Sorry Jackee, you're the one that has it backwards. He talks to middle America, and does it pretty effectively based on the election tally. If you take it as being talked down to, then perhaps you aren't the middle America target.

Not all parts of our lives. Unlike our last preznit, Obama doesn't seem that interested in my sex life.

Obama has always talked to us like we were adults and actually more mature than our behavior indicates.

Notice that during his last performance he took a question from an 11-year old. He can deal only with children. Hehe! The pediatrician will take take your toncil out.
If you are a diabetic the doctor should make sure you take your pills. How? Is he supposed to come to your house everyday to check? Is there going to be a "best practice" that will provide remote monitoring by the health care tsar?

My understanding, truthy, is that Obama will send ACORN to your house, who will then proceed, depending on age, to either sterilize or euthanize members of your family.

There are some political realities that are never going away. Obama has to negotiate with the powers that be who decide costs--if you want a free market economy rather than that awful--gasp!--socialism everyone's yelling about where the government regulates everything. And negotiation means "What's in it for us?" Big Pharma probably wasn't going to go near broadcasts on C-Span.

Also Obama is under tremendous pressure to do this *now*--to get his foot in so the process is set and will continue and finally we'll have some kind of health care system that provides for all citizens. It's all wrong--it should be thoughtful, deliberated, transparent--but that's not how the world works these days.

Wasn't the provision at issue tacked on by a democrat from OR and co-sponsored by a republican from LA?

mcmchugh99,
I certainly hope you are not as childish as your post seems to indicate. The they won't play the way I want to so they should not be allowed to participate.

Why do you believe it is the responsibility of your friends and neighbors to pay for your healthcare. Are you truly so selfish and childish as to believe someone must take care of you?

Grow up, take responsibility for yourself. Freedom gives you the opportunity to achieve the best for yourself, it does not mean that everyone else should carry you. Stop whinning and take responsibility for yourself.

What the heck are you talking about?The idea came from Obamas' own policy advisor.You know,Mr.Ezekiel Emannuel,Brother to chief of staff.He said disabled and those who are not able to be productive should not get care.He also said doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too serious.He said doctors care too much about their patients.Stop posting crap you know nothing about.

Well, Clare McCaskill said that there are 106 GOP amendments compared to 46 democratic amendments in the bill she participated in writing in the Senate. But I do highly suspect that this was a set up perpetrated by GOP Isakson because they were on the floor of the house ranting about euthanesia within hours.

As most GOP contributions, this is an unnecessary expense. Geo H W Bush signed into law requirments for hospital to offer Living Wills to all adults. Most reputable M. D.s already counsel seniors on end-of-life planning and charge it as an office visit. This just allows doctors to legally double bill medicare.

mcmchugh99 you are so very mistaken. If you would like to be truly informed, go to (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1183480.html), where the Miami Herald interviewed and quoted Sen. Isakson as saying he is "vehemently" against the end-of-life provision as put into the House bill.

Isakson's recommendation in the Senate version suggests that Medicare pay for things like a living will, IF the covered individual REQUESTS it.

The proposed House bill amendment, as written and submitted by Dems, REQUIRES that:
-everyone after age 65 receive counseling on end-of-life choices,
-every 5 years (or more frequently if serious illness occurs),
-pays doctors extra if they can coerce (my word) a patient into these discussions (with referrals to government-funded orgs. able to provide such services).

Big, BIG difference between covering something and requiring something.

And frankly, when the government intrudes so far into our lives as to REQUIRE end-of-life planning, it has moved way too close to that edge where the next step is defining when and for whom life must end. Many things that begin with altruistic ideals have ended in tyranny.

We won't allow America to get that close.

So glad to see an MD chime in. From what I've read it's the end of life care our system is staggering under.

If it's the area causing the most harm, it must be addressed.

Who is making the decision to do all these extraordinary measures?

Doctors who are concerned their viewed upholding the Hippocrates oath? Grieving, guilty(?), stricken families? Paniced individuals who would rather face anything rather than death?

Knowing that might help the discussion along.

This is a great and dangerous point the doctor makes. We don't have infinite resources, and it's reasonable and moral that sometimes people should go without. The deal is, who decides?

HealwithSteel MD, I find your post so pathetic, with unacceptable generalities, that you are frightening (if you are indeed a physician). You clearly would make a good provider/member of a government-run health care system.

The first offensive quote: "if the gentleman above was a 76 year old male who was able to walk and communicate the week prior to hospitalization,"....I say, how in hell does "walking" make a difference in value between those who should be saved and those not. I have worn braces for 50 years, and now cannot walk at all. I retired 2 years ago, having spent a lifetime as an Actuary. There are so many of our troops coming back, who cannot walk. Many are wheelchair-bound, and could be bed-bound from time to time. Are they of no value? Do you trade our lives for someone who can walk?

What if that walking person is an idiot, in the form of some of the posters encountered on these boards? Say an IQ of 50. So you can save a brilliant, non-walking IQ of say 140, or the walking person with a 50 IQ. Who is of greater value? What if the walking person is a murderer? Do you save him over the non-walking guy with the 140 IQ?

