Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Say what you want about Obamacare 27
At least it's brought back into focus a conversation everybody should have with their doctor, young or old. And that's without even passing.
Why would you NOT want your doctor to know your wishes surrounding end-of-life care? Are you afraid he'll try to push you into doctor-assisted suicide? Are you that weak-willed?
Oh, and when you're old and already have dementia, or when you come in with major brain damage or a broken neck, it's too late to have the discussion.
Ok, so maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to do to have an Oregonian put forth this Amendment, and a majority liberal one at that. And it was sure stupid *NOT* to include a clause, like they did with abortion, forbidding insurance companies from using government subsidies to pay for euthanasia. But at least it got us talking- and if it means a few more people fill out an "advance directive" or a "power of attorney" or a "living will" (depending on the state, laws on this differ, as do the names for it) then it's worth the hassle.
P.S. for you gays out there bugging us for same sex marriage- 99% of what you want out of marriage can be gained simply by granting your partner power of attorney in case of accident or disease. Just saying that might be a better option than calling the rest of society bigots for not allowing you to get married.
You raise some good points.... (Score:2)
... but rushing headlong into passing an amount of legislation that could not be properly analyzed and understood in months or years will cause way more problems than it solves and is completely indefensible.
"Sure, I'll take care of your termite problem, just let me load up the old flamethrower here..."
There are plenty of things they could do that are simple, straightforward and would be effective (and some of them might actually be in this elephantine bill), or at least not make things worse, which is bett
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"but rushing headlong into passing an amount of legislation that could not be properly analyzed and understood in months or years will cause way more problems than it solves and is completely indefensible."
I may be unusual in this, but I was able to read the Wyden bill, with ammendments, in a weekend. It's not much bigger than The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and much less complex.
"But they are insisting on shanghaiing the system by overwhelming us with so much legislation we'll never figure out what they ar
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I'm with you on this to an extent.
Legislation is written with wide margins, double-spaced, and decently big type. I was reading a draft of the climate bill for the House, which was right around 1000 pages. I'd say that in a real, serious book with normal style</subjective opinion> those 1000 pages would condense to around 250
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Well, I'm all for reform and I think the language in that cybersecurity bill is too vague in that section, soooo....
But, there's your problem. This isn't the cybersecurity bill. The people opposing the health care reform legislation are just fear-mongering and lying. They're not saying "well, geez, this is awfully vag
Saw this (Score:1)
Saw this this morning
http://cagle.com/working/090811/bagley.jpg [cagle.com]
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Yeah, good point.
I'll reserve my judgement until I actually get something to read.
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http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/AAHCA09001xml.pdf [house.gov] in its full 1018 page glory.
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The scary thing about those quotes- is all of them could easily happen in the private insurance industry- medicare exists because they cut off people at age 65 as being unprofitable, a baby with Downs will only have insurance if his parent's employer's plan covers families (many don't anymore) , Stephen Hawking being primarily a researcher/author and not an employee would not be able to get insurance int he United States at all, and Glen Beck should know that when his daughter is cut off at 23, her CP will
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"Just imagine if Terri Schiavo had filed an advance directive instructing her doctors that she wanted to be kept alive no matter what. No ambiguity, no husband to put words in her mouth in her absence."
Or even the opposite- she would never have become a household name, it would all have just been handled quietly.
"... but I suspect that if she had made out a living will, she (and a large chunk of the rest of the population) wouldn't have instructed the doctors to keep her alive as a vegetable, sucking money
Only Three Words For ObamaCare (Score:2)
I for one would love to see an honest discussion about initiating a single-payer national health care system in this country. Unfortunately no such discussion is occurring at this time. It has been stated repeatedly, it is off the table.
I'll repeat that - it won't happen in this legislation.
There will be no government take over of health care. There will be no government beaurocrat making health care decisions. There will be no government panel deciding who lives and dies.
Instead.
Gay Marriage (Score:2)
P.S. for you gays out there bugging us for same sex marriage- 99% of what you want out of marriage can be gained simply by granting your partner power of attorney in case of accident or disease. Just saying that might be a better option than calling the rest of society bigots for not allowing you to get married.
That is not correct, and you should know better.
The big stumbling block is the IRS and State taxes that give tangible economic benefits to "married filing jointly". That and benefits provided by employers to employees and their "spouse".
If you're cool with companies providing benefits to any selected "partner", not just a spouse, then that is a step forward. The final step would be to get the gov't out of marriage totally and not grant ANY civil marriage. Remove the tax issues and have people file indivi
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The big stumbling block is the IRS and State taxes that give tangible economic benefits to "married filing jointly". That and benefits provided by employers to employees and their "spouse".
Both of which can legally be gained in Oregon by declaring one partner "Head of Household" and filing mutual power-of-attorney agreements.
