Anyone else skeptical of mandatory health care?

[usregimechange]

There are a lot of things that are "economically viable" that are contrary to justice and liberty.

[peace13]

1. Don't know about you but we need an answer to this problem.

My $1200 p/m premiums are eating me alive. My increase for 2008 was over 35%. I can't take too many more of those. I am lucky because I still have insurance, so many in this country do not. This is an issue that touches all but the very lucky in this country. If you have a great plan and can afford it, count yourself as one of the lucky ones. Peace, Kim

[KT2000]

2. Yes - mandatory payments

to corrupt, criminal insurance companies is not the answer for decent health care in this country. They will just collect more money and come up with new and clever ways not to cover things.

Why should we be supporting these extortionists like this? Single payer is the only way to go.

[silverojo]

11. If Medicare is "single-payer", then screw that noise

Medicare is a completely fucked up bureaucracy. I've spent a lot of time this year, writing letter after letter to those idiots, to get things straightened out for my mother. In the meantime, she's needed health care, and was unable to get it because Medicare kept rejecting claims they were supposed to pay, and Mom couldn't afford the bills. My aunt had similar problems before she passed away. Medicare Part D is a nightmare...no, we don't need this sort of single-payer bullshit, thankyouverymuch.

[angstlessk]

37. Medicare part D was a sellout to commercial health care providers..

..and is NOT A SINGLE PAYER BUT AN INSURANCE SCAM CREATED BY REPUKES FOR THE PHARMA AND HMO INDUSTRIES!

[madrchsod]

yes

universal health care for everyone based on the medicare/medicad system. just say no to insuring the insurance companies

[Lex1775]

3. I feel you.

I have pretty much been ostracized from a few "discussions" with fellow Democrats because I don't agree with the party meme on the health care issue.

[emilyg]

4. You're not alone.

[Fearless]

5. Not for profit is the way to go.

[WinkyDink]

6. No. Mandatory INSURANCE PAYMENTS, yes.

[Hoof Hearted]

7. you mean like page one of Edwards healthcare page? Like that?

Once these steps have been taken, requiring all American residents to get insurance.
Securing universal healthcare for every American will require the active involvement of millions of Americans.


Uh huh.

Shit.

[sandnsea]

12. Yes, AFTER the entire health initiative is implemented

He doesn't use mandates on the front end either, at all.

[Zookeeper]

8. I'm skeptical of anything that continues to enrich the health...

insurance industry.

We don't need a middle-man; we just need health care for all citizens.

[silverojo]

9. Car insurance is mandatory

So what's your point?

[Fovea]

18. I don't drive.

I don't think the insurance model is apt.
Everyone gets sick.

It should be universal, and certain things *should* be mandatory.
Sorry, but that is the way public health works.

[harun]

27. It shouldn't be (n/t)

[sandnsea]

10. Until we get the costs down, it's a bad idea

And Edwards doesn't call for a mandate until AFTER all the health intiatives have been implemented.

[WeCanWorkItOut]

25. True enough. Also, we need to open up the discussion about why costs are so high.

I'm afraid I'm see major omissions from the candidate's plans so far.
Of course it's hard to be really deep while looking for campaign donors.

But the main problem, I believe, is that mandatory insurance is "regressive,"
hardest on people who are not well-off, forcing them to forgo winter heating, say,
to pay those insurance bills. But the needlessly high costs make it worse.

(S&s, I do appreciate your being there on this important issue,
always with well-thought-out comments.)

[Naturyl]

13. Not so much skeptical as disappointed.

FREE health care would be a hell of a lot better. Single-payer, not for profit, and let the insurance industry eat cake. That's what I wanted and will continue to hope for.

[Swamp Rat]

14. Yeah, over a year ago when I first fractured my ankle, which has not healed.

I haven't seen a doctor in 7 years. I need to, but cannot afford it.

[Fovea]

15. No.

I am skeptical about mandatory *private* insurance.
my experience with them has been dismal.

Justice and Liberty are not absolute. The preservation of public health trumps them. It has since way before 1919. Would you prefer the fellow with untreated TB sit next to you on the plane, bus, or dinner table?

Mandatory checkups an affront to liberty?
Admit it. Your mom worked too hard to get you to eat broccoli.

[usregimechange]

17. I don't want a governmental mom, I am an adult, I can make my own

damn choices! Enough of that crap.

[Fovea]

21. And I am sure you think there is nothing that would change your mind.

If five people on one's block die of Spanish Flu, the average person will personally set fire to the constitution if that is what it takes to stop the outbreak.

And it has been that way since Pericles.
And as the courts have just upheld, you cannot choose both untreated TB and freedom.

So I find the whole 'don't fence me in' chorus regarding health care both emotional and unsupportable in the face of current policy, precedent, and history.

[Fovea]

39. No, you actually cannot.

Get TB. Get an STD. Get Cancer.

