The Gazette Opinion StaffOpinion Page Editor, The Gazette |
|
Email the author
Obama showed courage in health care reform
Calling the Affordable Care Act “ObamaCare” was clearly coined as a derogatory reference to health care reform. What is missed is the simple fact that President Obama truly does care.
He cares about keeping young adults insured through their parents coverage; about youngsters and adults with pre-existing conditions or those threatened to lose coverage when they need it the most; about helping people stay healthy with free preventive services; about women’s health and keeping it in women’s hands; about the elderly struggling to cover medications in the doughnut hole and the unemployed on the verge of losing health coverage for their families; about those paying more for insurance to make up for those expecting free care; about those now grumbling about the individual mandate recognizing these folks would receive better, more timely, more coordinated and less costly care when a need arises.
He cares about the economy and understands that our future relies on a healthy, capable work force.
Obama showed immense courage and vision to risk tackling health care reform, something that has evaded politicians for 70 years. Turning the clock back on this would be a huge, sad mistake. “Starting over” yields nothing. Obama cares! Show some gratitude.
Karen Drake
Iowa City
-u20042.png?1366232523)
2012 population estimates show big growth in Johnson County
Glass leaving Iowa Department of Education post
Lawmakers expected to finish work on landmark session today
Less asphalt expected in Cedar Rapids’ Westdale Mall transformation
Branstad, Iowa legislators reach health-care expansion accord
Update: Authorities find backpacks, purse in Dayton abduction case
Barrack Obama could care less about your health care. Unless you want complete destruction of the United States, massive confiscation of personal wealth, and systematic genocide you will join the other 67% of Americans that want it repealed. Twenty seven states now are suing over Obamacare. If this was such a great law it wouldn’t be sitting on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Let’s take a look at what one doctor says about Obamacare….someone who’s actually read the law.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=H1pjVN1PQ0w
yes of course,showing that obamacare is not in the best interest of the American people by using statements by just one doctor is very smart. David!
Frank 2/3′s of the American people are opposed to Obamacare and as they learn what’s in it the number increases. More than half the United States are sueing the Federal Government over the law. That’s enough to tell you it is very bad legislation.
Gary, two thirds of Americans opposed abolition, too…
If any of your family members had been declined insurance coverage due to pre-existing illness,im sure you will be campaining immensely for Obama care.
We dont live in a perfect world. David,but go back and read the arguments that were made against social security.
Thank you, Karen.
What Obama has shown is a glaring disdain for the constitutional limits placed on the federal government and his office in particular.
He has also displayed an alarming disregard for the US Supreme Court. His attack on the US Supreme Court before they announced the ruling on Obama Care was the latest outrageous display from this President.
Obama didn’t attack the Supreme Court. He simply warned of judicial activism. That is something Republicans are constantly warning about. It would seem that both parties are on the same page here.
Wait, what about the last 10 years that Republicans have been attacking courts, screaming about ‘judicial activism’ and even campaigning for a few of them to lose their jobs? I smell a hypocrite!
It’s nothing short of amusing to see the outrage over the Affordable Care Act put forth by conservatives and Republicans. Given that many of the ideas included in this far from perfect law were orginally those of the GOP (including the individual mandate), it absolutely reeks of hypocrisy for those same politicians to complain about the very ideas they once proposed.
The egregious practices of the past by health insurance companies (ie barring coverage of pre-existing conditions, lifetime premium caps) need to be reined in, and the current law is a start in that direction. It’s a far from perfect law, but going back to the way it was is not an option.
O.K….so you believe a majority of Americans, a majority of States, and a majority of doctors are all wrong.
No, I believe that the free market has been a dismal failure when it comes to health care delivery in this country, and conservatives and Republicans are turning their backs on the very ideas they once espoused because they’re now being implemented in a law passed by a Democratic President.
