That's below the belt man....

Originally Posted by washed up wrestler

Scott, please, don't burden a teabagger with facts.

Again -- below the belt. Gratuitous slam......

Originally Posted by sgallan

This is true in a sense as the various federal and state poverty programs kick in after a certain amount of time.

Congratulations on that...... proof even a blind squirrel can find an acorn.

"The government has decided" -- that's the problem. The vast of majority of people (especially those that will pay dearly for this) don't want it. Just recently, the people of Missouri have voted to reject the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. If this thing goes through, I don't want to hear any complaints about the standard of living being destroyed, or that the government won't pay for the experimental treatment of your tough-to-cure cancer. I also don't want to hear any complaints about your premiums being higher because of your obesity and BMI. Because that is next under this system. I promise you.....

Originally Posted by Spider

The government has decided that it has the responsiblity to provide healthcare to all of its citizens, regardless of whether they have a job or pay taxes. Is this a good thing? Is it socialism? I don't know, but we have always been a nation of compassion and I do not feel that universal healthcare is necessarily a bad thing or that it is unfair to the "haves."

That's a reasonable reply. Everybody in the country (whether or not they have insurance) has access to medical care. Illegal aliens have access to medical care. Virtually every medically needy person in the United States is eligible for the government program Medicaid which is funded by the people. Every person in the country 65 and older has access to medical care under Medicare. (If you're disabled and under 65 -- you have access to Medicare). If you don't like the benefits of Medicare, you can buy a Medicare supplement policy (guaranteed issue) if you follow the eligibility rules.

Nobody in this country is dying because greedy doctors and hospitals are turning sick people away from care. Besides, they can't even do that by Federal law, or the Hippocratic Oath they swear to uphold. If a medically needy person who (for some reason doesn't have Medicaid), they can get treatment at any clinic, any doctor's office, and any hospital in the United States for *free*. Besides Medicaid, there are hundreds of local, state, and Federal programs to help these people -- and not to mention charities too numerous to list here.

Of course, nothing is free -- the docs, clinics, and hospitals simply charge the insurance paying public more for the service to cover the charity they conferred upon the medically needy. This cost shifting is a beautiful thing because it doesn't involve the government and its suffocating red-tape. The cost shift occurs @ the doc/clinic/hospital level all without the guiding hand of our government. It's quick, efficient, and cost effective.

The reason (if you want to know or care..if you don't -- ignore me) I find PPACA (or ObamaCAre) intolerable is because of the cost. The cost they cite of $900-billion over 10-years will end up being a colossal understatement of horrific proportions. Did you know that the unfunded liabilities of the Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security is estimated to be 72-trillion (and up to 100-trillion) when measured over a 40-year time horizon? Did you know that hundreds of private actuaries and government actuaries have been studying these unfunded liabilities for over 20-years? And while the figures vary depending on the organization conducting the actuarial valuation of the present value of future tax receipts and comparing it to the present value of future expected benefits -- the results all converge on numbers well north of 70-trillion *upside down*. There literally isn't enough money in the world to correct the fiscal imbalance of these 3 programs. And when I say that -- I mean (literally) that there isn't enough money in the world to make it whole.

What our government officials have done to perpetuate this is obscene, intolerable, and unforgivable. In addition to the actual debt of $15-trillion that exists right now, we have $100-trillion of unfunded liabilities of the 3 programs referenced above. The $15-trillion is a debt load which can't even be repaid, so how do we expect to pay for $100-trillion and make those programs whole over a reasonable time period w/o destroying the largest economy in the world? And to top it all off on my 2nd beer -- we now have to fund ObamaCare to the tune of $900-billion.

Something has to give.

Originally Posted by Spider

Well I've got no problem with higher premiums for people who are obese or smokers. It's just like higher auto premiums for drivers with speeding tickets. And as for a lower standard of living, people who die because they can't afford life saving medical treatment have no standard of living. Just like everything else it's a trade off. And if local popular vote were the only way to make laws, the south would still be fighting the civil rights battle.