Huh.

[All-American]

I know we need to get on the ball with Health Care. I know reform is necessary.

But . . .

[youtube]KoE1R-xH5To[/youtube]

God bless America.

[Eddie]

In some ways this could really up the viewing of cspan. I'm seeing something here that I think could really work!

You could have random congresspeople sponsor bills. They get to tell all of the other reps or senators what the bill is about but not what it would do. Everyone debates the subject for a while. And then at some point you get an up or down vote. Bills that are passed you then get to read and see what the new law is. Bills that aren't are simply discarded.

At some point you work in a "Bill number 2" and a "Bill number 3". Once a bill is revealed, the speaker of the house or senate majority leader (depending on where you are) could then individually ask the rep/senator if they want to keep that law, or change it and vote for what is in Bill #3 instead.

As things progress the host/speaker/leader could whip an envelope out of his/her pocket and ask if they want to trade their "yea" vote on the new law for a "yea" vote on the bill in his/her pocket!

I think people would watch it.

Sadly enough, I'm not sure it would do any seriously negative damage to the effectivness of congress.

[il Padrino Ute]

Hey, Nancy! How about we know what's in a bill before it's passed? Did that ever occur to you?

What an idiot.

BTW, AA, you're a hack.

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpost.php?p=305876&postcount=1

[All-American]

Hey, Nancy! How about we know what's in a bill before it's passed? Did that ever occur to you?

What an idiot.

BTW, AA, you're a hack.

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpo...76&postcount=1

The video of Pelosi helps to underscore how truly frightful the situation is.

[CardiacCoug]

Pelosi is an embarrassment.

The Democratic plan for health care "reform" will just put the current broken system on steroids -- we need either a free market system with transparent pricing and health insurance used only for catastrophes OR a single government payer.

Liberals and conservatives alike have good reason to hate the currently proposed plan. It's a joke.

[il Padrino Ute]

The video of Pelosi helps to underscore how truly frightful the situation is.

True. Pelosi scares my dog each time she sees Pelosi's face. The dog runs and tries to hide under the couch.

[UtahDan]

It appears that the White House has lost enough support for this that they will try to resolve it in conference where a simple majority is needed rather than vote anything up or down. As I recall it only passed the house by 5 votes and I heard talk yesterday that enough moderate Dems look poised to jump ship that they don't dare revote anything there.

This is unpopular but may get rammed through anyway. My interest is mostly in the fact that Dems, and the White House, have chosen this hill to die on. And die there they will. Particularly since the cost of the bill will hit before the next election, but increased coverage under the bill won't start happening until 2013-14 as it has been explained to me. I have to assume Obama believes in this and is sticking to his convictions. He is going to lose congress over it. Whether by the next Presidential election it will be more of a positive than a negative to be able to claim "we passed a health care bill" is still unclear. He is pretty smooth.

[Goatnapper'96]

It appears that the White House has lost enough support for this that they will try to resolve it in conference where a simple majority is needed rather than vote anything up or down. As I recall it only passed the house by 5 votes and I heard talk yesterday that enough moderate Dems look poised to jump ship that they don't dare revote anything there.

This is unpopular but may get rammed through anyway. My interest is mostly in the fact that Dems, and the White House, have chosen this hill to die on. And die there they will. Particularly since the cost of the bill will hit before the next election, but increased coverage under the bill won't start happening until 2013-14 as it has been explained to me. I have to assume Obama believes in this and is sticking to his convictions. He is going to lose congress over it. Whether by the next Presidential election it will be more of a positive than a negative to be able to claim "we passed a health care bill" is still unclear. He is pretty smooth.

I do respect him for being an idealogue. I also think that he thinks that his popularity will increase if he has a Republican Congress to square off against. He can then be a man of the people and blame the Republicans for nothing ever getting done.

If he can pull it off, I must admit that there is more to him than just being a dorky intellectual.

[statman]

-- we need either a free market system with transparent pricing and health insurance used only for catastrophes OR a single government payer.

:clap:

I think you could do something a little more than having insurance just for catastrophes. At my work, we switched to high-deductible insurance, and it has done pretty remarkable things for the cost to insure employees. We pay the first $1800 in medical costs per person (family deductible is $3600). After that, insurance pays 90/10. Out of pocket maximum for an individual is $3600, and for a family $5400.

We can contribute to Health Savings Accounts, and the company kicks in $800 a year for a family. After the deductible is paid, it's great insurance. And it caps total exposure. Exactly what insurance SHOULD do. But because the deductible is high, frivolous doctor visits are going to be minimized - and costs kept down. They may need to do something to stop frivolity for those who've hit their out of pocket maximas. Maybe some type of cap with a moderate deductible for each new illness, or something like that. Not sure exactly how that would work, but someone could think a workable plan up if they tried...

[CardiacCoug]

:clap:

I think you could do something a little more than having insurance just for catastrophes. At my work, we switched to high-deductible insurance, and it has done pretty remarkable things for the cost to insure employees. We pay the first $1800 in medical costs per person (family deductible is $3600). After that, insurance pays 90/10. Out of pocket maximum for an individual is $3600, and for a family $5400.

We can contribute to Health Savings Accounts, and the company kicks in $800 a year for a family. After the deductible is paid, it's great insurance. And it caps total exposure. Exactly what insurance SHOULD do. But because the deductible is high, frivolous doctor visits are going to be minimized - and costs kept down. They may need to do something to stop frivolity for those who've hit their out of pocket maximas. Maybe some type of cap with a moderate deductible for each new illness, or something like that. Not sure exactly how that would work, but someone could think a workable plan up if they tried...

Yeah, that sounds great.

I think lack of cost transparency -- where the consumers (and often the doctors also) have no idea how much services cost and have no incentive to seek out the lowest cost is probably the biggest problem in health care.

If patients had an incentive to compare price and quality online (at least for all outpatient care) and cost and quality measures were widely available online, that would fix a lot of problems. This has been pointed out numerous times already, but look at health services where consumers pay out of pocket (like Lasik and plastic surgery). These services have become much cheaper over the past decade while the rest of medicine has become far more expensive.