HEALTHCARE THREAD

bear in mind though that you are quoting an insane person so her words should be taken as completely meaningless

A sickening, dismaying possibility.

Unlike the so-called Stupak language in the House, Nelson's abortion language would not forbid people who receive subsidy assistance from the federal government from buying insurance policies that cover abortion. However, according to Nelson, the money that pays for each such policy will have to be separated into two pools--one that pays for the abortion coverage, and one for all other services.

Politico on what the compromise amounts to.

Nelson agreed to support the bill after Democrats strengthened restrictions on federal funding of abortion. In the bill, states can opt out from allowing plans to cover abortion in the insurance exchange. Also, enrollees in plans covering abortion pay separate checks – one for abortion, one for the rest of services.

should be branded the Scarlet Letter provision imo & is a lowdown dirty shame - I'd think there'd be right-to-privacy issues involved, too (if your plan is through work, anybody in payroll gets to see what you're buying - am I wrong on that?)

xpost

yeah i dont really understand the 'separate checks' thing

i guess its supposed to SHAME the harlots who are receiving legal & federally guaranteed medical procedures opposed by ben nelson

it affects plans paid by your employer?

it's to prevent people from buying the abortion coverage & to further ostracize people who believe in reproductive rights - standard aggressive fear tactics like the stuff they've been trying to pull in Oklahoma

it affects plans paid by your employer?

I don't know that is why I asked if I was wrong. if it doesn't, though, I would guess pressure on insurance companies to follow suit will be heavy from these people - this is a doctrinal victory for them, a big one. which though we already knew this - it's been clear for a long time that the support of anti-choice moderates is a very very appealing thing to the Democratic party, which would, I think, very much like to to shed itself of any description involving the term "pro-choice."

i think this is the rub w/ the segregated funds thing:

The amendment also requires that health plans that provide abortion services segregate the premiums from any federal subsidies into separate accounts so that federal funds don't pay for abortion services.

yeah, in theory it shouldn't affect them i think. in practice i don't know if this will change what companies offer to employers buying plans with private funds.

wait so does this two check business = if i don't plan on having abortions, i don't pay. or if i have some moral qualms about abortion, i don't pay. ???

basically does this mean i can opt out of taxes or w/e that fund the death penalty?

i know!!!!!! can i write my congressman and ask him if i can make sure federal funds aren't used to kill afghans now. those are adults though who cares.

i think the deal is that if you are receiving fed subsidies for yr covg, the two-checks thing means that none of the subsidized portion of your payment can go towards an abortion

basically does this mean i can opt out of taxes or w/e that fund the death penalty?

lol don't you know there's only one moral issue of any seriousness w/r/t federal funding, and it's abortion

this is infuriating

So Ben Nelson agrees kids can be killed for a few pieces of silver. Is his middle name Judas?
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

ewerickson
Erick Erickson

ugh jesus

literally, jesus

"kids"

Senators Boxer and Murray comment

John in Richmond otm

ScottM1207 apparently has some insider info on this population control scheme, too

"baby-murdering population control scheme" a weak redux of chuck norris's rhetorical muscle

john on mountain otm, this is bittersweet but :(

Did anyone link David Brooks' column from Friday? cuz some of it somehow made sense.

The amendment also requires that health plans that provide abortion services segregate the premiums from any federal subsidies into separate accounts so that federal funds don't pay for abortion services.

This calls to mind Bush's stem cell "compromise" where orgs getting Federal money for stem cell research had to quarantine that money from any research involving lines taken from human embryos. They still worked on those embryonic cells, but they had to make sure that like, they didn't use any Federal dollars for a light bulb or a set of pencils that would be used in the same room with them. Are we not men?????

my mom just totally shit a brick upon learning that i don't have insurance

'you are jeopardizing our retirement' etc

feeling a little like brazil re: logging now

cant believe you hate your parents so much that you dont have insurance

i am a bad seed

cant believe you hate your parents so much that you dont have insurance

lol my parents leaned so hard on me with this that I moved to England. happy now mom????!!

fuck this bill - I have yet to hear a decent explanation of how this is not just a huge giveaway/gov't subsidy for insurance companies

it is that, and "more" maybe.

mandates to buy private health insurance is the biggest bunch of bullshit i've ever heard. go ahead and privatize social security while you're at it, assholes

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3694/we-have-met-corporation-and-it-us

no-one actually gets penalized for not getting insurance; the IRS will not levy any of your pay, basically, paying that fine winds up being voluntary.

