59% Increase In Health Insurance Costs!

[Amphictyonis]

CTRkoQRBlBE

[Fulanito de Tal]

USA! USA! USA! God bless the sick...because they sure as hell aren't gonna receive proper medical treatment.

[Amphictyonis]

Not sure why you thanked that post NGNM85 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=29065). I posted it, in part, to show you how wrong you are in supporting the new healthcare law.

[thesadmafioso]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Health care costs have risen, therefore the affordable health care act is to be blamed.

How you perceive a law of government intervention and regulation in the private market of health care as somehow being the cause of greater irresponsibility on behalf of the private sector is beyond me, really.

[HEAD ICE]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Health care costs have risen, therefore the affordable health care act is to be blamed.

How you perceive a law of government intervention and regulation in the private market of health care as somehow being the cause of greater irresponsibility on behalf of the private sector is beyond me, really.

I don't know who has said that the affordable health care act is to blame. Rather that the bill in no way benefited workers, and is actually a step backward. The bill is going to require people to purchase private health insurance, with no caps in health insurance costs.

You seem to be taking the conservative line but using it for your own end. The health care bill was not an example of government intervention in the private sector. Rather, an example of the private sector's intervention in the government.

[KC]

How you perceive a law of government intervention and regulation in the private market of health care as somehow being the cause of greater irresponsibility on behalf of the private sector is beyond me, really.It's very simple. Sometimes it actually makes sense. Government regulating against hidden costs in credit cards have caused credit card APR's to rise as banks have to bring those hidden fees out into the open.


Rather that the bill in no way benefited workers

This statement is absolutely fucking absurd, btw

[thesadmafioso]

I don't know who has said that the affordable health care act is to blame. Rather that the bill in no way benefited workers, and is actually a step backward. The bill is going to require people to purchase private health insurance, with no caps in health insurance costs.

You seem to be taking the conservative line but using it for your own end. The health care bill was not an example of government intervention in the private sector. Rather, an example of the private sector's intervention in the government.

First off, the act was passed by Congress and signed into law. It was a bill, it is now a law. You honestly believe yourself to be in a position to tell me what this law contains when you seem to be ignorant of the differences between a bill and a law?

Secondly, how exactly am I taking a conservative line for defending its provisions to limit the profit driven excesses of the health care industry. Health care providers can no longer simply drop individuals out of a desire to save money based on nonsensical justifications. That is regulation and realizing that is certainly not conservative in any way. I don't very well care if the right has burdened those terms with negative connotations, they have done the same to socialism and yet I still use the term without fear of being painted as a rightist.

And how is that a step backwards? So the private sector is fighting the provisions of the law in every imaginable fashion, was that not to honestly be expected? That does not change the fact that this act will provide health care to millions of poverty stricken Americans and that it will make the current health care apparatus in the US far more open to the lower classes. If anyone here is using rightist talking points it is you, and I believe I am in a far better position to make that claim than yourself given all of the available information here. I am not the one attacking a law which provides for the working class and which brings the once elusive and tentative commodity of health care to many in desperate need of such.

[thesadmafioso]

It's very simple. Sometimes it actually makes sense. Government regulating against hidden costs in credit cards have caused credit card APR's to rise as banks have to bring those hidden fees out into the open.



This statement is absolutely fucking absurd, btw

I am perfectly aware of the motivations behind the business interests which initiated such actions, I was referring to the apparent direction of the blame towards the affordable health care act as opposed to the private sector.

[KC]

I am perfectly aware of the motivations behind the business interests which initiated such actions, I was referring to the apparent direction of the blame towards the affordable health care act as opposed to the private sector.

Ah, okay. Who knows. I always wonder what it must look like to be outside looking in at the US political system. It is beyond fucked.

[gorillafuck]

What did the bill do besides make people buy private healthcare?

[thesadmafioso]

What did the bill do besides make people buy private healthcare?

You are the 4th or 5th person I have said this to. The affordable health care act was passed by congress and signed into law by the president, it is no longer a bill and it is a law. Try flipping through a text on US government before you start trying to interpret the impact which a law has on American society.

