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Outburst and ovations 
There was a lot riding on President Obama's primetime speech on health care reform. Billed as a "make or break" moment, his address before Congress was designed to bring clarity and calm nerves. Sources say he was editing until the final hours, right around when new polls showed a jump in disapproval ratings on his handling of the issue. The stage was set for a pivotal moment in the contentious debate.

Some highlights:

Tough crowd

Standing ovations abounded during Obama's speech, but blogs are buzzing most about N.C. Republican Rep.-turned-heckler Joe Wilson who loudly yelled "You lie!" after the president said health care reform wouldn't cover illegal immigrants. The moment threw Obama off track, if briefly. Michelle Obama was reported to have shaken her head in dismay from her seat.

Wilson quickly apologized in a statement to CNN, saying, "I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President's remarks…my comments were inappropriate and regrettable." For better or worse it's raised his profile. As one piece of evidence, his Twitter following doubled shortly after the speech wrapped.

Network cameras cut often to House GOP leader John Boehner, a persistent critic of the reform proposals. After Obama chided "bickering" among lawmakers, Boehner was not among those cheering.

One-time rival Sen. John McCain was spotted smiling in support when the president praised him for championing a version of health care reform on the campaign trail...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl895 (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl895) 

I'm a socialist and I live in a socialist country...and for the most part, it WORKS !!!:bluesad:

It's not perfect and it depends which part of the country you're in, but it's pretty good. I've never had any problems with it.

And if you really hate it, you've still got the option to go private, no one is taking that away from you. I don't really get what the problem is ?
I think it's got something to do with insurance companies....

That's what I find odd. The Canadian health care system has its problems, but it's comforting to know that it's there when you need it, everybody's covered and the government isn't going to try to weasel out of paying. Here, universal health care is practically considered a part of the Canadian identity, and people get very upset at anything that looks like privatization. American-style health care is scary to many Canadians. So I find the impassioned defense of it, and the fear of a system like ours to be very interesting.

I couldn't agree more.  :thumbup:

Well, just so you know, there are plenty of Americans who are very afraid of the American health care system, for good reason.  It sucks.  Lack of coverage and high costs also leads to many, many deaths (primarily lack of preventive care and delay in treatment due to costs).  I know of someone recently (few weeks ago) who got serious flu symptoms, but delayed treatment for a while because they couldn't afford it.  By the time they went in for treatment, they ended up hospitalized.  They died of heart failure in there. 

I particularly like all the people b***hing about the costs of the government option (which isn't paid *entirely* by tax dollars, I might add), estimated at $100 billion a year over the next ten.  Supposedly, health care companies are going to cover about 2/3s of that.  So, we're looking at $33 billion a year to get everyone who needs it acceptable health care.  For comparison, the total budget is $3,300,000,000,000 a year or so.  In other words, the health care option would be only about 1% of the budget.  So what's the big god damn deal?

What do they do with crazy people in Canada & England?
That's a huge concern for me.

And, how do they handle the problem of Matching Funds?

For better or for worse the United States is a very capitalist nation.  So naturally anytime someone talks of something that smells of socialism we get get up in arms about it. Also since the healthcare companies stand to lose their investments, they are definitely campaigning against this. The ironic thing of all this is that we do have some socialist elements in our government. An example of this would be social security, If the government tried to take that away there'd be hell to pay.

For our non-American friends:

I think the American health care system is actually very good---but only for those who actually have insurance. 

The majority of Americans currently have insurance through their employers, and are most are satisfied with that coverage.  They are afraid (perhaps wisely, perhaps not) that any major fiddling with the system will decrease the level of care they receive. 

We  have 100% paid health care for our family though my husbands employer. not too many companies will pay 100% like he does but i know that if heath care reform passes, especially with a public option, we may lose it because he might just say you can get it through the government im not paying anymore. 

