I think that's true of MOST people - but not all. There are some persuadable folks out there. Right now, $1,000,000,000 is in the process of being spent to sway those people in one direction or another ahead of Nov 6.

And who knows how many lurkers read these posts?

because business threads make up 1% of gfy and if they weren't all the board would be dead

also what you said actually goes for everywhere else too, with the country as polarized as it is no one can influence anyone

You fucking idiot, I never once stated that I had first hand knowledge from the government!


A few weeks ago, A hospital close by me, Laid off over 700 people at one time...

Many patients, "very upset" are complaining, that they are being forced to go see a different Doctor, because they don't live in the area. They no longer have the right to choose their doctor, So now they will be forced to see a doctor, that doesn't really care about their health, and just pushes them through from the front door and back out to collect his check...

Not to mention you don't even fucking belong in this thread! If you havn't lived in the USA the last 15 years, you have no idea how life was before and how it is now.

Quite simply.

There is a respected group here who already have their political views, stand firm in them and will not be swayed.

The remaining are a group of idiots (representing the majority of our country) who listen but don't even really understand.

My point is, if we want to talk politics let's do it somewhere that it matters.

It sounded to me like you were promoting Obamacare.
My point was, if you think anybody is going allow those kinds of expenses Obamacare, insurance whatever they would not allow it.

Oh, and many doctors offices in my area have closed down in the last year... go figure huh?

but it doesn't matter, we don't expect to influence anyone (well maybe someone does). we are just bored. Personally I think the fucking around part of the forum should be moved and an actual biz forum take its place. Since this place is just a bunch of unrelated to biz threads and the actual useful biz threads are extremely rare. They are usually just spam

My family (and yours for centuries and centuries BEFORE insurance) are not "bootstrap types" at all.

I was just raised in a different time and different place than you obviously were.

When I grew up, I didn't even know any family that had health insurance. I was raised in a town with less than 5,000 people. My extended family on my mom and dad's side stretched from central Florida to Alabama (where we would visit my great aunt Pearl who lived in a home with no running water....they had a well right outside the kitchen and an outhouse)

NONE of them had insurance. And none of them ran around bragging that they were "bootstrap" type people. It was just NORMAL and the way that things always were.

As for today...I got some news for you. If you go to the doctor and do NOT have insurance, but you tell them that you will pay for your treatment yourself: Guess what? Magically the cost of the treatment falls dramatically.

I know this first hand from having a horrible car accident that left me with over a quarter million dollars in medical bills in 2002. I set up a payment plan and then had the hosptital financial administrators explain to me that they have TWO different sets of billing they do.

And for people without insurance...it's a lot less. My total bill ended up being around $40,000 That's over $210,000 LESS than if I had had insurance.

Basically what I'm telling you is that things aren't always what they seem or what you are being told on the news.

Until you've lived it yourself you really don't know what you're talking about. Not your fault. But the fault of the greedy govt. holding hands with the greedy insurance companies who are holding hands with the greedy medical and pharmaceutical companies to fleece the American people. And the media just reports it to try and get ratings.

And if you had insurance it would've been a lot less then $40k. So whats the point here? You don't want the insurance companies to get ripped off?

Good b/c any influence you intend to have on the 'morons' is lost in a 5 page thread.

Still <3 you.

What are you talking about?

My point is that the medical industry falsely inflates prices. The insurance companies KNOW this and work hand in hand with them.

So when you have insurance and it pays for a medical procedure that is inflated in price, the insurance company now can RAISE your premiums.

I hope you are following what I'm saying here. It's a scam and it's why American medical care is the most expensive in the world. And it's why we pay more for the EXACT same pharmaceutical drugs than anywhere in the world.

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

Ok so they raise my premiums $100 or $200 or whatever. Still way less then $40k... and I am still covered.

You're missing my point entirely. It's a scam.

