You know, I’ve about had it with all these corrupt millionaires who want to teach us things like “having to face the full costs of their medical decisions.” You mean, like the decision of whether you’ll have enough to buy food, or take your kid to the doctor’s? What amoral scum they are:
WASHINGTON — Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans get serious about cutting the deficit.
Budget proposals from leaders in both parties have urged shrinking or eliminating tax breaks that help make employer health insurance the leading source of coverage in the nation and a middle-class mainstay.
The idea isn’t to just raise revenue, economists say, but finally to turn Americans into frugal health care consumers by having them face the full costs of their medical decisions.
Such a re-engineering was rejected by Democrats only a few months ago, at the height of the health care overhaul debate. But Washington has changed, with Republicans back in power and widespread fears that the burden of government debt may drag down the economy.
“There is no short-term prospect of enactment,” former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a leading Democratic adviser on health care. “However, in a tax reform (and) deficit reducing context in the long term, the prospects are much better,” said Daschle. He opposes repealing the tax break by itself, but says he would be “willing to look” at it with other changes that improve access to quality health care while reducing costs.
Labor unions believed they had squelched any such talk. Now, they’re preparing for another fight.
Tampering with health care tax breaks is “a terrible step in the wrong direction,” said Mary Kay Henry, the new president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents many hospital workers. “We want the middle class stabilized, not destabilized.”
They really do want us to die. And die in debt, in poverty, suffering every day. Who could then afford that back surgery that let’s the person return to work, the heart procedures, cancer care, etc., etc., etc.
I read that in the paper this morning. The phrase “by having them face the full costs of their medical decisions” sounds so odd as to be surreal, as if medical decisions were on a par with deciding whether to have beef or chicken tonight, as if John Cleese is going to show up at my door and tell me he’s come for my liver.
It never seems to occur to them that the providers are the ones with the unrealistic ideas about pricing. But then, someone has to pay for all those ex-wives and mistresses!
To further merciless’s point: it’s as though everybody has extensive medical knowledge and can even make a decision choosing among several options as to which will be correct to use on ourselves, which is worth the price being quoted (if you could even get a doctor/medical office to give you an estimate even). Not to mention that many (most?) of these decisions are being made at the height of a medical crisis and you may not have time to do research. We depend on the doctors/medical professionals to advise us.
Ah, yes, Purple Girl: In Ideal Free Market World, they expect us to do a web search and comparison chart while we’re unconscious, in pain, or in shock. And maybe somehow figure out that by going to an ER 15 minutes further we could possibly save the system some money — except with that heart attack we don’t even recognize time equals the chance to live a bit longer.
But, we’re not supposed to think our lives are worth much, eh?
Gee, isn’t this hopey changey stuff fun? When the Democratic Party changes from the party of FDR to the suck ups to Corporatism? And hope they can get enough money to stay in office one more election?