beaglesdoitbetter wrote:

As a comparison, think of telling a friend that you'll give him money to use for rent as long as he does not use it to buy shoes. The friend can then just use the money he would have spent on rent to buy shoes. So you've still supported your friend's shoe habit.... just as giving taxpayer money to PP effectively supports abortion.

Yes, you are right. But what if your friend has to submit to you a receipt for his rent before you gave him the money? Then you would know that he paid his rent.

Clinics have to submit stacks of paperwork detailing the services performed so they can receive reimbursement through medicaid. As stated already, no clinic will get reimbursed by the feds for abortions. So if planned parenthood is 'blacklisted' by the republicans, they will not get reimbursement for any of the services they provide. Other clinics would continue to get that reimbursement. So planned parenthood can be punished because one of the unreimbursed services they provide is currently a legally performed service in the US?

I'm not saying your friend is lying and not paying the rent. I'm saying that by giving him the money to pay for his rent, he now has money that would have gone to the rent that he can now reallocate the money he would have used for his rent in order to pay for shoes. So, you are still supporting his shoe habit even though not one cent of that money goes towards buying shoes and even if the rent gets paid. Nothing anyone says can change that basic fact.

You can argue for or against supporting PP, but you cannot change the basic fact that by giving them money, you are indirectly supporting abortion services.

Planned parenthood can be punished because one of the unreimbursed services they provide is currently a legally performed service in the US?

It's not a punishment to not get direct subsidies from the government. Congress has the power of the purse to decide what they do and do not fund. No non-profit or private organization is entitled to government money if congress does not allocate it. [I'm not taking a position here on whether PP should or should not be funded].

Furthermore, even if it is a punishment, the government coerces behavior all the time. Just like the president can pass an executive order saying the government won't contract with companies that don't pay at least $10.10/hr or an executive order saying the government won't contract with companies that discriminate against gay people... governments use the power of the purse to compel good behavior and "punish" what they believe is bad behavior all the time.

This power to pick winners and losers is one big reason why I hate government involvement and intervention in anything other than its designated core functions.

And abortion services only comprise a tiny fraction of Planned Parenthood’s work,

If this was true, how stupid for Planned Parenthood to allow a tiny fraction to threaten their whole operation. If it is so small, they would just stop funding it and could avoid all the controversy. It would be like an organization that does good work but does a tiny amount to support slavery. Why would they do that?

Because a majority of Americans support a woman's right to choose.

Beagles... Theoretically, you are correct. But keep in mind that roughly 30% of PP's funding comes from the feds for other procedures. They receive the rest of their funding largely from private fundraising.

But I do not for one minute believe that the constant defunding threats against PP by the republican party is not a punishment. They have not been able to overturn roe vs. wade so they have set about to stop abortions any other way they can think of.

To garybeaumont_gw: and because it is legal in the United States. Due to the death threats and firebombing of other abortion clinics, planned parenthood is one of the only options left to women who make the very personal choice for abortion.

It is only legal because of the Supreme Court, not by passing laws. And women have the right to chose what. Prostitution, selling their babies, using drugs. It is their bodies, except it is not. The baby has its own blood supply and genetic makeup. And what about the father. It takes two. If he decides he wants an abortion to occur shouldn't he be relived of child support. That baby is half his.

Why not let the local government decide. By the way, recreational Marijuana is illegal country due to federal law, but for some reason it is ok for the federal government to look the other way and not enforce the law. Imagine if a state refused to obey the Supreme Court and enforce their own laws on abortion.

garybeaumont_gw: I am not going to debate the abortion issue with you. I respect that your opinion is not the same as mine.

But the fact remains that abortion is legal in this country. States have been trying to enforce their own laws on abortion for years. Texas and Indiana are two that come to mind recently.

But the only reason it is legal is because of the Supreme Court, not the will of the people. The only reason the Supreme Court has upheld it is because the conservative presidents have done a poor job of nominating conservative judges. I will give the liberals one thing, I don't think they will ever nominate anything but a liberal Supreme Court Judge.

I would agree with you if each state was given the right to choose the laws about abortion. But when the courts go against the will of the people, it causes frustration. And if the majority of America supports all forms of abortion, why is the left so scared of the overturning of Roe vs Wade. Yes, we do disagree and will probably never change each others mind, I just wish it was a fair playing field.

