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Dems taunt GOP: Where's your health care plan?

In this analogy, they agree that the car isn't running properly. They disagree that a new car is needed to solve the problem. So, they don't have to suggest any alternative new cars.
 
In this analogy, they agree that the car isn't running properly. They disagree that a new car is needed to solve the problem. So, they don't have to suggest any alternative new cars.

Except the problem with this analogy is that public legislation is not a binary choice between "new car" and "tune-up." Legislation is a spectrum that ranges from doing nothing to implementing a completely new system. And there aren't any clear boundaries that indicate when you've moved from one point in the spectrum to another.

Are the Democratic proposals suggesting we need a "new car," or do they just include a more comprehensive tune-up than what the Republicans may be comfortable with?
 
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In that respect, I think any sea change can be looked at as proposing a new car, sure.
 
Properly, an actual conservative's "plan" would be to get out of the way and let the free market do what it does, as much as possible.

The Dems can sneer that the GOP has no plan if they wish... to me, "leave it alone" is better than any plan I've heard of this year.
 
Properly, an actual conservative's "plan" would be to get out of the way and let the free market do what it does, as much as possible.

The Dems can sneer that the GOP has no plan if they wish... to me, "leave it alone" is better than any plan I've heard of this year.

Can you state the problem and tell me how free market properly addresses said problem?
 
Can you state the problem and tell me how free market properly addresses said problem?


The problem most people seem to percieve, is health care costing too much and some people not having insurance.

Thirty years ago medical care was cheaper, but the overall quality was not as good... or less high-tech anyway. Bypass surgery was very risky, for example.

30 yrs ago most people had medical insurance that only covered "catastrophic" illness, like major surgery or a long hospital stay. If you went to the doctor's office you paid cash; it didn't cost very much, and there were still docs who made housecalls.

If you needed surgery and had no insurance, they'd still treat you just like they will now... it might mean you're in debt for the rest of your life and your estate goes *poof* after you're gone, but you'd be treated.

Then the goobermint got involved and started making mandates. HMO this and PPO that, and the cost of both healthcare and health insurance both went through the roof. I watched this happen.


Now we are lead to believe that the solution to a problem largely created by government mandates is.... more government mandates?

Some of the rise in costs is due to new technology. I had a stress test twenty years ago, it was just an EKG while on a treadmill. Now, it is that PLUS a 3-D radioscopy of your whole heart, and costs a lot more (but is a lot more accurate!)


The free market promotes competition for both price and quality. Lasik eye surgery and liposuction are not covered by most insurance; most people have to pay cash, therefore most people shop around and the doctors doing these proceedures are in competition.

I had a colonoscopy covered by insurance that took 2 hours and cost $11,000 total.

Lasik eye surgery costs under $1500 per eye. Liposuction can be had under $5000.

Free market is cheaper.

If someone chooses not to have health insurance, they just have to take their chances. Unless you're really really dirt poor, some kind of health insurance can be had for a half-way reasonable price... you just can't get the kind that pays for EVERYTHING. Your choice... maybe they should drop their Direct TV subscription and start an HSA with the money saved.
 
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The problem most people seem to percieve, is health care costing too much and some people not having insurance.

There is also the problem of insurance being tied to employment, and thus not being portable. There is the problem of health insurers monopolizing the market in individual cities. And there is the problem of health insurers discriminating against people on the basis of preexisting conditions and age, and kicking people off the plan when they get sick.

Goshin said:
Thirty years ago medical care was cheaper, but the overall quality was not as good... or less high-tech anyway. Bypass surgery was very risky, for example.

30 yrs ago most people had medical insurance that only covered "catastrophic" illness, like major surgery or a long hospital stay. If you went to the doctor's office you paid cash; it didn't cost very much, and there were still docs who made housecalls.

If you needed surgery and had no insurance, they'd still treat you just like they will now... it might mean you're in debt for the rest of your life and your estate goes *poof* after you're gone, but you'd be treated.

Then the goobermint got involved and started making mandates. HMO this and PPO that, and the cost of both healthcare and health insurance both went through the roof. I watched this happen.


Now we are lead to believe that the solution to a problem largely created by government mandates is.... more government mandates?

OK...you're claiming that the government mandates caused these problems, but you aren't explaining HOW they caused these problems. And more importantly, you aren't explaining how eliminating these mandates will eliminate these problems.

Goshin said:
The free market promotes competition for both price and quality. Lasik eye surgery and liposuction are not covered by most insurance; most people have to pay cash, therefore most people shop around and the doctors doing these proceedures are in competition.

I had a colonoscopy covered by insurance that took 2 hours and cost $11,000 total.

Lasik eye surgery costs under $1500 per eye. Liposuction can be had under $5000.

