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twotap
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This should be good.  Hey Mike heres that healthcare plan you wanted.
Senate proposals put premium on healthy living
Bills could put workers under pressure to lose weight, stop smoking
By David S. Hilzenrath
updated 9:18 p.m. ET, Thurs., Oct . 15, 2009
Get in shape or pay a price.
That's a message more Americans could hear if the health care reform bills passed by the Senate Finance and Health committees become law.
By more than doubling the maximum rewards and penalties that companies can apply to employees who flunk medical evaluations, the bills could put workers under intense financial pressure to lose weight, stop smoking or even lower their cholesterol. |
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"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:18 am |
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Elias12
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| What I think I oppose most about the idea of"Universal Health Care" is the fat czars , smoking czar, the physical fitness czars . I love to be physically fit, I walk daily, ride a bike in the summer, work out with some weights in the winter so I am fully convinced of the benefits of doing these things. What I am leary about is now pushing a govermental beaurcrat into having oversight into everyone else life . I loathe any government attempts to look after me and take care of me. I am adult, I make my own choices and don't expect people to be my parental figures . And Mr Bankert an Domet have not allied my fears about the funding for Universal coverage and Mr Bankert, I am not not certain it isn't all about me, if it concerns me and my health care I am looking out for myself, sorry I am not so charitable as to care about others but I am selfish . Nobidy has ever looked after my concerns other than my parents when I was younger and they are both gone. So I am on my own and I slap away the hand of the nanny state. Leave me alone and I will take care of mysefl, I don't need or want the nanny state to take care of me, With their coverage comes their ownership. And that, dear gentlemen Domet and Bankert, I can do without. |
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You fool all the people all the time,if you control the press. By pass the "offical channels" and see what is really going. |
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 3:29 pm |
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Domet
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Since you addressed me, Elias12, I suppose I should at least respond.
Everybody is obviously entitled to their opinions with regards to universal health care. Your concerns, however, I find are a little confusing. In what part of a universal health care system does the Federal Government take ownership of your body? It's a voluntary system - in Michigan, an employer can make you quit smoking, can fire you for not loosing weight - can fire you for being gay. If the private sector can have control over aspects of your life for "voluntarily" working somewhere, how does the government creating incentives for loosing weight and quitting smoking make them own anybody?
Obesity is related to any number of health problems, and so is smoking. They aren't passing laws which make it illegal to be obese or smoke, they are making them pay for their fair share of the economic burden, that's all. Many private insurance companies already charge extra for people who are overweight or smoke, why is it wrong for universal health care to have the same value system? Everybody entering it is not equal - people who lead unhealthy lives when they are more than capable of leading much healthier ones should not be required to pay the same amounts as people who eat well and do their best to maintain a healthy life style. I shouldn't pay more for insurance to prop up somebody else's life style. That's the choice private insurers have made, and I have no problem with the US Govnt making the same decision.
As for assuaging your fears - all I can say is.. that's not my job. I still have my own concerns regarding paying for UHC. However, the Congressional Budget Office has been rating the reform positively, indicating that it is shown to be paid for, otherwise they would change their rating of it. While that doesn't make me feel 100% good about it, it does convince me that there are some things about the bill and its funding I may not have a firm grasp on. At the very least, it makes me feel a little better. |
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Lack of support for your assertions does not make you a sage, it just makes the rest of us doubt your reasoning skills. - Elias12, Flint Talk Poster |
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 3:59 pm |
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Elias12
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| Domet, I agree with you on one point, why should I pay for people's lifestyle choices? Do you really think that their choices are going to be forced to be changed with them having to pay higher insurance premiums under a Universal system? I doubt it very seriously. As always the whiney bleeding hearts wil come to rescue and demonize the people who balk at paying more for others out of their meager wages and salaries. It would be a great world if everyone tried to pull their own weight( no pun intended) and try to avoid being a burden to others but let's be realistic, in this country it doesn't happen under the current way of dishing out health care, and it sure isn't likey to change when health care will be considered as an entitlement. And whatever the Congressional Budget Office says does not make me rest easier, sorry. Have they ever been really accurate or honest? I am asking, not dismissing them, I just don't know what level of accuracy and veracity this body operates with. I am in agreement that the current way of doing things is not good. I see that things have to change. Many of the ideas I have heard tossed around about trying to lower costs sound like they are worthy of further investigation and perhaps developed. But I also think we should cut monies to foriegn countries, we should scale back where our military is deployed around the globe , and all other spending we do abroad should be re-examined and either affirmed as being worthwhile or discontinued. I want all excess expenditures trimmed and trimmed again,I want all funding to be microscopically examined and explained before we attempt this serious overhaul. And the logistics behind all this is daunting, I realize that, as well as it should be. The lives of 300 million + people are at stake. Sorry to be a buzz kill but I am not a person who is satisfied with emotional appeals alone. I know the situation for many people here is dire. But as Ayn Rand once wrote, "life is not meant to be lived in a lifeboat" , we have to make sure any action we take is not going to put more people into the water and no rescue ships in sight. |
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You fool all the people all the time,if you control the press. By pass the "offical channels" and see what is really going. |
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 6:39 pm |
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Domet
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quote:
Elias12 schreef:
But as Ayn Rand once wrote, "life is not meant to be lived in a lifeboat" , we have to make sure any action we take is not going to put more people into the water and no rescue ships in sight.