It allows for individuals to stay on their parents health care plans until the age of 26, it places greater limitations upon the deceitful tactics of the health care industry which are used to generate profit and to deprive individuals of access to care, and it lays out a comprehensive plan to allow all Americans access to economically viable health care. These are only a few of major provisions of course, but that should be enough to give you a general idea of about how wrong you are here.

[Amphictyonis]

You are the 4th or 5th person I have said this to. The affordable health care act was passed by congress and signed into law by the president, it is no longer a bill and it is a law. Try flipping through a text on US government before you start trying to interpret the impact which a law has on American society.

It allows for individuals to stay on their parents health care plans until the age of 26, it places greater limitations upon the deceitful tactics of the health care industry which are used to generate profit and to deprive individuals of access to care, and it lays out a comprehensive plan to allow all Americans access to economically viable health care. These are only a few of major provisions of course, but that should be enough to give you a general idea of about how wrong you are here.

Good gracious when are you going to go away?

http://www1.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/heal-s17.shtml

A reply to a critic on Obama’s health care overhaul

By Joe Kishore
17 September 2009

The World Socialist Web Site recently received a letter denouncing our position on Obama’s health care overhaul, and, in particular, our analysis of his speech to Congress last week. The same reader had written previously opposing our analysis of the Iranian elections earlier this year, to which we replied in “Iran and public opinion” (http://www1.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/pers-j27.shtml). As was the case then, this letter is worth a reply, as it concisely sums up conceptions so prevalent among the “left” supporters of Obama.


The article to which the letter writer is responding is Jerry White’s “The real agenda behind Obama’s health care ‘reform’” (http://www1.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/obhc-s11.shtml), published on September 11. The article argued that the health care proposals outlined by Obama are fundamentally reactionary.


Our critic replied with the following:
“It is now a contest between the GOP and the World Socialists as to who can provide the most lies and distortions of Obama’s programs. You would obviously prefer Obama to come out in favor of a single payer system such as the one we enjoy here in Canada.


“While this is the system that I would prefer, this would be a sure way of not achieving any health care reform this year or any other year. Unlike the theoreticians on your website who can spin the ideal scenarios, the President is faced with a Congress that mostly represents the special interests.
“He must provide a program that can pass the Congress and at the same time improve the lot of the average American. By making it illegal to disapprove applicants because of preexisting conditions and eliminating the cap on the limit of benefits, his administration will have achieved something that has not succeeded since it was first introduced sixty years ago.


“Your statement that his speech withdrew support from the public option is false on its face. Obama restated his support for the public option but correctly stated that it is the principle that is important, not any specific mechanism—the principle that insurance companies face competition in the marketplace.
“It sounds as if both you and Rush Limbaugh have a lot in common. You both want Obama to fail. Are you nostalgic for the good old days of George W. Bush?”
The writer charges that the WSWS article is full of “lies and distortions,” but does not feel it necessary to provide a single example. Aside from his reference to the “public option”—where he denies the plain meaning of Obama’s words—there is no analysis of what we actually wrote on Obama’s speech.


In White’s article and other articles posted on the WSWS, we have argued that the central content of Obama’s overhaul is to drive down health care costs for corporations and the government. Individuals will increasingly be shifted to an insurance market where they will be required to purchase insurance from private corporations. Any costs to the government for limited subsidies will be paid for by cutting spending on entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.


The article in question noted the attempt by Obama to present his proposals as some sort of reform measure aimed at addressing the concerns of the population over the crisis in health care. For the ruling class, however, the real agenda was clear.


We wrote:


“Rising health care costs, including Medicare and Medicaid, were draining the national budget and making US corporations uncompetitive. Hundreds of billions would have to be wrung out of health care spending by reducing ‘waste and abuse’ and introducing efficiencies, such as placing caps on what tests and treatments doctors could provide their patients.”
The article quoted Obama’s statement before Congress, “If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing [health care] costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else comes close.”


