http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080203/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_rdp

Quote :

"WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans. The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment." Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone.""

Summary: If you can afford to pay for the socialized medicine but refuse to buy it, Hillary is going to "go after" your wages.

2/3/2008 12:42:18 PM

And they say conservatives are ruining this country...pffft.

2/3/2008 12:44:47 PM

who actually wants this?

I mean, I know that dumb, poor, and confused people want "a chicken in their pot" for free

but we can stop this thing from happening, right?

america is undoing the new deal, not expanding it

right?

please tell me there aren't enough stupid people supporting this to make it happen

2/3/2008 12:53:53 PM

there is no doubt a need for reform in the healthcare industry. outrageous lawsuits, billing red-tape and non-communication between the insurance companies and the doctors and sky rocketing costs all need to be addressed.

however, socializing this system is NOT the answer. i think it would make the above problems worse.

2/3/2008 1:39:21 PM

i love when people think socialized healthcare means free healthcare, without stopping to realize we are raped in taxes to pay for it and it still goes bankrupt.

2/3/2008 2:40:31 PM

Its hilariously ironic that you idiots don't support this health plan when she's clearly advocating that everyone purchase private health insurance and insurers not be able to deny you because you ten years ago you had hemorrhoids.

You see, you actually have to buy one of the plans provided to you by a health insurance organization, as opposed to being forced to take a plan your employer chooses.

Why is that good?

Because then your employer isn't paying out its profit margins(and in turn, passing the cost onto you) for your health insurance. It also means that non employer based health insurance actually starts making sense in this country and stops being fantastically expensive because of economics of scale.

Also, if you think government provided healthcare for children and the elderly is evil, then I think you need to re-enlist in jesus camp.

2/3/2008 3:12:49 PM

You do realize the reason we're saddled with employer-mandated health insurance is because of tax and incentive issues that are a holdover of price and wage caps of the Neal Deal and then Nixon, right? Because employers couldn't pay additional salaries, they substituted healthcare benefits as an attractive benefit. Further is the fact that the tax system continues to encourage this behavior.

Besides, if you support Hillary's asinine plan for a mandate, why don't you just line up to vote for Romney? This was his Massachusetts healthcare plan. (Before we start endorsing Hillary, maybe we ought to check in and see how that one fared).

But wait, there's more! A general disregard for civil liberties, generic hawkishness, and a desire to shove you into paying for a healthcare plan whether you like it or not... holy shit, Hillary and Romney are the same person!

2/3/2008 3:22:56 PM

this is why i don't get why the pundits were saying clinton won the "health care issue" in the debate. obama's plan seems far more palatable to most of americans to me

[Edited on February 3, 2008 at 4:14 PM. Reason : .]

2/3/2008 4:13:43 PM

^govt needs out of healthcare.. that is your solution.


P.S. It also needs out of the retirement business too.

2/3/2008 4:27:46 PM

gov't needs to be out of everything. socializing aspects of citizens' lives doesn't work, but too many people keep thinking that the magical source of unlimited wealth-"the government"- can pay for everything without realizing where the money comes from. You'd be surprised how many supposedly intelligent adults I've heard say "The government can just print up more money"

2/3/2008 5:14:26 PM

I don't see a problem with mandating employers to supply full time employees with health insurance. If nothing else it would get socialist liberals to shut the fuck up about UHC

2/3/2008 5:16:54 PM

Someone is unfamiliar with the Law of Unintended Consequences, then...

2/3/2008 5:26:40 PM

2/3/2008 8:26:37 PM

First time I've seen that GIF.

2/3/2008 8:48:11 PM

I don't need the gov't or Hillary Clinton to be my mommy

I'm a grown-ass woman

2/3/2008 9:30:19 PM

I'll tell you who pays: America

2/3/2008 10:23:59 PM

well to the GOP this also

i don't need daddy bush to ban me from smoking pot or gambling online b.c its evil and Jesus doesn't like it

2/3/2008 10:49:50 PM

I like the idea of making it like auto insurance: its required but private companies are still the providers. People would be forced to have basic coverage and you can still spend more to get more if you want. Of course, we would still subsidize the ghetto folk. I guess this is similar to what Hillary is proposing.

All I know, is that after working in state government (DOT) for the last 11 years there is NO WAY IN HELL I would let a government agency oversee my health care.

