Designed for the Business, Non-Business, Economics, Non-Economics Major(s) to Explore and Understand a Variety of Real-World Issues.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Health Care and the Debt
There is plenty of confusion about connection between the Health Care legislation and our current fiscal situation. The main question is if repeal of the Health Care legislation would reduce or expand the deficit. This piece clarifies quite a bit.
The national debt is unbelievably high, we are all in agreement about that. However, does anyone else agree that causes like this one which give almost every American health care, are worth the price? We are the only Democratic nation in the world that does not provide it's citizens with government sponsored health care.
Whether you add money to the deficit, or reduce the deficit, there are other ways to do it. There are programs in this country which are over funded, and programs that are underfunded (education for example), Health Care isn't the real problem. It is past leaders making terrible decisions which put us in the place we are today.
"If CBO is right, 32 million people will be added to the health entitlement rolls, at a cost of $938 billion through 2019, and growing faster than the economy or revenues thereafter."
Ryan asks is a cause like health care is worth the price, although it is a simple question, I think that many people would disagree with one another's answer. I think that every American should have the right to health care, and since government sponsored health care is not provided to American citizens automatically this issue has become a price that must be paid. Health care isn't something that only some people need and want; it is something that everyone should be secured with. This issue was bound to surface through time, and with time there is always a price to pay.
With some many opinions it is hard to say if the Health Care legislation would reduce or expand the deficit. Numbers and money estimations have been thrown around, but none are definite. The price we pay will be high no matter what, the way its budgeted will be the key.
John A Bauer said, “I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit."
“C.B.O. is entitled to their opinion,” he said, but he said Democrats had manipulated the rules established for determining the cost of a program under the 1974 Budget Act."
Let's put aside the national debt issue for now and look at the actual function-ability of the health care. As a risk management and insurance major, I study the laws and how insurance functions. Health care cost adapts extreme increasing speed and the government tries to introduce something called the universal health care to decrease the cost growth. Health care insurance is lower than the actual cost when patients pay because the lower risk, the healthier, subsidize the higher risk, the less healthy, with their insurance premiums. Therefore, the less healthy people tend to purchase insurance than the healthy population, and as a result, the insurance cost increases because the healthy people realize it is too costly to purchase insurance when they never use it and stop purchasing it. The above phenomenon is called adverse selection. When adverse selection takes place, insurance cost will then increase to a point where the insurance cost is equal to the actual cost of health care.
When adverse selection in place, the government can do two things, in my opinion: 1) make it mandatory for everyone to join the health care plan so the low risk will subsidize the high risk, or 2) the government pays for it. When the government makes everyone joins the same insurance plan, they will be criticized as a socialist country, and that was how England and other European countries do it. When the government is to be in conflict with the political stand point, laws are usually not passed and there will be a big fight between parties and lobbyist that means it will take them forever to make it happen. The second way is to have the government subsidize the most part. This is what this article has been talking about – this won’t work. America is in too much debt that we have to pay for and they are thinking of going into more debts. The most important part is that this plan will not work. The government currently is not having enough ways to make income and have too much to spend for, they cannot afford to go into more debt.
When the government is having too much debt, then it is either they print more money or borrow more money. Either ways it will hurt the country even more.
Conclusion: U.S. is thinking too much about spending but not enough into producing income.
Universal Health Care is a beautiful concept, but it stops at that. The United States isn't a socialist country and isn't going to run like one. Adding more to our deficit is a terrible idea in itself, no matter how worthy the cause.I realize that living without health care is a terrible and painful ordeal. Yet, if you think about it logically, there is a problem with government hand outs because they reduce productivity. Why work for something that is handed to you? That aside, the deceptiveness of the ACA isn't a great representative of the possible future of the health plan.
"So, even if CBO's analysis were flawless, the authors of the ACA guaranteed a misleading bottom line. Their legislative prescriptions were written to create deficit reduction only on paper -- not in reality."
Conclusively, I agree with Zhao, the US should be more focused on the income and productivity that stimulate the economy rather than adding to our debt.
America's mounting debt is of the highest concern right now. Passing the Affordable Care Act only puts the country in deeper debt in the long run. Health Care isn't a right, but a privilege.
Like Christina pointed out, government hand-outs are indeed a problem. They create a culture of dependency, which is what we have right now in my opinion. At this point, that's not what America needs.
Anything that can boost/stimulate the economy is a move in the right direction. The Stimulus Package itself has failed to do that and hasn't went according to plan.
Michelle Zei MWF 10- 10:50 a.m. I agree with Ryan. Even if health care increases the deficit it is a worth while endeavor. Offering health care does not mean our country is socialist, not that that is even a bad thing. We need to start taking better care of our citizens and we are long over due for health care. Perhaps now is not the best time, but if not now, when? I'm sure there will constantly be articles that advise financially against universal health care no matter what the state of our economy is.
Also "the fantasy of deficit reduction from the ACA is also built on a $410 billion tax increase over the coming decade, and a flood of revenue in the years after built on cynically replicating the flawed AMT-style revenue creep. New Medicare taxes initially apply only to individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples with incomes above $250,000. But those income thresholds do not rise with inflation, so more and more families will pay them each year."
