It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: MOMof3
After thinking about it for a while, I like the Hobby Lobby decision by the Court. I believe it is one more push toward single payer/medicare for all system. Health care is a right, rich or poor. We have the right to pursue happiness. Excluding millions of people and children from going to a doctor because of cash, is inhumane.
originally posted by: jtma508
I know it all seems so very simple. Pretty much everything on ATS does to some. But the fact is, things are more complex than many here want to believe. Or perhaps need to believe. There are all sorts of nefarious forces at work that drive up the cost of healthcare: insurance, lawyers, pharma, fraud, to name just a few. That has driven the cost of healthcare out-of-reach for most employers and average people. At the end of the day the buck stops with the hospitals. Face it, we need hospitals. We all need hospitals. But they have been driven to bankruptcy by the huge increase in unrecoverable services caused by the uninsured for whom hospitals have become the provider of last resort. Many have been forced to close, scale back services, and lay-off clinical staff. Manageable and comparatively inexpensive conditions are allowed to deteriorate because people have no care. What was an early stage diabetic now becomes a hospitalized amputee. Whether you feel people have a 'right' to basic healthcare or not, our medical infrastructure --- the one we ALL rely on, insured or not --- is at-risk. There are huge societal economic costs associated with allowing large numbers of people to descend into medical morbidity. One way or another we will end up paying for it. A stitch in time saves nine sort of thing. But don't be fooled. Whether care for the uninsured is paid for through the ACA, welfare, or skyrocketing fees for those that ARE insured levied by hospitals needing to recover what they cannot from the uninsured, WE will pay one way or another. Even if we kick those who cannot pay to the curb we will pay. That's reality like it or not.
originally posted by: MyHappyDogShiner
Corporate persons are not people, the shareholders may be people, but corporate personhood should not be.
Shareholders are only liable for loss of the amount of money they have invested.
Corporations should not have anything resembling the rights of actual people, the revolutionary war was caused in large by the same old crap we have going on now regarding corporations and their abuses.
Corporations look suspiciously like monopolies in disguise by the way they seem to work, somebody just changed the name to actually reflect what they actually are.
a reply to: beezzer
originally posted by: jtma508
a reply to: NavyDoc
No. I'm not suggesting that. If you truly look at the situation as it developed you will find --- like it was with the banks --- we gave the system over to the bureaucracy long ago. The reason it IS as bad as it is right now is because no one wanted to face the problem decades ago. We absolutely need to shake ALL the crap out of the system that is driving-up costs. But a lot of people just want to wish the problem away. Like they have for so many years. Unfortunately, the tab has come due.
originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: beezzer
we used to have jobs that paid decent wages that kept up with inflation
we used to have a gov't and banking system that saw an importance of maintaining the value and integrity of the dollar
we used to be able to pay for much of our healthcare without having to depend on gov't or insurance!!!
and there was a time when the healthcare industry and the insurance companies had to carefully consider increasing their charges because if they charged too much there would be no one to pitch in and help the people pay them!!!
now we are so far down the rabbit hole we are bickering weather it is right to give businesses religious values deserve protection while completely ignoring that is no protection for our own!
is your employer holding an exemption?
no?? guess your religious rights aren't as important as the business man's
originally posted by: dawnstar
but even the corps run to the gov't!!!
am I looking for the gov't to solve these problems!!
to a point yes!!
I think they have a responsibility to find solutions (not dig us into a bigger hole!!)
and to be frank I don't think it can be done without them intervening in some way!! at least not painlessly!
take medicaid and medicare chips and all that away and the healthcare industry will collaspe overnight!
But there is also an
economic
case for reducing child poverty. When children grow up in poverty,
they are somewhat more likely than non-poor children to have low earnings as adults, which in turn
reflects lower workforce productivity. They are also somewhat more likely to engage in crime (though
that’s not the case for the vast majority) and to have poor health later in life. Their reduced produc
-
tive activity generates a direct loss of goods and services to the U.S. economy.
What’s more, any crime in which they engage imposes large monetary and other personal costs on
their victims, as well as the costs to the taxpayer of administering our huge criminal justice system.
And their poor health generates illness and early mortality which not only require large healthcare
expenditures, but also impede productivity and ultimately reduce their quality and quantity of life.