You become a part of a database and medico-legal structure, and at that point your
life is not under your total control. Your freedom is illusory.

What you propose is that you be entitled to all the benefits of a public health system
with none of its responsibilities. That is not an adult model of freedom, IMO.

If getting a check up every other year is an invasion of your privacy, consider that
your walking around on the street shaking hands with people diminishes the public good.
We really had this whole argument at the beginnning of the public health movement. And again during and after the Spanish (Kansas) Flu
epidemic at the close of the second decade of the 20th C. Yet again during the polio epidemics of the 30s through 50s and yet again with AIDS.

Each of these crises re-affirmed the public will for social control to diminish the risk of epidemic and diminish the collective mortality and morbidity.
I doubt it will ever not be so.

[Cleita]

16. Here come the words again. Access to health care is not

"mandatory" health care. You don't have to go to the doctor or hospital if you don't want to, but at least it will be available to you if you need it.

[usregimechange]

19. I am talking about mandatory health insurance

[Cleita]

28. Then explain it because there is no such thing.

If you read the "United States National Health Insurance Act (or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act)" H. R. 676, which is presently in committee in the House, you would know that in order to participate you have to fill out a form to apply for an insurance card under the act, if and when it is made into law. If you don't fill out the form, you don't get the card which gives you access to health care under the Act. If physicians and clinicians don't want to participate they don't have to. There is nothing mandatory about it. Yes, there will be taxes, but you mandatorily pay taxes anyway. What will happen is that your tax dollars will be directed towards this program instead of into others like war.

[nosmokes]

20. The problem w/ all the universal coverage plans submitted so far is that

they all continue to make use of private profit driven insurance corporations.That's doing nothing but sucking money outta the system and getting nothing back inreturn.Single Payer universal coverage is the future, but we *must stand strong and demand that the blue crosses and blue shields and kaiser permnentes etc... not be a party to it or we're just gonna wind up w/ a half assed overbloated bureacracy that's bogged down in forms and paperwork with a brazillion loopholes for fraud and cons. How do you think we got to where we are now?

[Fovea]

22. Dennis Kucinich.

But of course...

[nosmokes]

34. Of course.And despite myself I've allowed the MSM and the corporatocracy

give the tunnel vision that blocks out any real vision. thanks for the dope slap!

[Fovea]

36. If not the man, then his platform

We are the survivors of an ever-refined body of technique
honed to the manufacture of consensus and demand.

We have not yet evolved effective mechanisms to resist.
When we do, I cannot imagine what public discourse will require to function.

[Cleita]

29. H. R. 676, which is authored by Congressman Conyers with many

other Congressmen backing it among them Congressman Kucinich, does no such thing. It is now in committee waiting to be heard. Please read it. This is the reason Hillarycare is not the answer.

[bpeale]

32. having the option of medicare forces insurance corps. to compete

with the objective of getting rid of them. they will get less & less of the pie until they are gone.

[Crunchy Frog]

23. Mandatory health care? Like people being forced to get treatment against their will?

Is anybody actually advocating that?

[Skittles]

24. it stinks to high heaven

terrible idea

[harun]

26. Don't call it mandatory health care call it what it is, mandatory INSURANCE

Insurance has nothing to do with health CARE and everything to do with PROFITS.

If they want to do something like that the only way to go would be to not allow health insurance to be a "for profit" venture. They would all have to go the way of non-profit's. This doesn't mean getting rid of for profit drug companies. For profit drug companies are just fine the way they are.

[Cleita]

30. Mandatory insurance is what Clinton and Obama are

proposing. H. R. 676 already introduced in Congress by Conyers, is not. It is presently languishing in committee, I believe waiting for a Democrat to become President to be heard by the committee. Of course if that President is either of the above, neither this bill nor anything meaningful will get done as it wasn't during the administration of Bill Clinton because a predominantly Democratic Congress will not pass a bill written by the health care lobbyists in Washington, which is Clinton and Obama's plans.

[Bluerthanblue]

31. I think Obama is against

requiring health insurance for adults- but I could be wrong.

[harun]

33. He is against forced insurance

Q: : Sen. Edwards says your plan doesn't really provide universal coverage. Does it?

OBAMA: Absolutely it does. John and I have a disagreement. John thinks that the only way we get universal coverage is to mandate coverage. I think that the problem is not that people are trying to avoid getting health care coverage. It is folks like that who are desperately in desire of it, but they can can't afford it.

Looking through his quotes and votes looks good to me:

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Barack_Obama.htm

[OzarkDem]

35. No, its called universal health care

that's how you enroll everyone. The system can't work otherwise.

[supernova]

38. I'm skeptical of mandatory insurance buying

because I want a universal single payer system.

Simply legislating that individuals buy insurance does nothing to increase the risk pool to lower costs for everyone. And I want to break the insurance industry... permanently.