The health care debate continues to rage on, and we, the average Americans, must simply sit back and watch as the people in government make such an important decision for us. Let's face it, this isn't going to effect our representatives any great extent, they get their health care for free. A perk of being a representative of you and I. When their term in Washington is done they may have to foot the bill, but how many people in our government are not worth hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars?
President Obama prided himself on being in touch with Americans because his grandmother raised him on food stamps and welfare and he understood the average American and where they come from. That may have been true when he first started into politics, however he is a long way from food stamps and public housing now. Just last year he and his wife made over two million dollars. It is very easy to dawn those rose colored glasses and forget exactly how it was on the way up the mountain to rise above the clouds. It isn't just President Obama. All of the men and women who represent us are wealthy. This is a problem.
Fact Check: Health Care Reform Debate discusses many advertising campaigns and the money spent, along with the facts and fiction of the debate, to get the public support behind this idea. What I see is a grand attempt and lots of money spent to snowball the American public. It's like the people with the shiniest, most expensive toys are going to decide where the health care industry and the health and wellness of the American people are going to end up. I believe this should be decided by the American people, and the plan should come from the doctors, nurses, insurance companies, and other health care providers who actually work with the public and know the actual issues that are at hand. The politicians of this country are out of touch. They have lost a sense of reality while living in the political Disneyland that is Washington D.C. The American public has carried them on our backs for too long, and now they are going to repay us by breaking our backs and then refusing to fix them because only so many broken backs can be fixed in a year according to the socialized medicine rules.
As I have stated before there does need to be changes in health care. There do need to be regulations on health care, insurance pricing, and the sue happy people of this country. There are many issues that need to be addressed, however the people who need to address them are not the people who are so out of touch with you and I that they can only guess what they want or need. I do commend all of the representatives who voted the way they felt the people they represented wanted them to vote, especially those who crossed party lines. For all of those who simply voted yes because it meant a shiny new car or a favor in return, shame on you.
The day after the house approved the health care reform bill a woman that my husband knows received a letter from the hospital where she is a nurse stating her health insurance is going to increase from $91 a pay period (every two weeks) to $152 a pay period. The reason the letter gave was because of the passage of the bill in the house. Private insurance is going to be forced to increase so it is the same cost or more of the 'affordable' plan the government will extend to us. The second reason is those who have insurance are going to be responsible for paying for those who do not have insurance. The people the government decide have extra money are going to have to foot the bill for the insurance for those who don't.
There is a right way to do things, and a wrong way. This is not the right way. This is not the best for the American citizens and this will not create quality health care. What is the use in everybody having insurance when the quality of the health care is diminished?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
H.R.3962 Passes in the House
This week was a good one for Obama's health care reform plans. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/the-early-word-bill-passage-cao-and-next-steps/
The House passed the health care bill with a vote of 225 to 220. There is a list of what members and their party voted for or against the plan. Just to break it down a little, in Ohio, of the 18 members of the House there were 10 against, and 8 for. All who voted for the plan were Democrats, and of those 8, 4 were men and 4 were women. The 10 who voted against 9 were men and 1 was a woman, 8 were Republican and 2 were Democrats. Personally, I don't think party affiliation should have anything to do with it. A good idea is a good idea.
There was an amendment stating federal funds would not go to pay for abortions. This is one thing that troubles me. A group of people in the political arena decided federal health care should not include paying for abortion. The powers that be decide they want to get this passed, so whatever it takes, OK, it won't cover abortion. Done. It passes. Is this right? What favors were traded to get this through the house? What other areas are going to suffer or take a cut so that this got that yes vote? Favor trading has never been a secret, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Is that really the way to decide anything in this country? So federally funded insurance isn't going to pay for abortion. What about the next group that decides heart transplants are against their way of thinking, then those won't be covered either?
This plan claims to provide affordable health care to 96% of the American public, yet it is most likely going to cost more than private insurance, and we are going to have to pay higher taxes from our paychecks, so how is this more affordable? It started out being free, no it's more expensive than private insurance. It started out paying for itself with no tax increases because it was getting funding from Medicaid and Medicare being reworked, now it's getting its money from Medicare and taxes. Services are going to be limited in number, and now some are not going to be provided at all.
To say the future will be interesting is an understatement. Socialism is an interesting concept.
The House passed the health care bill with a vote of 225 to 220. There is a list of what members and their party voted for or against the plan. Just to break it down a little, in Ohio, of the 18 members of the House there were 10 against, and 8 for. All who voted for the plan were Democrats, and of those 8, 4 were men and 4 were women. The 10 who voted against 9 were men and 1 was a woman, 8 were Republican and 2 were Democrats. Personally, I don't think party affiliation should have anything to do with it. A good idea is a good idea.
There was an amendment stating federal funds would not go to pay for abortions. This is one thing that troubles me. A group of people in the political arena decided federal health care should not include paying for abortion. The powers that be decide they want to get this passed, so whatever it takes, OK, it won't cover abortion. Done. It passes. Is this right? What favors were traded to get this through the house? What other areas are going to suffer or take a cut so that this got that yes vote? Favor trading has never been a secret, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Is that really the way to decide anything in this country? So federally funded insurance isn't going to pay for abortion. What about the next group that decides heart transplants are against their way of thinking, then those won't be covered either?
This plan claims to provide affordable health care to 96% of the American public, yet it is most likely going to cost more than private insurance, and we are going to have to pay higher taxes from our paychecks, so how is this more affordable? It started out being free, no it's more expensive than private insurance. It started out paying for itself with no tax increases because it was getting funding from Medicaid and Medicare being reworked, now it's getting its money from Medicare and taxes. Services are going to be limited in number, and now some are not going to be provided at all.
