"PelosiCare" was Unveiled today you can read the bill here

[sattec]

This country no longer cares about history. They don't teach history in the schools. They teach an agenda. Old people are historic. See the connection? History was expendable (so they think), the elderly are next. Socialism has not worked anywhere in the world, freedom and the free market concepts built this country. We've been riding on the backs of our forefathers for years. I'm afraid over the last 30-40 years we've dropped the ball. Dropping the gold standard was a contributing factor, "charge it" was born, worse, "charge it, don't pay for it and charge more" evolved. It's a me world now, it's all about me with most folks, oh, and "now" too! We want it now! Thiftyness and living within your means are no longer fashionable. I'll shut up now and go rinse my atty's out to extend their life (thriftyness!)

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

The Public Option Surf refers to can be found beginning on pg 211, Title III, Subtitle B, sec. 321.

On page 225, Subtitle C, sec. 341, they start talking about affordability credits. Uh huh

Surf, I'm trying to get an idea as to what the public option might offer with respect to coverage and premium costs. So far all I'm finding are general directives, no specifics. Would you be able to cite the part of this bill I'm looking for. That is if it exists...

It's not in there. That'll be determined after passage, most likely in the same foreign language and upwards of 50,000 pages.

 

[olderthandirt]

I hate to bow out, but this is my weekend off and I've got lots on the "Honeydo" list...anyone's carrying a pitchfork or anything. Good luck, olderthandirt. Sounds like a long weekend. I hear Sweden's nice this time of year.

I did bow out but I'm back. BRIEFLY per the stink-eye. Wonder if I can just ship the kid off to Sweden?

It's not in there. That'll be determined after passage, most likely in the same foreign language and upwards of 50,000 pages.

Did more reading and exact figures don't appear to be in there. Does seem to be process for determining credit and premium levels but it is very confusing. Main point for this post was to throw rocks...

Reading reading, keep seeing FPL. What is that. Oh, Federal Poverty Level. Wonder where I'm at w/ respect to FPL, as it has a lot to do with this HR. So I go here:
2009 Federal Poverty Guidelines
to find out. OK, confirmed, I'm poor, but in the middle of the page I find a sentence that absolutely cracks me up.

"The poverty guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the “federal poverty level” (FPL), but that phrase is ambiguous and should be avoided, especially in situations (e.g., legislative or administrative) where precision is important."

Wonder if I should let the right honorable Mr.'s DINGELL, RANGEL, WAXMAN, MILLER, STARK, PALLONE and ANDREWS know that according to the Department of Health and Human Services they're being ambiguous.

 

[Surf Monkey]

It's not in there. That'll be determined after passage, most likely in the same foreign language and upwards of 50,000 pages.

For one thing, the bill will become more specific as it works its way towards passage. For another, if you're upset about the "foreign language" that it's written in, you're being unrealistic. ALL bills are written in that kind of language.

 

[Surf Monkey]

They should not consider any bill that they don't understand or can't read, simple as that. The voting public should not support any elected offcials voting on something they (the elected official) hasn't read nor understands. Anything else is called "pandering". It's unethical to pander. It's also dishonest. It means as a legislator, your vote is for sale or loan.

Legislators have staffs for that. There's simply no way that law makers can read every bill themselves. If they had to do so, no legislative work would ever get done. Additionally, the way election financing is set up, these guys have to spend a lot of their time fundraising. You want representatives to focus more time on reading bills? Support public financing of elections.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Yes, Surf, the public option is genuine reform and bad at that. The "option" will start as an alternative, but eventually we will all be covered by it. Common sense tells me that in return the govt. will have to put limitations on coverage/raise taxes and eventually dictate who gets what type of care.

1) Offering the slippery slope as a rebuttal is a weak way to argue the point. You can speculate that the public option will overtake all private insurance but you're not basing that on any specific evidence. In fact, that idea goes against everything we've seen in nations that have public plans. Every one of them continues to have profitable and healthy private insurance companies right alongside the public options.

Furthermore, there's a working example happening in America right now: public universities. Every state in the union has public universities and private ones. The existence of public universities hasn't put private schools out of business. Neither will the public option put private insurance companies out of business.

