Thanks Obamacare!

[Wayne SW/MO]

The car insurance as an example doesn't fly, you don't have to drive, you don't have to insure the vehicle and you don't have to insure yourself, just enough to to protect others from loss.

I don't think Obamacare is a start. It was put together not in a committee but in Reids office, with incentives to different senators in order to buy their vote. When have we seen a bill covering an industry that large that takes years to apply and gives out incentives that only apply to chosen states, not on a need basis, just a political basis.

If a group of doctors wrote a bill with virtually no input from any other skill, who do all of you think it would benefit most? Now answer the same question if the group is composed of lawyers.

[jdmidwest]

If you like giving people free rides with welfare and the like then go ahead and have no requirement for health care. We MUST require everyone to have health care insurance just like we require everyone to have car insurance.

You are not required as an individual to carry car insurance. If you own a car and drive it on a public road system, then you have to carry a bond of liability or insurance of minimum coverage in case you damage another property outside of your own. If you buy a car and drive it on your own property, you do not need insurance unless you owe a bank for the car. It is when you license it to drive on a public road system it becomes a necessity.

You are not required to carry insurance on your home if you own it, it is your choice just like the auto. You are not required to carry life insurance, but if you die before your debts are paid, what will happen to that?

People have gotten ill for thousands of years and they have paid for their medical services. They may have not been able to have the same medical care as their neighbors, but in reality, that is life. I can't afford the nice cars that my neighbors have because I pay my bills.

[Justin Spencer]

Not to be picking on you, but.

What if the Federal Government passed a decree that you can only make so much profit on your resort business. And you exceeded that amount. Would you mail a refund to all of your customers or expect to keep the profit?

What would be your incentive to increase your business?

This would suck, but we aren't a business that can take advantage of something people really need to protect themselves from financial ruin. It is easy for insurance companies to take advantage of customers because it is something people must purchase if they don't want to chance losing their life savings, that is why it must be regulated, but in order for it to be regulated I think health care costs need to be regulated.

You are not required as an individual to carry car insurance. If you own a car and drive it on a public road system, then you have to carry a bond of liability or insurance of minimum coverage in case you damage another property outside of your own. If you buy a car and drive it on your own property, you do not need insurance unless you owe a bank for the car. It is when you license it to drive on a public road system it becomes a necessity.

You are not required to carry insurance on your home if you own it, it is your choice just like the auto. You are not required to carry life insurance, but if you die before your debts are paid, what will happen to that?

People have gotten ill for thousands of years and they have paid for their medical services. They may have not been able to have the same medical care as their neighbors, but in reality, that is life. I can't afford the nice cars that my neighbors have because I pay my bills.

Big difference between car, house, and health. We won't be stuck with a bill for your new car if you wreck yours and have no insurance, and nobody is going to build you a new house if yours burns down, but if you have a heart attack and need a triple bypass you will get thousands in free medical care and if you have nothing to pay with they don't take back your heart. I see friends all the time using the ER like a doctors office, the amount of abuse to the health care system by poor people in rural areas is astounding, I'm sure it's the same in the cities.

I understand both sides of the arguement, and the fact is the politicians are looking out for themselves and no longer seem to want to work together to make this a better country.

I think Obama genuinely believes this is a good thing for the country because it sure hasn't been good for his political career. And like it or not I respect that he has not jumped ship like Romney has on basically the same system.

[Feathers and Fins]

Justin; a bad law is a bad law no matter what and this one is beyond bad. It needs to be repealed but I believe a new one can be struck but not one that is thousands of pages and certainly not one stuck up behind closed doors and passed without being read.

This law as I already pointed out has cost jobs and pay raises, I have been thinking about it and wondering how many beyond what I knew of were ready to hire and ready to give raises? Not one person knows the full ramifications of this “tax” and personally I’m scared of the IRS handling it, after all they have such a stellar record in handling anything.

Life insurance is not mandatory, car insurance is not mandatory and home insurance is not mandatory! This is mandatory just for being born. Now tack on it requires parents to keep kids on their insurance until they are 26 years old. If an adult and age of accountability is 18 then that needs to be the cut-off for parents having to pay for junior.

It would not take much if politicians remembered who they work for to write a good law and it would not take much effort. Look at our constitutions amendments how short and simply worded they are for examples. So it can be done.

I will even take a shot at it.

Amendment 28, The right of citizens of the United States shall insure the right to a standard and quality of health care to maintain the goal of happiness as one of the founding tenants of the Constitution of the United States.

No person born a citizen of the United States or legally becoming a citizen of the United States shall not be denied health insurance for any previous or existing condition, nor shall any physician be held to malpractice for good faith treatments. Nor shall any provider charge more than fair service industry pricing.

That would cover the three main concerns of the Health Care debate guaranteeing that all people shall be allowed insurance, removing lawsuits on doctors who were doing their best and not allowing providers to charge an arm and leg for a treatment that cost pennies and making it to ONLY US citizens. But without mandating a forced tax on the country and business.

