David Frum calls Health Care Reform passage a Waterloo for the Republicans

[Darwin333]

They can only pass on so much before the customer moves to a new insurance company. Also, doesn't the insurance commissioner in each state have to approve of any increase in premiums?

1. The less efficient insurance companies get gobbled up by more efficient companies or go out of businesses. Not a bad thing.
2. Same as #1 applies to the hospitals/doctors. I see the big hospitals around here expanding their hospitals, buying the latest equipment, etc.
3. Meaning instead of paying per visit/test, you would pay by some other metric.

These rules apply to all health insurance companies though, meaning they will all be effected the same. The bottom line is you do not get something for nothing, we are getting something so someone will pay.

1. Not about efficiency, we are adding things to the system that cost. There is a reason they don't insure pre-existing conditions. Insuring those people will cost much more than the premiums they pay. Same thing with removing lifetime caps and all of the other stuff. It they could pay for that already and still make roughly the same profit they would.

2. I see some hospital expansion but most of it is with .gov money around here. The private hospitals are going under and there aren't any interested buyers. I have read that a ton of hospitals are in the same situation around the country. They require substantial subsidies (either private or public) to stay afloat, putting more burden on them just means we have to give them more money in some form or fashion.

3. It doesn't matter what metric is used to pay them. They still need X dollars to operate. Reducing one persons payments only increases another persons. That is what has been going on for a while and its to the point that we can't afford to cover the people who can't pay. So we are going to further reduce the payments made by people who can pay and that is supposed to fix the problem?

We aren't lowering costs of overall health care in this country we are increasing it by adding additional services provided. Those services will cost money and someone is gonna have to pay. The question still remains, who gets the bill? Forcing all of the insurance companies out of business in a few year span will be a disaster for the American people, at least in the short term. If it really is about helping people that should be something avoided at all costs.

 

[Darwin333]

You forget the reason repubs opposed any healthcare legislation from the beginning- it was to "Beat Obama!" If he was for it, they were against it, whatever it was.

Which is pretty much what Frum points out. They nearly succeeded with a massive campaign of fearmongering and deception. They figured if they could beat Dems on this big and contentious issue that it would blunt the initiative Dems gained in 2006 and 2008.

their response to the 2008 election has been an attempt to radicalize and motivate their base, to rave against the solutions to problems they created, and to demoralize Dems' base with obstructionism. They're not trying to gain converts, but rather to hold on, maybe exploit the voters in their usual strongholds into switching back to them for purely emotional reasons...

The more mainstream Dems attempt to reach out, to compromise with them, the weaker Dems appear, and the more demoralized the more progressive elements of their base become... As Frum points out, it may serve in tactical terms to gain a few seats in November, but it won't serve in a strategic sense down the road, because the bill as passed will address many of the shortcomings and abuses of the current system. Voters aren't likely to forget that anytime RSN, not any sooner than they forgot the legislation of the New Deal.

Didn't forget, I think I pointed that out somewhere in this thread. I believe that is also the reason the Dems passed the bill (a political "win") that they should have been completely against even if it wasn't mostly crap.

 

[Acanthus]

For the record, he's dead ass wrong. The GOP had no input on the bill because the left locked them out of it. Did you not see the amendments and other ideas being talked about? Ofcourse you didn't, you had your head up BHO's ass the whole time. They did offer ideas and solutions - the left told them to F-off because they "won".

There were over 170 republican changes to the bill.

they still didn't vote for it so the dems stopped listening.

 

[UberNeuman]

Look like Frum got the "under the bus" special...

"they offered him the chance to continue on at a salary of zero"

rotflmao!

 

[woolfe9999]

Look like Frum got the "under the bus" special...

"they offered him the chance to continue on at a salary of zero"

rotflmao!

Bartlett, who served as a domestic policy aide for Ronald Reagan and a deputy assistant Treasury secretary under the first President Bush, claimed Frum told him privately a few months ago that conservatives on AEI's payroll had been "ordered" not to speak to the media about health care reform "because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do." Frum himself certainly violated that order.

Hmm.

- wolf

 

[Fern]

With actual information on how this bill affects folks being plastered on news shows everywhere (except Fox I assume) I expect these poll numbers have a fair way to go still before they peak. The Reps just got caught in a big ole lie about this whole thing and I don't think folks are going to forgive that soon.

Personally, I don't doubt that this new law (package of laws, really) will prove popular - after all, who doesn't like a giveaway? The benefits will come well before the relatively small tax increases built into it, so who can complain about that? The national credit card bill just got significantly larger, but who cares about that? It's not coming due anytime soon.

I have to wonder though, even though the mandate is unpopular, who does it really upset? Who does it really affect? Are there that many people besides maybe tea partiers who just do not want health insurance? That would go without it if given the option to buy it if they could?

The vast majority of people already had HI.

The vast majority were perfectly happy with their HI.

So what does the vast majority get out of this? What they get is the bill to pay for minority.

I don't see how that's going to be popular in the long run.

And HI policies are not going to drop in price, I think many expect they will, and will be upset when the costs continues to rise. I think omitting that from his calculation is Frum's big mistake in his prediction.

Fern

 

[theeedude]

Vast majority gets to sleep better at night knowing that:
- If they get sick and lose their jobs, they can still get insurance even having a pre-existing condition.
- They cannot be dropped from Insurance under BS pretext when they get sick and need it the most.
- Others have to pay for their own insurance or pay a penalty, not wait till they get sick, go to ER, and then stick the vast majority with the bill.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

The vast majority of people already had HI.

The vast majority were perfectly happy with their HI.

So what does the vast majority get out of this? What they get is the bill to pay for minority.

I don't see how that's going to be popular in the long run.

And HI policies are not going to drop in price, I think many expect they will, and will be upset when the costs continues to rise. I think omitting that from his calculation is Frum's big mistake in his prediction.

Fern

When the totality of your experience with your health insurance is seeing that $50 deduction in your paycheck and getting $30 doctor visits and prescriptions, then yeah, you don't see a problem. Folks who actually saw how their premiums were increasing, lost their job and their coverage, got sick and dropped from their coverage, or were otherwise unfortunate enough not to be in that vast majority weren't so perfectly happy.

BTW, I hope you made it back to post 127 when going back to quote my posts.

 

[HomerJS]

The vast majority of people already had HI.

The vast majority were perfectly happy with their HI.

So what does the vast majority get out of this? What they get is the bill to pay for minority.

I don't see how that's going to be popular in the long run.

And HI policies are not going to drop in price, I think many expect they will, and will be upset when the costs continues to rise. I think omitting that from his calculation is Frum's big mistake in his prediction.

Fern

How about the thousands the vast majority have to pay in hidden medical costs for emergency room routine care for the uninsured