Obama Slams Health Care Critics For Spreading "Outlandish Rumors"

[Henry Hawk]

60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1 due to the group's support for a health care overhaul, a spokesman for the organization said Monday.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-17-aarp-health-overhaul_N.htm

54% Say Passing No Healthcare Reform Better Than Passing Congressional Plan

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/august_2009/54_say_passing_no_healthcare_reform_better_than_passing_congressional_plan

Thirty-five percent (35%) of American voters say passage of the bill currently working its way through Congress would be better than not passing any health care reform legislation this year. However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that most voters (54%) say no health care reform passed by Congress this year would be the better option.

[Palehorse]

Again, this is nothing short of fallout due to the automatic belief of the propaganda being spewed against this bill.

We don't need healthcare reform? Tell that to the 6 million+ unemployed folks when their healthcare coverage either runs out or becomes unaffordable. Tell that to the senior citizens that are going to be tossed out of the homes they worked their entire lives to obtain, when their "pre-existing condition" forces them to choose between their home or a medical procedure needed to keep their spouse alive.

The poor do not get free healthcare, you and I pay for it as long as we pay taxes. And what quality of care do they receive when they get it???

You enjoying paying what you do now for the medical testing you have to have performed? I don't. And it is only going to get worse. . .

[Palehorse]

Again, this is nothing short of fallout due to the automatic belief of the propaganda being spewed against this bill.

We don't need healthcare reform? Tell that to the 6 million+ unemployed folks when their healthcare coverage either runs out or becomes unaffordable. Tell that to the senior citizens that are going to be tossed out of the homes they worked their entire lives to obtain, when their "pre-existing condition" forces them to choose between their home or a medical procedure needed to keep their spouse alive.

The poor do not get free healthcare, you and I pay for it as long as we pay taxes. And what quality of care do they receive when they get it???

You enjoying paying what you do now for the medical testing you have to have performed? I don't. And it is only going to get worse. . .

In addition, how many Americans do you think are still holding jobs simply because they need the medical coverage and cannot afford to retire because of the costs to obtain it?

[Bo D]

60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1 due to the group's support for a health care overhaul, a spokesman for the organization said Monday.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-17-aarp-health-overhaul_N.htm

From the same article ...

"on average AARP loses some 300,000 members a month, but he couldn't say how many more members had quit for other reasons in that time period."

"AARP gained some 400,000 new members during the same period and that 1.5 million members renewed their membership."

...........

Let's see .... 60K quit. 400K joined up and 1.5M renewed.

That makes it 1.9M for and 60K against.  Roughly 32 to 1 for. I would say that's pretty much a landslide approval.

[Palehorse]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/18/reinhardt.health.inflation/index.html

Commentary: Frightening future if health reform fails

By Uwe Reinhardt
Special to CNN
     
Editor's note: Uwe Reinhardt is James Madison professor of political economy at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. From 1986 to 1995 he served as a commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Committee, established in 1986 by Congress to advise it on issues related to the payment of physicians.


Uwe Reinhardt says health costs are rising at unsustainable pace, gobbling up middle-class incomes.

(CNN) -- Watching the angry outbursts at town hall meetings on health reform and the continuing public ambivalence about current efforts to reform our health system almost makes me wish that the reform effort fails.

Perhaps Americans need to be taught a basic lesson on the economics of employment-based health insurance before they will feel as smugly secure with it as they do now and before they will stop nitpicking health-reform efforts to death over this or that detail.

And America's currently insured middle class will be increasingly desperate if health reform fails. Millions more such families will see their take-home pay shrink. Millions will lose their employment-based insurance, especially in medium and small-sized firms. And millions will find themselves inexorably priced out of health care as we know it.

Milliman Inc., an employee benefits consulting firm, publishes annually its Milliman Medical Index on the total health spending by or for a typical American family of four with private health insurance. The index totals the family's out-of-pocket spending for health care plus the contribution employers and employees make to that family's job-related health insurance coverage.