Right, I know PP gets a lot of funding from other sources. I'm just saying that for those who are against abortion (and I am pro choice BTW), the semantics of saying government money doesn't support abortion by giving to PP is a bad argument, because it does, even though not directly.

The Supreme Court does not make the law, only legislatures make law, so it is not correct to say abortion is only legal because of the Supreme Court. There is a lot of misundestanding on this issue.

What the Supreme Court did was declare abortion is a constitutional right so states could not make it illegal. The fact it was declared to be a constitutional right also means that any state laws limiting or restricting abortion must pass a strict scrutiny test rather than just a rational basis test. The Supreme Court ruling does not prevent states from making laws if those laws stand up to the strict scrutiny test and do not impose an undue burden.

I think a lot of states are intentionally pushing the envelope now on what constitutes an undue burden in hopes of getting a case before a court that they believe may overturn Roe. It takes a very long time for cases to work their way through the courts and get to the Supremes and this has been in the works for a while.

Medicare for all, no vouchers or choose another single payer system. Insurance admin costs 30 percent vs Medicare 3 percent. That 30 percent isn't used for actual healthcare. And negotiate drug prices. We can afford it no matter what they try and scare us with. The premiums cost more than the slight tax increase.

Give all women free access to birth control and pregnancy rates will drop.

Why haven't we insisted on this? It's working well in other countries. Most doctors and nurses say it would allow them to concentrate on Medicine and not waste time on billing. At least fight for drug price negotiations which we can all agree on.

Kittymoonbeam asked why we haven't demanded single payer/Medicare for all, I say, ask a regressive, because I can't comprehend why the richest country on the face of the Earth doesn't have affordable, accessible health care for every person living here. I can't get my head around such nasty, mean spirited hatred of your fellow Americans and residents. Why do you regressives want people to suffer, die and lose their homes? I mean, I get it if you are the CEO of the drug company, but the average everyday citizens who oppose health care for all, I will never understand their opposition to a human right.

Might want to ask someone from Canada how it has worked for them. Heard it takes months to get a doctors appointment. Some people die because they can't get to a doctor in time We do have emergency care for all. If you have insurance you have to pay, if not it is free. It does bother me that I pay for insurance but get the exact same care as those that don't in the ER. But I agree, health care is broken. We need a free government health care and better private health care for those that have insurance. Otherwise we cannot afford the type of health care we now have.

I think it should be like public and private schools. If you want to pay extra you may get a better product. I am not in favor of turning our country into a socialist nation. It sounds good to you find out the problems they have in other places. How many people go to another country to get better health care. We have the best, with all its problems. It copy the other more socialist country we will have their kind of health care.

My wife did say she has a friend in Canada. It took her 6 months to get a tooth pulled. I have insurance and can get into a doctor for sickness in a day or two. Same with a dentist. If we become like Canada that will be a thing of the past. The reason we are the richest country in the world is because we are Capitalist. Change that and we will be the same as the rest of the world. Not mean, I have bought my fair share of free meals and donations to charity. And me and my wife make a total of $70,000 a year so not rich either.

It took me nine months to get in to see a dermatologist here in the US, and I lived in a major metropolitan area. By that time, my problem had gone away. And people in the US die all the time because they can't get or afford medical care. So the thing that you are worried about is already happening to thousands of your fellow citizens. Large swaths of the US have extremely poor health care options available to them.

Yeah, one of my neighbors has a mysterious growing lump on her neck and she's been waiting to see a dermatologist since June.

I'll be totally out of all my prescriptions with no way to refill any of them since my endocrinologist retired unexpectedly last summer and his replacement changed my appt from last Sept to April and refuses to write scrips for anyone he hasn't seen. If you think people don't wait here you must not have anyone in your family with any kind of medical issues.

Writersblock, I would look around for another endo. I think this is a sign of the kind of treatment you're going to get. A compassionate doctor knowing you were in this position would work to fit you in sooner. I understand not writing a script for a patient he hasn't seen, but making you wait until April knowing you don't have your meds is unethical, in my book. (First, do no harm?)

With that said, I've not been happy with an endocrinologist in 20+ years.

