Report to big brother good citizen.

[themadscientist]

shades of 1984 anybody. The book, not the year; that year was RAD!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog...hings/

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to "eliminate" private coverage, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

Really. Ok, Let's look at the house draft bill. http://edlabor.house.gov/docum...9.pdf

1 SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT2 COVERAGE.3 (a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COV4ERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions of5 this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable cov6erage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health7 insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance8 coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the9 first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:10 (1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.—11 (A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in12 this paragraph, the individual health insurance13 issuer offering such coverage does not enroll14 any individual in such coverage if the first ef15fective date of coverage is on or after the first16 day of Y1.

I read that as no new insurance policies after this thing starts.

11 (A) IN GENERAL.—The Commissioner12 shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan13 years beginning after the end of the 5-year pe14riod beginning with Y1, an employment-based15 health plan in operation as of the day before16 the first day of Y1 must meet the same require17ments as apply to a qualified health benefits18 plan under section 101, including the essential19 benefit package requirement under section 121.

The commissioner appointed by the president to run this thing has sweeping authority and he can force your insurance company to do whatever he wants or have their status as an approved provider pulled. "Protecting you right to choice" indeed.

[srellim234]

The first thing they need to do is shoot all the lawyers and write in in plain English.

[srellim234]

The section on protecting choice grandfathers in existing individual coverage at the beginning date of the law taking effect. It makes no mention of meeting the thresholds of what's covered and what isn't.

The area referring to the Commissioner refers to employment based covereage and says that the Commissioner will give a 5 year grace period to the insurance companies to upgrade their coverage to include the coverage required under the plan.

As for chain mails circulating, yes they are. They always will. You can pull any paragraph or page out of anything, take it out of context, and create mass hysteria about it. Snopes is full of a lot of chain mails that are totally false.

BTW, have you seen the copy of the President's African birth certificate (which was actually forged from an Australian birth certificate)? Not on Snopes yet but they tried to enter it into evidence in a case in Florida.

Modified by srellim234 at 8:38 AM 8/6/2009
Modified by srellim234 at 8:39 AM 8/6/2009

[Kohster]

LOL @ mass emails and the people trying to prove obama was born elsewhere. That law is stupid and should be abolished anyway.

[szh]

LOL @ mass emails and the people trying to prove obama was born elsewhere. That law is stupid and should be abolished anyway.

You really think so?

I don't know if you are serious about this, or being incredibly naive about something fundamental. It is not "law", it is in our Constitution. Our Founding Fathers did not want any potential allegiances to other nations influencing the decisions made by the President of our country.

Very far-sighted thinking, IMHO!

Reference link: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A2Sec1

Your comment makes for serious silliness possibilities, of course. What if Guv Arnie S had run for President of the US instead of when he ran for Gov of Kalifornia? Given his screen popularity, he might have made it into office. Yikes!

Z

P.S.: BTW, I do believe that Obama was born a US citizen, so that is not an issue in my mind. I simply dislike his stance on many issues. And too naive to recognize that he cannot make the changes he thinks he can.

[mrodrig2]

I read that as no new insurance policies after this thing starts.

Quote »The commissioner appointed by the president to run this thing has sweeping authority and he can force your insurance company to do whatever he wants or have their status as an approved provider pulled. "Protecting you right to choice" indeed. [/quote]The first part you quoted does not say that there can be no new independent policies created. It states that certain coverage plans can remain in effect as long as the provider is limiting enrollment to those old plans after the new govt plans/required coverages come into effect. This makes sense considering that they want providers to develop policies with a new baseline of minimum coverages and want to phase out the old policies that do not meet the new minimums.

The 2nd part you quoted says that a commissioner will develop a timeline in which providers of employee based policies must ensure that their policies meet the new coverages/benefits requirements. If the private plan already has better benefits then there is nothing they need to change. Making things better is an abuse of power?

[themadscientist]

First part. No new policies. It's right there in plain, well plain for legaleze, english.

If I like the plan somebody has, that had it when this legislation went into effect, but I didn't, I can't enroll in it.

Second part Absolute power is dangerous. It cuts both ways. Freedom means a consumer's ability to choose to enroll in whatever plan THEY like. NOT what some executive department czar decides they get to like. This is the way big government types think. If a plan is not as good, people will drop it themselves. Free market principles work. Awarding the commissioner the power to define what qualifies a plan is not needed and provides inroads to legislate private insurance out of business.

