National healthcare moves forward. Three cheers for more govt continue.

[Guest redbarron06]

I first heard about this on Phil Valintines show today. When I get home I ask my wife who works for HCA about it. She sais "this?".

So here is the joint statment that went out to all HCA employees today. There was also an HCA statement that supports this communist healthcare plan. But I can not figure out how to get it to post on here.

STATEMENT ABOUT AGREEMENT WITH WHITE HOUSE AND SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH REFORM

Rich Umbdenstock

President and CEO American Hospital Association

Sister Carol Keehan

President and CEO Catholic Health Association of the United States

Chip Kahn

President Federation of American Hospitals

July 8, 2009

America’s hospitals have long been committed to expanding coverage to the millions of Americans without health insurance. Physicians, nurses and other caregivers know all too well what lack of coverage means for far too many people. They see it in America’s emergency rooms every day. As a nation, we know we can and must do better. That’s why we support today’s agreement with Chairman Baucus and the Obama Administration to move comprehensive health reform forward.

Now for the first time, coverage for all is within our nation’s reach as the agreement based upon the Finance Committee proposal will cover 95 percent of all Americans. As we take this historic step, we recognize that everyone must do their part if we are to succeed. This proposal calls on employers, individuals, unions, suppliers, insurers and other providers to do their part as well. Make no mistake that hospitals will do our part to get virtually every American covered. The reductions of $155 billion over 10 years in the framework are substantial, are linked in part to increased coverage and cannot go any deeper without damaging hospitals’ ability to care for their communities.

Today’s package makes significant strides in reforming our health care delivery system. We are pleased to see restrictions on physician self-referral to hospitals in which they have an ownership interest, proposals to simplify administrative red tape and no cuts to funding that teaching hospitals rely upon to train the next generation of physicians. In addition, the disproportionate share programs (DSH) that help hospitals care for the uninsured and underinsured and support important community resources would not be reduced until 2015, and reductions would only occur if coverage expansions actually took place. Roughly 60 percent of the existing DSH payments would be preserved to support our nation’s safety net.

The true test of any reform is whether it improves care for patients and helps make our nation healthier as well as ensure that hospitals, the backbone of community health care, are able to meet the challenges of caring for their communities. The public will hold any

final package to that standard. We applaud the work of Senator Baucus in putting together this important framework and stand ready to work with the Senate, House and the Administration to enact comprehensive health reform that works for patients and families and the hospitals and health care professionals that serve them.

###

Now let me also add that HCA has already gone to the "eletronic records" that was mandiated in BHO's "stimulas" plan. The stimulas bill that was supposed to creat jobs cost 40-50 jobs in middle TN. HCA began talking about this idea almost a year ago and did nothing with it. Shortly after BHO took office they began the progam, before the stimulas package went into effect. Personally I think they knew it was coming.

I cant wait to see how the Catholic hospititals are going to respond when BHO tells them they must perform abortions.

Change is coming and it is not a good thing. As soon as they figure out who they are going to tax for this it will be shoved down our throat. You will be mandiated to provide insurance for your family or be fined $1000 per person. If you are an employeer you must provide insurance for your employees or you will be fined 750 per employee per year for the govt to do it for you. What is cheaper the insurance your employeer is paying for now or $750 a year? Private insurance companies will go under leaving everybody on the federal healthcare system. After about a year when the government figures out that they cant pay for it you will be told what proceedures you can have done. You will be forced to have flu shoots every year. They will tell you what drugs you can have. Then when they still cant cut cost enough they will start telling you that you can only go in 2 times a year. You will wait in the ER for 3 hours because it will be full of folks that have headaches. If you are to old they wont pay for life saving surgery. Then the govt will cut the amount that it authorizes the hospitital to do proceedures. Doctors will stop being rich and wont be able to pay student loans. People will stop going into debt to be doctors. There will be a shortage of doctors to do proceedures and lines will get even longer. Drug makers will stop doing research because the govt will only pay them .25 cents a pill. It is already happening in other countries. Once it is started we wont be able to turn it around. People will say they are entitled to free healthcare and will crush anybody that wants to cut the entitlement.

Are we really going to let a government that brought you a 4 month wait for a tax payment reciept take over our healthcare. The same govt that can not balance its own checkbook. The very one that took over 2 car companies so they would not fail and yet 3 months later they are in bankruptcy court? The very hospitals that are going to go out of buisness from this bill are cheering to get it passed. Bring on the Stalinists YEA.

