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 Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:36 am
I can't speak for all of the other belief systems out there but the US Catholic Bishops are not too happy with the house democrats and their healthcare plan and I think the biggest reason for that is over the issue of abortion. The stance of the Catholic Church on abortion is that it is a morally heinous act to take the life of the unborn and now there is this bill that might be passed where those who think that abortion is morally wrong will be forced to help pay for it (on the public plan).
So who's on the right side here?
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 1:00 pm
I'm not sure if I disagree with it or agree with it. I don't know enough about the whole healthcare bill to even form a decent opinion on it. From what little I do know about it, I don't think it's a good idea. I'm not sure how the General Authorities in my church feel, except I am pretty sure they feel the same way the Catholic Bishops do about the abortion part.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 1:24 pm
I don't believe in abortion nor should the public pay for it. I do believe that everyone should be afforded the right to health care.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 2:40 pm
Shadows-shine I'm not sure if I disagree with it or agree with it. I don't know enough about the whole healthcare bill to even form a decent opinion on it. From what little I do know about it, I don't think it's a good idea. I'm not sure how the General Authorities in my church feel, except I am pretty sure they feel the same way the Catholic Bishops do about the abortion part. I'm not sure I know enough about it either. I've been trying to follow it but it seems so complicated and the government isn't helping much in trying to clarify things. My problem is where do you draw the line? With universal healthcare should we be able to decide what medical procedures it covers based on our own moral objections? I mean, it is our money but on the other hand it seems like that would open things up to a lot more complications. Personally I don't know what's right or not in this case. I'm pro-life on the abortion issue but that also includes a concern for the wealth fare of the woman. Anyway, I know a lot of people have strong feelings on this but I'm not sure what the right answer is.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:28 pm
I have a friend who works for an Insurance company and is finishing her master's in Health Care Admin. I thought she would be a good person to ask about this topic. When I asked her what she thought about it, she respond by asking me if I was asking her personally or from the standpoint of a Health Insurance profesional. I said both.
Her response as a Health Insurance insurance professional was that her industry didn't care for it one bit. When she answered from a personal standpoint she said it was a good idea and she supported it 100%. I thought that was interesting and an observation I hoped to share with all of you on this topic.
I'm not too savy on the specifics, but I did hear the topic of abortion mentioned on the radio the other day regarding this Health Care Reform Bill. It was mentioned that an amendment is being introduced to the House version of the bill addressing abortion because the original bill makes no mention of it. The amendment would make the Bill abortion nuetral. Abortion would not be required to be offered or covered in any version of government health care.
If I hear more and if anything I hear makes sense I'll be sure to share with all of you.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:32 pm
I don't know enough about it, but what I do know makes my skin crawl.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:47 pm
O-Henro Sama I have a friend who works for an Insurance company and is finishing her master's in Health Care Admin. I thought she would be a good person to ask about this topic. When I asked her what she thought about it, she respond by asking me if I was asking her personally or from the standpoint of a Health Insurance profesional. I said both. Her response as a Health Insurance insurance professional was that her industry didn't care for it one bit. When she answered from a personal standpoint she said it was a good idea and she supported it 100%. I thought that was interesting and an observation I hoped to share with all of you on this topic. I'm not too savy on the specifics, but I did hear the topic of abortion mentioned on the radio the other day regarding this Health Care Reform Bill. It was mentioned that an amendment is being introduced to the House version of the bill addressing abortion because the original bill makes no mention of it. The amendment would make the Bill abortion nuetral. Abortion would not be required to be offered or covered in any version of government health care. If I hear more and if anything I hear makes sense I'll be sure to share with all of you. That's interesting. Thanks for sharing what your friend said, it's good to hear about it from their prospective and yeah it's hard to see how this could turn out well for health insurance providers. I did see something about how the government was working on making it abortion neutral, I'll have to go back and find the article I was reading but the Catholic Bishops still think that by default people will end having to pay for it through taxes if they go with the public plan. You might be right though, I'll have to look into this more.
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Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2009 8:03 pm
First of all we are already paying for abortions with our tax dollars. The very first bill Obama signed when he was in office the very first day was to lift the tariff placed by Bush to help fund abortions in Africa and European Nations. This bill which he lifted was rejected by Gerald Ford and made into act by Carter, rejected by Reagan and Bush Sr., lifted by Clinton and rejected by Bush. See the pattern?
The Healthcare bill(s) of which there are five are first of all written worse than any other bill I have ever read in my life. It makes no sense whatsoever and is so garbled that if it is in enacted in its current state would cause more loss of federal money just to tend to the bureaucratic letters and symbols in the bill in courts, its a joke and a half.
