[Cerek]

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior Not true, there's no clips of him staring into space when faced with a difficult question, stammering like an idiot, or making things up because he doesn't understand what the question actually meant, but wants to maintain the illusion that he actually does. There are many of the other guy, go on Youtube and you'll find 'em. Hilarious. Letterman used them on his show for years also.

My response was that Obama is not as polished and smooth when he has to go off queue. There are several videos of this on Youtube as well

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior Untrue also, about scripted and pre-screened questions, look at those town-hall meetings and tell me if someone could make that shit up. Look at that Major Garret dude in the press conferences...hardly hand-picked. While yes, he will do some stuff which is all from speech and prompter and he will always do, I am very impressed with the fact that he isn't afraid to go off queue. I think he heard some of the prompter criticism coming from the right, and set out to demonstrate what a great, "ad lib" speaker he can be. Of course, speeches and lines will always and have always been written for presidents and politicians. I just think he can do either or, and do them amazingly.

I specifically mentioned the meetings at which Obama appears. Those have most definitely been hand-picked audiences. Many of the other town-hall meetings have been as well. Yes, some members of the general public have been allowed in - and many have behaved very badly. I'm unable to find the link right now, but I saw a video made at one of these meetings. There is a loooooooong line of general public people waiting to get in the main entrance. Meanwhile, there is a second entrance with a sign reading "HANDICAPPED ONLY" where two young workers point the way for very healthy looking people to walk on in. Maybe that's one reason the ones who had to wait hours to get inside are so upset.

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior We disagree here. I am a little surprised. Sometimes, a car is so messed up it needs to be scrapped and you need to buy a new one. Ideally we want to keep it, but when it is so messed up to the point where its just rotten, you want to rebuild from the base up

When 85% of the car works, it is not so messed up that it needs to be trashed to fix the other 15%. The Administrations own numbers show that 85% of Americans have health care insurance, so their health care is covered. The other 15% is actually somewhat fuzzy if you look at it closely enough. The 15% includes illegal aliens, people temporarily between jobs (many of have subsequently found jobs and regained health care coverage) and a small portion of Americans who are rich enough to choose NOT to buy health care because they feel they can pay their medical bills on their own. It doesn't cancel out the entire 15%, of course, but the supposed concern is for those Americans who can not GET insurance at all and that number is actually much smaller than the 15% that is continuously quoted.

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior There is very little propoganda on the pro health care reform side, compared to the absolute insanity and stupidity and overall idiocy we are seeing on the right atm. Even their conservative leaders are surprised by the level of hate. I am more sickened at the level of misinformation. Nobody "dies" under the Euro system, lol. I know nobody who had died waiting for treatment, or has expereinced 'ration" care etc. I have lived in multiple European countries too.

I've just given you one example of propoganda used by the pro health care side.

And I do know someone who died in Germany while waiting for surgery. She was a classmate of mine from 1st grade through graduation. She married right out of high school and her husband was in the Army. While he was stationed in Germany, she became severely ill and went to the doctor. She was diagnosed with a conditon that required surgery and placed on a list to await an open surgical date. She died while waiting for the surgery. I don't remember the exact diagnosis, because she died more than 20 years ago.

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior Tell me of some of these examples, because they are absolutely alien to me.

Very well. One of my classmates has family in different Euro countries. Her sister lives in Holland. She developed a very rare and extremely dangerous type of hernia. She went to her doctor and was told that hernia repair was cosmetic surgery and unnecessary, therefore it was not covered by the national health plan. And, unlike some other Euro countries, Holland does not have a private insurance option. It is national health care - period. (at least it was at the time of this incident). So she was told point blank she could not have her hernia repaired in Holland. She made arrangements to have the surgery in England at her own expense. The surgeon did not perform the surgery correctly and she ended up in just as bad a condition as before.

The mother of these girls lives in England. When she went to the hospital with a heart attack, she was told she needed an EKG to determine how much damage may have been done to her heart. She did receive the EKG - nine months later! Meanwhile, EKGs are a routine part any ER visit in America for heart or breathing problems.

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior What people don't understand is, in most of Europe, you can choose to pay for your healthcare like Americans do if you so wish to. If you really had an issue with the free system, you could go to a private hopsital and pay. Most american hospitals are what Europe would consider "private", yet they look the same and give the same treatment as the "public" ones - they just charge you a lot more. So, with this in mind, if someone died under the Euro system then they would have died twice under the US one. Because the US system demands that you pay them or it can refuse you treatment.