And as for your ICU analogy, about 8 years ago, post surgery, I woke up in ICU because of unexpected bleeding. Eight years later, I visit my doctor annually for a routine check-up. Again, would you have let me die? It was difficult, but hardly "purgatory".

If you had the brains and problem-solving abilities that I require of a good physician, you would never have made such generic, unsubstantiated, statements, without thinking through all of the ramifications. When YOU (or government) starts making those kind of decisions, where does it stop? Besides physical abilities, do we evaluate mental capabilities? What IQ would you have to have to be chosen to survive? Are stupid athletes more valuable than brilliant geeks? FYI, it is the brilliant geeks who brought us the internet on which we are communicating. What if we find that one particular race is using more health care dollars per person than another? Do we allocate services by race?

If you are indeed a physician as you say, you need to develop your ability to connect the dots. You clearly have thought it through part way, but you need to go further. Either everyone's life is of great value, or no one's life is of value. When you get into allowing someone else to define who is and who is not valuable, you start down the road (and can easily wind up) where Hitler and the Nazis did. The first person that Hitler euthanized was a child who was missing 2 limbs, and he compassionately gave in to the request of his parents to allow that child to die, because the child would never have a normal life. Study history, and maybe history will not repeat itself.

End-of-life treatment is NOT what is making costs skyrocket. We have ALWAYS had end-of-life. This bill doesn't even address how do reduce costs.

DD3075 - Congratulations on well-written rhetoric, unfortunately it has nothing to do with this doctor's point. The man in question had legally expressed his wishes not to be resuscitated or intubated. Since I assume you're a freedom-loving American, could you explain why a person should be forced to live a painful and miserable last few days against their will? I suspect that it's due to your religious convictions, which should have no bearing on national policy. Aside from this main point, which you completely ignored in your reply, your tirade consists of nothing other than typical Palinistic-militia dogma, essentially stating that if we give the government an inch they will assume ten miles. A tired, slippery slope argument that no doubt is beneath your obvious intelligence level.

Just wondering if the doc will be at the march on Washington scheduled for Oct 1st,09. You can read about it in the Las Vegas Review Journal from 8/14/09. It refers to physicians, heathworkers , and other concerned citizens who have had enough of being jerked around by insurance companies, and HMO's and their big Pharma connections. They will make up the bulk of the hoped for marchers, so please come.

LordAlex, you guessed wrong.

Your statement: "Since I assume you're a freedom-loving American, could you explain why a person should be forced to live a painful and miserable last few days against their will? I suspect that it's due to your religious convictions, which should have no bearing on national policy."

Well Alex, I respected my own mother's request to not perform extreme measures, and sat by her side as she passed away. She was only 81. During her last months, I watched as the health care providers claimed that the hallucinations she was having were a result of dementia. Since my mother had always had her complete mental faculties in-tact, I asked if any new medications were being given to her, and discovered that yes, indeed, there were. They were giving her an anti-depressant. Having worked in a health-related field for most of my life, I knew about a referance book called a PDR, where I looked up the recently introduced drug, and right there, plain as day, it said that the new drug was contra-indicated (meaning don't use it) for people taking a particular thyroid medication (which my mom had been on for years), as it could cause hallucinations. I got the new med stopped, and her mental clarity returned.

So without me, and with the common belief that all old people will suffer dementia, she would have continued in some black hole of oblivion. NOTE: I suggest that everyone with a loved one who appears to have gone quickly into "dementia", double check their list of drugs in a PDR (Physician's Desk Reference).

Our entire health care system, from the doctor, to the pharmacy, to the health/home care providers, should have caught that, but didn't. Even insurance companies could code those contra-indications into a system to prevent those "errors" in treatment. So clearly, there is always room for improvement in our health care system and in the health insurance system (2 separate issues).

To answer your question as to why someone should be forced to live "against their will"; as long as it is legal for a loved-one to override a living-will, then the woman who wanted everything done to keep her husband alive for another 10 days is entitled. That, however, is a legal issue. It has no place in the discussion of health care. Her decision clearly indicated that she was not ready to let go until she had done everything possible to save him. She saw a value in him, even though the health care system (like Dr. HWS) may not, seeing him only as a drain on limited health care dollars.

With the proposed HR 3200, our health care system will be turned into nothing more than evaluations of treatment based solely on cost-benefit analysis. Cost is easy to define and analyze. It is the definition of the word "benefit" that becomes the sticky wicket. Who defines it and how? I know, because I was part of a task force for an insurance company that tried to differentiate between the "good" doctors/specialists and the "not-so-good", between "good" treatment and "not-so-good" treatment.

One of the most difficult issues was this. If a physician is excellent, then he will automatically attract the MOST difficult cases. The outcomes of these very difficult cases may appear as less effective than the outcome for very simple cases, based on initial cost, continuing costs, and overall outcome. Even death.

For instance, a broken bone in a 70 year-old with osteoporosis is significantly more difficult (and costly) to handle than the same broken bone in a younger person with strong, healthy bones. One may require a simple cast, while the other may require surgery, with insertion of bolts to stabilize. Recovery may require very little physical therapy in one compared to the other. Diff in cost, for the same broken bone, could be substantial.