Free market is cheaper.

But what is your solution to this problem? Whether there is a government mandate or not, most people will prefer to get health insurance, thus shielding them from the costs of these procedures.

Goshin said:
If someone chooses not to have health insurance, they just have to take their chances. Unless you're really really dirt poor, some kind of health insurance can be had for a half-way reasonable price... you just can't get the kind that pays for EVERYTHING. Your choice... maybe they should drop their Direct TV subscription and start an HSA with the money saved.

I don't think foregoing DirectTV is going to pay for dialysis.
 
With all that has been thrown about with regards to Health care reform.
It seems that many people cannot recall that a Reform Plan was mooted by the Nixon Administration.

The main reason this plan was not adopted was because a certain Democratic loud mouth decided to oppose it.

Strangely enough the same loud mouthed Democrat apparently changed his opinion of the proposed Nixon plan, some years later, saying in his usual ponderous fashion "We should have adopted the plan put forward by the Nixon administration".

The problems seems to be that if the Democrats did not think of an idea first then they are not willing to adopt a Republican proposal and likewise if the Republicans had not thought of something first then they too will not back a Democratic proposal.


Someone has to make a decision as to what reform and how to implement that reform.


Sooner or later, we had best pray it is sooner.
 
Dems taunt GOP: Where's your health care plan? - Yahoo! News

I'm glad to see Republicans are becoming aware of their lack of quality additions in the Health care debate. It's easy to say "No that won't help". It's much harder to offer an alternative solution.

I personally look forward to a less government run alternative to health care reform. I hope someone, on any side of the political spectrum, can offer something more palatable then the current universal health care options.

The efforts to suggest that Republicans have no plan as a counter attack to the Democrats own infighting over their laughable Government takeover of 1/4 of the American economy would be funny if not so tragically misguided and harmful.

While the Democrats continue to demagogue the issue of healthcare and their political opponents, unemployment continues to soar, GDP continues to decline, foreclosures are on the rise, the deficit increases and the National Debt climbs burying future generations in a mountain of debt and interest payments of about $500,000,000 per day.

You just can't fabricate the lunacy that infests the Congress and the efforts of the mainstream media to provide cover for the lunatic way Democrats are running things now.

But alas, this is all about the poor and the children who are now MORE destitute because jobs are vanishing faster than at any other time in our recent history and the future costs to pay the vast amounts of deficit spending along with the inflationary effects of printing vast sums of currency will ensure their destitution for generations to come.

Yes folks, in their effort to make EVERYONE a dependent ward of the State they are willing to destroy the strongest economy in the world, the best healthcare in the world and the strongest nation in the world all in the interest of Socialist feel-good emotional hyperbole in lieu of honest discourse about the doing the RIGHT thing instead of pandering.

Let's hope that the American people come to their senses in the 2010 midterms and get rid of the lunatic infestation that currently exists in our congress and demand some sanity back in our legislature.

We don't need the efforts of healthcare reform these morons infesting Congress are demanding. What we need is tort reform, more free market competition and a system that allows/permits the buyers of healthcare more control over how their dollars are spent and where they wish to obtain their insurance.

This whole farcical debate about "preventive" care is about as laughable as the notion that we can add 45 million people to the Government welfare rolls without increasing the deficit or the National debt.
 
The problem most people seem to percieve, is health care costing too much and some people not having insurance.

Thirty years ago medical care was cheaper, but the overall quality was not as good... or less high-tech anyway. Bypass surgery was very risky, for example.

30 yrs ago most people had medical insurance that only covered "catastrophic" illness, like major surgery or a long hospital stay. If you went to the doctor's office you paid cash; it didn't cost very much, and there were still docs who made housecalls.

If you needed surgery and had no insurance, they'd still treat you just like they will now... it might mean you're in debt for the rest of your life and your estate goes *poof* after you're gone, but you'd be treated.

Then the goobermint got involved and started making mandates. HMO this and PPO that, and the cost of both healthcare and health insurance both went through the roof. I watched this happen.


Now we are lead to believe that the solution to a problem largely created by government mandates is.... more government mandates?

Some of the rise in costs is due to new technology. I had a stress test twenty years ago, it was just an EKG while on a treadmill. Now, it is that PLUS a 3-D radioscopy of your whole heart, and costs a lot more (but is a lot more accurate!)


The free market promotes competition for both price and quality. Lasik eye surgery and liposuction are not covered by most insurance; most people have to pay cash, therefore most people shop around and the doctors doing these proceedures are in competition.

I had a colonoscopy covered by insurance that took 2 hours and cost $11,000 total.

Lasik eye surgery costs under $1500 per eye. Liposuction can be had under $5000.

Free market is cheaper.