And as your premiums go up and up and up you DO end up paying a lot more money (assuming that you are like 99% of people and don't have a giant catastrophe hit you)

As far as raising your premiums $100 or $200 or whatever....do the math.
For instance, I paid the hospital $500 a month to pay off my hospital bill (my car insurance covered $15,000 of it so I had to pay $25,000)
I went out and bought insurance after that. It was $475 for Blue Cross Blue Shield to cover me, my wife, and two kids.
The premiums have risen sharply. One kid is now grown and gone and off my insurance. So now it's me, my wife and one kid. My premiums have risen to over $815 a month because of "rising health care costs" (which are made up by the doctors and insurance companies as I pointed out).

So now I've been paying for insurance for over 10 years. I've never used it again.
So I not only paid for my hospitalization...but I've chunked in almost $100,000 to the insurance company that they are making in profit.

IF the system were not corrupt....premiums would be MUCH lower. And people wouldn't need the govt. to "help" them get insurance. It would be affordable...as would most situations except catastrophic injury.

These days "insurance" is used for every run of the mill doctors visit and every prescription filled at the pharmacy.

It makes it appear that you are getting it for "free". But trust me....when you do the math...you are paying out the ass.

Well, I AM promoting Obamacare. Most people can't even dream about paying for their serious medical problems out of pocket. That was my point. Whether that particular drug is used (and it IS being used) or not, major health problems are enormously costly to treat. People are in complete denial if they think otherwise. Life is entirely unpredictable. Our bodies DO break down over time, no matter how clean living one may be.

The irresponsible ones are really the ones who WANT to go without insurance. Eventually their luck runs out and we all pick up the tab for their care - care that ends up being inadequate and haphazard, btw, because they don't have a regular doctor - when they can't pay their bills and they go bankrupt. Obamacare is a good thing (but if you are determined to hate it anyway, blame Mittens - it's HIS plan).

www.newhealthcarelaw.com

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/wp-cont...-ObamaCare.jpg

I pay a bit over 7000.00/year for fire/theft/multiple risks on 3 properties ( one in the USA ) .. they never burned, never stolen, etc ...

I got fucked ... according to you .

This says it all!

No, you're putting words in my mouth.

The insurance companies make giant profits out of all of us by gambling that nothing will happen. That's the way insurance has always worked. No problem with that.

But since you didn't really read what I said about medical costs being artificially INFLATED to drive up your health insurance premiums...then your attempt to put words in my mouth doesn't work.

I carefully explained what was told to me by the hospital. And what is apparent to anyone with eyes to see if you compare costs of drugs and treatment between the U.S. and other modern countries (there's a reason that "medical tourism" is so popular).

But since you didn't read that and instead chose to babble about the insurance on your little properties...we have no way to discuss this intelligently. You have made up your mind that you think it's okay to overpay for medical treatment. And that it's cool for health insurance companies to overcharge you. AND that it's just fine and dandy for the Federal govt. to force you to pay for health insurance.

Nothing I can say is going to change your mind. I know what happened to me. I know that when I did some research the last few years, I found out why people travel as far as India for heart surgery and why people buy their prescriptions from other countries and why the federal govt. tries to stop people from going over the border to Canada or Mexico to buy their prescription drugs.

But don't listen to me. Just kick back and be smug about the insurance for your home.

Hint: It's not the same thing, and you aren't getting screwed over on your home insurance

BTW, tell me what a 3% tax on rental property, including commercial has to with healthcare.

They also make money by flat out denying claims in hopes that people will not fight. Big insurance companies have doctors on staff that are paid bonuses based on their ability to find a reason to deny a claim. I recently had some health issues. Because I have Asthma I cannot buy regular health insurance or the insurance I can buy is very expensive, but doesn't cover asthma related stuff. So I ended up getting a policy that only covers "catastrophic" things and I pay for the asthma stuff out of pocket.

So I got an infection in my leg and ended up in the hospital for 4 days getting IV antibiotics and wound care. I had wound care for about 2 months after while it healed. The total bill was about $20K. The people at the finance department for the hospital told me that my insurance is 99% certain to deny the claim outright at first so we were going to get started on the appeal before even submitting the first bill. Sure enough they were right. They denied it telling me this wasn't a "life threatening" illness. The doctor had to explain to them that this kind of infection cannot be healed with over the counter medicine and if it went untreated it would eventually be fatal. Then and only then did they pay their part of it.

I would guess there are a lot of people out there who wouldn't have fought the denial and would have just paid it themselves.

The worst one I ever heard of was a case where a kid was out riding her bike with her friends. She crashed and hit her head on the curb. She got a skull fracture and had serious injuries. She had multiple surgeries and a lot of physical therapy and eventually made a full recovery. The hospital bill was huge. The insurance company refused to pay it. They said that the city the family lives in has a law that states all kids under 16 must wear a helmet on a bike. This kid was 12 (if I remember correctly) and as soon as she was out of sight of the house she took her helmet off. They claimed that since the girl was breaking the law by not wearing a helmet they weren't liable for the medical bills. The family had to get a lawyer and sue them in order to eventually get them to pay.

First of all... ending abortion. Will never happen.

It's all about smoke and mirrors, and of course..... money.

People put too much emphasis on the presidential election when they should care equally if not more about who is representing you in congress and the senate.

But that would be overload for most people. Most minds don't really want to wander out of the box that much.

Most likely, not pay it at all and end up being another slave in debt to the health care system, waiting until they get super sick so they can bottleneck the emergency room and get squeezed even more.

For those that want to argue with me....If you have not experienced health care in another country, then stfu. You can have no opinion on health care because lets face it. You don't know shit.

A friend of my mom's when I was growing up got really sick and spent a few weeks in the hospital. She recovered, but had huge hospital bills. Her insurance company, of course, denied the claim. She didn't fight it. Instead she just declared bankruptcy which then stuck the hospital with it.

There needs to be some kind of clear cut system in place where a person can easily challenge a denial of payment and the insurance company has to give a clear cut reason why they denied it. Like an arbitration process.

Ahh yes... HCA.

google..... Bain, hca, rick scott, largest fraud settlement in us history

For those that don't know.... Rick Scott was the CEO of HCA during the fraud years and is now the Governor of Florida. Bain took over and since then, there have been new allegations of medicare fraud.

While your at it... google Bain, BP, Deepwater Horizon

Or something simpler, like expanding Obamacare even more.

I do, one guy is helping keep a shoeshine guy employed, the other guy is fist bumping the guy who the bleached the toilet seat his immaculate ass is about to sit on.

Yes, its all a big scam by the insurance companies and the health care companies. Maybe the government should step in with a new healthcare system. Or should we just keep leaving it up to private companies to decide? nah thats crazy we WANT FREEDOM

:thumbsup:thumbsup

And with Mitt's help the shoeshine guy will someday be the richest shoe shiner in the world.

I agree with you. IF the govt. was going to "step in" then Obama should have had the balls to go with the full "single pay" health care.

BUT he didn't. Instead he went with a b.s. "health INSURANCE" plan instead of "health care".
And also, don't forget that it was widely reported that the FIRST thing the Obama administration did was meet with the big pharmaceutical companies and cut a deal to ensure that they could keep prices jacked artificially high on U.S. consumers.

Dude, just do a tiny bit of research. There's this thing called Google. Maybe it will help you to look up some of this stuff. Check out the price of what we pay for say...blood pressure medication (or ANY medication you want to name)...then look for it in another country and prepare to be shocked.

As for your smart ass comment...again, the govt. isn't doing ANYTHING but forcing you to buy health insurance. They aren't doing one single thing about health care costs (unless you count the fact that they cut that deal in the very beginning to keep costs high)

Medicine costs are out control. I take two different medicines for asthma. the cheapest place I can buy them here is Costco. One of them is around $300 for a 30 day supply. The other is about $50-$60 for an inhaler which will last me about 3 weeks.

I can buy the exact same stuff online from another country for much less. The $300 medicine I can get for $70 and the $50-$60 medicine I can get for $11. Exact same stuff made by the exact same manufacturers only about 75% cheaper and the place even pays for free airmail delivery.

Yep, that's part of the lobbying from big pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, the medical industry and our corrupt govt. in Washington.

They are all making a fortune.