[Justin Spencer]

Requiring health care to me seems like a good "conservative" idea that makes people pay their own way instead of relying on the government and tax payers to bail them out. Because it is a government requirement all republicans look at this as our freedom being trampled upon. Sometimes we have to require things to be done because if given the option the general public will take the cheap and easy way out if they have nothing to lose.

This may be a bad bill, but it has things in it that I need like the pre-existing condition thing. Maybe I'm being selfish but I won't vote for my wife to be denied health coverage which could cost me my business, which would cost people jobs, and allow you all to float on Saturdays without a bunch of drunks bothering you!

[Justin Spencer]

I will even take a shot at it.

Amendment 28, The right of citizens of the United States shall insure the right to a standard and quality of health care to maintain the goal of happiness as one of the founding tenants of the Constitution of the United States.

No person born a citizen of the United States or legally becoming a citizen of the United States shall not be denied health insurance for any previous or existing condition, nor shall any physician be held to malpractice for good faith treatments. Nor shall any provider charge more than fair service industry pricing.

That would cover the three main concerns of the Health Care debate guaranteeing that all people shall be allowed insurance, removing lawsuits on doctors who were doing their best and not allowing providers to charge an arm and leg for a treatment that cost pennies and making it to ONLY US citizens. But without mandating a forced tax on the country and business.

That looks good, but the last two provisions would be hard to determine and would once again be decided on an indivdual basis in the court system.

[hank franklin]

Obamacare is a terrible law. The federal government is upside down and this only makes it worse.

But I agree that healthcare as we know it now is an enormous welfare program with skyrocketing costs. I agree too that pay to play is a conservative idea. No free lunch. As it stands now the uninsured get free care while the rest of us pay. Health care providers bill out the wazoo to cover their losses. Insurers jack up premiums to the point that hardly anyone can pay. My family pays $1,100 PER MONTH for a $3,000 DEDUCTIBLE PLAN. It is literally strangling the lifeblood out of the country. We pay more for healthcare than ANY OTHER SINGLE EXPENSE. And we are, thank God, healthy!

Romney got it done in Massachusetts. I'd like to see what he could get done with the feds. Herculean job, but he saved the Olympics!

[Justin Spencer]

Obamacare is a terrible law. The federal government is upside down and this only makes it worse.

But I agree that healthcare as we know it now is an enormous welfare program with skyrocketing costs. I agree too that pay to play is a conservative idea. No free lunch. As it stands now the uninsured get free care while the rest of us pay. Health care providers bill out the wazoo to cover their losses. Insurers jack up premiums to the point that hardly anyone can pay. My family pays $1,100 PER MONTH for a $3,000 DEDUCTIBLE PLAN. It is literally strangling the lifeblood out of the country. We pay more for healthcare than ANY OTHER SINGLE EXPENSE. And we are, thank God, healthy!

Romney got it done in Massachusetts. I'd like to see what he could get done with the feds. Herculean job, but he saved the Olympics!

Well put Hank!

[Wayne SW/MO]

I see friends all the time using the ER like a doctors office, the amount of abuse to the health care system by poor people in rural areas is astounding, I'm sure it's the same in the cities.

You right and wrong about that Justin, being something of a smart A answer, they don't just use it like a dr's office but a drug store also. My wife worked a rural ER and people would come in with a headache and say they didn't have any aspirin or Advil.

Cost would have to be realistic before any real reform could work. You can't charge an insured person less, much less, than someone who isn't insured.

You have to introduce competition. There should be standards for health insurance benefits and companies should be able to offer their plans nationwide.

If the cost remains as it is proposed it will be the first bill in history to do so. There are some questionable figures, such as the 500 billion cut in Medicare that is suppose to come from reducing fraud. I guess this is a positive aspect of the bill, but I thought the were always trying to reduce fraud, who knew?

Like SS and Medicare, it appears that the unions and public employees will also be exempt from this one except for freebies.

[Feathers and Fins]

That looks good, but the last two provisions would be hard to determine and would once again be decided on an indivdual basis in the court system.

The last two are simple to enforce, Malpractice suits are out of control, so long as the docotr was providing a service that is established ( most are ) then suing them for it should not be allowed. Now if he removed a gallbaldder instead of a cist then he should as anyone should be able to read the chart.

Fair market pricing is even simpler to enforce. No way a hosptiol ER visit should be billed higher than a doctors office new patient and no way in gods green earth should a asprin be 16 dollars at a hospital. Fair pricing is easy to enforce and should be. Ill give you a real life example of how out of control it is.

A vial of antivenom for a rattler runs 110.00 US dollar but a hospital charges 1100.00 US dollars for it. Fair price would be cost plus 40% just like in most retail stores for a total of about 150 a vial. Healthcare has no price regulation and certainly no gouging laws and that is what they are doing to us gouging plain and simple. We have to have it for our health and life and they know it and abuse it as much as those abusing the system.