Thanks, Lisa, but I'm in a small town and I can't get in any sooner with either of the other endos on my insurance. One isn't taking new patients at all.

Writersblock, my wife had a transplant 3 years ago. so you are wrong about my family not having any medical problems. We get care much faster here. i can call my primary care doctor and get in pretty quick. I can call dentist and get in for emergency in a day or two. I have spent more time than I care to think in the hospitals.

I didn't say good medical care wasn't available in the US, it certainly is. It is just not available everywhere. This is a large, very diverse country. I tried to get in to see another dermatologist an hour away from where I lived and that wait was 9 months as opposed to six. Some specialists are rarer than others, so it is anecdotal whether you can get in or not, whether the doctor is good or not. My point was, we should not make national policy that is going to affect all Americans based on anecdotes. Personal experience is not universal, and the only way to find out what is universal is to get data from large, nation-wide institutions and surveys. Even then, you are going to find wide divergence from region to region, even in the same state.

I can't wrap my head around thinking that people with more money should receive better medical care. That goes against believing in basic human rights, to me.

People with more money live in better houses, eat better food, and drive better cars. It is called capitalism. If you want socialism or communism, try out Russia or China. And I do not have more money. It is a choice to get insurance or not. Should someone that cannot afford house insurance get coverage just because they are poor or not responsible enough to buy it. Again, everyone is getting emergency care. Hospitals cannot turn them away, at least here in Texas.

I cannot wrap my mind around why people think it is a basic right that everyone get equal medical care, whether they have paid for it or not. Unless, of course you are a communist.

That's where we differ. I don't think capitalism has any business in healthcare. And I'll be staying right here and voicing my differences with people like you. How about YOU trying out one of those other places?

ETA - I don't need to have it explained to me. I work in Healthcare admin. In Texas. Any parts of it I can help you understand better? I'd be happy to.

But then we will have health care like in China and Russia. Veterans hospitals is the closest we have to health care without capitalism. Without capitalism, there isn't a need to come up with new medicines and procedures.

But if we had a public and private hospitalization, they will compete with each other and make each other better, much like our education system. If someone wants to spend the extra money to send there children to private or home school, they should be given that choice. I wish health care would be the same way. The same way with public swimming pools. I think they are good, but someone should also have the right to build a pool on their own or join a club that has a pool.

One reason that the drugs are so high is because we do subsides the world in medicine. We pay for all the research by higher prices, Then the companies can sell to the other countries at a cheaper price. That is why we spend more than other countries for the same drugs. Without that capitalism in the system, there would be far fewer drugs.

By the way, I deal with hospital and doctors bills weekly, if not daily. Even though I have private insurance, it became much worse after Obamacare. Higher prices with much higher deductibles. When government gets involved, things usually get more complicated and less efficient. That is why we are the riches nation in the world.

Are you saying the US is the richest nation in the world? Because it is most certainly not.

Without Obamacare, what do you think will happen when your wife needs follow up care or has problems with her transplant? Capitalism isn't going to require she be covered by the same private insurance. The others will reject her or place exclusions on her pre-existing conditions. Do you think you'll be able to pay for the best care on less than $70,000 a year? According to you, she won't deserve it if you can't pay for it after she is rejected by the capitalistic insurance industry. But maybe that will help us be the "richest" nation? Good luck.

Gary, should everyone be protected equally by the police and fire departments?

Should everyone have safe air and drinking water?

I had insurance before Obamacare. It is now worse. And Lakeaffect. arguing the liberal side, said we were the richest. Yes, I do think for the size and standard of living we are the richest. The world economy centers around us. And we are, as the press says, the last super power. And yes, I can afford the insurance because the place I work for provides part of the cost of the insurance. It was a choice I made, and I share in the cost. The government provides police and fire departments, and no, not everyone is protected equally. People in Chicago have a higher crime rate than many other places. People in rural areas do not have as fast of response to fire protection as people in the Cities. And not everyone has the same safe air (San Fransico) as other people. And believe it or not, some people have to provide for their own water with private wells in the rural areas because there is no public water supply.

Gary, I truly hope your wife stays well. You have no clue what reality you are in for without the ACA.

