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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (12308)	12/14/2009 1:47:56 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Respond to of 42652

They have, maybe the dems and Obama shouldn't lock them out of the room

To: Lane3 who wrote (12308)	12/14/2009 2:08:21 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

>> Health Reform: GOP Must Offer More than “No” But the status quo is indefensible! Political diversion. I'm very surprised if you fell for this. The Rs have certainly not supported the status quo. But they have been totally blocked out of the situation. Not figuratively, but literally. As in not allowed in the room -- either with Obama or with Harry Reid as he made all decisions about the Senate bill (or Pelosi with the House bill). We would have had legislation a long time ago if the Ds would have provided a seat at the table for Rs. But if anyone is the party of "No" it is the Ds. They have said "No" to allowing for any R. input into the process. It doesn't even pass the laugh test to do health care reform without tort reform, if the goal is reduce costs. Yet, no such provision was even CONSIDERED. Health care reform NEEDS to fail. Then, if Obama wants to take another shot, fine. But this time, EVERYONE is at the table.

To: Lane3 who wrote (12308)	12/15/2009 7:45:38 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 42652

Health Reform: GOP Must Offer More than “No” From a practical political perspective that might be true (although the "reform" effort is having plenty of problems anyway) but 1 - Not from a practical policy perspective (if the plan is a bad thing, then avoiding it gives a better situation than not avoiding it, even if we don't have an alternative plan that is better than the status quo. and 2 - There have been multiple Republican plans and ideas. A couple even in bills in congress (but not bills that had any chance to go anywhere) If you don't count attempts outside of congress, or attempts in congress that everyone knows will go nowhere, and at the same time you have a Democratic leadership that is essentially locking the Republicans out of the development of the bill; than "offering more than no" becomes "agreeing with the Democrats", at least on all the important pieces, in order to get a small say on minor at the margin changes. In short it becomes "GOP must cave". But the status quo is indefensible! As perfection, or even the best that could reasonably be realized? Sure that's indefensible. As better than the House Bill, the Senate Bill, or any other bill that's likely to get the support of the Democrats in the near future? Its very defensible as that. Suppose further that the condition is quite debilitating if untreated, but can be easily managed (allowing the patient to lead a virtually normal life), albeit not cheaply – say, at the cost of $2,000 a month. Suppose finally that the same tests also show that the individual will probably have mediocre cognitive, artistic, athletic and other abilities and thus will be unlikely to earn more than, say, $3,000 a month. That's a lot of supposing... For the foreseeable future we will not be likely to estimate how much someone can earn before birth. I suppose we might tell that the person is likely to be severely retarded and thus probably won't earn a lot (even then there would be rare exceptions, retarded doesn't automatically mean low income, also their is the chance that the diagnosis/estimation is off). There is also the chance of a cheaper treatment for the disorder. On multiple levels such a prediction either just isn't going to happen, or will be totally unreliable. One can reasonably imagine the situation and ask what should be done for such a person, in a relatively abstract way, but policy should not be based on estimates that have no basis in reality. But a disease triggering gene variant is in itself a pre-existing condition! Arguments for legal rights to privacy over genetic information would be a whole new additional topic. One that I'm not really prepared to address at this time, but I will say that whether or not its a good idea on the whole, it isn't very much like "denying auto insurers access to driving records or denying lenders access to credit histories". Partially for the reason Pavelyev gives (behavior is different than genetic potential), partially because pulling back the information once an industry has been set up to depend on it is different than not giving information that may be useful, and partially because genetic information is only part of the picture, driving records and credit histories are a bigger and more important part of the picture for car insurance companies and lenders. A more honest thing would be for the government to tax people openly and spend money on treatments for those who can’t afford them. I agree. If the government is going to insist on taking wealth away and using it for its purposes (in this case paying for the treatment of the person with the chronic condition) than taxing it away and spending it, is more open and honest than requiring someone else to pay for it. Its also what we already do in many cases. We already have Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, and other programs. Fore more hardcore libertarians there would be charitable contributions to health care, which would likely increase greatly if the government didn't have the programs I mention above, both because without the taxes for them people would have more wealth to contribute to charity, and because their would be more perceived need. The only thing I can think of that does not violate any conservative principles articulated by various conservative spokesmen over the past couple of years is to do nothing (as far as the government is concerned) 1 - Government solutions aren't the only type of solution. 2 - "that does not violate any conservative principles articulated by various conservative spokesmen"?? I agree the only answer is to do nothing. Since all sorts of things are going to violate at least one principle that someone at least vaguely conservative happened to utter support for at some time. That phrase is a mess.