The White House Wants Gamers To Buy Healthcare

Before Obamacare, Individual healthcare coverage was already a right guaranteed to all with no lines of distinction, under EMTALA. The assholes who passed that law - Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party - did not fund it, forcing hospitals to shift the costs of providing care to all who enter an ER to those who do pay for insurance.

Ronald Reagan really isn't a conservative by modern standards though he did have some opposition to Medicare and Social Security but eventually fell in line somewhat as he began to understand just how incredibly popular these programs are.
 
Still not getting it.
Healthcare is a privileged, not a right.

Obamacare is a band-aid solution to a broken system that should've targeted the industry to force them to lower the rates for care.

Forcing people to get it or fine them is theft and those that support it are thieves having the government rob us for them so they can have a "cheaper" rate.

If I need care I'll get care and pay for it out of my own pocket instead of paying monthly for coverage IF I need it. My life, my health, my choice. I am not a criminal, but to the government we are.
The left will brand anything a "right" which they deem desirable.
 
The left will brand anything a "right" which they deem desirable.

Not dying from cancer or bleeding out after a car accident is desirable by right wingers as well. It's easy to say that healthcare isn't a right. It's much harder to say if you can't pay go away and die.
 
So before this law did we just leave people in the street to die if they were hit by a car even if they were poor and uninsured? Obviously there is some morality involved in rendering at least urgent medical assistance based on need that transcends politics and economics.

you didn't answer my question. what does it mean to have a right to a service provided by another person?
 
you didn't answer my question. what does it mean to have a right to a service provided by another person?

The answer is if you can't pay then you go die or live in pain. It's that simple but it's difficult for people to be honest about it directly.
 
Not dying from cancer or bleeding out after a car accident is desirable by right wingers as well. It's easy to say that healthcare isn't a right. It's much harder to say if you can't pay go away and die.
Life can suck and bad things happen. Counters to such things shouldn't one and all be deemed a right, because most always there is an equal and opposite problems created.
 
Life can suck and bad things happen. Counters to such things shouldn't one and all be deemed a right, because most always there is an equal and opposite problems created.

Now we're getting somewhere. Some wanting to not die then is a problem because it creates to much of a burden on society? Ok, that's at least a logical argument. I wish right wingers would have simply said these kinds of things instead of all of the nonsense they did during the healthcare debate.

There are fair question about the allocation of resources here. But there are some VERY hard answers to give if you're trying to be honest about it rather than wrapping in up in the euphemism of "a right".
 
Now we're getting somewhere. Some wanting to not die then is a problem because it creates to much of a burden on society? Ok, that's at least a logical argument. I wish right wingers would have simply said these kinds of things instead of all of the nonsense they did during the healthcare debate.

There are fair question about the allocation of resources here. But there are some VERY hard answers to give if you're trying to be honest about it rather than wrapping in up in the euphemism of "a right".
I'm a rabid individualist who holds the seemingly contradictory view that we've come to value our own lives too much. My own life isn't so priceless that anyone—especially those who hold no personal connection to me—should be forcibly made to ensure the continuation of my life or happiness therein. I've worked hard my entire life not to be a burden on anyone—financially or otherwise—and if ever there comes a point where I am, I'm going to eat a bullet. Literally.
 
That is the reason congress excepted themselves from this awesome plan. If it was so great they would be the first in line.
If politicians had to live by every rule/law/mandate/etc. (Medicaid, Soc. Sec., etc.) that they set for us...the country would be fixed by the end of the week.
 
I'm a rabid individualist who holds the seemingly contradictory view that we've come to value our own lives too much.

I one doesn't value their own life then no one else will. Individualism 101.

My own life isn't so priceless that anyone—especially those who hold no personal connection to me—should be forcibly made to ensure the continuation of my life or happiness therein. I've worked hard my entire life not to be a burden on anyone—financially or otherwise—and if ever there comes a point where I am, I'm going to eat a bullet. Literally.

It's a LOT more complicated than this. As violent as human history has been clearly there's some moral component in most humans where we generally don't simply let people bleed out after an accident because they're broke and/or uninsured. Indeed isn't part of not placing too much value on one's own life placing value on the lives of others?