But she had the transplant before ACA. I know the reality. I do not get anything from ACA. I have had the same job for 30 years and one of the reasons is the health care they provide. It was better years ago. The deductibles have went up to almost double, to help match what ACA does. A national healthcare will work about as well as national police or national fire departments. More over head and less response to the local needs. For people in the city, most rural areas have volunteer fire departments because that is the only way to afford a department in those areas.

Yes, the system is broke. But I feel that having a national system will make it worse. I have to live in the system and know it is worse for me now that it use to be. Because you work for health care and saying you know more than me is a little condescending. I know what it was like before ACA and it was better.

And by the way, by hoping my wife stays well, shows you really do not understand transplants. She will be on multiple drugs the rest of her life and have bimonthly blood test. Unlike cancer patients, she will never be well. I do thank the private drug companies and private donations that came up with the procedures for her transplants. The government deemed it too risky and refused to sponsor it.

I amend what I said to "I hope your wife stays well and I hope you never have to shop for insurance after repeal of the ACA if anything happens to your employer-provided coverage". It will be a shock if you ever have to find coverage that will accept a post-transplant patient without placing exclusions on her pre-existing conditions. I'm not trying to be condescending. You truly need to plan for "what if". Your wife will be very vulnerable to the capitalist private insurance industry if it goes back to pre ACA rules and regulations.

But without the capitalist drug companies she would be dead already. I said the system was broken, and not everything in ACA was bad. But is we go to a national heath care system without any capitalism, we will have the same system that Russia and China has. My wife would be doomed under that system as well.

Please know that I wish you and your wife the best. I work for a large Catholic nonprofit healthcare system that is still driven by the vision and values of our founding sisters. No one is ever turned away. And we are constantly required to tie our goals and business plans back to those values. Part of our fiscal responsibility is to enable contributing to medical research and development.

ETA: I'm proud to work for an organization that walks their talk and delegates funds for R&D.

I also feel it's important to remind you that Rick Perry turned down the Medicaid expansion during the implementation of the ACA. This is the primary reason for the soaring premiums in Texas and the other states that turned it down. The Medicaid expansion was basically half of the mode of reimbursement from the ACA.

Above, you compared Universal Healthcare to veteran coverage. That is not accurate. Medicare would be the comparable program.

I'm a transplant coordinator. Gary, I can't imagine why the government turned your wife down. I would say that 90% of our pts are under government care and not turned down for financial reasons; they are denied for medical, psychosocial issues, etc. The other 10% have private plans and, often, we have to fight to get them financially approved.

I understand under "trump care": preexisting conditions will stay. However, those polices will be so expensive, no one will be able to afford them. HSA: most of those people are living paycheck to check; how will they afford to put money aside in a HSA? But, they (Rs) will say they kept the parts that people like.

Gary, I'm not sure what the size of your employer is or what type of coverage they provide. But it's highly likely that your wife's medical care and any other "catastrophic case" contributed to the increase in you and your coworkers' premiums as much as Obamacare.

Speaking of employers, I know many people who recently left their companies and started their own businesses, as well as young people who graduated from college and, instead of searching for a company job for "the benefits" have struck out on their own and are doing really quite innovative and wonderful work. They could do this because of Obamacare.

Without it, we will lose a great deal of an inventive, entrepreneurial spirit that I'm seeing now. People will go back to looking for jobs with benefits, rather than focusing on what they, individually, can offer our society.

This is why I want Ryan and his crew to be more thoughtful and purposeful, and to take into consideration the benefits that Obamacare has brought to many. In my region, at least, the security that Obamacare offered has brought about a surge of ingenuity in entrepreneurship that has helped generate many local economies.

ETA, we are far past the time when the majority of Americans have the opportunity of job security at the same company (or even in the same industry) for 30 years.

Yes - what about the fact that 'jobs with benefits' are becoming more & more scarce? There are places where there is no employer to provide such jobs & even if there were, are there really enough 'jobs with benefits' to give to everyone who needs health insurance?

FWIW, I have a friend in his 60s who is self employed & recently had a heart attack, then a stent. He was stunned when he saw the cost was well over $100,000, and because he has insurance on the Healthcare Marketplace, he did not have to go bankrupt AND the hospital/dr.s got paid.