The Milliman Medical Index stood at $8,414 in 2001. It had risen to $16,700 by 2009. It is likely to rise to $18,000 by next year. That is more than a doubling of costs in the span of a decade!

Since 2005, the index has grown at an average annual compound rate of 8.4 percent. Suppose we make it 8 percent for the coming decade. Then today's $16,700 will have grown to slightly over $36,000 by 2019.

Economists are convinced that this $36,000 would come virtually all out of the financial hides of employees, even if the employer pretended to be paying, say, 80 percent of the employment-based health insurance premiums. In the succinct words of the late United Automobile Worker Union leader Douglas Fraser:

"Before you start weeping for the auto companies and all they pay for medical insurance, let me tell you how the system works. All company bargainers worth their salt keep their eye on the total labor unit cost, and when they pay an admittedly horrendous amount for health care, that's money that can't be spent for higher [cash] wages or higher pensions or other fringe benefits. So we directly, the union and its members, feel the costs of the health care system." ("A National Health Policy Debate," Dartmouth Medical School Alumni Magazine, Summer 1989: 30)

Unfortunately, very few rank-and-file workers appreciate this fact. Aside from their still modest out-of-pocket payments and contributions to employment-based insurance premiums, most employees seem sincerely to believe that the bulk of their family's health care is basically paid for by "the company," which is why so few members of the middle class have ever been much interested in controlling health spending in this country.

The price for that indifference will be high. If efforts at better cost containment fail once again, and health care costs rise to $36,000 on average for a typical American family of four under age 65 -- as almost surely it would -- that $36,000 will be borne entirely by the family. That family's disposable income would be much higher if the growth of future health spending was better controlled. And, as noted, many smaller firms will stop altogether providing job-based health insurance.

It would be a major problem for families with an income of less than $100,000 a year. In 2007, only about 25 percent of American families had a money income of $100,000 or more. Close to 60 percent had family incomes of less than $75,000.

Here it must be remembered that the wages and salaries of the solid American middle class have been relatively stagnant in recent years and are likely to remain so for the next decade. Unemployment is not likely to fall significantly soon, regardless of what stock prices do on Wall Street. Indeed, often stock prices rise as firms lay off workers to drive up profits through leaner payrolls.

This prospect -- relatively stagnant family incomes combined with family health-care costs that double every decade -- is what America's middle class should contemplate as it thinks about the imperative of health reform.

It is a pity that this central issue seems to have been shoved aside by mendacious distortions from Sarah Palin, Betsy McCaughey, Rush Limbaugh and other extremist commentators seeking to frighten Americans with their prattle about "death panels" and "pulling plugs on granny" that no bill before Congress even remotely envisions.

But no, focus on the negative propaganda being put out there by the very industry that is raping you! 

Funny how some sheeple will listen to any shill out there. . .

One day these facts are going to pimp slap those of you opposing healthcare reform right across the chops. What will you be saying then?

[Henry Hawk]

Henry will probably avoid it altogether, though, because it shows how health care costs already erode take-home pay and how they will continue to rise if left unchecked and that flies directly into the face of his 'let the workers keep more of their money' mantra.  That ilk is only capable of thinking of things in single, disconnected terms rather than as one piece of a larger and much more complex puzzle.

I DID read it punk....

and I don't disagree with it.....We ALL want something done about Healthcare reform......but we need to SLOW it down....with this current BILL........TOO many people DO not LIKE it.....

btw, why has Tort Reform seemed to quietly slip away here.......THAT is an issue that needs to be debated....

[Exterminator]

Most of those in opposition to this bill are parroting the propaganda against it that was bought and paid for by the very industry it is meant to rein in, the insurance industry. They want the American people (sheeple) to herd up against it because it threatens the profiteering they have been engaging in for almost twenty years or more. And what better way to do this than create a bunch of false propaganda with the PR firm you have on retainer, and let them provide it to those public shills (IE Rush et AL), and let them scare the crap out of the sheep! Then all they have to do is sit back and listen to them bleat!

