Love It or Hate It...passed

[Wingnut]

The bill, as its currently written, requires every person to have insurance. Failure to get it will result in a 2% of their income fine. Failure to pay, can result in jail. Im still trying to find in the Constitution where Congress can make it mandatory that a citizen spend his money on something other than taxes.

There is no torte reform, and yes blake you didnt get cheaper rates, but it also didnt raise at near the rate of the rest of the country. The biggest gain for torte reform is it cuts out a lot of the testing that doctors have to run today to prevent a lawsuit. Cutting out the extra tests will lower the costs of a doctor visit/hospital visit.

There is no opening of companies to sell insurance across state lines (like auto insurance) which would allow residents in states like AL where there are only a few insurance companies to purchase insurance from ANY company in the US. This single provision would have saved a LOT of money! The Public Option to encourage competion? Open up the market and let me get insurance from any company I want!

Something that is often over looked in this is that in most cases it is NOT the insurance company that decided what your coverage would be. Reality is its your coverage is decided by the contract YOUR EMPLOYER signed with the insurance company based on costs to the company and the premiums your willing to pay. There is NOTHING stopping a person from getting different insurance with better coverage. ATT Managers have a very POS insurance policy now that the CWA has gotten a good one. So I dropped it and got insurance through my wifes company and an auxillary policy.

To that end many companies will look at the fine they will get for not covering their employees and compare it to the cost of providing coverage. If the fine is (I believe I havent finished reading the bill) 8% and companies are paying 14% today for insurance what do you think they will do? Your damn skippy, they wont renew their contract with the insurance companies and your swinging in the wind having to get the Public Option.

Yes, today insurance companies have a board or panel that decides coverage and this Public Option is no different. Basically the Public Option is an HMO run by many new bureaucracies. There wont be as much pressure for the Public Option to make money, but there sure as hell will be major pressure to keep costs down! After all it has to be budget neutral.

Huge reductions based on eliminating fraud in Medicare? Seriously? They know where the fraud is and can get rid of it? Then why the hell havent they before?

 

[HKTidwell]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jul/23/health-care-debate-heats/

Alright I've heard numerous politicians lately talking about oh the health care industry is making record profits, or yada yada yada. Insurance is a business, it is not in business to loose money. I personally have an issue with people who drive the cost of health care up by going to the doctor, with a sniffle, cough, or runny nose, while expecting health insurance to cover the cost of it. You know how many times an ambulance, Emergency room and/or Fire department run on stupid stuff that people have no right to abuse the system for. Hello the Emergency room isn't for a sniffle. If you haven't been to a emergency room lately go to one and look around the room. Most the people could have seen a Dr. at his office but hey instead of putting money back they bought beer, new car, new TV, or something else.

Years ago you might have insurance to cover broken bones, kidney stones, cancer, or any other "Major" incident but for all other things you paid cash. Now we think it is a "Right" to have health care. I'm sorry it isn't, it is a privileged! My brother-in-law is a Farrier and he also had kidney stones, he did not have insurance. I think the doctor wanted $12,000 dollar to use a laser to break the stones up, and would not allow for a payment plan. Instead of doing this(lack of funds) my brother-in-law tried some home-remedies, and pills. Eventually it worked, yes he was in pain but this was because of decisions he made. To me $12,000 dollars is a ludicrous amount but I can also understand the cost the doctor incurs.

We own a Environmental company, the insurance we carry is outrageous in cost. This cost is then passed on to our customers. The Doctors carry insurance because of lawsuits, etc. I'm sure the cost on that insurance is nuts.

As to premiums in the State of Texas, I believe if you look at the rate of increase in Texas it is lower then other states who have not enacted tort reform.

I really tried not to comment in this thread to much, but the fact that we the people expect Government to do things for us is crazy. What program has the Government touched which has increased in efficiency, lowered cost of operation, and hasn't been screwed up by politics? When the government can run any of the numerous programs it has enacted over the years with efficiency, cost savings, and a lack of political wrangling I might be interested in them doing something for me. Every time we give them more power, more ability to run our lives, and concede states rights we loose personal Freedoms.