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Mr. Freeze

Offut Air Force Base facing shutdown if Nelson doesn't approve Healthcare

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I don't even want the bill to pass at this point. As it stands, every American would be required by law to buy insurance. Sure, they can't deny coverage or raise premiums because of preexisting conditions but they can just charge everybody more. The government can subsidize costs for some but that just means some of us will be paying twice.

It all adds up to a "bailout" for the richest industry in the country (with the possible exception of oil).

The president needs to veto this and the Democrats should grow some goddamn balls and rewrite the bill based on what has been proven to work for every other first-world country on the planet.

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The bill is bullshit and that right there is fucking extortion. Seriously...if the executive branch can just threaten congress into voting for what they want, why bother having a democracy (or republic or whatever)? It defeats the purpose of the system of checks and balances.

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Be wary because blogs can themselves be tools for politics.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20091215/NEWS/712159842

Bucket said:
I don't even want the bill to pass at this point. As it stands, every American would be required by law to buy insurance. Sure, they can't deny coverage or raise premiums because of preexisting conditions but they can just charge everybody more. The government can subsidize costs for some but that just means some of us will be paying twice.

It should depend on how high that subsidizing can go, but without a reform in health industry practices, not much. The industry is huge, and because of its reach into the international market, it has a hold on the internal market that makes health care expensive for people requiring it.

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No, this bill, even watered down, needs to pass. Even in its weakened state, this will still be the most monumental improvement to healthcare, in the US, in at least 50 years.

The Republican party has clearly given up on even pretending to give a shit about citizens and have, instead, decided that they should unanimously oppose ANY health reform, no matter what (unless a republican proposed the same thing)... instead of offering ANY input or ideas at all.

I try not to be partisan, but in the last 10 years, the Republicans have given me 0 reasons to vote for them as a major party. Fixing the Broken healthcare system has fallen squarely on the Democrat's shoulders and at least they're TRYING to get something done. The party has fought uphill to get this far and a defeat would kill health reform for another 15 years. one of the major initiatives of this bill is that Health care is a RIGHT not a commodity (the language that insurers can no longer deny a person for any reason). This is a huge step. There will be more health care reforms in the future, but this needs to pass first.

Seriously, we're majorly fucked if the Republican party stops this since they have NO ideas and would do nothing about healthcare when they come back into power. yeah, the Democratic party is inept and the billy is full of shitty things... but what bill isn't? This bill is our only shot at managing health care costs for a long time.

Edit: Also agreed with myk: don't trust anything that comes from the Weekly Standard.

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Scuba Steve said:

No, this bill, even watered down, needs to pass. Even in its weakened state, this will still be the most monumental improvement to healthcare, in the US, in at least 50 years.

For whom is the question. If my insurance bill goes up much at all, I won't be able to afford it any longer. Only now I'm somehow required to pay for it? What exactly am I supposed to do? Go into a state-mandated bankruptcy??

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But the effects of NOT passing the health care bill are even worse. In 2016, the Congressional Budget Office determined that, at current inflation rates for health care, a family of 4 earning 54,000 would be paying $10,000 a year in health care premiums, compared to ~$4000 if this bill is passed. I'm not arguing that this bill is great... but it's better than the status quo we've been stuck in for the last 15 years.

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Craigs said:

Politics suck.


Agreed :P

I live in Canada, so my health care is great. I've heard America is getting it pretty rough right now, but I support the Democrats 99% of the time so I hope its for the good.

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Scuba Steve said:

But the effects of NOT passing the health care bill are even worse. In 2016, the Congressional Budget Office determined that, at current inflation rates for health care, a family of 4 earning 54,000 would be paying $10,000 a year in health care premiums, compared to ~$4000 if this bill is passed. I'm not arguing that this bill is great... but it's better than the status quo we've been stuck in for the last 15 years.

So the problem is that private for-profit insurance companies are sucking the American people dry, and yet somehow the best solution is to make it ILLEGAL to be uninsured. Yes, makes perfect sense.

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You might want to check history out a bit, too.

You know how public debt is primarily made? By not attending taxes and making them less progressive, allowing certain businesses to gain prominence and forcing part of the population to get owned by them, while spending a good deal on security and war.

You want Obama to magically fix what Bush broke without compromising the principles Bush was defending. It's a bit late for that, and you'll have to wait a while. You'll have to do with him patching society a bit so that people in general can have some opportunity to work and earn their share instead of being kicked into a ditch to live on charity or theft.

Bucket said:
Yes, makes perfect sense.

It's kind of weird, yeah, although in a place where half the population hates taxes, it starts to make some sense.

