Health Care Bill Upheld

[greengiant912]

^^ doesn't that prove that they are? People from both sides of the isle voted to uphold it, if I understand what you said correctly.

 

 

It dose, its obvious though that some of them did vote along party lines, as it was a narrow 5-4...

 

 

 

Now I think the republicans need to focus on changing aspects a little at a time. It is going to be very hard to repeal the whole bill as it is, but if they make small changes its much more likely to pass both the house and senate.

 

Some things in the law are good, like insurance until 25 for college students, pre-existing conditions, and making it so that it is illegal to charge more for women to be insured...

 

 

Outright repeal is just dumb, and is a lot of work and wont make everyone happy, if you work on changing somethings the chances of coming to a middle ground are more likely imo...

[Silas13013]

^^ thanks for clarifying.

Edited June 28, 2012 by Silas13013

[dr_bowtie]

They said it could work as a tax... however, the law was not written as a tax. What does it mean? Does congress need to rewrite the law? Does it need to be reviewed by the GAO/OC to be implemented as a tax? The USSC also threw out the medicare part, which was a key point in funding it. Then there was the funky line from Judge Roberts about it being a tax, but one that did not have to be paid. What does that mean? There were other comments that sounded like they thought it should be left up to the state.

 

This just raised too many questions (IMO) and will be a week or more before we really have a firm grasp as to what the ruling meant. I don't know if this was really a win for anyone yet.

 

The law itself had some nice provisions in it, but they could have been implemented through regulation of the Insurance and medical industries. The key problems many people have is (1) the mandate, (2) the law itself is unfinished, (3) the financial burden this would cause, (4) the depth and reach of the law, (5) the way the law was pushed by Pelosi/Obama.

 

 

I have many questions too... although I am the only one in my household without insurance I do now fall in the low income bracket that can opt out... that I do on purpose. There were many provisions that really hit self-employed people very hard with taking away tax cuts/breaks that would hit them full tilt.... luckily now I wont have to deal with that... at least for a while

[CowKing]

What a great day for freedom! I love this country

[flareback]

Yeah, I like how Obama said it wasn't a tax but it was upheld as constitutional because Congress has authority to tax. So which is it? A tax or not a tax? Is Obama going to push for it's repeal since it's now a tax? No, because they'll use whatever word is convenient for them at the time.

 

I hate our government. Just let me rise or fall on my own.

[IVIYTH0S]

Pay for my medical care if you're going to force it on me [/thread involvement]

[Stonerboy779]

My opinion of America idiotic in the face of reason the health bill is fantastic (although not fantastically written because of all the concessions that had do be made to all that anti communist and health insurance shareholders that Butch and moan) but you are so fixed on wanting to be a free market it is ridiculous.

 

Here we have healthcare that is paid for by taxes and ambulance membership is only $50 a year.

 

Only time you need to pay for anything is if it's something like cosmetic surgery etc or if you don't want a waiting list for a non crucial hip replacement or something.

 

There is private health insurance but only useful say if you constantly need contacts or something that may be covered in benefits.

[IVIYTH0S]

My opinion of America idiotic in the face of reason the health bill is fantastic (although not fantastically written because of all the concessions that had do be made to all that anti communist and health insurance shareholders that Butch and moan) but you are so fixed on wanting to be a free market it is ridiculous.

 

Here we have healthcare that is paid for by taxes and ambulance membership is only $50 a year.

 

Only time you need to pay for anything is if it's something like cosmetic surgery etc or if you don't want a waiting list for a non crucial hip replacement or something.

 

There is private health insurance but only useful say if you constantly need contacts or something that may be covered in benefits.

Believe me, I welcome such a system with open arms. I hate our lack of universal healthcare, why can't my taxes go toward keeping me healthy instead of funding welfare people who don't always deserve it....why aren't MY taxes helping ME?

[Stonerboy779]

Believe me, I welcome such a system with open arms. I hate our lack of universal healthcare, why can't my taxes go toward keeping me healthy instead of funding welfare people who don't always deserve it....why aren't MY taxes helping ME?

What happened to "/thread involvement"?

 

I hate our government it's pretty much universal hating on your government haha.

 

Although when I first heard that America doesn't have a healthcare system I was shocked. Seriously shocked. Then found out that there was no ambulance service like ours. That there where people that could have a gunshot wound but would rather stay home than go to hospital because they have no insurance.

 

The idea that trying to fix up something beneficial for all society that it would be rejected boggled my mind. It's cool people want to be "free" but being free doesn't work otherwise chaos would rule.

 

Australia imo is far better place to live than the us (not just being bias here) but healthcare paid by taxes, excellent ambulance service at a reasonable price for membership, we have millions of dollars saved up in a fund (when the government sold off one of the largest telcos in the country) this fund that not many know about is a doomsday sorta fund and would have been used say if we went under in the gfc but nope we were fine and largely unaffected by it.