And im ok with that. This country needs health care reform, it needs a public option. We are lucky enough to have insurance but there were years when we didn't because of cost so i would never stand in the way of someone having affordable health care available to them.  IMO heath care should be a right, not a privilege.

Well said.

Yup, most people don't seem to understand that any tax-funded service is technically socialism. Public heath care is no more socialist than public roads.

The one point that I think most people make too many assumptions on is what the level of care is/will be in a state-funded system.  Of *economic* necessity, it must be minimal.  Long wait lists, limited access to facilities, restricted hospital stays and a severely reduced list of approved/funded procedures.  The starry-eyed seem to expect that everyone will be getting everything possible.  Nope: Everyone will be entitled to a minimum of care, prioritized by the administration.
TANSTAAFL.

And the idea that somehow the government will be in fair competition with private insurers when the government gets to set the ruls of the competition is ludicrous.  The public option will be cheaper, and employers will drop private coverage left and right.  Private insurance companies will go out of business,  leaving all of us on the Government plan - quality of care will decrease, as will availability and innovation.

Another thing to consider here: the "pre-existing conditions" clause.   

Obama wanted them to be included in the "reform" if I recall correctly. 

I'm not exactly up on that part of the bill, but I would expect some serious wordplay and excuses in THIS part of the bill also: 

Let's hypothetically suppose that  PEC'S are subject to a waiting period for coverage, say, 3 to 6 months for example. That's a nice window of oppurtunity for those with terminal illness and other serious conditions to pass away before they're covered.

This would be a nice little way for the admin. to save money on minimal or bare bones treatment while the time frame allows for the thinning out of the populace among the terminally ill and also save the admin. lots of money.  Absolutely sickening.   :bluesad:

Just curious but how is making insurance companies stop denying people because of a pre existing condition a bad thing? There are people who have a child that is born with  a serious illness and will be denied health insurance because of it. What are these parents supposed to do?  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/51/require-insurance-companies-to-cover-pre-existing-/ 

Sorry for the mixup-

What I meant was, what IF Congress does an about face and decides to make PEC's subject to a waiting period instead of immediate coverage as they promised?

That would be a death sentence for some, because there will be those who are terminally ill who will die in that 6 month waiting period, as they suffer from ineffective low cost alternative treatments while waiting for the coverage to kick in.

That would be an insidious and deliberate way to let people die out and save the administration and the insurance companies money as it's a given that there will be people who will die during that waiting period.  That would be outright murder.  :hatred:

And again, I hope that helps clear it up.

Thanks for replying. Honestly, thats a big if, i dont see why the would do something like that. You can bet that if this passes and there is something like waiting periods for dying folks you will see a sh** storm of protest.   :smile:

Sounds about right to me mate.

Think also about the drugs-prostitution thing I mentioned.  Suppose there is a huge
spike in addiction and HIV-AIDS cases (and more crack addicted babies)  Suppose the govt. decides to raise taxes on these things according to the amount of casualties needing treatment., to raise revenue for the costs of treatment. The taxpayers won't be happy about that either.   There's some interesting twists in the road coming up with this stuff.

I can assume it will be like it is in Canada and Europe.  There's certainly some problems along these lines over there, but they're vastly, vastly preferable to the problems we have now in the current system.  There are Canadians on this thread, I noticed.  Do you guys have extremely long wait times and all the other stuff Newt says the US will be looking at under this plan?

I might add, from what I've read, Australia actually does have delays for pre-existing conditions when getting new people on some insurance plans.  They have some sort of hybrid system, apparently.  However, delays are better than not being able to get it at all.  Just my opinion.

On the one hand, we do have some limitations. You pretty much take the family doctor who's available, and you require a GP's referral to see a specialist. That's where you usually get a long wait. It can take months to get in to see a specialist for something that doesn't require immediate treatment. But a good deal of that is due to the specialists limiting the new patients they see. Once you've had that first visit, it gets quicker. Family doctors can sometimes take a couple of weeks to see, but if you've got an immediate problem, they'll often fit you in. Or for something as simple as renewing a prescription or adjusting a dosage, they'll do it over the phone. And there are always emergency rooms and walk-in clinics.

