposal in the Republican plan is now included in the Democratic Bill under consideration, it is reasonable to conclude it is in fact the Republicans who put it there.
It doesn't matter whether the Huffington Post has an editorial bias, provided they have given us a verifiable fact to work with. A fact is a fact, wherever it comes from. We can (and should) walk away with the fact and discard the opinions to make room for our own.
Smoke
Done here.
There is no consensus to be had. The Republicans have made it clear that they will oppose any "reform" that is anything but a handout to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
The only way we're going to have a modern healthcare system is if the Democrats can get the members of their own party in line and push it through over the screams of the Republicans, and the Democrats, quite frankly, don't have the stones to do it. So either nothing will happen, or something will happen that will cost the taxpayers a lot of money, but won't fix the system.
The cup of my disgust for both parties is full.
Smoke
Done here.
Actually, the Republicans say -- as if it's something great about their proposal -- that if nobody wants to buy private insurance, they "won't have to." Which will, I'm sure, be a great relief to all the people who don't want health insurance, and prefer to pay cash at the time of service for all their medical care.The actual Republican proposal was to force people to buy private health insurance whether they can afford it or not. At least that's what one of Rick's sources claims.
Both Kathryn and Engyo make good points, but I think a major overhaul can be done, even without consensus. We've made sweeping social changes in the past and the country has been the better for it, despite predictions all would go to rack and ruin. I also think a competent medical professional is going to land on his feet no matter how things are reorganized.
Other countries have managed major overhauls in their health care systems. Are they more capable than we? In fact, considering nothing we could choose would be uncharted territory, it should be an easier transition for us. Everything's already been tried, pitfalls identified, and effective fixes worked out.
Finally, nothing we'd be likely to choose would be entirely new to us. We already have a working private single-payer system. We already have a socialized single-payer system. We have co-ops. We have HMOs, We have private self-pay, we have dozens of different insurance schemes.
Other countries have managed major overhauls in their health care systems. Are they more capable than we? In fact, considering nothing we could choose would be uncharted territory, it should be an easier transition for us. Everything's already been tried, pitfalls identified, and effective fixes worked out.
Finally, nothing we'd be likely to choose would be entirely new to us. We already have a working private single-payer system. We already have a socialized single-payer system. We have co-ops. We have HMOs, We have private self-pay, we have dozens of different insurance schemes.
Engyo
Prince of Dorkness!
I agree Smoke - actually the cup of my disgust for both parties runneth over.
Last edited:
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Why do you think they didn't propose any of these things when they held the presidency, and majorities in both houses of Congress?