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Rahall and Mollohan voted Yes to the Health Care Reform Bill.
After the last year of protests from WV citizens, I'm surprised they did it.
Hope they got great concessions for their votes.
Yeah...how awful that they voted to expand healthcare to tens of millions of Americans who lack coverage because of our broken system. What horrible individuals Rahall and Mollohan are.
Ironic that so many conservatives try to tow the "pro-America" line...I personally find it very un-American and uncivilized in general to sit back and let people go without something as essential as basic healthcare.
A friend of mine is a political blogger so a couple of us got together and took a stroll around the Capitol on Saturday to see the TEA party protesters in action. I'll just say that whole crowd was a real classy bunch! I guess there is no other way in their minds to get a message across other than to yell racial slurs about our President and several senators or to make homophobic remarks about Barney Frank. My blogger friend asked several protesters why they were so against this bill and I'm hear to tell you the answers were so beyond assinine its not even funny. Things like "it's going to ration healthcare for us," "it's socialized medicine," "it's going to be the downfall of our country"..yet when asked where they could point out in the bill that it said we would have rationed healthcare or what made it socialized they would give responses like "well I just heard it would."
If you're against it, fine, no problem, it is your right and nobody has a right to take that away from you...but try to come up with a better response other than "Sean Hannity told me" or "this study on Fox News said it would."
Last edited by NOVAmtneer82; 03-22-2010 at 08:15 AM..
To claim that free health services are a "right" for all Americans is to enslave the providers or payers for those services. It's not complicated. It forces some citizens, using the power of the sword, to work to pay for services rendered to others. And, the Federal Government has never and should not force Americans to buy any type of good or service. Once there is a "one payer" system, it IS a socialized health care system. The problem is that America is already so far into socialism and the public education system is so failed (from my POV, obviously not from the POV of the Socialists, Progressives & Deweyites) that we can no longer even distinguish socialism from freedom.
If this is not defeated it is yet another chunk of freedom lost, either because we as individual Americans are too complacent to stand against it, too uneducated to read and understand the bill, or have grown lazy & comfortable with government handouts.
This is another incentive to not work or own a business. It makes me want to cancel my health insurance and start saving the $700 each month. So that I will have some cash stashed away in case I need to get a black market medical procedure once the Fed is running the system in a few years.
There is no requirement to have a health insurnace policy to get health care. When my wife had surgery our health insurance didn't cover it. I shopped around for the best prices on services and we paid out of our income (I think it was almost $10k total and at the time we were earning jointly under $60k), just like you would for any other service.
How does luck work in getting a health insurance policy?
If a doctor who takes home $100k a year didn't have to pay $100k a year for malpractice insurance, how much should the cost of a doctor's visit drop?
No, it's not a written requirement, because the health care industry won't admit how it operates, so they certainly wouldn't have that in writing. It's very hard to get in to see a new doctor without having health insurance. The first question is usually, "Do you have insurance?" No? "We aren't taking new patients."
The care you get at a hospital can be very different if you don't have insurance.
Luck comes into play when you are lucky enough to have an insurance policy. Jobs that offer insurance aren't just dangling from trees here in WV. Many hard working West Virginians, and Americans, are without health insurance, and not by choice.
People who don't believe these things are true, obviously have never had to experience it.
edit- Some people think that doctors can be sued at the drop of a Band-Aid. Not true! If you don't earn six figures, the lawyers won't even consider your case. The doctors have to kill you in order to make your case profitable enough for the lawyers to be interested. So I don't believe that all lawsuits are occurring for no good reason.
Last edited by Two-Rivers; 03-22-2010 at 11:08 AM..
Reason: Editing
I've not had an employer provided health insurance policy for over 14 years. I pay for my insurance out of my pocket. At times it has cost me over $1,000/month. But it was my choice to forego expensive meals, a nicer car, a boat, more free time, etc. to pay for insurance. I did not have to, I was free to not buy health insurance and pay for medical expenses as they were incurred or borrow to cover them. That reminds me, as a young married couple in the early '90's we didn't have health insurance at all. My appendix decided to explode one evening, boy did that hurt. At that time I was making about $7/hour and my wife worked part time and was finishing college. We paid the $5,000 out of pocket over about a year. The doctor & hospital bills were still somewhat affordable then; I was in the hospital for about a week. Oh, and my employer didn't pay me to be off for three weeks either. But it was still a free country then, and I didn't think he owed me anything and I was thankful to have a job when I got better.
I agree that the health care system does have a health insurance bias, but that is not neccesarily the fault of the system nor the responsibility of the government to correct. When we got the MRI's for my wifes surgery I called several places for a fee quote. A few people I talked with couldn't even comprehend or had never gotten a request for a cash fee. It took some effort on our part, but we managed without Big Brother stepping in.
And yes the lawyers do fall all over themselves and each other to get at lawsuits where a sympathetic jury will dole out millions of malpractice insurance money for noneconomic loss (ie. pain & suffering.) And they do it at no cost to their client, because they typically get 50% of the reward. There are many good studies which show a direct correlation between malpractice award caps and a higher number of doctors within geographic boundaries.
Here's an excerpt from a 2005 study: Counties in states with a cap had 2.2 percent more physicians per capita because of the cap, and rural counties in states with a cap had 3.2 percent more physicians per capita. Rural counties in states with a $250,000 cap had 5.4 percent more obstetrician-gynecologists and 5.5 percent more surgical specialists per capita than did rural counties in states with a cap above $250,000.
[SIZE=2]Have State Caps On Malpractice Awards Increased the Supply of Physicians?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]May, 2005[/SIZE] By William E. Encinosa and Fred J. Hellinger
Then there are people that are working poor, that seldom see so much as a take-out pizza, don't have the nice cars, a boat, or free time. They couldn't afford to lose 10-25% of their income to an insurance company for a premium, even if it was offered. Nor would they qualify for any Medicaid or similar program.
In many jobs, you are cut loose as soon as you become ill or even slow down a little bit.
It can be very dangerous to be uninsured and become ill. I personally know of a person with a ruptured appendix that didn't get the normal routine tests because there was no insurance. This person suffered an additional nine days until nearly dead, then the hospital was forced to take action. Another few hours and they wouldn't have been bothered with the peasant.
I personally have been told that I would not be given expensive tests because I had no insurance at the time. This is the reason that being un-insured is dangerous to your health. And this was done at a hospital that pats itself on the back for treating uninsured patients. I think they do just the amount they have to do make some legal requirement and that's all.
It's all about money and how much they can get. Why else would they turn the uninsured away?
My point about litigation was not that lawyers don't sue. It's that serious malpractice goes unnoticed because the victim is below a certain income level. People think that all mistakes get a doctor sued, and that just isn't true. That doesn't mean that I think there should be a lawsuit for very minor situations, but I know they get by with some very serious mistakes.
Naturally, most anyone will gravitate to the area that earns them the most money. And a large percentage of doctors are right at the top in seeking money. Money is the reason many choose to become doctors in the first place.
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