[audtatious]

Congress dismissed the idea that they should drop their current health care policy and use the public policy they are trying to push. That right there speaks volumes as to how good their public policy really is. We pay their salaries and afford them the opportunity to have their health plan yet they wish to press forth something they themselves would not want. Sounds like a plan.

[mrodrig2]

First part. No new policies. It's right there in plain, well plain for legaleze, english.

If I like the plan somebody has, that had it when this legislation went into effect, but I didn't, I can't enroll in it.

Second part Absolute power is dangerous. It cuts both ways. Freedom means a consumer's ability to choose to enroll in whatever plan THEY like. NOT what some executive department czar decides they get to like. This is the way big government types think. If a plan is not as good, people will drop it themselves. Free market principles work. Awarding the commissioner the power to define what qualifies a plan is not needed and provides inroads to legislate private insurance out of business.

Again, the first part is just a grandfather clause. Grandfathering pertains to existing policies. The text clearly says that they are allowing some existing policies to remain and are even allowing new enrollment in them to a limited extent. Some new enrollment is not the same as no new enrollment. You are twisting it to your own liking. Your logic if I may attempt to (perhaps incorrectly) decode it is, Statement A is presented. Because statement A will happen, The opposite of A cannot happen. This is incorrect because there is no co-dependence of the two events.

I agree that absolute power is dangerous both ways. I do not understand how you are picking that out of that little segment though. The commissioner is deciding the timeline, he is not the sweeping authority that defines the minimum benefits package. The authors of the legislation are defining the requirements which are presumably written in the stated sections 101 and 121.

Irregardless, I think you are wrong in saying that free market principles work correctly here. My employee plan is unsatisfactory but my options are that, nothing or expensive private plans that don't significantly increase benefits or that won't even cover me. Is that really offering the consumer a choice. Just because there are options out there doesn't mean that they are available or viable. They are presenting the illusion of free market and consumer choice.

[audtatious]

With your employee plan being unsatisfactory, what do you see of the public plan which will resolve the issue?

[mrodrig2]

I don't want my statements to be construed as support for the bill just because I am defending its text. I posted because IMO law/legislation is meant to be interpreted literally. It's A to B kind of thing, not an A to B so also C, D, and Z. Each link must be made individually, A to B, B to C, etc. I felt that OP was trying to stretch out conspiracies and intentions from the simple language of the bill.

To some extent I do not mind sharing in my modest middle class earning. That is not to say that I want it given to everyone willy nilly though. If I had my way, my employer would suck it up and give us better options because they appreciate us as humans and not as drones. Although that obviously does not deal with the underlying issue of why they give us the options that they do give.

[audtatious]

OK, was just curious.

From a SBO and MBO perspective, with the things the way they run today, I would be interested in seeing additional national group offerings available as that would help stimulate health care options and affordability to these companies. Otherwise, if push comes to shove, these companies would only need to hire on a part-time bases to ensure they are not penalized for not providing coverage to their employees (more SBO and not MBO). I simply don't know why this has been stopped in the past.

[diamondj30]

im going short on this...YESJust got back my word articulation back.Baby step's,lol.like your avatar Kohster,REcieved my facist shirt yesterday.woot.

[WDRacing]

The first thing they need to do is shoot all the lawyers and write in in plain English.

I've tried on several occasions to make informed decisions and or make sure my opinion wasn't totally F'd. I always find myself getting upset because of the garble they use to communicate. It's this very thing that keeps the public in the dark.

I'd like to know more about Health Care Reform. However, I don't believe either of the two parties or what they have to say about ANYTHING anymore. It's all become lies and propaganda based souly around furthering their particular parties agenda. It's this reason that I think our current Gov has failed. It's simply not "for the people" anymore...

WD

[srellim234]

How true.

With my wife being in law enforcement we've seen it get worse and worse over the years. It's all become a game of not, "Did you do it and were you under duress at the time?" but "Which side's lawyer can play the games better than the other?"

I'm not sure how to fix it in a manner that would be really effective, but for lawyers to make laws (legislators) and be judges is a conflict of interest. They have a financial and vested interest in creating and maintaining a system that protects their livelihoods by making things as legally complicated as possible.

[WDRacing]

IMHO the only way to make any real change would be to upset an election and put an Independent in office. Someone with no ties to any agenda, party or lobbyist. In fact, lobbyist should be done away with as a whole. How can any person not recognize the seriously corrupt issues that come with lobbyist?

This administration is no different then any other Liberal motivated admin from the past. Maybe they've spent twice as much...lol. If the Republicans win the next election it will simply be 4 years under a different type of suck.

A revolving door of crap in and crap out.