Conservatives and Republicans had their chance to do something about the problems within the health care delivery system prior to Obama taking office, David. They decided instead to sit on their hands, and if all or a part of the Affordable Care Act iis overtunred in June, it will be just as much a repudiation of GOP ideas as it will the act that Obama signed into law.
Lori,
Sure some republicans have supported some form of government reform of healthcare in the past however you error in clumping conservatives and republicans in the same group. I can assure you no conservative would ever support the nationalization of any sector of the economy.
Politicians of both parties have supported big government over the years for various reasons most likely to pander to the people for favor, this should not be taken by you or any person that the support of bad or unconstitutional measure is a reasonable act.
Absent some hard numbers showing otherwise Joe, I don’t buy your notion that conservatives, at least those on the hard right, are much different than many Republicans.
Let me alsol clarify what I meant, Joe:
by “conservatives and Republicans,” I was not implying that ALL conservatives are Republicans, but instead used the term to encompass all those who hold conservative ideals, no matter their political affiliation.
The free market healthcare system is a failure
because the market is not “free”. Policies in most cases can’t be sold across state lines. This is an unregulated “monopoly” by big pharma.
Giving insurance companies the ability to sell across state lines isn’t the be all end all solution many would like to think it is, David. Neither is the idea of torte reform many have also put forth.
Keep in mind David, that many Americans think that the law didn’t go far enough.
The patient in the emergency department smelled of advanced cancer. It is the smell of rotting flesh, but even more pungent. You only ever have to smell it once
…She hadn’t gone to the doctor because she had no health insurance. The only kind of work she could get in a struggling rural community was without benefits. Her coat and shoes beside the gurney were worn and her purse from another decade. She could never afford to buy it on her own.
http://http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/cancer-v-the-constitution/
Karen Drake rhymes with Rip VanWinkle – wake up Karen and spearate fact from fiction. Most would agree there are problems that need to be solved with healthcare but all Obamacare does is make it worse.
First, I believe the 2/3 numbers are no longer accurate. Poll numbers change daily and that number has been used generically for too long. If so, supporting evidence is in order. Second, and I can’t recall which program this was addressed on but will link to it when I find it, polls suggest that even though opposition to the overall health care plan is greater than support, the opposite is true when each individual aspect is considered. For instance, the majority of people support allowing parents to keep their kids on their insurance until age 26. Same is true with disallowing the ban on pre-existing conditions, etc. The individual aspects of the health care bill are favorable, but the bill as a whole is not. This leads me to believe the reason for many of those opposed to it is because so few actually know what it says and does. They just let others do their thinking for them and then spout unsupported figures to “prove” it. Much of the opposition is from those whose livelihood may be affected and they fear change. States have issues including the fear of costs, etc. Most people naturally fear change but few disagree that change is needed in our approach to health care.
Regardless, I don’t think “…complete destruction of the United States, massive confiscation of personal wealth, and systematic genocide” will result from implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act. It hasn’t so far.
Obamacare includes “Comparative Effectiveness”. Each person is assigned a dollar figure on value calculated for each year of your life. If the treatment exceeds the value of your expected lifespan you are denied treatment even if it’s life saving regardless if needed treatment is due to natural causes or an accident. All treatment is decided by an independent advisory board appointed by the president. If for example you are over 60, get a tumor, the likely outcome will be a funeral. I call that genocide. Obamacre is nothing more than a massive “tax” designed to force all Americans into a government healthcare exchange. All major corporations will drop your healthcare as a result. A middle class family of four will never be able to afford a private policy estimated between 15 -20K per year. The minimum due is 2500 dollars per year, per person, collected via the IRS. We have not experience the nightmare called Obamacare because it’s an election year and the full brunt of this diabolical blunder of excessive taxation due is not fully implemented until 2014.
Here is a link to the poll I mentioned.
http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8259.cfm
If you click on the “findings” file below the article it lays it out fairly well. According to this, virtually every aspect of the law is favorable with the exception of the individual mandate.
David, you may be interested in the last paragraph of this article. It specifically addresses your concern.