Europe hates us a little less....who cares?

[Alkasquawlik]

If someone doesn´t want to, I could understand your point. It´s when someone doesn´t know what he or she wants, where they could get better support. Not everyone is strong enough to handle that, at such an young age.

I was never homeschooled myself, but i grew up living and going to school in the suburbs. You could say I grew up i a working class enviroment.
At age 15 everyone picks what field of interest they want to work in.
In my case it was cars, and since all I knew about work was that it involved labour. So, I was off to what you would call college in a automechanic school.

Even if I ended up ok, as I at least have some kind of education, I sometimes wonder what if I had known what other options was available to me at that time.

I totally understand your POV.
Did you grow up in Sweden or in America?

I at least have the drive to earn money and pay for my self, but what if we could reform the deadbeats into someone more respectable? Someone who doesn´t sit home and just get wellfare? Into someone who at least gives something back into the community?
I believe that´s just the reason you went to those classes and gave them a talk they needed. What you taught them should be included into the regular education that everyone gets.

How would you propose to reform them?
Many of them do not want to be changed because they know they can mooch off the system. It is when they are taken off the system and they finally realize that they are in some serious shit, then they will buckle up and get shit done IMO. As long as we continue to baby them, they won't change.

Those kids that I taught were the ones that want to better themselves, and as such, I have no reservations in helping them intellectually or financially. It's when I am forced to help random people where the majority of them are slackers that I get pissed off. Show me some initiative and I'm more than willing to help.

it's blanket statements like that that make these debates on r3v have no credibility whatsoever. go over to bfest poli sci section and get a few tips on how to actually debate an issue. oh and sorry alkasquawlik, i wouldn't use right wing conspiracy sites as references. i'm not a democrat and i lean to the right on economic issues yet i believe we need to do something about the healthcare situation in this country. not because i really give a shit about people who don't have it but because i'm selfish, i don't want this to come back and threaten my financial future down the road. we're paying for this broken system right now..

anyways like i said, i don't really expect any rational debate on this here.

I lurk on BFC W&P alot, and I don't see how their debates differ from ours, other than them having more posters.

Like I stated earlier ITT, health care reform should be taken into consideration, but Obamacare is NOT how we should go about it.

[kishg]

Like I stated earlier ITT, health care reform should be taken into consideration, but Obamacare is NOT how we should go about it.

care to postulate an alternate solution? or just content playing armchair quarterback?

btw, i didnt say bf.c w&p that place is a disaster.. i said bfest poli sci.

[Alkasquawlik]

care to postulate an alternate solution? or just content playing armchair quarterback?

btw, i didnt say bf.c w&p that place is a disaster.. i said bfest poli sci.

It is such a complex and extensive thing to deal with that there is no way I can come up with a decent solution to make every American happy. I'll post what I think is the best solution when I get back since I'm about to leave the house.

I'll throw the question right back at you, what would YOU do?

[kishg]

I'll throw the question right back at you, what would YOU do?

i'm not the one critiquing the plan here :p nor do I have an overinflated sense of my ability to come up with a better plan than a plan developed with the advise of many experts and stake holders in the area including the AMA and the pharmaceutical industry.

[Asbradley21]

BTW, it's not ObamaCare, its CongressCare. Congress wrote up the bill and the plan, not Obama.

[Alkasquawlik]

i'm not the one critiquing the plan here :p nor do I have an overinflated sense of my ability to come up with a better plan than a plan developed with the advise of many experts and stake holders in the area including the AMA and the pharmaceutical industry.

So you think Obamacare is the way to go about healthcare reform?

BTW, it's not ObamaCare, its CongressCare. Congress wrote up the bill and the plan, not Obama.

Thank you Captain Obvious

[kishg]

i haven't finished reading all the proposals to make an informed opinion on it. unlike some, i don't like shooting my mouth off on complex topics i don't know enough on. what i do see is republicans spreading conspiracy theories that some gullible folk are falling for instead of offering up their own alternative plans. while i'm not surprised, i am disappointed. i expected more from them.

[Ral]

here's some ideas:

tort reform
standardized (or at least, listed-up-front) treatment
stop direct advertising and kickbacks to doctors from Drug companies
allow competition across state lines

none of those cost money. If we're gonna spend money, how about a national medical record database system to minimize mistakes, and associated paperwork?

oh, and stop the hemorrhaging caused by Illegal Aliens and the uninsured at the E.R. Let's start with that, then move on to Medicare/Medicaid, and then see what else still needs to be fixed.

edit: And Kishg, you are absolutely right about the republicans.

[h0lmes]

none of those cost money. If we're gonna spend money, how about a national medical record database system to minimize mistakes, and associated paperwork?

A national medical record database sounds like a major privacy violation. No thanks.

[Aptyp]

Obama and Big Pharma: Deal or no deal?
by Jon Brooks

9 hours ago
56 Votes

Health care stories are clicking big in Buzz these days. This week, a series of articles from different sources about one particular skirmish in the overall battle illustrated just what a high-stakes—and fluid—game is being played by everyone at the table.