At any rate these are issues of life and death and pain and who pays. Issues that will always be controversial but also where I think there will always be some moral force that compels us to not let those who don't have resources just all die.
 
I think everyone can agree something needs to be done with our healthcare system. But vote for it without reading it is pure BS. And politicians exempting themselves. That should be grounds for a bullet in the head.

I have worked my ass off to have great healthcare through past and current employers. And when I've owned a business I have made sure employee's have the best healthcare money can buy. I have worked in the healthcare industry. It's a freaking joke! The first thing you learn is if the goverment is involved ,,, it will fail and cost 10x more than it's worth.
 
I one doesn't value their own life then no one else will. Individualism 101.



It's a LOT more complicated than this. As violent as human history has been clearly there's some moral component in most humans where we generally don't simply let people bleed out after an accident because they're broke and/or uninsured. Indeed isn't part of not placing too much value on one's own life placing value on the lives of others?

At any rate these are issues of life and death and pain and who pays. Issues that will always be controversial but also where I think there will always be some moral force that compels us to not let those who don't have resources just all die.
That moral force works on the level of the personal. I'm no psychopath lacking in empathy. I'm actually a very generous person—to those I know and love, or even those at a distance I feel I've somehow have gotten to know and think they're worthy of charity.

The moment you forcibly take a dollar out of my pocket to give to someone else—someone I don't know, and quite possibly wouldn't piss on if they were on fire—then . . . nope. That's a dollar I no longer have to spend not only on my own self, but those I do know and love.

And here we come to the biggest problem with the left: they try to take things that work and come naturally at an intimate community level where people have real human connections and scale them up to the regional and even global level. That will never work.
 
That moral force works on the level of the personal. I'm no psychopath lacking in empathy. I'm actually a very generous person—to those I know and love, or even those at a distance I feel I've somehow have gotten to know and think they're worthy of charity.

The moment you forcibly take a dollar out of my pocket to give to someone else—someone I don't know, and quite possibly wouldn't piss on if they were on fire—then . . . nope. That's a dollar I no longer have to spend not only on my own self, but those I do know and love.

And here we come to the biggest problem with the left: they try to take things that work and come naturally at an intimate community level where people have real human connections and scale them up to the regional and even global level. That will never work.

It's not just pure altruism. Truly sick and injured people don't produce a lot. And at some point too many of them become a huge problem in and of itself. If they are to be ignored by public resources, someone's going to have to deal with them. That someone being the public that will pay some price.

Healthcare may not be a right, but not a damned other thing in this world matters when you're too sick to be anything other than sick. I guess your bullet plan works. Except there are a lot of religious implications to this particular plan.
 
Bottom line is life is tough and we can't all be kings with no pawns.
There will always be the haves and have not since the dawn of time.
Having the government tel you that you must buy a product you may not want
or need so somebody who could not afford that product can now have it because
you are paying for it.
Then they tell you if you don't chip in to help you will be punished.

They don't even do such a thing in 3rd world communist countries that I know of.

The liberals want a single pay system like Canada has and it might work to some degree there
due to population density but the USA has 320M and growing and it cannot be sustained.

Add more patients with doctors staying neutral of going negative will make the wait longer and the quality lesser.
 
The ACA has a strong focus on those who are uninsured and poor, but if you have too low of an income and live in a state that is not expanding medicaid then forget it... you're not getting insured by medicaid and if you go through the marketplace you'll have to pay full price for a crappy plan that you can't afford. I know it's hard to grasp but in the marketplace you actually have to make a certain amount of income based off of your household size to qualify for lower costs. But hey... if you're in a state that hasn't expanded medicaid and you don't qualify for lower costs then lucky for you, you're exempt from the penalty... just good luck getting "affordable" healthcare.
 
Bottom line is life is tough and we can't all be kings with no pawns.
There will always be the haves and have not since the dawn of time.
Having the government tel you that you must buy a product you may not want
or need so somebody who could not afford that product can now have it because
you are paying for it.
Then they tell you if you don't chip in to help you will be punished.