[TheHippi]

Believe me, I welcome such a system with open arms. I hate our lack of universal healthcare, why can't my taxes go toward keeping me healthy instead of funding welfare people who don't always deserve it....why aren't MY taxes helping ME?

Thats my problem with Obama/Romneycare. The system as a whole is still f'ed up and no amount of superficial overhauls are going to change it. I was halfway hoping that they would strike it down so that we might get a chance to actually fix it.

 

What i want to see done is to allow people to buy into Medicare. I remember reading somewhere thats it's actually more cost efficient than any of the private insurers. Something like a 2% cost overhead vs. a 5%.

[Deathmineral]

My opinion of America idiotic in the face of reason the health bill is fantastic (although not fantastically written because of all the concessions that had do be made to all that anti communist and health insurance shareholders that Butch and moan) but you are so fixed on wanting to be a free market it is ridiculous.

 

Here we have healthcare that is paid for by taxes and ambulance membership is only $50 a year.

 

Only time you need to pay for anything is if it's something like cosmetic surgery etc or if you don't want a waiting list for a non crucial hip replacement or something.

 

There is private health insurance but only useful say if you constantly need contacts or something that may be covered in benefits.

$50 a year? Trust me, if that was the case here, we'd all be much more welcoming to this stuff. Health is an extremely expensive thing here, a single ride to the hospital in an ambulance can cost anywhere from $300 to $1000 depending on where a person lives here. The health insurance offered by my employer doesn't even cover stuff like an ambulance ride, so if I ever get shot and have to get to the hospital, I'm probably going to end up driving myself because even with health insurance, I can't afford it.

 

Another example using the health insurance offered by my employer, hospital stays, they cover $750 per day for a hospital stay, they estimate the average for hospital stays at something like $1800, however I've never heard anyone that's actually stayed in a hospital getting a room that cheap, it's always been higher, much higher, like $3000 or $4000, now if that was the case for me, my health insurance is useless to me.

 

This healthcare system doesn't help us, it just helps deplete the wallet faster.

[Stonerboy779]

$50 a year? Trust me, if that was the case here, we'd all be much more welcoming to this stuff. Health is an extremely expensive thing here, a single ride to the hospital in an ambulance can cost anywhere from $300 to $1000 depending on where a person lives here. The health insurance offered by my employer doesn't even cover stuff like an ambulance ride, so if I ever get shot and have to get to the hospital, I'm probably going to end up driving myself because even with health insurance, I can't afford it.

 

Another example using the health insurance offered by my employer, hospital stays, they cover $750 per day for a hospital stay, they estimate the average for hospital stays at something like $1800, however I've never heard anyone that's actually stayed in a hospital getting a room that cheap, it's always been higher, much higher, like $3000 or $4000, now if that was the case for me, my health insurance is useless to me.

 

This healthcare system doesn't help us, it just helps deplete the wallet faster.

I have never paid to be in a hospital room. I even went to the hospital twice in one night, last time I went. I had trigeminal neuralgia, sent away once the stupid doctor dismissing things as a toothache and the second time I went in I passed out from pain in a bed. Was there for the night, left the next morning with a lovely packet of pills and didn't even need to use the prescription to get more if need be.

 

I haven't had to use an ambulance but it is worthwhile keeping up the very affordable membership because if I ever needed to be in an ambulance I would be slogged a few thousand if I was lucky. You have far to many private ambulance companies that are tied to specific companies/hospitals/insurance agencies etc. So its also dangerous in a way, increasing waits or people not even wanting to ride in one.

 

I felt sorry for Obama with all the opposition to the health bill when Obama tried to bring it in. If the whole system could ease up and if people would get of their high horse freedom. They could possibly see that things like a tax funded, government controlled, public healthcare system is beneficial for all. Our healthcare system isn't perfect there is always shortages of something, beds, doctors, nurses and so on but it is in a far better way the the US.

 

Also we have workcover get injured in the course of doing your work and you get paid leave and all hospital and medical bills paid for so even getting injured at work isn't disastrous.

 

 

 

One final thing (not helthcare related but still of the theme that too many american would probably think of as a breach of their precious freedoms) that some aussies may find a pain at times is superanuation. Aus is the only place that has it but it means that we have self funded retirements and don't go onto government pensions which is fantastic considering the baby boomers are going to be retiring soon enough and the sheer mass of them have the potential to destroy economies. However because fixed percentages of your pay go to super before tax you don't even really notice your retirement money adding up.

 

I already probably have a few grand saved for my retirement which is pretty sweet my only regret is i cant invest my super in long term bank bonds.

 

 

Edit: I should have remembered that the pricing of amblence membership got better as I just renewed recently

 

Anyway singles - $38.25 a year

and families - $76.70 a year

 

Coverage - "Families, couples and singles receive 100% cover Australia wide. Free ambulance transport, paramedic care & air ambulance."