US Healthcare Options

[Alias]

So, the US Congress finally passed the healthcare bill meaning that all first-world countries now have centralised healthcare systems. About damn time if you ask me.

The US House of Representatives has given final approval to a sweeping healthcare overhaul, expanding insurance coverage to nearly all Americans and handing president Barack Obama a landmark victory.

On a hard-fought 219-212 vote, House Democrats approved the most dramatic health policy changes in 40 years. The vote sends the bill, already approved by the Senate, to Mr Obama to sign into law.

"After decades of trying and a year of sustained effort and debate, the US Congress finally declared that America's workers, families and small businesses deserve the security of knowing that neither injury nor accident will endanger the dreams they've worked a lifetime to achieve," Mr Obama said soon after the vote.

The overhaul extends insurance coverage to 32 million Americans, expands the government health plan for the poor, imposes new taxes on the wealthy and bars insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Its passage capped a year-long political battle with Republicans that consumed the US Congress and dented Mr Obama's approval ratings, and fulfilled a goal that eluded Democrats since former president Bill Clinton's failed attempt in 1994.

"This isn't radical reform, but it is major reform. This legislation will not fix everything that ails our healthcare system, but it moves us in the right direction ... this is what change looks like," Mr Obama said.

He said that despite the predictions of pundits that it was not possible to pass the mammoth bill, Americans had risen above their differences.

"Tonight we answered the call of history as so many Americans have before us. We did not avoid our responsibility. We embraced it. We did not fear our future. We shaped it."

Democrats hugged and cheered in celebration as the vote count hit the magic number of 216 and chanted: "Yes we can."

Every Republican opposed the bill and 34 Democrats joined them in voting against it.

Republican and industry critics said the 10-year, $US940 billion ($1.02 trillion) bill was a heavy-handed intrusion in the healthcare sector that will drive up costs, increase the budget deficit and reduce patients' choices.

Both parties geared up for another battle over the healthcare bill in the campaign leading up to November's congressional elections, and opponents across the country promised to challenge the legislation at the state level.

The healthcare revamp, Mr Obama's top domestic priority, will usher in the biggest changes in America's $US2.5 trillion healthcare system since the 1965 creation of the government-run Medicare health program for the elderly and disabled.

It would require most Americans to have health coverage, gives subsidies to help lower-income workers pay for coverage and creates state-based exchanges where the uninsured can compare and shop for plans.

Major provisions such as the exchanges and subsidies would not kick in until 2014, but many of the insurance reforms like barring companies from dropping coverage for the sick will begin in the first year.

Heavy lobbying

The vote followed days of heavy lobbying of undecided House Democrats by Mr Obama, his top aides and House leaders.

The narrow victory was clinched by a deal designed to appease a handful of Democratic opponents of abortion rights.

Under the deal, Mr Obama will issue an executive order affirming government restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion.

That pledge won the support of Representative Bart Stupak and a handful of other House Democratic abortion rights opponents, who had threatened to vote against the Senate-passed bill because they said its abortion restrictions were not strong enough.

The health insurance industry has vigorously opposed the plan, but insurance stocks rallied late last week as investors began to realise their worst fears had not materialised.

Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and others will benefit from more insured patients, and the bill does not allow the government to cap prices and premiums, which would have hurt drugmakers and insurers.

Opinion polls show the public also has a mixed view. While pluralities oppose the legislation and the process has turned off many Americans, some of the bill's individual components draw heavy support.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03...?section=justin

[katmoda12]

I exactly think the same thing, Alias. Now USA are a place where to live in without fear of your health. And i think that now that Nobel they gave Obama a while ago has been half merited.

Welcome to western civilization America, where no one is left behind, like they say in your army.

I'm being a bit provocative but i think that giving health care system to everyone who has worked for the benefits of its country (paying taxes,spending their money,giving their votes to the right people) is an imperative that every democratic country must have.

[Pickysaurus]

We've had the NHS for years

[Shiro]

So, what took them so long? Germany has this system for over a century now, in fact we are the inventors. Why did it take the USA so long to take this system like everyone else?

[MARS]

Apparently, some Americans think that offering medical care to uninsured people is a communist idea and therefore evil...

[Pickysaurus]

America is full of people with weird ideals

[Comr4de]

Apparently, some Americans think that offering medical care to uninsured people is a communist idea and therefore evil...

Reasoning for it is that they think that it will bankrupt the country amongst other skeptical ideals involving money.

I'm not taking sides on it since I do not know all the facts from either political party but it seems each has their own ideas of how to do healthcare.

Time will only tell if this new system actually works but its an incentive to do something good for once instead of going full belly into war for no fucking reason. >(

[Alias]

You've been bankrupt for years...

Even then, I still don't see why people value money over human lives. It's disgusting.

[NergiZed]

Well, my facebook page has just been enveloped in a conservative shit-storm.

There's gonna be a serious amount of hate emanating from the bible-belt and the deep south. Fox News is a very effective propaganda machine and it's dangerous how it indoctrinates people's minds. I currently live on the Mason-Dixon line (the line that arbitrarily divides then North from the South) and I think I'm gonna hear an earful from some of my friends about this bollux.

