What class of citizen will you be? Gold, Silver or Bronze?

[Political Heretic]

When this insurance subsidization bill passes, and sets up even deeper class divides - telling poor people they deserve lower quality care than rich people (not explicitly stated in law, rather than just implied by insurance companies) - what class of citizen will you be?

America - the "greatest" country in the world, where you have second and third class citizens in a health care caste system.

:cry:

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Ummmmm.... Lead?

[arcadian]

6. I was going to say lead.

[hobbit709]

23. One more for lead.

[Peacetrain]

2. How about the 30 million right now who have access to ZERO care

Do you have tears for them?

[Raineyb]

7. All those people demanding that health care reform actually not put them into bankruptcy.

They're just selfish.

:sarcasm:

[HereSince1628]

8. Well. It's that or Fool's Gold, I'm sorta thinking FG

They sell me a policy I THINK is GOLDEN, and when I need it, I find out I'm a fool.

[walldude]

11. I'm one of those 30 million and this bill makes it worse for me

so please stop using me and people like me to bolster your lame argument. All this bill is going to do for me is add a mandatory premium for medical insurance I can't afford to use. As it is I manage to pay out of pocket when someone in my family needs to see a doctor. Adding a $1000 or $2000 dollar a year premium to my medical costs will just insure that we see the doctor less often than we do now. Yeah it's a brilliant plan, really :eyes:

[KittyWampus]

14. You're one of the 30 million without health care and this bill doesn't help you? I call bullshit.

[el_bryanto]

3. I would guess silver.

That said, I'm unconvinced this system will make the current divisions any worse - I mean they are already pretty bad aren't they?

[Renew Deal]

4. Iron

:D

[slipslidingaway]

5. My bet is that most employer policies will be moving down the scale

as people will be trapped in these policies.

:shrug:

[joeybee12]

9. Oh come on, this will get rid of the "class system" in america...

...and make it a "caste system."

[LibDemAlways]

10. You need another category. Something like "cardboard box" for those

who will continue to lose everything when a major illness strikes.

[Warpy]

12. What, no wooden nickel?

That's what I've been all my life, a sucker they've gotten hard work from and kept broke while denying health insurance.

[KittyWampus]

13. Actually, I'll be eligible for Medicare after my premiums rose 17% in December. So I'm happy

should this bill pass.

[subterranean]

15. There will also be a "catastrophic" class below Bronze.

But that's only for folks under 30.

Incidentally, the Gold/Silver/Bronze idea was borrowed directly from the Massachusetts Model.

[Political Heretic]

18. I know where it came from.

[MercutioATC]

16. EVERYBODY should have access to BASIC care.

Those who can pay for more should have the option of doing so.

We simply don't have the resources to provide "the best" care to everybody, regardless of ability to pay.

[Political Heretic]

17. No, EVERYBODY should have access to excellent care.

Why is it the rest of the industrialized fucking world can do this but its just "too hard" for us?

Saying we don't have the resources to provide excellent care to everyone is a lie. Plain and simple.

[MercutioATC]

21. I disagree.

Access to basic health care makes financial sense...and it doesn't bother me if some wish to consider it a "right".

However, nobody has a "right" to top-flight health care. Even if they did, it's prohibitively expensive.

Everybody has the right to buy a car that's basically safe. Not everybody can afford the safest car sold.

[Toasterlad]

32. You Do Not Belong Here

Suggesting that good health is a commodity that only the wealthy deserve doesn't fit even the watered-down version of "Democrat" that is used to adjudicate this site.

You are in the wrong place. And I hope that you soon become poor and then need health care. We'll see how comfortable you are with "basic care" then.

[MercutioATC]

36. So, I've finally met the DU Gatekeeper!!

Feel free to stop putting words in my mouth.

Basic health care IS "good health care"...and whether everybody "deserves" it or not, it makes sense to provide it.

Most expensive health care has a lousy cost/benefit ratio. If somebody wants to pay for that out of pocket, they should have the right to, but taxpayers should not bear that responsibility.

[LWolf]

26. Yes. Suggesting that quality of life, defined by quality of care,

should be based on ability to pay is repulsive in the extreme. EVERYBODY should have access to excellent care.

[Common Sense Party]

35. Unlimited "excellent" care?

Do these other countries in the industrialized...world provide UNLIMITED resources for this "excellent care"?

Or does every other country place a budgetary CAP on how much their governments will pay annually for health care?

[blindpig]

19. So the rest can go begging?

The lives of the well off are worth more than the poor?

That's pretty obscene but I guess that's capitalism for ya, where health is a commodity.

[MercutioATC]

22. Why would they "beg" if everybody has access to basic health care?

[hobbit709]

24. Evidently your definition of basic lets people die.

sometimes it takes top flight health care to save your life.

[MercutioATC]

28. ALL medicine "lets people die".

Sometimes the cost of treatment is simply not worth it.

However, if one can PAY for that treatment, one should have the option.

[hobbit709]

29. Let's hope you don't go broke then.

[MercutioATC]

30. Cost/benefit ratios are a fact of life.

$100k spent to extend the life of an 80-year-old by two months has far less value than $100k spent to provide preventative care to healthy young people.

If the money is yours, you can spend it however you'd like. If it's taxpayer money, limits must be set somewhere.

We don't live in a world of unlimited resources.

[hobbit709]

34. You sound like a bean counter. That's all it ever is to them.

[MercutioATC]

38. Not at all...but I'm realistic.

We live in a world of limited resources...especially where tax dollars are concerned. Is $100k worth of treatment to get another 60 days out of Granny worth forgoing preventative treatment for a few hundred kids?

At some point, we have to make that choice.

[damntexdem]

20. Well, the Teapartiers are all borons.

But I'm with those who would reform healthcare so we can helium.

But bronze just isn't an element I can think about.

;-)

[ipaint]

25. The bottom of the barrel...medicaid nt

[kenny blankenship]

37. Console yourself with this. You won't be JUICED like a lemon for junk insurance you can't use

that's what's going to happen to the Bronze group. You'll have it hard at the bottom of the barrel no doubt, but walking around knowing you're being cheated every month won't be part of it. Bronzers will be paying money out of their hide for a policy that has a 60/40 actuarial value. That's not healthcare, that's not even insurance properly speaking. That's a scam.

[ipaint]

39. So true.

I intend on keeping my income under the bronze level. This piece of shit bill should also give a nice boost to the under the table cash economy.

[LWolf]

27. I'm not really sure.

I'm a teacher. I supposedly have "good" insurance.

Except that I can't afford to use it.

My employer pays most of my premium. I can choose from 4 different plans, which range from about $25 a month to $300 a month, in addition to what they are paying.

I've been choosing not to get care for 5 years, since this plan began, because it's not in the budget. The copays and deductibles are the determining factor.

So I have not had a pap or mammogram in 5 years. I haven't had the yearly blood tests indicated by 2 other medical conditions, therefore I don't get the prescriptions to manage those conditions and am less well because of it.

How much will my premium be under the new law, and how much of that will my employer pay? I don't know. Will I end up paying more than I do now? If so, I will lose my house, because my budget has been cut to the bone already. There aren't a few hundred dollars more a month to be had. I took a massive pay cut 5 years ago, and another last spring to ensure that school doors stayed open through June.

Insurance doesn't guarantee care. As a matter of fact, insurance costs can limit care, as I've just demonstrated. Will I be getting any actual care, or just paying more $$ for care I can't afford to access?

[GreenArrow]

31. What about the plastic citizen?

The ones of disposable quality.

[GodlessBiker]

33. What is this, Plato's Republic?