Where's the Senate Healthcare Bill?

[Vanya]

I've been looking around the Senate's website and the only bill I see is a 43 pages long deal.
Where's that supposed 4000 page monster? I'd like to read the whole thing. Where do I get it?

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Could someone with the knowledge tell me how and why health care is allowed to be run by monopolies?  I keep hearing people say all we need is competition, that our health care markets aren't actually free markets, which is why the prices are so ridiculous.

So yeah, completely unable to answer your question Vanya, and I popped in one of my own.  I am a cunt.

[formerdeathcorps]

Can you give us the link of what you did manage to find, Vanya?

If this is indeed all they have, I'd call your Senator to see if they know anything about it.  If they won't budge, raise the stakes by getting your friends or the media to help.

[Vanya]

I think I found the whole thing here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3962:

Yeah, this must be the thing. 2016 pages; still only half as long as Republicans have claimed.

Edit: While looking at the format of the bill, and by extension all bill, they waste a hell of a lot of space. This thing is really like a thousand or so pages if written in a normal fashion.

[formerdeathcorps]

Are you sure this is right?  I can't see anything.

EDIT: Slow internet, then.  Still though, 2000+ pages for a law is ridiculous.  Legalese aside, I'm sure some of it involves loopholes as well.

[Vanya]

Well, read it and make a judgement.
I think we should all read it instead of relying on media services that are often just as politically partisan and opinionated as the politicians.
We often like to talk shit about political stuff, but don't actually take the time to read the stuff.

[Zypher]

Agent 000 (pronounced triple zero) reporting..... (cookie for the reference)

Could someone with the knowledge tell me how and why health care is allowed to be run by monopolies?  I keep hearing people say all we need is competition, that our health care markets aren't actually free markets, which is why the prices are so ridiculous.

So yeah, completely unable to answer your question Vanya, and I popped in one of my own.  I am a cunt.

the antitrust exemption is known as the McCarran-Ferguson Act which was made into law in 1945 after the Supreme Court ruled that the US govt could in fact regulate insurance companies under the Commerce Clause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarran%E2%80%93Ferguson_Act

ironically it was sponsored in a bi-partisan manner

on topic:
the bill needs more public option if the public mandate is going to stay but i see the reason as to why they don't want to let the positives of this bill go down for those reasons either(own opinion though)

[Vanya]

Agreed. They do need more public option in there if they expect us to be forced to have insurance.

As for the McCarran-Ferguson Act, seems to me it would be a good idea for the people of the United States to have this act repealed.
I don't see how it is of any benefit to us.

[Zypher]

the House actually passed a bill to remove the anti-trust exemption from insurance companies it passed with a 406 yes vote.......after tons of stalling from Republicans on procedural votes.

Now the bill joins the numerous amounts of other House passed bills that are now stalled in the Senate

yay democracy

[Samuraiblackbelt]

I don't think I've heard anyone say it was 5000 pages, not even Rush or Hanity

[Zypher]

I remember Jon Stewart doing a bit where people in Congress kinda ran with the whole "OMG its HUGE" angle.... gotta head to work so i can't dig through the daily show website to find the clip, nor can i remember how high the Congressional officials claimed how many pages it was

[Vanya]

Last time I heard anything it was John Boehner stating it was 2700 pages, which is still almost 700 pages larger than it actually is.

[Samuraiblackbelt]

2000 pages is still huge

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

That's like a stephen king novel.  And if you believe the republican party, it's just as scary.

I don't see why we would have to raise taxes to pay for it if we:
1.  Made a public-owned, privately-run, for profit-public option, which would serve as competition to reduce prices.
2.  Removed all anti-competition stuffs, like having to buy health insurance in your own state.

That state-of-residence shit really sucks.  It's the same with car insurance, which is a nightmare for homeless itinerent bastards like me.

Also, when Sarah Palin said we needed to go to war with Iran RIGHT NOW, why the fuck didn't anyone ask her, "How are you going to pay for it?"  Oh wait, I know, by taxing my generation when all the fucking baby boomers die off (OH GOD OF BIRD FLU, LEND ME YOUR AID!  AVIAN INFLUEZA!)

Considering how fucked up the interest payments are, why don't we just raise taxes now, pay it off, and save money in the long term?  Or just legalize pot and tax it?  That would serve another purpose too: bankrupting the Weed Cartels that are destablizing our bean eating neighbors to the south.

[Vanya]

Because people get really wacky when you raise their taxes.
Take Florida, for instance. For the last 15 years they've been trying to pass a state sales tax raise of 0.005 cents.
The money would go to paying for road maintenance & expansion. The big extra benefit is that it would also kill ALL THE TOLLS.
That's right! It would make it so no one has to ever pay a toll again. And the people that don't drive on toll roads and don't drive at all have killed the tax increase because they don't want to pay a half a penny more for "other" people. Instead traffic is shit, the roads are shit, and the tolls are out of hand.

So yeah, people are stupid about taxes.

[Kaijyuu]

I don't know how credible this graph is; I just got randomly linked to it.

[Vanya]

That looks like it was made to be funny.
Seems like it matches what the Democrats say.

[Kaijyuu]

Yeah I'm a bit suspicious of it entirely because of the United States being put above the graph limits.

[Archael]

the US is correctly placed there if you go with the $7,290 spent on healthcare figure

it's meant to highlight that number vs how low the age expectancy is regardless of the fact

[Zypher]

the US is correctly placed there if you go with the $7,290 spent on healthcare figure

it's meant to highlight that number vs how low the age expectancy is regardless of the fact

so if that trend continues.....

we'll be paying top dollar for a standard of health care that is comparable to Mexico's (assuming the U.S. line continues downward and Mexico's line continues upward) until eventually we'll be throwing away money fro crappy health care.... all in an effort to not pay for other people's health care

which is what we do now...just in the worst way possible (uninsured go to emergency rooms the hospitals then pass on the cost to insurance companies and insurance companies pass it along to policy holders)