If doctors are evaluated simply on numbers (cost-benefit), then they may refuse the difficult cases, those where more than the normal tests need to be performed. Then people with unusual cases, the ones that an average physician can't identify with the average battery of tests, will have a reduced chance of survival, because the harder a doctor tries to identify the problem, the more the doctor will be penalized.

We cannot move toward a hard and fast system of numerical analysis, which takes compassion, love and individual need out of the equation.

I am uninsured but I am glad the $60,000 was spent giving this elderly gentleman 10 more days of life. The $60,000 can be made up from other sources-- including maybe some doctors' salaries. Was the lack of dignity due to the fact that he had tubes in his body? What of people who live attached to tubes? Do people have to go out in top hat and tails to satisfy society's idea of "death with dignity"?

Thank you doctor for saying what I was thinking. I spent about 23 years as a critical care nurse.I did every kind of adult critical care including a renal ICU and transplant units where I watched a lot of miracles occur. But, I also watched a lot of people suffer because someone else wanted them to keep on living when they had made the decison to pass away comfortably. I watched people rot from the inside out, literally, sometimes loosing body parts. I did CPR on people in their late 90s feeling the bones in their chest crushing under my hands. I watched people beg me by mouthing the words, "Take it out" because they wanted the breathing tube removed. It makes people feel like they are choking all the time. I stuck needles in them several times a day because they had such fragile veins their IVs would blow almost as soon as they were put in. The patients decide they do not want certain procedures done and then the family decides to do them. It is not fair to the patient. We should all get what we want at the end of our lives. This end of life counseling has been going on for a long time. It is not about rationing health care it is about choices and being informed about them. In fact it is done by policy at all the hospitals I ever worked at and most of those hospitals were very interested in profit. Less done for the patient means less money for them. I volunteered with Hospice before patients were charged for it. No one got any money from the patients, but we counseled them about choices and they made their own decisions. It is not about money when patients are counseled it's about the individual making the decisions about their own life that make sense for their own belief systems. For instance, a conversation I had so many times when a death was imminent was, if I give you (or your loved one) this Morphine for pain you will likely die sooner as it depresses breathing. Most people take the option of comfort and a shorter life in that situation. I am sure there are many who will say we should withhold the pain medicine in that situation because they have never in their sheltered life seen real suffering. A nurse has to stay there the whole shift and watch the suffering. It is very stressful and one of the reasons for the nursing shortage. A few years back we started asking families into codes at one hospital I worked at. When they saw what really went on they almost always asked us to stop. We are all about saving lives, but when it comes to the end of someone's life it is insanity to torture them until their death. I believe when we have more education on several levels including changing our bad behaviors which cause us to be unhealthy we will automatically save money on health care.

Damn its good to hear someone make sense on this subject! I also have a living will, and I do not want my life turned into slow motion death because family members are afraid that letting me die naturally is somehow immoral. Personally, I will figure out some way to end my own life before I lay for years in a bed, sh*tting and p*ssing myself until I finally wither away and die filled with tubes hooked to a machine.

While I'm at it, for those who worry that the govt will be between them and their doctors, and will have life and death control over us, who do you think makes those decisions now? Health insurance bean counters, that's who. And unlike a public or coop option the health insurance industry is answerable not to the patient or the doctor, but to the stockholders. I'd take my chances with a public option any day over those people - in fact I did for 20 years in the Army, and do so now with my govt run healthcare. the best in the country!

Sounds like you have a beef with your ex. Don't drag us into it.

You're right I don't understand. I've heard this argument before and it doesn't jive with my, and those I know, personal experiences. I choose what Dr. to go to. So do my parents and retired relatives who are on Medicaid. My Aunt is 78 years old and has had chronic knee issues for a few years. She has decided to have double knee replacement surgery with the doctor of her own choosing. Under the new plan I believe, based upon partial reading of House bill, the decision of whether she is even allowed to have the surgery would be decided by the government. If she is, she would also have to use the doctor assigned to her versus the one she picked.

If my interpretation the new plan is incorrect, please let me know. I would be appreciative to know what sections in the house bill you can provide reference to that will bring clarity to this.

I currently get to choose my insurance company and my insurance company let's me choose what gets covered and my deductible. I could choose a plan for about $250/month that does not preexisting, cancer, or heart disease - oh no. I could spend $2,000/month and get new age remedies covered. I have something in between.

Why should I pay for someone else's chiropractors when I do not believe in them except for the temporary relief of pain? Why should others be prevented from seeing them if they so choose?

Why can we not produce a list of best practices and put it on the internet? Then if you have an ailment, you, your doctor, and your insurance company have access to the best practices. Much easier for your state regulators to identify abuse and to threaten license removal.

Remember in Obama's universe, 5 billion will remain uninsured, at least in this time around.

easyrider
What you described is fairly benign.
Now imagine you are a 56 year old woman. You have recurrent breast cancer that is inoperable.There is a drug that will control it and add years to your life but the Govt's Medical Advisory Committee has decided that it is to expensive. That is a death sentence based solely on cost and handed down by a bean counter.
That scenario is a fact of life in the UK and Canada and it is the potential for it to emerge as a fact of life here that has folks upset.

galeso
"Remember in Obama's universe, 5 billion will remain uninsured, at least in this time around."
5 billion? That's nearly the population OF THE ENTIRE PLANET! OMG could someone that actually has half a brain present a concise argument?

