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Americans are becoming uneasy about the Obama and Democrats nationalized health care plans which is causing a debate among politicians as to whether the timing is wrong as the 2010 election approaches.
According to the Christian Science Monitor (04/08/2009) interest groups on the right and the left have already opened the battle lines with each side trying to shape the public's perception of how nationalized medicine will effect individual Americans.
Advocates say it would give consumers a lower-cost alternative. Opponents counter that it would undermine the private insurance health market by prompting millions of businesses to switch to cheaper, public alternative that would undermine Americans choices in healthcare.
Conservative groups headed by the Heritage Foundation are proposing apublic health alternative while liberal groups such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for Americans are supporting a Medicare-for-all-type of alternative.
According to Robert Blendon, a political and healthcare analyst at Harvard's School of Public Health,
Initially, people are very favorable to the idea of a choice that could get them good medical care at a lower price, but they haven't thought about the implications yet.
History bears that out. When President Clinton first outlined his Health Security Plan in 1992, over 66 percent of Americans initially supported the idea. Within a year, support collapsed after the health insurance industry began running ads in opposition to it. A Rasmussen poll done in December 2008 showed that 58 percent of Americans would oppose a public plan if they thought it would undermine their present private insurance policy.
Now opponents, such as the Health Policy Consensus Group, contend that
...the government would use its regulatory, pricing, and taxing authority to favor its own plan....which would make it difficult, if not impossible for private health plans to compete and eventually consumers would find themselves without private insurance alternatives.
Most likely, Democrats in Congress will prevail upon Obama to delay any action on the nationalized healthcare plans until after the 2010 election. If not, it could become an issue in the political battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate if Republicans can convince Americans that it is the beginning of socialized medicine.
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Comments
What's Wrong with current Insurance Policy
Institutions?
Well? For 1 thing?
Why is Insurance just a Policy you can benefit from when you NEED it?
Where the outrage is for people is the fact they pay into these policies for years and some never make a claim on them.
They get dropped and they never see a benefit from their hard earned dollars given to these INSURANCE companies, ever.
I met a woman who had been dropped from Her Home Insurance Plan just because she lived in a Mobile home, after Katrina. All acrossed the USA they (Insurance companies were allowed to do this(Resttructuring they called it), and the Policy Holders lost Years of Invested Money inputs into these Policies?
They paid in for 20-30 or more years on some of them and never received or ask for a benefit from their policy.
And How were they repaid for their devotion to the Insurance company they were Involved with?
Cut off at the Knees! ROBBED from years of investment.
I'll tell you what is wrong.
The commerce side restructuring of our Business World through the use of GATT & NAFTA
TREATY!
If we keep exporting every New innovation dicovered in the USA? We'll never be able to compete with the World.
Because the World outside the USA Operates in a Lower demand than Ours.
They Make less, but they pay less as well.
Your Tax dollars subsidize other countries losses through US dollar Inflationary Policies.
ie; Your tax dollars are going to profit Big corporations investments, acrossed Sea's.
JUST so We can have a Monetary system that provides slowly lowered standards of Living, than Foreigners Have.
Americans cannot save in this WORLD Economic system. Because of Hyper-Inflation hidden in derivitive market losses(Banker Gambling) covered by an Insurance Policy, called the Federal Reserve.
We the people Just gave Wall Streets Biggest Insuranc Institution and Banks a BIG Bail out? And now they will not even tell congress what they are doing with it, or have done with it?
But We are slowly finding out they gave themselves a BIG FAT Raise in the form ofonus checks for a few years of Illegal activity & extortions in the Mortage Loan arena?
Is this Country going Mad or just experiencing some schezophrenia?
(Tim shakes his head in disbelief)
And Now you want to give Government control of your Health Care, when they are the Ones who regulated it so badly they caused the higher prices for health care to inflate, and to become what they are??
MoveOn is supporting the public option, not single payer.
Martha, write your elected reps and ask them this question. It is a simple question. Requires a response of yes I agree or no I don't.
"You are trying to "reform" the health care industry. If successful, will the new system include the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of government in the SAME system that the people will be subjected to?"
Simple question. I am on my second request to my EO's for an answer. The first responses did not come close to answering the question.
Heads up Martha: media matters just exposed your distortions. go search mediamatters.org
Obama has never proposed a "nationalized" health care plan, either as a candidate or as the President. What he has proposed is a system that incorporates a public option along with the private options that currently exist.
For those of you have been on "comments" since I began writing for Examiner just three months ago,you know that I seldom send any comments to it myself. My purpose is to bring up a topic in my articles and then learn more about how America thinks from your responses to it. One of the things I admire most about those of you making comments instead of complaining to other blogs about something I written, you have the courage to write where others who may or many not agree share this space on the Internet. What I see here is the practice of one our most precious gifts as Americans, "freedom of speech." I consider it a privilege to share that gift with all of you.