If you're cool with companies providing benefits to any selected "partner", not just a spouse, then that is a step forward.
After hearing some of the ar
madness (Score:1)
A disinformation campaign is twisting a crucial health-care reform idea that has strong bipartisan support
FYI, in general Liberals might not be the best source of correct interpretation of Conservatives' words and actions. Just go ahead and ask us directly. I promise we'll tell you how we *really* feel.
There is no twisting here, on the Right, and here's why: No one's objecting to end-of-life discussions, what we're afraid of is these *in combination* with refusing treatments to the elderly (towards controll
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FYI, in general Liberals might not be the best source of correct interpretation of Conservatives' words and actions. Just go ahead and ask us directly. I promise we'll tell you how we *really* feel.
Then why all the lies? Why twist a simple requirement to talk to your doctor about a living will into mandatory euthanasia for the elderly?
There is no twisting here, on the Right, and here's why: No one's objecting to end-of-life discussions, what we're afraid of is these *in combination
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No one I've heard from has talked about any euthanizing of the elderly. On the Right or the Left. (Well, on the Left, it has been talked about by radical elements of that side, in the past.) If anyone's actually talking euthanasia amongst the Right, it's about as fringe as the "birthers".
What the other 99% of us on the Right are talking about is that we fear that govt. f
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No one I've heard from has talked about any euthanizing of the elderly. On the Right or the Left. (Well, on the Left, it has been talked about by radical elements of that side, in the past.) If anyone's actually talking euthanasia amongst the Right, it's about as fringe as the "birthers".
I'll agree it's as fringe as the Birthers- but it's also over 50% of the people showing up at the town hall meetings around the country. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said that the 'Republican approach to health car
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I don't know about those percentages or that it's precisely about what you say it's due to, but certainly generally within people who are moved to actually demonstrate, there will be some who are doing it for overblown reasons. I think that's always been the case. And insofar as
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This is changing the subject slightly, since we're talking about the elderly, and they're largely not in private insurance but Medicare, and that program is going broke even faster than Social Security we're told, so the "far more reason" to deny services is on the govt. side.
But if the program goes broke, then they can go to the voters with a *reason to raise taxes*. It's better for the program to go broke than to cut costs, because it increases the power under their control.
And (
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It has to be modulated, to not draw too much attention from the sleepwalking American sheeple. So they have to do a balance of raising taxes and denying care, so that not too much of either is done as to incur outrage at any levels that might actually be threatening to their power. Even dictators have to pander somewhat to the people, to ensure continuance of power.
Except, effectively, for an entity where you just take it on faith that it won'
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Except, effectively, for an entity where you just take it on faith that it won't shirk its duty.
There's an easy answer to that- court martial and execution by firing squad.
I can see that you have a real problem with nuance.
Yes, you know that I'm autistic. Nuance isn't a part of my life.
don't know how to put this nicely, but you are the enemy as much as those you oppose. One speaks like the free market is nothing to fear, and the problem is all in govt.,
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I.E.- Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. I want to note that you just called them the enemy....
They *are* the enemy when/if they speak about the free market like there's nothing to fear about it. Rush does go too far in faith in the free market as generally harmless. And that's dangerous to America(n middle class). Prolly same for Sarah. Glenn is less Republican and more populist than the other two, and like me speaks like he puts free individuals over a free market.
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They *are* the enemy when/if they speak about the free market like there's nothing to fear about it. Rush does go too far in faith in the free market as generally harmless. And that's dangerous to America(n middle class). Prolly same for Sarah. Glenn is less Republican and more populist than the other two, and like me speaks like he puts free individuals over a free market.
Until, of course, push comes to shove and Glenn's insurance and drug company advertisers are in trouble- then Health Care Refor
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What you cannot see is that this whole proposal was never about health care. Or reform for that matter. If you could see, you could look at what's going on with the floating of the trial balloon of dropping the public option. Liberals are having a fit over that, and saying that without that, then forget the whole thing. It's not been about health care, or reform, ever, it's always been and only been about the power grab. Without that, they don't care, they don't want it.
But intellectually you stick your fin
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Actually, I'm for the Co-ops; they're small, and finally pay doctors a salary instead of by the procedure.
"You'll never understand that there are a lot of us who would and will never give in and become like that."
And yet, Glenn was repeating *exactly* the same lies as everybody else in the insurance industry camp. Why was that, if he hadn't have sold out to that camp?
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You and I and most ordinary citizens are for *several* reforms. Collectives where individuals could buy in at group rates. De-coupling health insurance from employment. Doctors being paid for hours worked like the rest of us and not procedures ordered. Too bad we're not going to get any of that, because:
1) The Republican party typically does not care much about domestic policy. And rightly so, as the po