georgerussia

That's a nice human right which will probably never pass in U.S., because a bunch of people here believes that embryo is also human. And it would be damn hard to provide the embryos with Internet access. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The proposal does not specify any of those things - it all depends on implementation details. That's why I asked clarifying questions. It could be easily implemented as a single-payer system as well (assuming the insurance costs are paid by taxes, and the HSA deductions are made automatically - i.e. the less times you've seen a doctor, the higher your tax refund would be). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

This proposal is good, but it only covers one part of the problem - which is also the least important in my opinion. Some clarifying questions: - Should it cover pre-existing conditions? The reason current HSA policies are much cheaper is generally because the insurers are allowed to cherry-pick the customers to make sure the chance that they would have to pay anything are very low (all routine stuff is covered by the insured via deductible, and being healthy it's unlikely he'd go over the deductible). Even within the insurance company (at least Blue Shield) switching from non-HSA to HSA plan is considered upgrade, and requires medical underwriting. As soon as you require insurers to cover pre-existing condition, the costs would go much higher. - What does the plan mean in terms of payment, i.e. who pays for the policy (everyone individually or like NHS, i.e. assuming everyone is covered)? How would the plan cover those who cannot afford the policy costs, and how would it deal with those who can afford it, but do not want to? Would ERs still be required to treat uninsured? - What does the plan mean in terms of coverage? Are there country-wide lowest acceptable minimum standards of coverage (i.e. list of things which must be covered everywhere, by every doctor/hospital), or the states are allowed to have their own minimum standards as long as they are above federal ones? Also existing HSA plans are pretty weak in covering maternity and mental health - is it covered? - What does the plan mean in terms of acceptance? Is every hospital and doctor required by law to accept the plan, or they're free not to, or there are "incentives" (like you don't have to, but then no federal money for you)? - Items c) and d) create a pretty large incentive to cheat the system, for example, for a family of three by billing only one person in the family for the services provided to the whole family. This way they would get $2000 cash each year, and preventing this kind of fraud is not easy. Anyway, so far the only difference of your proposal comparing to healthcare bill is the HSA/deductible thing. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The problem I see here is that to have this part of contract to be deemed deceptive one should take some significant efforts, like going to the small claims court (if it has jurisdiction about such things), or going to superior court with an attorney (money) or without an attorney (much more effort). And at this moment the company may already be out of business, which would make this a Pyrrhic victory. This is strange to me. I admit my English is still far from perfect, but still to me "low interest rate" and "fixed interest rate" mean different things. And "low" does not assume "fixed", nor it makes an assumptions that it would stay low forever. But maybe it's just me - when I deal with ads, I assume the worst case scenario, and if there is a fine print I can't read, I assume it says "everything written above is false, and the only thing we guarantee that we want your money" -> fuck you then, you won't get any. But in my opinion it doesn't matter. Businesses are just digging themselves (and the advertisement industry) a nice large grave. My impression is that more and more people nowadays simply do not trust any ads - which means that advertisements are much less effective now, and at some point might seriously damage or even destroy the whole advertisement industry. The more I read about modern business practices, the more disgusted I am. There seem to be no ethics or honor in most businesses nowadays, their management considers it bad for profit. Only profit matters, and a lot of businesses are willing to trade their reputation for short-term profit. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Getting a consolidation loan when the interest rate is adjustable whenever the lender wishes doesn't sound like a smart idea to me. I disagree. Their credit card agreement likely said that the rate is not fixed, and could be changed by the company to any value in a range when a new billing cycle starts. So basically the card was sold as "low interest for one month". Maybe it was not what the ad said, but a reasonable adult nowadays should not trust any advertisements anyway. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Just in case you don't know, angelfire is a free hosting service. You might just have created yourself the page you linked to. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