2) Your "common sense" observation that the government will limit coverage is also baseless speculation. The fact of the matter is that the private insurance companies put serious restrictions on coverage right now. They deny people life saving treatment every day of the week. Even if the government did the exact same thing (highly unlikely) at best we'd be in the same situation we're in right now. The system is currently so messed up that initiating a public option is highly unlikely to make it any worse and holds the very real promise that it'll make things at least marginally better.

 

[sattec]

Legislators have staffs for that. There's simply no way that law makers can read every bill themselves. yes there is, they make the bills complex to cover up their stealing.If they had to do so, no legislative work would ever get done.No legislative work gets done now, only special interest are being served Additionally, the way election financing is set up, these guys have to spend a lot of their time fundraising. it always come back to the money, but it shouldn't You want representatives to focus more time on reading bills? Support public financing of elections. I support term limits

A 2000 page bill???? lmao...it's not even finished yet!!! anything can be stuck in there and it's up to the interns to read it and understand it??? lmao.....health care reform in it's present form has not been thought out very well and BO just wants to PASS something...anything...so he can claim victory....next you'll claim the transparency in govenment he promised is happening.

 

[olderthandirt]

Curiosity break:

Is any one else making an attempt to read through HR3962? I thought I'd need to go back to school for a bit there..... reading the words and comprehending their import is a trying effort to say the least.

 

[LisaLisa]

Curiosity break:

Is any one else making an attempt to read through HR3962? I thought I'd need to go back to school for a bit there..... reading the words and comprehending their import is a trying effort to say the least.

If HR3962 is referring to the health care bill, no way am I going to even attempt it. All I had to read was the part about the IRS running it, and that sealed the deal for me.

 

[sattec]

A bill that will change this country forever, that nobody reads from start to finish....that sounds about right! It's the INTERNS, they need to be replaced!!!!!!! ... if your over 50, you know what's going on with our government, deficit spending can't be sustained. The dollar will be worth zero. But that could never happen here in the USA, could it? You watch, everybody and their grandmother wants a "piece" of the good ole USA, we've ...... off plenty of governments over the years. Well, they are closer than ever to getting that "piece", we're be destroyed from the inside, just as I was told we would be when I was in school. They taught history in the public schools back then..the real history. They'd be way better off to just fix medicare/medicaid FINALLY, rather than launch this HUGE thing nobody can read or understand....so the whole bill is going to be subject to interpretation after it's law???? Thats what it sounds like to me....Everytime they write anything down in a bill, a new loophole is opened up..... they know that.

 

[sattec]

If HR3962 is referring to the health care bill, no way am I going to even attempt it. All I had to read was the part about the IRS running it, and that sealed the deal for me.

thats been changed already, didn't you hear??? You have to read the bill the day they vote on it....they change the bills at the last moment all the time...nobody even flinches either...you know, the public is so stupid we wouldn't even understand it if they did take the time to let us read it for oh....a month or two before it's voted on..... All of this "hurry up do it now" is very suspicious, "hurry up, do it now" doesn't work well when your talking about Congress...they actually vote for as bill, then strip it of it's content and substitute new content to get things passed, oh yeah, it's true.... 60 people are deciding if this passes???? Are you kidding me???? 60 congress people are the last line of defense???? 60???? this really needs to be discussed a bit more my friends...60 is too few for this bill...60??? That's idiotic, most of the 60 are corrupt, as are most all politicians

 

[olderthandirt]

A bill that will change this country forever, that nobody reads from start to finish....that sounds about right!...
...so the whole bill is going to be subject to interpretation after it's law???? Thats what it sounds like to me....Everytime they write anything down in a bill, a new loophole is opened up..... they know that.

Channeled at seance last night for his impressions regarding H.R. 3962, Nobel prize winning author and philosopher Albert Camus is purported to have mused:

"That must be wonderful; I have no idea of what it means."

