Where do you stand politically? (1 Viewer)

Where do you stand politically?

  • Left wing

    Votes: 1 7.1%
  • Right wing

    Votes: 3 21.4%
  • Center

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  • None of the above

    Votes: 9 64.3%

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Jon

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Yes, the post-delivery abortion...the whole thing I find shocking.
 

Pat Hartman

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As do I and yet the bill actually got a round of applause that we saw on Fox (but no where else). This is not the kind of news that CNN covers so you would not have seen it. I'm not sure what the Dems are going to do about the state laws that have been passed that consider the fetus a person and charge criminals who hurt a pregnant woman with TWO crimes since the fetus is a person too. Seems to me that what the governor of Virginia espoused would be murder without question. I imagine they'll find some way to spin it. There was such blowback from the governor's radio show that we haven't heard much about this issue in a few months. The Dems may have realized that they pushed this one too far.
 

Jon

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I think this is a case of over-stressing the rights of one person over that of another. Remember, the infant is a separate entity. If you were put in charge of a child and neglected to care for that child, you are culpable. The only difference is that the child is internal.
 

isladogs

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Had to look those initials up and my wife didn't know either. For anyone else who don't have a clue...
An OB-GYN, or obstetrician-gynecologist, is a doctor who specializes in women’s health.
 

The_Doc_Man

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I would prefer that women allow their fetuses to live but you have to remember two facts significant in this discussion.

First, after a child is born, the parents CAN choose to withhold medical treatment for religious reasons and there, we are talking about a natural-born citizen whose constitutional rights should be in full force. But they are not, because the parents are the custodians of the child's rights until it becomes developed enough to demand those rights on its own. So an infant IS a separate entity, but it seems that religion trumps constitutional rights in this case. MOST of the cases I have heard on this (but not all) involve Church of Christ Scientist i.e. the Christian Science group.

Second, some religions (notably Judaism and I believe also for Islam) DO NOT believe that the fetus is a person at ANY time where the term "fetus" is still technically correct. There exist those religions for which severing the umbilicus starts life. There are those for which "first breath" (from a Solomonic decree) starts life. Both of those are clearly end-of-third-trimester events. So if we are going to talk about rights, at THIS time the life of the fetus trumps the parents' religious rights. And yet at the moment of birth, that flip-flops again to the first point I mentioned.

I do not propose to stick my nose in parents' business on this, but it would be nice if someone got those things to smoothly transition on that topic.
 

Jon

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Wow, I can see how some of these beliefs can end up affecting the defenceless infant.
 

Pat Hartman

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In a heterogeneous society like the US, Religious beliefs and the law are not going to align on issues such as this. The law should reflect the majority view but still allow for some flexibility. And in a complex legal system, there is going to be some overlap so there could be multiple laws to navigate.

Wasn't there a case in the UK last year where the socialized medical system refused treatment for a child (for reasons that I won't argue with) and a charity offered to pay for an experimental procedure in a different country but the "state" would not allow the child to be treated? I understand that medical insurance cannot possible pay for all treatments for all type of illness but how can the "state" refuse to allow a charity to pay for it?
 

Jon

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That does ring a bell. I do remember that, although the details are sketchy. Perhaps the treatment type was not allowed in the UK. If something is allowed in the USA, if it hasn't been tested in the UK, I believe different rules apply.
 

The_Doc_Man

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Ah, the story of many a tragedy throughout history, involving the words "I believe different rules apply." Congress passes the Affordable Care Act but when it comes to members of Congress being mandated to obtain health insurance, I believe different rules apply. Insider trading is totally illegal, but members of Congress have advance knowledge of legislation that would affect certain business and are allowed to use that information. For you and me? I believe different rules apply.
 

Jon

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I still don't know what is going on with Obamacare. It sounds awfully complicated! My understanding is Mr Trump wants to do away with it, and replace it with something affordable. But the Democrats don't want this. Are they arguing it won't be more affordable, or is there another issue at stake?
 

