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Under Obama's plan, from where would the government derive the authority to make health care decisions?
I keep hearing that the government is going to "ration" health care and euthanize elderly people. I also hear the word "freedom" get thrown around, as if the plan is going to shackle us to the whims of some government bureaucracy. But I have browsed through the house and senate plans front to back and read a lot of analysis of both plans, and all I really find are financial reforms, some consumer protections, and some extensions of medicaid. It looks to me like the same old insurance companies will be rationing our health care as usual, only now they'll be forbidden from dropping coverage, arbitrarily hiking premiums, or telling us what doctors we can go to. Would somebody mind showing me what specific provisions will give the government any authority over our actual health care?
"You don't think that mandatory end of life counseling every 5 years starging at age 65 is as impingement on your freedeom? "
In HR 3200, around page 425, there is a provision which extends medicare to cover "advance care planning". Is this what you are referring to? Which part did you interpret to mean the counseling is mandatory?
"He also has said he wants to set up government panels run by medical professionals to get the statistically best method for treating disease and that is what people will get."
Don't both the government and insurance companies have these panels in the status quo? Aside from that, I still don't see how the bill would give these panels any sort of authority. Private insurance companies will make the decision whether or not to cover our medical procedures, subject to certain stipulations in the bill. And I can't find any stipulation which allows the government to override the insurance companies to deny coverage that they would otherwise have given.
"If everyone paid their own bill and didnn't expect their employer to or their neighbor or government to pay it health care wouldn't cost so freaking much."
This is off topic, but do you think people deserve to die from a treatable disease if they can't afford to pay the bill? Do you have any idea how much cancer drugs cost?
"There will be a group of bureaucrats that will determine what and what not will be covered simply by the budgets they are allotted."
The government can't legally do anything unless it first passes a law which says it can. That's why they call it "law", and why we have courts to enforce it. So in order for you to be right, there would have to be some provision in HR 3200 which establishes a group of coverage-denying bureaucrats. Where is that provision?
"By governing what kind of coverage an insurance company can have, they are dictating the private industry..."
Where does it say that anybody can govern "what kind of coverage an insurance company can have"? You seem very sure of this, so you shouldn't have much trouble enlightening me.
"...and running them out of business forcing the citizen to move over onto the government plan."
Now I'm really confused. From what I have read, the government plan operates through the private insurance companies and does not directly provide insurance to anyone (except for people on medicare and medicaid of course). So if they run the insurance companies out of business, then there is no more government plan. Are we talking about the same thing?
OK! Somebody who actually bothered to look at the bill! But apparently not read it...
Section 101 (title I) does indeed characterize what plans are allowed and what plans aren't. The relevant subtitles (quoted from the bill):
"(1) Subtitle B (relating to affordable coverage).
(2) Subtitle C (relating to essential benefits).
(3) Subtitle D (relating to consumer protection)."
The only one of these that actually has anything to do with health care is subtitle C, which outlines the minimum requirements for what a plan will cover. I did not find any passage which gives the government authority to limit coverage for any reason.
Section 102 simply enforces section 101: no new standards appear anywhere. In other words, the bill without section 102 would be a health care suggestion rather than health care reform.
Finally, regarding section 123, turn to page 32 to the part where the bill outlines the duties of the committee established in that section:
"The Health Benefits Advisory Committee shall recommend to the Secretary of Health and Human Services ... benefit standards (as defined in paragraph (4)), and periodic updates to such standards."
In paragraph (4), the bill defines benefits standards as standards respecting (A) the essential benefits package and (B) the cost sharing levels for the "enhanced" and "premium" plans. And the "essential benefits package" consists of, as it says on line 19 of page 27 in section 122, the "minimum services to be covered". In other words, the committee is created to make sure that the basic health insurance plan improves with advances in medical techniques. I can't find any passage which gives this committee or any government official the power to forbid an insurance company from covering any medical procedure.
Finally, I'm very sorry if all this reading and thinking is too difficult, but I don't think it's fair to call it "a lot of crap". It would be "a lot of crap" if I repeated outlandish falsehoods over and over without providing any justification for them. People are can tell me whatever they want to about Obama and Nancy Pelosi, but unless somebody can come up with any evidence to the contrary I am forced to conclude that the bill they wrote will not give the government any power to ration or deny coverage for any medical procedure to any American. That power will remain exactly where it is now: with health insurance companies. The only difference is that they will have to use that power fairly.
23 Answers
- justaLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
A short answer to your long question. You are correct, there has been a concerted effort to spread disinformation. It is a base appeal to peoples' fears without their being able to understand the rather complex language of a legal document.
Your assessment of the program is also correct, no death panels, rationing decision by bureaucrat, no removal of freedom, except that of dying without coverage. And passing that cost onto everyone else.
We aren't inventing the wheel here, we are the last industrialized country to institute a national coverage, not the first. Or even the tenth.
We have had many models to choose from, and we have the option of looking at other countries and choosing what has been shown to work, and not using what has worked poorly.
We spend more and get less than other countries, making a mockery out of those who insist we cannot afford it, when what we can't afford is to let our current methods continue.
- Anonymous5 years ago
They are things that can only be discovered after hundreds and hundreds of trials. And of course, strict restriction needs to be in place. However, because the basis of science is always changing due to new discoveries, we need to also have sympathy to the drug company as well. They are not miracle makers, they only try to make profits by selling something that they "think" might help other people. Imagine the world without antibiotics and other medication, how many people would have to die? If we agree that science can be changed, the drug company might not have an excuse of increasing medication prices because of law suit.Also if we look at any other area that has used the socialist system it has bogged down and failed to live up to its Utopian promise. No system is perfect but open and free market is the best out there.
- Noah HLv 71 decade ago
All other considerations aside, we need a UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE plan that covers all Americans...something that we don't have now. The main word is INSURANCE....the CARE system will remain as it is, good in some parts of the country and not so hot in others.
A government plan for all Americans will cut out the middle man,
thus savings billions of dollars. Private insurance companies take $.43 out of every premium dollar for overhead and profit. Medicare takes $.03 out of every premium dollar and zero for profit. Why spend $.40 extra per premium dollar for the same thing? We could easily write into the law that nobody will legally kill granny or baby Trig...what we can't write into law is the economic justification for that pesky extra $.40 per premium dollar. Do 'conservatives' really like getting screwed? They must if they want to continue to support an over priced, out dated, non responsive entity like private health insurance companies. My opinion!
- Another VoiceLv 51 decade ago
From the patients' doctors, for a change. I'm om Medicare now, and this is the first year I could receive the treatment my doctor felt was best for me without having to hassle with some HMO all the time. I finally feel like I have a safety net now, in case I get sick. Didn't have that before I went on Medicare - A GOVERNMENT-RUN Health Program.
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- fangtaiyangLv 71 decade ago
There is no intention, in any of the proposed bills, to ration health care, make health care decisions, or to euthanize the elderly. The objective is some form of affordable and reliable health care coverage for everyone. a single payer system, with taxes replacing insurance premiums would be the most efficient means of delivering such care, but too many Americans see that as a threat to their perceived personal freedom. rather than have a government plan, they prefer the continuation of the almost monopolistic control of the health insurance industry
- paulj53@att.netLv 51 decade ago
Simple answer. The Government bean counters. In the UK their health care system states that an older persons life is worth $45,000 pounds, after that their toast. Just the fact jack.
- The PatriotLv 71 decade ago
It would for those on the basic government plan of insurance, but would have no say on denial of treatment for those on private plans, other than preventing insurance companies from using death panels to deny treatments to those they are actually meant to cover. (The first link goes into this in more detail.)
FACT - Insurance companies in the USA admit to pushing up prices, buying politicians and not paying out claims when they should
FACT - PER PERSON the USA spends more on healthcare than any other nation on the planet
FACT - Obama debated his plans before the election for healthcare
FACT - the chance of a child under five of dying in the USA is greater than industrialised nations with universal health coverage
FACT - Obama was elected by the American people to bring in change
FACT - Obama wants to stop insurance companies from screwing the American people
FACT - The reforms Obama wants work in the Netherlands and in Switzerland
Source(s): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/us-hea... http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erspfMkqLN4 http://www.unicef.org.uk/campaigns/publications/pd... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elect... http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/world... http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publicatio... - ?Lv 71 decade ago
Too much crap: the leftist's strategy for balking actual argument.
Randomly selected snip from your post:
"Where does it say that anybody can govern "what kind of coverage an insurance company can have"?"
Relevant sections of HR 3200 include:
101 Sets qualifications for allowable plans.
102 Forbids EVER enrolling new customers in plans that do not "qualify."
123 Creates a bureaucracy to recommend to the Secretary (who gets plenary power to choose what to allow and disallow) what coverages to allow going forward.
- sometimeswrongLv 61 decade ago
All of this rumor nonsense was started by people who hate Obama and want his administration to fail. Some of the most hideous lies and tales are being eaten up by the non-thinking or hate filled people who are against any kind of progress in this country. What ever happened to logic and common sense. congress will pass a bill and death squads and rationing of care with people dieing in the health care line will not be a part of it. This bill is devised so that it will be effective for the country, lets face it we do have folks who need cared for and the rest of us will do that whether they like it or not. Call it what you like but that is a part of our human makeup.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Haven't you been listening to BHO?
He admits in the past he is for a single payer system in the matter of fairness. He also says he knows he won't there overnight, but he wants to get on that path with these proposals we are talking about.
You don't think that mandatory end of life counseling every 5 years starging at age 65 is as impingement on your freedeom?
He also has said he wants to set up government panels run by medical professionals to get the statistically best method for treating disease and that is what people will get.
What he is too stupid to know is that medicine and disease treatment doesn't not have a one size fits all approach.
Have you seen all of the cancer treatments? Ever wonder why there are so many? Because the statistically best cancer treatment for any specific cancer doesn't work on everyone all of the time.
My feelings is the biggest problem with health care in this country is everyone thinks everyone else should have to pay their bill and the third party payment.
If everyone paid their own bill and didnn't expect their employer to or their neighbor or government to pay it health care wouldn't cost so freaking much.
Have a good day.
