Obama Tells Congress to Wait for Brown

[Crabcake Johnny]

Obama To Dems: Don't Jam Through Health Care Bill

Ok, so Obama's at least not competely stupid. He's telling Congress not to ram heatlh care through and to wait for Brown to get seated.

Even he knows it's policital suicide to ram this turd through.

 

[Winter_123]

Obama To Dems: Don't Jam Through Health Care Bill

Ok, so Obama's at least not competely stupid. He's telling Congress not to ram heatlh care through and to wait for Brown to get seated.

Even he knows it's policital suicide to ram this turd through.

Basically Obama is saying "we dont know any way to jam it through so we should make it look like we are slowing it down to work with the opposition. Otherwise the public is on our arses and when the election comes uip we want to be able to say that we stopped the process so that there could be more transparency."

Problem is the repubs dont want to give him any pieces now so that he will have nothing to take into the elections. I dont blame them. They have a responsibility to health implement health reform but they dont have a responsiblity to just put duct tape and bondo on a plan that they developed behind close doors and said they didnt even need republicans.

Obama is going to spin it that we were in so deep on the economy due to Bush that he did not have time to commit to health care the way he wanted to this year. He needs to get all of that out of his system and then there needs to be a cooling off period and then a return to the drawing board down the road. As always, if the repubs arent helpful I will criticize them when that happens, but I think this thing needs to cool off for a few months and repubs have no obligation to do anything right off. The dems have a plan. Move it forward or stand down.

 

[bluemarlin08]

This entire health reform issue has been a cluster job from the get go. I can't argue that things could be improved, but not this way. Claims are driving the rate increases, one way to slow down claims is higher ded. I know since we went to a HDHP we have become much more aware of how our dollars are being spent. We were amazed at how charges can vary and how some are negotiable.

 

[djs]

Kudos to Obama for the decision to wait. Regardless of his reasons, he's doing the right thing, so my hat is off to him.

Now the problem starts... Lets sing kumbaya and coalesce around the 'popular' parts of the bill. Let's see, that would be all the entitlements. Let's throw out the 'not-so-popular' parts, which would be paying for it.

So, let's be clear what we want to do and move forward. There is a lot to have happen, lots of good things. Hopefully, over the last year, somebody has come up with a plan.

Dan

 

[Winter_123]

Kudos to Obama for the decision to wait. Regardless of his reasons, he's doing the right thing, so my hat is off to him.

Dan

Nothing focuses the mind quite like lack of choice.

I say the Republicans should call for a floor vote so that the people's representatives may be heard on the issue and the voters can know where they stand. You put a gun to my head, you either pull the goddam trigger or take it down.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

And it's 1994 all over again. Back to the drawing board. Why? Because despite the polls conducted by the left MOST Americans don't want health care reform.

 

[somarco]

In truth, the reform bill in its' current form (House or Senate, take your pick) is only designed to help 30 million individuals.

Well, plus those on Medicare Advantage plans . . .

 

[Monti_Ray]

I hope there are reforms so that in a non-urgent situation, patients can go to any Lab, or any Imaging center they want, and can do price shopping. Some doctors even refuse to tell the patients what kind of testing or imaging they need so that they have no choice, but to go an expensive Lab recommended by their doctors.

Monti Ray
BestInsleads.Com

 

[somarco]

Health insurance reform wont change that. Consumers will not get any smarter when it comes to health care choices.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I'm still for price transparancy. I know it would be challenging but if I want to compare prices for fixing my transmission I can do that. In fact in MD the repair shops have to post their labor rates.

I just got my brakes done this past Sunday. I didn't "wonder" what the bill was going to be. They printed out an estimate and again, by MD law actual charges cannot exceed 10% of their estimate without my consent.

However, people get lab work and here comes the EOB - pay it. $18? $1,800? You legally have to pay it. How about $3,800? Pay it. How about that outpatient surgery - oh, that's $8,000. And how did they arrived at that? Dunno - pay it.

It's an absurd system. OON pricing is also absurd. So it's $1,000 in-network....$6,000 OON? Really?

THIS is where the focus needs to be. Open the entire system up to competition which involves complete price transparancy.

You couple this with tort reform and there's the "change" we need.

Next up; mandate that every carrier must offer a GI plan, it cannot cost more than 50% of their underwritten rates. Gov't can offset the rates for the GI plans which would cost a fraction of this current cluster of a bill.

Healthy people are rewarded with lower rates, the sick get guaranteed access at slightly higher rates and it's done.