Topic: new health care bill

[Jake]

Considering that the actual bill hasn't been passed yet, you can't really comment on it because no one knows what'll actually be in the bill.

fak, I thought the bill passed. So wtf was all the hoopla about making sure it will pass on Christmas Eve? I wonder how much longer it will be.

There's enough information about the bills available to discuss it even though they haven't been merged, though. It sounds like it will be much closer to the Senate's than the House's, since the House should be able to pass anything that the Senate passes.

axon, my impression is that it won't help you much. You have health care already through an employer. The costs for premiums won't be going down, and with these bills it's unlikely that rise in cost will slow down much either. Unless you get sick with a serious disease it shouldn't really affect you.

Now, if your wife decides to leave her job and you don't have adequate health insurance through your job for the family, then this bill might affect you. It would probably make it easier for you to find insurance on your own, and could make it cheaper with subsidies for you depending on your income (which are available for families with up to almost $90,000 in yearly earnings).

And of course, if you or your wife stops your insurance, then gets sick, you'll be able to get insurance again without being denied for the pre-existing condition. Or if you get sick while you have insurance, the insurance company will no longer be able to drop you.

But mostly this bill helps the lower-middle class folks that don't have insurance, and those with pre-existing conditions that are getting denied.

Oh, and the public option was one attempt to really slow the rising costs which would affect everybody, but I highly doubt that it will be in the final bill. There are other things the Senate has that are similar but probably won't help "us" (the middle and upper-middle class) as much.

thanks for that Charlie. I didn't think this bill will help people in my situation. Then again, there is a huge stigma about going on public aid for healthcare...look how many people do it...why shouldn't we participate and make our life a little easier?

Somebody needs to kill ....

Goood one ROD. thanks for contributing to the discussion.

[Govtcheez]

> So wtf was all the hoopla about making sure it will pass on Christmas Eve?

The bill passed the Senate on Christmas Eve, after it had already passed the House.  The bills are not the same, so they have to be reconciled before Obama signs it and makes it a law

[charlie]

> That's one of the ideas, but I'm not sure it's been shown to really save a lot of money in the long term.

How wouldn't it?  Instead of taking ambulance rides to the emergency room because they have chronic problems, they can have the problems addressed beforehand.  Obviously the preventative cure part of it costs money, but I'm sure it's a lot cheaper than repeated ambulance visits, not to mention not tying up ambulances and emergency room doctors for people who shouldn't need emergency care.

I think the thinking is that the number of additional preventative care expenditures will be very large, while the number of expensive procedures avoided would be small. One million times $100 is the same as one hundred times $1,000,000. I honestly don't know what the reality of that question is though. It very well could have been partisan research on one side or the other that tried to play up or down the savings. I just have a vague recollection of it not being as obvious as it sounds at first glance.

[Jake]

So I guess after all this hoopla we'll probably end up with nothing that is much different from today....the ambitious plans are going right down the toilet. Way to go!

I blame micah.

[charlie]

Yeah, that was kinda out of the blue. You can see why Obama wanted it done quickly- by the end of last year. Anything can happen.

I think they should pass the Senate bill in the House and immediately pass a bunch of corrections they would have made in the combined bill anyway. That doesn't look as likely as it should be, though. The other option being discussed is to try to create new, smaller bills with the important parts separated out and pass them one at a time, but that doesn't make sense to me because they're all interconnected and it would be really bad to do some things without others.

[Jake]

I'm still holding my breath though...I hope that something does change - for the better that is.

[Steve]

We have bigger problems then healthcare.

[KnuckleBuckett]

We have bigger problems then healthcare.

than not then

I am no grammar nazi, but that is easy to remember.

[micah]

I find that one difficult to remember, only in the last year or so even trying to remember the difference.

my best memory device is the letter 'E' in "THEN" which is also in the word "time" -- as the word "then" generally refers to things happening in a time line. 

I still haven't figured out a good way to remember it's and its

[charlie]

I find that one difficult to remember, only in the last year or so even trying to remember the difference.

my best memory device is the letter 'E' in "THEN" which is also in the word "time" -- as the word "then" generally refers to things happening in a time line. 

We diverted a whole thread talking about that one before.

I still haven't figured out a good way to remember it's and its

If you remember that the apostrophe is placed where a letter or letters are removed, then you should be able to figure it out:

Do not --> Donot --> Don't
I am --> Iam --> I'm
Until --> 'til
It was --> Itwas --> 'twas
It is --> Itis --> It's

[jkim]

I want to create a new contraction There're.

[Steve]

I find that one difficult to remember, only in the last year or so even trying to remember the difference.

[charlie]

There're a lot of contractions that'd be great if people'd start typing 'em like they're speaking 'em.

[Mike]

than = comparison
x is greater than y
I am cooler than RoD

[Mike]

I still haven't figured out a good way to remember it's and its

As charlie pointed out it's is a contraction of it is and its is the possessive of it.  Took me a while to get it down and what I had to do was to read the sentence without the contraction to see if it made sense.