The latest flare-up was sparked this week when the LA Times reported the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbyist, Billy Tauzin, crowing about what Big Pharma had received in return for agreeing to $80 billion in cost savings plus the bankrolling of a pro-reform campaign:

"Tauzin said he had not only received the White House pledge to forswear Medicare drug price bargaining, but also a separate promise not to pursue another proposal Obama supported during the campaign: importing cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe. Both proposals could cost the industry billions…"

The next day, the New York Times corroborated the deal:

"...White House officials...assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion…"

But then Congress weighed in. From a Bloomberg article titled "Drugmakers may have trouble enforcing deal w/ congress":

"The bargain U.S. drugmakers struck with President Barack Obama...can’t be enforced on Congress, lawmakers say. Democratic lawmakers...including...Nancy Pelosi and...Henry Waxman have said Congress isn’t bound by the agreements..."

On Aug 8, the New York Times ran this story, called "Obama Reverses Stand on Drug Industry Deal":

"Caught between a pivotal industry ally and the protests of Congressional Democrats, the Obama administration...backed away from what drug industry lobbyists had said ...was a firm White House promise to exclude from a proposed health care overhaul the possibility of allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices under Medicare...Several Senate Democrats said...White House officials had told them there was no such deal, sowing yet more confusion..."

And on August 9, AP reported just how much support the pharm companies were—apparently still—willing to pony up:

"The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall...a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail his chief domestic priority."

So is it deal or no deal? The Times reported that people involved in the original negotations said there had been "some ambiguity" in the discussions. Sounds like an understatement.

In any event, some liberal bloggers on the Huffington Post and Daily Kos are crying foul. And Rep. Bernie Sanders may have summed up suspicions about dealing with the pharmaceutical industry when he said, "The drug companies form the most powerful lobby in Washington. They never lose."

But the New York Times also reports that although the pharmaceutical industry opposes a public insurance plan—one of Obama's top priorities—"its lobbyists acknowledge privately that they have no intention of fighting it, in part because their agreement with the White House provides them other safeguards." And while longtime health-care reform advocates may see a poison pill in any deal involving the industry, the enrolling of tens of millions of currently uninsured people in new health plans could mean big profits to drug companies while still putting them on the same side as the pro-reform crowd.

High stakes, lots of buzz, which will only increase when Congress returns from recess.

[Aptyp]

here's some ideas:

tort reform
standardized (or at least, listed-up-front) treatment
stop direct advertising and kickbacks to doctors from Drug companies
allow competition across state lines

none of those cost money. If we're gonna spend money, how about a national medical record database system to minimize mistakes, and associated paperwork?

oh, and stop the hemorrhaging caused by Illegal Aliens and the uninsured at the E.R. Let's start with that, then move on to Medicare/Medicaid, and then see what else still needs to be fixed.

edit: And Kishg, you are absolutely right about the republicans.

I see what you're saying, and there are good ideas in this. The difficulty would be going through billions of medical journals and covering all possible scenarios for treatment. That would take reformers decades. if not an entire century. Personally, I'd like to see doctors and hospitals be responsible and do treatments the way they KNOW is the right way. There are way too many circumstances, so I don't see it as a possibility.

About those kickbacks, I am seriously pissed off. My father, recently, got a prescription from a doctor, which nearly killed him. Lucky for my dad, my mom hoped online and saw that pills he was taking were not compatible with another medication my father was taking after his stroke. That warning was advertised on practically every web-site my mom found. After taking just one doze of that drug, my dad got hospitalized. I was going to kill that jackass in his white coat. He prescribed a drug that sponsors his clinic and never checked what that drug is compatible with. Made me wish we were Hamurabi's Code, because I'd give that son of a bitch a pill to swallow. Drug companies pushing their products through sponsorships has to stop.

Allowing pharmacies and hospitals to compete across state lines is pretty much already here. It's called Wal-Mart. I was very impressed how well they work with all insurances and still provide such great service at low prices. A lot of generic companies supply their products to these kinds of pharmacies, and it's a wonderful thing (besides having to go into Wal-Mart). Allowing drug companies to compete across national borders is better issue to persude. If billmakers' minds were on providing afordable healthcare, that would be one of the first options I'd look at. But artticle above kind of lets you know, where their interest is.

I don't know about national database, but there are way to simplify it. Maybe have our druver's licenses carry that info. I wouldn't be comfortable being on a maling list for prescriptions and getting junk mail from competing pharmacies. There're alternative ways to not numbering entire nation like sheep, because there are way too many numbers associated with every person already.

[TexasTerp]

I have a question for everyone in the discussion here, I have a pdf copy of the the newest Discussion draft of the House Bill HR 3200 (ie Obamacare). The bill has been cut down from 1018 pages to 850. I'm currently in the process of reviewing the new bill and comparing it to the original (which I managed to read in 2 weeks and didn't need a lawyer for most of it, Dem. John Conyers should take note of that, coming from an opera singer)....anyways, my personal vendetta's aside, would anyone like to review the new discussion bill?

I've kept myself out of this discussion mostly because from what I have read many of us, on both sides of the discussion are very misinformed and unfortunately for me it's hard to keep up with the argument while trying to read 850 pages of the new bill, manage a company, and still spend 8 hours a day in rehearsals and performances. So if anyone would like a copy of both bills, and would like to help me with a full review and comparison, please pm me. I would prefer that those who offer their assistance be completely honest in their abilities to analyze legal documents and will do their best to remove themselves from party politics.

[kishg]

arn't we way off topic here. wasnt this about europe? :)

terp, link to pdf? i have no background in legalese tho :)