Given the Right's loathing of "Government-run health care"...

shouldn't the Republican Party be calling for the ELMINATION of Medicare/Medicaid?...even if "gradually over 20 years".

Instead of saying they'll "protect it from Obama and the Dems' cuts" and will "shore it up"???

The only answer I've ever gotten is "They can't. It's too popular!"

Oh?....so once enacted liberalism is too popular to eradicate? Sure you want to go with that?

or atleast one was 'Too many deadbeats support it".....cool, so you guys will be willing to stick to your principles and go tell SENIOR CITIZENS that they're "deadbeats"?

Point is....all they are is talk, they support "Government-run health care" as much as Democrats because it works and the receipiants want it.

Conservatism is dead....it's all about holding the reigns of power now.

Duhhhhhhh if you don't duhhhhhhhhhhhhh like Goverment run health duuu hhh care,,,you must want to duhhhhhh get rid of medicaid and medicare.........

Or perhaps the real issue for Republicans and any number of Democrats although they may be to afraid to admit is how much those programs would need to be gutted in order to pay for this new program? "Old people as dead beats"..nice image .......how badly is there care going to be rationed if this goes through?.....Let me guess " we have rationing now" .... not on the scale you are going to see it if this goes through and besides shouldn't reform get rid of rationing all together?.....Thats the actual issue.

Of course since this entire Adminstration is based on one false choice after another its this reform or NO reform at all, this reform or people will die!!.......... So many people said to me after George Bush left office that they were happy to finally have a grown up in the White House........I have yet to see evidence of that.

By the way this plan passes and its not the Republicans the elderly are going to take it out on.

"shouldn't reform get rid of rationing all together?"

What?

Health care resources are limited resouces and thus they must be rationed. For example, some heart surgeons aer better than others. Of course everyone would like to have their surgery done by the best surgeon (i.e. the Kobe or Tiger), surgeon, but of course this isn't possible. This is rationing. Some people will have to go to a heart surgeon that will not be as good AND they will die because of this (i.e. Tiger would of saved them). This is just a basic reality of life.

The only mature issue associated with rationing is how a society determine WHO gets WHAT, WHEN. The current process is based on money and other perks.

You are correct that in order to give people without health care, a piece of the pie someone else will need to get a smaller slice and that might be the elderly. But who should have the best heart surgeon; someone 20 years old or someone 80? Please don't say everyone, since that is just an unrealistic point of view.

"This is rationing. Some people will have to go to a heart surgeon that will not be as good AND they will die "

you need to learn the definition of words before trying to use them as you pawn yourself off as actually educated. Hint, this is not rationing and yor fucking up the dittohead argument you farmed your brain out to. you can't even get being a parrot right either.

going to a doctor is not rationing you twit. rationing would be not going to the doctor.

Unless we go to a single payer system, the only real solution to our health care crisis, the system can not cover all medical expenses, and what is being discussed is never meant to cover all medical expenses. we are discussing the need to cover our basic needs you fucking moron. this not rationing but covering our basic needs.

unlike the delusional psychotic stupidity puked by the right wing moron, you still have the ability to purchase suplimental insurance, and cover what basic coverage does not. it also will cover those who currently are not covered and never will be in this current system of dysfunction.

I'm not a member of the fucking right wing but a liberal you dumbass. Rationing is just part of life. Grow up will you and learn to accept reality. Going to a doctor that isn't well trained or that finished in the last in his class is a form of rationing.

Unlike the weakass Dems I'm for taking the profit out of healthcare by have NO for profit insurance carriers in the system. Only NON profit insurers should be allowed. You are so full of yourself you feel everyone that has an idea is a fucking member of the GOP. While I voted for Obama it is clear to me that the Dems and him are still too afraid to take on the private for profit insurance industry. So as you can see it is you that is the fucking moron.

Isn't Bluecross/Shield non profit? And is a 2-6 % profit margin reasonable for a private insurance company? They have been easy to demonize because of the emotional aspect of the business.

If competition is good among these companys,why not open up the free markets and allow cross state pricing of policys?

CMD i agree is an ass.

ckone:

If competition is good among these companys,why not open up the free markets and allow cross state pricing of policys?

I tried to have a conversation with you about this a few days ago, but either your ran away and ignored it or you were so busy posting blind links all over the fray that you missed it. Here were our comments then:

ckone:

Open up state borders to competition then. A family policy in NJ costs around 12000.00 per year while it is less than 5000.00 in Kansas. Why? GOVERNMENT mandates. I though competition was supposed to be good but instead you advocate a monopoly with a bottomless purse on its side.

<note- I edited the post I quoted: you originally had typo'd (and then corrected) 12000.00 as 1200.00>

Before credit card companies were allowed to cross borders you could have made much the same argument, where Bob could get a 2% APR in New Jersey but had to pay 5% in Kansas (to make up numbers; I have no idea which states were better for their consumers). And what happened when credit cards were allowed to cross state lines? Instead of more competition driving down rates, all the credit card companies moved to the states where they were legally allowed to charge the highest rates (because the states that those companies are based in, and not the states where the consumers reside, dictate the rules for credit card companies). Why would health insurance be any different?

