I was talking to an associate of mine today. He is a republican, have known that for a long time

[MiniMe]

I had told him before the 2000 election that if Bush won, we would be invading Iraq within a year. I was off by a year, but that was because of 9-11 and Afghanistan. But I had a little hope, after Bush attacked Iraq and all the civilians were being killed, he actually admitted that he was wrong about Bush and was just disgusted by what was going on.

Talked to him today and he said that the one thing that scared him to death was the healthcare plan. He said he was against socialized medicine. Apparently the benefits person where he works called them all into a meeting and told them that she wasn't trying to tell them how to vote, but to really look at the healthcare plans before they made their decision. I don't know this for a fact, but it sounds like the benefits person told them that they would be paying more and have worse coverage under Obama's plan. He also said that he has talked to doctors and nurses he knows and they all say it will be a disaster.

I recognize it from 2000, There is no changing his mind about it. It just pisses me off that their benefits person did that. My acquaintance most likely would have found another excuse to vote for Obama, but she could have influenced a bunch of people like that. :grr:

[baldguy]

1. Why does every other industrialized nation in the world have universal healthcare?

Because it gives them a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE over third-world counties like the USA by keeping thier workforce healthier.

[DFW]

26. Plus it costs their countries LESS!!!!

I have had procedures done in the USA and had them done in Germany.

They are every bit as good in Germany as they are in the USA--just for 2/3 the price.

[liberal N proud]

2. Where do these companies get off telling their employees

That if they vote a certain way they will pay more or they will lose their jobs or other fear tactics.
What you are describing sounds like some of the tactics Wal-Mart is using on it's indentured servants (employees).

[MiniMe]

4. He said that she came in and said the person said "I'm not telling you who to vote for"

I suspect that her next words were but...

So they aren't telling him that he will lose his job, just that his healthcare will suck.

[kenny blankenship]

24. "I'm not telling you who to vote for" (WINK)

But by taking company time to talk on this subject, and relaying to you the results of calculations made on company time, I am rather strongly implying you had better at least pretend to have voted for McCain if the subject ever comes up - and also that you would be wise not to talk to your co-workers during the next couple of months about the benefits of voting for Obama. No, I am not telling you who to vote for, because hahhahaha that would be illegal! And besides, by giving you the corporate position on Obama's PLAN and what it would do-by our estimates-to our costs, I don't have to instruct you officially not to vote for Obama in order for you know perfectly well what management expects from good employees on November 4th. This company's management recognizes and rewards all those who help us advance in our corporate mission -- just as it also recognizes those who are hostile and refractory. Rewards must be given only to those that deserve them, for to act otherwise would be to embrace the worst misallocation of capital imaginable. Bearing all that in mind, have a safe and productive Election day, employees!

[NMDemDist2]

3. American College of Physicians Endorse Single-Payer

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/04/5604/

The Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians - the nation's second-largest physician group - endorsed a single-payer health-care system yesterday.

But the organization stopped short of saying that a single-payer system like Medicare, in which the government would get and pay most bills, is the best way to achieve universal health coverage.

The group said the country also could do that through expansion of the current mix of private insurance and government coverage. Under the proposal, people would be required to get health insurance.

While some physicians have formed organizations that push for single-payer, David Dale, president of the ACP, said his was the largest general-interest doctor group to support the controversial idea.

The group said change was necessary because access to health care had deteriorated.

The largest physician group in the United States, the American Medical Association, does not support single-payer. Earlier this year, it released a proposal to expand insurance coverage, primarily through tax incentives and changes in insurance regulations.

The ACP's membership includes 124,000 internal-medicine physicians and related specialists.

After analyzing health care in the United States and 12 other industrialized countries, the group concluded that universal coverage had been successfully achieved elsewhere through single-payer and pluralistic systems.

Either could work here, the report said. The pluralistic system gives consumers more choice, but also leads to higher administrative costs and inequalities. Because it is what the United States already has, it is less of a political challenge. "It's like remodeling your house to make it better for your whole family," Dale said.

Single-payer has lower administrative costs, but is not politically popular, he said. "I'm not a political analyst. I'm just a doctor," Dale said. "But I think there will probably be resistance to that. That's why we don't have it now." He said his group added it to its proposal to "heighten the debate."

[Warpy]

5. The next time the subject comes up

remind him that Magoo wants to remove the business tax credit for healthcare, thus removing one of the few incentives to provide it. With the Magoo plan he will be 100% on his own to find private insurance, and remind him he will be lucky to find a family plan for under $10,000/year, and that's only if he and his family has never used healthcare.

