Republican True Colors

[Brooke]

I've always found it a big odd that America has no issue with a single payer system for a segment of our population. It's called Medicare. Yet as soon as the idea to expand Medicare to the entire population (or an equivalent), outrage! All of a sudden it's Socialism.


~Brooke~

[Janes Groove]

Medicaid is single payer too, so is the VA, as is Tri-care,  and Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) and the Federal Employee Health Benefits System FEHB, the same one congressmen and senators and judges use.

But when politicians use it all of a sudden it's not single payer or socialized medicine anymore.

 

[Georgette]

Medicare Part A is a system most people pay into for most of their working life, and there are many things it does not pay for.  Unless you get separate coverage plans of your own.  It is questionable if the little payed in will cover for how long.
You pay extra for Part B and Part D.

Medicaid has many restrictions, and has its own problems.  One being each state has to pay and has restrictions on who is eligible.

Most federal Health Benefits systems are essentially Employer assisted insurance paying plans.  And are not free.
Not familiar with how the Congress/Senate/Judges handle any additional pay in.
As a now retired Federal employee, I paid into the plan when employed and also as a retiree, right now it is about $175/month for a single person plan.  Just like any employer insurance program
Right now under the ACA (Obamacare) I have to provide proof of additional coverage, as Medicare does not meet all  requirements, when TAX time comes around.

The VA system is also an Employer paying plan.

Not familiar with Tri-Care or CHP+.

[Deborah]

TRICARE costs nothing in its basic form.  There is a low cost option that provides some extra benefit (about $50 per month for a family).  There are minimal copays for both if you get treatment outside a military treatment facility.

You have to be active duty military or retired to qualify.


Conform and be dull. —James Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote

[Dani]

My take is that a big part of the problem was not the plan, but the fact that it came from Obama.  If GWB had implemented the exact same program, we wouldn't be hearing anywhere near the objections.

In the 1970's Richard Nixon introduced a health care insurance bill that would cover everybody. It called for a voucher system, where every taxpayer would be given a voucher from the Federal Government to buy health insurance. It was to be financed by a new tax called a Payroll Tax which would replace the employer contribution for health insurance. It never went anywhere mainly because Ted Kennedy wanted a single payer system similar to European countries. The debate continued and the US got nothing.

The only real problem with Obamacare is that it is not properly funded by the Federal Government. Medicare is not too far behind in this under funding situation. The whole concept of insurance is to "Share The Risk". Many young people feel that they will be paying for elderly care and are resentful of that. The only way to cover everybody is to have an all inclusive system mandated by the Federal Government.

I do not blame any one political party. I blame the two party system. They will never work together.

[cheryl reeves]

I would like to add any insurance goes up in price when it becomes law to have it..car insurance was cheap til the federal government made it mandatory to have it and the premiums went through the roof, then the auto insurance industry got deregulated and alot of insurance companies sprang up offering cheaper rates then  the big insurance companies and premiums went down and now there is major competition.  The health isurance industry isn't deregulated and cannot cross state lines so premiums are higher and the pharmaceutical companies are deregulated so prices for medication goes up...Where there is no competition their is a monopoly.  The federal government needs to deregulated the health isurance industry so to make it more.competitive.  My ancestors didn't have free healthcare when they came here from europe,my native American ancestors didn't either, when this country was made into a country they didn't include healthcare and according to liberalism they did this on purpose.  I believe in free enterprise where competitor drives down prices instead of raising them.

[Dayta]

I believe in free enterprise where competitor drives down prices instead of raising them.

Hey cheryl,

The thing that worries me about free market healthcare solutions is that there's no incentives for insurance companies to cover those deemed at higher risk. We saw this in the U.S. before the ACA mandate, where there were many, many pre-existing conditions that pretty much excluded entire populations from being able to obtain insurance.  If you're born with some sort of disease, defect or disability, and your parents weren't able to obtain insurance, you could never, ever get it.  The mandate was one way of getting insurance for those people, single-payer is another.  I don't see the market driving any insurance companies to take on what they see as unnecessary risk. 

My ancestors didn't have phones when they came over here.  People before that didn't have automobiles.  The fact that healthcare wasn't very sophisticated years ago doesn't mean it's not a good idea to provide it now that we have the ability to treat or cure many conditions that used to be fatal. 