Federalist: Your Aunt recently decided to have double knee replacement surgery with the doctor of her own choosing. This was almost certainly under Medicare, that "government-run socialist" medical program.

Obama has stated many times that there will not be any changes to Medicare.

galeso: You THINK your insurance company let's you choose what gets covered and your deductible.

Check out this nugget from a July report:

"An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period."

Are you sure you want to trust private insurance companies with your health?

Your interpretation of the new plan is inaccurate, but it is an interpretation being used to terrify Medicare recipients and I would love to know what insurance company allows you to choose your own doctor. It isn't Cigna, Aetna, and any of the companies owned by Wellpoint (Blue Cross, Unicare, United Health Care, etc.) I get the impression that you have had very little dealings with the health insurance industry.

The only propose changes in the House bill is to discontinue subsidizing to health insurance industry to administer medicare. There are at least three other bills in the Senate but it is unlikely that Senators are going to do what you are suggesting. How costly and impractical do you think that would be?
You are suggesting that a small committee of doctors and medical experts would assess every senior needing a hip, knee, etc replacement to decide who was going to get one. That would require thousands of employees. People need to think through these things. If it makes no sense, it probably is a lie.

Bunx05...I already have that right as does everyone else in the country, to have those talks with their doctors. I recently went through this with my mother, to continue to fight or not. It was our decision to make. The only reason to put a "patients right" section into this new bill is to control those decisions, to control those end of life costs. You can sugar coat it anyway you want but we all know where this is headed.

No, there are no such panels - yet. When Congress realizes it has to pay for the health care for all Americans and a whole bunch of Mexican citizens, the draconian measures will make your head swim.

Sorry, momentary brain failure. Jack Abramoff was not involved in euthanasia; it was Jack Kervorkian.

Maybe you mean Jack Kevorkian instead than Abramoff. Abramoff went to jail for a lobbying scandal. Kevorkian for assisting in suicides.

Have you been to Oregon?

Actually euthanasia is now legal in Oregon. Here's a story you might be interested in, one which might help explain the concern regarding the possibility of a government "panel" evolving that may have the power to decide the worth of a person's life to society and the cost of that life to the state: http://www.katu.com/news/26119539.html

I'm well aware I'm going to die someday, but I don't believe it should be the government that decides how to administer the care I receive. "A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have." Thomas Jefferson. You may not like the government that gets elected 2, 4 or 6 years from now, yet once you give them too much power over your life, you're left with little choice what they do with the laws that have been created by prior administrations. What may help you one day can control you the next.

roger37: You are wrong. Oregon currently allows doctor-assisted suicide, and has for a number of years. Washington state recently passed a death-with-dignity law, too.

Oregon's law as worked out just fine, with very few taking advantage of it.

When I say, "euthanasia," I'm not including doctor assisted suicide. Unless I'm mistaken, the general use of the term does not include suicide. At least that's the way I understand it.

Euthanasia implies the hand of someone else doing the procedure, and I'm against that, too, as is the law. No?

"Give wine to those of heavy heart, and strong drink to those about to persish".-Paul of Tarsus circa 1st century A.D.

So wrong, here is a nice new story.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1

"The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

'It was horrible,' Wagner told ABCNews.com. 'I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won't give you the medication to live.'"

This is a black and white fact. It is history. This happened there and will happen at the national level it this bill passes.

Federalist: you said "I choose what Dr. to go to. So do my parents and retired relatives who are on Medicaid"

Medicaid is run by the government. She has a choice about knee surgery. None of that will change. What will change is doctors doing what is called "defensive" medicine... this is them ordering 18 million tests and procedures because they don't want to get sued.

The reason doctors often run 18 million tests is so that they will not be sued. We all know why the Dems are against any type of tort reform (money talks) but shouldn't it at least be on the table for discussion, especially if our goal is to help lower costs for all of us?

lmktacwa: I think you mean Medicare, not Medicaid. Medicare is the federally funded, single payer system for people over 65. It's solvent until 2020 with no changes, but some will obviously have to be made to accommodate the doubling of prices by the med industry.

Medicaid programs are tailored by and run by the individual states, and they are designed for financially destitute people who can't afford care or qualify for Medicare.

Your point about "defensive medicine" is valid, and it could be mitigated by a reasonable program of tort reform. But it shouldn't amount to a slap on the wrist for drug companies, doctors, and care facilities.

You have a ver valid point that it getting lost in the noise. I have forgetten the percentage by a huge number of employers have ceased participating in 401K including mine. We currently pay $10,800 per year for employer provided healthcare with a $1500 deductible and a $100.000 annual limit. To add insult to injury, every routine, small claim is delayed and requires phone calls, letters, having my employer contact the insurance company, etc to get ligimate claims honored.

Every large insurance company has or is settling racketeering charges in one state or another at any given time for corrupt practices. Whereas, a significant number of Americans are satisfied with the coverage they have, they tend to be young healthy Americans who rarely use their insurance.