Obama's plan is a stinker, all right, and he'd have done so much better to adopt Edwards's plan, one that contained a back door to early Medicare for those of us who are shut out of insurance by health history or cost. There is no way to sell the Obama plan, IMO, and it's his weakest point. Your acquaintance was correct to pick that out as the one issue he's really terrible on.

However, it's still better than the Magoo plan of throwing everyone to the insurance wolves. Just make sure he knows what Magoo will do to him.

[PearliePoo2]

6. That sounds like the horse-shit Wally-Mart did to their employees

I believe it's fucking ILLEGAL. It's a threat. It stinks like extortion.
They want to scare the crap out of people.

[a kennedy]

7. SO WHAT!!!! So we'd have socialized medicine......

Big deal, the police, firemen, and our schools are socialized so really, what's the big deal with socialized medicine???? I just don't get that reference..... am I stupid??? :shrug:

[MiniMe]

10. He has a freeper interpretation of socialized medicine

That it will take forever to get an appointment and you won't be able to get care and nobody will be a doctor anymore. And it will cost him more money. That tells me that he hasn't looked at the plan at all.

[Not Me]

8. Okay, so when the repubs slammed Hillary's '93 proposal

the line was that private medical insurance works. It didn't work then and it has gotten worse.
The time has come for the federal government to ensure that every American has health care.

[Selatius]

9. The French use single-payer health care, but even they don't like to describe it as "socialized."

"Socialized" brings about thoughts of gigantic, awkward bureaucracy that moves slowly. In France, they like to think their health care system is "family oriented." Mothers get paid maternity leave. In the US, this is unheard of. Parents get guaranteed 5 weeks paid vacation by law to spend time with family. College students can get through school without taking out tens of thousands of dollars worth of interest-bearing loans to private lenders.

Is there system without fault? No. No human institution ever is. If you have a minor problem or a chronic problem, you might have to wait for treatment, but if you needed care for a real problem, you get the help you need, and you don't have to fight an insurance rep so that they will accept your claim.

[undeterred]

11. how the hell can somebody be SCARED of a health care plan

and not SCARED of a war? that is such stinkin thinkin... Every single health care professional I know is voting for OBAMA and telling every single person they know to vote Democrat so your benefits person is totally full of shit.

[MiniMe]

13. Not my benefits person, an acquantence.

I was shocked when he told me that they did that, and I wondered if it was illegal. Somebody posted in another thread that it would indeed be illegal, but they get around it, in this case by saying I'm not telling you how to vote but...

And their job was not threatened. It was more that they were telling him that universal health care would be bad for him and his family, but not having anything to do with his job.

[undeterred]

27. Well this is the first year in my life that my

health care practitioners have actually stepped over the line and revealed their bias. Maybe they knew me well enough that it wasn't a big risk, but they really want universal health care and are saying so as heatlh care professionals.

[KarenS]

12. "Socialized" medicine,,,, Code talk, isn't it??

My retired military father used that phrase with disdain to me one day and I reminded him that he had a wife & 4 kids that used "socialized medicine" and that it worked just fine for us all.

Amazing, too, is the fact that many folks use the highways and bridges in this country and don't think of them as "socialized",,,, use the public school system,,,, in some cases, water & electricity are "socialized" in smaller cities and towns,,,, The police force and firefighters are also "socialized",,,,

I would be crazy with anger if I had this happened in my work place,,,,

whatever,,, just,,, whatever.

on edit: Also, my Daughter has a friend whose husband is attending college to be a dentist,,,, there's lots of buzz there that if we do Universal Health insurance that healthcare professionals will not be as well paid and they are wondering if they will be able to pay their student loans back,,,

[Jackpine Radical]

20. I practice in a small outpatient mental health clinic and supervise another.

My wife practices part-time in two other clinics. I only know one person in all those clinics who opposes universal health care. That person is one of the receptionists.

[louis-t]

14. I've heard of this before.Wal-Mart?

I know it was a big box store or something.

[Bluerthanblue]

15. I doubt that your friend has talked to many Dr.'s or Nurses- and

been told that the system we have is working- or that the changes that could come about through the Obama Administration would be bad for anyone other than corporate Insurance Co's.

Everyone I know in the HC field- (more than a handful) says the system that we have now is the disaster, and not going to last much longer.