If they live long enough (and sometimes that's not long at all) the overwhelming majority are going need expensive medicine or be chronically sick or in pain or badly injured or die at one or more times in life. It's not a matter of if but when.
 
It is amazing how much people argue over this subject. Bottom line, god forbid that you have a serious health problem or bad accident, unless you have deep pockets your fucked without health insurance. And it's been that way for a long time now.

You can't be refused emergency treatment. You'll end up chapter 11, but be alive.

The fear mongering that you will die in the street without Obamacare is a fucking myth.
 
You can't be refused emergency treatment. You'll end up chapter 11, but be alive.

The fear mongering that you will die in the street without Obamacare is a fucking myth.

Who's fear mongering? I already made the point that people in urgent need of medical assistance get it. And when did bankruptcy become a preferred of payment? Aren't people who wipe medical debt that way burdening the system causing other people's medical costs to go up? Using the force of government ironically to do it.

If we're going to treat everyone in urgent need of medicine, even those that can't pay, then it's going to get paid for one way or another.
 
I thought this country was founded on the concept of Liberty and Freedom. you know the right to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt someone else.

Obamacare's mandate is the complete opposite of the fundamental construct of this nation.
 
I prefer the Republican healthcare plan:

Don't get sick, and if you do, die quickly.
 
The fear mongering that you will die in the street without Obamacare is a fucking myth.

there is some truth to that "myth". paramedic agencies have been a bullshit filter for the healthcare system. we get called out to exaggerations ultimately just to be a taxi. but now, with obama care we get reimbursed instead of non pay.

since obamacare, my pay has doubled and there has been a ~25% increase in the amount of 911 ambulances for the same population. mutual aid requests from the next county over are now almost non existent. I distinctly remember an instance where there was a sids baby one block from my station, but i was on a bullshit call for chestpain/drugseeker in another county.

some of my poorest and dumbest patients are getting the cheap preventative care that prevents the expensive catastrophic ED visits and hospital admissions; hospital costs that were previously passed on to taxpayers and insurance holders.

ive never had a problem with paying taxes to defend and save american lives. but i still despise the all the superfluous middlemen in the transactions.
 
I thought this country was founded on the concept of Liberty and Freedom. you know the right to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt someone else.

Obamacare's mandate is the complete opposite of the fundamental construct of this nation.

When you say "hurt", are you talking about purely physical harm to your own body? Or do you include mental harm, emotional harm, social harm, financial harm, harm to ones possessions?
 
I prefer the Republican healthcare plan:

Don't get sick, and if you do, die quickly.

False, their plan is if you want a product you buy it, if not then you don't.

I am sure many ranchers and farmers do not have insurance because they don't believe in it.

They save money and if they need care they pay for it with cash.

You can pay for insurance your whole life and never need it, just think of how much
money you pissed away with a "what if".

Freedom is not the government telling you to buy a product or get punished.
 
False, their plan is if you want a product you buy it, if not then you don't.

I am sure many ranchers and farmers do not have insurance because they don't believe in it.

They save money and if they need care they pay for it with cash.

You can pay for insurance your whole life and never need it, just think of how much
money you pissed away with a "what if".

Freedom is not the government telling you to buy a product or get punished.

So the Republican healthcare plan is that you don't need health insurance, just save up and pay for it in cash?
 
False, their plan is if you want a product you buy it, if not then you don't.

I am sure many ranchers and farmers do not have insurance because they don't believe in it.

They save money and if they need care they pay for it with cash.

You can pay for insurance your whole life and never need it, just think of how much
money you pissed away with a "what if".

Freedom is not the government telling you to buy a product or get punished.

And here's the thing. Say you do get sick and you don't have the money to cover it. YOU STILL GET TREATED! Then everyone else has to pay and no, bankruptcy doesn't just make the bill magically go away.

The only way this works is that people get refused care and are willing to live, however long that is, with the consequences.
 
So the Republican healthcare plan is that you don't need health insurance, just save up and pay for it in cash?

You can save up. If everyone payed cash the market would be compeitive. I bet you dont even know how much your last hospital visit cost your insurance company.

