GOP tensions rise over Cruz proposal

[INVAR]

We're not gonna get government out of the health care business at this particular point in time.

Then we never will.

The cement is setting.  Either we tear it out now... or it will crush us under total government-run and taxpayer subsidized Single Payer and destitution and misery will be a permanent fixture of life here as ObamaCare was designed.

Because as Reagan said, a government program is the closest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth.

[Jazzhead]

As non-PC as it is, let's not forget the trillion dollar gorilla in the room.
"Pre-existing conditions" include the 1.3 million currently infected with HIV/AIDS, who are projected to cost over a trillion dollars for care in the next 25 years ($600,000 to $750,000 each patient). That number is going up as I type.

What we cannot do is deny treatment to such folks.   What we can do is spread the cost of such care as widely as possible,  rather than just those with no good alternative to the individual insurance market.   Folks with HIV are prime candidates for high risk pools for whom care should be financed through general tax revenues (that is, paid for by all of us,  not just an unlucky few).   

[truth_seeker]

What we cannot do is deny treatment to such folks.   What we can do is spread the cost of such care as widely as possible,  rather than just those with no good alternative to the individual insurance market.   Folks with HIV are prime candidates for high risk pools for whom care should be financed through general tax revenues (that is, paid for by all of us,  not just an unlucky few).

Which section in the Constitution, covers the obligation of one resident/citizen, to pay for health insurance and/or health care of another able bodied resident/citizen?

Is it the same one that covers subsidized housing, EBT cards, Obamaphones, etc?

[Emjay]

Then we never will.

The cement is setting.  Either we tear it out now... or it will crush us under total government-run and taxpayer subsidized Single Payer and destitution and misery will be a permanent fixture of life here as ObamaCare was designed.

Because as Reagan said, a government program is the closest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth.

It should be obvious to you that the Senate will NOT pass a really good bill now.  Even though Trump has come out asking for repeal now, replace later, they will not do that.

The Cruz bill gives us the thin end of the wedge into getting rid of government interference.  It's far from perfect but this never gets old:  The perfect is the enemy of the good.

[Emjay]

What we cannot do is deny treatment to such folks.   What we can do is spread the cost of such care as widely as possible,  rather than just those with no good alternative to the individual insurance market.   Folks with HIV are prime candidates for high risk pools for whom care should be financed through general tax revenues (that is, paid for by all of us,  not just an unlucky few).

I'm wondering what the status of these patients would have been prior to Obamacare?

[txradioguy]

Which section in the Constitution, covers the obligation of one resident/citizen, to pay for health insurance and/or health care of another able bodied resident/citizen?

Is it the same one that covers subsidized housing, EBT cards, Obamaphones, etc?

And it's written in very small print between the lines of the rest of the Constitution.

[Free Vulcan]

What we cannot do is deny treatment to such folks.   What we can do is spread the cost of such care as widely as possible,  rather than just those with no good alternative to the individual insurance market.   Folks with HIV are prime candidates for high risk pools for whom care should be financed through general tax revenues (that is, paid for by all of us,  not just an unlucky few).

This is not a theocracy, not matter how much you want to make legislation morality based. If we are to get costs down reasonable, we must put together a bill that addresses that. It is not someone's responsibility to take on some other persons health costs and liability.

[INVAR]

What we cannot do is deny treatment to such folks.   

Yes we can.

If you are so inclined, you go pay for their treatment with your own money.

We're tired of people like you putting a government gun to our heads to rob us of our income to pay for the consequences of bad behavior that you champion.

What we can do is spread the cost of such care as widely as possible,

We refuse.

We're done being robbed at gunpoint to pay for your Socialism's misery that you want spread "equally".

[Smokin Joe]

What we cannot do is deny treatment to such folks.   What we can do is spread the cost of such care as widely as possible,  rather than just those with no good alternative to the individual insurance market.   Folks with HIV are prime candidates for high risk pools for whom care should be financed through general tax revenues (that is, paid for by all of us,  not just an unlucky few).

How about we do this? Take them out of the insurance pool altogether. Put them in the Medicaid group (means tested, of course) and just pay the bill.
Why should I have to divest myself of assets to pay for my health CARE when those who are suffering from completely self-inflicted maladies keep theirs and expect me to pick up the tab?
It will be cheaper for the average person to pony up a little of the tab for those self-inflicted wounds (I won't go into the rest of it) without having to pay for insurance for a sure payout, because there won't be the middleman expenses. In the meantime, we can go back to letting people who don't get themselves injected with death (by needle or otherwise) have their health insurance without having to suffer daily the burden of paying for people who live a more libertine lifestyle before little Johnny gets his broken arm set, or little Susie gets the cut on her foot sewed up.
 As it stands, the people who generally have AIDS/HIV got that through their own actions, knowing there was a risk, and doing it anyway. The rest of us didn't embrace that risk, and should not have our health insurance held hostage to others' bad beahviour.