1. It would increase the economic well-being of the uninsured by substantially more than the costs of insuring them. A comparison of the total benefits of coverage to the uninsured, including such benefits as longer life expectancy and reduced financial risk, and the total costs of insuring them (including both the public and private costs), suggests net gains in economic well-being of about two-thirds of a percent of GDP per year.
2. It would likely increase labor supply. Increased insurance coverage and, hence, improved health care, is likely to increase labor supply by reducing disability and absenteeism in the work place. This increase in labor supply would tend to increase GDP and reduce the budget deficit.
3. It would improve the functioning of the labor market. Coverage expansion that eliminates restrictions on pre-existing conditions improves the efficiency of labor markets by removing an important limitation on job-switching. Creating a well-functioning insurance market also prevents an inefficient allocation of labor away from small firms by leveling the playing field among firms of all sizes in competing for talented workers in the labor market.
PHAWKER: Let’s talk about the infamous ‘individual mandate,’ which requires that everyone purchases health insurance. Everyone. That was the industry’s idea. WENDELL POTTER: As the healthcare reform legislation was working it’s way through Congress, the healthcare lobbyists were very insistent that the reform legislation had to have an individual mandate in it, a requirement that we all had to buy coverage or they would do all they could to derail the reform as they had in the past. PHAWKER: Why were they so adamant about that? WENDELL POTTER: It would favor them because not only would we be required to buy coverage but if I’m for example someone who has low income and can’t afford the costs, the government will subsidize the cost. They’ll be getting revenue from two sources, individuals who pay from their own pockets, but a lot of people can’t afford it so the government subsidizes it and the money goes straight to the insurance companies. So they get an entire new revenue stream they hadn’t had before. And since everybody will be required to buy coverage, no one company theoretically will be disadvantaged. No company will get more sick people than any other company, but there will be some risk adjustment in the way this all takes shape so companies are protected from adverse selection, from getting more sick people than their competitors. So they’ll get a lot of money. PHAWKER: It’s corporate welfare. WENDELL POTTER: It gives them what I call a new lease on life because they know their current business models aren’t sustainable in the long haul and we’re seeing the evidence of that with growing numbers of Americans without insurance, it’s not because they don’t want coverage but they’ve been priced out of the market or haven’t been able to buy at all because of the practices of the industry.
...More
PHAWKER: If the individual mandate provision was inserted into the healthcare reform at the insistence of the health insurers, why are the Republicans, who clearly have the industry’s back, fighting the individual mandate so aggressively, using it as a cudgel to try to kill Obamacare, with Republican-run states suing the federal government in the courts. WENDELL POTTER: It’s because of politics and ideology. They see this as a winning issue for them and it’s to their advantage to try to turn against this reform for the purpose of getting their allies or colleagues re-elected. It’s ideology. They’re saying it’s an infringement upon freedom and the free market, but it’s really a political strategy to win control of Congress and the White House. So they grandstand against the individual mandate but it’s not genuine. In my view, it’s disingenuous because they get a lot of money from insurance companies, the companies spend a lot of money on elections and lobbying efforts to influence how policy should take shape in Capitol Hill. These Republicans must realize, I think many of them do, that the insurance industry really needs this individual mandate. It’s disingenuous and the real motivation is not really to kill Obamacare, not to repeal it or have it declared unconstitutional despite what you might hear, it’s to get more Republicans elected.
originally posted by: paleorchid13
a reply to: scrounger
This isn't about entitlements. It's about making sound, LOGICAL, and economically wise decisions that benefit the Nation. The SINGLE BEST, most effective way to bring people out of poverty is to give them control over procreation. How backwards is it that the one thing (responsible procreation) that would reduce entitlement programs, welfare costs, healthcare costs and societal costs is something people are so eager to take away or put barriers on?
originally posted by: Flatfish
a reply to: scrounger
With respect to your OP....I guess that, based on your inference that history dictates the definition of "rights," one could conclude that freedom is also a benefit and not a right. Wasn't slavery a part of our history?
If you ask me, your reasoning is flawed right from the get-go. Just because something was viewed a benefit in the past doesn't dictate that it never becomes a protected right, that's up to the people and people change.