Totally and completely wrong. In fact, hospitals cannot refuse treatment based on the patient's ability to pay. It is against the law to do so.

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior The Euro system treats you for free - or treats you for a fraction of the amount it would cost you at home. These nations are healthier than America and are physically happier too. Their doctors get paid to encourage you to stop smoking, eat right, and excercise. The US doctors get paid when someone has gastric bypass surgery.

Doctor's in America also encourage their patients to eat right, stop smoking and excersice every single day and have done so for several years. But Americans are generally a very self-indugent people. It is not the fault of our healthcare system that we - as a nation - do not exercise as often as we should, eat high fat fast food and engage in other personal choice habits that are unhealthy.

This is another example of the propoganda from the pro health side. The information may be technically correct, but the discrepency of the statistics is not the result of our health care system. It is a result of our chosen lifestyle.

Originally Posted by SpiritWarrior See, this is a good story, one that makes me wonder why you ain't 100% on board with this reform. The thing is, it wouldn't cost you 6k or 250k in other countries. You got very lucky here, where your insurance company actually footed the bill for you, and so it creates the illusion that the system is working for you. But 250k? My God, that is an untinkable amount just for your own health. Your own country expects you to pay that just for the right to survive. I find this fundamentally wrong.

I've stated a number of times that our health care systems needs to be reformed and repaired, but it does NOT need to be completely overhauled, because it DOES work for the most part.

Why am I not 100% on board with this reform? Several reasons. First and foremost, Pelosi and Obama did their damndest to force this 1,000 pg bill through before the August recess. They have launched a multimedia campaign trying to create rising hysteria that health care must be fixed RIGHT NOW!!!!! According to them, we can't wait another second. But health care has needed repair for several years. While it needs to be fixed, it isn't going to do irreparable damage to wait a few weeks (or even a few months) to make sure the reform that goes through is one that will actually address the problems the general public faces.

Another reason is the fact that there are several hidden clauses within this 1,000 pg bill. The most recent that came to light is a section that wants to grant the government total access to the financial information and records of the American citizens. The plan describes establishing a "real time or near real time access to the bank accounts of those using the Obamacare system in order to determine the patient's financial ability to pay and enable quick and easy electronic transfer of funds. The person explaining that section said they envision a health-care card that contains the person's medical history and financial account information. There are several problems with this scenario, not the least of which is the fact that a such a card would be a violation of your privacy rights because the integrity of the card cannot be adequately safeguarded. Second is the fact that this would give the government all of your financial data without your approval. Finally, the fact that they can determine your "ability to pay" raises the very real possibility that government COULD then deny treatment due to an inability to pay. Even if you have the ability, the government could possibly decide you aren't paying your bill quickly enough and use the financial information from your health-care card to garnish your account for a more acceptable payment amount.

Those are just a few reasons why I'm not 100% on board with the current reform.

Oh, one last bit of support propoganda - it was NOT my "country" that expected me to pay 6k and 250k for my health. Those prices were set by the two medical facilities and - as I've already stated - the cost for those facilities was covered by my insurance. I did not have to pay a penny of the 6k bill and would only have had to pay a fraction of the 250k bill.

Each insurance policy has a deductible amount, which the patient must pay at 100% before the insurance picks up the cost. Typical deductibles range from $250-$1000. Once the patient/policyholder pays that amount (which can easily be met with one visit to the ER), then the insurance starts paying 80% of the remaining medical costs. Each policy also has a maximum "out-of-pocket" (OOP) amount for the patient/policyholder. This is typically $2,000-5,000. That means that the patient pays 100% of the deductible amount, then 20% of all remaining bills until they have paid the maximum OOP amount. After that, the insurance policy pays 100% of ALL remaining costs.

So, out of my 6 week hospital stay, the total amount I would have been required to pay would have been $2,500 (my OOP amount). Since I refused to pay the 250k bill, my actual out of pocket amount was less than $2,000.

While other countries may offer national healthcare to everyone, it is NOT "free". The costs of the procedures, supplies, equipment and personnel HAVE to be paid somehow. If you don't pay for your healthcare through insurance premiums, you are paying for it through taxes. The cost is still there, it just falls under a different category.