US Goverment coul possible be able to shut down internet

I don't understand how people can claim there is no health care crisis. According to a study by Harvard Medical School, more than half of all bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills. This affects everyone: the hospitals and doctors who don't get their bills fully paid and pass the costs to insured patients, the non-medical businesses whose bills will go unpaid due to the bankruptcy, the communities that have seen their ERs close due to the costs of treating the uninsured. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation predicts that the number of uninsured in the US could reach 65 million as health care costs double in the next 10 years. And a lack of insurance will not protect the uninsured for car accidents, cancer, and other medical catastrophes. When they end up in the ER, the costs will be passed along to those with insurance. It is currently estimated that each insured family in the US pays an average of over $1,000 due to costs of caring for the uninsured. These costs will continue to rise as health care costs and the number of uninsured increase.

There's no free lunch here. The insured already pay for the uninsured, but now the uninsured face bankruptcy to try to pay their bills, hospitals and doctors have to make tough decisions to survive financially, and additional costs are created by a lack of adequate preventative care for those un- and underinsured. Somehow, the US must do better for all its citizens than this.

You are absolutely right that there is no free lunch. Assuming your facts are correct, who is going to pay the "costs for the uninsured"? As you describe it here, that cost is now borne (in part) by the insured. Under Obamacare, the cost would be borne (in part) by the taxpayers, and (in part) by incurring yet more debt. But debt is OK, because Obama "doesn't believe in the national debt". To him and his crew, it's a fiction that can be safely ignored.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have put the reins of our economy in the hands of people who do not understand economics, don't understand industry, don't understand medicine, and don't understand that actions have consequences.

Scared yet?

The same people, mostly, except that many peole who are uninsured will be paying in to the pot as taxpayers. And the costs are likely to be lower because there will be less incentive to wait until the last minute and end up with $200,000 in hospital bills instead of $5,000 for 20 years of medication that would have prevented the hospital stay.

QFT!

Just to get a feel for how those in the medical profession feel about the proposed Health Bill, I ask medical professionals I run into what their opinion is. (I also spend a fair amount of time in doctor's offices, a recent ER visit, and filling prescriptions.)

Every medical professional I spoke to almost went into a tirade of how this proposed bill will be absolutely horrible. My pharmacist included what you said, Chris - now we at least have competition amongst providers (and specifically medications). There is now also the ability to send complaints to the various regulatory agencies of medical care and prescription companies. If the government takes over, there will be NO recourse to such.

Considering the way our nation seems to be headed, if not stopped soon, I personally am glad to not have children/grandchildren nor be any younger than I am.

And before someone says I'm listening to "fearmongering", I am very well-educated and able to think for myself. I read widely on all sides of issues, particularly this one and can assure you I am not a - now how did one poster put it - redneck or some such adjective.

I've been wondering that myself - if Australians are still able to access SL. That would be horrible if they can't.

Fear mongering and all aside, it basically comes down to two schools of tought. One is that you feel government should provide for as much of ypur life necessities as possible, or the other that feels government should be involved in your life as little as possible. I am in group B. And to adress an earlier post, I do distrust the majority of politicians. The system fosters corruption, anyone spending any length of time in it has to be tainted by it in order to survive. In the last election, I summarily voted out all incumbents save for one. This coming November, we elect a Governor as well as the entire Statehouse. I will once again vote them all out. They had their chance. Let them go out into the world they helped make and earn a living. The Hell with them.

Have to totally disagree with you here. I am quite sure (but do not wish to discuss it openly in forum) there are many people who are thankful for the new psychiatric medications that give many people their lives back and they don't have to live out their lives in mental institutions that many times were no better than prison. My great-aunt lived most of her life in one and, from what I understand, was not in the type of utopian center you describe.

Under the Reagan administration, many, if not most, inpatient institutions for the mentally ill were closed in favor of local community outpatient centers. For the people who needed inpatient care, this was a blow and many street people are actually mentally ill with nowhere to go. I honestly have mixed feelings on that decision. But as far as psychiatric medications, I will repeat, they have enabled countless numbers of people to live a "normal" life.

As an aside: I was pleased to read in the articles after Eunice Kennedy Shriver's death that she was an advocate for the rights of the mentally ill due to what she witnessed her sister, Rosemary, having to live with, including undergoing a lobotomy.

