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Health Reform: Common Ground Proposals
Playing Solomon, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) suggests flexibility on insurance coverage of abortions as one possible compromise to a heated meme in the reform debate.
Elsewhere, Conor Friedersdorf suggests that rather than taxing the rich to be pay for health care reform, why not simply “un-support” them?
(Note to Conor: Intriguing idea, but just in case no one else nitpicks it: I think those “vouchers to subsidize the cost of transitioning to digital television” are no longer available, or shortly won’t be.)
9 Responses to “Health Reform: Common Ground Proposals”
The problem with Friedersdorf's proposal is it's basic dishonesty. Social Security and Medicare were sold to the public as insurance plans where you pay into the plan and eventually receive benefits from it. He's suggesting to take away benefits from the people who paid the most into it.
Socialized Medicine is cheaper than capitalist medicine. Just look at EVERY other developed nation. Our medicine is no better and by a myriad of statistical topics our medicine is worse. Screw the propaganda “Canadian” TV commercial, its bunk. The Canadians are NOT falling all over themselves to get our system. Nobody wants our overpriced, fraught with medical errors, stupidly wasteful system. We need to begin the full nationalization process now. To hell with business, to hell with investment, to hell with profit, to hell with doctor and hospital administrator kickbacks from big pharma, to hell with “supply and demand” kiosk medicine. Nobody in the world wants it, we need to dump it.
Save your corrupt capitalist commercial BS for selling commodities, not people.
How about this for a proposal–any kind of plan that comes out of this will be the same plan that members of congress have to join. If it so good for us, then it should be for them. The flip side, of course, is to make sure everyone in America gets the same plan as members of Congress have. Perhaps something like this should come into the discussion.
I think Ann Althouse put it best:
“The Democrats have dumped a drastic, complicated health care bill on us and they are ramming it through before we can even figure it out. That's what matters, not the fact that the party out of power is squawking about it.”
What is all the crowing about the US spending more on health care? The US spends more on everything.
Dr. J — That's discretionary spending. Whether or not to get your broken arm reset can hardly be considered “discretionary”.
Clothing isn't exactly optional, Roro. And much health care spending is, since most complaints tend to get better on their own.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard; all of it. Besides the fact that the graph you provided is CLEARLY labelled “discretionary”, a pair of jeans at Walmart costs what, $3? One could theoretically buy enough clothing to last a year for a family for $100. If you're spending 13 times as much on clothing as you are on electronics, you are likely going a bit above what one would consider mandatory for mixed company. They're not talking about covering their giblits when they talk of discretionary spending on clothing.
Do you go to the doctor just for fun? Or are you talking about playing russian roulette with that deep chest cough — it could go away on its own, or it could end up as pnuemonia. I guess that's a chance you'd be willing to take — for all those poor people who aren't you, of course. Nah, eventually that broken bone will heal; it could hurt for the rest of your life, but, hey, we all have choices, right? It's just pain for the poor people — they're used to it, right? They deserve to suffer through those little head injuries (it's probably not a concussion), the insignificant punctures (they should be more careful when washing dishes!), and can a bee sting *really* kill you? Nah…you're right, Dr. J. I'm sure if those damn poor people would just suck it up and let it heal on it's own, we could solve the health care crisis.
Roro, take a deep breath. We spend more on everything than the rest of the world, so spending more on health care too may not indicate the crisis it might appear. The uninsured may be fewer than some estimates suggest. Our cancer survival rate turns out to be a good notch higher than Europe's.
We all care about the health of our citizens, so this is all good news, right? There's no need to reject the information out of hand and demonize the people bringing it up.