Obamacare's latest unintended victims: Firefighters

[Naeeldar]

You are comparing people getting healthcare they need to us buying military goods we don't need? The whole point of Defense industry is to protect Americans. It would be monumentally stupid to spend trillions to protect Americans from a hypothetical attack while watching them die for real from lack of insurance due to untreated medical conditions. We send our military to provide humanitarian assistance in third world countries while ignoring Americans in need of humanitarian assistance in America. That's stupid.

What I'm saying is that you are looking at this from a single angle when you should be looking at it from 1,000 angles and also 1,000 steps deep. There are so many factors here and so often people want to compare helping out people through say healthcare vs. why spend all this money on the military. The fact of the matter it is all intertwined.

SO yes mob rule is not a good thing period. I don't care if you help out people or not it doesn't make it right or smart. For example if we cut the military you now have that many more people overloading ACA and that many new people without jobs as well. So how does that work?

ACA is a disaster and the system we have in place was far from perefect but was working for the majority of the population. Which at the rate we are going may be far better than what we are about to get.

 

[theeedude]

What I'm saying is that you are looking at this from a single angle when you should be looking at it from 1,000 angles and also 1,000 steps deep. There are so many factors here and so often people want to compare helping out people through say healthcare vs. why spend all this money on the military. The fact of the matter it is all intertwined.

SO yes mob rule is not a good thing period. I don't care if you help out people or not it doesn't make it right or smart. For example if we cut the military you now have that many more people overloading ACA and that many new people without jobs as well. So how does that work?

ACA is a disaster and the system we have in place was far from perefect but was working for the majority of the population. Which at the rate we are going may be far better than what we are about to get.

We don't have mob rule. We have a representative democracy. The result of which was passage of Obamacare, by a 60/40 majority in the Senate, no less. It was reviewed by an opposition party controlled SCOTUS, which upheld most of it, the only change being Medicaid expansion is now more voluntary. If a state is getting Medicaid expansion, it's a result of many years worth of elections at federal level in all branches, legislative action, judicial review, elections at the state level, and action at state level to accept the expansion. A mob did not just show up and rule itself some Medicaid. If you don't like our system of government, you can move to some dictatorship.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Obamacare was written by health experts, including those who crafted MA reform. Politicians reviewed it and acted.

Really? Precisely who were these experts and who hired them? I'd like to think they conduct their practices better.

Still not clear who you think is going to be in charge of everyone's health, and how they are going to get appointed to that job outside of a political act. Randomly chosen?

We could have started with obtaining a clear notion of the state of health care to begin with. There are professional societies of all kinds in all aspects of practice and fields related to health care. I would have started by contacting them with the understanding that the intent would be an ordered and logical reform with the primary focus on creating a system which provides the best quality care and how to expand access. A very broad mandate. I'd ask for them to select representatives which are known among their peers for being outstanding in terms of ethics, intellectual ability and integrity, and are known as being able to work with others. Once I had that list I'd have them meet privately to discuss the mandate and make a preliminary list of other considerations and this be discussed with Congressional members in an open setting, with the understanding that this is an exploratory stage, and not a time or place to create an agenda.

Once that is done then the body of experts created (for convenience sake I'll refer to them as the "panel" from here out).

Their job would be to evaluate health care as it exists in the US, find what works and what does not, and create various options with the advantages and disadvantages of each in plain language. For example, what would it take to achieve a certain level of coverage? What about allocation of resources? How does one reduce duplication of resources and testing? What are near and long term problems and costs? Order of implementation of reforms? Constitutional issues? Legal and regulatory language? Oversight?

The list of concerns is very long indeed.

How does one make changes without disruption? How to prevent bureaucratic nightmares and unintended consequences? How to make the system fluid to achieve desired results?

What questions haven't been addressed or asked yet?

Give them a budget and the authority to interview and access data from various agencies. In other words give them the needed tools and let them go.

From time to time reports would be made to Congress and the public at the same time. No advance spin.

From there? Well that's the job of Congress. They'd have blueprints for various options done by those with expertise who have the time and considerable resources.

Who would run it? Well let's find out who is qualified to do so. Legal experts, providers, public health care advocates, actuaries, the kitchen sink if needed. Then after review create a Fed type autonomous entity. Not one Chairman who dictates policy, but a group which would work together and again have very open and transparent dealings.

Crying for Obamacare or single payer aren't solutions to real impending problems that most people won't even discuss if they are aware of them at all. There is no system which exists which can deal effectively with what we are going to face in the next 50 years, but it needs to start happening now. Waiting for crisis means unavoidable failure with catastrophic results that just might make the Great Depression look like the good old days. Think Reid and Boehner are up to that? Not a chance.

 

[Naeeldar]

We don't have mob rule. We have a representative democracy. The result of which was passage of Obamacare, by a 60/40 majority in the Senate, no less. It was reviewed by an opposition party controlled SCOTUS, which upheld most of it, the only change being Medicaid expansion is now more voluntary. If a state is getting Medicaid expansion, it's a result of many years worth of elections at federal level in all branches, legislative action, judicial review, elections at the state level, and action at state level to accept the expansion. A mob did not just show up and rule itself some Medicaid. If you don't like our system of government, you can move to some dictatorship.

People like you are half the reason this country is a mess. You can't sit there and make statement like that. By your definitition if politicians voted that everybondy over the age of 30 gets $100,000 a year free money from the govt then that would be ok? because guess what, it would become politicially unpalatable to remove that also. Every year more and more people are on welfare and if you think that doesn't create conflict of interest then you are nuts. That's not to say welfare is not needed but as more and more get on it we need to start asking some real tough questions because the system will break in the end.