[Sanguine]

This is not a theocracy, not matter how much you want to make legislation morality based. If we are to get costs down reasonable, we must put together a bill that addresses that. It is not someone's responsibility to take on some other persons health costs and liability.

No, no, @Free Vulcan, you just don't understand.  When the government takes your money it is magically transmogrified into "government money", and that can be redistributed to other people without even a tiny bit of remorse.  They're not talking about "your money" - they're talking about free, magic "government money"!

[txradioguy]

What we cannot do is deny treatment to such folks.   What we can do is spread the cost of such care as widely as possible,  rather than just those with no good alternative to the individual insurance market.   Folks with HIV are prime candidates for high risk pools for whom care should be financed through general tax revenues (that is, paid for by all of us,  not just an unlucky few).

Treatment wasn't denied to them before the Government takeover of healthcare...and there is nothing that would indicate their car would be less if we went back to the pre Obamacare days.

You're trying to create a crisis where there is none.

[Smokin Joe]

Treatment wasn't denied to them before the Government takeover of healthcare...and there is nothing that would indicate their car would be less if we went back to the pre Obamacare days.

You're trying to create a crisis where there is none.

Lest we forget, this is a 'payback' aimed at us 'breeders'.

[Jazzhead]

Treatment wasn't denied to them before the Government takeover of healthcare...and there is nothing that would indicate their car would be less if we went back to the pre Obamacare days.

You're trying to create a crisis where there is none.

But who was paying for such care?   Remember that uncompensated hospital care - and, significantly, UNDER-compensated care for those on Medicaid (many HIV sufferers were disabled and Medicaid eligible under prior law) - is paid for by those of us responsible enough to have medical insurance.   Medicaid may well be the single biggest reason the private insurance market is so expensive.   The government screws providers, and they in turn screw those of us with private insurance.     

It's fairer to spread those costs more broadly among all taxpayers.   

[INVAR]

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

You keep telling yourself that as we keep sliding leftward into the abyss and you keep justifying the acceptance of Socialism until it becomes overt Communism that you nodded your head to accepting as the "good" because the "perfect" is your enemy.

[Jazzhead]

Lest we forget, this is a 'payback' aimed at us 'breeders'.

Now that's a repulsive comment. 

[Emjay]

Treatment wasn't denied to them before the Government takeover of healthcare...and there is nothing that would indicate their car would be less if we went back to the pre Obamacare days.

You're trying to create a crisis where there is none.

That is often the name of the game around here.

I tried to find the names of the 8 Republican Senators who are up for election in 2018.  It was hard. So hard I couldn't do it.  So I only know of one:  Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and he's a lock.

But if anyone has a Republican Senator, it would be good to contact him or her (Except maybe Collins who is a lost cause)

[Free Vulcan]

Now that's a repulsive comment.

Excuse me bigot? Alot of gay people have a whole lot of hate in them, especially the activist ones who help make policy. If you want to deny that then their hate is on your hands too.

[Jazzhead]

Yes we can.

If you are so inclined, you go pay for their treatment with your own money.

We're tired of people like you putting a government gun to our heads to rob us of our income to pay for the consequences of bad behavior that you champion.

I don't give a damn about selfish, amoral attitudes such as this.  We are all children of God, and as a community we cannot allow the sick and disadvantaged to die in the streets.   

[Free Vulcan]

I don't give a damn about selfish, amoral attitudes such as this.  We are all children of God, and as a community we cannot allow the sick and disadvantaged to die in the streets.

Violation of Separation of Church and State.

This is not a theocracy.

[truth_seeker]

Treatment wasn't denied to them before the Government takeover of healthcare...and there is nothing that would indicate their car would be less if we went back to the pre Obamacare days.

You're trying to create a crisis where there is none.

Some of the justification for Obamacare was, that although they had "last resort" health care, they lacked "preventative" healthcare, that others got with health insurance.

So instead of winding up in the emergency room, they would start in doctors' offices, regular checkups, would adopt more healthy lifestyles, etc.

But soon after Obamacare became widely available it was determined they still went to the MORE COSTLY emergency rooms.

And we are in the midst of a costly and deadly explosion of opioid use. Apparently those folks failed to appear for their routine checkups, and/or failed to follow doctor's orders.

The Biggest Problem is the "Collectivization" mentality, whereby I am forced by do-gooder government edicts, to pay for massive harebrained schemes, of making drugs quasi-legal, making so-called "minor" crimes like traffic tickets, etc.