This point is not compelling to me at all. Excuse me if I don't have great sympathy for taxing the rich. However, claiming that the tax will begin to affect many people because of inflation seems a little irrelevant. It's not going to be affecting anyone who can't afford it any time soon. Again, universal health care needs to happen and if taxes are raised to allow this to happen so be it. I think the result will be worth the cost.
Personally, I find it necessary to find some sort of medium, one that can not only alleviate the deficit, but still allow for heath care to remain viable. Now by no means am I a business major, but keeping universal health care no matter the cost should have prominence over the monetary loss. The United States wastes billions of dollars a year on nonsense,when realistically we should be using funds to allow for every American to recieve decent health care. The United States is no doubt reckless with money, but congress should recognize that most working class Americans have difficulty paying for health care. President Obama's Heath Care Reform allows for students to remain on their parents health care until they are 26. That alone is incentive enough for me to support health care. I can barely afford some of the costs of college let alone a health care bill. I am also a total liberal so I feel that anything the goverment can do to support the citzens they should,espically the ACA.
I think that the article was intersting if not a little overwhelming and disheartening. As a Social Work major I feel that, yes social welfare and health care programs are great, in fact, they will help to keep me in a job some day. What I do not like though, is the fact that in order to keep these programs running, the government is digging its own financial grave. I feel that our economy, and way of life for that matter, needs a sudden and dramatic change. I personally feel as though this suedo-Democracy in America is obviously not the best.
I absolutely agree with Bruce. Healthcare needs to remain available to folks who cannot afford it all on their own. At the same time, we need to restore "fiscal sanity". I understand the point made in this piece and I do feel that the Congressional Budget Office was very deceptive in its presentation that withdrawing the Affordable Care Act would increase the shortage by $230 billion over the next 10 years. Close examination, as the piece states, shows the opposite result. Reducing the deficit is absolutely essential however people NEED healthcare. Its really easy to complain about "Open-ended entitlement expansion" when you and your family have healthcare". I'd like to see someone struggling to keep their children safe and healthy complain about the deficit. I feel like this is a complex issue, and the lies or misrepresentation of the CBO will not change or fix anything.
While I would love to agree with all those saying that health care is worth the deficit, we can't just boil it down to the moral dilemma. If it was a question between health care and tax cuts on the rich, then the moral question is much more valid. Unfortunately though, it's not that simple.
Yes, I agree that it is hard to speculate as to what will or won't happen to the deficit by repealing the health care acts, but we can all agree that as things lie, we're not improving our situation. The real issue becomes whether or not health care can possibly be sustainable. If the answer is no, or at least not in it's current iteration, then something needs to be done, otherwise we eventually run out of a way to fund it and it dries up. Either way you slice it, there is no more health care, despite how ethically difficult of a question it is.
Obviously I agree that I would love to have free health care, but we have to look at a sustainable way to do it, otherwise it all crumbles.
This article hits on the controversial issue of government-sponsored health care through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Throughout history, this issue has been argued and discussed and our government has finally recognized our need (or want) for it. We have made a move forward in providing a chance for all Americans to afford health care. As many have previously stated, health care should be affordable to all. The question here is at what cost, and it is our right or a privilege to be provided with health care?
As hard as this question is to answer, I believe the health care bill will have positive effects for our nation. The article argues that CBO has presented the public with misleading information about the ACA. The CBO has previously stated that repealing the ACA would only add to the deficit, but the article finds that repealing the Act is only logical to restore “fiscal sanity.”
“…The authors of the ACA guaranteed a misleading bottom line. Their legislative prescriptions were written to create deficit reduction only on paper -- not in reality.”
The article continues, stating that in ten years with full implementation of the ACA, it will cost close to $2.3 trillion. With our nation’s deficit at a severe high, it is obvious we cannot afford to leave the ACA stand as is and have a cost higher than our economy’s revenue. Clear changes need to be made to the Act to not raise increase spending to such levels.
But here we can see how important and noteworthy it is that our legislative process takes time, so that we can fix such problems within the ACA to ensure it will not increase our deficit beyond inescapable means. Call me optimistic, but I believe we should not simply real the ACA, but instead find ways to improve it.
I also agree that much of our political focus surrounding the deficit is based on cutting back on spending and not creating income, as Zhao has previously mentioned. We need to look forward in ways to increase our nation’s income and get our facts straight so we can allocate federal funding accordingly.
Fiscal sanity. Health reform. These two ideas stir such strong emotions within the hearts of everybody. It may be easy for most to pick a side on the health care debate. We all know people who are currently living without health care coverage. I myself had the unfortunate experience of entering the hospital without health coverage over two years ago. I'm still paying off the bills out of my own pocket to this very day. While I do believe everyone deserves health coverage, I'm not certain if the government should be paying for all of it. Shouldering the financial burden of two wars has crippled this country, and now the notion of providing health insurance for all is looming on the horizon. Ultimately our government needs to get its fiscal house in order, and at the same time, they need to overhaul our health care industry as a whole. Only then will we be able to move forward and heal our economy. The road ahead certainly will be lined with difficulties and hard decisions, but they will need to be made in order to repair the damage to our economy.
