SOTU wil feature push to destroy Co.-paid Health Insurance

[elehhhhna]

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/01/index.html#008934

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. !

:grr:

[C_U_L8R]

2. Bush murdered the poor of NOLA

and now he intends to exterminate an entire class of people across the nation.

I WANT THIS CROOK TO DO PRISON TIME....

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. Wow...conservatives really are entirely out of touch

"The idea here is simple. Conservatives believe Americans have too much health insurance, that they spend heedlessly and wastefully on care, procedures, and medications they would simply forego if insurance plans didn't pick up the tab."

My mother is being released from the hospital today on ten medications after suffering two heart attacks and undergoing surgery. Even WITH medicare discounts (and with supplemental insurance) which she really doesn't qualify for as she makes more than the maximum, the cost of those meds today will be $680.00.

[Warpy]

7. They're in touch with CEOs, CFOs, board members, and majority

stockholders and those are the people who are telling them that the cost of employee healthcare is killing the corporations now that the cost of paying their taxes isn't killing them any more. They haven't listened to any working stiff who wasn't a religious nut bused in to provide background at a Potemkin town meeting for decades.

Poor babies. It's really a crying shame that "get healthcare off OUR backs" is their only solution to the problem. If they'd start working with the rest of us for national health insurance, we might be able to forgive them their callousness, shortsightedness, cruelty and stupidity in other areas.

[Bridget Burke]

10. Yes, we'd just spend all our spare time visiting MD's.

Not to mention those funfilled procedures. (Gosh, I really enjoyed that last mammogram!)

--Good wishes for your Mom & you.

[papau]

4. Goal is to end tax deductions for corporation health insurance premium.

savings accounts - like HSA- is the GOP answer to everything that is a social need.

[China_cat]

5. I don't agree with his statement

that illness is not a moral failing. To this administration, it is. I'm surprised not to see a provision stripping people of their citizenship if they fall ill.

[ourbluenation]

6. I manage our agency's benefits and I'm shocked at the HSA choice

made by somewhat unhealthy people. They can choose a 250, 500, or 1250 deductible - the latter coming with a HSA. They never have any money in their accounts, the balance constantly being chipped away.

[Frustratedlady]

8. Years Ago, I Watched A Debate on PBS

in which two young men argued the practice of assigning a rating to patients. For example, looking at the severity of the disease and figuring out what the contribution to society that patient would have, at their age...if the procedure was done vs. if it were not. If the percentage was low, the care was diminished or treatments refused. In other words, that patient, who had less or little to contribute to society, was put off in a corner or sent home to die.

I don't remember what group was promoting this rating process, but I remember I was dumbfounded and immediately wrote to my senators/reps. This administration's proposals remind me of this horrible program I watched. Cull out the weak and keep the strong.

I remember ending my letters with a statement, such as, "I hope I live long enough to see these EYPs require critical care, so I can remind them of their cost saving proposals on healthcare."

[killbotfactory]

9. Why don't they just say what they mean?

"Let the poor die, the middle class suffer, and the rich live long and healthy"

People don't choose to go on expensive drugs for shits and giggles.

[Cassandra]

11. Well, people do go on drugs for shits...

I'm having a colonoscopy in a few weeks. Not expecting a lot of giggles, though. ;-)

[A Simple Game]

12. Some do, Rush comes to mind.

But the number must be very low.