Universal Health Care - Still Not Possible in US

[MetroMan]

Well, maybe Reid was looking ahead to this tough vote when he let Lieberman stay on the Democratic caucus. If Lieberman does something stupid like facilitating a filibuster, then he's clearly working against the Democrats and will have lost his purpose.

 

[Brandon716]

Lieberman doesn't really have influence anymore, he had a major split with Democrats in 2006, he won because Republicans voted for him, and he has no future in the party if he does this.

 

[shumoon]

^I wished that were reality metroman, it won't happen though... As many of you know, what the House does is almost irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. The Senate can alter, block, and/or change any of the legislation. As many of you know, the Senate is where all the action is in the US, whereas the House is where all the action is in Canada."

Brandon:

Point of Information. The House of Representatives is not "almost irrelevant". The U.S. Constitution requires that bills need to be passed into law in both the House and the Senate. If a bill is introduced and passed in the Senate, the House can alter, block, and/or change any of the legislation the Senate has voted on, just like the Senate can do to the House. The only passing of laws that is exclusive to the U.S. Senate is the ratification of treaties. (U.S. Constitution,Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 2). That is hardly "where all the action is". Moreover, only the House of Representatives can introduce revenue legislation. (U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Section 7, Paragraph 1). Thus, the House has the power of the purse strings, which is important because without funding, implementing or enforcing a law becomes impossible. The House of Representatives is not as impotent as your post makes it out to be.

 

[Brandon716]

Brandon:

Point of Information. The House of Representatives is not "almost irrelevant". The U.S. Constitution requires that bills need to be passed into law in both the House and the Senate. If a bill is introduced and passed in the Senate, the House can alter, block, and/or change any of the legislation the Senate has voted on, just like the Senate can do to the House. The only passing of laws that is exclusive to the U.S. Senate is the ratification of treaties. (U.S. Constitution,Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 2). That is hardly "where all the action is". Moreover, only the House of Representatives can introduce revenue legislation. (U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Section 7, Paragraph 1). Thus, the House has the power of the purse strings, which is important because without funding, implementing or enforcing a law becomes impossible. The House of Representatives is not as impotent as your post makes it out to be.

That's how the constitution reads on the surface, in actuality the House has minimal power when it comes to the teeth of the bill. And in this case, the public option within the bill can be stripped out by the Senate despite the House passing that option.

 

[Brandon716]

BTW, you outlined the true power of the House: revenue bills initiate in the House. But remember they initiate, they aren't totally dictated, but that is where the House's true power lies.

Otherwise yea, the House of Reps is fairly impotent.

 

[Brandon716]

First the public option was dropped, now this... I stopped paying attention to health care last month....



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul

Dems weigh dropping Medicare expansion in overhaul

WASHINGTON – The end game at hand, Senate Democrats appeared ready to jettison a proposed Medicare expansion from historic health care legislation Monday in hopes of assuring Christmas-week passage of the bill to extend coverage to tens of millions.

"Democrats aren't going to let the American people down," Majority Leader Harry Reid said after a closed-door meeting called to discuss last-minute trade-offs in the legislation that President Barack Obama has made a top priority. "I'm confident that by next week, we will be on our way toward final passage."

^LOL, in one paragraph they speak of dropping the last part of expanding guaranteed federal benefits, and in the next Reid is quoted by saying Democrats won't let America down? LOLOLOL

Health Care is officially dead.

 

[afransen]

Indeed. It looks like they failed again. Just have to wait another 15 years. Maybe by then, health care will be 25% of US GDP.

 

[Brandon716]

I find it humorous that someone was trying to lecture me on how the Senate and House of Reps are co-equal branches when the Senate just removed the public option altogether and placed no substitute in its place what-so-ever, while the House is the branch that PASSED a public option just several weeks back.

The truth is that the Senate is make-or-break and can undo anything the House did, and this is just another example of how a real bill was altered by the Senate and totally destroyed a key part of the legislation the House passed.

 

[MetroMan]

Dropping the Medicare compromise to satisfy one Senator (Lieberman) is hard to swallow. I hope they don't do it. Call for a cloture vote and DARE Lieberman to filibuster the bill.

Adding 55-65 yr olds on to Medicare would have been a first step towards eventually adopting it as a government run healthcare plan for all. That demographic is less likely to cash out on health insurance than those 65+, thus leaving more money in the system. The younger the demographic, the more solvent Medicare would become, weaning people off the perception that government run healthcare would ruin the country financially.

I think that Reid is giving in to Lieberman's wishes because a bill MUST be passed. Even if it's a skeleton bill, the Democratic Congress has to have something to show off in the 2010 Congressional elections.

The good news is that if the current bill (without Medicare buy in) passes, it will have improved the healthcare situation dramatically. Four major points:
1 - Insurers not allowed to deny coverage
2 - Mandatory coverage for all even if some need to be forced (fined) to do so.
3 - Not for profit privately run insurance overseen by the government available as an option for those who just want to comply with the new mandatory coverage law.
4 - Anti-competitive practices outlawed.