Have you read a lot of Rand? I have always wanted to get into some of her reading, but never really had the chance. My reading list is about to be clear here in a month, and I might as well dive into something stimulating. Any suggestions regarding her work?
quote:
Elias12 schreef:
Do you really think that their choices are going to be forced to be changed with them having to pay higher insurance premiums under a Universal system?
No, I don't - but that is related to the point I was trying to make, which is you wouldn't be paying for their lifestyle choices, they would. The additional money unhealthy people cost the medical system is something that you wouldn't be required to pay for, they would be paying for it through higher costs, just as people going through private insurers pay for their lifestyle choices through high premiums, etc.
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Elias12 schreef:
Have they [CBO] ever been really accurate or honest?
Fair question. The CBO, to be perfectly honest, has a sterling record in terms of economic forecasts. Their advising committee is made up of economists from multiple schools/private organizations, mixed with liberal and conservative persons. Historically speaking they very regularly produce numbers similar or nearly the same to Blue Chips, an analysis of private industry predictors. If you have any time or are interested, you can read up about them
here.
The link is a publication put out by CBO looking at their accuracy and biases in an attempt to streamline their operations and do their jobs better. They present their study in relation to other industry standards, checking their numbers against others. This style of study helps clarify how reliable they are and, because of this, I am inclined to listen to what they have to say more often than not.
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Elias12 schreef:
But I also think we should cut monies to foriegn countries, we should scale back where our military is deployed around the globe , and all other spending we do abroad should be re-examined and either affirmed as being worthwhile or discontinued
I am with you on cutting expenditures. Personally, I don't think we need a military which costs $600b to run with an education department with a budget <$100b. The problem, however, is endemic to the US political machine. Much of our spending in the world is related to the spread of economic liberalization, pushed forward strongly during the Reagan years. When the US reduces spending on the world stage, there are a lot of things to consider, which you rightly point out is a daunting task.
I am not making an emotional appeal to you and I am unlikely to do so. I don't think decisions should be made based in emotional pleas - research, empirical observation, understanding and explanation logically/rationally are necessary to convince me of almost anything. I am not going to ask you, "Do you want people to die?!" because that question is a logical fallacy and has no place in this conversation. I assume that you don't want people to die, because I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I have faith you are a good person, and like you I am not wholly convinced that UHC is entirely fund-able. The arguments for UHC, however, outside of emotional appeal, make be think that it's a system we need. Despite this, I would like to see it put into place sustainably. Without sustainability being present, I have a lot of concerns. Most of what I have seen, however, tells me that UHC is pretty sustainable, I'm just waiting to see the details. |
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Lack of support for your assertions does not make you a sage, it just makes the rest of us doubt your reasoning skills. - Elias12, Flint Talk Poster |
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:58 pm |
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Elias12
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Domet, I would say of Ayn Rand's work I would really recommend is CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEA for her more serious and easy to read ( straightfoward) showing of how Capitalism is seriously misunderstood. Her novels are thick but seldom boring ( except a 30 page speech in ATLAS SHRUGGED) , ATLAS SHRUGGED ,for me is one of the best celebrations for defending the ideas of individuality (albeit, sometimes overly -dramtic) I have ever read. I am not a huge Ayn Rand follower , I just think she makes a great defense of many ideas that this country was founded upon that I think most Americans today either ignore or aren't aware of.
As for the health care debate, I am not being critcal out of pettiness, which I think you are aware of. I am just very reluctant to sign on to something without knowing more about how it is going to impact personal liberties, the budget and financial fronts and how it is going to be implented and how soon. I see so many issues off the top of my head that I want to slow down the whole process just to make sure that we aren't going to be creating a worse situation for people 20 years down the road to have to deal with. In the book ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON I think it was the "rule of thumb" was that the difference between a good economic plan or a bad one is how far it tries to anticipate what may happen down the road 25 years. I think that is a good place to start. I just don't want to see arrogant politicans seeking to get elected or re-elected wreaking havoc with things just to get more votes. So I will elect to appear like Scrooge instead of Santa. But then I am not seeking office. |
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You fool all the people all the time,if you control the press. By pass the "offical channels" and see what is really going. |
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Sat Oct 17, 2009 9:02 pm |
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