I don't know that you can put 'fear mongering and all' aside; What Crighton (or Jack) said yesterday, about little old ladies shaking in their shoes afraid of the Death Panel quite touched me. As did Lindal's story about her dad, from the opposite side of the fence. Most of us probably have a personal story though, or 3. My dad passed away in 1999, life stretched for several months, with good private insurance, appropriate medication, and his daughter (me) standing on the desk of anyone that I felt wasn't doing their job. My mother is 93, has advanced Alzheimer's and lives with my husband and me. It's a challenge every minute. She's got a mixture of Medicare and private insurance. She doesn't understand, of course, with the Alzheimer's, the current controversy, but there are many her age, and younger, who I can certainly picture shaking in their shoes because they heard or read about a Death Panel. I do understand both schools of thought, but then again, I am in the workforce with good insurance. If I wasn't, I might have another opinion and can certainly see the other side. One point is that we all have 'snapshots', personal vignettes that color our opinions. Trying to put those personal feelings aside and look at the big picture, for all of the people, must be a hell of a job.

czari i dont dispute the fact that bad things happened in the mental institutions. but there actually was a movement to use worthwhile activities as occupational therapy with patients. it is well documented and one of those places was worcester state hospital where i used to work...as i said in previous posts, that does not say there was no abuse etc. and that conditions were often horrific. but there were some good people making an effort to do good things within those walls and this farming, gardening, having something to wake up for kind of life is seen by many who worked in these places as preferable to being tied to a chair and drooling.

as you know there is alot more to this issue and i was actually using this info to illustrate a point and not to shed light on the history of mental health treatment. as things got better in the mental health arena there were also some really horrible misses....like lobotomies etc...but at the time it was an improvement over what had been the norm before.

the point i was trying to make with this and evidently failing miserably lol...was that in some cases, the drug companies and insurance companies offer choices for care that are not in the best interest of every patient. they dictate length of stays that dont correspond to being healed, they choose to approve over medicating rather than the higher cost of alternative programs etc. my point was that ins and drug companies are working solely to pad their own pockets in most cases.

we can go have a drink in world and chat more about it too...

Very true on the Medicaid being different state-by-state. Before my disability was approved, I was on straight Medicaid. It paid all my prescriptions (that it allowed) with no co-pay; HOWEVER, it was extremely hard to find doctors and many labs that accepted Medicaid (I live in FL) due to the providers basically being paid nothing or close to nothing for their services. I chose my primary physician because he was the ONLY one in a large county that accepted Medicaid.

Now that I am on Medicare, more Dr's accept that - BUT now I have to pay the co-pays for both Dr. visits and prescriptions...out of a whopping $700 month. (Plus rent, utilities, food, etc.)

So it's like darned if you do and darned if you don't.

And these are both Government run entities. When I was able to work and had excellent private health care for which I paid a small portion, this situation didn't exist. I shudder to think of the entire country being run like Medicare and FL Medicaid.

treasure i agree...it seems like if people have it good as far as health care, they want to keep what they have and are fearful of that being reduced or being taken away under any new plan. but there are many many people who struggle without good care, good coverage and have deadly or life altering consequences from their lack of these things. those people would be thrilled to have a very minimal level of care even to help them. to me it kinda seems like the haves and the have nots and its too bad there is no plan to change that.

from what ive read in the text of the new plan...it seems that fears of the govt taking over healthcare are quite overblown. the current plan does not include that. to me if the private sector is refusing to take responsibility to cut their amazing profits to help find a solution for these issues, then my perspective is that the govt is taking proper steps to impose some sanctions and new rules, ideas...etc.

just for the record...i dont like it that the govt is even having to step in...but someone needs to....insurance companies and drug companies have historically been solely motivated by profits and not the public welfare. and to me, that is part of the mandate of the us govt...to try to help and also protect americans from harm. and it makes my stomach hurt when i talk to the family of the woman i know who no longer has arms and legs as of may because she couldnt afford to buy health ins and no one would see her for care. i dont know what the right answer is...but that scares me more than govt involvement in trying to make that not happen in the future.

This might come as a suprise to some of you, but most of the world is actually located outside the US. That goes for the Internet too. Obama blocking US access (if anyone believes that will ever happen) to parts of the Internet does not mean "shutting down the Internet"...

The national debt something that Obama feels may be safely ignored? Where'd you dig up that fiction at, that this is a new Obama invention? The Republican party as led by presidents George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush, were very firm believers in the unimportance of the national debt and the benefit of bankrupting our country by spending far more than the Government had any hope of ever collecting.

Also you clearly have not been doing your homework. There were studies released (I have no idea if they're still archived on the Net) by independent economists regarding Obama's policies and also those of his Republican opponent. The outcome? If Obama got elected the national debt would increase by upwards of 30 billion dollars. That's a hell of a lot of money isn't it? If the Republican opponent got elected, the national debt would increase by a total in excess of 70 billion dollars. So we saved 40 billion dollars by electing Obama as our President. That's called sound fiscal policy.

Even better would be to have the entire Government replaced with people who understand that this country is bankrupt unless the Government actually starts making a profit. We must take in more tax revenue than we spend, so that we have the money to not only pay the interest on the national debt, but also pay extra to reduce the principle that we are being charged interest on. As things stand right now we aren't even paying the interest, and yet we still borrow more money. This is what I'm afraid of, and try as you might, you cannot lay the blame for this at the feet of President Obama because he did not create this mess.

We need somebody to make the hard decisions and get us out of this mess. And American citizens with the backbone to shut their mouths when their sacred cows are facing reduced funding or no funding at all in order to make this possible.