If you trust everything a politician promises, you must be really naive. And if you don't (which I assume), then your point is kinda weak. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Citizens of Afganistan definitely support this noble decision :) * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Mine are. No idea why yours aren't Opening an HSA account takes a few minutes and is free. So what? So show us the facts? So what's the problem? Get the insurance from private company, and you'll have it. You cannot have investigators to catch only intended cheaters. A lot of work needs to be done before they can understand it was just a mistake, and not cheating. At this moment efforts are already wasted. It also used to be that nobody was required to treat this person for free either. Define "worse". What are you talking about? They can already get free healthcare in ER. I have a job. I just don't need your prayers. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, THEY do - the bill is also posted, I just didn't have time to read it. I'll do it on my flight back to US. You didn't answer my question: how many bills previous administration posted online five days before they were voted on? This is important to understand whether we're talking about progress or regress. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Why should I find it concerning? It's the legislator's JOB is to read papers, and we pay them to do exactly that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

That's just your personal opinion, which is not supported by facts. And I see no reason to argue with your personal opinions as long as you do not push it through like "a right thing" - and then I like to see evidence that what you're saying is true. You posted a few things which were not consistent with other things you said. So where it is? You said it three times you wrote it. Nice excuse. I don't think you are in position to decide for the whole country. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So far only one. Makes little sense to read the bill which is changing every day, especially now when I'm in Europe, and have limited time. However let me ask you a question: how many bills previous administration has published online, and widely discussed at the same level the healthcare bill is discussed? Let's compare apples with apples. You're saying 5 days is too little? How many days Partiot Act was discussed by public before it got signed into law? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You still do not understand. My point is that what you said - that you're saying you're against enlarging the government - is not true. You are only against it if the cause is not something you like, but if it is - like invading other countries - you support it, and seem to have no problems with that. THIS is what I tried to point out - you're just against the healthcare bill (no idea why), but hiding the real reasons under "enlarging the government" disguise. That is the same debate. If you think someone should consider your opinion just because you _think_ the government should not be providing healthcare, then you yourself should consider opinions of other people, when they think the government should not invade other countries. And if you think you can ignore their opinions, you should expect them to ignore yours as well. Oh sorry, please excuse me for not monitoring your every post 24x7. So could you please just post a link to your post which contains realistic suggestions how should we fix current issues with healthcare? No, you do - but only for the cases you consider "good for country". And this makes you no different from anyone else pushing their agendas. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