To say the future will be interesting is an understatement. Socialism is an interesting concept.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
No Government in Governemnt Reform
Go Senator Lieberman! http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/11/01/no_reform_is_better_than_a_pub.html?hpid=moreheadlines
is the website for the Washington Post, and where one can read the article expressing the opinion of Senator Lieberman concerning government run health care. It is a short article, but pretty to the point. I agree with Senator Lieberman that no health care reform would be better than the public option which is managed by the government. Any person who has been in the military would agree, I think, that whenever the government gets involved things go from simple to complex. Two plus two no longer equals four, and if it does you have to come back to four by way of twenty-seven.
When discussing this point with my husband he asked, "How can we hope for the government to have a practical health care plan when there are all the ( I can say exactly what he said, so I'll say inefficiencies ) in Medicaid and Medicare?" He does have a point. His experience of being in the Army as well as working at the Veteran's Administration Hospital, and now going to the medical center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base has given him a great deal of insight into the system. I know of many people who say to carry your records with you always or it will take months to retrieve them, if they are to be found at all. A military establishment is not the most efficient place to receive treatment because of all of the disorganization. "The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. They have a dozen committees, each committee deciding if they need a committee to decide if they need to do something." (personal communication, 11-1-09)
We all know the hassle we have to go through any time we need to deal with the government, do we really want to go through that when we're trying to get health care?
There was another comment that concerns me, that the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are on-board with this plan. That makes me VERY nervous, as a matter of fact. When Hilary Clinton suggested health care reform they were against her, but now they are behind President Obama? Yes, it makes me very concerned about what's in it for them.
There are several things which drive up health care costs. One is the money a hospital loses because they charge $9 for an aspirin. People without insurance can't, or don't, pay the hospital bill because it's $1,000 to go to the emergency room and get a Band-Aid. True, if you just need a Band-Aid you should not be in the emergency room, however the charges for any treatment at the hospital are outrageous. Some of the charges are what is passed on to others because of the people who can't or don't pay their bill, however if the bill weren't so high, it would be more likely to get paid.
My personal opinion is there is no need for a federally run health care system. As my husband pointed out the government has a hard time taking care of the plans it's already managing. What I believe needs to be done is health care reform on a more personal level.
In California there were very high auto emissions so the government said we need cars with lower emissions and a certain number of people to drive those cars. It's up to the car manufacturers to make sure it happens, and it happened, and emissions levels dropped. If the government were to say the same things to the insurance companies, this is what needs to be done and this is when it needs to be done by, it would happen. The same is true in lawsuits against doctors. As I have stated before, doctors are not infallible and should be able to make a certain degree of mistakes. The mentality of the population of this country that somebody made a mistake so somebody must pay through the nose for it is another factor driving health costs up, and something that should be examined closely and dealt with to help bring the cost down.
I am all for lower health care costs, and for every person having health care, however I don't believe leaving it to the Federal government is the way to achieve those goals.
is the website for the Washington Post, and where one can read the article expressing the opinion of Senator Lieberman concerning government run health care. It is a short article, but pretty to the point. I agree with Senator Lieberman that no health care reform would be better than the public option which is managed by the government. Any person who has been in the military would agree, I think, that whenever the government gets involved things go from simple to complex. Two plus two no longer equals four, and if it does you have to come back to four by way of twenty-seven.
When discussing this point with my husband he asked, "How can we hope for the government to have a practical health care plan when there are all the ( I can say exactly what he said, so I'll say inefficiencies ) in Medicaid and Medicare?" He does have a point. His experience of being in the Army as well as working at the Veteran's Administration Hospital, and now going to the medical center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base has given him a great deal of insight into the system. I know of many people who say to carry your records with you always or it will take months to retrieve them, if they are to be found at all. A military establishment is not the most efficient place to receive treatment because of all of the disorganization. "The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. They have a dozen committees, each committee deciding if they need a committee to decide if they need to do something." (personal communication, 11-1-09)
We all know the hassle we have to go through any time we need to deal with the government, do we really want to go through that when we're trying to get health care?
There was another comment that concerns me, that the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are on-board with this plan. That makes me VERY nervous, as a matter of fact. When Hilary Clinton suggested health care reform they were against her, but now they are behind President Obama? Yes, it makes me very concerned about what's in it for them.
There are several things which drive up health care costs. One is the money a hospital loses because they charge $9 for an aspirin. People without insurance can't, or don't, pay the hospital bill because it's $1,000 to go to the emergency room and get a Band-Aid. True, if you just need a Band-Aid you should not be in the emergency room, however the charges for any treatment at the hospital are outrageous. Some of the charges are what is passed on to others because of the people who can't or don't pay their bill, however if the bill weren't so high, it would be more likely to get paid.
My personal opinion is there is no need for a federally run health care system. As my husband pointed out the government has a hard time taking care of the plans it's already managing. What I believe needs to be done is health care reform on a more personal level.
In California there were very high auto emissions so the government said we need cars with lower emissions and a certain number of people to drive those cars. It's up to the car manufacturers to make sure it happens, and it happened, and emissions levels dropped. If the government were to say the same things to the insurance companies, this is what needs to be done and this is when it needs to be done by, it would happen. The same is true in lawsuits against doctors. As I have stated before, doctors are not infallible and should be able to make a certain degree of mistakes. The mentality of the population of this country that somebody made a mistake so somebody must pay through the nose for it is another factor driving health costs up, and something that should be examined closely and dealt with to help bring the cost down.
I am all for lower health care costs, and for every person having health care, however I don't believe leaving it to the Federal government is the way to achieve those goals.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)