California is a laboratory classroom for the above. Ask a policeman to get the homeless out of a park. He will explain it is not against the law, to be homeless.

Tell the officer that 2/3 of homeless are addicts/alcoholics and/or mentally ill. He will explain the voters have decriminalized drugs. And have made lesser crimes mere citations.

Vagrancy is no longer a crime. Loitering is such a low level crime, the officers rarely bother.

Where as the "weaker" were once kept out of sight, they are now "mainstreamed" among us.

And do-gooders, many from the "right," would guilt trip us into believing some "collectivist" crap we ought to be compassionate, help them, etc.

 

[INVAR]

The government screws providers, and they in turn screw those of us with private insurance. 

And yet YOU want to empower the same Beast with more power, authority and our money to do what they did with Medicaid and SoSec with the entirety of the health insurance industry - and ultimately health care provision itself.

It's fairer to spread those costs more broadly among all taxpayers.

Only Communists think like that.

[INVAR]

I don't give a damn about selfish, amoral attitudes such as this.  We are all children of God, and as a community we cannot allow the sick and disadvantaged to die in the streets.

The IMMORAL and supremely SELFISH use government to put a gun to our heads and the heads of our children to PAY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF EVIL AND PERVERTED BEHAVIOR while paying nothing themselves.

YOU PAY FOR THEM if your conscience is so smeared by the consequences they suffer.

I'm done being robbed by your ilk.

Nowhere in scripture does God command a people to empower government to do charity.  That is not the role or function of government either secular or biblical.

Only Socialists and Communists assert what you do.

[Smokin Joe]

But who was paying for such care?   Remember that uncompensated hospital care - and, significantly, UNDER-compensated care for those on Medicaid (many HIV sufferers were disabled and Medicaid eligible under prior law) - is paid for by those of us responsible enough to have medical insurance.   Medicaid may well be the single biggest reason the private insurance market is so expensive.   The government screws providers, and they in turn screw those of us with private insurance.     

It's fairer to spread those costs more broadly among all taxpayers.

Then spread them across all taxpayers and not just insurance purchasers (which is what was being done).
You are arguing for a second system to collect money and allocate the revenue, one done at the expense of poor and wealthy alike, which means someone with 40K a year in taxable income with a family of 4 but who owns their house can't get the medicaid poor people can, and you want them to sell their home to get medical care while some penthouse dwelling bone smuggler gets the average breeder to pick up his tab.

Nope. I'll tell you what. I'll take my chances, throw some money in the tin box every paycheck, and if I have a problem, I'll pay cash.

[Smokin Joe]

The IMMORAL and supremely SELFISH use government to put a gun to our heads and the heads of our children to PAY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF EVIL AND PERVERTED BEHAVIOR while paying nothing themselves.

YOU PAY FOR THEM if your conscience is so smeared by the consequences they suffer.

I'm done being robbed by your ilk.

Nowhere in scripture does God command a people to empower government to do charity.  That is not the role or function of government either secular or biblical.

Only Socialists and Communists assert what you do.

Davy Crockett got it right, after Farmer Bunce gave him a talking to. http://hushmoney.org/Davy_Crockett_Farmer_Bunce.htm

[txradioguy]

But who was paying for such care?

I know this might be a foreign concept that's hard for you to grasp...but most were paying for it via insurance out of their own bank accounts.

Contrary to what you would have us believe here...people in this country prior to 2010 were perfectly capable of paying for their own insurance without being told what plans they were allowed to have by an uncaring and unfeeling centralized committee of the federal government.

Remember that uncompensated hospital care - and, significantly, UNDER-compensated care for those on Medicaid (many HIV sufferers were disabled and Medicaid eligible under prior law) - is paid for by those of us responsible enough to have medical insurance.

 

No many HIV sufferers weren't disabled...they were and still are mainly gay and IV drug users.  If there was any disability involved...it came long after they made their poor decisions in life towards drug use and sexual preferences.

Medicaid may well be the single biggest reason the private insurance market is so expensive.

   

Nope that would be illegals that have no way to legally gain the methods to pay for health insurance.  They've bankrupted more ER's than anything else.

Medicaid has been the bain of private medical practices because they reimburse doctors pennies on the dollar for treating Medicaid and Medicare patients.

And under Obamacare they are reimbursing them even less on the dollar.

The government screws providers, and they in turn screw those of us with private insurance. 

The Government wasn't screwing providers except via Medicaid and Medicare prior to 2010.

It's fairer to spread those costs more broadly among all taxpayers.

Oh bullshit.  There is nothing fair or equitable in forcing people to pay for the dangers of someone else's sexual choices. 

You're whole take on the "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" thing is just leftist claptrap.