Seems like your comparing apples to oranges.

I am more likely to apply for a credit card with a lower rate are you not?

ckone:

I am more likely to apply for a credit card with a lower rate are you not?

Oh, absolutely. However, if you're a credit card company, wouldn't you rather charge higher interest rates than lower ones? That's essentially what happened. In 1978 the Supreme Court ruled, in Marquette Bank v. First Omaha Service Corp, that federally chartered banks only had to follow the rules of the state they, and not the consumer, resided in. Citibank, going broke, convinced South Dakota to change their laws to allow essentially anything and everything Citibank wanted. Once the South Dakota laws were changed, essentially every credit card company in the country moved to that state.

South Dakota was happy- they got a ton of jobs. The credit card companies were thrilled- they could charge whatever interest they wanted. Consumers were screwed- any company that didn't move to South Dakota soon went out of business and they (we) were left with unattractive credit options- including many fewer options with the lower credit rates many of us had access to before.

Now imagine this situation only with healthcare. It will not just be a price issue. Minimum coverage requirements, maximum payouts, pre-existing conditions, dropped coverage, any of this may be fair game to be rewritten by any state government that wants to attract a few thousand jobs. I would like the credit card with the lowest possible rate, but the availability of that decreased after Marquette Bank. I would also like the best possible healthcare insurance, but I'm worried that the availability of that will decrease if insurance companies are allowed to cross state borders.

ckone:

Seems like your comparing apples to oranges.

Why? There's already a legal precedent supporting this interpretation. There's already a big industry with deep pockets that can fight for this interpretation. There's no sign whatsoever that anyone in the federal government has the inclination or stomach to fight for expanding federal regulation of health insurance companies in this matter. What is to prevent this from happening?

You say that it's comparing apples to oranges. Maybe so, but they're both fruit. Why is this not a valid comparison?

Wikipedia on Marquette Nat. Bank case: <link>

Article titled, 'The Ascendancy of the Credit Card Industry' from NPR. This describes how Citi moved to South Dakota: <link>

Article from salon going into more detail than I have: <link>

And ckone- thank you for your response.

Anybody notice that Sicko couldn't answer the question....so he came up with "What we SHOULD be asking" and a subject change????

LOL

Reptilicus,

I'm a liberal, but I'm tired of seeing this question repeated every week. I'll try to answer.

Part of the dogma for some conservatives is the idea that the private sector can operate better and more efficiently than can the government, right? As such, it's reasonable to believe that many conservatives believe that a private system for insuring senior citizens could easily provide better care than does Medicare/caid. I can even imagine what such a system might look like, and it's beautiful: health insurance, when bought by an individual or an employer, would cover an individual for life, not for a year, and the benefits associated with that care would increase over time as more money is put into it. It would be a great solution, solving all the problems of pre-existing conditions and portability of coverage and even would provide pressure for insurance companies to keep costs down (since they'd be obligated, decades in advance, for covering expensive proceedures). Eventually, by the time someone is old and has contributed for a lifetime, the healthcare they've earned and paid for over decades would both provide benefits greater to Medicare and, incidentally, solve many of the problems associated with today's system.

Unfortunately, no one has been paying into a similar system for decades.

Any system favoured by conservatives would likely therefore either be a) too expensive to put in place immediately, or b) require years of foresight, planning, and transition to put in place, something not possible given the swiftness with which our political whims change in this country. There is no way to go from Medicare/caid to a system that may be favoured by many conservatives without a politically and fiscally improbable transition.

You ask why conservatives or Republicans don't want to abolish Medicare? It's because no one, Republican or Democrat, want to leave our seniors destitute, and that's what would happen were Medicare abolished. It's a strawman to think otherwise, or to think that there's some secret hypocrisy amongst conservatives. It's no better and little different than the idiots who think they know that Obama, the closest socialist, wants to abolish capitalism, and I think we'd both agree that that's a crock of shit.

Anybody notice that Sicko couldn't answer the question....so he came up with "What we SHOULD be asking" and a subject change????

Its a false choice moron re-read my response,,,slowly if it helps. Perhaps you would like to discuss the actual issue instead of this nonseniscal talking point you learned to read from pamphlet?

you need to learn the definition of words before trying to use them as you pawn yourself off as actually educated. Hint, this is not rationing and yor fucking up the dittohead argument you farmed your brain out to. you can't even get being a parrot right either.

An expression I am looking for... I can't think of it,,,,,hold on....oh yea,,,

Fuck you, you moronic little asswipe.

Sicko, why is asking a perfectly LOGICAL question "not the issue"?

The Right claims to hate "Government run health care"....so why not propose eliminating any such program?

Especially if "the people know it's bad"? or "It's been a failure, over-budget and collapsing"????

The reason is simple...it's popular. And the OBVIOUS "conservative solution"...i.e. eliminating it and replacing it with some "free market solution"....is NOT popular and that fact is embarassing to your ideology.

Ergo...you want to change to subject to something you CAN try to debate.