Sunday, December 20, 2009

Senate Live

Odds are that you're not watching live the vote on the health care reform bill as I am, 1 AM Washington DC time, or for that matter, would entertain the slightest notion to do so on a Saturday night. FYI, I just happened to have the tv tuned to a station that was broadcasting the vote. "The motion is agreed upon," proclaims the Senate proclaimer, for all the health insurance reform bill's humanitarian motives and lofty ambitions. The greater of jubilations is that the Senators can get ready to adjourn the final congressional session of the year and hop on the next flight back to their home states and commence their winter recess, and perhaps read the 2000-page bill that they just passed, talk about pre-existing conditions.

That said, ma fellow americans, senators are only human, who entitled to health insurance for life, are doing their bestest looking out for the welfare of the people of our great nation. WTF, the entire 40 Republican member contingent in the Senate voted against the health care reform bill. Am I incorrect in assuming that had the same bill been a Republican sponsered legislation, written word for word, 40 Republicans would then have voted, just as vehemently, in favor of it's passage. Don't get me wrong, the Democrats are no slouches in their own right either and deserve credit where credit is due especially in allowing a lone senator, Joe Libeirman, to hold the health care insurance reform bill hostage. This brooches the question, doesn't it, of whether Santa is a Democrat or Republican? See, if you're a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat, you don't get a present, and vis-a-versa. Just having some fun.

9 comments:

Brad Farless said...

Our country's political system makes me want to slap someone. These people are idiots. Regardless of whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat they should have their own opinion about a bill. There should never be a time when all vote one way or the other 'just because'. It's just stupid.

RONW said...

Brad- health care reform is a "historical" bill, so I've been told. Which means the Repubs by all means don't want the Obama administration to get the credit and will scratch and claw to scuttle the "historic" legislation. Never mind the citizens who would benefit. Meanwhile, the Dems are paranoid that what happened in the Clinton years would repeat itself, where health reform was voted down and there ensued a Repub takeover in the following elections whether that causation is accurate is debatable, so there is panic to pass the bill, even a watered down health care reform bill by Dems.

Brad Farless said...

Thanks for clearing that up a bit. It makes more sense when you explain it that way. I get the feeling that when this is all over and Americans all have health care and nothing really bad happens everyone will wonder what they were so worried about.

RONW said...

Brad- yeah, what a country.

Brad Farless said...

No kidding. It would be great if those bastard politicians would think of their constituents for a change instead of their own agendas. Here's an idea. Make a good health care bill and pass it unanimously. Show some solidarity. People will appreciate a well crafted bill and if all approve then they're more likely to accept it without freaking out like people are now.

RONW said...

Brad- what I'm wary off is that the gov't option has been dropped from the bill. The health insurance companies will have a instant windfall of 15-20 million more new subscribers under the mandatory requirements that everybody purchase health insurance, or pay a fine. The figure is actually 30 million however not everybody's gonna comply and like car insurance there's not much the gov't can do about until they stumble into an emergency. IMHO, without a gov't option, people are left to the good graces of the health care insurers insofar as the future cost of their premiums. Are health care insurers above colluding with one another....yeah, right. Btw, re-importation of drugs has been eliminated from the Senate bill, so I expect prescriptions to continue to be expensive, which represents huge victory for big pharma at somebody else's expense, naturally.

Brad Farless said...

The government really needs to be able to enforce this. The insurance sign up should be handles at the employer level to make sure all employees are covered. It should come straight from the paycheck. Also, I think people should be able to buy medicine in Canada or Mexico. It's the exact same thing at a fraction o the cost. Driving down the inflated cost of medicines should be part of that cutting unnecessary costs thing that Obama keeps talking about.

RONW said...

G' morning, Brad,

what I find intriguing about the whole health care reform debate is there hasn't been too much spotlight on the malpractice industry which adds significantly to the high cost of medicine and treatment. At least big pharma has used it as a generic rationale ad nostrum. Half the congress people must be lawyers and that might play a role in the lack of interest.

The way I heard it, is that if a doctor is successfully sued for not having prescribed a given lab test or treatment, etc., that led to the demise of a patient, then almost immediately word gets out, and all doctors start prescribing the said treatment or lab test, to avoid the same type of lawsuits, irregardless of the specific diagnosis, and I don't blame them. That's whether the underlying law suit was won on merits or through a sympathetic jury. That says a lot about the lawyers' lobby.

As far as enforcing mandatory health insurance, perhaps the health insurance industry ought to be in charge of that, instead of or in conjunction with the federal gov't, with similar results if unions were in charge of illegal immigrations.

Also, have you ever noticed the plethoria of newly identified illnesses around today or at least, all the new names for them? I read somewhere that part of it is that medicine indeed has better instruments and tests at its disposal, however, frequently big pharma actually invents new illnesses to which to apply their proprietary drugs, instead of more ethically developing a drug to fit the illness.

Brad Farless said...

I think Americans are too frivolous in lawsuits in general. Everyone is looking for a get rich quick oppurtunity instead of being satisfied with what they earn honestly. There are of course times when a lawsuit is warranted but I think the system is abused new often than not. Top that off with the fact that most juries if our 'peers' are actually full of easily swayed, uneducated imbeciles and you wind up with a broken system. That's sort of another issue but if Americans weren't like that these doctors wouldn't fall into the situation you mentioned where they order tests out of fear if being sued.

I've noticed too how there seems to be a new disease every day. Most of them seem to be related to emotional instability. I'm sure some of them are valid but a lot of them are probably the result of bad parenting, not an actual physical condition. Parents need to talk to their kids about how to deal with both good and bad situations, how to internalize stress and unhappy situations. If they did that, kids would be able to deal with their problems and get past them, rather than relying on drugs to gie them a false sense of happiness.