Health Care Reform - the morning after

[freemason9]

I had hoped to see lots of pictures of Glenn Beck crying in this thread.

It honestly appears that Glenn Beck and RI bloggers are crying together.

That's how it appears to you. In reality, you would be 180 degrees off with those 2 dimensional glasses you APPEAR to be wearing.

Nope, you're wrong. I see straight ahead. If I were wall-eyed, I could see you and Glenn Beck at once. As it is, though, I can't see the logic of either view.

Ain't humans stupid as shit, though?

[82_28]

Not because I know anything special or have any inside scoops, I think this has everything to do with an extension of databasing. Back in the heady days when the companies and govt were rolling out their high speed Internet, first in select hoods then expanding it out to basically everybody. They constantly referred to connectivity issues as "the last mile" and getting everybody on the "Information Superhighway" meant overcoming the shortcomings of small gauge copper wire. Sure, we had great fiber optic trunks, but getting this into plumber Joe's home was still going to take some time.

Fast forward to today. For the most part everybody is now wired. Everyone does most of their banking online, buys and sells their cars and every manner of goods online, google analytics know each and everything we read, who our friends are, who our not friends are (if you use gmail they are already including this in simple google searches). We send out invitations through a service called "evite". We pay via a convoluted and confusing system called paypal. We have "loyalty cards" that record our cash buying habits. Our address books, our texting and calling histories, all of it databased. You name it -- it is all wired up for the final last mile.

Here is what I think the final "last mile" is and ultimately what this bill was always all about.

It is irrevocably tying genetic information to said already existing databases of our online and offline fingerprints. This health care bill is merely a trojan horse -- with the partisan abortion, socialism, communism, racism, progressivism, fascism, claims by either "side" as merely the facade in which to implement the work in progress known here as the Final Great All Knowing Database. Once this database is completed, there will be no escaping it. It was never about health.

I tell everybody outside of my RI experiences to keep their eyes on the pea. I don't think they know what the fuck I am talking about. Which means, once you have taken your eye off the pea it will forever be impossible to know where it is in the future.

[ninakat]

Seriously, if this health care reform legislation offered no help to American citizens and workers,

then

the Republicans and fascists would not have fought it so contentiously and passionately.

Are you kidding? It's a win-win for the Republicans. They can snicker behind closed doors about how much further the health care legislation moved IN THEIR DIRECTION. In public, they get to pretend to be on the side of the people. You seem to have bought the "passion." Fool me another 300 times, I guess.

This health care bill probably does have a few crumbs for the people. What the Republicans would have preferred was NO CRUMBS AT ALL.

In 4 years when most of the provisions in this bill kick in, this country is going to be so fucked, it probably won't matter anyway. Do you think they don't know this? Of course they know it. It's all just twisted political obfuscation games. Get used to it. (Wake up first.)

[chiggerbit]

Fine, let's discuss it, freemason, all nice and civil-like. I don't have a clue about what even made it through, but maybe you could name 5 things about the bill that you really like. And then the rest of us can blast you with what we hate about it.

[82_28]

I had hoped to see lots of pictures of Glenn Beck crying in this thread.

It honestly appears that Glenn Beck and RI bloggers are crying together.

That's how it appears to you. In reality, you would be 180 degrees off with those 2 dimensional glasses you APPEAR to be wearing.

Nope, you're wrong. I see straight ahead. If I were wall-eyed, I could see you and Glenn Beck at once. As it is, though, I can't see the logic of either view.

Ain't humans stupid as shit, though?

Dude. Glenn Beck is clearly a CREATION of nefarious means. I am gathering it, that you are for this bill, freemason9. Fine, so be it. But this shit wasn't conjured out of the thin air of bullshit, meaningless "partisan" politics. It was an obvious appeal to fear and a warning of what will happen to us if we do not relent to the "tentacles" of a false authority. The said "authority" has bifurcated in order to confuse and confound. There is no intent to deliver health care with this bill. It is a bill meant to control every last aspect of our vanishing All-American livelihoods. Why would that be?

Because something else is coming. Something greater, much greater is around the corner. Is this a tulpa on my part? I don't think so. I've posted a link to this in other threads, but here it is now for you. The Double Bind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind

A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one message negating the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other, so that the person will be automatically wrong regardless of response. The nature of a double bind is that the person cannot confront the inherent dilemma, and therefore can neither comment on the conflict, nor resolve it, nor opt out of the situation.

A double bind generally includes different levels of abstraction in orders of messages, and these messages can be stated or implicit within the context of the situation, or conveyed by tone of voice or body language. Further complications arise when frequent double binds are part of an ongoing relationship to which the person or group is committed.[1][2]

Double bind theory is more clearly understood in the context of complex systems and cybernetics because human communication and also the mind itself function in an interactive manner similar to ecosystems. [3] Complex systems theory helps us understand the interdependence of the parts of a message and provides "an ordering of what to the Newtonian looks like chaos." [2]

The detection of the double bind, is seriously all I needed to know that this bill is poison and isn't what it says it is.

[Burnt Hill]

Shares of Medicaid insurers, hospital companies and even drugmakers rose

as well they should in the face of health care reform, and millions more insured americans. These are debatedly the "good guys".
From the same article

Large insurers WellPoint Inc (WLP.N) and UnitedHealth Group(UNH.N) shed early gains, with UnitedHealth down nearly 2 percent at midday.

