When I say that these HCR Bill Is Suckey I don't mean to mislead people

[truedelphi]

I say it is suck-ey because it prevents women from exercising choice over their situation. It means only the affluent will have birth control and abortion options, and that women who miscarry might DIE!

I say it is suck-ey because nothing about this bill prevents the insurers from "adjusting" the premiums that they are charging. So do expect your premiums to be higher.

I say it is suck-ey because the only cost containment discussion that went on DID NOT RESULT in examining the excessively high markups for everything from the insurance premiums themselves to the charges we face for our health care treatments, procedures and meds.

In fact, the only cost containment discussion that went on involved Congress limiting the Federal Government to spending slightly less than 900 Billion bucks in a six year period. Congress managed to taper back the Federal Government's costs to this figure by inserting provisions requiring that we the people pay some One Hundred Seventy Six Billion bucks in penalties if we goof. (These penalties will hit small business owners, and will hit the self-employed as well.)


As far as my misleading people - WTF? We have a Congress and a President who somehow all managed to avoid having the important conversation about health care costs - the fact that the skyrocketing costs of every phase of the Health Care Industry are driven by the profit motive, and that alone.

Have we seen our President discussing the fact that drugs manufactured 400 pills for a nickel are then dispensed to us for 20 pills for $ 182.50 ?
(I am not against a profit motive, but when standard drug mark up is 2,000 to 8,200 PERCENT of cost of manufacture, something is terribly wrong, and not in Denmark, either. As over in Denmark they have Single Payer Universal HC For All, and the whole plan in Denmark can fit easily onto four or five pages.)

As a health care worker, I have worked in hospitals where the bandages labeled "Sterile" are no longer sterile due to being over eight years old. I have worked privately for women who were booted out of the hospital almost immediately after having a mastectomy - and with their right arm swollen beyond belief, told to go home and change the wound dressings themselves.

So while health care costs are going up, we the consumers are getting shoddier and shoddier treatment. We needed an Executive Leader, or major player in Congress, who was willing to have the discussion about how the costs are so inflated that they needed to be rolled back, and we needed that discussion before we ever tackled having a health care bill.

And then we needed to see that the costs were indeed rolled back. By mandate. (After all, if they can mandate that We the People buy the insurance, why the hell can they not mandate that costs be reasonable?) Is $ 3,000 a realistic amount to bill someone for a ten minute discussion in the ER with a doctor who would be on duty anyway?

We especially needed that "cost containment" discussion from a President whose single most touted sound byte has been the "importance of a bill that is deficit neutral."

[AllentownJake]

1. Awesome Summary

[waiting for hope]

2. That seems to be the big Gorilla in the room -

Of course they don't want to discuss it - who's paying for all their reelection bids?

K&R

[BeHereNow]

3. K&R Thank you.

But how dare you bring up these inconvenient FACTS.
BHN

[earth mom]

4. Get ready for SKY HIGH insurance premiums ya'll and less care. No doubt. nt

[im1013]

5. You know... If an insurance company was owned by Bill Gates,

I'd be willing to bet they'd be going after him like
a pirahna.

Not to defend Gates, or anything. I got my MS revenge! (I love my macbook)


:wtf: