EPIC FAIL

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/29/hea...care/index.html

and they want to vote on it next week

I say punch that puppy through. It's not going to get any better and "the people" are going to keep pushing until they get it.

What will probably happen is they will keep fighting about it until they are forced to reach a compromise that will make it worse than what it's going to be as it is written now.

Serious question: How many pages would be required that, if the document were printed, would forever trap all of congress within its gravitational field, never able to bother us again? Assume standard 24# paper.


I say we find out.


EDIT:
A few sweet morsels contained in the bill:
* Excise tax of 2.5% on all medical devices. Every wheelchair, every hearing aid, every splint, brace and crutch. Every pair of eyeglasses, every prosthesis, every cane, walker and scooter.
* Every penny a household makes over $1M is taxed at an additional 5.4%. Single or M,FJ has a limit of $500,000 but the same 5.4% rate.
* Maximum fine for small businesses for refusal to comply is the lesser of either 10% of their healthcare expenditures of $500,000.
* All penalties, taxes and assessments go directly to the Treasury under miscellaneous reciepts. Absolutely no requirement for it to go towards medical care for anybody, it just goes into gov't coffers.
* Leasing of medical devices is treated as a sale. So even if you rent a wheelchair (or one is given to you), you still have to pay the 2.5% tax (or someone else does).
* International allocation of interest is pushed back from the end of 2010 to Q42019. Basically, they just stuck in a rider that says we'll continue to pay interest on international loans for another decade.
* 100% compliance by 2013 or you risk half a million dollar fine
* Private insurance can't be held past the 5 year grace period
* By approximately Q3 2011, private insurers can NOT deny coverage or raise rates. If you have cancer and are currently undergoing treatment, for example, a company would have to cover you at the standard rate.


There's a few more gems in there, too...

It's mostly that $894,000,000,000 that concerns me.

its a cash and power grab, pure and simple

anyone who argues differently is deluded

If it were only the 2.5% excise for "medical devices..."
If all that money went straight to the miscellaneous fund (which it will)...
If the bill contained absolutely nothing else...

It'd be a new tax of (roughly, now) $20 billion/yr.

Of course, that depends on who is responsible for paying the tax (i.e. whether its assessed at the wholesale level, distribution or retail and if it's a medicare price or an insurance price or a cash price...) but roughly we're looking at another $20B worth of burden on the healthcare industry just from the one page. And, of course, there are 1989 more pages.


Just thinking aloud here...

You've got a system that is in trouble because it's too expensive for a lot of people to afford. Well, that's the stated problem, at least. But so if the problem is cost... how does making it more expensive fix the problem?

I so want nancy pelosi to be my nurse!

Wetnurse?

:ph43r:

I just pictured Bella Pelosi in a nurse Halloween costume.

I am warning you - such vulgar and grotesque visuals are grounds for bannination

this is official! do not tempt my admin powers!

;)

imagine getting mouth to mouth from that?

Eeeeeeewwwwwwwww

Can't imagine where its been or what the hell has been in it. But we all know what comes out of it........


Democratic BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... are nothing compared to what the seahag put in the healthcare bill.

I'll just leave this here...

Discuss.

political payoff

I think we should all get the same health care benefits all the senate, congress and the prez gets as well as the killer retirement package......

Oh, wait we pay for them already.

Oh man are we screwed.....

On a college campus, it's interesting to see the wide and varied opinions. There are namely two.

On the Arts and Crafts... err... Arts and Sciences side of campus, the (off the cuff, thoughtless) predominant opinion is, "Obama and his administration are doing a great job."

Walk over to the engineering side of campus, and the opinion is usually, "Hey, let's throw money around and hope it lands in sufficiently high piles that we can barricade ourselves from the problem. What idiots!!"

It's a night and day difference.

This thread, however, is just downright depressing. We are so screwed. I hear New Zealand is taking refugees. :D

-Chris B)

That also includes tampons as well :P

I can count the number of people who have outright proclaimed to be a Democrat on my hands at my campus.

Then again, my campus is a little different from most.

They passed it. There goes capitalism.

House passed it, not the Senate (yet).

passed it by 5 votes . . . on partisan lines . . . when the Dems have a 75 vote majority over the Repubs in the House.

Pelosi had a lot of defections

the senate is probably going to be a much harder road.

Has anyone of them even read it yet?

:lol:

-!!!

taxes actually empower consumers!

http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/ind...owers-consumers

minitrue is working hard

He's right, though. It absolutely will lead to lower cost of health insurance.

Except you don't get somethin' for nothin'. If you artificially reduce cost through excise, you must sacrifice quality in order to get there.


We will pay more and get less. But we'll get "enough" and the cost won't be greater than this magical, arbitrary number the politicians think it should be.

Now the news is bitching about medicine prices going up. Duh, they are doing the same thing the credit card companies are trying to do, get "theirs" before regulation locks it down.

Until they fix the silliness it's not going to do any good to go socialized anything.