Mandates — forcing everyone to buy health insurance — is not universal health care, no matter how often Hillary Clinton claims it is. Insurance is not the solution. Insurance is the PROBLEM. Hillary’s health care plan is really Mitt Romney’s plan, and it’s failing big time in Massachusetts. It turns out you can’t force people to buy insurance they KNOW is a bad deal. It costs way too much and it covers way too little. Despite the mandate and the fines, people in Massachusetts are refusing to buy. One story said only 7% of people who did not get subsidies have purchased insurance.

But, hey, if we can solve our health care crisis with mandates, maybe we could apply that to other social problems. Why don’t we use that same idea to eliminate homelessness. Let’s just mandate that everyone have a home! Wow, that was easy! Maybe we can do the same with joblessness Say, didn’t the Democrats try that some years back — wasn’t it called the Humphrey-Hawkins bill? Gee, that worked really well.

It’s time to wake up and take the profit out of health care! When are we going to DEMAND what the rest of the civilized world has — government-funded non-profit health care, with everyone automatically enrolled, regardless of health status or employment status… health care that doesn’t go away because you lost your job or got cancer.

Mandates are nothing more than a huge give-away program to the insurance industry.

How about where you work, would you work for free?

Comment by muckdog

you miss the point because you choose to miss it. We are already paying more for less health care than any other country in the world….this is a fact and you can choose to deny if but that won’t keep it from being a fact.

Just because you are not paying the government right now for your health care doesn’t mean you are not paying for it….4 or 5 hundred dollars a month is still taxing whether it is payed in taxes or to an insurance company……it now amounts to privitized taxation…..guess that’s ok with you because it’s not paid to the government……..it’s not ok with me and I want it changed and if enough Americans agree you will have to deal with it.

Are the doctors and nurses going to work for free? How about the companies that make medicine; will their workers work for free? And the buildings, equipment, and land; are these also free?

How about where you work, would you work for free?

Did you also know that hospitals frequently get government grants to help defray the costs of charity care for the indigent? That’s your tax dollars at work, folks.

And did you know that one of the current things being drummed into hospital staff is customer service- not for the sake of good service- but to ensure REPEAT CUSTOMERS??? Last time I looked, most people would rather NOT have to go to the hospital even one, let alone be a frequent customer!

We need a paradigm shift in this country toward our attitudes toward healthcare. First, we need to focus more on preventative care, as the current model in this country is to treat the symptoms and not the cause, leading to that repeat business (and more revenue).

Secondly, we need to control costs- medical products are ridiculously overpriced anyway, and then compounding this is the limited resources created by the restrictions on where and how hospitals can be built.
Ever hear of a “Certificate of Need” ? This is basically a permit from the government that declared that yes, community X needs a hospital, so one can be built. Hello, we need hospitals more than say, a McDonalds (or hmm, more of those = more healthcare consumers?) Why can we have competition between fast food companies, who frequently engage in price wars, saving the consumer, but we have no such system in place for our healthcare?

Third, we need universal access, but not through private insurance. Private insurers have too much of a profit motive to ensure that it is enacted fairly.

I believe an eloquent solution to the healthcare crisis looming would be to:

a) Enact universal healthcare coverage, with parity for both mental and physical disorders.

b) Encourage competition in healthcare services. With the competition, prices will go down, more services will be available, and with the universal coverage, access will continues to be available, and the hospitals will still get paid for their services.

c) Refocus the healthcare model to emphasis on preventative care, which will further lower costs by treating diseases before they get out of hand and end up requiring a hospital stay.

d) Tie any healthcare reforms to federally mandated nurse – patient ratios, such as the ones enacted in California.

One thing I have NEVER seen addressed in any debate over universal healthcare is: Where will the extra nursing staff come from to take care of the extra people that will have access to care with universal coverage?

If you think this does not concern you, think again:

In some states, it is already commonplace to push nurses to take care of nine or ten patients at a time, which is stressful for us but DANGEROUS for you. If you think waiting on the call bell takes forever now, wait until we have universal healthcare and a profit driven hospital. I would not be surprised to see caseloads pushed even higher than that, if the hospitals think they can get away with it. And they will, unless the public is educated why this is dangerous.

The hospitals cry “nursing shortage’ and here is why– nurses are leaving in droves from the profession because of these unrealistic and unreasonable work demands, and you are not likely to see any return anytime soon. Bring in foreign nurses? Sure, go ahead. But it will drive down wages, and drive out the nurses that are there now, and eventually there be fewer nurses altogether. Why would you want to be a nurse with impossible work demands and low wages when you can cut your stress level in half and get paid better doing something else?

So remember this, when you consider healthcare changes:

Imagine yourself lying in a hospital bed, recovering from abdomincal surgery and needing pain medication. Your nurse has eight other patients to take care of besides you, all of whom need things just as urgently, and your nurse just got slammed with an admission, on top of everything else.
(FYI- an admission usually eats up at least an hour’s time, b/c of having to take history, do head to toe assessment, start IV’s, and a thousand other things that need doing, plus more if the patient is in severe distress. And all of these things take priority because with a new admission, there are too many variables to consider, that could be dangerous for the patient if made to wait. ).
As the nurse attends to the admission, who is short of breath, your abdominal incision begins to bleed profusely, soaking the bandages taped to your skin. Your breathing is shallow and rapid, and your skin breaks out into a cold sweat from the pain. You ring for the call bell. How can the nurse be in two places at once? A nurses’ aide might be able to help you with the bandage (if they have time– their caseload is usually twice that of the nurse’s, and there are only one or two per floor) but only the NURSE can give you that pain medicine you need.