This statement is a lie, but it makes clear that Obama and the American financial aristocracy intend to address the US budget problem—brought on by the long-term decline of American capitalism and exacerbated by the bank bailouts—by cutting health care costs.
Our critic does not respond to this analysis. In fact, he completely ignores the issue of cost-cutting. Nowhere does he mention the proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare. This is not an accident. The Nation and other supporters of Obama do the same thing in an attempt to cover over the essential content of the proposals. (See, “Obama’s health care speech and the lies of the Nation” (http://www1.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/nati-s11.shtml))



The only reference to what we actually wrote comes in the following sentence: “Your statement that his speech withdrew support from the public option is false on its face.”

What we wrote was that Obama “also made clear that he was willing to drop support for the so-called ‘public option,’ which is opposed by private insurers.” This is altogether true. While Obama stated he still favored a public option, he made very clear that he was willing to sign a bill with a “trigger” option or one with co-operatives instead of a government plan, in line with the bill drafted by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.
It should be added that, unlike Obama’s liberal supporters, the World Socialist Web Site has not laid central emphasis on the “public option.” Publications such as the Nation argue that inclusion of a public option will ensure that the proposed health care overhaul represents a serious challenge to the insurance industry and will guarantee the “progressive” character of the overhaul.
In fact, as Obama himself made clear last week, the public option would be marginal and would pose no threat to the profits of the insurance companies. With or without the public option, the health care overhaul is reactionary. The main purpose of the public option would be to give the “left” supporters of Obama something that they could use to try to sell the measure to the American people.


As for our reader’s claim that the proposals represent a historic milestone because they would make it “illegal to disapprove applicants because of preexisting conditions” and would eliminate a cap on benefits imposed by some companies, he is grasping at straws. Under Obama’s proposal, insurance companies will be required to sell insurance to everyone. However, the measures say nothing about how much this insurance will cost and little about what it will cover.


What is behind the provision requiring insurance companies to sell insurance to everyone? The ruling elite is aware that there is a major cost for providing health care to the uninsured, who get treatment at emergency rooms and in other forms. The overhaul is aimed at shifting this cost more decisively from the government and corporations onto the backs of the individuals in need of care, by requiring them to buy insurance.The release on Wednesday of the Baucus plan completely confirms the reactionary character of this “reform.” The plan would subsidize many workers for privately purchased insurance only after they pay 13 percent of their income on health care. It would fine workers up to $3,800 a year if they do not buy health care.


The insurance companies have agreed to the requirement to sell insurance to everyone because they anticipate a massive windfall from the whole operation. Only those who delude themselves or seek to deceive others could champion this as a progressive reform.


On a more fundamental level, the writer’s arguments constitute an unabashed defense of the most opportunist type of politics, which in this case, as in others, lead him to support right-wing policies. He assumes that we would prefer a single-payer system. This only shows his own extremely limited conceptions. For him, the outer extremes of political change are defined by reformist tinkering within the capitalist system.
The WSWS advocates the socialization of the entire health care industry, not a government-run health care service within the framework of the profit system.


In any case, our critic asserts that any serious structural reform, such as a government-run single-payer system, is impossible to achieve. We may “spin the ideal scenarios,” but “the President is faced with a Congress that mostly represents the special interests.”
As with so many in the “left” milieu, the writer presents Obama as a disembodied individual, who somehow exists apart from the “special interests.” Presumably, although the writer does not explain, Obama is made of different stuff than his former congressional colleagues by virtue of his ethnic background. Such are the absurd and reactionary conclusions that flow from identity politics.


In fact, Obama speaks for the most “special” of all “special interests,” the financial oligarchy. On his watch and as a result of his policies, the most powerful sections of the financial elite have strengthened their control over the economy, increased their profits and are preparing to hand out record bonuses. The working class is being made to pay, including through the attack on health care.


The writer goes on to state that Obama “must provide a program that can pass the Congress and at the same time improve the lot of the average American.” Here he is simply assuming his conclusion—that the overhaul will benefit the population—in his premise.


