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Watching this just made my blood boil...

I can't view that clip. What was it about?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/07/i-object-tom-price-tries_n_349587.html

I agree.. made my blood boil when it passed too...

Yes fair debate indeed... Check this asshole out..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywgUCdefSW8

Lol the Republican doesn't even know the rules... the Democrat had to remind him!

1/5th not 1/6th!

And after the bullshit the Republicans did earlier in the video I posted, I don't blame the chair for telling them basically to shut the fuck up.

Fuck those assholes, They got what they deserve.

Once people start getting health care and realizing how great the bill was, people will lean even more towards voting for the Democrats. The Republicans do nothing but shout people down and then wonder why people vote for everything they are against.

how great the bill was

Have you read it?

"Democrats voted for the bill and a Republican voted for the bill. That equals bipartisan," Pelosi said later.

Cute.

More like people will eventually realize that all politicians are full of shit and then elect me Great Supreme Ruler of Everything!™

I am pretty convinced its all a charade at this point. They only needed 1 Republican, so only 1 Republican would vote for it. They only needed 220 Democrats, so 39 Democrats would be allowed to vote against it.

The Senate still has to pass there version of the bill and if that passes, then both houses have to hash there two bills, to make one overall bill to pass for the president to sign. I think thats how it all comes down.
So who knows what the final bill will even look like in the end.

The Senate still has to pass there version of the bill and if that passes, then both houses have to hash there two bills, to make one overall bill to pass for the president to sign. I think thats how it all comes down.
So who knows what the final bill will even look like in the end.

It will probably be the governmental version of the platypus, which is nothing more but a beaver built by a committee. Lots of " I will vote yes if you tack on this rider or ammendment" etc etc until its some gelatious mass akin to Tetsuo at the end of "Akira". Perhaps its all just a stall tactic to assure that the country is actually out of recession and able to pay for it....or enough time for Republicans to complete the initiative's deathknell and create a lame duck President. Jimmy Carter 2.0. Who knows. One can be assured the usual pundits are having a field day with this.

There was a poll running on one of the news stations. I think it was CNN International but it seemed like it was trolling a bit. More or less it was:

Q) Has Obama lived up to expectations?
Yes/No

For me he has. I was not expecting much in reality. No water into wine. Lead into gold. Being handed a steaming pile of shit by the opposition party and then offered...well, not much aid in undoing means slow progress. If he makes any headway at all is enough for me. This healthcare thing will take a while and if it fails...its over for Obama. It could mean a rally for the GOP. Republicans take back the legislative branch in 2010. Obama is out in 2012 if the GOP finds a strong runner. Pendulum swings back the other way. Then it will be the Democrats sitting with arms crossed. With the country almost 50/50 split down idealogical lines, it means more years of ineffective partisanship dominated politics and poo flinging until some cataclysm or a true messiah of a President can unit both sides of the aisle. Last time it took the constant threat of nuclear war and countering the Soviets to make us all get along and WWII before that. For now it all depends if the GOP is more concerned about destroying Obama than repairing the Healthcare system. Is it even in the GOPs best interest to repair the Healthcare system or is the Darwinian model good enough?

It just goes to show that even the best intentioned politician cannot resist the pressure that is big money/lobbyists/corporations that really run this banana republic. Please try not to pretend that its a party issue. The entire party system is in place to give us a team to identify with and cheer on. It has no relevance to what the candidate will actually do, once elected and then exposed to the money/lobby machine.

I am a registered republican. I voted for Obama because I was fed up with the gop. Now I am dissappointed in him. Mr Smith (Obama) goes to washington is a fantasy....

Well, what is better than?

How about a military Junta? Benevolent computer matrix? King/Shik/Czar/Emperor/Grand Poobah? Euro-Socialism? What?

I live in China. They make plenty of money. Lots of advances etc etc. Shiney new cars on shiney new highways. Shiney new airports full of shiney new jets. Shiney new buildings taller than most anywhere (if you can see past the polluted air) full of shiney new yuppies tapping away on shiney new Blackberries tucked in the shiney new pockets of their shiney new suits. If that is all that is required as the true metric than what kind of government you have doesn't mean squat as long as there are opportunities, right? Too bad China has not had a shiney new original thought for quite a shiney new fucking long time.

