Gary Blodgett is a nice guy….really a genuinely nice guy…but in his piece in today’s Globe he’s putting you under the ether, and he’s done that same thing for years.
Listen; you do not have to have a medical degree to understand what you have and don’t have. First, either you have health insurance or you don’t. That is an easy question. What about a drug plan…again you either have a drug plan or you don’t. That’s another easy question….you see this is easy.
If you’re under 26 you can stay on your parents insurance plan, under the new proposal; that equates to saving money. Under your current plan, no pre-existing conditions are allowed…like breathing. Under the new plan they are allowed. Under the new plan there is no doughnut hole; mine is $350.00 a year. As time passes more advantages for the public will emerge, that is for certain.
They say this is a tax; some say it’s a penalty; this is what I say. If you smoke just one pack of cigarettes a day at an approximate cost of $5.00 a pack, that comes to $150.00 a month or around $1,800.00 a year. If you can come up with that five dollar bill each day then you can afford to kick in that same amount to help defray you own medical needs. It is not a tax and it is not a penalty, it’s a moral obligation to stop leaching off society.
This is about money and big insurance; nothing else. Today the insurance companies dictate what they will and what they will not pay for; under the new plan that will not happen. Remember Ma Bell? She at one time owned all the telephones in the entire country. In effect you rented your phone from her….then one day, a day a lot like today, the government said, “you people have to dissolve this practice because in effect you are operating a monopoly. The result was a lot of “baby bells,” or smaller independent companies that could be more competitive in pricing. Now most phone plans allow you to talk all month to anywhere in the country regardless of time used for no more than thirty dollars a month. I used to pay $1,800.00 a month, about $20,000.00 a year and I have the records to prove it.
This new insurance plan is in it’s infancy, it’s just trying to get a footing in this vast multi-billion dollar health care system that has been run much the same as Ma Bell ran her ship many years ago. To make it easier to understand; think of big insurance in this country much the same as the Assad family in Syria. Bashar Assad’s father was a brutal dictator who ran Syria with an iron fist for decades, until he died, now his son Bashar who in real life is a dentist, has been following his father’s footsteps, and he wants it to continue for his son as well. Now tens of thousands are paying with their very lives for change which will rid this brutal dictatorship and make their life much better. In this country we just vote for a better life, and this new healthcare plan will do just that, but it won’t happen overnight.
Big insurance in this country mirrors the Assad family in Syria; that should make it simple enough to understand without a lot of nine dollar words……
Peter Children
I have never saw this one before Mr Children its pretty good, tho and thank you for doing this.
Did you know in the VA system you cannot sue your healthcare provider? Interesting. Does anyone know if Obamacare will have the same provision?
The answer to your question is,
NO you cannot sue under Obamacare because in the verbiage it spells out that because this is Government mandated health care, the Government says what the services are that you receive and is paid for through the government, you can only file a grievance to be reviewed by a committee appointed by the President to judge your concerns.
“Manitoba health care sucks and I’m sure we’re headed for the same lousy system.”
I think we are too.
A chap I know in B.C. has been telling me the lines are starting to get longer again for certain procedures because of budget cuts.
When you get sick, the objective is to get well; little else matters.
Mr Children you are out to lunch on this one. First of all, Gary Blodgett is a total asshole. I know him and he is an arrogant ass.
On the subject of Obamacare: you are nuts.
If you’re under 26 you can stay on your parents insurance plan under the new proposal. That equates to costing families more money. Under your current plan, no pre-existing conditions are allowed…like breathing. Under the new plan they are allowed. Under the new plan there is no doughnut hole; mine is $350.00 a year. As time passes more advantages for the public will emerge, that is for certain.
Why should parents be forced to pay for adult offspring’s health care? At age 26 they should be paying their own way for everything, including health care. This is an insane law and yet another tax on families. Nothing is free. Ever!
The Republicans wanted to eliminate pre-existing conditions too, but the Democrats wouldn’t let them because they wanted a to use it in this health care/welfare.
Your donut hole is a bunch of BS. Most plans have a deductible we all have to pay ($350.00 is cheap) before our benefits kick in.
You say, “It is not a tax and it is not a penalty, it’s a moral obligation to stop leaching off society.”
Well, taking $500 billion away from Medicare and giving it o kuckledraggers is leaching off the taxpayers.
By the way, when Ma Bell was broke up our phone bills tripled
You are dead wrong about the insurance companies dictating what Doctors will treat. They do restrict what they will pay for. When insurance companies do that to me I shop for an insurance company with better benefits. We can’t shop under Obamacare’s new welfare. Now it is your Government that is dictating what we receive for health care. In it’s infancy, government healthcare/welfare is a disaster and we are already paying higher premiums.
Mr. Children you are soooooooo wrong on this one and have obviously drank too much of the cool-aid.
The Daily Caller reports (http://tinyurl.com/6tw5pu2) 83% of the nation’s physicians have contemplated quitting their jobs due to the pending Obamacare regulations. That alone should be telling.
Regarding the Ma-Bell/Baby Bell illustration: The year, 1995, I was living in New Richmond, WI. Frontier was our telephone service, which had a long-distance switching facility in the town. The FCC came in and told Frontier they had to RAISE the monthly subscription fee for land-lines above their standard $3.95 per month (THAT’S RIGHT, $3.95) so that other companies could come in an compete! HUH? “We’re from the government and we’re here to help you…” outta more of MY MONEY!
CL Tel had to raise their land line fees because of government orders this past year or two as well. Manitoba health care sucks and I’m sure we’re headed for the same lousy system.
Trucker Dave
Just where else are these doctors going to make the kind of money they are making now. Quit; I don’t think so. Not now not ever.
I wish this bill was just about health care.. I really do.. but it is more about more of our tax money for the government to blow.. tell me what the new sales tax on the sale of your home has to do with health care.. I do agree there is a lot of ground for improvement… but this is way beyond trying to improve healthcare. And what about the Government boards that will be approving or not approving procedures / the care that we get… they can’t run a post office or mortgage company without huge losses and mismanagement… sorry.. I DON’T WANT THEM ANY WHERE NEAR MY HEALTH CARE!!!
One of your best, Peter. Couldn’t have been said much better. Who knows? It may even get Todd B. to start blogging on NIT! (But do we want that??)
Matt-what is going on with the CAPTCHA code’s? 50% of the time I can’t post comments and have to start all over.
LVS: I’ve had problems with the captcha code when someone else is trying to post comments at the same time I am. I’ve learned to copy my comments before I try to send them. That way I can just paste them in again when I try to resend.
Larry, I apologize for this glitch. I know it is an extra step, but if you COPY your entire comment before sending it, that will ensure that if the comment form doesn’t post it, you will still be able to PASTE it back in and try to send it again. The error is due to the high traffic on the site, not the captcha code, my server administrators tell me. They are now saying NIT may need its own standalone servers to handle the traffic.
Thanks for the response Matt.
If that is true, why the same stale comment streams? High traffic presumably would bring diversity, of which there is little. Put a counter up. Show your hand.