These are assuredly the "bad guys".

[nathan28]

Fine, let's discuss it, freemason, all nice and civil-like. I don't have a clue about what even made it through, but maybe you could name 5 things about the bill that you really like. And then the rest of us can blast you with what we hate about it.

Yes, let's have an actual argument from the supporters, rather than just some more cheerleading.

[Nordic]

C'mon, the "right wing" trying to "defeat" this stuff is classic "bad cop" theatrics on the part of the right-wing.

I think they doth protested too much.

It was all "don't throw me in the briar patch" type of posturing.

And it worked, as it always does.

Everybody is all about "their team" and "winning" above all else. They don't realize that their team doesn't give a rats-ass about them and that both teams are both being paid by the same owner.


And heck, I'd sure like to start a business where I could have my buddies in congress to pass a law requiring everybody buy my shitty product. That would rock!

[Simulist]

Fine, let's discuss it, freemason, all nice and civil-like. I don't have a clue about what even made it through, but maybe you could name 5 things about the bill that you really like. And then the rest of us can blast you with what we hate about it.

Yes, let's have an actual argument from the supporters, rather than just some more cheerleading.

Yes, that would be refreshing. It's not likely to happen though.

And it's not likely to happen because "cheerleading" — as you've so aptly named it, Nathan — is all they appear to have.

(Well... that and the laughably delusional belief that the Democrats are "the good guys." They always seem to have that.)

[jingofever]

At least it gets rid of the practice of denying coverage because of 'preexisting conditions'. And it destroyed America. That's something, isn't it?

[thurnundtaxis]

Yeah, I for one, would love to know what all these supporters of the bill think is so awesome about being forced by the government to buy insurance from private companies.

I mean really, I want to know WHY that is such a good thing. And how this is a step towards something even better.

Please, explain F-9. 'Cuz, mebbe Ah jest don't geddit!

[justdrew]

Yeah, I for one, would love to know what all these supporters of the bill think is so awesome about being forced by the government to buy insurance from private companies.

I mean really, I want to know WHY that is such a good thing. And how this is a step towards something even better.

Please, explain F-9. 'Cuz, mebbe Ah jest don't geddit!

while I don't like it either, and would prefer nation single payer, let's keep something in mind: everyone who's not on medicare/medicaid is currently forced to buy insurance from private companies (unless they want no coverage). There are "non-profit" health insurance companies now, and all these companies are now forced to disclose their overhead and the non-profits have to keep the overhead under 15% of intake to get their non-profit tax breaks. Low-income people (up to four times the poverty level) are going to get major subsidies to afford the coverage. They will no doubt go into a non-profit plan, as it should always be less expensive.

Lots of good things in the bill now that I've found some more info on it. no more lifetime maximum benefits for instance.

and something else to consider: this is going to completely alter the business plans of these companies.

and if you really really don't want coverage, the 'fine' for going without isn't really very much money, and please consider - no matter how healthy you are, there's still accidents and the like that can happen.

anyway, I just got out of surgery myself, still feeling the effects of the general anesthetic to some extent, nothing major, just had an annoying robbin's egg sized 'bump' removed from the nasal/brow area. First time in my adult life for surgery, was a little worried about going under, but it went fine.

[Nordic]

everyone who's not on medicare/medicaid is currently forced to buy insurance from private companies (unless they want no coverage).

Well we're not forced at all. If we don't want it, we don't have to buy it.

That's a HUGE difference.

[nathan28]

Yeah, I for one, would love to know what all these supporters of the bill think is so awesome about being forced by the government to buy insurance from private companies.

I mean really, I want to know WHY that is such a good thing. And how this is a step towards something even better.

Please, explain F-9. 'Cuz, mebbe Ah jest don't geddit!

while I don't like it either, and would prefer nation single payer, let's keep something in mind: everyone who's not on medicare/medicaid is currently forced to buy insurance from private companies (unless they want no coverage). There are "non-profit" health insurance companies now, and all these companies are now forced to disclose their overhead and the non-profits have to keep the overhead under 15% of intake to get their non-profit tax breaks. Low-income people (up to four times the poverty level) are going to get major subsidies to afford the coverage. They will no doubt go into a non-profit plan, as it should always be less expensive.

Besides the facts that they're not currently forced to buy from private ins., and that non-profit private ins. already exists, and existed before for-profit ins., this is fine. I'd hardly have optimism, however, about "non-profit" ins., judging by the general behavior of the present-day nonprofit world, to use colorless language.

Lots of good things in the bill now that I've found some more info on it. no more lifetime maximum benefits for instance.

Do you have figures on the impact of these changes? Are these marginal or substantive? What about on the subsidies for low-income? Are there rules regarding deductibles/premiums or premiums vs. deductibles?

and something else to consider: this is going to completely alter the business plans of these companies. [/quote]

That's okay.

and if you really really don't want coverage, the 'fine' for going without isn't really very much money, and please consider - no matter how healthy you are, there's still accidents and the like that can happen.

About 60% of bankruptcies result from medical expenses, and half of those are people with coverage. Likewise, unless there's money to cover deductibles or regulations on them, cheap ins. plans tend to be more expensive than no coverage for non-disaster care b/c of the deductible.

[thurnundtaxis]

Maybe "forced" was the wrong choice of wording. Penalized by the government for not supporting a private industry is more like it.

I just find that notion highly absurd.