If Romney Wins the Presidency...

[Donegeal]

Sorry that took so long. I slipped in a dentist appointment along the way. Speaking of which, my count for Zerban signs might be a little off, as the trip back home was done with gas...

Anyway, turns out there were far more Ryan signs than I first though. I counted 14 (no, I did not count Romney signs as I couldn't count Obama signs as equivilent to Zerban ones). I was at 9 Zerban signs by the time I got to the dentist (which is about half way home). That would extrapolate to 18 for Zerban.

And I am going to ignore Wezil, who apparently wants me to die in horrible firery crash.

[Hauldren Collider]

I am astounded at the disdain some people have for patients who have "pre-existing conditions." They act and talk as if it were the patients' own fault. And, granted, in many cases that may be true.

But in many other cases, it is most definitely not. A patient of mine developed type one diabetes at the age of six months. He is going to have a pre-existing condition his entire life. I have another patient who, at the age of seven years, developed an extraordinarily rare form of bone cancer. Assuming she manages to survive the disease (and treatment), she too will always have a pre-existing condition. To say nothing of the legion of patients I see who have asthma, likely at least partially thanks to environmental pollution.

What, exactly, are these people supposed to do for health insurance once they become adults?

It's certainly a tricky issue. On one hand, it's clearly unacceptable to not have a system that can't treat patients with lifelong, chronic diseases. On the other hand, we want insurance companies to be profitable enterprises and we want them to actually be insurance. At the moment I don't have an answer for this, but I am sure we can come up with a compromise between free-market health insurance and some level of government intervention that has a) less intervention than we have now, which by the way, ALSO completely ****s over people with these sorts of conditions and b) is a hell of a lot more efficient than both our current system and Obamacare.

[Wezil]

Don - You should have taken a sign (flag) counter with you.

[Ben Kenobi]

And I am going to ignore Wezil, who apparently wants me to die in horrible firery crash.

It's funny how compassion is an 'informed ability' for liberals.

[Barnabas]

Ben, I think healhcare is one of the few things the State should get involved in, you can't just let poor people die because they can't afford private healthcare.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, I think healhcare is one of the few things the State should get involved in, you can't just let poor people die because they can't afford private healthcare.

Which is why Catholic charities exist to take care of these people at the cost of the people who are willing to donate money to fund them. Most of the hospitals in the US were built by charities that were designed for this purpose.

Barnabas - if people value it they will pay for it. If you think that carrying healthcare insurance is an essential part of your life, great. You pay for yourself and those that you care about.

If you don't you accept the consequences.

What tends to happen is that some people don't care *enough* to pay for their own healthcare and then they whine and expect everyone else to carry their load. Do you really want me to send *you* my bill for medical and tell you that you have to pay?

[Kidlicious]

What, exactly, are these people supposed to do for health insurance once they become adults?

Pay higher premiums that account for the risk or save money. No point complaining about how the world's not fair.

Then we will expect you to pay your share and not complain anymore.

[Ben Kenobi]

Then we will expect you to pay your share and not complain anymore.

Ahh, right. So if we all pay our 'fair share', everything will be ok.

Give me a dollar amount for what you believe is fair.

[Kidlicious]

Ahh, right. So if we all pay our 'fair share', everything will be ok.

Give me a dollar amount for what you believe is fair.

Do you also think life shouldn't be fair? Then you shouldn't complain about how much you get taxed either, so why should I give you a dollar amount?

[giblets]

What, exactly, are these people supposed to do for health insurance once they become adults?

Pay higher premiums that account for the risk or save money. No point complaining about how the world's not fair.

Yeah, and if rich people are asked to pay 70% of their income in taxes to pay for the public welfare, no point in them complaining about how the world's not fair.

[Aeson]

Insurance is to mitigate risk. Pre-existing conditions are not risk. We should not force companies in the business of providing financial instruments to also be charities.

If you are dealing with universal coverage you are dealing with risk as to who is going to be born with what (if any) conditions. There aren't actually "pre-existing conditions" since everyone is insured from before the time they are conceived.

If you're poor and can't afford health care, we have something called "welfare." There's also medicaid, but that's essentially a form of welfare.

It still has to be paid for. In addition to the additional costs incurred because of the inefficiencies in running two (or actually, several) different systems.

If you are what we call "middle class" then by definition you do not require state assistance, or require the state to force companies to assist you on its behalf.

True ... if we downgrade any of them who couldn't get insurance because of a pre-existing condition to "bankrupt" after the first hospital stay. Then they aren't "middle class" anymore and can go on welfare. Not really the type of solution we should be looking to promote though ...

[MrFun]

I can't believe reggy thinks middle class people can afford hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.

[Hauldren Collider]

At some level rich people are going to have more access to medical care than poor people. That's inevitable.

[Uncle Sparky]

If Romney Wins the Presidency... Joe the Plumber will have the NYC subway system drained and running within a week.
If Romney Wins the Presidency... Church groups will rebuild the east coast of the US to resemble Jerusalem (with fewer Jews and Infidels).

[kentonio]

Oh wow, the lying sack of **** is carrying on his campaign of releasing fundementally dishonest campaign videos just before the election.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2045877.html

Guess if you can lie to the public and win, that's all good right?