This last point is huge because right now a large pharmaceutical will pay smaller companies NOT to release a generic drug. The large pharmaceutical gets to keep selling their brand drug, the small pharmaceutical still gets paid but the patients get screwed: they pay many times the price of a drug that should be affordable.

I think that it was too ambitious -- given the fractious nature of Congress (it's not just Democrats vs Republicans in there) -- to overhaul healthcare completely in one fell swoop.

This will be an excellent first step. Adding Medicare buy ins later is doable. Make it a 2010 election issue!

 

[Brandon716]

The good news is that if the current bill (without Medicare buy in) passes, it will have improved the healthcare situation dramatically. Four major points:
1 - Insurers not allowed to deny coverage
2 - Mandatory coverage for all even if some need to be forced (fined) to do so.
3 - Not for profit privately run insurance overseen by the government available as an option for those who just want to comply with the new mandatory coverage law.
4 - Anti-competitive practices outlawed.

On point number one its not exactly true that they can't deny coverage. Insurance companies can still deny payment of procedures they deem unfit, but what they cannot do is exclude the offering of a policy based on a pre-existing condition.

This is the biggest problem with the bill, IMO, as it doesn't solve the US problem of denial of care even if you have insurance. Its still legal for companies to deny payment for procedures even if they have to cover everyone by allowing people to purchase a plan.

The fact that it was ever legal for an insurance company to deny someone the right to buy health insurance was most abhorrent to begin with. The other fact that people are now going to be forced to buy private coverage or face huge federal penalties/fines is ludicrous as these companies aren't mandated to pay benefits.

Don't mistake the right and mandate to buy insurance now with the mandate to pay insurance. They aren't one in the same, and getting rid of pre-existing exclusions doesn't solve the underlying problem of the millions of insureds who don't get costs covered.

BUT, if you are allowed to purchase insurance and get part of it covered by government subsidy to afford it, it means even if the insurance doesn't pay out that you'll at least get care in the doctor's office (unless the doctor requires pre-approval of an expensive, major treatment). BUT, if the insurance doesn't pay your bill or only pays a small portion, you'll still go bankrupt. Trust me when I say the industry has already figured out how to exclude payments under this new health care scheme.

Better, but not really "better" in my opinion. Better in that people can no longer be totally denied care outright, but personal bankruptcy still likely. The bill does place more regulation on the market and basically makes it harder to deny payments, at least.

 

[shumoon]

I find it humorous that someone was trying to lecture me on how the Senate and House of Reps are co-equal branches when the Senate just removed the public option altogether and placed no substitute in its place what-so-ever, while the House is the branch that PASSED a public option just several weeks back.

The truth is that the Senate is make-or-break and can undo anything the House did, and this is just another example of how a real bill was altered by the Senate and totally destroyed a key part of the legislation the House passed.

You completely missed my point. I never said or implied that the Senate couldn't do what it has done to the health care bill. My point was that if the Senate had introduced the health care bill, the House of Representatives could have gutted the bill, just as the Senate done in this instance.

I wrote the following in my post on 11/12/09:

"If a bill is introduced and passed in the Senate, the House can alter, block, and/or change any of the legislation the Senate has voted on, just like the Senate can do to the House."

The fact that the House can do to a Senate bill what the Senate has done to the House bill is what makes them co-equal or equally powerful.

This is a side-issue to the thread, but I feel that I owe it to the non-American members of this forum to set the record straight. I am not trying to lecture you; my post was for the benefit of the entire forum.

 

[Brandon716]

^That's not exactly how things work, but you're right in saying its a sidetrack of the main topic. For this particular bill its a gutted corporate giveaway and doesn't resemble universal health care at all.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Traveling to the States? (Or overseas?) One needs extra insurance or travel insurance.

However, in most cases, we will face the same problem as in the States, with preexisting conditions extra costs or extra costs for elderly. Why doesn't Ontario, or Canada, provide the option to buy the extra insurance needed for travel?

 

[Admiral Beez]

Traveling to the States? (Or overseas?) One needs extra insurance or travel insurance.

However, in most cases, we will face the same problem as in the States, with preexisting conditions extra costs or extra costs for elderly. Why doesn't Ontario, or Canada, provide the option to buy the extra insurance needed for travel?

Because it would be hard to manage. You break your leg in NYC it would cost, X, but do it Mexico or Russia or India, who knows? Imagine the bureaucracy that would need to be set up.

Here's what I do......... I buy travel insurance myself. If I can't afford it, I probably can't afford to travel either.

 

[TRONto]

Because it would be hard to manage. You break your leg in NYC it would cost, X, but do it Mexico or Russia or India, who knows? Imagine the bureaucracy that would need to be set up.

Here's what I do......... I buy travel insurance myself. If I can't afford it, I probably can't afford to travel either.

Exactly, travel is a luxury. If you have money to travel, you got money for insurance.