2/3/2008 11:57:33 PM

Quote :

" You do realize the reason we're saddled with employer-mandated health insurance is because of tax and incentive issues that are a holdover of price and wage caps of the Neal Deal and then Nixon, right? Because employers couldn't pay additional salaries, they substituted healthcare benefits as an attractive benefit. Further is the fact that the tax system continues to encourage this behavior. "

Dude, what we're saddled with is completely irrelevant to what needs to be done. I'm not justifying a broken system that already exist.

And I wouldn't vote for Romney for a lot more reasons then health care.

2/4/2008 12:39:16 AM

Quote :

"Dude, what we're saddled with is completely irrelevant to what needs to be done. I'm not justifying a broken system that already exist. And I wouldn't vote for Romney for a lot more reasons then health care."

Understanding why something is broken is generally the sane person's first step to understanding how to fix it.

But, by all means - start hacking away mindlessly; don't let me get in your way.

2/4/2008 12:41:59 AM

You aren't fixing health care nor am I.

And stop trying to pretend like you had any point besides being a precocious little shit with a line like this:

Quote :

" You do realize the reason we're saddled with employer-mandated health insurance is because of tax and incentive issues that are a holdover of price and wage caps of the Neal Deal and then Nixon, right?"

Translation: You do realize that we're in this crap health nightmare because of Democrats but I'm going to rephrase this because being direct is outside the ability of the normal TWWer.

PS- what was the 'Neal Deal?'

2/4/2008 1:26:40 AM

You're right. I should just be a trolling asshole like you, and have no point whatsoever - or be hampered by trifling things like "facts" or "logic."

2/4/2008 1:34:57 AM

What is the 'Neal Deal?'

2/4/2008 1:41:14 AM

^LOL, you're the idiot that put health care and "economics of scale" in the same sentence. Health care isn't a production process, you dumb shit.

PS I think you mean "economies" of scale.

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 1:41 AM. Reason : 2]

2/4/2008 1:41:22 AM

They carry the same meaning 'dipshit.'

Were you or anyone that read it confused? No.

But you're right, I meant 'economies of scale'.

2/4/2008 1:43:07 AM

Quote :

"What is the 'Neal Deal?'"

Troll bait, apparently.

You need to work on your act - you're really starting to suck at this whole "funny" thing. Just an FYI.

But truly, this exchange is rich:

Quote :

"They carry the same meaning 'dipshit.' Were you or anyone that read it confused? No."

Getting huffy about the same shit you troll on. Priceless.

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 1:46 AM. Reason : lulz.]

2/4/2008 1:44:19 AM

The point is that economies of scale do not apply to health care, which refutes your idea that costs would go down if there were more people buying into non employer-based plans.

Somebody has to pay for the top-rate care that we recieve along with the associated profit margins for the health care providers. Shifting the burden around won't make the process any more efficient.

2/4/2008 1:47:14 AM

Well I wasn't trolling you or else I would been like HURRRRRRRRRRRRRR NEW DEAL.

I was wondering if the 'Neal Deal' had anything to do with the recorded conversations of Nixon commenting on a plan proposed by Henry Kaiser.

Quote :

" The point is that economies of scale do not apply to health care, which refutes your idea that costs would go down if there were more people buying into non employer-based plans. "

Oh really? And why is that? Manufacturing small pills costs millions of dollars? Or is it that marketing those pills costs millions of dollars? And why is Health Care the most expensive in the United States

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/medical_errors.html

and yet

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/799444.stm

Quote :

" Somebody has to pay for the top-rate care that we recieve along with the associated profit margins for the health care providers. Shifting the burden around won't make the process any more efficient "

See above.


The reason I treat most of you like idiots is because none of you really bother to look beyond the talking points you read at Drudge Report.

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 1:58 AM. Reason : >.<]

2/4/2008 1:56:25 AM

Our health rankings suck because of all the uninsured and fat people, of course.

The reality is that insured Americans recieve better health care than any other group in the world. And we pay out the ass for it.

Quote :

" Manufacturing small pills costs millions of dollars? Or is it that marketing those pills costs millions of dollars?"

What the fuck does manufacturing pills have to do with health care plans? Don't tell me you don't know the difference between the pharmaceutical industry and managed health care. Please, you can't be that dumb.

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 2:03 AM. Reason : 2]

2/4/2008 2:01:10 AM

Sounds logical

Do you have any backing to that theory though?

2/4/2008 2:02:37 AM

Quote :

"Well I wasn't trolling you or else I would been like HURRRRRRRRRRRRRR NEW DEAL. I was wondering if the 'Neal Deal' had anything to do with the recorded conversations of Nixon commenting on a plan proposed by Henry Kaiser."

This is far from obvious, given your history and tone.

Quote :

"The reason I treat most of you like idiots is because none of you really bother to look beyond the talking points you read at Drudge Report."

Do you actually believe something like Drudge would actually point to the unintended consequences of price and wage controls breeding the current defective system we have now?

The point is, mandates have unintended consequences. Price and wage controls pushed healthcare out of being a private expense and into the realm of being an employer-provided benefit. This system has proven unsustainable, as there is little incentive on the part of consumers or healthcare providers to control costs - the costs are constantly being paid by a third party. Cost control comes from increasing rates and rationing care.

Thus, our problem - users of healthcare never see the true costs of their spending, and because health insurance is tied to employers, we have a dual problem: health insurance is almost exclusively tied to one's employment, and the costs of this care are ratcheted up due to the fact that the people consuming healthcare aren't necessarily directly paying for it. (Instead, they pay for it indirectly through risk pools - which inherently means subsidizing riskier behavior on the part of others).

Actually looking at the history of the problem gives some amount of insight then into what actually created it, and thus what is actually fundamentally broken. Because neither government-run or government-mandated insurance is going to fix the problem of rising costs either. (They might ensure everyone has coverage, but just watch what happens to costs if nothing else is changed.)

2/4/2008 2:09:25 AM

^^Just repeating what I've read in numerous studies of health care.

We subsidize the rest of the world's health care by paying for the newest drugs and experimental procedures, which cost considerably more than established medicine. Our doctors are better, too, so they are compensated more.

In France, which has an excellent health care system, the government will not buy the newest, most expensive drugs. As a nation, they bargain with pharmaceutical companies to get discounts on drugs as well. And they don't authorize some of the cutting edge, experimental procedures that Americans with private coverage expect to recieve. They also have longer wait times than is typical for private coverage.


[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 2:11 AM. Reason : 2]

2/4/2008 2:09:37 AM

lets take a tiny tiny loan out from social security and pay for health care

seems simple enough

2/4/2008 2:30:29 AM

^^ None of your points are correct though I'm not going to argue them.

Quote :

" The point is, mandates have unintended consequences. Price and wage controls pushed healthcare out of being a private expense and into the realm of being an employer-provided benefit. This system has proven unsustainable, as there is little incentive on the part of consumers or healthcare providers to control costs - the costs are constantly being paid by a third party. Cost control comes from increasing rates and rationing care. "

I beg to differ in that a great part of health care cost in the United States is administrative overhead caused by needing/getting approval. A secondary cost are prescription drugs which are fantastically expensive (and voted to remain that way by Republican Congress). There are even more pressing issues with our broken health care that exceeds your very very simplified example such as an FDA thats so laughably underfunded that it can't expedite drug approval and thus eating away at a pharma companies patent and forcing introductory drug costs to be artificially high.

Quote :

" Thus, our problem - users of healthcare never see the true costs of their spending, and because health insurance is tied to employers, we have a dual problem: health insurance is almost exclusively tied to one's employment, and the costs of this care are ratcheted up due to the fact that the people consuming healthcare aren't necessarily directly paying for it. (Instead, they pay for it indirectly through risk pools - which inherently means subsidizing riskier behavior on the part of others). "

Unless you work for GM, you most certainly get your pay docked with even employer provided health care. Though the burden is on your employer.

Quote :

" Actually looking at the history of the problem gives some amount of insight then into what actually created it, and thus what is actually fundamentally broken. Because neither government-run or government-mandated insurance is going to fix the problem of rising costs either. (They might ensure everyone has coverage, but just watch what happens to costs if nothing else is changed.) "

And leaving it up to the private sector as it stands is clearly not going to fix the problem either. Might want to pick the lesser of the available evils at this point.

Without government mandates, most American's won't be able to afford the 400$ a month that non-employer based health care costs.

