HR3200, What's in it?

Hey, I think a thread devoted to the bill the House thinks is Change We Need is a good idea. Let's get started, shall we? Again, here is a link to the bill.

There is much before this, but starting with page 58, Sec. 152, it reads:

What does this mean? Well, I think you have to look at all the personal characteristics which could be "extraneous to the provisions of high quality health care or related service." And what characteristics would those be? How about income? It looks like we could be paying for those who cannot afford to pay for health insurance. Big whoop, we do that now. It's called Medicare. That can't be it. Oh yeah, citizenship. We already will treat a person who is not a citizen, as we should. Why would we allow sick or injured people to suffer until they could go back to their country of origin for treatment? We wouldn't. But this goes farther. Not only will they receive public health services, but they will be entitled to insurance coverage by the Federal Govt. And what insurance are they entitled to? Obamacare, of course, and the best part is we get to pay for it.

Medicare and medicaid are both inadequately funded and funding in part of the new program will come from further cuts in medicare. Unless those cuts are reinstated elsewhere (consequently no savings) the elderly and the disabled would experience a reduction in benefits and access to medical care. This could only result in passive euthanasia or considerable pain and discomfort for those who have no other means to access the medical system. I know a young mother who desperately needs surgery and has NO insurance. The procedure has been turned down by medicaid though the ailment will eventually cause her demise.

If the system is that broken now and we have just recently descended from the "good times" how can the govt. justify a 1.5 trillion dollar program to add another layer of coverage to it.

5 of us are reading over 1100 pages of the bill. It is not a "comfortable read" as you not only have to read it but look for how the words and tsentences "might" be interpreted.

I hope all will take the considerable time required to read this bill and make an intelligent decision re: it's support.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Shamrock,

I do not think you will find much at all about health or about care in this legislation. It is all about POWER structure and a MONEY grab to take away our healthcare freedom and privacy. How they implement such health and such care for us is not really important to them.

By the way, The Obama said repeatedly in his campaign that only those with incomes of $200,000 per year or above would pay for his dream of single-payer government healthcare for all plan. Remember Joe-the-Plumber?

Now, the Obama says he is trying ever so hard to ensure that the middle-class won't have to bear the burden of 1/3 of the cost in taxes.

"Trying" is the key word! With enough income there are ways to shield it from taxes and still have the use of it so only the less astute of the so called rich will foot that burden.

I do not smoke but the federal tobacco tax increase (obamas latest increase) hits the poor and middle class harder than the wealthy as do the provisions of the "cap and trade" bill.

I have been told to expect a VAT or Flat tax, not bad ideas on their own, in addition to the existing income tax. Who do you suspect will get hurt the worst with that little jewel's implementation?

Slàinte,   

 Patch    

What might be wrong with this section? Anyone? Anyone?

What might be right with this section? Anyone? Anyone?

What might be right with this section? Anyone? Anyone?

Ok, I'll start the ball rolling on section 123. The Health Benefits Advisory Committee. Problem #1, yet another expanse of government. Problem #2, a small group of appointed positions will decide what our benefits will be and who will get them. Combine that with the compulsory participation, and you have dictatorial government...say hello to the new American Apparatchik.

How is it compulsory participation if you're able to choose/keep a current plan? How is this different that an HMO or other insurance provider deciding what coverage they'll provide? Every insurer makes these decisions. Probably the only thing that will be compulsory is that everyone has some kind of insurance, and the government plan will be one option - my guess is for those who cannot afford a plan with an insurance company. With a government plan, private insurers may become more exclusive, taking those with very low risk, unless of course the health care bill limits their ability to do that to prevent too many people in the government plan. Either way the government will be the default program and pick up the slack for the un/under insured.

Well -- but at present a large and diffuse body that can scarcely be called a group at all very arbitrarily "decides" who gets and who doesn't by jacking the price of coverage and care to wherever the chaotic market will bear, and it will not bear it indefinitely, it will crack. This seems not to be any better. I do believe that with the retirement of a huge cohort in the next ten years, the system will not take the strain and the present strategies as they are now conducted are not sustainable.

You jump to these Soviet-style socialist analogies almost as a tic. How about keeping a little lower profile on the scathing tone while we read through and try to make sense of this? Also -- you seem to have singled out certain passages, and that may or may not fairly serve context.

It's a very good idea to stick this up and go at it. I will join you in this, and I thank you for providing the link, but I think a more methodical review would repay the effort it takes to master this tangle of ideas and murky langage.

Some person on NPR -- one of our blue dogs if I remember correctly -- mentioned that there needs to be strict accuracy in every statement that is made either in support or criticism. The example given was that the president has assured us that if we don't want government coverage, we can always keep the plan we have. That is not strictly true -- a person covered under his job, for example, can keep the plan he has as long as his employer continues to participate and the carrier remains in business. That is not something the president is in a position to guarantee. Maybe we can assume that limitation is implied, but better not to leave anything unspecified.

The president is also not in a position to guarantee the provisions of the bill itself. Although I'm sure his influence is great, he's not writing it. He positioned himself at the town hall meeting he attended today as if all the provisions of the bill were carved in stone. His language was "we're not going to do this/that" etc. I know he's trying to sell it, but signing it is one thing, writing it is another.

Lynn, you're right. Pulling out passages may or may not fairly serve context. Admittedly, I am not educated in all the legalese that is contained in this or any other bill, and so in the absence of a legal education the best I can do is cite those passages I see as unambiguously worded and of which the meaning is clear. However, I feel it is incumbent upon anyone who is concerned about the direction in which our country is headed to at least try and discover what is being proposed. Particularly when the ramifications of such legislation can be severe. As for my references to socialism, what can I say? I have the belief that Obama has socialist aspirations and as such I seek out affirmation of that wherever I can find it.

Well, and that can be a hazardous style of inquiry, which has been called the confirmation bias. It's actually a normal mode of human reasoning and it's "efficient" in that it eliminates the burden of considering an overwhelming amount of evidence when a decision has to be made quickly; but it can lead to some problems in decision making. It's just one of our species design flaws:

"In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias (or confirmatory bias) is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.

Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study.

Confirmation bias is a phenomenon wherein decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and ignore or underweigh evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis."

As such, it can be thought of as a form of selection bias in collecting evidence.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/con...mation_bias.htm

Right -- which is more of a campaign style rather than a presidential style of communication. I did say at one point that I thought he had brains and guts, but he needed to develop some gravity. This is an example. On the other hand, it's hard to communicate in a measured, well-considered fashion in front of a testy group that is there purposely to get loud, if that's what they were, or even if that's what he expected to find.

Delivery style is one thing, making guarantees concerning the provisions of legislation you're not engaged in writing is another. It tends to discredit the effort, if not the intent. He not only needs to develop some gravitas, I think he needs deliver assurances that the aspects of the bill he's selling have a reasonable chance of being implemented. Otherwise he's just blowing smoke up our collective orifices.