Posted on 10/26/2008 2:22:57 PM PDT by got_moab?
Just got off the phone with my sister who lives in NH, the discussion turns to politics and she indicates that she's leaning towards "The One". She listed health care as her primary concern, she's been bombarded with literature essentially telling her that people with pre-existing conditions will be screwed under McCains plan. I told her she should do some more research before settling on a candidate and told her that I'd send her some links. She is skeptical of what I'll send her because she knows I'm a Conservative, any suggestions as to where she should be researching?
I myself, don;t mind a vanity post or two.
You know what? you can’t change people. They are who they are. You can only do what you feel is right. Try to change-move things as you think they should be.
There is a mightier hand at the helm, all we can do is what we see is best..and survive.
And yet she believes what Senator Government tells her with no question?
My advice to you is to let her go.
She would rather give up her freedom for security.
In the end she will have neither.
“She is skeptical of what I’ll send her because she knows I’m a Conservative...”
Sorry to say, some people’s comfort zone is *willfully ignorant.*
If your sister is a liberal and you believe she will be “skeptical” because
she knows you are a “conservative,” you have your answer right there.
A blessed Lord’s day to you.
Ask your sister if she’s aware that in countries such us Ireland and the U.K., which have ‘free health care’, that private health insurance is also available. Ask her then why she thinks this is so.
My personal fav, I just discovered last night:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/obama-most-one-2205757-world-people
It’s not health care specific, but it gets to the core of what our choice is all about this year.
The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
I find it funny that some people see in Obama a sort of “Intellectual curiosity” while most of the young adults that I know support him and have not a clue when it comes to what the man actually stands for.
Please give me your hand so I can slap it for being such a pessimist.
(I’m working on my American sister too. Have faith.)
*HUGS*
Thank you
I would show her that universal health care would lead to less choice and exploding costs. Give her the article about universal child health care in Hawaii where they had to stop it because so many people were leaving private insurance plans to hop on the government plan at taxpayer expense. Explain how this would happen on a national scale, leading employers to cut insurance plans and fire workers to cut costs.
I would explain “pay or play.” Businesses pay fines if they don’t cover all their people; that hurts customers, businesses, and employees who would be cut if costs explode. However, even worse than fines... if businesses decide to pay a one-time fine and wash their hands of health care, many people would be kicked off their current private plans. Businesses would feel ok about this; after all, people can always go to the government.
Explain that the “taxing of health benefits” is untrue and misleading. Explain how McCain’s plan gives you more choice and ability to research on your own, not be stuck in a group plan.
You could also try other avenues, like the peril of monolithically liberal government who would explode spending. Isn’t Obama going to spend one trillion more?
LOL...fanfan...just being realistic.
Around the holidays, threads start popping up about how to deal with liberal relatives.
I used to share all kinds of ideas.
Now, I just say, relax and be glad you have relatives to be with.
They’re adults.
If they want to change; they will.
Here’s my letter to the editor followed by pertinent links. Pay attention to Gruber’s Senate testimony link - at no time did he say to force businesses to offer insurance at the risk of fines, which is part of Obama’s strategy.
Voters who think Obama is just what the doctor ordered should understand that his own healthcare advisors supported McCain’s approach before they joined the Obama campaign.
Their analysis and recommendations – as late as July of this year – shows the Obama approach on healthcare to be quackery.
Let’s take a look at the claim that McCain would tax health care benefits, with its implication by Obama that you would be left with less of your wages or salary and that employers would stop coverage.
Here’s the beauty of the McCain plan: the current tax code subsidizes healthcare only if it’s provided by employers. Those who are unemployed or working for smaller companies without plans are left to purchase expensive coverage with after tax dollars. Also, under the current tax code, higher paid employees bear less of a burden, because they pay no more for coverage than lower paid employees, which makes no sense.
So McCain would provide tax breaks to individuals of all incomes through a refundable tax credit, no matter where they get coverage. The person with an employer paid plan would still have coverage which would be taxed. However, their tax credit would offset the tax. They come out even or possibly ahead.
The person without coverage would simply get a tax credit to spend on healthcare coverage. This makes the tax code reward responsible health care behavior, with the individual purchasing coverage that best suits their needs or the needs of their family. Plans would be available across state lines, expanding the options available.
As the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, this is a change that supported by Obama’s very own healthcare advisors before they joined his campaign – Obama economic policy director Jason Furman, Harvard Professor David Cutler, and MIT’s Jonathan Gruber.
Cutler, in his 2004 book “Your Money or Your Life,” said: “Health insurance is not something that is made better by tying it to employment. As a result, essentially all economists believe that universal coverage should be done outside of employment.”
Furman in FEBRUARY of this year said people should be “cheerleading” the emphasis on tax reform, “not writing it off.”
And Gruber in JULY of this year, in testimony before the U.S. Senate Finance Committeea said: “no health expert today would ever set up a health system with such an enormous tax subsidy to a particular form of insurance coverage.”
Gruber went on to explain how taxing employer healthcare benefits would have to be phased in and coordinated with other actions to ensure smaller business don’t drop coverage - such as expansion of tax credits to small business and ensuring coverage for high risk individuals (which McCain’s plan does).
Obama’s plan in contrast simply expands government role in healthcare, and bring a higher cost to taxpayers. When you vote, bear in mind that Obama’s own policy advisors just this year were praising the centerpiece of the McCain healthcare plan as just what the doctor ordered.
Links:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122488864905768469.html
http://finance.senate.gov/hearings/testimony/2008test/073108jgtest.pdf
OK, all right.
But I still haven’t given up on my sister.
:-D
Ok.
You’re welcome.
Good luck!
I know that forcing insurance companies to make terrible business decisions based on insuring people with horrible pre-existing conditions sounds wonderful to those with pre-existing conditions. My husband and I both have those “conditions” and have chosen to self-insure for the past several years, that is, to save a bit of money in a medical emergency bank account because insurance got so high. We’ve paid as we went, for doctors’ visits and prescription drugs and it has been okay. He goes on Medicare in a few weeks, but hopes he still won’t need to use it. I think we’re just proceeding sensibly, doing sensible alternative cures and trusting the Lord to manage whatever needs managing. - When a company is forced to make terrible business decisions or face shutting down because of government regulation (Janet Reno style), one day the results of those bad decisions (albeit forced by the government) will come home to roost just like Fannie and Freddie. The government cannot be the be all and end all. I’d rather just go on to be with the Lord as to get to where I look to the government (a false god) to take care of me and be my everything.
Tell her when everyone gets “free” health care, taxes will have to go up drastically to pay for it. The care will also have to be rationed because a great many doctors will immediately retire from their practices. So she may have to wait six months for an MRI, as they do in most socialist countries. And most importantly, tell her not to call you while she’s waiting for help.
“Ask your sister if she’s aware that in countries such us Ireland and the U.K., which have ‘free health care’, that private health insurance is also available. Ask her then why she thinks this is so.”
I don’t think that the McCain campaign is aware of just how much of the Obama vote is due to health care concerns.
There are huge numbers of people out there who are voting for him just because his plan will pay for their health care needs (they think), and that McCain’s plan won’t.
People need to be informed about how it works in other countries. It’s not all a bed of roses.
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