How'd you know whether it's the one they're looking at now if you didn't read any of them? How do you know if the difference between them is one page or 100 pages? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Where exactly? I said that you did not raise objections when GWB was enlarging the government, and you even proven it yourself by admitting your support for Iraq war (which was exactly that as every soldier is basically a government employee). Where was I wrong? Please be specific, it requires more than just using capital letters. Yet you failed to provide a specific answer to my question whether you consider that the government should not run Medicare or VA (and then who should? Or nobody?). You also failed to provide any supporting evidence to your statement that the government should not run healthcare. Well, the government should not waste money and lives of citizens to invade other countries either. And yet you failed to provide any other suggestions how to fix the system - which, as you admitted, needs fixing. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Depends on reform. My main concern is that even after the reform the insurers will not lower the cost for doctor malpractice policies. Why should they, it's not like they're in the business of lowering the healthcare costs for the public. Another concern is recent case in Russia, where a man shooted a bunch of people, including the doctor who didn't save his daughter from overdose, and a police officer who provided cover for drug dealers - together with a drug dealer. This guy has been found not guilty at least twice by jury, both times the verdict was overturned by Supreme Court, and this time they want to trial him without jury (which is against the law, so I wonder how exactly would they do it - no doubt they will). The case, however, is that the guy who lost his daughter basically had no other remedies besides just getting a gun and shooting the doctor - and it is questionable whether there was any doctor's fault at all. Maybe if he had an option to sue the doctor, he'd unlikely go this way, and somehow I think the doctor would prefer to pay more for the policy than being shot. The bill does all it can by maintaining minimum insurance plan requirements, and providing public option. The rest is up to the states - unless, of course, you're in favor of giving even more power to federal government. This is done already in most states if the person maintains coverage. The problem comes when the person drops coverage for some reasons. Already done at least in California. No idea what kind of criteria they have though. This gonna be hard. I'd speculate billing for procedures not performed (and not billing for those performed) occasionally happens in every medical office. Humans make mistakes, and part of this prosecution task force would be wasted on those mistakes. For the real fraudsters, the main problem may be that there is nobody to prosecute - a shell company, which has no money in the bank, and is registered to an alcoholic. The real owner may be as well outside the country, which makes it even more difficult and money-consuming. Now, jail time - I just read that keeping one prisoner in jail costs the taxpayers something like 40K a year, and this means that if the person steals less than 40K a year, it's cheaper to just keep them out of jail, direct savings. They are deductible through HSA. And now guess what would be the chance your bill would pass without those "special interests", like excluding those who believe in crap like "faith healing"? Zero. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, if you only capable to finding flaws in everything, and cannot come up with anything yourself, then I'd afraid your opinion is kinda worthless. There is no, and never will be a perfect law or perfect society institution, and all of them will have flaws. So could you please enlighten us with your infinite wisdom by telling us how checking immigrant IDs (again, see the topic title) would prevent this kind of fraud? I hope you understand that what you suggested is not unique in any possible way, and of course it will not fix anything. Read more about how the type of fraud you just described works, and you'll see why. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You obviously didn't read what you just copypasted, as it contains at least two very strong arguments in favor of the healthcare bill. Beware, your party and your pastor might punish you for spreading Obama propaganda! * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Why do YOU care? Healthcare bill has been online for several months now - and you still didn't read it! * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Excellent! Since military is part of the government, increasing military is the same as increasing government size and spending (which it is). So you just have proven that you're not against increasing the government size and spending - as long as it fits your agenda. It makes your previous point much weaker. Another interesting point here is that you think that the government should not directly provide healthcare services to the citizens, but it should invade other countries. This is pretty perverse logic to me. There is a lot of hells and fucks, but you didn't answer the main question - you're saying the current system is not fine. How exactly would YOU realistically fix it? This is serious question, because as soon as you try to think about it, you'd come to the same conclusion as bill writers - there is no perfect fix, and whatever you can offer will have obvious flaws. You will never get the perfect system. The point of the bill is to make system work better for majority - which you and me might not belong at this specific moment - but so far no opponent provided any solution, they only critique - and mostly non-constructive. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

How could you know that if you didn't read the bill yourself? You did not provide any facts to support your thoughts so far. To have a reasonable conversation it should be based on the same source. To explain it in your terms, it makes little sense to discuss God if you're using the bible and I'm using Watch Tower magazine to support my thoughts. So your only issue listed so far is "government should not be doing this", and listening two cases. The first is "running insurance". I assume you mean public plan, as the government has been regulating insurance (kinda of "running" them, i.e. telling them how to run their business) long time ago before the bill. If this is correct, I'd like to see more information why you object public plan. I see both pros and cons in it, and while I'm more in favor of it (i.e. I see more pros), I am open to other opinions. Second issue is "creating departments". Sorry, but this will not fly. You did not seem to raise any issues when GWB was creating departments and enlarging the government, which makes impression you're not really against it and just use it as cover to hide your real thoughts. And of course the main question - do you think that current system is fine, and requires no changes? If not, what kind of changes YOU would make (again, be realistic)? This seem to be common issue within those who do not like the bill - they agree "something need to be done", and they say "the bill is not doing it right". However they do not offer any realistic solution themselves. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

How do you know it's an emergency like a security reason until you consider all the facts? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I have pointed on some specific issues with your statement - could you please be constructive, and address them instead of just reposting what you've said before? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Could you ever try to look on things NOT through the "your party/my party" glasses? I personally do not have any party affiliation (and likely never have - they both seem to be full of crap), and looking on some people here, blindly following their party leaders like lemmings walking from the edge into death, it seems to be the only way to keep yourself sane. Basically what you just said is that you do not have any issues with the bill - well, you didn't even read it, so you obviously cannot - you have problems that the bill was not introduced by your party. Everything else seems to be just a makeup cover . * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *