Comments on: Sorensen: An Open Letter To The Supreme Court

By: Dave Kellett

Dave Kellett — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 07:31:47 +0000

The Eurasia line totally got me. Well played.

By: Mike Peterson

Mike Peterson — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 10:54:44 +0000

Norm, the Massachusetts Health Care Plan was a failure and we’ve always been at war with Eurasia.

By: Norm Feuti

Norm Feuti — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 14:43:35 +0000

Technically, this thread was subtly Godwined by comment #23,
But since comparisons to the Massachusetts reforms were made, I feel compelled (as a Mass resident) to point out:

- 98% of Mass residents have health insurance
- 63% of households & 70% of doctors approve of the reforms
- Premiums and deductables for single adults have gone down
- The cost of the reforms is 1.3% of the state’s entire budget

http://www.massmed.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Health_Care_Reform2&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=35256

Ironically, Romney can’t talk about his biggest success as governor of Massachusetts, because his party has chosen to vilify healthcare reform.

By: Steve Skelton

Steve Skelton — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:20:22 +0000

First of all, one must accept this issue as a crisis. You may not if you are being supplied health benefits through a job. To everyone paying for his or her own health care, believe me, this is a crisis.

It took a Democrat in the White house to go after this problem and attempt to tackle it. Yes this bill is messy, but at least it is a start. Republican conservatives love to call it unconstitutional and too expensive, but they rarely if ever talk about hard facts when it comes to this issue. They offer no remedy of their own. Rather, they start wars. It is estimated that with the price spent on the last two (meaningless) wars, we could have had health insurance provided for every American for 30 years. So, who do you want in the White House? Someone who starts wars or someone trying to find solutions for actual Americans facing real issues?

By: Mike Peterson

Mike Peterson — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 10:52:17 +0000

Mark, nobody forces you to accept a tax credit. That was my point.

And maybe American doctors can’t remove an appendix unless they vacation in Fiji and drive BMWs, but doctors in other countries manage to.

By: Mark Juhl

Mark Juhl — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:57:23 +0000

Unconstitutional is the government forcing people to buy a product. Most excuse it using car insurance as an example, but if you don’t have car you don’t have to buy car insunrance. If the government is allowed to force people into this then future admins will have justification for doing the same thing.
Secondly the current administration itself knows it’s unconstitional, while arguing before the supreme court that forcing payments was one thing, at the same time another member of the admin was saying the forced payments were something else completely before a congressional committee.
As for doctor’s compensation, how long could you run a business or practice if the government paid you 80 cents or less on the dollar? The new law is reducing even reducing those amounts.

By: Mike Peterson

Mike Peterson — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:00:23 +0000

I didn’t understand why they added a payment for people who didn’t have insurance rather than structuring it as a refundable tax credit for those who did. But I don’t think that makes it “clearly” unconstitutional. However, the credit would have made it “clearly” constitutional. For want of a nail …

Second, I don’t want to hear more spin about waiting for procedures. I’ve lived too near the Canadian border and I have too many Canadian friends to fall for that. Yes, we can all cherry-pick examples of anything, and we can certainly find people willing to bitch. Overall the Canadian system works very well indeed.

Except — third — doctors in the US make way more money than doctors anywhere else. And (sorry) taking away the need to pay for malpractice insurance doesn’t begin to equalize it. They are highly trained professionals and deserve a good pay raise, but the photos of Fiji on their walls are paid for by people who can’t afford to pay that much. I don’t know how you reconcile the need for fairness with the system we’ve set up.

Finally, my own state is in a controversy right now because they stole the federal Medicare reimbursements to help balance the overall budget and avoid more taxes, rather than hand it over to the hospitals Live free or die indeed.

By: peter murphey

peter murphey — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 21:02:29 +0000

You’re sure to save time calling that government bureaucrat at the department of health insurance to get approval for your medical procedures.

By: Pat Bagley

Pat Bagley — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:06:21 +0000

Our current market-driven, for-profit health care industry chews up tons on my time and all of my patience by trying to weasel out of paying for what they advertised. It’s a devious plot: the longer they can keep me holding for “Steven” in Mumbai, the fewer cartoons I can create about their fraudulent scams to screw the public.

Good on you, Jen. A GREAT cartoon.

By: Marc Davidson

Marc Davidson — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 17:47:49 +0000

What’s so bad about socialized medicine?