House Passes Health Reform Bill
We’re screwed. More to come…
Since I can’t feed content from Facebook directly into the blog, I decided to post the contents of a spirited debate that was started when I posted the following:
Jay Beeber: Thomas Jefferson and the rest of our founding fathers must be spinning in their graves.
Kathy Ann Wittes
We’re going to fight back.
Kathy Ann Wittes
If you want, come to the Hollywood Republicans dinner 1st Wed in April at the
Steve Humphreys
Oh and they weren’t when we illegally invaded another country and waterboarded suspected terrorists?
Cristina Nenadov
I am with Steve!
Tom Quinn
Selective memory is so convenient, don’t you think?
Jay Beeber
@Steve are you advocating the “two wrongs make a right” theory of government?
Steve Humphreys
Jay: I’m not advocating “two wrongs make a right”. Please explain to me what is so horribly wrong with a health care policy that will help people we both know? (ie: all of our friends who have no insurance) It’s not perfect but at least after trying to do something since the deperession, it’s a start.
Louisa Cilento
I’m one of those people who’s job doesn’t provide health insurance but that didn’t stop me from getting it on my own. I’ve have my individual plan my whole life. I hate when people think not being able to afford it and don’t want to afford it are the same thing! People who don’t want to pay now are still not going to want to pay anything…and won’t. How is that right?
Tom Quinn
Well said, Louisa!
Stephanie Witherspoon
Tell that to my friend who’s stuck in a horrible job because her pre-existing conditions have meant she wouldn’t be able to change insurance carriers because the premiums would be too high, if they’d take her at all. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But it’s a step in the right direction, and the first step that’s been taken in 100 YEARS. It’s easy for people who HAVE insurance to bemoan the healthcare bill. Try talking to some people that NEEDED this change.
Robyn Castellano Rubin
Any company’s group policy would have accepted her. But not to worry, we’ll pay for everyone now so why get any job at all?
Rafferty Fartengaten
You mean you thought you weren’t paying for everyone already?! Wow, how naive. I guess if you knew you wouldn’t have agreed to that. Why do you think costs are so high? Well apart from the fact that insurance, pharmaceutical & medical supply companies can charge whatever they want. Who is going to say no. If you want no regulation like good Capitalists then accept this- in the short to medium term at least the companies have no need to have a moral responsibility, only an economic drive. So accepting that, anyone who can’t afford it should either stay sick… or “fall by the supply/demand wayside” … & by that I mean die. If you can accept that as legitimate collateral damage then bring forth complete open markets. Too many goddamn people anyway
Rafferty Fartengaten
Answer me this riddlers. I just got a prescription filled for generic Augmenten. How much without insurance is it? And how much in Australia or the UK? The basic multifunction effective antibiotic- it’s $103 here. It’s about $25 in Australia. Explain that price variation & why can’t we then just get our meds from oneseas legally if we have ‘open markets’ now. I wonder why the pharmaceutical companies would lobby the GOVT not to have that happen?
Jay Beeber
We don’t have open markets now. Health care, insurance, etc. are some of the most highly regulated industries in the US. Due to government interference, the market is not free, open or competitive. And yes, we can’t buy from overseas because the pharmaceutical industry co-opted the power of government to forbid us from doing something we should have every right to do. I don’t know the Australian system all that well, but I suspect that the drug is cheaper over there either because it is somehow subsidized by the taxpayers and/or the cost of developing the drug, getting approved, and bringing it to market is less than it is here. Another possibility is that the AU gov’t has put in place price controls and people in other countries that don’t have such controls are paying the difference.
Julien Batelaan Humphreys
Right, if she could find a job with a company providing employee health coverage, which many don’t nowadays.
And, besides, we are paying for those that don’t have it now. We pay for them to wait in long lines at USC Medical Center and get treated like subhumans (like my friend, who definitely can’t afford own her policy, and had nowhere else to go recently when she badly cut her finger).
Jay, I doubt Jefferson is spinning in his grave. He was too busy doing his female slaves to care about the many people suffering in many different ways at the time. (And, no, I’m not a Jefferson hater. Admittedly, just making a snarky point.) Brings to mind all the politicans who have been so vehemently against something that is meant to help the quality of life of their fellow Americans. Hypocrites and purveyors of death and destruction (read: our current war). Spent too much money on that to support something altruistic and for the greater good.
Jay Beeber
@Julien If it really would help the quality of life overall, I might be inclined to support it, but I believe it will make health care more expensive overall and the taxpayers will have to keep shouldering more and more of the burden down the road. To understand why I believe that, you have to read the posts on my blog, there is not enough room to put all that here. Post over there if you disagree with the facts I list and my conclusions.
But the main point of my original post is that there is supposed to be limits on what the Federal Gov’t can and can’t do. I object to people being forced to buy a product from a private company (especially companies that have a track record like the health insurance industry). Never before has the Federal Gov’t extended itself this far and I think it’s a terrible precedent to set, no matter how well intentioned. And I’ll be posting about that in detail on my blog as well if I can steal a free moment away from answering comments on FB.
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Comment by Miguel Muñoz | March 23rd, 2010
It’s easy to criticize the Democrats, but the Republicans had both houses of Congress and the White House from ’02 to ’06 and they didn’t lift a finger to solve the health care crisis.
I’m not going to say much more on Health Care, but I want to take issue with your contention that the founding fathers are rolling in their graves. The truth is, the founding fathers didn’t agree on much beyond a republican form of government. Jefferson is often given the Libertarian mantle, but that didn’t stop him from using our tax dollars to start building an extensive network of canals to ease the cost of shipping, all at taxpayer expense. Hamilton was a big supporter of tariffs. He and Jefferson couldn’t stand each other and fought bitterly on many issues.
It’s easy to claim the mantle of the founding fathers when they’re not here to object.
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Comment by freedomminute | March 23rd, 2010
Yup, I agree that the Republicans did nothing to solve the problem either. If they had implemented some of the reforms they’re touting now, we might not be seeing this current health care overhaul. Although they didn’t have a super-majority, they didn’t even try. So there’s plenty of blame to go around. Republicans haven’t been the fiscal conservatives that they claim to be, either. Which is why I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican.
As for Jefferson, using tax dollars for infrastructure isn’t necessarily anathema to those with libertarian leanings.
Perhaps, though, I should have more accurately said “the Anti-federalist Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves”. However, I do think they mostly agreed on a Federal Government with limited enumerated powers and I think even the Federalist group which included Hamilton, would never have envisioned a day when the Federal Government forced all citizens to buy a product from a private company merely as a consequence of being alive.
By the way, thanks for visiting me over here.
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