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Doctors are one of the few groups who are likely to be relatively unaffected by this bill since it guarantees a captured customer base (people who are now required to have insurance) and does nothing about the licensing issue or the pricing methods of doctors/hospitals as fee for service rather than a salaried position.

Whatever effects government was having on doctors, and there were many, mostly positive for doctors, are still in place (price controls from medicare/aid distorting which specialties doctors studied to go into rather than letting supply and demand determine, licensing controls from state government, zoning controls from local governments on medical care). As a result, not much will change.

*sigh*

The effect is that ALL doctors will have to accept whatever payment the government deems appropriate for whatever procedure is done – this charge (or doctors fee, if you will) shall be determined not by medical professionals but by some obscure bureaucrat stuck in a cubicle somewhere else in the world (yes, even our government outsources – its cheaper) and who most likely doesn't even speak English.

Welcome to the world of "Obama(doesn't)care" . . . o.0

You haven't read anything I've said, and I don't expect you to start now. But no. This is not what the bill does for payments for doctors. In point of fact MEDICARE DOES THAT.

If you want to blame something, blame the pre-existing government interference. The current bill doesn't change jack about who pays or how much as far as doctors are concerned.

Again, *sigh*

"In point of fact MEDICARE DOES THAT."

Okay, fine . . . Believe what you want to. Just do yourself one little favor. WATCH AND SEE JUST WHAT REALLY HAPPENS!

If this mess isn't repealed somehow, and the Progressives remain in power, they will "tweak" this bill in order to "make it work" . . . THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE!

Haven't you figured out by now that no matter what government sticks its corrupt nose into they screw it up much more than royally – The VA, Schools, Social Security, Medicare, medicaid, the u.s. postal service . . . Oh, the heck with it – you younguns will never see the light – the progressives just dumbed you all down in the public school system for far too long.

It's not a point of believing what happens. It's a fact that medicare already does what you are afraid of that will somehow only start happening now.

The progression of fear for socialism or whatever it is you think Obama represents a new wave of has already happened. Decades ago. That's been my point from the beginning.

Here's the situation you were describing. It is in fact exactly and precisely how medicare operates. Some bureaucrat determines how much a doctor is to be paid for a procedure.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6722

That was written 4 years ago describing a program that has been around and operating in exactly that way for decades. I'm not immune to this problem. The problem is that it's been around for a long, long time, longer than me at least. So pinning it on the new guy is guilt-transfer at best. The blame goes to your generation for putting up with it, paying into it, and indeed now demanding it. Almost nobody wants to cut medicare and social security, despite these being the most essential and bloated portions of national deficits and debt creation. That problem of not wanting to gut these programs, either limiting them or at best eliminating them in their public manner (perhaps retaining the requirement to save money for these purposes, but have the savings be privately controlled and administered), is acute regardless of generational gaps. Still, I've found far more younger people willing and indeed demanding these things go away than I've ever heard or seen older folks complain. I would stop blaming us for the problem that "you" created as a result.

And most of those are programs I am opposed to, all in some form or another.

Whether or not I would support government interventions is beside the point. The point is that they exist and are most frequently examples of what you are afraid of suddenly happening (supposedly because of Obama). They've already happened. 40-50-60 years ago. That war has come and gone.

Social Security was on of the things that my Mother warned me against since it was her generation that elected FDR because the things that Hoover had done hurt too much and they wanted a "quick fix" which FDR promised in his "new deal".

Social Security was sold as a supplement to your retirement savings just in case the banks failed again. However, over the years our Progressive politicians worked in ways to "borrow" from the Social Security Fund because we (my generation) baby boomers were now in the workforce and contributing much more than was being taken out. That stuff was sold to us as a way to fund the ever increasing cost of the Cold War and its very real threat of total global destruction and the end of Human life on this planet – Kennedy and Johnston sold us that bill of goods, lock, stock, and barrel.

Now that we baby boomers are retiring, everyone is talking about doing away with Social Security and just writing off what we put into it all our working lives. How would you like to be paying for something all your life and then when it is finally paid off being told that there is nothing to have because someone else gave it away instead? You would not be happy about it either. We looked at Social Security as someone would look at a layaway plan at K-Mart or Sears. We paid for it, now we should receive what we paid for. There is a way to do that, but the younger generations do not want to do that because that will mean less money for them now. They are saying that they will take care of themselves later in retirement and do not want to give up any money now, yet they want this free health care (that is exactly how it was sold to them – just ask Jared) and other government handouts as well.

However, pointing fingers at past, present and future generations will not fix the problems we now face. Rolling up our sleeves and getting down to do the work will. We all have to make the hard choices and live with it. The very firststep is to repeal this so-called health care bill, and then we must stop the soon to be proposed V.A.T. (Value Added Tax) and then elect people to our government who will adhere to our Constitution instead of making things up as they go along as they have been doing for the past 100 years.

Part of the problem is and has been the Unions pushing for ridiculously high wages and benefits that employers simply cannot afford to provide. Another part is that there are law suits that are just completely unreasonable and way over the top. These are only the tip of the iceberg. There are many things that need to be changed, and changed to the practical from the impractically ridiculous form that has been the norm for decades now. This will not be easy nor will it happen overnight, but this must be done. Wether you agree with me or not, this is how it has to be done, because if not . . . Our future generations will never know just how great the United States of America actually was since it won't even be mentioned in the future History books, not even as a footnote.

Presidents cannot repeal Social Security and Medicare on their own. They're automatically funded programs. So it's pretty hard to put him as responsible for them, or their manner of operation. If you want to blame him for something, fine. Just make sure it's something he actually did. Manipulating the manner people pay for health care isn't something he's actually done. That's been done.

A long, long time ago.

I prefer not to ask Jared much of anything unless it's rhetorical and I'm making a point. People who want to spend money on paranormal funding are not likely to have rational opinions worth listening to.

I don't need a history lesson on social security or medicare. Thanks though.

The unions push for benefits in particular because of the way the employment tax code is structured to favor paying people in benefits rather than wages. The blame for that again goes back decades (WW2 and Eisenhower's administration mostly, the payroll taxes also are at issue here). It was possible that if we had an actual health care reform, and pushed for it, rather than whatever this bill was, that we could have amended that as a serious problem. But my suspicion is that the majority of Americans were quite comfortable in the status quo of receiving health care as a perk from their employer, mostly because they do not see the wages that this perk costs them, rendering that politically impossible to change for any President, Obama or otherwise, or any Congress, Democrat controlled or otherwise. That indeed would qualify as a hard choice requiring people to roll up their sleeves.

A repeal is 1) not politically possible and 2) not relevant. Not much of substance was changed with this bill and the status quo was largely preserved. You seem to think something important happened, but offer no proof of things that weren't already happening under the previous arrangements that will start to happen in the future,

If you can come up with something major as an actual change, let me know. So far I'm seeing a lot of talking points and not much red meat. The only important thing I've seen is that they nuked HSAs by upping the mandated requirements of "insurance" (also known in economic circles as pre-paid health care) still further. This is a change most Americans, other than younger people like me who self-insured, will not notice. I think this was on balance a bad bill for my own reasons (cost among them, preference for a different and more market-based reform as another). But your reasons and fear-mongering are unpersuasive without evidence.

I have no objection to a VAT if it comes in a revenue neutral method, cutting income, capital gains and/or corporate income taxes. This is primarily because the deficits we've had for the better part of a decade (and may continue for at least that long, before we even get to the inevitable insolvency of medicare and social security) will not come under control merely through spending cuts. Cutting programs, as I mentioned with Medicare and SS (the two most important cuts, ahead of defence even), is mostly unpopular, meaning that at some point we'll need other sources of revenues. Taxing legalised pot or raising marginal rates on rich people won't accomplish much. A VAT could.