Second, the bill does not mention abortions at all. The problem is abortion is being avoided because in its current writ, an abortion is a common procedure which will be required to be performed if requested. So as long as aboritons are considered by definition as a common procedure, it is going to be required as a way to end the issue and make it mandatory in practice. This is the evil of this bill, let alone how the bill will enact a nation to take two steps backwards in its successes.
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Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 10:34 pm
I don't think the goverment should be taking over so much to be honest. And we are paying to kill a baby in Africa? Nuh uh no way. We pay enough taxes as it is, and abortion (These are my beliefs, its ok if yours are different!) is killing an innocent life. I do not support this thing
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:28 am
I'm pro-child pro-choice (I believe a woman has every right to choose, and would personally choose to keep a child, barring rape babies or life-threatening conditions; and ectopic pregnancy, for example, will kill both child and mother, no exceptions.)
From what I understand, the bill itself hasn't actually been written -- not in a final draft, anyway. There are propositions of what should go on it, but no actual bill.
Re: abortion on the bill: It isn't going to make anyong get an abortion. From what I'm hearing described, it means that a woman who decides she needs an abortion will be able to get one without resorting to potentially toxic or dangerous methods. My main reason for being pro-choice is that someone who wants an abortion will get one whether or not it's legal; I'd much rather she not endanger her life by seeing someone who doesn't really know what they're doing, or by taking a poison that might kill her and the child anyway. I can understand the religious concerns, but at the same time... it's her conscience it will weigh on for the rest of her life.
I do think we need a public health option. THAT is the big issue. It isn't mandatory health care, and someone who wants to keep the plan they're on can keep it -- but there are a lot of people who either can't afford health care because insurance companies charge so much and the medical industry is pretty much unchallenged for its costs, OR there are people with pre-existing conditions (mental disabilities/illnesses; complications from major accidents, whatever) who can't get any health coverage because then the insurance company might actually have to pay for it.
It's sick, but insurance companies are a business -- they are trying to make money, not lose it. If they know that someone will risk losing them thousands of dollars because of a medical condition they already know about, they won't agree to insure that person.
There are also a lot of situations where people who don't have any money can't bring themselves or their child into the doctor's office until the 'cold' they had been suffering turns into some full-blown, life-threatening illness that could have been averted if they'd just gone in a little sooner.
This doesn't even go into broke college students. sweatdrop Seriously, a bunch of twentysomethings who are terribly accident prone need whatever health coverage they can get.
Something a lot of people forget in this argument is just how many people don't make enough to afford health insurance. It's easy to say you're completely against the idea when you can pay for your own medical bills -- but there are a lot of people who are desperately in need of help and aren't getting it. Of course they're going to turn to their government for assistance. A government system that allows its people to suffer isn't a very good system.
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 10:36 am
This thread has caused me to go ahead and do some research on the topic, and at this point, I see some things that can be adjusted on the bill. One thing is that taxes need to be applied to things that cause much of hospital expenses. CNN A government-sponsored study recently estimated that medical spending for obesity reached $147 billion in 2008, almost doubling in the past decade. It’s not surprising. About 32 percent of American adults are obese CNN How about smoking? Almost 21 percent of American adults are addicted to cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s more than 45 million people. The estimated health care costs pegged to smoking: $96 billion. About.com While fewer Americans light up every day, smoking-related deaths still costs the nation about $92 billion a year in the form of lost productivity, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data, covering the years 1997-2001, represented a $10 billion increase in productivity losses during the years 1995-1999. Marininstitute.org Twenty-five to forty percent of all patients in U.S. general hospital beds (not in maternity or intensive care) are being treated for complications of alcohol-related problems. Marininstitute.org Untreated alcohol problems waste an estimated $184.6 billion dollars per year in health care, business and criminal justice costs, and cause more than 100,000 deaths. http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/health_care_costs.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/medicalnews/a/smokingcosts.htm http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/10/obesity-smoking-add-immense-burdens-to-health-care-costs/ My point is that smoking, alcohol, fast food, they all cost the government money. If we are to provide universal health care, taxes need to be placed on the items that put people in hospitals and take up health care money. The health care bill also causes a risk that the quality of health care may decrease. Whenever government does something, they are about efficient as a monkey with an abacus. Doctors would be payed less and there would less worry about malpractice and would get away with a lot more. However, the positives far outweigh the negatives. About 45 Million People are uninsured. This number is debatable but even having 30 million is too much, that's close to 10% of America without insurance. While a hospital cannot refuse treatment because a person has no insurance, many Americans avoid visiting to avoid bills that they can't afford. With unemployment rising, this number can be expected to rise within the next few years or even months. Health care is an important thing that we cannot do without, we can't just leave the poor to die. A universal, government run health care will cause insurance companies to drop their prices, to compete with government. The government can cause much needed competition. The cost of providing insurance right now is destroying small business. Small businesses must either cut health benefits or worker pay. A universal health care will allow smaller businesses to thrive. And lastly, many call this bill an elderly euthanasia plan. It is true that Obama plans to cut spending in before death treatment, aka hospice. There is no euthanasia panel that many buy into to, people merely fear ridiculous things. Point being, I would rather have an elderly person die a few days earlier then have a middle aged or young person die due to a lack of insurance. It is a nice thing to do but money should come from the dying person's family. It's a fruitless endeavor, the person is going to die regardless, why bury money with them. All in all, I would say that universal health care system would do more good then harm, the biggest problem being American capitalist beliefs. Good or not, Americans will refuse socialism simply because it is socialistic.