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Quasar said:

For whom is the question. If my insurance bill goes up much at all, I won't be able to afford it any longer. Only now I'm somehow required to pay for it? What exactly am I supposed to do? Go into a state-mandated bankruptcy??

Exactly. I have health insurance now, but I'm going to be quitting my job soon, thus losing it. I'm likely going to be getting a lower-paying job while having to pay for college. How the fuck am I going to be able to pay for health insurance on top of that when I'm already having one hell of a time paying my bills as it is?

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Wait wait wait... i probably shouldn't be getting my politics news from posts on Doomworld, but i thought this "healthcare bill" was:

"Free state-funded medical care for the poor who can't afford thier own medical insurance"

But instead it appears to be:

"Cheap, by comparison but still a lot, medical insurance that the poor will be effectively forced to buy"

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Danarchy said:

Exactly. I have health insurance now, but I'm going to be quitting my job soon, thus losing it. I'm likely going to be getting a lower-paying job while having to pay for college. How the fuck am I going to be able to pay for health insurance on top of that when I'm already having one hell of a time paying my bills as it is?


I can't afford health insurance at all. Period. Back in the spring of this year my anxiety must have flared up something horrible and I had these weird palpitations and tachycardia that lasted for days and did not go away I could not even get to sleep. It was horrible. I had never experienced anything like that before, I honestly thought something was wrong and it seemed it was getting worse over a couple days. I had no choice, I went to the emergency room. After they laughed me out of there I had went to the clinic and saw a doctor twice he had me wear a holter monitor for 24 hours and I also saw a cardiologist once after that on the doctors recommendation. I had a couple tests done and 8 months later I have almost $6000 in medical bills that I pay very very slowly as i can afford to. Also, nothing was or is wrong with my heart...sigh. If only I had almost died or something, my bills would be justified.

Since I can't afford health insurance I had applied for state assistance. I was completely denied because as they put it 'i owned more than $1000 in assets'. They valued my car, which I probably couldn't get $300 for, it at almost $2000.

I know anecdotes are worthless and I don't know what the answers are. I don't know what the best system to put in place would be. But the system we have now is fucking bullshit. Scuba may be right, something, anything at all needs to be done or we're back to square one.

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The best system is to pay for the entire thing with public money and destroy the insurance industry. There shouldn't be an industry for something like health insurance; it's barbaric. We still have one here for some things, which pisses me off too, but at least we can go to the hospital without losing everything we own.

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I can barely afford to get by day to day and now I'll be expected to purchase mandated health care? Keep telling yourself that this bill needs to pass and while you're at it, send me a check every month or so to help me out and I'll be inclined to agree with you.

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Aliotroph? said:

The best system is to pay for the entire thing with public money and destroy the insurance industry. There shouldn't be an industry for something like health insurance; it's barbaric. We still have one here for some things, which pisses me off too, but at least we can go to the hospital without losing everything we own.

Agreed totally. Unless you take down the insurance company from health care the whole thing is meaningless.

Sadly we have the best of both worlds here in Canada. We get free medical evaluation and operations, but we still must pay for the medication. If I came down with cancer, I'd have a chair to sit in but no chemo to put into my veins.

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Ralphis said:

I can barely afford to get by day to day and now I'll be expected to purchase mandated health care? Keep telling yourself that this bill needs to pass and while you're at it, send me a check every month or so to help me out and I'll be inclined to agree with you.


We will. We are going to help subsidize your rates.

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deathbringer said:

"Cheap, by comparison but still a lot, medical insurance that the poor will be effectively forced to buy"

Cheap? I wish. I'm fairly sure that once they have everyone on forced health care, the insurance companies will start jacking up their rates. They have us by the balls now.

Yet maybe Scuba and the like have a point. Once we see how terrible the current bill is when it comes in effect, they'll be forced to switch to something better to get us all out of this clusterfuck.

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Georgef551 said:

Hitler.


Mention Hitler one more time and I'm going to hunt you down and kick you in the balls, even if it's the last thing I do.

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Georgef551 said:
Scare tactics.

Guess who was famous for that?

Hitler.

So, the conservatives (Republicans) are like Hitler now?

I'm asking because apparently they tried to scare people into thinking Obama would move the base to influence Nelson.

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I think what REoL means is that everyone has a little bit of Hitler in them!

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<scaremongering>
Who said anything about moving the base? Obama's offering it to the Chinese in exchange for a chunk of the national debt.
</scaremongering>

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myk said:

So, the conservatives (Republicans) are like Hitler now?

I'm asking because apparently they tried to scare people into thinking Obama would move the base to influence Nelson was a Muslim terrorist.

FTFY

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