Vi-lontano, you are not quite honest here. The reality is that if you purchase "direct" insurance, meaning not through an employer group, a person's pre-existing condition may be denied, like the teenager's acne you mentioned. An insurance company, wants as many premium payers as possible. The teenager would be insured for new conditions, just not for his acne. If he got insurance through his employer, even his acne would be covered, following an 11-month waiting period.

The entire idea of insurance is to distribute the premiums from healthy people to cover the expenses of the ill. Tell me, in what world would an un-insured have an auto accident, and then go out and purchase insurance to pay for that accident? Same applies to someone with 20 or 30 traffic tickets. That person may be denied totally. I guess you don't grasp the purpose of insurance.

"In some States healthy teenagers with Acne are denied health coverage based on "pre-existing" condition...". You said that Vi, now support your statement. NAME a state that allows that. If you 'know' someone that happened to, could it be that the state does not allow teenagers to apply for insurance because they are underage? Also, be smart enough to know that every state has their own, and differing, insurance laws. So an entire rework of insurance on a national level is unnecessary, when you can change that state's laws. But then, I don't believe it to begin with.

And to xlntcat, most legit insurance companies have a MILLION $ lifetime max. And many (if not all) of the Blue Cross Blue Shield plans have raised their lifetime max to two million, with no such thing as an annual limit.

However, large companies who insure themselves, (aka: self-funded) can establish any kind of insurance limits they want, whether they meet community standards or not. They then usually pay an insurance corporation to process their claims. I don't know who you work for, but it doesn't sound legitimate to me. In fact it sounds like a self-funded plan where your company may be skimming off the top. That's way too expensive for the benefit limits imposed. Check their Erisa reports. If those aren't available, report them to the feds.

And NO, "Every large insurance company has or is settling racketeering charges in one state or another at any given time for corrupt practices" is NOT true. I can guarantee that, as I spent 30 years employed as an Actuary for a very large insurance company, Never, let me repeat NEVER, were any racketeering charges ever filed against us. Instead, we received awards from consumer advocate groups for the exceptional care and treatment of our customers, like from JD Power and Associates.

Alan, what you are talking about for WellPoint,et al, is a process known as rescission. That means that your health insurance can be canceled if you lied on your application. For instance, most pre-existing condition restraints are in effect during an 11-month waiting period. After you have been insured for 11 months, your pre-existing condition is covered. Some people, however, choose to lie on their insurance application, like failing to report that your child has had tonsilitis 5 times in the past 2 years. If that child is newly enrolled in an insurance policy, and within 2 or 3 months he has a tonsillectomy, his coverage will be canceled for fraud......rescission.

I spent 30 years as an Actuary, and I know that legit insurance companies have Medical Review staffs that look for that type of fraud. We program particular diagnosis codes into the system that will trigger a review like my tonsillitis example. I asked why people who lie on their applications are not prosecuted for fraud, and was told it is too costly from the legal standpoint. So they are simply canceled.

Until a few years ago (could be 10), pregnancy was a pre-existing condition, so if you delivered a baby, say 4 months after enrolling, it was not covered, because you were obviously pregnant when you enrolled. Now it would be covered, but it leaves the insurance companies open to those who pay maybe $1,000 in premiums, have a baby, get their delivery costs covered (maybe $15,000), and then drop their insurance. In other words, the patient stole $14,000 out of the pockets of everyone else insured by that company.

When fraud and abuse is allowed, those costs are passed onto everyone else insured by that company. Rescission (canceling people who lied on their application) protects all of the honest people who told the truth.

And FYI, Blue Cross Blue Shields are NOT-FOR-PROFIT corporations. You do not find them on the stock exchange.

Blue Cross Blue Shield is not on the stock exchange but Wellpoint Health who owns BCBS is most assuredly on the Stock Exchange.

@xlntcat

You seem to have the real world experience that is lacking in many of the responders here.

Even the actuary "DD3075" is reporting on data 10 yrs or so old (as they say themselves).

Over the last eight years, what he/she doesn't realize, this has drastically changed. Insurance companies Are making record profits at a time when the rest of the country is teetering on depression. The WHO (world health organization) rates our medical care 37th of developed nations
yet we spend about $6,000/person more....

I see these terrified seniors on TV
They are really scared!!! and we need to address this

what they don't realize is that these same terror tactics were
used by the same party, The Repubs, in the 1930s to fight things like Social Security and Medicare.

They were telling people then that we'd all be wearing dog tags, all be fingerprinted and live lives totally controlled by the State If the Dems FORCED social security on us.

This is self-serving propaganda then as it is now.

The Repubs Support big buisness. They Do Not want to contribute to the collective community (despite claiming they are the Only Christians, guess they never read "what so ever you do to the least of my brothers...)

They want to dismantle public works...they do not want to reform because they want them to fail....

Their is So much to discuss with this health care issue...I don't agree with everything either...but lets have the debate...not kill it in its crib...

People are being pulled off life support every day in Texas.
Against their doctors recommendations and family wishes.
Because the REPUBLICANS passed a bill allowing hospitals to pull the plug when INSURANCE COMPANIES stop paying.

That was her choice and you respected her choice.

