Are you happy the Health Care Reform Bill passed?

[larry kremis]

 It's way too soon to celebrate. Every legislator who voted for it is hoping and praying that he/she was right. I'm hoping and praying they were right too.

 

Only time will tell.

[Dazzling Zoomer Gal Diana]

I quite understand you Powergirl. I lived in Canada for more than 32 years, and I - nor anyone else that I know - had anywhere near the problems most Americans have had to deal with under their current system. One can not fully understand what one does not have if one has never experienced it.

I also maintain that if I'm paying taxes, and I'm a citizen I have a voice and the right to try and affect change.

[Powergirl]

Exactly Di.
Don't oppose only because someone told you something you have never experienced and or have no poof for...
Communism, Stalinism, Socialism... don't trow words you don't know the meaning of and never lived in....
Finally somebody is trying to do something that is long time overdue, may be just may be if we give it a support and help to be improved instead of sabotaging we all will gain from it.
May be, just may be if all the money thrown in wars for killing were invested in the health care and education we wouldn't be worry about how to pay for it now, would we?
I am out of here...I am praying to God to give our leaders the strong will, clear heart and wise vision for our good

[Dazzling Zoomer Gal Diana]

Ditto. I too pray that we can remain the most enlightened and forward thinking country on earth, for as we lead, so are we followed. We can only remain a great nation, if we 1st and foremost, take proper care of our own.

[larry kremis]

Powergirl and Diana? You gave me a little more hope. Thanks.

[larry kremis]

A great contribution to this debate Chuck. Thanks. More to ponder.

[Dallas]

Lawsuits and "defensive medicine" account for about 2-3% of health care costs. So much for The Lawsuit Abuse Magic Bullet. Click here to read more.

Any lawyer who kept filing baseless suits would soon get his/her bar card yanked. I've seen it happen. Just because a verdict does not go your way, that doesn't mean there was not a legitimate dispute. That's why we have trials, to determine facts. If you don't like jury trials, you may wish to check out Russia, they have great "tort reform" there.

Plaintiffs face pre-trial dismissal, mandatory negotiation, depositions and many other hurdles long before they ever have a prayer of getting a case to a trial court. Now you want to punish someone for asserting their right - granted in the U.S. Constitution, no less - to a trial? It's hard to take you seriously when you say things like that.

How about we turn your wish on its head?

If I sue you, and I win, you have to pay me three times my actual damages. The jury awards me $126,000? I get $378,000! After all, you were an evil person who knew you were at fault, and yet you tried to string poor me out, hoping I would go broke pursuing justice.

Do you see how crazy that sounds?

Read up on civil procedure. There are about a jillion rules that keep people from unjustly enriching themselves via a tort action.

[Dallas]

Your troubles were real, and I'm sorry you had them. If you felt the jab, it was not me poking fun at your troubles.

I was taking exception to your saying that the only thing between us and lower health care costs is a bunch of evil plaintiff's lawyers. The facts just don't back that claim up, as studies like the one I cited in my link attest.

You started out saying, "...Affordable health care can be found as a result of REFORMING criteria needed to file a lawsuit, and to penalize, THREE FOLD, parties that file suits and lose. ..." Now you've backed off a bit to, "I stick by my statement that REFORMING criteria needed to file a lawsuit is a very important part of Health Reform. ... " Which is it: a "result" or a "part"?

I apologize for saying it's hard to take you seriously. I should have said, "It's hard to take that idea seriously", because that is what I meant. Please accept my apology for the personal tone of that remark; I should write more carefully.

The "see how crazy that sounds" was a rhetorical question directed at my own absurd example, not your statement. I even started off by saying I was turning your idea on its head.

As for suggesting that you read up on civil procedure, what's wrong with that? Athletes lift weights. Debaters read books. Both are getting ready for a contest.

I am not singling you out, I am singling your idea out. "Unprovoked" in the personal sense, true enough, but there's nothing personal about this. You presented it in a public forum as your opinion. That is your privilege. I have the privilege of opposing your idea.

In my opinion, it would be a shame if TBD were to degenerate into a bunch of acrid PMs flying back and forth in the dark. If people have different opinions, by all means let them post away out here in the sunshine! Like you and every other fair-minded person, I don't want any public discussion to turn into vile personal attacks.

However, if you are going to post extreme opinions like your "loser pays 3X" idea, you have to expect some pretty tough opposition to such opinions. Nothing personal.

By the way, if my son had been your lawyer, Texaco would still be wondering what hit them.

[Dallas]

When I got out of the service at twenty-three, I vowed to be ready for whatever came my way. I paid through the nose for life, medical and disability insurance. As a GI Bill student with a part-time job, it was not easy, but my wife and child deserved no less.

After school I switched over to company life and medical, but I kept the disability I had first purchased at twenty-three, since as long as I kept it I could never be refused a five-year renewal, albeit at a slightly higher rate each renewal time - fair enough, I thought. There were no luxuries and an occasional close scrape with necessities in the first few years after school. My oldest child remembers those days.

I was in a car wreck in my forties. After thirty days the disability kicked in, and I received 80% of my salary for five months. I rehabbed OK, and that was that. By then I had three children, and they all remember those days. They learned well.

Recently my youngest daughter called and said she's moving in with two other girls, because she can't be on my insurance past her next birthday, and she's shopping policies right now. That's my girl.

The future belongs to those who hear it coming.

[Dallas]

I wish her well, she sounds like a great mom! I'm sorry her knee problems are coming back.

I have a friend who tackled a similar problem in his late twenties by buying a high-deductible policy after arm surgery. There was a two-year exclusion on the arm, but he played the odds and won. Five years after the surgery, more problems arose with the arm. He was covered after paying $4,000 out-of-pocket. That meant no used or new car for six years, but he made it. It is not easy.

If I could tell every kid in America one thing, it would be, "Do not wait around for someone to help you. Start right now while you're very young, and do whatever it takes - learn something in college, trade school, life, wherever - that will allow you to get your own medical and disability insurance. Cut expenses, go without things you want , because unless you do, you will never have what you need."

Her friends used to think my youngest daughter was hopelessly uncool, but when her best friend's car broke down, my daughter pulled $600-some-odd out of savings to fix it for her. All of a sudden, she was cool.

[Powergirl]

Dallas, my daughter graduated from college last year. Of course my insurance dropped her off right a way, she was already having problems with her pancreas. She could not find any health insurance, even willing to pay high cost for unbelievable deductibles and her employer could not offer her any either...
Thank God S Korea has universal health care, she already told me that she is not coming back here...

[Dallas]

You have made an impassioned articulate comment here, and I hope I do half as well in my reply to it.

To characterize those who, like me, have their doubts as being shackled by fear implies that we lack the character to embrace truth at any cost. That is not true. I am often fearful, but I still face things, including the danger I see in this legislation.

My step-mother was an Ob/Gyn RN for over thirty years. I never heard her cackling with glee at the riches she was amassing from the evil system whose market segmentation tactics made it all possible. Maybe I had my stereo up too loud.

I'm with you on the hard work and saving to get those golf clubs (and I'm not even a golfer). I just happen to think we can all apply the same hard work and brainpower buying buying our own health insurance. It has worked for me.

As I've stated elsewhere, I support the notion of caring for persons struck with illness or injury before they are old enough to buy their own insurance.

[Whiny Old Bastard]

I find it ironic that this bill will be signed into law on the anniversary of Patrick Henrys famous Give Me Liberty speech.
http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/henry-liberty.html