Um, it wasn't voluntary in Massachutsetts. I'm not sure what has changed since September, when the senate bill had these provisions for IRS fees for 'non-compliants'.

Under the plan, people who earn between 100% and 300% of the poverty level (or between about $22,000 a year and $66,000 a year for a family of four) would face fees ranging from $750 to $1,500 a year.
For taxpayers with incomes above 300% of poverty, the penalty starts at $950 a year and reaches as high as $3,800 for families. Nearly 12 million people fit in this category, according to the National Institute for Health Care Management.

Yikes: Massachusetts. I'm a well trained moron.

Did anyone link David Brooks' column from Friday? cuz some of it somehow made sense

here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/opinion/18brooks.html

It does sound somewhat reasonable until you start to ask what he means by "systemic incentives reform". He makes this the sine qua non of any serious reform, but he never defines it or gives any specifics. But he kind of gives the game away with this: "The current system is rotten to the bone with opaque pricing and insane incentives. Consumers are insulated from the costs of their decisions..." As a good libertarian conservative, Brooks doesn't like the idea of insulating the consumers of healthcare from the cost of healthcare, an idea otherwise known as "health insurance". This idea, popular with some libertarians, is that the only people who can control healthcare costs are the people who receive the care. Therefore health insurance should be replaced with some sort of tax-sheltered medical spending account.

whos arguing that? my take is that congress should pass this bill so that in the future congress can improve on it.

That's just funny.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3694/we-have-met-corporation-and-it-us

yeah but this link is mainly just a big "shut up if you disagree you whining baby" article. if its author thinks it's somehow more constructive than the whining babies on whom he focuses his ire, he's kidding himself.

like when he gets around to his payoff, he just starts lying outright:

And yet that is precisely what the bill-killer tendency (and we will surely see them behave the same incoherent way on future battles: immigration reform will be next) is pushing: This sense that nothing is progress, nothing can be defined as a win, and that winning itself is evil if it doesn’t overturn everything.

yup...nobody saying that, really; it's a mischaracterization if you're feeling charitable, a caricature more properly. "the compromises in place are unacceptable" isn't "I want everything," but from cats like this we will continue to hear that lie pushes in the hopes of more people believing it to silence people with real concerns.

He also basically ignores half of the anti-corporation argument - they'll be getting billions of dollars to (most likely) provide low-quality, high-deductible healthcare that won't get used.

That's why "lining the pockets of Big Insurance" is an issue.

shut up you big baby

when I saw the Bam announce on Saturday that "real healthcare reform" was imminent, I admit to squeezing out a "YOU LIE"

squeezing out? you mean you can poop letters? that's skill.

mad excretory skills, kinda like the Administration's with policy

I do think this bill is a "good thing", but if anyone stands to lose out, at least in the short-term, it's probably young, urban, rootless cosmopolitans, ie., the predominant demographic of this board. This is the demographic who can get by without health insurance and may be freelancing rather than holding steady jobs, but will be forced to buy insurance under this plan. So if I would expect anyone to be against this, apart from the usual suspects, it would be the average ILE poster.

rootless cosmopolitans

^^^code for jews iirc

mandate pentalty:

(2) SPECIAL RULES.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law—
‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.— In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary shall not—
‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or
‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.

i don't know. look: I pay for private insurance for myself, my kid, and my wife, who has cancer. we spent three months fighting blue shield while they tried to rescind her insurance the minute she was diagnosed, and sweated it while they investigated her health history (she had nothing to hide and they found nothing and so were stuck with the bill). it is not great insurance; we pay almost $100/month per person and our deductibles are high, high enough that I don't know how we can afford to pay what we owe. However, I have also seen the bills that we would have been stuck with without this insurance: we passed the $100k mark a LONG time ago, and she's only been in treatment for 6 months. Without this bill, she stands to get stuck with a huge increase in her premium because she is sick. Without this bill, she will likely not get covered by any other private insurance package for the rest of her life. This bill fixes that.