As for being unhappy about not getting back money, that's precisely the reason I want out of the damn program. I know I'm not getting my taxed money on medicare or social security back. I'm giving it to people like you, for the next 20-40 years that I work. You can imagine how angry that makes me. It's one thing to have money you paid out and only get some of it back. That would suck. But it's quite another to be completely robbed and the money to go to people who "don't need it" (ie, a demographic of people who are generally wealthier, that is, people 65 and older).

FYI – Ever sice man has gone to sea in ships, it has been recognized that the captain (the guy in charge) was and is ultimately responsible for the ship and its crew – regardless of what past captains have done to wreck the ship and crew, the present captain is the one who gets the blame.

Barack Hussein Obama is the currant POTUS. Its his ship now, and what happens, no matter what past POTUS's have done, itis all his responsibility so don't try to lessen his guilt – he knew what he was getting into when he applied for the job, and as I recall his application was two years long.

Thank you for pronouncing me "wealthy" . . . Would you please inform my empty wallet that it has always been full and this echo it hears is just a figment of its imagination

On a serious note – my hopes for the younger generations (my children and grandchildren included) is that they do not make the same mistakes of believing in what our government idiots (congress) tells them about VAT.

As I understand it, VAT is based on the value of each individual item, the higher the value the higher the percentage of the tax. In my not-so-humble opinion this is not good at all as it would put high-end items out of reach for the average working stiff. Things like cars, fuel, etc., you know, those things that are necessary in this modern world to just survive. VAT is a very bad idea that should never happen – it has already happened in Europe in several countries and it has proven to be disastrous. Same thing with a single payer health plan (that is what your good buddy Obama is aiming for – he said so himself. the speech is on youtube, look it up), also know as "Socialized Health Care" . . . Just like Canada and Great Britain.

I can tell by the way you write that you are intelligent. Please believe me when I say I am not putting you down, because I wish you would get some plain old common sense. I have attended many college courses, but have never obtained a degree due to something about not comprehending the higher mathematical concepts (not even with a rather expensive scientific calculator), but that has never prevented me from performing my work during my career. Most of my education comes from life experience, as well as my not-so-humble opinions on just about everything. Mostly I am just a grumpy old fart who has worked hard all my life for what little I do have and just do not like the way the currant batch of politicians are leading the younger generation into subservient oblivion.

Social Security and Medicare can be fixed without stabbing us baby boomers in the back, and without robbing future generations of their livelihood. Earlier you mentioned something about privatizing them. That is a very good idea. Keep thinking in those terms and you just might come up with something that is useful and sensible.

Its late and I have things to do tomorrow. Have a good one. B)

Agree.

So…you don't want government stealing money in taxes from you. Yet…it's okay for the government to steal money from me so you can retire because you didn't plan ahead like young people now are trying to do. Okay. Nice.

So that came out a bit harsh. ^.^ Wasn't intended that way.

Demographically speaking, people over 65 are "wealthy" by comparison to the rest of the country and in particular people my age who are mostly just starting out on their working lives. They are not universally wealthy, and their wealth is often pretty unsubstantial, but they have money. I was speaking in general, which should be obvious with the "people like you" terminology.

Privatizing them cannot happen without stabbing somebody in the back. It will probably be the people who want to get it privatized. In general, people over 65 are going to get theirs without any problems. The system is solvent for quite sometime still. The main body that will start to pose problems are people over 50. The usual way to resolve that is to offer people over 50 an opt-out if they want it, and put everybody under 50 into private retirement (writing off what they already put in at worst, or turning it over to them at best, assuming the money shortfall can be corrected through higher taxes). Since I already have written off the money I've put in, I'm not terribly troubled by walking away from having to put more in. The problem with that is
1) Older people will fear monger and whine and moan that they will not get their money even when the plans do not touch their accounts
2) Most working people seem to think medicare and social security are brilliant ideas that somehow magically don't cost very much.
As a result, reform, when attempted, is practically impossible. This is even before getting Congress involved. The blame is the American people and those baby boomers.