But hey...let's ignore that and pay attention to the evil oil companies. :disgust

Well again I agree with you they should've done the public option. Sorry for the sarcasm, but it just seems like your view is we are pretty much screwed no matter what. Which is probably true, I just believe the new health care law is better then the old setup. Even if it is just a gift of millions of new customers to the health insurance companies

I am aware how medication is priced, if people in third world countries had to pay the same amount US citizens pay for AIDS medication most of africa would've died off a while ago

I have a question for everyone.

When SOPA was to be passed, everybody read through the whole bill and found every insert there was to bitch about how bad it would be.

Obamacare passes, Everyone just thinks it's about health insurance.

I keep hearing, It's pretty much the same thing Romney was doing or wanted to do... No it is not, don't get me wrong I love the idea of Obamacare, If it was what everyone thinks it is. The inserts are what makes it such a big problem......

My problem with ObamaCare is this:
Before it was even written, he brought in the big pharmaceutical companies and had a meeting in 2009. It was reported that the meeting was done to assure the pharmaceutical companies that they could just continue "business as usual" with charging consumers in the U.S. 300% to 400% more for the same exact drugs that are sold in other countries.

So right off the bat that eliminated ANY lowering of costs for prescriptions.

Then, the insurance companies came in. And instead of "single pay" with everyone getting health care paid for by the federal govt., we ended up with a big, gift wrapped present to the insurance companies (who will now get millions of more accounts).

And finally...when nobody was even allowed to read the bill before it was voted on.
The Democrats were in complete control of the House and the Senate and Pelosi and Reid called for the vote on ObamaCare (which, by the way...Obama had NOTHING to do with writing).

When Pelosi told Congress that they needed to vote it into law and THEN read it...I almost choked.

Do I think "ObamaCare" is going to destroy our country? No.
Do I think it's going to bring down health costs? Hell no.

And for all of the people saying: "Well now people who COULDN'T get insurance will be able to! HOORAY!!!"

I say: "I'm already paying over $800 a month for insurance for me, my wife, and kid. How the fuck are all these people who are unemployed and/or underemployed and barely able to pay the bills going to be able to now go out and BUY health insurance?"

People need jobs before they can buy shit.

Obama gonna pay for it out of his stash remember...

It's not a shoe shine guy. It's Airport Security scanning him. Look again.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/wp-cont...logs_.com-.jpg

I hate Romney but people always mistake that photo for him getting his shoes shined, which is of course not true. We don't need to lie about the guy to prove what a dink he is. He's just naturally a dink.

What that picture says to me is that the TSA is completely out of control. What the fuck are they scanning Romney for anyway? Hoping to find a bag of cocaine? Or maybe he's the latest shoe bomber?

The govt. has taken away all of our rights and freedoms pretty much haven't they? We have zero privacy and even the guy who may end up as the next President Of The United States is being searched like a common criminal. :disgust

Sounds about right............ and HATE HATE HATE and more HATE!

If your god hates all the same people you do, then you know he is make believe.

SAYS THE GUY WITH A MALE CHASTITY BELT AVATAR!!!!! I see that you are used to republican rule the way your nuts and bizkit are not yours to with as you will............. :pimp

yep, agreed.

it won't matter too much, the poor people already get free healthcare (or atleast the poor illegals do in California)

Now don't let these posts fool you I'm pretty much straight up the middle as far as policies go.
I believe in the constitution and the 2nd amendment says we can arm ourselves. Guns are a right that cannont be infringed upon. REPUBLICAN owned
I also believe that women have the right to an abortion. DEMOCRAT owned
The list goes on forever right down the middle.

I just think Obama isn't the worst pres to come down the pike and he has brought the country back from the brink of being destroyed by Bush. His policies are working.

I also think Mitt Romney is one of the biggest pieces of shit to make his way to the nomination for either party. He's a horrible bastard in the way he treats his underlings and he's an outspoken member of yet another stupid religion. (All religions are stupid BTW)
He has a secret oath to the mormon church which superceeds a presidential oath of office. He's ranked on par with a cardinal in the catholic church. I don't want anymore religious zealots who talk directly to god in the whitehouse, please.

Right now Onama is the lesser of the two evils. :2 cents: