Reflections on Healthcare « Vinoth Ramachandra

Most of us non-Americans are naturally nonplussed at the fury that Barak Obama’s health care reform bill has unleashed. It perplexes us that so many suburban American Christians who do not care one iota about a trillion-dollar military budget, and wax eloquently about being zealously ”pro-life”, are now indignant about their state spending public funds to make the poor Americans more equal to them when it comes to receiving medical treatment and enjoying good health! Please, could some Republican party Christian explain these anomalies to the rest of the Body of Christ around the world?
via vinothramachandra.wordpress.com

Quickly becoming a favorite read. Almost done with his "Subverting Global Myths" published by IVP which is an excellent read on the world from the perspective of a Sri Lankan pastor.

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I can list a couple of anomalies. too much trust/dependency on gov't, treatment is already free for the basics of good health, irresponsible stewardship of gov't (debts), Gov't expansion, it pays for murder....should i go on?

All joy can be had at any economical state or any physical status in life.

— JD
so it still doesn't explain why they think going trillions of dollars into debt because of bogus wars is a good thing but depriving millions of access to affordable health care isn't? as far as "free treatments for the basics" what do you say when you do everything right and inexplicably get cancer? If gov't expansion isn't something you are interested in why are you voting republican? It's been years since small gov was an issue for them. They have exploded gov't since Reagan. And the Hyde amendment prevents federal funds from funding "murder" (there is also that sticky point here -- research shows that universal health care equals an immediate drop in abortions. Take South Africa for example, which has a public/private mix (where the public is available to all)...in one years time it dropped from 50% to 3%. Most economies with universal health care rate hovers around 10. The US rate is 22.5. Meanwhile we do nothing to change that. None of the last republican presidents have done squat. No headway is going to be made on that issue til you deal with the underlying causes -- poverty, access to healthcare, etc.

It's still funny that Christians everywhere else in the world are for access to healthcare for everyone but the US will have none of it.

— Brandon Jones
Whether or not bogus wars, your not justifying by pointing fingers at other debt piling. I'm all for living within our means in all areas of govt.

There are ways to get treatment even if you don't have the insurance - in fact if your poor there is govt asstnce. Anything life threatening is always treated. Also, a behemoth govt healthcare complex is not needed to simply reform healthcare in order for the insurers to accept preexisting conditions and to lower premiums. It can be done with simple reform. Can you not just reform??? Instead the govt wants to be The Health Insurer by making it impossible for any insurer to exist. We all know govt cannot run a business well, less efficiently. So why get into the business of it???

The only two parties we can choose from want to expand govt, so you can't win either way. That's why i'm leaning libertarian now.

The exec. order is not law and it won't be upheld in the courts if contested (its a lame duck). There will be a way around it.

I agree about poverty being an issue with abortion rates but healthcare will not address the general needs of a baby/child outside of health. Which means people will still have abortions for the same economic reason. Also, if money was the single issue - then adoption would be very prevalent, there are big lines to adopt a child. The issue is, people just don't want the child. period. and they will get money to do it from the govt. WRONG!

— JD
Perhaps not justifying, but consider this proposal is actually deficit neutral whereas the chief agenda items for the repubs has been deficit overwhelming, well,...

Anything life threatening is treatable only to a point -- and YOU bare the brunt of that expense. It's one of the reasons health care in the US is so dang expensive. If they had health care to begin with it wouldn't be NEARLY the expense it is. And I don't think you have any understanding of this bill by the rest of your comments. That's what this bill does (fairly straight forward reform, apart from the mandate that people obtain PRIVATE insurance). There isn't any public option. It isn't single payer. Medicare/caid isn't vastly expanded. It's actually almost identical to the plan the repubs pushed in the mid 90s (which is hilarious that they "hate" now -- goes to show that it's more disagreeing with the other side on everything than trying to do any good).

As to the exec order, again, you are showing your ignorance. I don't even ever mention the exec order above because it's for all intents and purposes meaningless. The hyde amendment, however, is law and it prevents federal funds from being used to fund abortion. The exec order re-asserts that the hyde is in effect (something we already knew).

Frankly, this conversation isn't going to go anywhere if you are just going to use republican talking points and I'm likely not to respond.

— Brandon Jones
I'll add a ps -- sorry for the grumpiness -- it's been a long day.
— Brandon Jones
From what I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong) the Hyde amdmt is not law but merely long used verbiage that is placed in bills so those laws enacted or fed programs do not provide abortion funds. Was the Hyde amdmt not in the 2nd house bill until the pres ordered it to be acknowledged along with the health bill? Further why would it be such a big deal to Stupak until Obama struck a deal with him? Obviously there were details he knew of where the bill would provide funds through "holes" (i.e. health exchanges). Also, abortion rights orgs ( NARAL) were critical of Obama signing the order.

If you can provide me a "neutral" stance source for information about the health bill it would be much appreciated so I won't be ignorant...

— JD
Hyde is law -- a "rider" i believe they call it, essentially a yearly amendment. It's passed yearly (has been since the mid 70s and applies to all funds going towards Health and Human Services issues (which includes the stuff the mexico city policy "covered").

The exec order was "showmanship" for Stupak to be able to vote for the bill while saving face with the pro-life crowd -- it asserts what was already known -- that Hyde applies. The health exchange and what not are PRIVATE not public. They can do whatever the hell they want (I use that term literally -- the vast majority of private insurers cover abortion and as we'd both agree there might not be a clearer picture of abortion than hell). That's why the republicans where paying for their employees to have abortion coverage for the last 15 years -- it's private and most of the companies do it cuz it makes them money. The abortion rights folks are of course going to be upset at the exec order -- it's acknowledging that pro-life (specifically babies here) is a value to lots of people still; they see it as Obama giving in.

Where it will become tricky is if the public option ever gets back on the table -- they were scheming to get around hyde via having those using the option "buy in" with a few bucks/month that would cover "reproductive rights" universally -- so it would be public option money and not federal monies.

As to neutral sources of info...good luck finding. Everything is ridiculously polarized right now. I'm working on past knowledge from when I read through Hyde, etc in the last couple of years trying to sort things out.

One that might be of interest:

"And indeed, this is exactly the case. Obama's plan closely mirrors three proposals that have attracted the support of Republicans who reside within their party's mainstream: The first is the 1993 Senate Republican health plan, which is compared with Obama's plan here, with the similarity endorsed by former Republican Senator Dave Durenberger here. The second is the Bipartisan Policy Center plan, endorsed by Bob Dole, Howard baker, George Mitchell and Tom Daschle, which is compared to Obama's plan here. And the third, of course, is Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan, which was crafted by the same economist who helped create Obama's plan, and which is rhetorically indistinguishable from Obama's. (The main difference are that Obama's plan cuts Medicare and imposes numerous other cost-saving measures -- which is to say, attempting to craft a national version of Romney's plan would result in something substantially more liberal than Obama's proposal.)"

From here: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/obamas-moderate-health-care-plan (the rest of it is well worth a read)

It's liberal leaning but supposedly respected by conservatives (and has had them writing and editing for it, including Andrew Sullivan).

Here's a blow by blow comparison of Obama's plan to the '93 Republican plan: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Graphics/2010/022310-Bill-comparison.aspx

— Brandon
Also, here: http://www.patrolmag.com/sessions/2013/federally-funded-abortions-are-not-on-... (Patrol is a Christian based web mag). It gives two link worth checking out. One is audio that I can't listen to cuz of my connection so your mileage may vary with it; its supposedly more detailed though.

(This one just randomly came up in my newsfeed :) )

— Brandon