Nicely stated!

pricklypear:

That's the point of the bill. Patients should have more choices and more rights. Current;y, insurance companies make choices for you.

Bunx05:
It depends on the coverage, doesn't it. My mother's-in-law does not depend on that.

you are paranoid.

If the government ever was in a position to start making decisions about when people die (who are not on death row or in war or being tortured by republicans), you can bet your ass that it won't be just conservatives who rise up and in anger against the government.

All liberals, moderates, conservatives, and non-affiliated people would rise up against the government, arm in arm.

And additionally, it was a republican who entered the "talk to your doctor about end of life decisions" legislation. The republican either had good intentions that his own party is now freaking out over, OR, he entered the legislation as a ruse and purposely seeded this set of burning in hell lies the (R) party is now fueling.

I'm not against end of life consultations, just the acceptance of euthanasia as it is today in Oregon. Guess you don't live in Oregon. Dr. "Death" Kervorkian is from Michigan, his assisted suicide devices came out in 1989, he helped 130 people to die. Many doctors of elderly do not euthanize today, but they don't push for life-saving treatments either. If the assisted suicide option becomes available, and the government wants to reduce costs, there's no doubt that a patient will be told and encouraged about that option.

Imktacwa - Exactly! It's amazing that there has been this shift from the left being berated for being "bleeding heart" to being portrayed as wannabe grannie killers. This whole strategy stinks of Rove. The whole "bleeding heart" think wasn't getting traction any more so it's been shifted into a delusional paranoid mindset where dems are cold hearted killers in the making.

The public option will NOT be just an option. It will drive private insurance companies out of business, and it is INTENDED to do that. Over on YouTube, look up ""Obama In His Own Words Saying His Health Care Plan Will Eliminate Private Insurance," and you can see Obama and other Democrats talk about their plans to get single payer system through stealth methods.

Obama knows his real plan has no chance in America - with its government bureaucrats deciding who gets life-saving treatment and who gets sent home with a pain pill (and they even stop giving out those after a while, as millions of Brits suffering back pain will tell you).

Because Americans will reject having their our right to make our own health care decisions taken away, Obama uses stealth, lies, and manipulation. Disgusting.

The progressives who think he's doing this for the greater good should consider that they are being betrayed as well. Big pharmaceutical companies are pouring major dollars into supporting Obamacare. This indicates it benefits them, not the little guy.

A manipulative liar will betray anyone he needs to betray when it suits his needs.

YOU need to think. The public option will be the only option for those currently without coverage (excluding, of course, the millions who can afford but choose not to purchase health insurance). Because it will be less expensive (as a result of the government setting the costs), a large percentage of employers will drop private insurance, and the vast majority of those employees will have no choice other than the public option. Private insurance, which even today is footing part of the bill for Medicare and Medicaid, will become even more costly and less accessible. No one is arguing that the public option will eclipse private insurance because it will be superior in terms of treatment, rather, they are saying that government can always print money or raise taxes and thereby destroy private insurance because it will always be less expensive.

Nothing today is preventing a doctor from discussing advanced directives with a patient and billing it as an office visit; the fact that the option for these discussions is included under the section on cost saving measures in the legislation is, to coin a term, "fishy."

Well reasoned, thoughtful discussion, Mr. Siegel!

Cara-C: I suggest you stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, and definitely stop watching Fox News.

Cara-C: By the way, if you think that private insurance companies are worth saving, check out this report from July:

"An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period."

Don't you just love that profit motive?

"Any tyrant will find an excuse for his tyranny." Just a quote I wanted to share, and Cara-C is very correct. Good post Cara.

As for the end-of-life debate, Charles Lane from the Washington Post said [Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite "purely voluntary," as Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) asserts. To me, "purely voluntary" means "not unless the patient requests one." Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that's an incentive to insist.]

And if you read the bill, it states in it which "alternatives" for ending one's life should be "discussed", like refusing hydration, refusing food, refusing medication, etc.

There are no paragraphs in the bill that actually address reducing health care costs, or the issues that continue to make those costs skyrocket (like torte reform, and free care for ILLEGALS). It is simply a power-grab from this administration. Power over your individual choices for health care.

Notice that Obama has switched from calling it a health care bill to attacks on health insurance. They are not one and the same. They are 2 totally separate and distinct topics. Because he has had success at generating public hatred of giant corporations, like GM, like the banks, like Wall Street, like AIG and CitiGroup, as support for his health care bill wains, he is looking for a target that will unite support via hatred. As we have seen in his recent speeches, and we can see it here on this site, the new target he has isolated are the insurance companies.

Your "choices" will deteriorate as private insurance companies go out of business, because they will be left with the sickest and costliest people, while the younger and healthier slowly migrate to the cheaper government-run insurance. They are young and healthy, and not likely to use it, so why care what kind of coverage is there?

Also, Health insurers are prohibited by the gov. from changing benefits or raising rates. If they do, they must implement coverage identical to the gov. plan (an HMO). HMOs restrict which doctors you can see and which hospitals you can go to. Picture America as one big HMO, where you have to get permission (from the gov.) to see a specialist.