You can buy a catastrophic insurance plans to only covers serious injury. Obamacare plans are expensive unless you get the subsidy (stealing from other people). My insurance cost 900$ more dollars a year now. I dont want pills or doc visits every 6 months for a checkup. I dont want all the extra test they push.

The belief that using the government to steal from working people just so you can get your insurance cheaper is wrong isnt just a republican idea. Im not a fan of most republicans but i think everyone learned growing up that theft is wrong.
 
So the Republican healthcare plan is that you don't need health insurance, just save up and pay for it in cash?

My best friend from high school was uninsured, and had a pretty bad car accident, with a blow to the head that required brain surgery. He racked up a $600,000 bill for the first month of medical care before whatever plan he's on now kicked in. I'm unclear about the plan he's on now because I'm not family, but I think it's Medicare or Medicaid, and something about either that program or whatever his financial situation is (again I'm not family enough to know) required that he sell off most of his belongings so it must have been Chapter 7 bankruptcy. He's in his late 40s with two kids and had a 5 figure salary (but never will again).

So... yeah. If your position is "You can pay for insurance your whole life and never need it, just think of how much money you pissed away with a 'what if'", then you better have been born into a rich family, because the money and possessions you piss away if you didn't have medical insurance and you do need it is a lot bigger burden.

And the burden is not just on the uninsured victim, Mr. "You'll end up chapter 11, but be alive", that's a Chapter 7. Guess who pays the medical bills that are bankrupted? You, the taxpayer, pay for it twice - once through higher taxes as the hospital either writes it off as a tax deduction or attaches it to a grant for indigent care, and again through higher prices for everyone else at the hospital because those tax deductions and grants do not fully reimburse the hospital for the entire cost.
 
You can save up.

Except when you can't (see: Great Recession). Also, very few actually do. 25% of Americans have no savings at all. Of the Americans who do have savings, 67% have less than 6 months worth of expenses saved. That means 75% of Americans have inadequate or no savings.

OP20 said:
If everyone payed cash the market would be compeitive.

And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Where is this magical fantasyland that you want to live in?

OP20 said:
You can buy a catastrophic insurance plans to only covers serious injury. Obamacare plans are expensive unless you get the subsidy (stealing from other people). My insurance cost 900$ more dollars a year now. I dont want pills or doc visits every 6 months for a checkup. I dont want all the extra test they push.

How much did your insurance cost before Obamacare?

The belief that using the government to steal from working people just so you can get your insurance cheaper is wrong isnt just a republican idea. Im not a fan of most republicans but i think everyone learned growing up that theft is wrong.

Oh, subsidy is automatically theft. Would you mind describing in general terms the workplaces or industries you have chosen to profit from?
 
You can save up. If everyone payed cash the market would be compeitive. I bet you dont even know how much your last hospital visit cost your insurance company.

I know quite well what it cost in total. Which is why I'm glad I had insurance.

You can buy a catastrophic insurance plans to only covers serious injury. Obamacare plans are expensive unless you get the subsidy (stealing from other people). My insurance cost 900$ more dollars a year now. I dont want pills or doc visits every 6 months for a checkup. I dont want all the extra test they push.

You don't want pills? Ok, but if you NEED certain pills they can get very expensive.

The belief that using the government to steal from working people just so you can get your insurance cheaper is wrong isnt just a republican idea. Im not a fan of most republicans but i think everyone learned growing up that theft is wrong.

So stealing is evil but people dying is fine?
 
That moral force works on the level of the personal. I'm no psychopath lacking in empathy. I'm actually a very generous person—to those I know and love, or even those at a distance I feel I've somehow have gotten to know and think they're worthy of charity.

The "moral force" as you put it absolutely is not just a personal thing. The human species is largely communal by nature and thrives more so as a group. When you say "those you love" you are not speaking about just yourself. You are speaking about others. Hopefully in turn they feel the same about you and and provide a benefit to your existence. There's nothing personal about that at all.


The moment you forcibly take a dollar out of my pocket to give to someone else—someone I don't know, and quite possibly wouldn't piss on if they were on fire—then . . . nope. That's a dollar I no longer have to spend not only on my own self, but those I do know and love.