[audtatious]

2012 will be the "HOPE for CHANGE" election

[Kalypso]

1984 was a totally rad year.

[srellim234]

The problem with that is that the Reps and Dems in Congress would simply wait the Independent out and then both parties would blame that Prez for the inability to get anything done. Then we're back to a two party system that isn't working very well.

BTW, I don't believe Obama is as liberal as everyone on the right believes and everyone on the left was hoping he'd be. He is defending every Bush policy in court that is being challenged while continuing all those that aren't, outside of the very visible waterboarding issue. He's still defending the policies that allowed them to do it, though.

I'm not convinced that his current spending would not have happened eventually under a different Administration given the economic situation of the world. I do believe that under another RINO administration the deficits and spending would have continued to spiral out of control. The only difference is that a different set of cronies is getting the money now.

His pick for the Supreme Court was even a little more conservative than the person she replaced.

[audtatious]

I disagree. Obama has shown a past history of associating with socialists and far-left extremists. There is no way he can erase that fact. Like everyone I'm sure he does have some moderate views but for the most part his actions have been to push forth every "lefty" agenda that they have failed to push forth since Clinton tried to do health care back in the 90's.

Is pushing:- UH- Cap and Trade- Cutting defense spending including the missile defense system- Throwing the CIA under the bus- Has brought in a ton of lobbyists into his Administration- Bringing as much authority as possible directly under him (census, cyber security, etc)- Owning parts of the largest companies in the US- Spend spend spend mentality

Has not:- ended the war in Iraq nor pulled troops out on a timeline other than what Bush had laid out- ended the war in Afghanistan (Cindy Sheehan is now protesting him) and things are now worse off- ended the Patriot Act....nor any of the "spy" systems in place that the Dem party was in such an uproar about under Bush- not posted bills on his website for discussion as promised- signing bills without the above- has not closed Gitmo as promised.....says he will but is planning on simply moving the prisoners to another location- Is not insisting on bi-partisan support as promised....and hasn't since day 1

etc...etc...etc....

The republicans over the last 4+ years of them being a majority had plenty of their own non-fiscally conservative issues, among other things, that I did not agree with. I didn't like Obama, nor McCain, and when he was elected I "hoped" I was wrong. He has proven to me that I was justified in believing things would go just like they are. With the economy still tanking and unemployment still on the rise I simply can't believe things are going to get much better while he is in office and still pushing things like UH and Cap & Trade which will add more financial burden to an already strained system.

[srellim234]

Then he's not that liberally opposed to the Bush Administration. Out of the items you cite, "throwing the CIA under the bus" is an extention of what Mukasey was doing near the end of the Bush Administration. The investigations were instigated back then. Hanging the little guy to protect big shots at the top is exactly what the Bush Administration did re: torture, Abu Ghraib, etc.

"No bid" contracts and the initial bailouts of the banking system were under Bush and only threw money at the execs, without the gov't getting a proper stake in the company. Now that we're starting to see a profit from the shares we purchased in the later rounds of bailing out companies, it looks like demanding part-ownership wasn't so bad afterall.

Every item you cite in the "Has not" section is an extention of the Bush/Cheney Administration. He's broken all those promises to the liberals and is apparently another George Bush Republican on those issues.

Like I said, he's not as liberal (or honest) as people on both sides thought.

[audtatious]

Then he's not that liberally opposed to the Bush Administration. Out of the items you cite, "throwing the CIA under the bus" is an extention of what Mukasey was doing near the end of the Bush Administration. The investigations were instigated back then. Hanging the little guy to protect big shots at the top is exactly what the Bush Administration did re: torture, Abu Ghraib, etc.

Mukasey was investigating CIA activities and the Obama Admin has pretty much said that what is being investigated were actions against Bush's standing orders. IF members of the CIA went against the Presidents orders then they should be investigated. I stand corrected. I do not approve of releasing the information to the press concerning what the issues are. In cases like this the public should not be made aware of the details as I feel it will come back and bite us in the a**.

"No bid" contracts and the initial bailouts of the banking system were under Bush and only threw money at the execs, without the gov't getting a proper stake in the company. Now that we're starting to see a profit from the shares we purchased in the later rounds of bailing out companies, it looks like demanding part-ownership wasn't so bad afterall.

The Bush stimulus was modeled between Henry Paulson, Pelosi, Reid, et al. and a bill that Bush should not have supported either. It's as screwed up as the Obama stimulus in that it's doing nothing but putting us in more debt. Yes, we are starting to get paid back and with some profit but that is only a minute part of the whole stimulus package. The US Fed Gov should not "own" parts of private companies.

