News House Floor Controversy: Die Quickly - CNN Video Coverage

[WhoWee]

I don't think Alan Grayson could support all of his comments if they were posted on PF. Would anyone like to give it a try?

 

[Nusc]

It just doesn't stop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPAtYGlgiqI&feature=channel

 

[russ_watters]

Russ, you are arguing to defend some mythical "proper" insurance that does not exist.

No, I'm not defending anything, I'm arguing for my personal preference about how insurance should work as opposed to the current democratic plan about how it should work. Neither exists right now, but I believe my ideas are significantly better than what is proposed. I think everyone agrees that there are problems with what exists now. I'm just arguing that my "mythical" ideas about how to fix things are better than Obama's "mythical" ideas.

 

[WhoWee]

Some stats from the CDC - a breakdown of who is most likely to be uninsured. Any attempt to "fix" health care should include a specific study of who is currently insured, how they are insured, and how the legislation will address the problem.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur200909.htm

"Public and private coverage

From January to March 2009, 21.1% of persons under age 65 years were covered by public health plans at the time of interview, and 63.7% were covered by private health insurance plans (Table 3). Almost two-thirds (66.8%) of adults aged 18-64 were covered by a private plan, compared with 55.8% of children under age 18 (Figure 1).

More than one-third of children (38.7%) were covered by a public plan, compared with 14.1% of adults aged 18-64 (Figure 1). The percentage of children covered by a public health plan increased from 34.2% in 2008 to 38.7% in the first 3 months of 2009.


Insurance coverage, by poverty status

From January to March 2009, 12.7% of poor children and 10.5% of near poor children (see Technical Notes for definition of poverty) did not have health insurance coverage at the time of interview (Table 4). The percentage of near poor children who lacked coverage at the time of interview decreased from 15.6% in 2008 to 10.5% in the first 3 months of 2009.

Based on January to March 2009 data, 80.3% of poor children and 59.8% of near poor children were covered by a public health plan at the time of interview (Table 5). The observed increase in public coverage for near poor children from 53.4% in 2008 to 59.8% in the first 3 months of 2009 was not significant. Based on January to March 2009 data, 39.4% of poor adults aged 18-64 were covered by a public plan (Table 5).

From January to March 2009, 8.6% of poor children and 36.7% of near poor children were covered by private health insurance at the time of interview (Table 6). There was no significant change in private coverage for poor, near poor, and not poor children between 2008 and the first 3 months of 2009. Among poor adults aged 18-64, 19.1% were covered by private health insurance in the first 3 months of 2009.


Lack of coverage, by selected demographic characteristics


Race/ethnicity

Based on data from the January to March 2009 NHIS, Hispanic persons were considerably more likely than non-Hispanic white persons, non-Hispanic black persons, and non-Hispanic Asian persons to be uninsured at the time of interview, to have been uninsured for at least part of the past 12 months, and to have been uninsured for more than a year (Table 7).

Approximately one-third of Hispanic persons were uninsured at the time of interview or had been uninsured for at least part of the past year, and more than one-fourth of Hispanic persons had been without health insurance coverage for more than a year.
Age and sex

For all persons under age 65 years, the percentage who were uninsured at the time of interview was highest among those aged 18-24 (29.6%) and lowest among those under age 18 (8.2%) (Figure 2). Starting at age 18, younger adults were more likely than older adults to lack health insurance coverage. Among adults in age groups 18-24, 25-34, and 35-44 years, men were more likely than women to lack health insurance coverage at the time of interview.
Other demographic characteristics

Lack of health insurance coverage was greatest in the South and West regions of the United States (Table 7). Among adults who lacked a high school diploma, 35.5% were uninsured at the time of interview, 39.1% had been uninsured for at least part of the past year, and 29.5% had been uninsured for more than a year at the time of interview. These rates are two to more than three times as high as those for persons with more than a high school education. Among currently unemployed adults aged 18-64, 63.5% had been uninsured for at least part of the past year, and 34.8% had been uninsured for more than a year. Among employed adults aged 18-64, 21.5% had been uninsured for at least part of the past year, and 13.2% had been uninsured for more than a year. Married or widowed adults were more likely to have coverage than those who were divorced, separated, living with a partner, or never married."

Coverage has actually INCREASED for poor children during the 1997 to 2009 period.