Here's the problem with this viewpoint. No one was asked if it was OK for YOU to be born. As a result (hopefully your parents raised you in a house or even an apartment building) when you were born someone had already paid for the road your parents drove on to all of your doctor's visits, someone already paid for your days in school, someone already paid so that you could even ask Verizon or whomever for service (there's actually a tax we all pay to help facilitate expansion and delivery of communication services).

None of this stuff you personally paid for. Absolutely none of it. You think your own income taxes pay for all of that before you were born? You think your parent's income taxes paid for all of that? Really? Exactly who doesn't understand the value of a dollar here?

How arrogant does someone have to be to actually believe the moment they were born services, roads and bridges just popped into existence. This isn't Little House on the Prairie. If you believe in Jesus that's fine, but I didn't know doing all of that was in his wheelhouse. I'm not all that religious so I think a community of people got together so that you weren't raised in a ditch or Shanty Town.

And here we come to the biggest problem with the left: they try to take things that work and come naturally at an intimate community level where people have real human connections and scale them up to the regional and even global level. That will never work.

Yet it actually works everywhere else on planet Earth except here. Many other countries, actually all developed countries have universal healthcare. Not here. For some strange reason within this country we are made to believe everything should have a profit motive, everything has a price (even life), and everyone should be able to make a buck off of anything. As a person on the "left" I would like to believe that some of us think that certain things in life are invaluable and not always quantifiable by the dollar. I can't speak for you but my soul feels better that way.
 
Was walking down the road in Grand Theft Auto and didn't realize that the cops were chasing me due to no health coverage. This caused me to increase my criminal activity on the game and pull out the big guns. Much to my dismay, health coverage didn't matter in the end.
 
So the Republican healthcare plan is that you don't need health insurance, just save up and pay for it in cash?

You are missing the point here. It's about choice.

Do you want to choose what you want or have the government choose for you?

Before Obama hijacked insurance if you wanted it you shopped, found a plan that fit your budget and bought it.

Now the government tells you want to buy and if you don't then pay a fine.

A plan that costs $500 a month with a 2K deductible is useless if you are healthy, that plan is only for emergencies if after the deductible they pay it 100%.
This is all granted you can even get in to see a doctor and not be on a wait list.

Ask yourself, do you want to run your life of have the government hold your hand and do it for you?
 
Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence.[1] This kind of appeal to emotion is a type of red herring and encompasses several logical fallacies, including appeal to consequences, appeal to fear, appeal to flattery, appeal to pity, appeal to ridicule, appeal to spite, and wishful thinking.

Instead of facts, persuasive language is used to develop the foundation of an appeal to emotion-based argument. Thus, the validity of the premises that establish such an argument does not prove to be verifiable.[2]

Appeals to emotion are intended to draw visceral feelings from the acquirer of the information. And in turn, the acquirer of the information is intended to be convinced that the statements that were presented in the fallacious argument are true; solely on the basis that the statements may induce emotional stimulation such as fear, pity and joy. Though these emotions may be provoked by an appeal to emotion fallacy, substantial proof of the argument is not offered, and the argument's premises remain invalid.[3][4][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion
 
Every time I hear about the healthcare mess in the US it makes me glad to be in Canada. :D

Don't worry. When America's resources go broke with all this stuff we cannot afford, I will be one of the first to jump the border into Canada illegally. The reality is that I would probably just drive through the North Portal border crossing and forget to leave. :D
 
But this Law didn't reduce any costs, it just forces people to pay for everyone who can't pay for themselves. Who out there who already had insurance didn't see their rates go up and their paychecks drop?
My rate fell 27% while the deductible stayed the same, and my paycheck increased 31% since the ACA went into effect...
 
Not any more. It is a God given right to all Americans now. Hell even non Americans. I just wish I could pay more for this gift from the Choosen One.

No. Actually, the way it's treated, it's NOT a "right" either.

As you can still be denied certain forms of care, simply by labeling it "elective" and sticking you in a line so long your GRANDKIDS will be old enough to collect a pension before you are allowed to have the procedure.

What healthcare is NOW? It's another form of tax. Period.
 
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