[Start Rant]

Just in time for the Health Care Reform we've all been waiting for, yes, you guessed it, the Insurance companies have come together to hike their prices. My medical insurance is going up 50%. I've see reports saying that it's only going up 8%-10%, but something isn't accurate there. My plan is going from $47.34/wk to $72.99/wk. Yes, it's a family plan. Yes, it's the Cadillac plan. Yes, that's my cost after what my Employer covers. But it doesn't make it right.

To make matters worse, are you telling me that now the government is going to be forcing people to have some kind of insurance and NOT offer some type of public option that will be competitive with Insurance companies? I can afford it, yes. But many people out there (especially those without jobs right now) can't. Even less now that they're hiking up prices.

This is incredibly stupid. It's just feeding the fire.

[/End Rant]

Hee hee hee Americans and their silly "healf kerr"

Lieberman can suck a dick.

Seriously, if you think we're going to be forced to buy health insurance out of our own pocket somehow you are delusional. Taxes are one thing; having to buy from a bunch of sharks is quite another.

I'm paying $540/month & I don't even have a job. That's how much I must pay to keep my insurance through COBRA because my employer fired me because I was sick. I have to keep my insurance because my wife is getting ready to have dental surgery & between the 2 of us, without insurance, our medications would be around $350/month. I'm seriously thinking about canceling our insurance & just toughing it out after her surgery is done (I think we'll go ahead & get her wisdom teeth taken out as well because I sure as **** don't want to have to pay for that later). I suppose that I can wait a few years for the toe & knee surgery that I need. Just to co-payments are killing us.

I think its time for a revolution again!

Seriously. **** that guy.

Why's he so important? Did the whole thing come down to a single vote?

That's incredible. I'm paying about €115 a month for (just) health insurance and that is the expensive package which covers almost anything. I'm going to pay more next year though, but still.... that's a big difference. (Note: health insurance is obligatory where I live)

Having to pay for healthcare in America is the dumbest thing ever. Knowing that nearly every country that borders us and many European countries have free healthcare paid with taxpayer money is just salt on the wound. Insurance companies are such a dick move.

Yes, they need 60 votes to pass the bill through the Senate, and Lieberman is one of those necessary votes. He's been wagging his dick through the whole process and he has an established record of arguing for one thing for weeks and then voting for something else when the time comes. His supporters would say that he stands for the issues and not the partisan politics, but I think he shapes his opinions to whatever will give him the most attention. He's probably enjoying the spotlight at the moment.

In my opinion he's just a weak candidate and more likely than not has pissed off his Democrat constituents who voted for him as a liberal candidate but turned around and sided with the Republicans on most issues.

hurf hurf get dem guvernments outta my health care hurf hurf socialism kills us all

"I don't want the government deciding if I live or die because they don't want to pay for a procedure?"
"...how is that different from now?"
"The insurance company will pay my bills or I'll go get coverage from another company."


I really hate Republicans, and I hate sleazebags like Lieberman. "oh hey i'm a democrat that appears at the RNC to tell Republicans how much they suck" God damn you, you rat-nosed *******.

Jeez, if you think things are bad now just hope they (dems) don't get all they want on the health care front. You'll really be screwed then.

Why?

The real reason it sucks:

Because no one has a clue as to how it's /actually/ going to work. No one.

God I am extremely thankful for our Canadian health care.
A while back we complained when I had to wait a week to get seen for a cough, now we're just thankful it didn't cost a million dollars (it was nothing).

yup if half of a solution is bad, imagine how bad the full solution would be

No it wasn't.

This whole thing is really illustrating how awful the two-party system is.

I don't know, it's got to be better than a single party. I mean... on the one hand you have an old boys' club unified mass of entrenched faceless semi-dictators who exist to create the illusion of effective government, "re-elected" every few years even though the outcome of the vote was decided long in advance, serving only at the whim of enormous trading partners in service of successive 5 year plans to modernize and industrialize out of not-wholly-irrational fears of once again becoming an isolated poor backwards country with no political or economic power. On the other hand you have Stalinism.

Uhh, yeah the check up at a local clinic was covered completely.
5$ recycling fee for the inhaler that I didn't even really need though.

It was indeed.

*stretches* ahhhh.... $7.53/wk for me. Great coverage too.

I will be paying about $110/month next year for health and dental coverage. That's up roughly 15 bucks from the 95 I was/am paying for in '09.

My employer provides free health benefits for employees and their immediate family. I only have a $10 copay per visit, usually only pay $5 per prescription med, and I've never had to wait more than 30 minutes, even just walking in without an appointment.

As far as I care, the health care system is fine.

And that makes it okay for the rest that have it absolute ****?

When I was on my mom's health care provided by the school system she works for, it was fantastic. I still think the system needs reform, though.

Stop inferring things from my comments that were never my intention.

I didn't say I want everyone else to live in squalor, I just said I don't give two ****s because my *** is covered.