Obama is hardly my buddy. I just find that you don't know what you're talking about because when I ask what the problem is you tell me things that I know for a fact have been happening for decades and didn't start because he passed a law. Most of my problem with Obama is that he's basically been the same as Bush or Clinton or Reagan. That hardly makes him defensible, but it does mean that when people complain they need to find new reasons to do it in order to blame Obama and not, horrors, themselves. Not merely pin things that are the way they are because of things that happened during the Truman administration or Nixon or even that Bush fellow, because that won't fly. Lots of people seem to think the bank bailouts are Obama's fault for example. That's a Bush problem for the most part. Obama didn't help the situation (he could have fought it while in the Senate for example), but he didn't start it either.

I would not pass a VAT through Congress. Just about any sensible reform will get screwed up by special interests. All that takes is a look at our income tax code and its many thousands of pages, and we even reformed and simplified the thing not even 25 years ago. But in the abstract, things which increase a tax base and are low tax rates would probably increase our tax revenues. This is, unfortunately, necessary because Americans are not willing to cut anything meaningful from the budget. I want a whole bunch of stuff gone, but most of it is politically impossible not merely because of unions or special interests and Congress but because of AMERICANS themselves who don't want to cut services and programs even when those programs don't work very well at all (like the post office or the department of agriculture). Unless you want to help convince tens of millions of people with factual assessments about the functions of government rather than blanket fears and talking point platitudes, you're not likely to get rid of the problem of debt and deficit by simply proposing that we need to cut spending and not suggesting any programs to cut (which is what the Tea Party does). Somewhere along the line, somebody will have to pay more tax as a result. That is not pleasant, but that's the reality of American politics. It's not Congress' fault. It's not Obama's fault. It's America's fault. The public, as "they" have said, sucks.

This would be my own list of things Obama/Congress has done "wrong" on.
1) the Stimulus bill. There may be some aspects of this that were worthwhile. There were some tax cuts and the AMT patch in it for example. These were not stimulative and should have been passed on their own merits. Other things like unemployment benefits or infrastructure spending may or may not have had a cost-benefit justification, but again, should have been passed on their own merits. Instead we got a polyglot of things that were called "stimulative". I'm highly skeptical that government knows how to stimulate the economy through fiscal spending anyway, but if it's going to do it, it should have to justify the programs it wants to spend money on and not simply use a model to show that the model works.
2) Continued Bush practices of NSLs, indefinite detention, and state secrets privileges that he specifically campaigned against and which I am certain are largely unconstitutionally used. Targeted assassination program is a little fishy too when it gets to hitting American citizens living abroad without trial or a clear governmental oversight of the decision. Bad precedent.
3) Afghanistan. I can't get too annoyed here since he campaigned on this as the "good war" (which millions of people apparently forgot because they were Republicans and were told he was a weakling for months). But I didn't think it was a "good war" based on national interests and the likelihood of success hinging on a highly suspect and openly corrupt national government in Kabul.
4) Vague reform over national drug policy, specifically over arrests for medicinal marijuana growers and distribution. Supposedly DEA and FBI were going to comply with state laws. They haven't done this consistently.
5) Caved to unions/special interests in writing the health care bill. The excise tax on health insurance was practically nixed for one.
6) Insufficient attention to inequality over homosexual rights. DADT appears to be on the way out (there's even a Catch-22 in place now) and he just threw a sop to this over the hospital visitation rights problem. But he did it using the power of government to regulate hospital rules because of its relationship as a primary customer (medicare). Which is weak sauce spread all over the place. I do think the best way to solve the problem is to get government out of the marriage business and leave these rules to private contracts and churches. But since that's not happening (married people would freak out), the rules and privileges that government extends need to be the same.

Presumably people with a more social conservative bent will find things to complain about that I'm not worried about or am ambivalent, or even happy about. The key here is that these are things he (or Congress and he signed) has actually done.

What really bugs me is that young people think that those of us that have been around for a much longer time than them don't know what we are talking about.

My knowledge didn't come from having my nose stuck in a book . . . It came from living the experience. Try it sometime, you just might be surprised at how much you can learn from living life than from reading about it.