[Oh Shoot]

I certainly don't want our health care nationalized.

However, I can certainly empathize with all those who need help with it.

I'm in pretty fair health for any age, probably well above the median for my age, but the best health plan I can afford sucks.

I pay $3600/year just for the right to pay another $7500 before the insurance takes over.

No doctor copay, nada.

Prescription discount is the only "non catastrophic" bennie from the thing. That and the fact that they have to charge me the insurance rate for services rather than the uninsured rate (which is a whole OTHER health care SCAM in this country).

So, call me a socialist, I and many others could use a little help from some front or other, eh?

- OS

[Smith]

I certainly don't want our health care nationalized.

However, I can certainly empathize with all those who need help with it.

I'm in pretty fair health for any age, probably well above the median for my age, but the best health plan I can afford sucks.

I pay $3600/year just for the right to pay another $7500 before the insurance takes over.

No doctor copay, nada.

Prescription discount is the only "non catastrophic" bennie from the thing. That and the fact that they have to charge me the insurance rate for services rather than the uninsured rate (which is a whole OTHER health care SCAM in this country).

So, call me a socialist, I and many others could use a little help from some front or other, eh?

- OS

Do you need help with your mortgage? Maybe your car insurance? How about your groceries. Health insurance is not a necessity or right anymore than anything else. Not going after you OS;), but the problems aren't that people need help, it's that the system is so regulated it squeezes blood from a turnip. That and all the illegals and abusers in the system.

There's no easy fix but the only real fix would be for the government to get their grubby hands off it. They are running it into the ground and then saying they are gonna rescue it with more interference! Why not they been successful with the Post office, social security, the auto industry, and soon the banking industry!

[Oh Shoot]

...Health insurance is not a necessity or right anymore than anything else. Not going after you OS;), ...

Totally agree.

I really don't want the govt. involved directly, beyond a few of legislative mandates regarding how insurance companies and medical services operate.

Couple of quick examples:

- Would simply like to be included in a "group rate", like many other "groups".

There is no reason folks who work for themselves or for companies that don't offer health insurance should have to pay more for the same coverage. I should be able to join a "group" with same demographic spread as any other large group, which insures individuals from 18 to 65 years old. I had about the best health insurance any does for the price when I worked at UT. So why can't there be groups of individuals with the same makeup as that from the general public? If Blue Cross can make a profit off x number of folks with x number of folks in their 20's, x number in their 30's, etc, why can' this be duplicated over the general public? Answer, it can. But it won't be unless legislated to do so.

- The afore mentioned charges by health care services are a total scam. Example: full checkup around $1400 from my doc. My insurance does not pay for it. However, if I run that THROUGH my insurance, the price I pay magically comes down to just about HALF of that price. So, why should folks that choose to pay out of pocket for health care pay double? Ever look at one of your doctor/hospital bills? See the "write offs". That's what you pay extra if you have no insurance, even by choice.

These are but a couple of things that would make health care more affordable for the mainstream, and there are many more. But none of them will happen without legislative mandates. Every major industry in the US is regulated in various ways - it would only take a relatively few tweaks to fix healthcare, and certainly it would NOT take either nationalization of the industry, nor even an "alternative" gummit insurance company.

We already have the nightmare of Medicare and MedicAid. Lord knows we don't need to add anything else.

- OS

[Guest HexHead]

I got this email from Dick Morris today. Now keep in mind, yes, he's trying to sell a book, but that doesn't dismiss his points....

OBAMA WILL REPEAL MEDICARE

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on DickMorris.com on July 9, 2009

Obama's health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered.

It is so ironic that the elderly - who were so vigilant when Bush proposed to change Social Security - are so relaxed about the Obama health care proposals. Bush's Social Security plan, which did not cut their benefits at all, aroused the strongest opposition among the elderly. But Obama's plan, which will totally gut Medicare and replace it with government-managed care and rationing, has elicited little more than a yawn from most senior citizens.

It's time for the elderly to wake up before it is too late!

In our new book, Catastrophe, we explain - in detail and in depth - the consequences the elderly of Canada are feeling from just this kind of program. Limited colonoscopies have led to a 25% higher rate of colon cancer and a ban on the use of the two best chemotherapies are part of the reason why 42% of Canadians with colon cancer die while 31% of Americans, who have access to these two medications, survive the disease.

Overall, the death rate from cancer in Canada is 16% higher than in the United States and the heart disease mortality rate is 6% above ours'.

Under Obama's program, there will be a government health insurance company that gets huge subsidies of tax money. It will compete with private insurance plans. But the subsidies will let it undercut the private plans and drive them out of business, leaving only the government plan - a single payer - in effect.

Today, 800,000 doctors struggle to treat adequately the 250 million Americans who have insurance. Obama will add 50 million more to their caseload with no expansion in the number of doctors or nurses. Indeed, his plan will likely reduce their number by lowering reimbursement rates and imposing bureaucrats above them who will force medical decisions down their throats. Fewer doctors will have to treat more patients. The inevitable result will be rationing.

And it is the elderly who rationing will most effect. Who should get a knee replacement a 40 year old or a 70 year old? Who should get a new hip, a young person or an old person? Who should have priority in the operating room a seventy year old diabetic who needs bypass surgery or a younger person? Obviously, it is the elderly who will get short shrift under his proposal.

But the interest groups that usually speak up for the elderly, particularly AARP, are in Obama's pocket, hoping to profit from his program by becoming one of its vendors. Just as they backed Bush's prescription drug plan because they anticipating profiting from it, so they are now helping Obama gut the medical care of their constituents.

It is high time that the elderly of America realized what the stakes are in this vital fight to preserve Medicare as we know it and keep medical care open, accessible, and free to those over 65. It is truly a battle for their very lives.

[Guest HexHead]

dupe

Edited July 10, 2009 by HexHead

[Guest HexHead]

Every major industry in the US is regulated in various ways - it would only take a relatively few tweaks to fix healthcare, and certainly it would NOT take either nationalization of the industry, nor even an "alternative" gummit insurance company.

We already have the nightmare of Medicare and MedicAid. Lord knows we don't need to add anything else.

- OS

Actually Medicare works pretty well.

But this isn't really about giving everyone heath coverage. This is just another step at enslaving the population and making us dependent on the government. The left wants to control every aspect of our lives. And this is a big step towards achieving that goal. People won't make waves if it means losing their government supplied health insurance. The left trying to make sure they'll never lose another national election again.

[Mike.357]

well look at the bright side. But the time Obama ruins health care, taxes us to oblivion and further wrecks the economy he will not be re-elected.

People are slowly figuring it out

Gotta find the silver lining when you can.

[Smith]

Totally agree.

I really don't want the govt. involved directly, beyond a few of legislative mandates regarding how insurance companies and medical services operate.

Couple of quick examples:

- Would simply like to be included in a "group rate", like many other "groups".

There is no reason folks who work for themselves or for companies that don't offer health insurance should have to pay more for the same coverage. I should be able to join a "group" with same demographic spread as any other large group, which insures individuals from 18 to 65 years old. I had about the best health insurance any does for the price when I worked at UT. So why can't there be groups of individuals with the same makeup as that from the general public? If Blue Cross can make a profit off x number of folks with x number of folks in their 20's, x number in their 30's, etc, why can' this be duplicated over the general public? Answer, it can. But it won't be unless legislated to do so.

- The afore mentioned charges by health care services are a total scam. Example: full checkup around $1400 from my doc. My insurance does not pay for it. However, if I run that THROUGH my insurance, the price I pay magically comes down to just about HALF of that price. So, why should folks that choose to pay out of pocket for health care pay double? Ever look at one of your doctor/hospital bills? See the "write offs". That's what you pay extra if you have no insurance, even by choice.

These are but a couple of things that would make health care more affordable for the mainstream, and there are many more. But none of them will happen without legislative mandates. Every major industry in the US is regulated in various ways - it would only take a relatively few tweaks to fix healthcare, and certainly it would NOT take either nationalization of the industry, nor even an "alternative" gummit insurance company.

We already have the nightmare of Medicare and MedicAid. Lord knows we don't need to add anything else.

- OS

+1. Also removing state restrictions would tremendously drop cost by opening up competition.

[Guest HexHead]

well look at the bright side. But the time Obama ruins health care, taxes us to oblivion and further wrecks the economy he will not be re-elected.

People are slowly figuring it out

Gotta find the silver lining when you can.