The writer’s arguments are directed against any principled socialist opposition to bourgeois politics. We do not know what sort of politics the writer advocated in the past, but at this point he completely rejects any class appraisal of political programs.
On the basis of his arguments, why should there have ever been a socialist movement? Why should Marxists have ever fought for the establishment of a politically independent working class party?


If the writer cannot tolerate a socialist opposition to the right-wing policies of Obama, what would his attitude have been back in the 1930s to the Roosevelt administration, during the heyday of the New Deal?
This question is not difficult to answer. Had the writer been involved in left politics at that time, it would have been as an enthusiastic supporter of the Stalinist popular front line, including the Communist Party’s support for the Democratic Party. His denunciation of the WSWS as an ally of Rush Limbaugh is an updated version of the same Stalinist line that led CP members and their left-liberal fellow travelers (including the Nation) to welcome the Moscow Trials and applaud the murder of revolutionaries, who they labeled as “left wreckers.” This crude amalgam—since we criticize Obama, we must be aligned with the right-wing criticism of Obama—is intellectually bankrupt and serves the interests of political reaction.
The letter concludes with the accusation that the WSWS wants Obama to fail. Presumably, this means that our critic wants Obama to succeed. In what? In funneling trillions in taxpayer money to cover the bad debts of the banks? In expanding the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan? In defending torturers and war criminals and continuing the Bush administration’s assault on democratic rights?


Our critic’s refusal, and the refusal of the ex-left milieu in general, to address the fundamental character of Obama’s health care overhaul is not driven by mere obtuseness. In the final analysis, they are petty-bourgeois liberals guided by their own class interests. This social milieu is confident that it will not be adversely affected by the changes in coverage that will come in the aftermath of the passage of Obama’s health care bill. Obsessed with various forms of identity politics, they are indifferent to and contemptuous of the concerns of the broad masses of working people.


It is thus entirely logical that the present outburst follows the earlier denunciation of the WSWS’s analysis of the Iranian elections. As we pointed out at that time, the writer was easily drawn to a petty-bourgeois movement that had been mobilized on a right-wing and pro-imperialist basis.
Obama has become the medium through which broad sections of the erstwhile petty-bourgeois left complete their integration into bourgeois politics. This process must anticipate a broader and far more significant movement of the working class to the left.

[Blackscare]

First off, the act was passed by Congress and signed into law. It was a bill, it is now a law. You honestly believe yourself to be in a position to tell me what this law contains when you seem to be ignorant of the differences between a bill and a law?

I have to tell you because you may be new to the internet or something, but inane nitpicking like this is reeeeaaaally weak. It's like, a half step above saying "HURP DERP YOU MEAN'T YOU'RE NOT YOUR".

[thesadmafioso]

I have to tell you because you may be new to the internet or something, but inane nitpicking like this is reeeeaaaally weak. It's like, a half step above saying "HURP DERP YOU MEAN'T YOU'RE NOT YOUR".

Since when is pointing out a major logical error in someones post considered to be 'nitpicking'? If the affordable health care act was still a bill, it would change the entire nature of this discussion and thus I pointed it out. There is a massive difference between these two terms, regardless of what you might think.

[Amphictyonis]

It's very simple. Sometimes it actually makes sense. Government regulating against hidden costs in credit cards have caused credit card APR's to rise as banks have to bring those hidden fees out into the open.



This statement is absolutely fucking absurd, btw

How is this new law forcing workers to buy watered down insurance during the worst recession in our lifetime while cutting hundreds of billions from public health care going to help workers? I know the full law doesn't kick in for a couple years but I see no end to this economic crisis. I see no future bubble being blown up, in what sector?

I have no health insurance and am living paycheck to paycheck with periods of unemployment in between. Even when "things are good" money is so tight I can't afford health care. This new law does nothing but place a fine in the mail for me to pay. I fear most of you supporting this are young and middle class/not in the work force living week to week paying rent/PG&E/water/garbage/food/gas /car insurance by the tips of your fingernails. You know..? Quit the shit already. This bill does nothing but make middle class liberals feel better and it makes capitalists trillions of dollars while giving the government the opportunity to cut massive amounts of money from public health and social services. Your thinking is ass backwards on this issue.

