Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

I'll just wait for your next string of "snips and posts" to find out about the deals.

You're guys in the media seem to have all the facts.

So you can't defend the estimates? You are ok with them bankrupting us? Ok.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

Looking forward to the "snips of the day" that tell me the government is planning to take over my life.

You can let them take over your life if you want. You have free choice in that much.

[TheMercenary]

Should Public, Private Health Plans Compete?

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/ComJCGHeartland070109.pdf

[TheMercenary]

More ideas about care for the elderly. I am not sure that I completely disagree with some of it. It is the only way that the system as proposed may survive. This actually refers to an earlier post I made on the issue.

NCPA: White House (advisor) Has Ideas On How To Ration Health Care
July 22, 2009

Presidential Health Advisor's Writings Support Less Care for the Elderly

DALLAS, TX (July 22, 2009) - On the cusp of President Obama's news conference tonight, the National Center for Policy Analysis points to evidence that the President's health care reform plan may result in denying care to a significant number of Americans, especially the elderly.

"Clearly the Administration does not consider doctors the best judges of the type of health care people need," said NCPA President John C. Goodman. "The obvious end game: Washington will tell doctors how to practice medicine and dictate what kind of health care patients receive." Goodman's full statement appears in an entry he posted today on this subject at his health policy blog.

The NCPA cites two scholarly articles in which the President's health advisor Ezekiel Emanuel outlined how health care rationing could be carried out. Emanuel, special advisor for health policy to the director for the White House Office of Management and Budget, says young adults should be given preference over seniors because younger people have more years of life ahead of them. He also says that young adults should be given preferential care over very young children because society already has made an investment in their education.

In the medical journal The Lancet, Emanuel writes that if health care has to be rationed, he prefers the "complete lives system," which "discriminates against older people....Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years."

In a different article written more than 10 years ago for the Hastings Center Report, Emanuel said health services should not be guaranteed to "individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens." Emanuel wrote, "An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."

As a part of a better solution to health reform, the NCPA is taking an active role in promoting consumer-driven health care options by supporting a national petition drive to educate citizens.

The "Free Our Health Care Now" petition has already been signed by over 620,000 people opposed to a government nationalization of our health care system: http://freeourhealthcarenow.com/

http://www.ncpa.org/media/ncpa-white...on-health-care

Merc...I ask this in all sincerity

Why do you think other members would be inclined to engage you on the issue when for the most part, all you do is snip and post, and mostly from partisan editorials and sites (the ncpa being the latest)...day after day...hour after hour?

To others...is it just me? Am I missing a reason to continue to discuss the issue with Merc, given they style of discussion (?) that is presented.

Is it worth responding to every snip and post when all you get in response is dodging and weaving?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

Merc...I ask this in all sincerity

Why do you think other members would be inclined to engage you on the issue when for the most part, all you do is snip and post, and mostly from partisan editorials and sites (the ncpa being the latest)...day after day...hour after hour?

Your opinion on the issue is not really important to me. What you state is opinion. You are a partisan hack of the Obamy Administration and the Demoncrats. I am interested in the details of this reform process that is most likely going to come one way or another. It is very important that we keep an eye on the process and details. I am interested in exposing the double standards that the Demoncrats in Congress have shown in the last 2 years, and most importantly in the last 7 months. And if no one else is interested that is ok, but be careful what you wish for because once the deal is done by Congress it is pretty much what you have to live with. The devil is in the details on this issue and very few are looking at those details. This is another Rahm it through and Pelosi Push with very little chance for input by anyone other than the Demoncrats special interest groups and the deals they may have made behind closed doors in the White House. Who knows because they are covering up the details of those discussions. I fully support an overhaul of the system but not on the terms of any one party with a grip on power, be it Demoncrats or Republickins.

[TheMercenary]

House Democrat’s Health Care Reform Bill Is a 1,018-Page Nightmare
Goodman: Bill Contains All the Bad Ideas from Previous Versions

DALLAS, TX (July 15, 2009) – The Democrats’ health care reform bill under consideration in the
House of Representatives creates a new government-run health plan that will undercut the private
market and force as many as 119 million people to lose their private health insurance and be forced into
a Medicare-like plan, according to National Center for Policy Analysis President John C. Goodman.

“Americans who desperately need health care relief won’t get it in this bill,” said Goodman.” This
legislation is going to create a financial and medical nightmare for Americans. Of course, members of
Congress will be able to hold on to their Cadillac health care plans because this reform won’t apply to
them,” he added.

The bill, which could reach the floor as early as next week, requires employers to pay the
government for health reform – either by purchasing government-approved insurance for their
employees, or (more likely) by paying a tax and sending their employees over to the government-run
Medicare-like plan.

“This bill has ALL the bad ideas from previous versions, plus a cost of one trillion dollars, and NO
long-term solutions that will control costs or improve quality,” added Goodman. “This bill contains
1,018 pages of new regulations that will REQUIRE you to buy as much health insurance as the
government mandates, even before you buy groceries, gas, or pay your rent. If you don’t buy
government-approved insurance, you will be taxed.”

