bmags

Yeah. I was essentially starving for two months, had lost 35 lbs when i wasn't fat before i left, and with my visa coming up i decided to check out. Looking at some jobs, maybe even a salary position (shock!). but we'll see how it goes.

So i kept seeing these off-hand comments about student loans, and was like, what happened? I thought the loan thing was dead in the water. Apparently, in the sidecar going through reconciliation, that student loan reform to make the gov't directly give loans to student is in it. If that passes, that's huge! It saves so much money that frankly, I hope they just put right back into loans for students, lots more pell grants, etc. I'm really pleased with this. I'm really pleased right now with the House, I'm going to help my local congressman for 2010.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:30 AM) Purely hypothetical question: Under this new system, can my family drop employer insurance and join an exchange? You know, I don't think so. You'd have to see if you'd be up for a subsidy. The hope is that this creates a more affordable individual insurance market, which could benefit you. Another point, there was a study showing that premiums would rise, a cbo story, but it showed that it rose because people would get better insurance. So you might find that you could get a better policy for the same price. Also, remember that shopping for insurance will be more open.

f*** google.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 10:30 PM) I keep seeing people say this, the bolded especially, that it does nothing to control costs. It does. It might not be as aggressively as some people wanted, but one of the long-term goals was to end the quantity-based system which does affect costs. And I'll also say, it initially DID have a lot more provider-side cost controls, but again, that hurts doctors...and people like doctors.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 10:19 PM) I hate that Grayson is made out to be the equivalent of Bachmann by lazy Beltway journalists. There is no equivalent of Bachmann on the left among elected officials. There just isn't. I kind of feel like Grayson is what I thought Franken would be. He's funny and biting but also hyperbolic. But since his initial appearance I've really enjoyed a lot of his interviews. I remember they took him on CNN and mustache man was trying to be like "you are saying i want to kill americans" and grayson didn't even bother taking the bait and just kept pushing forward what the bill would do. He's got conviction, I like him. I think he should stay in the house. When he first burst onto the scene with "get sick die quickly", I remember a lot of comments were like "The democrats finally have a republican!"

I know that I get health insurance until 26 now, which is huge. I was terrified when I had a tooth ache.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 08:50 PM) So 40% of people wanted less federal action on health care than they got. Not any kind of majority. But these polls also fail to take into account the undoubtedly significant % of people who wanted something DIFFERENT - not something less, or more. Right, this has been the explanation for a while. People on the left were furious after the PO was taken out in early December. But the poll questions were straight up, do you agree with the bill blah blah etc. And i imagine it was a case of when i worked the phones and had to ask "how many jobs have you had" for a job recruitment company, and they would go in depth about all their jobs and what they did, and i couldn't cut them off to tell them i just needed a number, and after 20 minutes of hearing their life story I would follow up with "So five, then?" They probably got the explanation, it doesn't go far enough, but the numbers than say 40 approve, 49 percent oppose. Also, I would like to reiterate. The dems WILL lose seats in november, this was going to be the case, i mean, pretty much even if unemployment dropped. They gained so many seats in 2006 and 2008, they have so much ground to cover in republican leaning districts. It's very rare to be able to keep those. But, I don't think the house flips anymore, but who knows, 7 mos. is a while.

we're on the same posting schedule at the moment, balta.

I don't think you'll like him NS, you do know him. He's of "Dick Cheney is a vampire" and "Republicans health care plan: Get sick, die quickly" fame

Yglesias:

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 08:32 PM) You can lead a horse to water... Sweden's population is more controllable, being smaller, it's easier to educate them...and its easier to lead a smaller group to water and convince them to drink it. That concept isn't going to work here the US...people don't care about their health until they're not healthy, even those that are way overweight. You can talk to them until you are blue in the face about living a healthier lifestyle...they're simply not interested. I bet a majority of the people on this forum aren't in good shape, with zero excuse as to why. I bet a majority don't eat very healthy diets, either. True. One of the reasons the scandinavain countries can enact such reforms is they are a largely homogenous culture, and they don't have the problem of people viewing things like this as helping the "other." But, I don't think this is really akin to changing things such as eating habits for Americans. It really goes to how doctors communicate. High cholesterol? lay off the fatty foods, take some (whatever it is). Yeah, his cholesterol will go down with the medicine. But the communication is not there about exactly what a patient can do to improve his health. Diets, for instance, are not universal (and largely not healthy). The south beach diet won't work for everyone, not everyone's body processes foods the same way. But learning what could work for a specific patient would cost time and money - that is - about the same time and money that they use to fix the problem once it happens. The people that do this ? Commence eye-rolling from primary doctors....but naturopaths and the like. The problem and divide about thinking these doctors are kooks, and the problems with the marketing of these doctors themselves is that many start treating patients AFTER the problem occurs. And at that point, traditional american doctor suppression is needed. If applied BEFORE the problem or AFTER, that is when the effect can occur. I don't know. Off Topic. edit: numerous spelling mistakes.

Ha! yes, Grayson should go back with that transcript.

I'm sure bringing up Sweden will cause some eyes to roll. But yes, in Sweden, their doctors make a lot less money. I don't think anyone could fight the doctors and win. People like doctors. But, you saw a shift in sweden to the way they practice medicine. With them not getting paid by how much treatment they can give to a patient, a lot more focus on preventative medicine occurred. What does that mean? A lot of US medicine relies on suppression of viruses/bacteria. Suppression once it becomes a problem. This does, in fact, solve peoples short term problems. In Sweden, there is a lot more medical practice than here to boost peoples immune systems and health so that they don't become sick. This is important, and I hope we can begin to move towards this. I don't think the bill addresses the problem at all with this, but if it causes an attitude shift, than that can achieve a lot.

ahh, i wish had a hot tub time machine to go to Chile in the 1970s. It was such a conservative utopia. Complete free market, military leaders, torture. Ahhh.

Nice article to answer some quesitons on where these savings come from. From Ezra Klein http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klei...ost_c.html#more

depends if you read policy wonks or political bloggers.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 04:51 PM) The cost of health care needs to be addressed. This is not going to work if the government starts getting charged $1,000 every time someone on the gov plan has a simple 15 minute visit to the doctor. The US cannot afford this unless there are legit cost lowering measures taken. The cost of health care itself has sky rocketed. Much faster than inflation. Even if you cut out 100% of insurance company profits, the health care itself is still at the extreme level of price. First, there is no gov't plan in this bill.. But second, this bill does take steps that people like rep. Ryan seem to love in that it's trying to make health care more of a market via transparency in pricing. We'll see if that works, I hope it does.

i'd rather stick to people that know what they are talking about rather than the "OMG INSURANCE INDUSTRIES MIGHT PROFIT!! THEN WE ARE ALL DIE!" bulls*** firedoglake mouth breathers.

haha, ahh. Hilarious.

We are already paying for these people to get care in the most expensive way, i don't think it's out of the question that we can create ways to pay for them in less expensive ways. Also, though medicare is expensive because of the explosion of enrollees, health care for them is way cheaper than otherwise. Way cheaper.

I think, as part of the census, i am one of the first. I give the names of all republicans to the SS

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 04:32 PM) From what I've read, the bill doesn't appear to contain anything to help doctors w/ malpractice insurance or to enforce malpractice settlement limits. Did I miss it somewhere or is that something that just wasn't dealt with on this bill? It wasn't.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 03:58 PM) And does it bother anyone else that the people voting on this bill could not possibly have read the whole thing? Why does the bill need to be 2k pages long? Are you serious? Good god, for one, go look at the bill. It's in like size gazillion font with ridiculous spacing. Many pages have a ffew sentences on it. Second. Yes, everyone read the bill, if not, their staffers read it and briefed them on it. What's more, any policy wonk in the media read it. If there was a : 301.1 clause: all babies must be eaten my zombie marlon brandeau, then yes, it would have been spotted. Bills need to be big. I don't remember people complaining about the size of the NCLB bill.

Having just driven from florida, it was shockingly over $3 in much of the south.