Without a mandate for auto insurance, all insured drivers are carrying the risk for the uninsured folks out on the roads.  Yes, that raises rates for everyone, but before that people were carrying that risk relative to damage to their vehicles and selves while the government had to assume the risk for any damage to public property.  Without health insurance, we push the treatment of uninsured people to emergency rooms, so the conditions are more dire, as people are unable to obtain treatment early on, and we end up absorbing that cost anyway.  I guess the solution of letting people without insurance just get sick and die is an option, but it really seems a shame that we, as one of the most prosperous nations on Earth, can't provide adequate healthcare to our people because we didn't used to do it. 

Erin

[Janes Groove]

I said single payer. I never said free.

The single payer is the US Federal Government, aka Uncle Sam,  single payer permits huge bargaining power in dealing with providers, hospitals and large insurance corporations and has been proven to provide better health outcomes in the world's most advanced countries.

That's why the public option was so fiercely opposed when the ACA passed. 
They knew that if people had the option to buy insurance from a public option plan then everybody would choose that plan and its lower prices and better benefits and there goes the insurance company profits.

[tgchar21]

car insurance was cheap til the federal government made it mandatory to have it

It's the states, not the federal government, that make auto insurance mandates. (That's one key difference between that and the Obamacare mandate.)

Corrected for grammar.

[cheryl reeves]

Guess most if you didn't get the memo Obama care failed the American people by losing Dr. ,insurance premiums through the roof all in all its a money pit and now the teeth has been yanked from the IRS now you aren't being fined for not having that worthless insurance.  I'm on medicare  and pay for a separate policy from human which costs me 110 dollars a month out of my social security  check,I didn't lose coverage or my dr.because of obamacare. Let me ask when is it the rich people's problem to be taxed to the hilt to pay for the have nots?  I remember when communities took care of each other,now they expect the wealthy to pay the perks they didn't work hard enough to get....I  know some are going to talk about my social security,but that a system I paid into when I didn't have to due to being disabled from birth but chose to work for what I have instead of lamenting how some successful businessperson  isn't paying my way. I know alot of poor people who chose to work without govt  interference and did just fine.  Remember Venezuela and when they stopped the free market what happened and is still happening they drove businesses out of country where it was better to do business.

An old proverb about socialism , you can only print so much money,and sooner or later your.going to run out of other people's money and the whole thing collapses.

[Annecy]

The following YTvid best expresses my sentiments ...
about the "spending priorities"
of the/"our" government/society ... 
Give me HealthCare ... or Give me Death ...

[RobynD]

Please do the research. Insurance premiums are going up for several factors, none of which are because of mandated coverage. Indeed, transgender care has been shown to decrease healthcare costs because in the long term is preventative of many things such as psychiatric care, hospitalizations etc and oh let's not forget suicide. Our suicide rate is nine times the average of all people. If one is against keeping people alive at a relatively minimum cost, well what can i say?

Indeed insurance for profit in and of itself is a broken and wasteful concept. Count me as a socialist, if believing that healthcare is a right and not something that is dependent on your ability to pay for it. (ok call me a socialist in most regards)

States like Oregon that force coverage of transgender people do it for one main reason, it is humane. Look which party generally supports this concept, look what party generally does not. Universal heath care is what we needed in this country, yesterday. California took a big step toward it this week. Good on them.

Decrying universal healthcare spending as socialist in any sort of negative way, ignores the fact that it exists in most civilized countries in the world and is effective and generally loved by their populations. It also ignores a lot of socialism that already exists in the government including military spending. Many of us feel that our military spending is bloated and unjust but would never say go without a military.

For some reason the GOP never seems to care much about military budgets and are great supporters of for profit insurance. It is almost like they are receiving direct funding from those two industries.

[Deborah]

Our medical system is the most expensive in the world while delivering  amongst the worst health outcomes of any first world country.  Why?  Because it's not designed to deliver good health outcomes.  It is specifically designed to deliver profits to the drug companies and to the hospital systems.  In fact, it is working just as intended under pure capitalism.  If anyone thinks that our healthcare system should actually be delivering superior health outcomes then it makes absolutely no sense to continue doing what we have done in the past.  Capitalism is not a religion.  It's an economic theory that in the real world demonstrates some severe shortcomings, particularly in healthcare.  Why do people insist on continuing to do what doesn't work?