If someone chooses not to have health insurance, they just have to take their chances. Unless you're really really dirt poor, some kind of health insurance can be had for a half-way reasonable price... you just can't get the kind that pays for EVERYTHING. Your choice... maybe they should drop their Direct TV subscription and start an HSA with the money saved.
Wait a minute, so the quality and technology were much lower than they are now? Well how did they improve with the pharmaceutical companies raking in the profits all these years? How were we able to improve the technology? If they put all the profits in their pockets, who paids for the improvements?
Something just doesn't add up here. :confused:
 
Properly, an actual conservative's "plan" would be to get out of the way and let the free market do what it does, as much as possible.

The Dems can sneer that the GOP has no plan if they wish... to me, "leave it alone" is better than any plan I've heard of this year.

So you don't think a single thing should be done to change it, even something like removing regulations, or making it so it's not tied to employer?
 
So you don't think a single thing should be done to change it, even something like removing regulations, or making it so it's not tied to employer?

I am constantly fascinated by the arguments that Governmental regulations make things better or more affordable and that the ONLY solution to any problem is MORE Government. Where does one have any evidence that this has EVER occurred?

It is the same farcical notions that Government should have created the CRA and forced banks to loan money to people who couldn't afford mortgages; how did that work out for the American taxpayer?
 
Wait a minute, so the quality and technology were much lower than they are now? Well how did they improve with the pharmaceutical companies raking in the profits all these years? How were we able to improve the technology? If they put all the profits in their pockets, who paids for the improvements?
Something just doesn't add up here. :confused:

It doesn't. Let's take Viagra for just one example. You cannot see profits were put into the pockets of drug companies, you cannot see their research and development 'finding' this drug or its desired side affects? And then marketing it.
 
This whole farcical debate about "preventive" care is about as laughable as the notion that we can add 45 million people to the Government welfare rolls without increasing the deficit or the National debt.

Last I read this wasn't welfare. Citizens had to actually pay into the program. Do you have a link that suggests otherwise?
 
I am constantly fascinated by the arguments that Governmental regulations make things better or more affordable and that the ONLY solution to any problem is MORE Government. Where does one have any evidence that this has EVER occurred?

It is the same farcical notions that Government should have created the CRA and forced banks to loan money to people who couldn't afford mortgages; how did that work out for the American taxpayer?

Can you not read? Did you not even look at what I said? I suggested DEregulation as a possible solution the Republicans could have brought up.

As to when government regulation did work, I'd say the food industry. Before TR got reforms passed, meat plants could and did do things like put poisoned meat, spoiled meat, and rats into the grinders.

Also (just so we're clear), are you saying that the housing bust was solely the government's fault? If I remember correctly, the banks were doing some pretty shady things.
 
We should buy this new car.

Too expensive!

Oh yeah? What's your alternative? Which car would you rather buy? Until you suggest a different new car to buy, don't criticize this choice.



Basically, it's assumed that a new car must be bought, when the better solution is simply to get a tune-up on the car you have.

Unless you could buy a ferrari for what it currently costs you for the cars upkeep. I'm sorry, a small fleet of ferraris.
 
According to the CDC (2003-2004), 66% of Americans are either overweight or obese [CDC]. That's outrageous.

A simple change to the average American diet and lifestyle would reduce health care costs dramatically; however, since this would require Americans to get off their asses and do something, it doesn’t seem likely to catch on with anyone.

CDC - N C H S - Health E Stats - Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity
 
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According to the CDC (2003-2004), 66% of Americans are either overweight or obese [CDC]. That's outrageous.

A simple change to the average American diet and lifestyle would reduce health care costs dramatically; however, since this would require Americans to get off their asses and do something, it doesn’t seem likely to catch on with anyone.

CDC - N C H S - Health E Stats - Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity

Yea let em die.:rofl
 
According to the CDC (2003-2004), 66% of Americans are either overweight or obese [CDC]. That's outrageous.

A simple change to the average American diet and lifestyle would reduce health care costs dramatically; however, since this would require Americans to get off their asses and do something, it doesn’t seem likely to catch on with anyone.

CDC - N C H S - Health E Stats - Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity
And yet, it is somehow wrong to charge obese people more for their health insurance.
 
Are you trying to make a point of some sort?

Sure I have a point, the subject of the thread is "Dems taunt GOP: Where's your health care plan?"and you post a link to “Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity Among Adults:United States, 2003-2004".

What is one to think when you put something like that into a thread? It only points to the fact that the republican party has no plan, other than let the 47 million that die each year due to the lack of healtcare to continue to die.

with this attude it knda looks like the Senator from the state of Florida hit the nail on the head when he said the Republican Healthcare Plan is “Die Quickly”.
 
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