I hope you didn't interpret what I wrote as I think that the US has average health care. Being amongst the best of the world (as I wrote) is not being average. The formula in the article i referred to is: number sick / number still living after 5 years. Not that advanced ;)

Apparently you think there is something bad about this which means you don'tt understand what you read.

I personally would rather they perform whatever service, without judgment on my bank account. The idea of the govt having electronic real-time access to all your personal/private data is not win.

It has the potential to improve QOS and decrease cost burden for those of us who are "financially responsible", by reducing the degree to which we must compensate the insurance company and providers for their losses.

It's little different in practice from when mag strips started showing up on the backs of drivers' licenses. I have to swipe my DL and be entered into a Federal database every time I buy Claritin-D, because some jackasses figured out that pseudoephedrine was a handy precursor manufacture of methamphetamine and methcathinone. Do I find it a trifle irritating? Sure. Has it negatively impacted my quality of life? Not that I can tell.

With deference to Thomas Jefferson, of course.

I'm fairly certain this is not going to be part of an emergency room determination so much as it is an office visit for whatever not-urgent thing you're in for.

you know, like when you get preauthorized for your current insurance for a given procedure.

Ok have you stopped to think about those of us who have the option to have or currently have insurance that is cheaper than what is outlined by the government. What do you think is going to happen to those people? I will give you one gues.



The government rate will be the new rock bottom and what ever you have now will increase in cost to a point of being eqaul or more expensive than the governments terms the ins companys are in this to make profits not see that people live better lives. Idealy in there world everyone would have insurance until they where hurt or about to die then they would no longer be a burden on the system and the revenue they put in would not need to be expended back into them. When you think about it thats a ingenius business modle, kill your cleints in just enough time so that they can garuntee your profit margins. And brainwash future generations to accept there control.

Something else I haven't seen come up is the paperwork. I have never had an easy experience with anything involving the federal government and paper work. Can you just imagine how much bullshit paper work and run around you will get any time you have to renew or change information, and god forbid you have to use the insurance. I can just see it now. Just imagine the DMV bullshit, except for you are forced to deal with it, not optional. Or if you don't deal with it you get fined out the ass.

I have tricare because I am retired military, I just log onto their website to update stuff and make payments. Pretty simple actually. But, why the concern, just buy blue cross blue shield or something. You don't have to use the public option. You guys keep bitching about the "government insurance", don't use it and there is nothing to bitch about.

Not sure exactly what you are saying but it appears you think your insurance is cheaper than what the government is going to offer? which will make your insurance go up? Highly unlikely, one of the reasons for te public option to provide a less expensive option than what you can get now.

Because I expect the government insurance to strangle out everything else, making it unaffordable or even non existent.

Lolz at still thinking the Govt can run any program effectively. Did you get your swine flue vaccine yet or are you still waiting in line?

OMG OMG OMG!!!!

I just came up with this awesome idea! Get this...

So, there's like 10% unemployment rate right now, 2% above the promised rate if there was no recovery package.

So here's what we do. We implement a huge health care overhaul, taxing companies that don't provide health care, enough care, or that don't cover part time employees, etc, basically making it harder for a smaller business to operate efficiently. So more small businesses close up shop, and more stop hiring, basically stagnating grow.

Then we require this huge number of unemployed to purchase buy health care or be taxed!!!


I'M FUCKING GENIUS!!!! We hurt business and growth, which will increase the unemployment rate.

On top of that, this will pretty much require more people to live off McDonalds, effectively getting unhealthier!!!! DO YOU SEE HOW BRILLIANT I AM!?!!?

So more people will be unemployed, forced to buy health insurance, but health care will be more 'affordable'!

omg, i can't believe the thing i come up with sometimes...this is epic. :brain:

I wish more people could see how awesome Obama truly is. He is like our savior, he will turn the country around! Around into oncoming traffic and kill us all!

You might be on to something. If people get fat and die early. Then we dont have to deal with the expensive medical care when they get old. So everyone go out and eat fatty food and smoke cigarettes and shoot up heroin so you die early and cut down on healthcare costs.

so decent health insurance at $400 a month is affordable?

I've got news for anyone with those $50/month plans... just TRY to go in and get some kind of procedure you need done and see what happens. It's a fucking scam.

Yes I think it is affordable. I certainly do value my life at higher then $4800 a year.

Having to pay that might mean I go without other luxuries in my life, but hell if I am dead I can not enjoy those luxuries anyways.

Ironically, that's exactly what I've been paying for the past year (well, $400.86, to be precise) since I'm still on the old COBRA plan and haven't taken the time to find something better. I have done some looking around and seen that plans comparable to my current one in terms of coverage, limits, deductibles / coinsurance, etc., seem to be available in the $100-$175 range (and from reputable companies such as UHC) which isn't too bad at all.

I fail to see any reason why private insurance companies will jack up their rates. If anything, the gov't option should (in theory) give them the ability to dump a lot of their high-risk / low-margin customers onto the Fed, and then reduce rates for more desirable customers in order to woo us in.

magnamx-5's scenario seems to pre-suppose price fixing on a rather colossal scale. That's not too hard to do if you're in the sugar trade, but I can't see a bunch of huge insurance corporations having the skill and agility to pull it off. Their policy is dictated by the marketing dept.

lol yeah it is way cheaper. MY employer offers us shit for about 100 bucks a month. Im to cheap to shell out for that though.
What i am willing to pay for is a 30-50 dollar a month 70-30 plan with 6k outlay annual and 2mill limit. Give me that and im fine, and realy any person should be fine with something like that. These fucking designer plans are ridicuoulous if something falls off or you can't stop the bleeding go to get it fixed other than that die like a man.

That's awesome. I know a lot of people, and I mean a lot of people that pay $800 a month for insurance. I was suprised because being retired military my premiums are very reasonable. There was a thread on another car website of guys talking about how their premiums have recently increased. Their increases was more than my whole policy, and these are guys that are mostly conservative republicans and are against the healthcare bill.

On that same note, there was one guy that posted that was losing his insurance. He lost his job. His wife had coverage through here employer but they would not let her add the sone and husband for a year. So for a year his kid has no coverage. Also, any issues his son has under the opld employer policy will not be covered under the new employers policy once she can add the kid. That suck.