The V.A.T. is coming from Congress and Obama will happily sign it. You cannot create something that is funded through taxpayer dollars like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and then all of a sudden decide to cut it off, that just doesn't work. You need to start reducing that sort of thing with options to either participate or not to participate. Those already in the system must remain in the system. Those entering the workforce must have a choice to enter the system or not. Then later, decades later, the system will shut itself off.

Now to get back to what this question was about – Having good health is NOT and never can be a right. What good health is is a responsibility of the individual, nothing more, and nothing less. When a society bows down to government for governmental "rights" like this so-called affordable health care mandated and controlled by government then society becomes, en masse, subjects of and controlled by the very government that issues said rights.

In religion there is a saying – "What God giveth, God taketh away". Remember, when you put Godlike powers into government you will get what you asked for, ie; "What government gives you, government can take away from you".

To liberty . . . 94 or not . . . Since you like government stealing from you (this is implied by your statement above) then please work harder and give all of what you make to government so that the rest of us lazy bums don't have to. :p

Sun Tzu . . . "The Art of War" . . . Perhaps if that were never written . . . . . . Just wishful thinking. B)

Did you ever read it? Because it's pretty clear that you didn't understand it if you did.

Besides… if it wasn't written, I'd have just gone with another nom de plume from someone expressing the same sorts of ideas that you seem to think are annoying and that you would then wish hadn't been written.

I observe and interact with people in life all the time. This is among other reasons why I am frustrated with the political process. People are generally dumb and uninformed about almost anything. If not worse, misinformed. Try doing some fact checking once in a while first and you might have something interesting to say and contribute and might be able to stay on topic…and might actually understand what the terms "socialist" or "liberal" mean and what they have been doing for decades without having Glenn Beck "explain" it on a chalkboard in his magical wonderland.

I like the avid anti-intellectualism and the implicit assumption that reading does not involve and somehow precludes real living. I do get out and about now and again for my own purposes and to amuse, observe, and entertain. But thanks for your concern. Perhaps keep your supposed wisdom to yourself next time instead of trying to insult me.

By the way I don't think it's your age and experiences that makes your opinions worthy of dismissal. It's the incoherent writing style and the disinterest in including a fact, even anecdotal, to support the claims that does that. When I keep explaining something and implicitly and explicitly asking for facts, and you keep repeating the same lines over and over again that does not progress the argument. Bear in mind also that I will argue with you even if I agree with the eventual ends that you think you want. If your argument is not sound, it will be called out. I don't care how old or young you are.

My bias against the aged is mostly limited to their ability to see over the steering wheel and the increased probability of being killed while driving by such people.

Wasn't harsh enough. He didn't get the point based on his reply below.

All of his "enemies" look the same to him.

The things you say, the questions you ask are totally irrelevant due to the fact that they are socialist biased.

We do not agree. We never will agree. Socialism, like Communism, just isn't a good thing.

After you have lived a little and experienced life a little, then you might understand. However I seriously doubt that you ever will.

>.>

…I don't like government stealing from me. That was the point of my comment.

See, even if we were to slowly step down programs like Social Security, it wouldn't work too well. You see, SS works on a cyclic level. All the money you payed into the system went to pay the retirees before you, or (as you said) into a government black hole somewhere to fund other programs. My tax money, Sun Tzu's tax money, and yes, Jared's tax money, go to fund (well, not mine so much) your social security payments. Know what would happen if we stopped paying in? No more benefits for you. This is why it has to be ended cold-turkey. There's no other way to do it. So retired people just might have to go back to work or depend on their younger children/grandchildren, whatever the case may be. But guess what? People made it for thousands of years that way.

Anyway…over all, I agree with Sun Tzu. It isn't that your old that I disagree with your arguments. Or that I'm young. I don't buy into the "I'm younger than you so I must be smarter" that's just dumb. But what I do have a problem with is when you persist in making arguments that have no basis in fact that you can point to.