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/71509NewHCBill.pdf

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research
organization established to develop alternatives to government regulation by relying on the private
sector.

[TheMercenary]

Which Dem crafted this language? I bet it was Pelosi...

The proposed health-insurance bill from the House of Representatives refers to mentally disabled people as "retarded" -- a term advocates, relatives and physicians find outdated and offensive.

The bill refers to: "A hospital or a nursing facility or intermediate-care facility for the mentally retarded . . ."

The phrase could cause more problems with groups for the developmentally disabled, who were angered when President Obama referred to his poor bowling skills on "The Tonight Show" as "like the Special Olympics." Obama later apologized.

all over the news and this from the NYPost.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Redux

To others...is it just me? Am I missing a reason to continue to discuss the issue with Merc, given they style of discussion (?) that is presented.

Is it worth responding to every snip and post when all you get in response is dodging and weaving?

Perhaps you may find your answer in the fact that no one else has bothered to participate in the last 28 posts.

You should visit the other parts of the Cellar outside of Politics, Redux. You'll find lots more entertainment and less frustration.

[glatt]

I was just scrolling past the last dozen posts or so and landed on this. Too true.

[TheMercenary]

DALLAS, TX (July 1, 2009) - The proposal by Congress and the Obama Administration to impose excise taxes on soft drinks and increase them on alcohol to fund health care reform and energy technology development won't accomplish their goal of changing unhealthy behavior or increasing revenue, according to a new report by the National Center for Policy Analysis. Instead, according to the NCPA report, it will inflict a burden on the poor.

"Although there are claims that excise taxes are more efficient than other taxes, the evidence shows that these taxes are often ineffective, inefficient and unfair," said Sean Shurtleff, NCPA Policy Analyst and author of the report. "Low income families spend more of their money on products subject to excise taxes than higher income families, making excise taxes very regressive."

Proponents of an estimated tax of 3 cents per 12 ounces on soft drinks believe the tax will eventually discourage people from consuming them. Unfortunately, excise taxes fail to produce the desired behavioral changes, as peoples' consumption is relatively insensitive to price changes, and people are generally reluctant to give up certain products, including soft drinks and junk food, Shurtleff points out.

On the other hand, if the price of a product rises high enough to discourage consumption, an excise tax hike will not produce the expected revenue increase to fund health care and energy programs. Instead of consuming the products that have been taxed, people may begin substituting less expensive products for them. For instance, soda drinkers may turn to cheaper sugary drinks, Shurtleff found.

"There is little if any benefit that will come from imposing excise taxes on various products," said Shurtleff. "In fact, it will be a disadvantage to the poor who spend a larger portion of their income on the very products that may be taxed. A better approach is to balance the budget and reallocate resources from other programs toward priorities like health care and energy development."

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18152

[TheMercenary]

29

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Your opinion on the issue is not really important to me. What you state is opinion. You are a partisan hack of the Obamy Administration and the Demoncrats. I am interested in the details of this reform process that is most likely going to come one way or another.....

If you honestly believed that, you would expose the partisan hacks on the right as well, rather than snip and post them and highlight portions of those snips that has no basis in fact.

Consider the recent example I called you out on:

The bill even empowers physicians to make an "actionable medical order" to "limit some or all specified interventions..." In effect, the government can determine that a "life-limiting" condition demands the withholding of treatment.

There is no such provision in the House bill.

You dont want an honest debate.

You want to troll with your never ending snips and pastes, with little regard to the accuracy and/or context of those snips.

And you simply want to attack Obama and the Democrats, which is your right.

Perhaps it gives you pleasure or, in your own mind, you score a point....whether its to bitch about the cost of a night in NY for the president, accusing a newly elected senator of being a pedophile (WTF was that all about?) or trivializing the discussion(s) at every opportunity.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Perhaps you may find your answer in the fact that no one else has bothered to participate in the last 28 posts.

You should visit the other parts of the Cellar outside of Politics, Redux. You'll find lots more entertainment and less frustration.

I think you're right...it is time for me to wander around the Cellar more.....and limit poking Merc with a stick to the occasions when his snips contain bullshit that is so thick it permeates beyond the walls of the politics forum and wreaks throughout the Cellar....like the example above.

But its so easy to debunk him on those occasions, its not very challenging any more.

On the other hand, I still enjoy engaging the Urbane Guerilla. Now there is a challenge!

With all the utter madness that I read in his posts, at least UG expresses himself in his own words, often in a very creative (albeit not factual) manner. He's an original and not a parrot for every wing nut editorial writer or blogger that one encounters with Merc's ceaseless snips.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

You dont want an honest debate.

But yet you refuse to defend him. And so far you have debunked nothing.

The Repulickins are not in charge. The Demoncrats are the ones in charge and they are the ones with the power. Most of what the Repubs are saying at this point are really insignificant.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

But yet you refuse to defend him. And so far you have debunked nothing.

I made my point.

Any dwellers who care to follow the crazy ass threads with your multiple snips and pastes, with little or no thoughts of your own, other than snarky and inane one line comments (I would hardly call them discussions in most instances), can decide for themselves.