Don't be so sure. ACORN is going to be handling the Census under the direct control of Rahm Emanuel. The census determines how many Congressmen there are and what the districts are. They are not going to use an actual "head count", instead they are planning on using "sampling", it's a lot easier to manipulate the numbers that way.

The next stealing of an election will make the MN Senate race look like a church ice cream social. Remember, no charges were filed against the New Black Panthers that were caught on video intimidating voters while acting as poll watchers in PA. "You be talkin' about what was, I'm talkin' about what is."

[nightrunner]

i didnt read the whole thread but the reason health ins. is so expensive is because healthcare is so expensive and healthcare is so expensive to those of us who pay for it is because you can go to the doctor or ER or whatever and NEVER pay for it. if hospitals started sueing these people who dont pay for healthcare maybe people wouldrealize that you have to pay for everything, nothing is absolutely free. people who get free healthcare are the reason the overall cost is sooo high

[Guest HexHead]

i didnt read the whole thread but the reason health ins. is so expensive is because healthcare is so expensive and healthcare is so expensive to those of us who pay for it is because you can go to the doctor or ER or whatever and NEVER pay for it. if hospitals started sueing these people who dont pay for healthcare maybe people wouldrealize that you have to pay for everything, nothing is absolutely free. people who get free healthcare are the reason the overall cost is sooo high

Not really. The bigger cost is the price of malpractice insurance, due to there being no caps on lawsuit damages.

[Guest 3pugguy]

I certainly don't want our health care nationalized.

However, I can certainly empathize with all those who need help with it.

I'm in pretty fair health for any age, probably well above the median for my age, but the best health plan I can afford sucks.

I pay $3600/year just for the right to pay another $7500 before the insurance takes over.

No doctor copay, nada.

Prescription discount is the only "non catastrophic" bennie from the thing. That and the fact that they have to charge me the insurance rate for services rather than the uninsured rate (which is a whole OTHER health care SCAM in this country).

So, call me a socialist, I and many others could use a little help from some front or other, eh?

- OS

I don't think your position is unreasonable and would agree we need to do something. However, I am concerned by the government role in this idea - let's face it, they get all wrapped up in the lobbyists driven agendas, etc, and soon, what should be a noble idea for Americans of less means turns into a huge, unfunded mess (think of no child left behind; great idea on paper, but my relatives who are in education have a different view of how it works due federal gov't role).

Maybe the gov't should just build and staff some big, regional hospitals, then have a proportinate number of satellite clinics and have them for either free or reduced fee - pay as you go. Not have a whole big complicated insurance plan.

But what the hell do I know, anyway?

[strickj]

i didnt read the whole thread but the reason health ins. is so expensive is because healthcare is so expensive and healthcare is so expensive to those of us who pay for it is because you can go to the doctor or ER or whatever and NEVER pay for it. if hospitals started sueing these people who dont pay for healthcare maybe people wouldrealize that you have to pay for everything, nothing is absolutely free. people who get free healthcare are the reason the overall cost is sooo high

Right....but you can not sue people who have no money,nothing of value,or are here illegally.

Not really. The bigger cost is the price of malpractice insurance, due to there being no caps on lawsuit damages.

What?

[Guest grimel]

Actually Medicare works pretty well.

Define pretty well.

[Guest grimel]

i didnt read the whole thread but the reason health ins. is so expensive is because healthcare is so expensive and healthcare is so expensive to those of us who pay for it is because you can go to the doctor or ER or whatever and NEVER pay for it. if hospitals started sueing these people who dont pay for healthcare maybe people wouldrealize that you have to pay for everything, nothing is absolutely free. people who get free healthcare are the reason the overall cost is sooo high

Health care is so expensive because the government got involved with medicare/medicaid.

[Guest Phantom6]

Hexhead wrote:--> I got this email from Dick Morris today. Now keep in mind, yes, he's trying to sell a book, but that doesn't dismiss his points....

OBAMA WILL REPEAL MEDICARE

Well, that'll help things along quite a bit. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times aging is the leading cause of death in the US today. No access to medical assistance for the elderly means they check out faster leaving more healthcare dollars for the rest of us. Wow, if one had not one ounce of compassion that would sound like a good idea. Oops. The White House thinks that's a good idea. My bad. Sorry Mr. "O".

[leroy]

But this isn't really about giving everyone heath coverage. This is just another step at enslaving the population and making us dependent on the government. The left wants to control every aspect of our lives. And this is a big step towards achieving that goal. People won't make waves if it means losing their government supplied health insurance. The left trying to make sure they'll never lose another national election again.

This is a great truth. The fact is that it is not about healthcare, it's about buying votes. The Demorats (and lots of Republicans) are nothing but a bunch of trashy polititians trying to pass out largessee to foolish people.

Nothing that government runs ever goes on a paying basis; that's why nationalized insurance and healthcare is laughable.

If this legislation passes; it will be a good idea for eveyone to stay healthy. The fact of the matter is that instead of trying to keep everybody healthy and alive; the government run medical enterprise will re-introduce the practice of "selective culling" (by the way, Hitler did this sort of thing to certain segments of the population in germany to "lower healthcare costs" and improve the quality of life for some -- he cleaned out the orphanages and the insane hospitals by buying doctors to do the job). Right now, the individual who is terminally ill can decide to opt out of taking expensive, life extending drugs and treatments (read that chemotherapy and radiation treatments, others too). Under the new system, the government will make the decisions as to who is "culled".

Hospitals were instituted by the compationate of the Judeo-Christian faith who reached out in love and concern to their suffering brothers and sisters. They provided comfort and treatment to the suffering in society whom no one cared about; or who were'nt able to help themselves. They grew into the healthcare enterpirse they are today. It is my belief that the problem with the healthcare system in the US today is not greedy hospitals and doctors; it is meddling government and unrestrained lawyers.

Once the government starts running the health care system; it will not be troubled by by good old Judeo-Christian compasion. Government as it is constituted now in the US is largely athiestic, socialist, and totalitarian in nature; it will have no problem killing folks.

Look at it this way; would you want to be laying on your death bed and in need of a compationate advocate to speak for you; then look up and find Hillary Clinton doing the talking? The thought is horrifying at the least.

There are those who are foolish enough to believe that they will either get a smaller premium or "help" as some have opined for their "health insurance policy". They will get help for a time; but they won't get any help when they go to the hospital if they are old or have a potentially terminal condition.

I am convinced that there are some who believe this little speech is "over the top" and amounts to fear mongering. My reply to them is to take a look at Canada. Most canadians who can afford it come the the USA for treatments for serious conditions. because they either cant get the treatment because of age or the wait list is too long.

Just for the record, i think health insurance is too expensive to. I pay about $14,000 per year for family coverage. Things need to be fixed in the healthcare business; but not the way the Demorats and some others want to fix it.

So stay healthy, and make sure you are ready to meet your Maker. Government mandated and operated healthcare certainly will not help you; on the contrary; i am convinced that it will speed you on your way thru life. After we are dead and gone (early, thanks to government supplied health insurance) others may straighten this whole thing out, and return this country to the free enterprise healthcare system

Food for thought,

LEROY

[Guest HexHead]

Define pretty well.

Sure, most doctors accept Medicare assignment so they can choose their doctors. Costs are capped. You know in advance how much the Part A deductibles are going to be if you are hospitalized. Private insurance companies can sell Medicare Supplements that still only cover the same things that Medicare covers, but take care of the deductibles and co-pays. All Medicare supplement plans are standardized, and are the same from company to company.

My 94 yr old mom has a Plan F supplement. She pays a couple hundred dollars a month for and it pays all deductibles and co-pays for her. She gets to see the doctors she wants, no long waits for care. She pays about the same as I do for my insurance, but if I go to the hospital I'm out thousands out of pocket and it costs her nothing.

So yeah, it works pretty good.

If I was the one to put together "national healthcare", I'd just make everyone eligible for Medicare. Employers would pay into the Medicare system instead of to the private insurers. People that are buying insurance now would just pay into the system. Private insurers could still sell the Supplements, but to everyone. It would be a much better system than we have now and wouldn't have to re-invent the wheel and start whole new bureaucracies.

[DavidCBaker]

I'm against the government getting involved, but I do think something needs to be done. For one thing, we need to let our loved ones die sooner. If you look at the ratio of healthcare expenditures charted over a person's life, it spikes very heavily at the end. Yes, that's something we do in our family. Aren't you glad you aren't part of our family?