AccessBlaster

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Out of our 300 million plus citizens 85 million have none or their under insured. So why not address the smaller number?
 

Jon

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Does Obamacare address the smaller number?
 

The_Doc_Man

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Right now "ObamaCare" is in legal limbo. The Affordable Care Act had an individual mandate for people to have health insurance or pay a penalty. This passed muster with the Supreme Court ONLY because Chief Justice Roberts suggested that Congress could pass a tax if it wanted to, as that is one of its expressed powers. The problem I had with that decision is that Congress explicitly said the fee was NOT a tax, it was a penalty, and that makes a world of difference. But the Supreme Court said it was legal.

Republicans could not repeal the law in its entirety, but they COULD revoke the fee. So now there is no penalty or tax (whatever you wish to call it) if you don't have health insurance. At that point, at least half a dozen states sued to invalidate the individual mandate entirely claiming it to be a violation of the "Commerce Clause" and thus unconstitutional. A lower court found in favor of the plaintiffs (thus making the mandate unconstitutional and liable to be stricken.) Of course, the feds appealed and so the lower court ruling was held in abeyance pending resolution of the appeals. The 5th Circuit Court upheld the lower court, but again an appeal has been made, this time to the Supreme Court. This time, without the penalty or tax, it is a straight-up individual action mandate and the Commerce Clause says "No, Congress cannot direct individual actions in that way."

The question of what Obamacare addressed is also interesting because so many insurers pulled out of the federal marketplace for insurance, what was left was a bunch of inferior plans that based on actuarial statistics would have only given benefits to folks so severely afflicted as to be unlikely to survive. I.e. not worth the paper they were printed on. The "deductible" was too high to be practical. That is because the government's incentive programs didn't offer enough money to the insurers to offset the kind of money that a high-risk group normally requires for insurance. It essentially gutted itself.
 
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Steve R.

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My take concerning health care under the auspices of it serving everyone is that the arguments have been incorrectly framed. In the US people talk of health INSURANCE and the need for government regulation of that insurance. The use of the concept of insurance is an abomination. What the US needs is a health care system. That would translate into the government, funded through taxes, of paying doctors for providing direct health care. That would remove the insurance companies (an administrative middleman not directly serving the patient) from the $$$ equation. Of course, as with any government operation there would be a new bureaucracy to oversee how the doctors are providing their services.

Why the animus towards the concept of "insurance"? Well the whole purpose of insurance is to cover a person or a company from risk. So if a person has a pre-exisitng condition or is prone to certain diseases, an insurance company, in a free market; should be entitled to charge that person more. Furthermore, consider of the culture of "insurance". Insurance companies like to deny claims, or at least minimize payments. The government needs to stay out of (over) regulating businesses.

Obamacare, was anathema to this countries values. the primary reason; you cannot have legislation that mandates that a person buy a certain product from one of more select companies. Additionally, the extent of regulation runs counter to a free market system. Extensive convoluted complex regulations lead to fraud.

If the citizens want health care they need to think of it as a health care system funded by tax $$$. Establishing such a system should be put on the National ballot for approval by the citizens.
 
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Jon

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I am curious what the Americans here think of the NHS we have over in the UK. Is there a perspective?
 

AccessBlaster

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If you want to pay a premium for your health care should you wait in long lines and suffer shortages? Or should no one have the ability to pay more and everyone fly's coach? We know the answer, those that can will, those that can't wait. It's been this way forever, does anyone think millionaires and celebrity's will give up their Cadillac coverage?

Bernie will not put his own family on the substandard plan he wants the rest of us on. He will be exempt, through some predefined loop hole.
 

The_Doc_Man

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While I agree with Steve R. that health-care insurance is part of the problem, I have to inject this bit of reality. Doctors have to undergo extensive training to become physicians of any sort. Make that a specialist and you only add to the time it takes. Doctors, being human, want to recoup their lost time by charging for their services. Going to a fully subsidized system of paying for doctors means they can't charge a gazillion bucks for unusually difficult operations. Which means that there is a break in the supply-demand-compensation triangle. Inadequate compensation leads to inadequate supply regardless of the demand.

