A Facebook Conversation about Healthcare Reform

NOTE: I REALLY APPRECIATE MY CONVERSATIONS WITH MR. S. IT GIVES ME HOPE THAT THERE IS A MEETING PLACE BETWEEN US IN THIS HEALTH CARE DEBATE

Mr. S
Can you explain to me how the health care plan is going to improve the overall economy of the US? I noticed that was a main point he made tonight.

Dennis Wilson
Lower premium costs for those of us paying for the uninsured. Fewer people dying needlessly (I saw it for years woring for Social Security) due to no coverage. Fewer bankruptcies of middle class people ruined by insurance that was inadequate, unattainable due to pre-existing illness, or unaffordable. Real insurance provider competition instead of non competitive insurance company buyouts and consolidations to create area monopolies (see http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/profile.html). Lower costs for pharmaceuticals like everyone else in the world gets. Lower costs for good employers that provide adequate employee coverage, hence making them more competitive (We can't compete with twice as high health costs built into our products versus any other industrialized country). Fewer economic crises (swings) caused by the economic insecurity of middle class Americans who can lose everything with an accident or illness (read "The Great Risk Shift" by Jacob S. Hacker).

I have great health insurance as a Federal Retiree, but it breaks my heart to see my children and other peoples children grow up into a world where the jobs don't provide health insurance. This is true of my college educated son and my daughter who works for McDonald's. By the way, big companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart drive their competition out of business by not providing benefits and then when their employee's get ill where do they go? I'll tell you where. They go to Medicaid and we taxpayers get to pay. What is Christian about wanting to deprive people of health care? I don't get that. Is health care just a product? Can't pay? Go die.

Mrs Z
Amen

Mr. S
You make some good points. I hope no one thinks there's anything Christian about any large corporation, insurance company or legal firm(the last two the main reasons costs are so high). And I don't believe most people want to deprive anyone of health care. Unfortunately, we hear that the "go die" is exactly what happens in some countries with nationalized health care when they realize that there's not enough money to pay for everyone's care, then everyone gets sub-par health care. Also, under nationalized health care, the taxpayer does pay for almost everything. I don't see the difference there between paying for Medicaid and what is being proposed. Still there has to be a middle ground between the "free market" and the "government run". Additionally, greed and lack of morals is a big part of the problem with the system today. That does not go away just because the government is controlling everything. The immoral people are there too. My Dad was a doctor, and I have several other medical people in my family, and they all look(ed) at Government run health care skeptically, and it is not an income issue with them. Dad chose many times to minister to those who had no insurance or means to pay at no charge or on the barter system. My sister and wife also would do so in their medical professions if at all possible. If we could get back to the human aspect of health care, with decisions being made between patient and doctor or other medical professional in an honest, caring fashion, our system would be better. They are not sure that the Government being involved will bring that back. Would it not be more helpful if there was better Government oversight of the medical, corporate and legal systems, reigning in their excesses rather than trying to run the whole thing? After all the problem is a moral one.

Dennis Wilson
S, your response is a breath of fresh air. The things I am seeing and hearing from opponents are so vicious and mostly misleading. Still look at the thousands of stories on this site and tell me our system isn't the most expensive broken down car on the road:
http://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare/
read this one especially; http://stories.barackobama.com/healthcare/stories/187666

Mr. S
Well, I do not like the way most of the conservative naysayers respond to alternative viewpoints on national health care. I don't know why so many folks can't discuss the subject rationally with at least anecdotal evidence such as the stories on the links you provided as back-up, or actual taceable stories that show the flaws of" government run". We now know both systems have their flaws and if we could take the best aspects of both we may have an answer. Believe me I have my own story. My daughter was given 50 therapy sessions as part of our Dean Health Plan. When they were done, we were on our own, even though she was still improving after those sessions. Today, after10's of thousands of dollars of out-of-pocket therapy sessions, she is walking. I'm convinced the reason they denied the additional sessions is because she was given only a 5% chance of walking again. The insurance company took advantage of a dire prognosis in order to deny additional coverage, also against the doctors' recommendations who were treating her. They are indeed b*******s in my opinion.

Dennis Wilson
I have Dean Health also. Effectively they deny care just like my mother (medicare) thinks the government will do to old folks. She fears "socialism" but what Canada has is nothing like what is being proposed for us. I think those stories (and yours) show that fundamental reforms are needed. I am afraid that the big money interests are out to kill all changes, and we just can't afford to go on with things as they are.

Sotomayor Hearing

Isn't it amazing that even the Democrats are trying to emphasize how often Judge Sotomayor has denied discrimination claims. Only about one in eight allegations of discrimination results in any relief for the complainant. Does that mean that discrimination is rare? Not at all. Discrimination is rampant and if anything a growing phenomenon in an aging and multicultural society. What those facts prove is that the entire system is weighted against those who are victims of discrimination. They, with their limited funds and often no attorney, are forced to confront the high paid legal staffs of Corporations and Governments who are determined to do anything but guarantee equal rights, corporations and governments which are populated with recipients of graft, cronyism, and favored treatment for white employees (who still dominate the upper ranks of corporations and government. A lot of those federal court judges and supreme court justices are graduates of the legal staffs of these "beat them down" employer cabals. This supreme court needs change very badly. Talk about "activist judges"! These justices have used every convoluted rationale possible over and over again to gut the very modest protections that law provides for minorities, women, and older Americans by overturning long established precedents. Let's hope that Sotomayor will bring her experiences as a Latina to play. Maybe that will give the Supreme Court an ever so faint air of justice. Justice is not blind, but sometimes it seems that the only color it recognizes is white, and the only voice it hears is the one backed by money.