re: Obama "Health care isn't expensive just cancel your cable and phone"

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Neither option is pretty or cheap but what is the alternative?

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Lie to the American public and bribe politicians and insurance companies to shove a unworkable program up our collective asses.

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Now, I was not a proponent of the ACA when it was in legislation, however, now it is the law of the land]

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So was Jim Crow.

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the American thing to do is to support it and give it a chance to succeed since maximizing participation is the best scenario under current law.

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Since when? You mean we should just fall into line like good little Hitler Youth?

And why does this even matter? I thought I couldn't be denied because of pre-existing conditions?

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Lie to the American public and bribe politicians and insurance companies to shove a unworkable program up our collective asses.

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Politicians lie. All of them. All of the time. It is what they do, so their lying should come as no shock. I doubt seriously if there have been any bribes passed out...why would there be, given the system in place....it is much easier to make tons of money over the long haul than it is to resort to bribery and you can make the long money legally. But I get the point....it is a fiasco of epic proportions.


So, where was the alternative? That is the question that begs answering....if it is your position that the Democrat crooks are better at the game than the Republican crooks then that is on the Republicans....

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I am absolutely ok with this. No one should have the right to force others to provide free service. It is a privilege, not a right.

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Then you and those who think this way should make this a priority. Many of you claim to have had foresight and knew full well that Obamacare was going to be a disaster (of course no one had such foresight and Obamacare will eventually evolve into a highly succesful piece of legislation that will be as ingrained in the American experience as social security and our grandkids will ask only why it took so long). Having had that knowledge I don't know how any politician of the last 30 or so years has gotten any support from anyone who thinks it is a good idea to turn people away from medical treatment based on their ability to pay. There has not been, to my knowledge, a concerted effort to stop this practice. That would be the best way to stem the rising costs of health care....it should be an easy pitch to make and I for one would love to see a good, solid, small government conservative or libertarian make that case to the American people.

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Many of you claim to have had foresight and knew full well that Obamacare was going to be a disaster

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Called it from the beginning, although my prediction was based on psychiatric and social characteristics of this country's citizens.

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Obamacare will eventually evolve into a highly succesful piece of legislation that will be as ingrained in the American experience as social security and our grandkids will ask only why it took so long

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Two things here:

1. I sincerely hope that it doesn't follow the path of SS, one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed.

2. They won't care about the ACA because they will be crushed beneath the weight of our ever increasing debt.

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Having had that knowledge I don't know how any politician of the last 30 or so years has gotten any support from anyone who thinks it is a good idea to turn people away from medical treatment based on their ability to pay. There has not been, to my knowledge, a concerted effort to stop this practice. That would be the best way to stem the rising costs of health care....it should be an easy pitch to make and I for one would love to see a good, solid, small government conservative or libertarian make that case to the American people.

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We all know that position is an impossible one to touch, but, yes, it would likely decrease the cost of healthcare.

I finally agree with the president on something,and had to do this when I first got married (cable, not phone).

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While you are dead on the money right I don't think this is the case....we aren't asking them to work for nothing....we are paying them through increased costs for our own treatment AND through tax dollars. You and I are paying dearly for the unisured and the underinsured and the very well insured who are covered by various government programs.

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Right. We just shifted the forced labor away from the docs to people that do pay their own bills. Essentially the root cause of price (not cost) inflation.

I also think you may be surprised at the amount of unpaid work a ER covering or Medicaid doc does. It's far from insignificant in many cases.

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This is happening now and has been for some time. The increases in costs is unsustainable...so the options, in my opinion, is to either stop treating people who can't pay, not something that is going to be easy to sale (although it may happen as a matter of necessity soon) OR come up with some sort of scheme that would provide everyone with affordable basic health care. Neither option is pretty or cheap but what is the alternative?

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There is no cheap alternative. Good medical care is expensive. Just like anything else that's scarce and valuable.

The expectation of something scarce, valuable to be cheap or free is the equivalent of believing int the tooth fairy.

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Many of you claim to have had foresight and knew full well that Obamacare was going to be a disaster

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Well my spouse and I did, as did the thousands of others who went to DC in 9/09 to protest this gigantic government intrusion into our lives.

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Right. We just shifted the forced labor away from the docs to people that do pay their own bills. Essentially the root cause of price (not cost) inflation.

I also think you may be surprised at the amount of unpaid work a ER covering or Medicaid doc does. It's far from insignificant in many cases.

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They don't do any in the official capacity of an ER Doc or as a meicaid provider...they very well mat do pro-bono work of all types and that is admirable but if they are in the capacity of being provider that is paid for their services every single time that service is not paid OR is underpaid then those patients who do pay foot the bill. There is no way to separate the two....

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There is no cheap alternative. Good medical care is expensive. Just like anything else that's scarce and valuable.

The expectation of something scarce, valuable to be cheap or free is the equivalent of believing int the tooth fairy.

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Of course there are cheap alternatives...all sorts of cheap alternatives....like clinics instead of ER's, PA's instead of MD's, preventative medicine...all of these lower the costs of good medical care.

By the way I ain't so sure medical care is that scarce a commodity. I don't even know if they still print phone books or not but back in the dark ages there was almost as many ads for Doctors in the yellow pages of even modest sized communities as there were ads for lawyers.

I don't care for Obamacare....I would have like to have seen a public option in a bill almost identical to what we got. I have no problem with the personal mandate....I have every right in the world to sit in a theater and not be terrified by some foll screaming fire. I should be as free from footing the medical bills of those who won't foot those bills for themselves. Should it have been done at the state level? Probably, and using medicare and medicaid as incentives would have probably worked...but at the end of the day what is the difference?

Something had to be done. Healthcare costs were quickly becoming unsustainable. While I have very little faith that costs won't continue to rise I see nothing to suggest that the increases won't slow down substantially in the coming years. Is it perfect? Far from it. Was it the best we could have done? I sure hope not...because if so we are fricked. But is it it going to be a disaster that ends the world as we know it? Not even close...it is going to be tweaked and adjusted and tinkered with forever and will eventually morph into a manageable system. It is a shame that we have to go through these steps but that is a trait of our style of governance. Like George Bush said governing as a dictator would be much easier.....but the outcome is not as good.

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1. I sincerely hope that it doesn't follow the path of SS, one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed.

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I don't what your basing this on but it certainly isn't based on what social securities stated goals were. By those standards the program has been a smashing success by any measure.