As the new gov. of NC said recently: NC (& other states of course) hospital ERs are basically giving care away for free right now & losing $$, because people cannot afford to pay & taxpayer money in states that didn't expand Medicaid is going to Medicaid recipients in other states.

Yes everyone should get some basic health care. people can still pay for advanced treatments or so see a specialist. But no one should break a bone and have to live with it that way. I met a woman in the market who did just that. people go without basic meds all the time. women should have free access to contraception or this planet will not be able to feed everyone.

My point is, when it comes to discussing health care, everyone usually gives some anecdote about themselves or someone they know. Health care policy for the US should be made based on data about the realities of life for the large 350 million, population of the US. The idea that "I've experienced this, so everyone is like that" is just not logical. Good, bad or ugly, if you're going to make policy for the group, you need to know the facts about the group. Health insurance companies sure do. That's how they make their policies and rates, pure data, numbers and facts. Those in the ever shrinking world of one job in their lifetime with good health insurance are certainly one group of people, not insignificant in number, but their world and their reality is not everyone's, and that style of life is fading. The new economy is the gig economy, and companies will not be providing health insurance. I have access to the aggregate data on employment and working and insurance conditions in the US, everyone here does, and so does Paul Ryan.

Ask a Canadian about healthcare… I am a Canadian and we love our healthcare. For reals. We can always see room for improvement and we are always fighting to reduce wait times. Ask a Canadian if we want to move to the American system and we will look at you as if you have two heads. Your system is insanely expensive and you spend far more on healthcare to get far worse results.

Ask a Canadian if they love receiving emergency care and walking out the door afterwards without having signed one piece of paper or paid one red cent. Hint… We love it. And more so we are committed to single payer healthcare as a nation.

Yeah, countries with socialized medicine are not all dictatorships. Most are democracies and if they didn't like it, they would change it. From what I know, they have great basic health care services, and yes, if you need specialty treatment, there is a wait, Same here in the US unless you live in an area inundated by doctors, of which there are some, but many areas woefully underserved in the US.

People like to tell scary stories about how much Canadians hate our medical system but we are in fact very proud of it. It is just a weird tactic to tell horror stories about the Canadian healthcare system because it is very easy to verify that the vast majority of Canadians want nothing to do with American-style healthcare – – except rich Canadians who fly in for healthcare on demand much like Americans fly to Mexico for IVF and plastic surgery. Yes, you are our Mexico of healthcare.

So I repeat, the vast vast majority of Canadians do not want to go to US style system at all.

One thing we need to point out about wait times which is the traditional conservative bugbear about Canadian style system is that the wait times are for things that will not kill you and that is part of gatekeeping to keep healthcare costs down. For example we have long ortho wait times, way too long actually for things like knee replacements. yet when my 92yo grandmother fell and broke her hip, she had a new hip within hours. And she went home exactly as rich as when she went into the hospital.

60% of Canadians would pay more taxes to expand public healthcare....

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/sec.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadians-differ-from-trump-on-health-care-poll-shows/article32835912/%3Fservice%3Damp?client=safari

86.2% of Canadians surveyed supported or strongly supported "public solutions to make our public health care stronger."[19][20] A Strategic Counsel survey found 91% of Canadians prefer their healthcare system instead of a U.S. style system."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada#Public_opinion

Yes, we tend to view Canadians as lying around in shock over their tax bills and in agony waiting for their organ transplants.

ETA, I remember once discussing Canada with my dad after he visited, and he said what a nice country it was, but "you better hope you don't need a heart transplant!"

The sad part is we spend much less as a nation than you by cutting out the middleman. Not to say our system is perfect and couldn't be improved, most Canadians in fact would agree the system need substantial improvements, but it just so happens most of us think it needs more public money.

The sad part is we spend much less as a nation than you by cutting out the middleman

The sadder part is that we successfully do the same with medicare but refuse to recognize how it could be expanded to everyone with the same savings.

The medical, pharmaceutical and insurance industries are some of the biggest lobbyists in DC, so our nation's healthcare will never end up in the best interests of our citizens. They just react sometimes when the screaming gets loud enough.

This is the key. They listen when we get together and insist on what we want. When the country's divided, they get to decide.