I don't think it should be something the government provides, because that means everyone who has a job is paying for health care of those who don't. Force the employers to provide healthcare, so as long as you're working, you get healthcare.

Naturally extend the benefits to the retired and disabled, but if you're unemployed... well that sucks for you. Life is hard, deal with it.

Plus, maybe that will give more incentive to try to get the unemployment rate down. Or maybe just give more people the incentive to work instead of living on the check.

That's exactly how insurance works too. You're not paying for your own healthcare. You're paying into a collective pot with everyone else on that insurance provider, and your treatment is paid out of that pot.

Why would you want to force a small business owner that's barely making it as it is to provide healthcare for his/her employees? Not everyone that owns a business is rich. Especially not when they first start their business. Not having to provide healthcare to their employees is one of the reasons that some of them do become successful. My wife & I have been taking a serious look in to opening our own restaurant. Do you have any idea of the amount of debt that puts most people in before they even begin to think about providing insurance to their employees?


Life isn't fair? **** you? Let's do every thing that we can to make sure that it stays that way? That's a winning strategy. I used to think a lot like you until I busted my *** for a company for 3 years & then lost my job because I was sick, because I turned my manager in for ethics violations thus causing backlash & because they didn't want to pay me for my 2 weeks vacation. I hope for your sake that you never have to go out & get 2-3 jobs to make the amount of money that you made at your previous job so that you can pay for your regular bills as well as your wife's medical bills.

Workman's Compensation already is expensive for small businesses. Health insurance would kill many.

I never said anything about life being fair, even though it isn't. Life is hard, it is, everyone knows it.

I also realize that small businesses would have issues with it, it would have to be more complicated then a one sentence setup like I described it. However, you have to consider, that perhaps just because its a small business, does that mean your loyal employees should suffer?

Then again, your loyal employees won't have jobs if you can't afford to employ them...or can't afford to even have a company.

Right. Life is hard. So shouldn't we, as a society, be doing something to minimize hardship? Your statement appears to indicate that since it's hard we should just get over it because there's nothing that can be done. That's simply not the case. There are many things that we can do. A lot of countries have good healthcare systems. They're not perfect but the imperfections can generally be corrected with tweaks. Our entire ****ing healthcare system is broken & is the laughing stock of the world. We absolutely need to strive to make sure that it doesn't stay that way. Everyone claims that the government "can't run anything properly" but then neither can the healthcare industry. The problem with private industry controlling the quality of life for you & your loved ones is that in the end they don't give a **** about anything other than profit. They see you & your loved ones as a number on a piece of paper. If it wasn't for government intervention, they'd cancel healthcare for all cancer & AIDS patients by the end of the day.


They wouldn't have "issues" with it, they downright wouldn't be able to afford it. Small businesses across the country would start going out of business left & right, even more than they already are. None of your employees should suffer. That's the point. If the employee can't afford healthcare & if the employer can't afford to pay for their healthcare, who else is going to do it? I would rather pay a higher amount of taxes when I am working & by far the vast majority of people do work, than to be royally ****ed the next time a boss decides to can me because he doesn't like my face.

Fix your face? :p kidding

My stance on life being hard, is that it will never be easier. Hardship only changes from one form to another. If we make public healthcare, the hardship then changes from being able to live healthy, to being able to afford taxes (which, your same group of people likely cannot afford, besides the insurance...)

Then we somehow fix the tax problem, by likely cutting taxes from infrastructure, military, education... those areas then suffer. It's the domino effect. When we make the government foot the bill (by government I mean all of us the people) we eventually only cause more suffering in other regions of our society. Shifting burden around to areas under less financial stress... it doesn't work, it's not working, and hasn't worked in a long time. That's part of the reason we're in the mess we're in.

In essence, even if my plan worked, it wouldn't. Because the companies that could afford the insurance, would then have to cut costs and/or salaries... which would cycle through and cause more problems with peoples lifestyles and cost of living ect ect.

I really don't see a plan in sight that will make everyone happy. Let alone one that won't just cause more problems.... but at the same time, we can't just stay the way we are.

This point should be the most relevant one in this debate. I don't think anyone actually has any idea whatsoever is in that 2,000 page brick. We know WHAT the 2,000 page brick's goal is, but no one has any clue how it will be executed.

For myself, I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in my government in drafting/moving this health care. Even if the whole thing was drafted by top medical experts, god knows what congress would do to it. It's not so much I deny it on moral grounds, because I fully believe that the goal of this is to help everyone get health care and I'm down with that. I just have absolutely no faith in my government to implement this health care and be efficient at it, taking history as the evidence for my scepticism.

LoGH's political plot is starting to look a bit too real these days...

Yeah, because it's working absolutely nowhere in the world, right?

High quality universal healthcare is a reality in several countries, and it's not like we can't afford to pay our taxes, or that the educational system is suffering or whatever you're saying.

The real problem is that people (like you) think it will never work. But look around you. You don't have to reinvent the wheel.

That makes you come off as a dick.