Its a soul-less antfarm where there is not much in the way of freedom to be had. The government is as corrupt as any. Only more oppressive. They still make floods of cash even with all the officials skimming off the till and by golly they can make a decision in a New York Minute. We want a 160 story office building and new waterfront convention center. Oh wait? People live there and business are already there? Fuck'em. Kick em out. Kill em if you have to! We need that tower to prove our dicks are not as small as the cliche suggests! At least in the States we can tell them to fuck off when they screw up and have some what of a voice to keep them from just steam rolling over whoever they want whenever they want. Sometimes it works. Many times it does not. Eventually when the Chinese get rich enough, the corporate overlords will win in China too. Same with India and every other emerging global power.

So piss on and all over democracy and screw Sinocommicapitalism too.

There is always going to be a ruling class and there is always going to be subjects. As long as we live in the era of The Golden Rule, Ye who has the gold still makes the rules and will continue to do so until someone comes up with the next great idea of governance to be later spoiled by the usual suspects. All governments start off with a good idea. All you need to do in order to ruin it is add more money and also add more people. More people means more chaos which means more rules and more rules means more blurring and more blurring means more loopholes to collect even more money from all those people who are too busy creating chaos and therefore are paying little to know heed to their obvious fleecing. China keeps people in line by oppression and working them into the ground. India has their caste system. The EU tries to be everyone's Mommy and Daddy and making a safety net. The USA tries to keep people in check by offering opportunity to control as much of their own decision making as what is within reason. Well, the top took too much from the bottom and now we have what we have.

Which is still much better than most places.

/rant off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wauh96g7AeU

Oh my San! Here I thought everything the gov'y did for us would be sooo nice. gosh.

I didn't watch the video yet, But I think I know what it is about.

If you do not make it mandatory for people to have health insurance, then we will still be paying extra for people after the cost of care is already much higher cause they are in the emergency room.

If everyone has it, just as Car Insurance keeps you as a driver protected, so will health insurance keep you as a taxpayer safe. Cost of care when preventative is much lower then life saving care.

I didn't watch the video yet, But I think I know what it is about.

If you do not make it mandatory for people to have health insurance, then we will still be paying extra for people after the cost of care is already much higher cause they are in the emergency room.

If everyone has it, just as Car Insurance keeps you as a driver protected, so will health insurance keep you as a taxpayer safe. Cost of care when preventative is much lower then life saving care.

This has been the crux of most of the argument, I think.

We make car insurance mandatory so that everyone will have some protection in the case of an accident. Health insurance should be no different; everyone should have some protection in the case of illness/accident.

Of course, my premiums for car insurance have continued rising at a ridiculous rate due to "other people's" accidents and poor behavior. Will this be the same case with health insurance premiums, now?

The car insurance comparison only goes so far as people are forced to utilize health insurance frequently, as opposed to in an accident or when stopped by the police. And frankly, it's almost unimaginable that the premiums can rise any faster than they already are without bankrupting half the country.

More than 100% of middle and working class wage increases have been siphoned off by health insurance in the last ten years. Unless your car insurance has gone up 50% or so since 2000, I doubt it's keeping pace. Hell, my car insurance has been steadily dropping the last few years, both for the car with USAA and the bike with State Farm.

People would probably be less worked up about the idea if it were handled more like car insurance. Empowering the IRS to be even more invasive is guaranteed to upset people.

Using the IRS as the monitoring entity is stupid too. A large portion of the current uninsured drain on the hospital funding comes from illegals who don't pay taxes anyway. You'd think they could just set HHS up to certify this stuff in 1,990 pages of legislation.

If they're going to go to these lengths only to half ass it (at our expense and inconvenience), they should just go for universal healthcare already.

Other than the IRS enforcement option and fines if you do not have or have not, which is another thing entirely. The only other thing I dont like is that it is still state law driven. Vs fed mandated for all.

We all have to have it. but we all do not get it equally is my point. If your state insurance laws are not as good as the next state and so on. For coverage limitations ect

just my 2copper

I'm idly curious if our health care infrastructure will be able to handle the increased load when a huge number of people that didnt have insurance below now are paying for it, and will (understandably) want to get their money's worth. It's already an overloaded system as is, I cant imagine what it'll be like after this goes into effect.