Now picture the limited funds that are available for the entire country's health care, and you can see where the rationing begins. Dr. Ezekial Emmanuel (Rham's brother) is one of 2 advisers to the POTUS re: health care, and he has written papers questioning spending money on the health of the elderly and disabled, when it could be better spent on younger, healthier people. "one 18 year-old is worth 14 85-year-olds.

Yeah, this would definitely slide us toward RATIONED health care. The critical concern is: it's NOT how it all starts out, it's where we wind up, years down the road.

Cara-C is confused. Medicare has not killed private insurers; in fact, with the available Medicare options, private insurers actually make money. Another fact, big pharma companies are not supporting Obama, they are pouring money into nutcase groups against him (you know, the clowns at rallies who scream about God and taxes and carry silly pictures of Obama with Hitler moustaches).

Yes.

That is exactly the type question that will be asked when the government runs into cost restriction.

They already run programs like farm subsidies, and they choose who will get the limited funds. If you are not chosen, your farm may go bankrupt. They also choose which states get funding for road and highway construction, and when.

The time will come, if this bill passes, when the gov. would be forced to choose who will and will not receive health care. Simple as that.

Cuppajo, that's one of the things the President has absolutely required from Congress. I don't believe he will support a bill that takes away the insurance people already have. The people who say you'll lose your current insurance are flat out liars. The only way that would happen is if a public option drove them out of business, but with the amazing record profits they have now, I don't think that a little government competition would be able to kill them. After all, medicare competes with private insurance today, and private insurance is stronger than ever.

Well, good for you. Apparently I have the same kind of health insurance that you have. The big difference between you and me is that (a) I don't have an *I got mine* attitude and (b) I'm willing to make sacrifices for others, even though I hope it doesn't come to that.

There's the rub - sounds like your care provider hasn't been tested. It might be different if your child comes down with a degenerative illness that requires 10 years of very expensive treatment. They are making money on you, so you get great service... but when you become a financial liability, especially an ongoing one, then you will find out what they are made of. You like to play roulette?

Cuppajo, It won't leave private health insurance alone. Corporations who provide health insurance to their employees will stop putting up the cost and simply pay the smaller government fee. They can't make you change immediately, but the minute you take a new job you will be limited to the government plan through your company. Yes you can still go outside the government but you will have to pay more to the private providers because the demand for their service (as it will be more complete and without the hassles of dealing with the government) will be higher. There is no commodity which the government can supply better than a free market.

connie I have an I want to take care of my family attitude. Thanks for your snarky input.

teh, you do BELIEVE he bill support this kind of bill, but how do we know this?

Actually, I have an issue that is ongoing Cymatic. I have had no issues thus far.

We just want to know what reform really means. The rich and the well-connected will ALWAYS have the best of whatever. We just want to know what we will STILL be paying for and and what our losses will be. Just because we want answers doesn't mean we don't want others to have affordable coverage. We want answers.

Cuppajo, a recent survey found that the people who are very satisfied with their health insurance have never used it for a complex and expensive condition. That's when the problems with the systems start to show, as insurance companies try to worm out of paying for the needed care. I'm guessing you have no experience with this - but I do.

So, what happens when your company drops health care? Then what?

"teh, you do BELIEVE he bill support this kind of bill, but how do we know this?"

He has made the promise in public numerous times. He has posted this promise on the Reality Check website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/3

That's as certain as something can get in the legislative process. We know what he supports because that's what he says. We also know that it's the right thing to do. If someone is so paranoid about the President that they can't accept that he'll do the right thing when he says so, there's something wrong with the political debate.

"He promised."

and I am referred to the "web site"...AND a promise of a politician......

prickly, how do I know anything *you* say is honest? Why don't you prove to me that you don't support Al Qaeda? Why don't you prove to me that you've never murdered anyone? All you can give me to prove these negatives is your word, and all I can do is trust your word as a fellow citizen. The same is true if you ask the President to prove he's not lying. All he can do is give you his promise, over and over again, recorded on TV, in print, and on the internet. He can't prove a negative any more than you can.

It is a fine American thing to distrust politicians. God knows that they have told their share of whoppers on both sides of the aisle. But the way we take them to task is by holding them to their word. When Obama promises not to take away anyone's private health insurance, let his team know that you support that promise. Let them know that he'd better keep it! If he doesn't keep it, then take him to task, work for an opposing candidate in the next election, whatever it takes.

Simply suggesting that his promises aren't worth trusting gets us nowhere. All it does is spread fear. There are people who want nothing more than to turn the President into a boogeyman, to make America fear everything he does, to disbelieve everything he says. I say, use your own voice, and your own senses to determine what the truth is. Don't believe the fearmongers. You have Obama's position straight from his own mouth, so you can't tell us you don't know where he stands.

cuppajo, this so-called "web site" has a stack of primary sources on which it relies for information. You, on the other hand, are relying on your own declaration that "it doesn't seem likely." Why doesn't it seem likely?

If you don't want to read any biased web sites, try factcheck.org or politifact.com. These are non-partisan sites whose only job is to separate truth from fiction. The facts are available to you, and simply sitting around and mooning about how you mistrust politicians is thoroughly unproductive.

and tehixe, if the system is so broken (it is not perfect), why would I get to keep my private option anyway? So the whole premise of this health care fix seems flawed from the get go.

