Posted on 08/16/2009 3:22:32 AM PDT by Scanian
"The health care system in America is broken. Costs are rising at an unacceptable rate -- more than doubling over the last 10 years, which is nearly four times the rate of wage growth. Too many patients feel trapped by healthcare decisions dictated by HMOs. Too many doctors are torn between practicing medicine and practicing insurance. And 47 million Americans worry what will happen to them or their children if they get sick."
Who do you think said that? President Obama? Actually, those words were written by Republicans. They are part of the summary of the Patients' Choice Act, introduced this May by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in the House and by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in the Senate.
To hear it from President Obama, the choice is simple: his plan or the status quo. He is wrong on both counts: he has no plan, and the Republicans do. In fact, Republicans have introduced meaningful health care reform for years.
In the 1990s, Republicans tried to change Medicare into a defined-contribution model, more along the lines of the plan that federal employees enjoy. The Republican-controlled Congress passed such legislation in 1995, but President Clinton vetoed it. Seeing that Medicare costs were out of control, Clinton set up a bipartisan Medicare Commission headed by John Breaux (D-La.). The Breaux Commission came up with a similar plan in 1999. Democrats killed that too.
When Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, from 2003-06, they provided Health Savings Accounts and prescription coverage under Medicare for the first time. With the Democrats regularly using Senate filibusters, those were significant achievements.
Republican introduced precursors to the Patients' Choice Act in the House in July 2007, May 2008 and September 2008. All died in the Democrat-controlled House.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
bullcrap. ANY federally based health plan is unconstitutional, and Republicans should know better.
RINOCARE is no better than OBAMACARE. We have the best health system in the world, let the free market control it.
It's still redistribution. Giving deadbeats something for "free" (as in 'paid for by the taxpayers') merely rewards deadbeat behavior.
Real "reform" starts with tort reform, and breaking down the state-by-state barriers that prevent competition, and putting health care choices into the hands of the individual instead of the employer.
My opinion too. Any way you cut it this is a Federal takeover of health insurance from the States and is unconstitutional. If that matters anymore, I do not think it does.
Huh?
[The Patients' Choice Act] will reduce costs. It will expand coverage. It will increase patient choice, moving decision-making away from government and corporations and toward individuals.
*moving decision-making away from government*. That part is a good idea.
we dont live in the perfect world, so we have to move it in the right direction gradually
“[The Patients’ Choice Act] will reduce costs. It will expand coverage. It will increase patient choice, moving decision-making away from government and corporations and toward individuals. “
Agreed. It is also funny that the DemocRATS did not allow health care reform and filibusters it each time the Republicans tried to change coverage to help the low income group. Ha got to love those caring demwits. This story proves that they DO NOT CARE about the people, it’s the control that they are after.
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Interesting how the RATS are always most concerned with plotting our demise and rationing medical care BEFORE their bill is even passed.
Feds: Here is the only plan that will work:
Get the Government Bureaucrats and the Ambulance Chasing Lawyers out of the healthcare business. Do that, and the system will take care of itself.
But of course that isn’t your real goal. You RINOS and Demonrats really want to control healthcare, and through it, control the people.
” My opinion too. Any way you cut it this is a Federal takeover of health insurance from the States and is unconstitutional. If that matters anymore, I do not think it does. “
To draw a metaphor from the almost-forgotten Korean War —
I’m beginning to have some hope that this ‘health-care’ power grab will turn out to be our Pusan Perimiter, where the seemingly irresistable tide of Government power and intrusiveness is stopped cold, and then to be beaten back to at least the FDR border, or even, with good generalship, to Original Founding Principles....
I’m not minimizing - this will be a long, hard, fight.. But it could well be the turning point battle.....
Sorry, blueyon. I wasn't yelling at you. :)
It’s not a takeover by the Federal government; it gives power back to the individual consumer and does not impose any requirement to be part of a program. It takes private insurance and makes it more accessible by breaking down artificial barriers to insurance, such as removing restrictions on purchasing it from a company in another state.
This plan provides for all of that - tort reform, removal of state to state barriers, and the encouragement of individual purchase of insurance - so I don’t see what the objection is. As for the tax credit to get lower income families to buy insurance, that’s a lot cheaper than the current system that lets lower income families use emergency rooms at several times that cost (also paid for by us).
But a rational plan like this has no chance of succeeding under the Dems.
Don't give me "huh".
The authority to do ANYTHING having to do with health care does not reside with the US Government. The power resides in the states.
The Republicans drafting anything at the federal level are no better than the Democrats. The problem is the power, not the form that the health care takes.
Those who would endorse such a thing from Republicans are no different than those who beg for health care from the Democrats. It is the very same, and it is unconstitutional.
That's all fine, and I approve of the concept.
As for the tax credit to get lower income families to buy insurance, that’s a lot cheaper than the current system that lets lower income families use emergency rooms at several times that cost (also paid for by us).
The solution to a problem is not to continue to feed the problem. Cut 'em off - most of the so-called "low income families" are just welfare scammers, working under the table and gaming the system to get their earned income credit and food stamps. And, of course, there are the illegal aliens that should not be getting anything for free.
I could not disagree more. Every thin dime that makes it's way to federal coffers helps to fund the beast that will enslave us. The states are perfectly capable of running their own systems once the federal onus is off of their backs. The clean cut bleeds least.
Wow. You have actually bought in to this 1000 page monster. Are you aware that the Obama-Democrat “plan”. Creates 50 new government agencys and 200,000 NEW government employees to stand between you and your doctor? Explain how you can complain about insurance admin cost when 200,000 buerocrats are waiting in the wings?
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