Also Bylimet - you're already paying increasing rates due to other people. In fact, a good portion (I'm not saying majority, so dont anyone jump down my throat) of the increasing rates is due to illegals getting health care in the states (my mother rants about this all the time - she works for the health care system in Arizona).

I'm idly curious if our health care infrastructure will be able to handle the increased load when a huge number of people that didnt have insurance below now are paying for it, and will (understandably) want to get their money's worth. It's already an overloaded system as is, I cant imagine what it'll be like after this goes into effect.


Also Bylimet - you're already paying increasing rates due to other people. In fact, a good portion (I'm not saying majority, so dont anyone jump down my throat) of the increasing rates is due to illegals getting health care in the states (my mother rants about this all the time - she works for the health care system in Arizona).

I don't recall the source, but I did once hear, or was told, that health care premiums would be about 1/3 of what they are now if everyone had to have insurance, due to the increase in monies flowing into the insurance companies. Now that we are looking at that prospect, I will be very surprised if the insurance industry reduces anyone's premiums; more likely they will simply provide themselves with bigger paychecks and bonuses.

But hey, I'm just saying....maybe it is just me.

That is where the public option comes into play - that would/should level the playing field. I didn't follow if that made it into the House bill or not, however.

*edit* yes the public option was in the passed bill. Also, to calm Sanchek down, subsidy for families who make less than $88,000 a year - so we won't be putting the poor in jail for not paying their fines for being uninsured. We'll just be punishing those too lazy to get coverage who ultimately would end up costing their fellow citizens when they go to the hospital, etc.

I don't recall the source, but I did once hear, or was told, that health care premiums would be about 1/3 of what they are now if everyone had to have insurance, due to the increase in monies flowing into the insurance companies. Now that we are looking at that prospect, I will be very surprised if the insurance industry reduces anyone's premiums; more likely they will simply provide themselves with bigger paychecks and bonuses.

But hey, I'm just saying....maybe it is just me.
Totally agree with you there. It would take a subsequent act of congress to actually get the premiums to go down after all this goes through. And that is unlikely given how much money the health care lobby can throw at congress (the numbers I've read on how much they've thrown at this current health care reform debate is really... scary).

IF the public option survives to the final bill, and it's a true competitor to the private sector companies, then the premiums might go down naturally. Somehow, I just have a feeling the public option is going to be sabotaged or otherwise stupidly implemented such that it isnt a viable option.

The House bill does have a lot of language in it about controlling costs, preventing recision, forbidding denial for absurd pre-existing conditions (like domestic violence), etc. It's all very open-ended, giving subjective, ultimate power over the industry to the Secretary of HHS from what I could tell while skimming over it.

Everyone should absolutely take a few minutes to gloss over these bills and understand what's actually being proposed. Most of the politicians a) probably don't understand everything in it themselves and b) aren't going to give you an objective representation of it anyway.

A couple annoying things I noticed when I was reading over it (and I've only had time to look at about 1/4 of it) include nine $300,000 grants for Indian mental health education programs (really?!) and an implication that insurance companies will have to provide materials in Spanish to participate in the "marketplace".

Everyone should absolutely take a few minutes to gloss over these bills and understand what's actually being proposed. Most of the politicians a) probably don't understand everything in it themselves and b) aren't going to give you an objective representation of it anyway.
What do you mean? They wouldnt lie to us - we'd vote them out of office if they did, obviously.

On an unrelated note, the death panels that Palin is talking about has me concerned. I really think they definitely should reconsider that section of the bill.

What do you mean? They wouldnt lie to us - we'd vote them out of office if they did, obviously.

On an unrelated note, the death panels that Palin is talking about has me concerned. I really think they definitely should reconsider that section of the bill.

Please tell me you are joking...

/SIGH

Now to copy paste something from my Facebook cause I addressed this today already..

Palin made the "death panel" charge explicitly in a Facebook post the following day. "We had been told there were no "death panels" in the bill either," she wrote. "But look closely at the provision mandating bureaucratic panels that will be calling the shots regarding who will receive government health care."

"Bureaucratic panels" already call the shots regarding who will and who won't receive health care, Mrs. Palin. They're called insurance companies, and their health care rationing decisions are driven by one consideration only -- what's profitable for the corporation and its interests. Care to campaign against insurance companies, Mrs. Palin? - Jedd Corpse

Jedd, re-read what I quoted, and exactly what I said in my reply.