You can perhaps ameliorate some of the problem by subsidizing doctor's education. However, each step down the road to subsidization is a step towards socialism. As we all know, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. So eventually such a system will have to fail when it runs out of someone else's money to spend.
 

Steve R.

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Bernie will not put his own family on the substandard plan he wants the rest of us on. He will be exempt, through some predefined loop hole.
Obamacare was riddled with preferential loopholes. After the loud congratulatory fanfare that everyone would be covered, even Congress, the Congress quietly exempted themselves. Obama also used questionable Executive Orders to "fix" problems with the legislation instead of going back to Congress for approval. Obamacare was not meant to really benefit all the people, just certain special interests.

One curious item. The medical device tax. I believe that was a case of inserting a "tax" to generate revenue for Obamacare so it would not appear to be losing money as much money as otherwise. I believe that those who passed Obamacare must have believed that this tax would raise sufficient public outrage so that it would be repealed at a later date. The medical device tax was a shameless "bait and switch" tactic.
 
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The_Doc_Man

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Some of the Democratic "tax and spend" strategies are quite shameless, but then given some the ideas the Democrats support, they ARE shameless.

More precisely, what SHOULD be their shame is foisted off to others via "political correctness."
 

Pat Hartman

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Jon,
Back to the case I mentioned. I believe the treatment was to be performed in Italy but the UK wouldn't release the baby from the hospital. It's hard to tell what the real situation actually was and you might have gotten different "news" than we got here. The press has forgotten their prime directive to deliver news NOT opinion.

Regarding Obamacare,
Lobbyists write most laws that Congress passes which is a direct violation of what our Constitution says and means that legislation favors business whenever possible. That means most bills are thousands of pages long (The Constitution was ~ 20 pages to put this in perspective), no Senator or Representative ever reads them before they vote, and all the public ever hears is talking points. Nancy Pelosi's famous statement leading up to the ObamaCare vote - "you have to pass the bill to find out what's in it" should clarify the situation given the bill was released about 2 days before the vote was called. Who can read and UNDERSTAND 2+ thousand pages in that amount of time. ObamaCare addressed the wrong issues and gave subsidies to the insurance companies so they all bought in. Since the public only heard sound bytes which always sound wonderful, way too many people were sucked into supporting it. In the olden days when people could actually afford insurance, we had two types. Short term and excess coverage. Short term covered stuff like injuries and emergency room visits and short hospital stays. Long term was for debilitating illnesses such as cancer. Insurance did not pay for regular doctor visits except perhaps for an annual checkup. Now, insurance covers everything (once you get past your deductible) and no one actually knows what anything costs so they don't care. The insurance companies work on a cost + basis. They need to collect enough in premiums to cover what they pay out + enough to cover their profit. So, look at it from the insurance company's perspective. If their profit is 10% (round numbers) and the doctor charges $100 for a visit, their share is $10. However, if the doctor charges $150, their share is $15 dollars. Where is their incentive to control prices? There is none and that's one of the reasons that the cost of medical care has grown significantly more than inflation since the 70's when the insurance model changed. Rather than trying to control prices by making all providers publish their rates for common services so people could shop around for non-emergency care, ObamaCare created rigid plan definitions, to the point where even I would have maternity coverage. If I had a baby at my age, it would be a miracle and should probably be hailed as the next coming.

Also, think about the business model of an insurance company. Collect as much in premiums as possible, pay as little in benefits as possible. And the insurance companies have the edge because they have the actuaries. It's like going to the casino. You loose. What people have to come to grips with is that insurance is a hedge against catastrophe. No one plans on having a heart attack or getting cancer but that is what insurance is intended to protect against.

Going back to the short term and catastrophic coverage models would go a long way toward getting insurance costs underway and once people pay their own doctor bills and drug costs, those costs will begin to come down due to competition. Government has a place in high risk coverage. In insurance terms, the government can offer reinsurance as a stopgap to keep people from having to declare bankruptcy due to some catastrophe.
 
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