[Blackscare]

Since when is pointing out a major logical error in someones post considered to be 'nitpicking'? If the affordable health care act was still a bill, it would change the entire nature of this discussion and thus I pointed it out. There is a massive difference between these two terms, regardless of what you might think.

I think it was pretty clear that no one in this thread thought it was still a bill up for debate, it was just a small confusion of terms. Nobody is that stupid, and neither are you, so I believe that you're just engaging in purposely obfuscatory debate tactics.

[MarxistMan]

We need socialism as soon as possible, so that i could get a free dental treatment that i need. Americans have 2 options: Socialism or Cancer, diabetes, heart disease, AIDS and death for all americans



CTRkoQRBlBE

[Red Bayonet]

We revolutionary communists demand that any doctors,dentists,or surgeons who refuse to treat the poor be deported,exiled, or imprisoned; and all their property to be confiscated and redistributed.

[Thirsty Crow]

We revolutionary communists demand that any doctors,dentists,or surgeons who refuse to treat the poor be deported,exiled, or imprisoned; and all their property to be confiscated and redistributed.
You really are a troll from stormfront, aren't you?

[Red Bayonet]

Because we revolutionary workers demand TOTAL disenfranchisement of the bourgeoisie??? Sounds to me like you must either be a social parasite from the medical proffession, or in sympathy with these cockroach doctors. (Does your daddy own a hospital? Ahhhh, that would explain it!). :laugh:

[PhoenixAsh]

Because we revolutionary workers demand TOTAL disenfranchisement of the bourgeoisie??? Sounds to me like you must either be a social parasite from the medical proffession, or in sympathy with these cockroach doctors. (Does your daddy own a hospital? Ahhhh, that would explain it!). :laugh:


Probably because you offer blanket reactionary solutions blanketet in socialist phrases....and false materialistic analysis.

Demanding doctors to counteract law denies the fact of context and focusses the attention of the acts of the individual instead of changing the society the individual is forced to comply with. Docotors are NOT the problem...it is the system they have to operate in.

[Red Bayonet]

The world will be free when the last apologist for parasite doctors is hung with the guts of the last apologist for parasite bankers!

[Scary Monster]

The world will be free when the last apologist for parasite doctors is hung with the guts of the last apologist for parasite bankers!

:lol: Why are you so theatrical in every post?

So yeah, we definitely have the means for socialized medicine, despite what the republicans say. Most countries nowadays have socialised/affordable insurance, yet are not nearly as well-off as the US.

[Red Bayonet]

In a Workers Republic, the doctors will work for us. Not vice-versa.All hospitals and clinics are the rightful property of the Working Class.No ifs,ands,or buts about it. And if any bourgeois or petit bourgeois buttheads dare complain, they will eat our bayonets!

[Catmatic Leftist]

And instead of directly answering our questions, he posts pseudo-socialist rhetoric thinking that will let him off the hook.

[thesadmafioso]

I think it was pretty clear that no one in this thread thought it was still a bill up for debate, it was just a small confusion of terms. Nobody is that stupid, and neither are you, so I believe that you're just engaging in purposely obfuscatory debate tactics.

The two terms refer to completely different phases of which a piece of legislation passes through , and if no one in this thread thought that it was still a bill they should not of used a term which denotes such. It is not a small confusion of terms if the two terms in question have entirely different definitions.

[Blackscare]

The two terms refer to completely different phases of which a piece of legislation passes through , and if no one in this thread thought that it was still a bill they should not of used a term which denotes such. It is not a small confusion of terms if the two terms in question have entirely different definitions.

Except that it doesn't change the content of the legislation, and therefor has no practical basis in the discussion of the legislation's impact.

[thesadmafioso]

Except that it doesn't change the content of the legislation, and therefor has no practical basis in the discussion of the legislation's impact.

I can call the bill a glass of water and it still doesn't change the content of the legislation if by a glass of water I meant the affordable health act. So it can be implied that the term bill in this context does not actually refer to a bill, that does not make its usage correct given the fact that it still represents a misuse of terminology.