Apparently my sarcasm was too subtle... I thought I was being pretty obvious though. /shrug

I thought GWB solved all of this when his response was to just go to the emergency room if you don't have insurance? Sheesh, all this argument...

I'm idly curious if our health care infrastructure will be able to handle the increased load when a huge number of people that didnt have insurance below now are paying for it, and will (understandably) want to get their money's worth. It's already an overloaded system as is, I cant imagine what it'll be like after this goes into effect.





I think that is a misconception, although I can't speak for other places I can speak from my own experiences as well as some professional knowledge. The reason some places seem overloaded is b/c many uninsured folks visit ERs as though they were clinics b/c they will be treated regardless of it they can pay for the services or not.

The hope is that if folks have insurance they will use the proper channels rather than sit in the ER for a cold for 4hrs. We have a few "urgent" care clinics and have even been offering a free transportation service from the hospital ERs to these clinics for anyone wishing to be seen there. We've had to explain that the same/costs/rules apply so everyone will still be seen. It's helped some but frigging H1N1 caused us to rework the flow. Our current wait times.... 7 mins to be triaged, 16min from triage to room/bed. Pretty good for us :) But the patient load is minimal atm.

I once sat in our ER for 15hrs with my niece when she was threatening to kill herself. There were no beds/rooms so we stayed in the waiting room and it was full :( This was before we opened the other clinics and offered the bus service between clinics..... I imagine now it'd be better... that super sucked :(


Ooooh also apparently Obama is tossing out some bucks for EHR, something we already have but we continually improve and try to integrate with other health systems with....it will be a big help to have full integration like the military does? I know when I was at WACH oooooh almost 8yrs ago now the big push was to implement a world wide EHR for service members so they wouldn't have to cart around their med record between duty stations. It was close to being implemented when I left I assume it happened but don't know for sure. It's an interesting concept but makes for large databases!

The problem with EHR, is there isn't a set standard for them. I use one program for our inpatient records when I'm working the floor, and another program for outpatient when I get stuck working in the gym. They don't talk between each other either :(

It at least helps with getting better care a little bit though, because nobody has to decipher scribbled notes, and the communication is faster between departments. But again, sometimes they can't even see the notes, we need some sort of universal format that can been read by the various programs.

^^ so very true.

I'm guessing you guys haven't incorporated some type of hand held device that allows providers to input their notes rather than type them? We implemented this a while back and it cut down on much of the guesswork. Our latest initiative is called CareAware/iAware which is a module for our CIS that makes patient room devices transmit their data to a repository that we then present to nurses stations/portals/pharmacy/etc so that all the data on certain patients is readily available. (ERs/trauma, ICUs, etc).

If you're curious...

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&source=hp&q=careaware+cerner&rlz=1R2ADBF_enUS346&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=4h38Su6AFomtlAel642OBQ&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CB0QqwQwAw#

Does the Army still use SAIC's CHCS for their CIS or have they moved on?

We have PDAs for in the field, but that only works with one system. And yes they're still using the abomination known as CHCS, and CHCS II for a lot of things.

We have PDAs for in the field, but that only works with one system. And yes they're still using the abomination known as CHCS, and CHCS II for a lot of things.

On the plus side, they have moved on from saws and poultices! :eek:

We have PDAs for in the field, but that only works with one system. And yes they're still using the abomination known as CHCS, and CHCS II for a lot of things.

=\
I feel your pain, I used to support the backend (which was old ass VMS DEC Alphas) and many of the modules in that app. I left for greener pastures before they tried to make me teach that shit to new nurses/doctors. It was a huge factor in my choice to move on :)

We're highly integrated here thank god but as I mentioned before it makes for very large databases. But that also makes us very reliant on the vendor that allows the integration.

You mentioned PDAs, our providers use these http://www.honeywellaidc.com/9900/ in addition to CoWs (computers on wheels), nurses love them. But we also have some docs using windows smart phones and iPhones now that Citrix released a client. We don't care as long as they can access our CAG or get on our VPN and can be encrypted. It has literally changed care for us, no more paper.

Yeah we had something kinda like that, but one of the mandates when they made it was it had to work on off the shelf equipment. It, when used properly was badass. However; we use so many other programs instead of that one system... /rolleyes and people want government run healthcare