Yeah, I really am looking through the thing. First time I've ever attempted actually reading a bill. I'm thinking that the reps that put this stuff together took notes from Agent Sculley (paraprahased to suit me):

"... A fear which often drives us — not to search for understanding — but to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate. To obscure the truth not only from others, but from ourselves."

I'm going back outside to the garden.... been cross-eyed over this for far too long today.

 

[sattec]

A buddy of mine recently wrote this....this is typical of government involvment...it's not thought out very well.. he writes...

"You really can thank the Gov. for the regulations they imposed on funeral homes in the late '70's for even making this possible.

Before the big FTC/Gov crackdown, when you walked into your local family owned funeral parlor, everything you needed for a funeral was included in the price you saw posted on the casket. Sometimes you needed everything, sometimes you didn't but the price you saw was it (usually minus the vault which may or may not have been needed).

Somewhere the FTC came up with the ideal that the pricing wasn't fair as a customer should be able to choose. Sounds good in principle but just like any business you have fixed employee cost, building overhead, ect.
So, the funeral homes now had to price everything 3x what they were pricing in the package so if a person only choose option 1 and 2, the funeral home still made enough money on those to be profitable.

What happened is instead of helping the customer, the Gov essentially doubled the price of an average funeral overnight. This also led for record profits at those family owned funeral homes and they were soon bought out by large conglomerates who now saw real profit potential. So much profit that now, 3 major conglomerates own 95% of all the funeral business in the US. With this new found power, they also have branched out into the supplies and now control about 75% of them as well as the prices the independents pay for them.

Back to the casket subject, when the funeral homes had their prices unregulated, they usually didn't make ANYTHING on the casket. That's right, nothing. They had a price they need to make to stay in business for each customer and the casket cost was added to that and that was the funeral price.
Now that the government has mandated alacarte pricing, every single item of the funeral has to be a profit center in case the customer only takes the basic essentials.

Right now, in an average funeral, the casket price is marked up 125% (on average) on the itemized invoice. The caskets that Walmart has for 999.00, run about 750.00 from a casket company. The funeral home will charge about 1695-2000.00 for the same casket.

So, bottom line, when a customer prices a funeral at a funeral home, after it's all added up, just have them delete the casket and purchase your own at Walmart and have it delivered to the funeral home. You will save anywhere from 600-1000.00 on the base model.

BTW- My family was in the funeral business up until '78 and I watched all this take place first hand."

 

[LisaLisa]

d. The dollar will be worth zero. But that could never happen here in the USA, could it?

It sure could happen and it will happen, it's just a matter of when? The only thing you can really do is try to prepare as best as you can. Store up food, ammo and things that you can barter with.

 

[lordmage]

here is my two cents some what barley informed view. that said here i go.

one we are dammed if we do and dammed if we don't when it comes to health insurance. in one case we have are own but pay more for it, due to this or that. two we don't have one and get the public option and pay a monthly fine for it up 1,500 for a single person. three company's that don't offer it will pay up to 8% tax i.e FINE for not offering one. excluding small company's less then 8 employees i believe. any private insurer selling after Jan. 1 ,2010 must be listed as an approved exchange agent or some such mess. Bottom line how it effects the single person on end user is determined by how much they make and AGI. to much and you pay more. this is a reform bill which is to say all you will find are guidelines. and who ever the secretary is will get to determine who pays what and when. the cabinet of 9 will reexamine prices every 3 years so expect an increase every 2

Edit: update after comparing my FPL. damn your only poor if you make less then $10,830 i think that figure is way to low considering cost of living and how much this bill will cost us in the end. another key point is that if passed it will only last 10 year or so unless revisited ever 6 or some such mess.

 

[olderthandirt]

...
one we are dammed if we do and dammed if we don't when it comes to health insurance.
... and pay a monthly fine for it up 1,500 for a single person. three company's that don't offer it will pay up to 8% tax i.e FINE for not offering one. excluding small company's less then 8 employees i believe. any private insurer selling after Jan. 1 ,2010 must be listed as an approved exchange agent or some such mess. Bottom line how it effects the single person on end user is determined by how much they make and AGI. to much and you pay more. this is a reform bill which is to say all you will find are guidelines. and who ever the secretary is will get to determine who pays what and when. the cabinet of 9 will reexamine prices every 3 years so expect an increase every 2



Edit: update after comparing my FPL. damn your only poor if you make less then $10,830 i think that figure is way to low considering cost of living and how much this bill will cost us in the end. another key point is that if passed it will only last 10 year or so unless revisited ever 6 or some such mess.