Every item you cite in the "Has not" section is an extention of the Bush/Cheney Administration. He's broken all those promises to the liberals and is apparently another George Bush Republican on those issues.

Yes it is (an extension). I'm making the point that he has not done anything he promised. Iraq was pretty much done when Bush left, IMO it's in the Iraqi's hands with us simply supporting them as needed and following the 16-month withdrawal plan that Bush had stated. This was not what those who are against the "illegal war" wanted at all nor what they expected from Obama. Afghanistan is a whole nuther nightmare and I don't have my hands wrapped around it enough to comment other than he was expected to tuck tail and run. He shouldn't have, and hasn't, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing at this point from a futures perspective.

Like I said, he's not as liberal (or honest) as people on both sides thought.

No, I feel he is extremely liberal. We all knew once the current Dem party leaders were running things the "secret Bush operations" would simply drop from view but would be "business as usual" while the military would start to be stripped in order to pay for socialistic agendas. Partisan politics (not saying the Republicans were great at bi-partisan support), socialistic agenda, bigger spending. etc are all what I expected and the Obama Admin has not failed me....IMO, of course

[WDRacing]

Both administrations suck...it doesn't matter if Bush or Obama is the word prior to Administration.

We wanted change and we got it. We went from going to war with everybody and spending more money then we were making, to staying at war with everybody and doubling down all bets on the table as well as placing bets on every other table in the damn Casino.

There are ways to better social programs and even implement new ones. But those ways involve budget cuts and actual fiscal responsibility. That's not going to happen under ANY Admin guys...any. It doesn't matter that Obama is spending the money on his agenda because whatever Republican that gets elected will simply spend it on something else. Like the F22, V22, Joint Strike Fighter or a worthless mission to Mars.

The Gov exists to keep peace in the country and keeping it's citizens happy. That's really the only goal the Gov should have. All others should be shelved. After all, it's not the Gov money that's being spent, it's OUR taxes.

Don't raise taxes, stop spending. Want UH? Fine...me to, but examine the budget and either eliminate enough spending to afford it or figure out a way to raise money to pay for it. When I say raise money, borrow isn't a word that should be even considered.

If you keep taking from the people, eventually we will revolt. Right now there are more Militia's forming across the Nation then in the past 25 years. Because they are waiting for the Gov to keep taking and taking and they are tired of it. Taxation without representation is what we're getting and it sucks.

The UH idea would pass with flying colors if they were able to pay for it without increasing taxes on ANY demographic.

[srellim234]

One promise Obama has kept is bipartisan compromise on one issue.

Instead of a "Tax and spend" Democrat or a "Mortgage and spend" Republican he's succeed in merging the two. Now we have a "Tax AND mortgage so we can spend twice as much" Demoblican.

[WDRacing]

One promise Obama has kept is bipartisan compromise on one issue.

Instead of a "Tax and spend" Democrat or a "Mortgage and spend" Republican he's succeed in merging the two. Now we have a "Tax AND mortgage so we can spend twice as much" Demoblican.

[audtatious]

You do realize that the whole mortgage crisis started with Carter...

Big news of the time (one such source):http://www.nytimes.com/1989/09...d=all

Which lead to the Community Reinvestment Act:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/dcca/cra/

This lead to the Fed Reserve pressing forth more mortgages to those who would generally not be viable as seen here:

http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev...t.pdf

This lead to a "boom" under Clinton but it still didn't seem good enough as seen by this headline:http://articles.latimes.com/19...42807

Bush tried (not hard enough) to implement regulation in regards to Fannie/Freddie but met lots of resistance as Frank and gang claimed there were no issues:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09...d=all

This WSJ article goes over BF's involvement with the F/F fiasco:http://online.wsj.com/article/...d_day

So, I would not necessarily title the Republicans as "mortgage and spend" when the majority of those pushing the mortgage initiatives were Dems.....with BF as the ring leader

[srellim234]

aud- I was referring to the Republicans penchant for mortgaging our descendants' futures with deficit spending and borrowing from other countries like China. It has nothing to do with anything "housing mortgage" related.

[audtatious]

See, you need to be more clear

Today, mortgage anything = mortgage crisis = screwed up economy. The Republicant's spent plenty, but their spending over 8 years pales in comparison to what the current Administration is spending and promising to spend over the next "X" years.

I would have no problem with the majority of politicians being replaced and new laws being put in place to limit the income they can have to what they make as a politician (no outside business involvement at all). That and getting rid of lobbyists at the Federal level would ensure we have people in who want to make things better and are more willing to work with the other side...IMO