Seriously, I'm self-employed, and have been for 21 years. I've been married for 28.5 years, and for the last 20 of those years my wife has been an insulin dependent diabetic. She used to take three shots per day, but for years now she's worn an insulin pump. She's very healthy, takes terrific care of herself, is slim, athletic, etc.

Nevertheless, she cannot be underwritten except inside a large group plan that doesn't deny pre-existing conditions. Our only option for insurance is the high risk pool that states like TN force insurance companies to offer in exchange for the privilege of selling insurance to the masses. They cannot turn us down, but they can charge us anything they want, as long as everyone in a particular bracket is treated equally.

So, our premiums on an after tax basis are $2,000/month. Plus deductibles. Plus co-pays. And it's ****ty insurance. But what are you gonna do. I ran it through a spreadsheet a month ago, and I have to earn $55,000 a year on a pre-tax basis just to cover her insurance. Yeah, I love her and would pay a lot more than that.

My insurance premium for an individual BC/BS policy is $450/month. Plus $2,500 deductible. Plus co-pays.

It's really a mess, but I am very grateful that we even have insurance. I also happen to have some genetic libertarian in me. I voted for Bush and was sorely disappointed in nearly everything he did. I did not vote for Obama and I'm disgusted with some of the things he's doing and where he's taking us. But some of you far right folks might want to think carefully about what it's like to be in someone's shoes who can't afford insurance of any kind. Those people are not all deadbeats living off your tax dollars, using green stamps for steak. Some of them are doing the very best they can while their kids are crying from hunger or lack of medical attention. Take a few steps in their shoes before you get all high and mighty, pontificating with bumper sticker nonsense built on over simplification.

More than one-freakin-third of Americans are uninsured. I don't have the solution, but there is something wrong and we ought to fix it. I don't think the idiot politicians are the solution, unfortunately, especially since they have healthcare for life. Gawd, that makes me mad.

Sorry for the impassioned rant. I'm feeling better already!

[Guest 70below]

As was previously mentioned, health care is a not a right. I think we need to be better as a country about helping others, but we need to do it at individuals and not through government entities.

If we solve Tort issues, perhaps limiting the amount a doctor can be sued for to the average salary of the high three years of that persons taxable employment to a maximum of $100k. Allow that to applied over time (year to year) to support someone who is disabled negligently.

Allow individuals to purchase a basic services plan for $750 a year which will cover general family illness over the course of a year (colds, flu's, cuts, vision, hearing), or an a plan that is similarly priced but opposite, which covers no basics, but protects you if you have a serious injury or illness. Similar to injury insurance.

Whatever is done, we need to stop removing the mechanisms that motivate people to work for what they have. We have many who leach off the system and use the money we pay into various programs because they know how to work the system. We need to be better about making these folks work for what they want, which allows us to have more in programs for those who need it, and allows them to earn the services they desire.

[DavidCBaker]

For those of you that have the time, this is one of the best articles I've ever read on the REAL problem (btw, tort reform is not a big part of the answer):

Annals of Medicine: The Cost Conundrum: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

I think it'll open your eyes. It sure did mine.

[Guest grimel]

Sure, most doctors accept Medicare assignment so they can choose their doctors. Costs are capped. You know in advance how much the Part A deductibles are going to be if you are hospitalized. Private insurance companies can sell Medicare Supplements that still only cover the same things that Medicare covers, but take care of the deductibles and co-pays. All Medicare supplement plans are standardized, and are the same from company to company.

My 94 yr old mom has a Plan F supplement. She pays a couple hundred dollars a month for and it pays all deductibles and co-pays for her. She gets to see the doctors she wants, no long waits for care. She pays about the same as I do for my insurance, but if I go to the hospital I'm out thousands out of pocket and it costs her nothing.

So yeah, it works pretty good.

You mean other than going bankrupt and being the main cause of the rise in healthcare costs since it's inception. IOW, it's okay for those on it, but, it sucks royally for those paying for it.

[Guest HexHead]

You mean other than going bankrupt and being the main cause of the rise in healthcare costs since it's inception. IOW, it's okay for those on it, but, it sucks royally for those paying for it.

I've got to disagree that it's the "main cause of the rise in healthcare costs since it's inception." How do you justify that statement?

[Guest thorn]

July 8, 2009

America’s hospitals have long been committed to expanding coverage to the millions of Americans without health insurance.