"Public and private coverage

Public coverage rates among both children and adults aged 18-64 are higher now than in 1997 (Table 3). Conversely, private health care coverage rates among both children and adults aged 18-64 are lower now than in 1997.
Insurance coverage, by poverty status

The percentage of poor children who were uninsured at the time of interview decreased from 1997 through March 2009 (Figure 8). During the same period, the percentage of poor adults who were uninsured remained relatively stable (Figure 9).

Among children, all poverty status groups experienced an increase in public coverage between 1997 and March 2009 (Table 5). However, the largest increase was seen among near poor children, for whom coverage by a public plan more than doubled during the same period.

The rate of private coverage among near poor children was 18.3 percentage points lower in the first 3 months of 2009 than in 1997 (Table 6). As shown in Figure 10, among near poor children the percentage without health insurance and the percentage with private health insurance coverage have declined since 1997, while public coverage increased. Private coverage decreased among near poor adults aged 18-64 from 52.6% in 1997 to 39.1% in the first 3 months of 2009 (Figure 11). Private coverage among not poor adults decreased from 87.1% in 1997 to 82.3% in the first 3 months of 2009."

 

[byronm]

byronm, I see you're making your first post on PF. I'd like to be the first to welcome you. Care to tell us a little about your background and experience?

Not my first post, we've debated many times, not sure why its not increasing :)

My insurance dealings? When my sister died, when my brother got hit my a car, when my 2 children were borne and when i go into get lypomas removed and checked in case they have any risk of cancer. Wife's father died to lukemia and bankrupted her family..

 

[turbo]

Not my first post, we've debated many times, not sure why its not increasing :)

My insurance dealings? When my sister died, when my brother got hit my a car, when my 2 children were borne and when i go into get lypomas removed and checked in case they have any risk of cancer. Wife's father died to lukemia and bankrupted her family..

Byronm, posts in General Discussion (including sub-forums like Politics) do not add to your post count.

 

[Pattonias]

The problem is we are trying to force moral obligations into an argument about a purely financial situation. The only reason we have health insurance is a group of people found a way to make money by offering health insurance to the healthy. They did not intend (and were not expected) to provide health care out of the goodness of their hearts. The insurance companies started as a way of making money the same way that all companies did. Is this evil. Should we punish them for this fact. I think it is wrong for insurance companies to drop coverage when someone gets "too sick", but they do this because their goal was to make money. They should not be able to drop someone who has been paying into their insurance according to the intent behind their contract.

What needs to be addressed is the insurance companies risk avoidance principles that they are using when they attempt to drop people who become sick that payed for their insurance. If they attempt to drop someone who is covered they should be stopped. This repair of the system would be health care reform.

Free health care would be spreading the expense around so that everyone is able to pay for whatever treatment they require. They should not pretend that this is "insurance" if it covers people with existing conditions. In order for this system to work the government should find a way to make treatments cheaper in general, if the amount that we pay to cover the treatment of the poor is higher than the cost of treatment then the program would work. Right now all this is going to do is make the cost of treatment rise. The medical industry will see that they can charge more for treatment because people will be able to pay for whatever outrageous expense they encounter when they become sick.

We are mixing points when we argue that it is sad that some people may die because they can not afford to receive medical treatment, but until you find a solution that can pay for itself all we will be doing is paying for peoples health care because we decide that it has become a national responsibility, not a repair of a corrupt system. We should just call this what it is. It is a socialist reform to a currently private system.

The "Die Quickly" statement was this guys attempt at standing out by making a outrageous remark at the expense of his peers in order to get national attention. He just wanted his particular agenda to stand out and this is how he chose to do it. It was wrong in that he stood out at the expense of his peers. It was right in that the opinion of the people that voted for him got their opinion heard. Obviously republicans are not proposing that people "Die Quickly". I am sick of people acting like if this bill doesn't pass we are all going to die. They need to take the time to get this right and not try and rush through something that will not work. The Democrats need to stop being so darn dramatic and the republicans need to stop acting like a bunch of whiny kids. I am tired of these proposals going through without any bi-partisan support. The only reason they can not come to a conclusive agreement is purely political posturing. The Republicans are hoping this fails simply because they want to come out on top in the next election. The Democrats are not trying to incorporate moderate Republican input because they do not have to. They have to much pull right now.