Also we as American citizens have a duty to stop borrowing. Cut up your credit cards. You are not supposed to be using them to buy your shampoo. Pay cash for the stuff already. As long as we live in a society that requires us to go into debt just to handle the basics we are happy little lemmings marching towards the sea of bankruptcy and jumping off when we reach land's end. Turn around and refuse to follow the crowd or you are the problem.

This probably also applies to a large part of the non-U.S. world as well.

Then why are we even having this debate? I'll tell you why, because those are not enough to take care of people who need help.



I've been doing my best to give opposing views and oppose what I believe are either things I disagree with or flat out misrepresentations of the truth. If you're tired of it, that would not be my problem. I'm not responsible for how you feel.



While I chose my terms horribly, our infant mortality rate is higher than just about all countries that are our "equals" in terms of technology. We rank either 33rd or 46th depending on what source you consider. “Infant mortality and our comparison with the rest of the world continue to be an embarrassment to the United States,” said Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a conservative research organization.

A plan, whether it's Obama's or anyone else's, that would allow people who aren't covered under the current system to be covered better would prevent needless deaths, because......THEY WOULD RECEIVE HEALTH CARE!



My current choice is to purchase health insurance myself as an individual, which I can't afford, or to hope that me or my family don't get sick right now. Those are not acceptable choices to me. If they ARE acceptable choices to you, you might want to see the Wizard about finding your heart. I know it's fashionable in conservative circles to blame and shame people who are less fortunate. I'm thankful I don't subscribe to that philosophy. It seems you do, or you're just completely oblivious to anyone other than yourself.



The government will have no motivation to deny needed coverage to people based on lining their own pockets because their boss has told them they need to increase profits, which they receive from their bosses and on up the line. If I have a choice between dealing with a government worker or someone who's only motivation is profit, I'll take the government worker, thanks. I don't believe this is true for every industry. I do, however, believe that we need this in industries that take care of our common good. Do you know why the government runs the armed forces? The police departments? The fire departments? Hmmmm? Because making those private did not work. The reason why is the publics welfare is more important than profits.

Should we make the film industry government run too? Nope. Not necessary.
And before you come unglued, I'm not saying we privatize the entire health care industry. I'm saying we need something to help those out who are not receiving the care they need. I'm not opposed to looking at privatizing the whole industry though. I personally lean towards the view that we need to rebuild the entire thing from the ground up, it's so broken.



My guess would be that it would be more likely that the government would pay out for something like that than a private insurance company. You obviously feel differently, and we'll not find out any time soon.

Also, you're making this about your experiences with your coverage. This debate is not about how good some have it, but how bad others have it. This is not about you, Lindal. This is about people like me, who do not have insurance right now. And it's about the millions of others who are in the same boat as me, and some far worse.



Hmmmm....so screw everyone else since you're taken care of? Nice. I'm guessing you're just pissed off, because I would like to believe the best in people and I don't think you're that incredibly selfish and heartless. Once again, I'm not advocating taking your private health insurance away from you, even though I think it might be a good idea. What I'm looking for is health care for everyone. I'll be okay, no matter what happens. I believe that. I'm more concerned about others who are not as fortunate as me.

Smart girl!

You can always tell when a politician is lying..... Their lips are moving.

Is reminded of a line from a movie (I think Hunt for Red October but dont hold me to it)
Line goes something like this

"I am a politician which means when I am not kissing babies I am stealing their lolipops."

mind you I am from Louisiana which means we elect our crooks so we can keep an eye on em.

This is speaking within the united states, and many many many companies not located in the united states access the internet within the us various companies and such. You know we outsource much of our help desks.. so.. yeah other countries may and can be effected by this. Commerce and trade security .. its a huge thing. And we are not thinking we are the only "world" but you shut down a major infrastructure and yeah you will feel the pinch in europe and africa and india etc etc....

I recall recently in china I htink it was the internet did go down for a long time and it effected many others besides them.. I remember hearing something about it but do not recall specifics to be honest. I think it was from a quake or something....

It already is borne in part by the taxpayers. As I stated previously:
It is also already borne by the taxpayers in the resulting increased health care costs that are passed along to them to cover the remaining portion of costs for uncompensated health care for the uninsured. It is shortsighted to think of the impact of government policy and practice only in terms of taxes and it is a common subterfuge by politicians to attack one another based on tax increases while conveniently overlooking the fact that their alternate policies still hit the bottom line for taxpayers by a corresponding increase in living expenses, often to the detriment of the less affluent taxpayers.

My thoughts:

My ex-fiancee had health benefits thru welfare at one point.

She needed a cavity filled. Went to the "Government/Welfare approved" dentist.

He proceeds to do several unnecessary root canals on otherwise healthy teeth.

According to what my dentist (the one that MY health benefits pays), some of these guys will continue to find "problems" with a patient since they know the government is paying the bill.