You have to admit that it is diabolically clever of them to have manipulated such a swath of the population to continue not only to argue in favor of the ass-reaming they've been taking for all of these years but to ask them to give it to them even harder!  Some of these companies, like AIG and its subsidiaries are undoubtedly funding their propaganda campaign with bailout funds...how cool is that?  It worked for the banks; why not the insurance companies? 

When you drive into any major city and look at the skyline, who owns most of the major buildings you'll see?  Yep, banks and insurance companies...those with most of the money.

[Exterminator]

I am basically through arguing (with the zone).....I will NEVER get excited about turning MORE power over to the Government....and IF you cannot see that, by READING the BILL, then, there is nothing to argue about......I'm done.

I note with interest that you completely avoided my post about those things the government already manages with a great deal of accuracy...very large and important infrastructure programs...way bigger than this.  And you can't even correctly conjugate the most basic word in the English language so if you expect me to believe that you read this legislation, which I doubt, and understood it, I'm calling you a liar...again.

I know our current system is FAR from perfect.....but it IS better than other countries....the POOR get FREE healthcare now.....the VAST majority of the working class already has employer provided insurance...let's FIX it without GIVING Washington the controls.

Which countries, Henry; Ethiopia?  The vast majority of the working class have "employer provided" health care at the expense of their wages and it'll get much worse.  I knew you wouldn't bother to read the article PH posted because if you did and aren't to dumb to understand what it is saying, you would realize that you fall squarely into that category of people for whom employers will no longer be providing insurance in 10 years.  Your company might seem like a 'big' company to you but they're not.

the bottom line IS.....the TRUTH will prevail.  Americans are speaking out against this...for one main reason....the are SICK of Government MIS-Managing OUR Taxes.

The truth will only prevail, Henry, when you liars who now nothing about what you're talking about sit down and STFU. 

[Exterminator]

From the same article ...

"on average AARP loses some 300,000 members a month, but he couldn't say how many more members had quit for other reasons in that time period."

"AARP gained some 400,000 new members during the same period and that 1.5 million members renewed their membership."

...........

Let's see .... 60K quit. 400K joined up and 1.5M renewed.

That makes it 1.9M for and 60K against.  Roughly 32 to 1 for. I would say that's pretty much a landslide approval.

Looks like you just exposed more of Henry's lies. 

[Exterminator]

I DID read it punk....

and I don't disagree with it.....We ALL want something done about Healthcare reform......but we need to SLOW it down....with this current BILL........TOO many people DO not LIKE it.....

btw, why has Tort Reform seemed to quietly slip away here.......THAT is an issue that needs to be debated....

You're the punk here, you redneck faggot, and you need to learn to just stay the fuck out of conversations that your dumb ass has no chance whatsoever of understanding.  Stick to your stupid bar and grill...it's about your speed.

[Henry Hawk]

Real Classy...

The bottom line, AGAIN, ASSHOLE.....Real Americans are winning this thing...and Loudly speaking the truths....the TRUTH will prevail....and THAT is why the POTUS is dropping like a rock in the polls.....

take a couple of Mydols, go play in your garden and see if your feminine, pansy ass feels a little better in the morning...

PUNK

[Bo D]

[Palehorse]

OFF TOPIC:

You see the History Channel's special on Woodstock??

[Henry Hawk]

First of all, for those of you who have taken time to know me, understand that I USUSALLY try to take the high road in most situations.....But, there are times when a person has to strap on his gloves and come out swinging...so the following is out of my normal way of communications, and I will more than likely NOT properly conjugate my verbs in a fashion that will suit ALL people....nor will I give a rat's ass.
 
I thought about being funny and starting with Exterminator, you ignorant slut..............but screw that...Exterminator, you stupid dumb fuck!!...seriously, your ability to understand anybody else's views on here that falls outside of your self-centered, egotistical piece of shit brain of yours is fucking amazing.
 
I have stated SEVERAL times that I am in favor of reforming our healthcare system.  I am simply NOT in favor of turning more and more power, blindly, to our already, too powerful government......especially when our government is largely "liberal".....which is JUST another word for socialist....
James Madison once said..."If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."