Do not be misled by anyone who tells you that Europe has a superior health care system to ours. Ours is in bad shape, but several countries in Europe are being crushed with the entitlement culture especially when it comes to health care.
Here are some things to consider for a healthcare solution that will not turn over the responsibility of our health to the DMV.
1. Create tax free health saving accounts that can be passed down to your heirs if they are not used. To participate, the person would be required to get one complete physical a year for preventative purposes.
2. Immediate tort reform to stop the insane premiums doctors have to pay. Some policies can be 6 figures a year and guess where that cost gets passed on to.
3. Open up our markets for drugs to be imported from abroad.
4. Shorten the length of patents for drug makers, but also allow drug makers tax exempt status on all revenue derived from a new drug that is introduced into the market.
5. Let workers buy insurance that will ensure their premiums being paid should they be laid off by no fault of their own.
6. Reverse social engineering to stop the Octo-Mom affect! This person will cost the healthcare system 5 million dollars due to the treatment cost of her children. We have to stop incentivizing anyone to have children that cannot take care of the basic essentials of life- I know I might get citied by the far left and right on that one, but it is a practical solution. If someone has a child when they can’t provide for that child’s basic healthcare then they have to be put on notice that the state will have to come in and place any future children in a caring, responsible home. How is it that well go crazy when Britney does not buckle up her kid or Michael Jackson holds his over a balcony, but yet when someone has 8 kids on minimum wage and places the children in a bad situation in a ghetto we look the other way and just dole out dollars and continue to propagate the problem.
STOP THE ENTITLEMENT CULTURE!
Martha R. Gore "misspoke" when she described the President's health-care reform proposals as "nationalized health care plan." Neither Senator nor President Obama has ever sought such.
Gore wrote: "According to the Christian Science Monitor interest groups on the right and the left have already opened the battle lines with each side trying to shape the public's perception of how nationized medicine will effect individual Americans." I googled and read the April 8 Christian Science Monitor article and found no discussion of "nationalized health care" or any synonym. The CM article said: "But interest groups on the right and left have already begun a fierce ideological battle, with each side trying to shape the public's perception of a public insurance plan."
This is not the first time Presdient Obama's health-care reform proposals have been mislabeled "government-run health care" or "socialized medicine."
The President actually is seeking to reform market structure to increase competition; and offering federal reinsurance to employers to help ensure that unexpected or catastrophic
illnesses do not make health insurance unaffordable or out of reach for businesses and their employees.It is not right for families to be paying skyrocketing premiums while drug and insurance industries are
enjoying record profits. These companies benefit most from the status quo and in many cases are the greatest obstacles to reform. The Obama plan will tackle needless waste and spiraling costs by increasing competition in the insurance and drug markets. This reform of the free market process is the opposite of "government-run health care" or "socialized medicine."
Semper Fi
Seems that Ms. Gore is defining nationalized health care based on the article written in CSM. The Obama-Biden plan looks to merge the private and public sector. That's not govt-run or socialist: she highlights the difference in opinion and describes what she feels to be a new way to define the plan. Unfortunately, Ms. Gore does not clearly state that in the beginning. This is the Obama-Biden plan:
On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes -- government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. President Obama and Vice President Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that’s why they’ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.
The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors, and plans. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.
Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. If you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
Flingjore- one of the problems with Obama's plan is that it will force in cost controls and other measures that will force the healthcare providers to raise cost on the private insurer. This will end up costing us all a lot of money as it does often when the government takes it upon itself to meddle with the private sector. Obama/Biden need to look at Massachusetts and see what happens when the government tries to insert itself into healthcare.
I would like to someone to explain there decision logic of why the same government that can't run the post office, educate our kids, run the DMV etc. has any business in involving itself with our health for God's sake!
What makes anyone think we should give the government the benefit of the doubt based on its resume???? This would be like be applying for a job after bad references from the last 10 that I had and using the argument that I will do better this time—will we ever learn???
Seriously folks come back to Earth!
Mark,
You're talking about "media matters" there is no "earth" to come down to. For they live on the planet Utopia where only those of like minds and lack of belief in personal resonsiblity are allowed to inhabit the collective.
Obama promised to not raise taxes of any kind on individuals who make less than $200k, but he raised cigarette taxes by 62 cents a pack. There are 43 million smokers in the US and the vast majority of them make less than $200k. Whether Obama signs healthcare legislation or not, I'm certain he will raise taxes again, and it won’t be just the smokers he’ll target. Prepare yourselves for higher taxes on just about everything. The man is a liar and a fraud. He's a disgrace to our country and I can hardly wait to see him leave office. Don't believe a word he says, and the same is true for the Democratic leaders in Congress.
You have people that live in countries with socialized medicine coming here for medical care. What does that say to you? Help us stop Obamacare and sign the only REAL repeal out there. http://bit.ly/therepealpledge
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