Conform and be dull. —James Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote

[cheryl reeves]

The problem is 95% of Americans do not want socialism because this country was founded as a republic. What  I do is when someone comes up to me wanting this country to turn socialist I tell em to move to a country that already has it and leave my beloved America alone. Part of my family escaped England in the 1600 til they finally made the voyage over they wanted freedom without govt interference,the other part of my family didn't want the whites here ,but here they came to be free to shape their own destinies without govt interference. This country is about the people and people have forgotten that because of Roosevelt selling us into a democracy where the govt makes the decisions not the people,it's actually the govt  that answers too the people,but these days people want the govt to provide but where does that money come from? Some say let's tax the wealthy til they are poor and tax their businesses out of existence but then where is the money going to come from? Most don't realize it doesn't appear like magic or we can keep printing make believe currency backed by nothing but human beings.  See just because I'm Transgender doesn't mean I didn't study,when I was in the 7th grade I knew more about our govt and history then the teacher teaching it for I schooled her on the real world,for they.didn't teach history in u er liberal college it seems and she left me alone giving me a's just to sit quietly and do my own thing and she would leave me alone. I'm not being mean but look what happened to Rome when it went from a republic to a democracy  it became a church to save itself from ruin but still maintained control through threat of death.

[Dayta]

Just some figures to consider:

Corporate tax rates:
1915    1%
1940  24%
1951  51%
2014  35%

Top Marginal Income tax rates
1915   7%
1940  80%
1951  92%
2014  35%

Corporate Profits
1951  ~$50B
2014  $1.7 Trillion

The poor are not stealing anyone's money.  The rich are not being taxed until they're poor.  Corporations are not being taxed out of business. 

Marie Antoinette - "Let them eat cake."
Inavka Trump - "Make champagne popsicles this Memorial Day!"

We're not becoming Rome, we're becoming pre-Revolutionary France.  And that didn't end well either. 

Erin

[cheryl reeves]

So the problem is someone worked hard and became successful so someone else doesn't have to ? Someone doesn't go into business to fail but succeed. Just because they have money and you don't doesn't give you the right to steal their money through unfair taxation that's how youdive companies out to do business elsewhere. Just ask California about their corporations moving too Texas about that.  Can I ask do you really understand how an economy is suppose to work?

[Dayta]

I think that the system and the values supporting it are important, but the results are also important.  If a free market health care system is resulting in worse outcomes for virtually everyone in the U.S. save for the ultra-wealthy, then I believe it's not only fair to evaluate alternate solutions, it's our obligation. 

If the outcome of capitalism is ultimately for one single person to accumulate all of the wealth, all of the money, I don't believe that the entire rest of the population should simply sigh and say "well, he/she got all of the money fair and square," and then all die.  If the result is an inequitable distribution that's perpetuated by that same money influencing legislation and policy, then maybe the system requires a little tune-up.  If this is how the system is supposed to work, then it's not a good system, in my mind. 

I live in California, by the way, and every one of the people I know here that complain about taxes and businesses having a hard time is currently employed in a high-paying job in tech or retired from same with a guaranteed pension, which a lot of people outside of L.A. have probably never even heard of.  California is paying the Federal government between $1.01 and $1.70 in taxes for every $1.00 of Federal money req'd, which has put it in the top five donor states over the last ten years or so.  I think one could do a lot worse than live in California.  Just a thought. 

Erin

[Deborah]

.didn't teach history in u er liberal college it seems

Don't make assumptions.  My college was the opposite of liberal.



Conform and be dull. —James Frank Dobie, The Voice of the Coyote

[AnneK]

The problem is 95% of Americans do not want socialism because this country was founded as a republic. What  I do is when someone comes up to me wanting this country to turn socialist I tell em to move to a country that already has it and leave my beloved America alone.

What does one have to do with the other?  Being a republic doesn't mean a country can't help the average person improve their lives.  Incidentally, the England of time of the American Revolution was a very capitalistic society, with extreme class differences.  What do you think was the inspiration for Dickens to write his stories?

Incidentally, I came across this article recently:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/06/03/democrats-fight-trump-in-bid-to-reignite-push-for-canada-style-health-care.html

[AnneK]

So the problem is someone worked hard and became successful so someone else doesn't have to ?

What about that large portion of the population that does work hard, but doesn't earn enough to properly support themselves?  Why are they being forced into poverty?  Why is it so wrong to help them?  What about those who can't work?