Would you have signed or vetoed the health care bill?

pro-bipartisan said:

Can you cite information from the bill that supports that conclusion?

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Couple of things that immediately pop into my head. Again, I'm still getting my feet wet here, but the 85/15 minimum liability mandate, this means that anything that doesn't cover 85% of all costs pre-deductible+out of pocket, usually you are better off with an 80/20, premiums are better because of the savings a company gets before the customer liability ends.

Elimination of Pre-existing conditions, this is ultimately good for consumers, but not the companies or consumer pocketbooks, healthy people will ultimately subsidize conditions that are insanely expensive, as well the waiting period eliminations and elimination of lifetime usage maximums.

The second paragraph I submitted contains some necessary and good things because health insurance is something I wish had a better price. Here's the problem, without actually addressing the core problems of health costs, the companies that provide catastrophic loss protection- i.e. Major medical, indemnity, hospitalization, etc. will have major headaches in managing the bottom line, because legally they have been stripped of their stop-loss mechanisms. The two options available in this situation are to eat the losses or pass them along, if you eat the loss then stockholders are angry, if you raise costs you are set up to price most of your consumer base out of the market. If major health costs were addressed by actually going through the real causes, we would bring the entire monster back down to tolerable levels.

pro-bipartisan said:

How do you know it doesn't? Have you read it?

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1) There's no public option to keep the insurance companies honest.

2) After the bill passed it's already being reported that premiums are expected to rise. Check out the link below.

Health premiums expected to rise 17% for young adults

With that said, I just don't see how this thing is going to work in favor of the American people.

Captain America said:

That's a dog-gone good question. I am not sure what I would have done.

If I was to veto it, it would be because I don't think it did enough.

If I was to sign it, it would only be because the longest journey begins with the first step and I would only do so fearing that a veto would put this necessary legislation on the back-burner for another 20 years. I honestly believe, underneath it all, that's EXACTLY what the GOP would want to do. Kill it.

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I would have signed it for that reason alone ^. It is the first step. It wasn't ideal but it's real and it's here. A veto would have put it on the back burner for God knows how long.


:2wave:

Signed. The key was to get it into the door and then we can improve it. Baby Steps People.

Signed. At the start of this debate as high as 90% of the people believed we needed health care reform. You can bet the democrats came up with a more people friendly bill than the insurance/corporate/republicans would ever have. The simple fact that billions were spent trying to defeat the bill tells me it's better than most people think it is. Is it what I'd like, no, but it's a start. The republicans would have given us more medi-gap. That's the biggest tax payer rip-off by insurance companies and drug companies in history. I hope the democrats fix that mess. They could save billions just letting the government nagociate the price of drugs we the taxpayers pay for.

jacksbrat said:

Signed. At the start of this debate as high as 90% of the people believed we needed health care reform. You can bet the democrats came up with a more people friendly bill than the insurance/corporate/republicans would ever have. The simple fact that billions were spent trying to defeat the bill tells me it's better than most people think it is. Is it what I'd like, no, but it's a start. The republicans would have given us more medi-gap. That's the biggest tax payer rip-off by insurance companies and drug companies in history. I hope the democrats fix that mess. They could save billions just letting the government nagociate the price of drugs we the taxpayers pay for.

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We *DO* need healthcare reform, what Obama signed just isn't it. Just because we need something doesn't mean you sign any bad bill that comes down the pike, you go after the real problems and correct them, you don't just bandage over them like the Obama bill did. But Obama, like all politicians, is afraid to tackle the real problems because the real problems are major campaign contributors to both political parties. They're not going to shoot themselves in the foot and piss off their financial supporters, so the real problems go entirely ignored.

Neither....

It should never have passed.
There was bipartisanship.....against it. If it was such a good thing for the country, why all the arm twisting, bribes and backroom deals to pass the monstrosity? Why did 34 Dems vote against it?
Oh well, as Nancy Pelosi said "We have to pass it so we can find out what's in it".
I guess we'll be finding out all the dirty little details now. Unfortunately what is not in it, is tort reform and the ability to buy across state lines. Two Rep. ideas that would have brought down costs.

Cephus said:

We *DO* need healthcare reform, what Obama signed just isn't it. Just because we need something doesn't mean you sign any bad bill that comes down the pike, you go after the real problems and correct them, you don't just bandage over them like the Obama bill did. But Obama, like all politicians, is afraid to tackle the real problems because the real problems are major campaign contributors to both political parties. They're not going to shoot themselves in the foot and piss off their financial supporters, so the real problems go entirely ignored.

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Do you think there was any way in hell the democrats could have come up with a health care bill that was "what the people wanted" and republican would have supported? Hell no. Any bill would have been the "wrong bill". Any one with a brain bigger than a pea knows this. Republicans weren't interested in health care reform, they were out to defeat the democrats. Thank God they failed.

jacksbrat said:

Do you think there was any way in hell the democrats could have come up with a health care bill that was "what the people wanted" and republican would have supported? Hell no. Any bill would have been the "wrong bill". Any one with a brain bigger than a pea knows this. Republicans weren't interested in health care reform, they were out to defeat the democrats. Thank God they failed.

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The Party of bad ideas vs the Party of none:rofl

Edit:

Wrong thread.

Signed. Republicans had 12 years to run some kind of health care reform and did nothing. Something needed to be done. I'm glad Obama did it instead of waiting around for Republicans to decide whether or not they want some magical invisible hand to do it for them while the health industry keeps screwing people over.

jacksbrat said:

Do you think there was any way in hell the democrats could have come up with a health care bill that was "what the people wanted" and republican would have supported? Hell no. Any bill would have been the "wrong bill". Any one with a brain bigger than a pea knows this. Republicans weren't interested in health care reform, they were out to defeat the democrats. Thank God they failed.

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I don't care about partisan politics, I care about doing the right thing for the right reasons. Neither party has any interest whatsoever in actually fixing the problem because it'll cost them political clout and political contributions. The same is true of the financial disaster, nobody wants to fix it because inherent in fixing it will cost them votes.

Both sides are only interested in staying in power, neither are interested in actually solving problems.

Cephus said:

I don't care about partisan politics, I care about doing the right thing for the right reasons. Neither party has any interest whatsoever in actually fixing the problem because it'll cost them political clout and political contributions. The same is true of the financial disaster, nobody wants to fix it because inherent in fixing it will cost them votes.

Both sides are only interested in staying in power, neither are interested in actually solving problems.

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Yea, right. That's why the democrats did "nothing".:roll: Republicans want you to think both parties are the same, That way they've already got themselves back to even instead of the party everyone hated last election.