:shrug:

Socialied medicine or at least a basic guarantee of minimal health care is every bit as important as 'socialized education', or 'socialized police/fire/Military protection'- or 'socialized transportation'- none of those 'social' institutions will do anyone any good if they are DEAD due to disease or illness that they cannot get basic treatment for.

Your friend needs to ask himself what life might look like if the job he is banking so much of his future on- were to dissapear or let him go.

"Every man for themselves" is a pretty barbaric way to live. The fact that your friend was burdened by the reality of 'all the civillians being killed in Iraq' may be the one way to reach him. It might interest him to know how many of his neighbors right here in the US die as a result of not having access to health care- no small number.


:hi:

[MiniMe]

18. I agree

What can I say, he thinks that Faux News is the only network where you can see the whole truth. He actually believes the "fair and balanced" BS. I think the terra, terra, fear works on him.

[PA Democrat]

16. He needs to educate himself about McCain's health care plan.

There is a reason McCain NEVER talks about the specifics, and that's because his plan SCREWS people whose employers currently provide health insurance. The money spent by his employer on his insurance would be counted as TAXABLE INCOME for him. Yes, that's right, he will be taxed on the insurance that his employer provides. Details here:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/dmn/stories/081608dnpolmccainhealth.43edf6d.html

As far as everyone else who has to buy their own insurance, there are no requirements to cover preexisting conditions, there is a measly $5,000 a year tax credit for a family, but many families who are unable to afford insurance don't pay that much in taxes, so it will do NOTHING for them. Insurance companies will be able to sell their products across state lines which will destroy any effective oversight by the states. Good luck trying to choose from scores of insurers who do everything possible to deceive you as to what they will cover. Good luck in dealing with an insurer who refuses to pay for needed treatment.

Sounds like that benefits person is either a moron or a filthy liar.

[kenny blankenship]

17. That "benefits person" receives *weekly* newsletters from insurance companies

and daily email alerts, attempting to mold their opinion on all issues related to healthcare (just as a public service outreach kind of thing from private insurers, and purely out of the goodness of their corporate heart, because friends keep friends informed, you know) and to remind that person of the advantages their company's plan offers versus others plans.

It's no wonder the "benefits person" acts as a conduit for insurers' political propaganda within the company, since millions have been spent on "outreach" to make sure they would be. The big surprise would be if, despite being the object of a daily tide of anti-healthcare propaganda, they actually had the independence of mind to keep their mouth shut and to keep "their" opinions to themselves.

[MiniMe]

19. Sounds very likely

[ourbluenation]

30. I'm a benefits person and I don't receive communications like that from our insurance company...

I don't hear from them much at all except during open enrollment. Are you a benefits administrator too?

[MiniMe]

21. I wish that there was a good comparison between McCain and Obama's health care plans

Does anybody know of one?

[gratuitous]

22. All too easy

Tell your associate to take a good look at the costs and the benefits of his health plan for the last seven years. What has happened to the cost? Has it gone up or has it gone down? And what about the benefits? Have the benefits gotten more generous, or have they gotten more miserly? What sort of choices, if any, are available now? And how do those choices stack up against what was available back in 2001?

Now ask him to look at the trends, and make his best guess of what his healthcare plan should cost next year, and how much coverage he should reasonably expect to get and write it down. Then take his notes and seal them in an envelope. Both of you ink up your thumbs, and put your prints where the flap seals against the envelope, so there's no jiggery-pokery.

Next year, when this dimbulb starts whining about his healthcare plan, and how he knew Obama would fuck it all up, get the envelope, fold it six times very carefully. Then shove it up his ass.

[opihimoimoi]

23. For anything GOOD there must be a way to reduce IGNORANCE

Up Front That is no easy task..

How to Reduce Ignorance is the Big Challenge

Pay um to be smarter..

we can do it...Obama can...he will find a way to do it...he is that kind of a wise Leader...find a way to make things work better...

[Bluerthanblue]

25. there isn't much that can be done about

"willful" ignorance- or "denial".

It's like trying to force someone into rehab. It will only work when the person is ready.

Unfortunately, some peole will never be ready. But we can't let that stop us.

:hi:

[B Calm]

28. Turn him onto Thom Hartmann

[Vinca]

29. The "benefits" person has an obvious political bias because

there is a very good chance the employees now receiving health insurance from this company would, under the McCain plan, either be taxed on the value of their health coverage, or lose their health coverage when the company "allows" them to take the $5,000 tax credit and "own" (for another $5,000+ a year) their own plan. Obama's plan changes nothing if you're happy with what you've got. I'm getting so sick of these people.