Yes, this is true - they must it's the law, but you will see cases where people (middlemen like Michelle Obama) shuffle people to "steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities."

Physicians, nurses and other caregivers know all too well what lack of coverage means for far too many people.

Yeah, it means that you have to pay for it one way or the other, but an entitlement that someone else pays for?

They see it in America’s emergency rooms every day.

You need to understand, emergency room service can NOT be refused. People use this as their insurance coverage and the hospitals eat it - well not really it's differed cost that is payed by tax dollars or passed on one way or another.

As a nation, we know we can and must do better.

Call me paranoid but "Who is John Galt?"

That’s why we support today’s agreement with Chairman Baucus and the Obama Administration to move comprehensive health reform forward.

"That's why?" tell me again what do you mean "That's" why? I'm not following you... Oh yeah because people feel that they are entitled to it and you are playing on it. So, the person that works their ass off settles down raises a family and has paid for insurance all of their adult life is now categorized or leveled with "all" I mean - compare me to my brother: he is 43 single, pretty healthy you know he goes out for sushi a couple times a week, only parties when he feels like it, has no accountability, he's surfed Indonesia, Panama, most of Mexico, snuck to Cuba (you know he has culture), Hawaii, Costa Rica, there's more I'm sure..., has a Landcruiser, a boat, some rods, and a surfboard. Sound nice? Really ever thought about it? would've like to have gone there, done that, if only just once? I say if the nation can afford it then give their lazy asses insurance and send me to all those places to do all those things! If all it takes is slapping on a little patchouli and eating some raw fish I'm all for it. The fact is that it has to be paid for, no matter what they posture it has to be paid for by you and me.

Now for the first time, coverage for all is within our nation’s reach as the agreement based upon the Finance Committee proposal will cover 95 percent of all Americans.

Just like the other countries that have tried it? This is typical.

As we take this historic step, we recognize that everyone must do their part if we are to succeed.

Again, call me paranoid!

This proposal calls on employers, individuals, unions, suppliers, insurers and other providers to do their part as well.

What about the professionals? Aren't they the ones that really matter - the training, commitment, compassion, or maybe just strife. Whatever it may be healthcare is not their only avenue and that fact should be respected.

Make no mistake that hospitals will do our part to get virtually every American covered.

Make no mistake, it's all about the money kids.

The reductions of $155 billion over 10 years in the framework are substantial, are linked in part to increased coverage and cannot go any deeper without damaging hospitals’ ability to care for their communities.

Ask yourself if this a threshold that you'd really like to find? Nothing about increased quality? Truly something that would be a waste of energy trying to explain if you don't already get it.

Today’s package makes significant strides in reforming our health care delivery system.

Is this what the sheeple are asking for? the "delivery system" to change? Look around the world for your example then come back and talk to me.

We are pleased to see restrictions on physician self-referral to hospitals in which they have an ownership interest,

Ridiculous! Now a doctor will be forced to refer you to county or some other piss poor hospital? Who is pleased lobbyists, lawyers, or us as owners of failed social systems?

proposals to simplify administrative red tape and no cuts to funding that teaching hospitals rely upon to train the next generation of physicians.

While the funding and incentive is compromised for non "teaching hospitals" as they are forced to lower their standards to compete. I know that all of us have personal experience and even complaints about doctors, but it's not compassion or the better good that compels or drives them. Everyone should fear that it behoove them to find another avenue to fulfill their greatness.

In addition, the disproportionate share programs (DSH) that help hospitals care for the uninsured and underinsured and support important community resources would not be reduced until 2015, and reductions would only occur if coverage expansions actually took place. Roughly 60 percent of the existing DSH payments would be preserved to support our nation’s safety net.

You pay for what you get.

The true test of any reform is whether it improves care for patients and helps make our nation healthier as well as ensure that hospitals, the backbone of community health care, are able to meet the challenges of caring for their communities.

Hasn't this already failed the test? Oh wait, I forgot about that Michael Moore thing where he looked at the healthcare in Cuba - move there if you like it!

The public will hold any final package to that standard.

We know, we know, the "public" won overwhelmingly in the last election.

We applaud the work of Senator Baucus in putting together this important framework and stand ready to work with the Senate, House and the Administration to enact comprehensive health reform that works for patients and families and the hospitals and health care professionals that serve them.

I'm not clapping