In all honesty, I could care less about this stuff, if I ever need cheap health-care, I'd go to China and get into one of those 'tourist hospitals'; one of my aunts gave birth there and she says the service and care there is fantastic, while costing way less than the US.

This post has been edited by NergiZed: 22 Mar 2010, 18:17

[Shiro]

You've been bankrupt for years...

Even then, I still don't see why people value money over human lives. It's disgusting.

I really start to wonder how half the world can be bankrupt - the USA, Canada, the EU, large parts of Africa and Asia, Australia... HOW is that possible?

[Kichō]

We've had the NHS for years

I don't know much about US Healthcare/don't have time to read the article, but is it anything like the NHS?

[R3ven]

So, what took them so long? Germany has this system for over a century now, in fact we are the inventors. Why did it take the USA so long to take this system like everyone else?

Because half this stupid country thinks that if we get free health care, like we do now(good thing to, I get sick a lot because of my asthma, it costs a lot for me and my mom to get the medicine for my breathing machine), it's going to make the US into a socialist country. Most people in the US don't even know what socialism really is, but they think it is evil.

Anyways, hooray they finally passed this bill, it took them damn long enough.

[Pickysaurus]

I don't know much about US Healthcare/don't have time to read the article, but is it anything like the NHS?

The theory is for it to be very much like the NHS... by 2014 it'll be compulsory for every American. And paid for by the taxes.

[partyzanPaulZy]

I think system of the EU will met system of the NAFTA somewhere in the middle
because EU is driving to conservative right - fees, bureacracy and regulations turning into capitalistic Comecon (Czech sugar industry has been crippled by EU quotas, but on the other hand they are supporting other things like research - sadly mostly for western companies since most local companies died on financial tunnels during privatisation).
USA is going slowly from the conservative right quadrant, but otherwise there will be so many regulations and bureaucracy like in the EU - especially after the USA get closer with Mexico in the NAFTA. The USA have cheap labour in Mexico and EU have... oh wait, we have already Russian mafia controlling many companies in the cities and larger towns
and Ukrainians, Bulgarians or Romanians doing hard job (under mafia).

[beefJeRKy]

While I myself am a believer in small government, the US needs to form some sort of managed healthcare system. I haven't read anything about the healthcare plan itself, so I can't tell how much of a financial drain it will be. I hope they get it to be more effective than the Quebec public healthcare (you pay 52% of your income as tax and then get delayed far too much).

[Overdose]

I can officially call americans communists now.

The joy!

[R3ven]

I can officially call americans communists now.

The joy!

D':

I'm not though D':

[Pav3d]

About damn time, you ludicrous country, with your previously non-centralised health care and not having the full price displayed when you buy stuff

[Pickysaurus]

[..] and not having the full price displayed when you buy stuff

I've never understood the logic behind this tbh

[Overdose]

Yeah me neither. Shopping there was terrible. I think its because they don't use cash very often. When they do its coins in vending machines.

[ultimentra]

Totally agree that time will tell. I personally feel like America is coming out of the metaphorical closet right now, but is still unwilling to accompany britain to the global gaybar just yet. It will take years to fully implement, the only bad thing here is for small business getting smacked on the hand for not participating (taxed for non-action) while the big corporations will no doubt find loopholes leaving someone at risk for metric tonnes of medical expenses (hehe used the metric system lol omg im a such a commy).

[R3ven]

About damn time, you ludicrous country, with your previously non-centralised health care and not having the full price displayed when you buy stuff

Because both parties of the Government pretty much just want to spend the peoples money, and do that in the form of "Hidden Fees"

This post has been edited by huhnu: 1 Apr 2010, 18:42

[ComeOn]

I can officially call americans communists now.

Hold your horses, Overdose.=P
We still got free trade.

[GrizzAFWX]

I really start to wonder how half the world can be bankrupt - the USA, Canada, the EU, large parts of Africa and Asia, Australia... HOW is that possible?

Especially when the University of Texas generates more money from football per year than many third world countries...


The health care debate... I'm a conservative and I'm split on the issue. We did need some sort of healthcare reform in the U.S., but I'm not sure this was the best way to do it (I do admit, I don't know all the details of the new bill though...). The thing that concerns me is the issue of my (or anyone's for that matter) tax dollars paying for someone's health care who has the capability to take care of their body and better their health, but does not. Someone who chooses to smoke like a freight train, lay out in the sun all day without proper sunscreen, or someone who drinks their liver into oblivion, should the government pay for their cancer treatment? Someone who chooses to eat unhealthy foods gluttonously and not exercise, should the government pay for their lifestyle induced diabetes treatments and other obesity derived illness treatments? Just some examples. How do those issues work in you all's countries that have government healthcare?

[Alias]

We suck it up and understand that we're helping people.
Human life is always worth more than money, regardless of circumstances.

I don't know about you, but I'd certainly rather realise I just saved somebody else's life than realise I managed to earn a few extra bucks.

This post has been edited by Alias: 2 Apr 2010, 7:39