"and tehixe, if the system is so broken (it is not perfect), why would I get to keep my private option anyway? So the whole premise of this health care fix seems flawed from the get go."

Have you thought about researching this issue? The Daily Beast comment page is not exactly a primary source, it's a bunch of people spouting off opinions. If you want to know, there's a world wide web only a Google away. The facts are not hidden, they are in plain sight and you can learn them if you choose to.

That said, I think everyone recognizes that the system can be fixed without having to wipe it out and start over. A single payer system has zero chance of passing the House and Senate, even though there is a segment of the Democratic party that would support it. Congress has so far compromised with a public option that would compete with, and not replace private health insurance. But why take it from me when there are dozens if not hundreds of neutral sources that could tell you the same?

cuppajo: Your "I have an I want to take care of my family attitude" is fine for you.

What about the 22,000 uninsured Americans who die each year? Aren't they as deserving as your family?

Don't guilt me AlanD, it won't work. My family=My responsibilty. You take care of your family, I will take care of mine.

Teh, fair point, as long as the prez keeps his hands off my heath care, then I will be fine, but I am skeptical.

Skeptical is fine. Skeptical is American. The problem we've been seeing is skepticism turning into gullibility. You should be skeptical of your leaders in Washington, but you should be equally skeptical of lobbyist groups and fake think tanks and the industry itself. We have far to often of late seen people who are skeptical of the government, but not skeptical of the corporations who would crash the economy for their own greed yet again, given the chance. One the one hand you have the government with its genuine desire to fix a broken system. And on the other, you have a set of companies who are raking in cash from the current system. Who should you really trust?

cuupajo probably is some 3rd generation old money, lucky in life,not knowing or caring about anyone but himself.
But hey, that OK, we will see about Lazarus at the rich man's gate validity soon enough.
God knows time moves as slow as sap from a maple tree when one is young, but runs as swiftly as a raging river when one is old.

Ask any honest healthcare provider. The system is more than broken. It is on life support. Medicare/medicaid will be out of funds within the decade. We have a shortage of nurses and a greater shortage of professor's who teach nursing. Doctor's are opting for the higher paid specialties leaving gaps in the system. The paperwork requires 37% of healthcare cost to go to administration, different forms, different requirement for hundreds of different insurance providers. Rural area have no doctors or hospitals. In my state their are no public hospitals. Employers can't compete within the U S due to the high cost of health insurance, so they take the jobs elsewhere.

When medicare goes broke and grandma has no healthcare that is what will kill grandma.

Yeah Bullmoose, b/c anyone that is questioning this house bill has to be some evil rich person. What a crock!

Government-run health care in Canada and England routinely kills people by denying them care or by delaying care long enough that they die in the meantime.

In a strict single-payer system, patients do not even have the right to try to pay for their own tests or procedures. If the government decides it won't treat your life-threatening illness, you get to go home and die.

Here, if your insurance company won't cover something, there are still options. You have the right to pay for whatever test you like. If you can't afford it, there are still options. You can use a credit card, you can borrow from family and friends, you can seek private charity. You can call doctors and clinics until you find one who will run the tests for free or on a sliding scale. You can take your case to the media. You have the right to try to save your life.

Under a strict single payer system, rationing is standard and it is illegal to try to get around it. So desperate to live or to relieve the agonizing pain you're in that you offer to pay for your own care? That's bribery! You are completely at the mercy of the government.

Cara, that is simply NOT TRUE. My 99 year-old Scottish father in law just died in London, after living with my sister in law until he got too sick and senile. He was enrolled (by my sister-in-law) in a government run center, visited regularly by a doctor and nurses, and he died peacefully.

In his latter years, he had gone through Prostate Cancer, advanced senility, problems with his sciatic nerve, and many issues of aging. Nobody ever denied him care or delayed his care. The thought is ridiculous.

And, patients do indeed have the opportunity for private health procedures in the UK. Actually, a whole cadre of private docs that operate outside of the National Health Service are available.

Where in the world do you get this information? And BTW, I'm a member of a single payer system called Medicare. I have no restrictions except for things like cosmetic surgery. And I choose all my own docs.

And don't lay that crap about Medicare being bankrupt on us. Even if ZERO changes are made, Medicare is solvent until 2020. We have to accomodate the baby boom and the doubling of medical costs, but we have 10 years to do it.

Cara-C: The private-insurance-run health care in America routinely kills people by denying them care or by delaying care long enough that they die in the meantime. (After all, they have to make a profit, right?)

I'm sure that the 22,000 uninsured Americans who die each year are very sympathetic toward your position. If only they were rich enough to follow your "options"...

You own it, on preventive care. My late mother worked for, and was insured by, Prudential. When she started having breathing troubles, her insurance would not pay for a chest X-ray, despite the fact that she had smoked at one time and that she (and Pru) resided in an area with the highest incidence of lung CA in the nation. When they found the cancer, of course, it was stage 4.

Admittedly, she opted for palliative care only. Others who are subjected to this cost exclusion may not, and the results will probably cost the company more than the X-ray would have cost.

The industry's exclusion of preventive diagnostics and maintenance is a strong argument for public option and single-payer.