So, EX....YOU STFU....don't think that YOU can cry and whine your opinion around here and insinuate you know what you are talking about...because I clearly see it as people like YOU, who is the ruination of this country....the attitude of "doing something is better than nothing" is the biggest fucking cop out I have EVER heard.....and pretending YOU fucking understand this Bill, because you  "read it"...is fucking bullshit...........the fuckers who wrote this piece of shit cannot even explain it to their OWN constituents at town halls ALL across this nation....

And another thing pussboy, you can suck it with your bullshit that the government is capable of managing programs with a great deal of accuracy...what a fucking dumbass moron you are.............medicare is on pace to be bankrupt in 2020, Social Security is for all practical purposes ALREADY there...Our Military, even though we have the greatest soldiers on the planet.....is a POORLY administratively ran program... its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends....
Amtrack is doing just PEACHY isn't it dumb ass........oh, an the IRS is simply marvelous...so is our Public School systems, RIGHT douch' bad?.........and FEMA and the DMV?............FedEx and UPS are examples of PRIVATE companies who do it right........the Post Office is fucking struggling to stay in existence....... So YOU STFU, will ya?.....

And I 100% understand the article Palehorse posted about "employer provided" health care and it's expense........but do you HONESTLY think a government who has totally dicked up nearly EVERY program it institutes with fraud and mismanagement, will make things LESS expensive?.............how fucking stupid are you anyway?

So kiss it you big puss, I am and always WILL state MY fucking Opinion on here with a great deal of pride, backed up by my OWN research and studies on any issue I decide to discuss....


Okay, with all that said, I will return to my regular Henry Hawk self, and go hang out in my bar and grille, because I don't understand what the brilliant minded Exterminator has to say...

[pariann]

You know, I'm going to admit something here, and some of you won't like it.  I just recently reapplied for, and got public assistance. Which is EBT (food stamps) and medicaid.  I have used my medicaid (which is Hoosier Healthwise and backed by Anthem) for the first time this last weekend to get an eye exam and a new pair of bifocals.  With medicaid, you don't get a wide selection of frames (not a worry for me, I'm not that picky, I just want to see) and you don't get any extras on the glasses.  I will have lined bifocals, and the polycarbonate lens.  If I should happen to lose or break them in the next year and I still have the medicaid (which I doubt I will) I can get one pair of replacements at no cash cost.  But what I want to use the medicaid for....I can't.  Which is dental.  I need all my teeth pulled and dentures (not a pleasant thought).  I can't even get ALL my teeth pulled (or surgically removed) because my yearly limit is $600.  An oral surgeon will charge at least $120 for each tooth removed, and a dentist will charge approx $90 per tooth.  I have more than 6 teeth that need to go. And even if I could get them all pulled.....I would be walking around with my lips all sucked in between my gums because I then don't have the $650 I would need to go to affordable dentures.  There are limits to the 'free' medical, dental, and vision care that poor people can get, and rarely can you get ALL that you need, even with the medicaid plans that ask for a copay (and those do exist too).   

When I didn't have medicaid and I needed new glasses, I went to the clinic on Ohio street, I got an eye exam for $25. Then took my prescription to Walmart and selected a pair of frames, chose a progressive lens for my bifocals, and paid $120 for my glasses.   

I also went to the clinic for dental care.  It cost me $35 to be seen by the dentist.  Because I had filled out a financial statement that showed I had not earnings, I wasn't charged for the x-rays. We then set up a plan for my future dental care.  It would cost me $35 per visit, I would need to make 3 of them..and each time I would have several teeth removed. By the third visit, I would be able to place the dentures. WHICH I would first have had to went to Muncie to have made, for $650.  I was in the same position, I could afford to have them all pulled, but I wouldn't be able to get my new teeth, because I just don't have that kind of money.  So I don't do anything.  This is the situation of the poor.  And the partial help you can get with reduced pricing, and the current medicaid program. 

I'll also add, that the ONLY reason I can even get medicaid is because I'm a single mother without a job.  If I had a job, I would not be eligible.