Good morning lordmage. That's pretty much what I'm walking away with after reading through the thing. No I have not and will not read the whole thing. I don't have a staff to do it for me and I ain't getting any younger.

I missed where a monthly fine could be upwards of $15k. I came up with something like $750 a year fine for my circumstances. I couldn't tell ya how I got that number now but....

That it is just guidelines at this point OMG! 1990 for guidelines, how many pages would the "interpretations" hit!

 

[Surf Monkey]

A 2000 page bill???? lmao...it's not even finished yet!!! anything can be stuck in there and it's up to the interns to read it and understand it??? lmao.....health care reform in it's present form has not been thought out very well and BO just wants to PASS something...anything...so he can claim victory....next you'll claim the transparency in govenment he promised is happening.

Never have I read a more incorrect characterization of how the vetting of a bill by legislators happens.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Never have I read a more incorrect characterization of how the vetting of a bill by legislators happens.

??? Bottom line, is it, really? I'd say all that's missing is a room full of lobbyists. Surf, it appears that we both have a decent layman's understanding of what moves the wheels of our government, but, obviously, we sit on opposite sides of the table. At least on this one. We all desire to trust our government the same as we want to trust our doctors. In an earlier post you flamed me for speculation and I agree that it was speculation, only. Speculation can be a powerful thing, though. Speculation has made many rich, saved many lives, drove up the price of oil. Sometimes it's no more than a gut feeling and sometimes physical evidence lays all around us like the burnt paper in my yard after the 4th of July. I like my doctor and I know he's a good Christian man with a great family, adopted a couple of kids from Russia and my middle son is close friends with one of his sons. Do I trust him at his office? Not all the time. Sometimes I don't think he's listening to me, sometimes he sends me for the wrong prescription. And it's never "oops", it's more like "well, try this, instead" or "why didn't you tell me that before". I second guess him all the time. If he were to tell me I needed surgery I'd start digging for information on the affliction, look for alternatives and make an informed decision. And I really like him. I also second guess my government. Like my doctor, the government has left reason to speculate and if its track record is an indication then my speculation will eventually be proven fact. Reread all that I've posted about and ask yourself "is it possible" and if so "is it probable". As I said the Consitution is plainly written and all can understand its wording. Period. Unfortunately, there are those whose missions in life was to interpret what they thought the Founding Fathers ment by what they said. Now, when Bill Clinton says "No, I did not have sex with that woman", then defends his answer with "Define sex", interpretation becomes the maker or breaker. The healthcare bill public option is the delivery tool for the public mandate. Once we have that passed the rest is subject to interpretation and we are at the mercy of the lobbyists, who happen to own the lawmakers that write the bills. I speculate.... Also, I didn't mean to imply that the government would put private insurance out of business. As a matter of fact I think the private sector would do well. You stated how both co-exist in other countries and you're right. The reason they do is because government insurance in those countries not only limit coverage, but with private insurance patients are able to move up on the long waiting lists for care. So the wealth is spred between their officials and the private enterprises, it's a win, win, right?

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

wake up, Buddy. The bottle's empty and a mole from your garden took over your waders. Your son has the tickets and the plane's ready for take-off!

 

[Surf Monkey]

As I said the Consitution is plainly written and all can understand its wording. Period. Unfortunately, there are those whose missions in life was to interpret what they thought the Founding Fathers ment by what they said.

Have you read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, collectively known as the Debate on the Constitution? It's crystal clear from the words of the founders that they intended the US government to be a fluid system that was able to react to changing conditions. The Constitution was meant to be a living document, not a musty set of rules that no one must ever interpret differently that the founders themselves did. The idea that interpretation should be forbidden or scorned is itself contrary to the expressed intent of the men who set this government up in the first place.