Remember to demand patient ratios when pushing for healthcare coverage reform. Your very life might just depend on it.

They would be funny is they hadn’t caused so much damage to America.

There is nothing funny about burying American in a mountain of debt.
There is nothing funny about the trashing of American politics, the Constitution, the traditional American way of government and the Federal Government.
There is nothing funny about starting and trying to instigate wars causing death and destruction, violence, hatred and misery, orphans and widows.
There is nothing funny about about $103 a barrel oil……and we’re just getting started.
There is nothing funny about covering for pedophiles and other sexual deviants.
There is nothing funny about our government being taken over by cowardly draft dodgers, liars, thieves, incompetents, pathologically disturbed closeted homosexuals and war profiteers.

Is that what you want families to pay per month for coverage?

Comment by muckdog — February 29, 2008 @ 10:17 pm

no, you stupid shit, it’s got to be free for everybody, at the same level as Cheney’s. Why are you so thick?

Is that what you want families to pay per month for coverage?

Comment by Roger_Roger — February 29, 2008 @ 5:01 pm

You are indeed. Very simple, actually; you’re to stupid to know when you’re being screwed by the “free market”. the government would do a far better job of providing cradle-to-grave health care than any private company would, just becasue that would be their mandate, not trying to figure out how not to pay people’s claims. The shame of it is that the “free market” is killing Americans at a faster rate than Bush is.

They’ve been smoking Hopium for too long! ;)
-rhf

the first time i read that, i thought it was funny… then i read some more,
then i had to scroll through just to get outta the hassle…

jeez, hate, you are one RUDE DUDE…

and you probably ripped off that joke too…
…

i didn’t learn much at the thread, except that whoever is taking the “Poll”
is not talking to the representative collection of citizens at ThinkProgress…

hopefully they are reading this though…

Health care should be free for all of us, every god damned stupid one of us. There are no compromises and the thought of it from a “progressive” site is beyond comprehension.

Comment by oldtree — February 29, 2008 @ 2:07 pm

You were the first poster on this topic and you nailed it. I remind you that just because Dennis Kucinich is no longer running for President his Healthcare Plan can still be enacted into law. It’s HR 676.

When AARP excluded Dennis from the Presidential debate they sponsored the writing was on the wall. They take billions of dollars from Insurance companies and didn’t want the audience to hear Dennis’ radical idea that Health Care is a human right and insurance companies shouldn’t be the gatekeepers. The letter I sent to AARP would not be fit to print on this website.

Let’s assume Hillary is President and she’s able to get her plan passed. 50 million new people now are forced to purchase a health insurance policy. And because they’ve been on the sidelines for awhile they’re going to need more care. So they finally start seeing their doctor. And the insurance companies start to lose money from these 50 million new policies.

These companies exist to make a profit. So they start denying claims. They tell a patient we won’t pay for this test or that doctor. Does Hillary or Obama’s plan mandate that the insurance companies MUST pay claims? Who will resolve these inevitable conflicts? What good will these policies be if your claims are denied. These companies exist to make as much profit as possible. So the pieces to this puzzle don’t seem to fit.

Also, a person is forced to buy a policy. What type of policy? What will this policy cover? Just emergencies? Maybe a few doctor visits and tests. What if this person, who followed the law and bought a policy got a terrible disease. And the bare-bones policy he bought doesn’t cover this condition? What then? He/She is still in a bind.

Why is it that every other industrialized nation has figured out how to provide health care and our politicians are stumbling around trying to protect their biggest contributors with a plethora of ways to keep the health insurers enriched? Is that all we are, just a nation of money grubbers? If universal, government (our gov’t.) paid health care is so terrible everywhere else then why don’t I read on a daily basis how many people are dying and getting sicker in all those other countries? I’ve never seen anyone from a country with universal, cradle to the grave, health care complain about it. The only ones I’ve seen complain about it are the only ones that have never experienced it. Americans.

My favorites are in this order: Gore (Mission, intellect), Kucinich (Candor, charisma, intellect), Barrack (Charisma, selling it), Paul (No corporate connections), Hillary (Bill again, experience). McCain (Senile).

Comment by republicans hate facts — February 29, 2008 @ 5:35 pm

Okay, seriously- is this a joke? I wish you well, RHF… I sincerly hope you are right and you wake up the masses with this act… I just think you’re turning off more supporters than you’re turning on…

Ok, I get it. RHF is having a hissy fit because his candidate, Hillary Clinton, is going to lose.

So, to all the Obama bashers on this thread and the other one, what are you going to do in November? Are you going to vote for McCain? There’s always Nader. Or, you can sit home and pout because Hillary didn’t win.

Obama was not my first or even my second choice (Kuchinich then Edwards), but I think he is a fine candidate and will do a fine job. He is also much more electable than Hillary Clinton. I was once a Hillary fan but she has pretty much destroyed my admiration for her at this point as has Bill Clinton destroyed my admiration for him. They are both willing to trash the Democratic party because they can’t win.

Actually there is such a thing as a free lunch – just become an executive. Not only is it free, but it is not reported on you 1099. Catered Lobster Newburg with white asparagus (Imported from Germany.) drenched in Hollandaise sauce. Green salad plus a warm chocolate mousse for desert, topped with real hard sauce. No soup or nuts, though.

why do people keep saying “FREE HEALTH CARE”???

here, i had to argue with my ditto-head-in-law that “no one says FREE”…

so STOP IT!

NOTHING’S FREE… you know that!