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 12:24 pm
VivoDePyre This thread has caused me to go ahead and do some research on the topic, and at this point, I see some things that can be adjusted on the bill. One thing is that taxes need to be applied to things that cause much of hospital expenses. CNN A government-sponsored study recently estimated that medical spending for obesity reached $147 billion in 2008, almost doubling in the past decade. It’s not surprising. About 32 percent of American adults are obese CNN How about smoking? Almost 21 percent of American adults are addicted to cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s more than 45 million people. The estimated health care costs pegged to smoking: $96 billion. About.com While fewer Americans light up every day, smoking-related deaths still costs the nation about $92 billion a year in the form of lost productivity, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The data, covering the years 1997-2001, represented a $10 billion increase in productivity losses during the years 1995-1999. Marininstitute.org Twenty-five to forty percent of all patients in U.S. general hospital beds (not in maternity or intensive care) are being treated for complications of alcohol-related problems. Marininstitute.org Untreated alcohol problems waste an estimated $184.6 billion dollars per year in health care, business and criminal justice costs, and cause more than 100,000 deaths. http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/health_care_costs.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/medicalnews/a/smokingcosts.htm http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/10/obesity-smoking-add-immense-burdens-to-health-care-costs/ My point is that smoking, alcohol, fast food, they all cost the government money. If we are to provide universal health care, taxes need to be placed on the items that put people in hospitals and take up health care money. The health care bill also causes a risk that the quality of health care may decrease. Whenever government does something, they are about efficient as a monkey with an abacus. Doctors would be payed less and there would less worry about malpractice and would get away with a lot more. However, the positives far outweigh the negatives. About 45 Million People are uninsured. This number is debatable but even having 30 million is too much, that's close to 10% of America without insurance. While a hospital cannot refuse treatment because a person has no insurance, many Americans avoid visiting to avoid bills that they can't afford. With unemployment rising, this number can be expected to rise within the next few years or even months. Health care is an important thing that we cannot do without, we can't just leave the poor to die. A universal, government run health care will cause insurance companies to drop their prices, to compete with government. The government can cause much needed competition. The cost of providing insurance right now is destroying small business. Small businesses must either cut health benefits or worker pay. A universal health care will allow smaller businesses to thrive. And lastly, many call this bill an elderly euthanasia plan. It is true that Obama plans to cut spending in before death treatment, aka hospice. There is no euthanasia panel that many buy into to, people merely fear ridiculous things. Point being, I would rather have an elderly person die a few days earlier then have a middle aged or young person die due to a lack of insurance. It is a nice thing to do but money should come from the dying person's family. It's a fruitless endeavor, the person is going to die regardless, why bury money with them. All in all, I would say that universal health care system would do more good then harm, the biggest problem being American capitalist beliefs. Good or not, Americans will refuse socialism simply because it is socialistic. Wow lots of facts there!
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:44 pm
I noticed in the headlines to today some thing about Obama changing his mind on the health care plan...I didn't read the full article, but I will see if I can find it and post it here. EDIT: Here is the article I was talking about
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Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 8:52 pm
Separation of church and state. Just because a religious group doesn't like a bill doesn't mean it should be passed.
I know someone with moderate psoriasis and psoriatic Arthritis who can't afford health care. It covered 3% of their body two years ago, now it covers 10% of it and if they don't get health care soon it'll just get worse and worse. Really terrible stuff. They have a steady source of income and still can't afford to get treatment. I think people like them should be able to get some sort of health care without having to pay 1.2 grand a month.
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 4:53 pm
If it's a private hospital, I don't see why they'd be forced to do an abortion anyway, they won't be funded so they won't have to follow that plan. There will still be insurance for those who want better health care.
How I see it:
It's like being given the option between a free old crappy car, and a more expensive luxury car. Yeah, you have to pay for one, but either way you can get where you need to go.
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