Inviting Conversation for Nov 10th
Washington (CNN) -- Narrow passage of a sweeping health care bill by the House of Representatives portends a continuing difficult fight for President Obama and fellow Democrats to get a bill through the Senate and into law.
The House voted 220-215 late Saturday, with 39 Democrats opposed and one Republican in favor, to approve what would be the biggest expansion of health care coverage since Medicare was created more than 40 years ago.
The Affordable Health Care for America Act, or H.R. 3962, restricts insurance companies from denying coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition or charging higher premiums based on gender or medical history. It also provides federal subsidies to those who cannot afford it. And it guarantees coverage for 96 percent of Americans, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office…
Just part of the article.
Website :http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/09/health.care/index.html
Last week the discussion focused around “mandates.” Thank you to the people who responded. This week’s discussion focuses on consensus and cooperation. I am not taking sides here on the health care issue. We can all agree that health care issues, including access and costs, are serious concerns both immediately and in the long term. BUT…
Why can't Democrats and Republicans team together to set up a health care plan that would be workable? Of course the definition of workable is debatable and hard to come to a middle ground that satisfies anybody. I have already read that it is "dead in the water" in the Senate. So we are presenting something from one House to another that has no chance?
With the adoption of a bill like this, would the exclusion of the pre-existing condition make health care cost skyrocket for both business and individuals to the point nobody could afford it?
I am not naïve enough to believe that there is one “right” solution which will make everyone happy and won’t have its hiccups. But what will it take for our elected officials to put politics aside and create something as a starting point? Before building the house, one needs to build a foundation. Is this so hard?
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Put politics aside? Simple, tell the GOP to quick blocking the will of the people, and vote to put a strong plan with a Public Option in place now! Call out the GOP liars that repeat falsehoods about what the bill would do when those claims have been proven false over and over.
ReplyDeletehttp://factcheck.org/2009/08/twenty-six-lies-about-hr-3200/
Thank you "Agent for Change" for your comment. I also received a second comment from you, but because they came back-to-back it didn't post correctly, so I am posting it on your behalf.
ReplyDeleteFROM AGENT FOR CHANGE:
We have public schools from K-12. No one asks citizens to pay for basic education. We have Police, Fire, and Public Libraries, and no one asks you to do more than pay your taxes to support them. Yet something so basic as health care, which is the biggest single cause of personal bankruptcies in America, is not provided to nearly 47 million Americans. The Radical Right claims that offering a Public Option would lead to health care rationing. Newsflash!! We have rationing now by all the uninsured, and it will only get worse if we do nothing as more and more business drop coverage or raise the rates out of reach of the currently employed. Even the AMA supports health care reform. Most Western nations have long had national health care. I'm embarrassed as an American that nearly 45,000 people die each year because they don't have insurance. (Harvard Medical Study - http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/dying-from-lack-of-insurance/)
Anyone who asks for politicians to put politics aside in the interest of making progress or solving a problem ignores the basic fact that politics is merely the expression of different points of view on how probls are percieved, approached and best solved. For someone to accuse one side or the other of playing politics ignores the fact that they are themselves guilty of the same. Everyone has their own outlook on what constitutes a problem and how to solve it. The fact that someone disagrees with one point of view or another doesn't indicate malicious intent. In fact, accusing someone of playing politics only creates animosity and closes down dialogue. What may be a good solution to you may sound terrible to me. Although our views are expressed in a political forum that doesn't make
ReplyDeleteour points of view any less valid. There are many who disagree with the solution provided by the existing legislation. That doesn't make them evil, stupid, or political gameplayers, it just means they disagree with the method. Again, saying "put aside politics" is like saying "just agree with me." Especially with complex and far reaching issues like this, that is far less likely to happen. Personally I wonder why this needs to be an issue for the federal government anyway. Several states have already implemented their own plans with varying degrees of success. I myself feel like even though healthcare is a bg issue, that it is not within the scope of the federal government's power or responosbility under the constitution (see Amendment X) and should be left to local or state communities to come up with plans that meet local needs and community standards.