A big part of the problem with a public system is that people do abuse it. Emergency rooms are full of people who don't belong there, and the wait is often long for anybody who isn't gushing blood.

Another problem is that GPs seem to be handing more cases over to specialists than in the past. Back when we were trying to have kids and getting checked out, I waited six months for a urologist to fondle my bag for five seconds and tell me there's no problem with the plumbing.

Of course, the doctors are overworked, but at the same time, they don't want anybody cutting in on their action. Perfectly qualified foreign-trained doctors keep running up against obstacles in trying to get licenced here. Nurse-practitioners, who could handle a lot of the routine stuff, still aren't being used in any great numbers. And when you ask why, it always comes around to the medical profession throwing up roadblocks.

Now, the other problem we have that might actually be alleviated by an American public system is the doctors who get trained and licenced here, then bugger off to the states for more money.

There is also the the fact that relatively few doctors will choose to practice in rural areas without some big financial incentives.

But these problems are not really with the public nature of the service. If the will was there, we could have immigrant doctors and nurse-practitioners filling in the gaps, and if we didn't have the American private system competing with our public one, that would go a long way right there. The other problem is how our medical schools select their students. My sister, who is a doctor, has mentioned before that the process seems to favour those who are in it for personal gain, and are more likely to head south, or take up a lucrative specialty or stay in large urban areas. There are people who would like nothing better than to be a family doctor in rural Canada, and the system could be weighted more in their favour.

When you get down to it, the only real problem with a public system is that everybody uses it, and many don't think twice about using it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does put a big strain on the system and it contributes to long waits.

On the other hand, more people are getting treatment, and getting it earlier than they would have even with the wait. It does make a difference. I see my doctor when I need to, which isn't often, but still more frequent than it would be if I had to pay directly. I have gone as much as eight years without seeing my dentist, who is not covered by the public system. Even with dental care through work, paying up front and submitting the insurance claim is enough of a pain in the ass to keep me away. The irony there is that I can put more time and money into my car without thinking twice.

Getting away from the pros and cons of healthcare reform, I was watching today where there is discussion of passing a Congressional Resolution of Disapproval against South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson. Now Wilson has apologized to the President and his outburst was wrong. However some people are taking things too far in trying to gain support. Namely Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson by claiming Wilson's outburst is and endourcement of racism.
In an interview, (on CNN) Congressman Johnson makes comments about people thinking that Congressman Wilson's outburst is a green light for ever white supremacist to "don their white hoods" and how Congressman Wilson is the face of this. WTH? Do we really need to play a race card in this? While I disagree with the outburst, I don't see anything proving it as a sign that a racist lynch mob is being formed. It's garbage like this that makes people not want to care when a person actually is the victim of racism.
If anything this is just a case when one Congressman should of kept his mouth shut when the President was addressing Congress and another who wants to make a mountain out of a mole hill by injecting race. Obama wasn't heckled because of his race, he was heckled because he's the President and a member of an oppsing political party to his heckler. Maybe Congressman Johnson needs to apologize as well and be given a a Congressional Resonlution of Disapporval for his comments.

People are hypothesizing about the race thing because no president in recent memory has gotten that kind of treatment in congress.  They ask themselves, what changed?  Well, the president is racially mixed now, and he just got massively disrespected in a very formal setting. 

I suspect a lot of people don't think this is some sort of deliberately planned racism - that Joe Wilson thought to himself "a black man can't do this" and then yelled out.  It's more like, they think many people subconsciously don't offer the same degree of respect to black people as they do to whites.  I think they are right about that, though whether this is the case with Joe Wilson I am not so sure.

Well it's not the first time that a president has had harsh treatment by congress. Bush was booed by democrats during his state of the union speeches(04 and 05 I think).

But since Wilson has apologized they should(as in congress) forget about it and focus on more important things.