2/4/2008 10:31:19 AM

^ my company pays 100% premiums for its employees. I agree with you though under a purely non-gov't involved society a lot of people would not receive health insurance opportunities through an employer and thus would have to pay $texas for an individual policy.

2/4/2008 11:05:10 AM

the point the Hillary's of the world miss is that with the exception of children, nobody has a RIGHT to healthcare. I dont have anymore of a right to a doctor's services as I do a mechanic's. like a mechanic, any doctor can set his price which can be a very lucrative deal for the doctor. this, obviously, encourages the best and brightest to in turn, pay the $texas and time for the schooling to become a doctor. there is NOTHING wrong with that and it is why medicine in our country is cutting edge.

government needs to step in so that all children are provided for and maybe to regulate the cluster-fuck that is the insurance company/doctor office interaction. the red tape there is enormous as are the inefficiences. I could even go for some kind of cost regulations within the industry (like labor hours for a mechanic) but not for full governmental control.

once you are an adult, you are responsible for your own health and life. if you choose to protect those things by carrying insurance and taking care of yourself, then that is great. if you dont, that is your problem.

2/4/2008 11:20:26 AM

Quote :

"if you dont, that is your problem."

and everyone else's

2/4/2008 11:41:51 AM

Quote :

"the point the Hillary's of the world miss is that with the exception of children, nobody has a RIGHT to healthcare. "

Why should i have to subsidize someone else's child health care costs? Perhaps if they can not even buy medical coverage for their kids then social services should step in, not to mention they shouldn't be having kids in the first place.

This gives poor people yet another out so that they can spend more cash on lottery tickets, booze, or that upgrade to a double wide while the gov't foots the bill of taking care of their children.

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 11:51 AM. Reason : a]

2/4/2008 11:49:48 AM

Quote :

"I beg to differ in that a great part of health care cost in the United States is administrative overhead caused by needing/getting approval. A secondary cost are prescription drugs which are fantastically expensive (and voted to remain that way by Republican Congress). There are even more pressing issues with our broken health care that exceeds your very very simplified example such as an FDA thats so laughably underfunded that it can't expedite drug approval and thus eating away at a pharma companies patent and forcing introductory drug costs to be artificially high."

Prescription drugs are merely the tip of the iceberg. While the GOP Congress made Medicare fantastically more expensive via Medicare Part-D, the fact is, medical services cost money - lab tests, MRIs, and so forth. Likewise, medicine costs more when it's done to fix something than when it's done to prevent something.

Look, you can choose to stick your head in the sand and pretend that you're the only one around here with a clue (this wouldn't be much of a change, in fact) - but there's a simple issue of an incentive problem. There is little incentive on the part of consumers or providers to economize in healthcare spending. There's little incentive for consumers under a third-party system to pursue preventative and maintenance care instead of seeking care when something breaks. There's little incentive to ask whether generics will work as well as a name-brand drug. There's little incentive to ask if a slightly older (but cheaper) treatment will be as effective, or effective enough, as the cutting-edge treatment.

So, absent that, how exactly do you expect to control costs?

Quote :

"Unless you work for GM, you most certainly get your pay docked with even employer provided health care. Though the burden is on your employer."

You misread what I had said. I said that individuals do not pay directly for services - but rather indirectly through subsidized risk pools. Which means there's a lack of a feedback loop between cost of health services consumed and how much they pay.

Quote :

"And leaving it up to the private sector as it stands is clearly not going to fix the problem either. Might want to pick the lesser of the available evils at this point. Without government mandates, most American's won't be able to afford the 400$ a month that non-employer based health care costs."

So, despite the fact that I've clearly shown that shifting the cost burden from insurance to the government won't do anything to control costs, we should shift it over to the government anyways. Brilliant - it's like you don't even bother reading what I wrote.

Look, the problem isn't whether the government or an insurance company is paying for healthcare - it's that people with third-party payers don't. Instead of treating insurance like insurance against risk against catastrophe - like when your car is wrecked, your house burns down, etc. - we treat insurance as a source of payment for regular, predictable issues. What do you think would happen to auto insurance if it suddenly started covering oil changes?

Relying on an insurance-covers-everything model won't control costs. Any system to do this requires that consumers have an incentive to control costs up-front, namely by pursuing preventative care and actually economizing in healthcare expenditures (generics, etc.)

2/4/2008 11:53:53 AM

Quote :

"Why should i have to subsidize someone else's child health care costs? Perhaps if they can not even buy medical coverage for their kids then social services should step in, not to mention they shouldn't be having kids in the first place."

because the kids dont have a say in the matter. their parents dont deserve a check for the medical services, the kids simply deserve the service and could be assigned a doctor or something at birth with their SS number.

2/4/2008 1:23:15 PM

well maybe their parents shouldn't be allowed to have kids since they are blatantly neglecting their children in the lack of medical attention.

Quote :

"The Brown-headed Cowbird is the only brood parasite common across North America. A female cowbird makes no nest of her own, but instead lays her eggs in the nests of other bird species, who then raise the young cowbirds. Social relationships are difficult to figure out in birds that do not build nests, but male and female Brown-headed Cowbirds are not monogamous. Genetic analyses show that males and females have several different mates within a single season. "

I don't want to support future mass-reproducing brood parasites.



[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 1:47 PM. Reason : a]

2/4/2008 1:41:42 PM

yes that will work

2/4/2008 1:49:15 PM

last time i looked the constitution did not contain the right to mass produce as many children as you like beyond what you can afford to which the tax-payer will pick up the rest of the check.

2/4/2008 1:57:46 PM

Quote :

"well maybe their parents shouldn't be allowed to have kids since they are blatantly neglecting their children in the lack of medical attention."

I def. agree with your premise but you and I both know that is not how it works in the real world. we cannot exactly go castrating welfare moms nor can we stop them from banging Tom, Dick or Harry so the problem will always exist.

In the real world the kids need to be cared for, no matter how dead-beat their parents are.

2/4/2008 1:57:47 PM

^ agree but please do this by contributing to your local charity not asking uncle sam to take it out of my paycheck.

If papa Sam is laid off of work and while searching for a new job needs assistance (afterall he did pay lots of federal taxes) with food as well as health coverage then so be it. However, Sally Sue shouldn't be allowed to flourish in a cess pool trailor park watching ricky lake all day while i sit at work earning money that is taxed to pay for her children.

Back in the 1700's people had 5 children b.c often not all of them grew to adulthood and farmers needed more hands in the field. This is not the case today.

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 2:04 PM. Reason : a]

2/4/2008 2:03:07 PM

you can give kids healthcare without putting money in their parent's pocket.

2/4/2008 2:06:08 PM

while i sit at work earning money that is taxed to pay for her children.



This is a brood parasite

Quote :

"Brood parasites are organisms that use the strategy of brood-parasitism, a kind of kleptoparasitism found among birds, fish or insects, involving the manipulation and use of host individuals either of the same (intraspecific brood-parasitism) or different species (inter-specific brood-parasitism) to raise the young of the brood-parasite. This relieves the parasitic parent from the investment of rearing young or building nests, enabling them to spend more time foraging, producing offspring etc."

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 2:12 PM. Reason : a]

[Edited on February 4, 2008 at 2:13 PM. Reason : a]

2/4/2008 2:07:51 PM

Completely agree with DaBird.

2/4/2008 2:33:34 PM

Dabird, I know you and most are probably unaware at what some parents will do to thier children to get extra money. Poor kids already get medicaid and alot of parents will claim ADD to get them on disability so they get an extra 300-500 a month for their KIDS disability. If there is away to get extra money, these people will find it. You really cant blame them, its the system that allows this.

2/4/2008 2:49:45 PM

Quote :

"I def. agree with your premise but you and I both know that is not how it works in the real world. we cannot exactly go castrating welfare moms nor can we stop them from banging Tom, Dick or Harry so the problem will always exist. "

Maybe we should. By having a child you can't care for you are neglecting and abusing your child. Perhaps as a condition of getting government paid care for your child, you should have to be sterilized ensuring that you will not continue to bring offspring you can't afford into this world.

The argument against this (ignoring human rights issues) is that said welfare parent might get off their ass in the future and want more kids. That's all well and good, they can adopt, and take in some poor unwanted child thus solving their desire for a child and the problem of another child currently being paid for by the government.

And if they wanted their own kid, they should have considered that before they started abusing kids.

2/4/2008 5:40:10 PM