I agree with Greg that the issue at hand for this particular debate is whether or not sustainable health care is possible. Just like any other bill, we need to find a way to fund it. It’s not going to get paid for on it’s own and no one is going to let us slide. That's because, well, EVERYTHING is driven by money. Since this is the U.S., and not Canada, our government does collect any and all information about an individual’s health (or a customers’ health) on a daily basis. Nothing is confidential, and nothing is free.
I also agree with what Nick said about the government digging its own financial grave in order to keep health care programs running is not the solution. In the long run, I don’t actually see how that will be beneficial for any American. Yes, President Obama's Heath Care Reform allowing students to remain on their parent’s health care until they are 26 is a short-term relief. But I think the shape the economy is in will dictate how it will pan out in the long run.
What is the logical FIRST step toward fiscal sanity does not cut it. Instead, one should ask: What are the logical comprehensive STEPS toward fiscal sanity and are both parties willing to come to an agreement to implement these steps without “budget gimmicks, deceptive accounting, and implausible assumptions used to create the false impression of fiscal discipline.”
Who, for this deeply significant national topic, actually has a long-term solution that is sustainable ? If so, can it benefit ALL Americans in this so called democracy we live in?
Sorry, didn't remember to post name and class time again.
I agree with Greg that the issue at hand for this particular debate is whether or not sustainable health care is possible. Just like any other bill, we need to find a way to fund it. It’s not going to get paid for on it’s own. EVERYTHING is driven by money. Since this is the U.S., and not Canada, our government does collect any and all information about an individual’s health (or a customers’ health) on a daily basis. Nothing is confidential, and nothing is free.
I also agree with what Nick about the government digs its own financial grave in order to keep these programs running is not the greatest sound to the ears. In the long run, I don’t actually see how that will be beneficial for any American. Yes, President Obama's Heath Care Reform allowing students to remain on their parent’s health care until they are 26 is a short-term relief. But I think the shape the economy is in will dictate how it all pans out in the long run.
What is the logical FIRST step toward fiscal sanity does not cut it. Instead, one should ask: What are the logical comprehensive STEPS toward fiscal sanity and are both parties willing to come to an agreement to implement these steps without “budget gimmicks, deceptive accounting, and implausible assumptions used to create the false impression of fiscal discipline.”
Everyone has an opinion. But who, for this deeply significant national topic, actually has a long-term solution?
The point is that I have heard many argue that we have to rely on government to help society’s ills and problems (providing healthcare) because nobody else will, because everybody is so selfish. Well if everyone is so selfish, how does that exclude all the governmental personnel that will be handling taxpayer’s money or carrying out the healthcare bill, and how does it exclude the beneficiaries of healthcare. The problem is that we as Americans are all so damn selfish, including me, yet I am not denying the rare occurrences of unselfish acts. Grover Cleveland’s speech may sound archaic, because we have such a sense of entitlement in this country that our ancestors from the Great Depression would be sickened by most of our attitudes. We are some of the most ungrateful, most spoiled group of people on the face of the planet yet we act as if we have nothing. Many people have died trying to get into our borders for just a taste of the liberty and opportunity we take for granted daily. It is too often that abundance has only bred avarice and complacency in this country. I see it countless times throughout my day in small and larger ways, of how selfish people are. We go so far in our selfishness that we actually make more effort, and will even painfully inconvenience ourselves more to gain a fleeting modicum of comfort. People will actually rush to close the elevator door rather than to do nothing and stay in one place and let whoever gets on, gets on. Not too long ago, I was at student financial aid and heard a girl on her phone leaving crying out, “Can you fucking believe that bullshit, they’re only giving me 4,000 dollars, not even… Huh? No, it’s a grant. I can’t believe this bullshit.” Maybe I was born in the wrong time period, but shouldn’t that girl be going around thanking every taxpayer she sees that she was gifted a whole $4,000 dollars to attend school and the chance to receive an education, while a large portion of the world is still wondering where their next meal is going to come from? And this is only a sample of the culture that is all around. If you give healthcare from a government level, the nature of people is to believe that they are now entitled to it. At birth we are not entitled to anything, except the fact that we are all equal as human beings, anything beyond that is luck, a blessing, means of millions of people’s sacrifices and work that pay-off in later generations, or whatever you want to call it. Maybe we should just be happy that we still have relative freedom and that at night we do not have to worry about a war party tearing through our towns and slaughtering all those around us.
Because of how people are, if we provide healthcare, it will ultimately turn into large abuses of the system according to the selfishness that is already prevalent. People will go to hospitals for headaches and scratches and to get unnecessary scripts for medications and drive up the price of healthcare while they pay for barely any of it. Meanwhile, the hard-working people will get sick and tired of most of their income being taken from them to provide for people taking advantage of the system, and will realize they will be better off if they stop trying so hard and seek to get free benefits themselves. It will not be everybody, but it will be enough. If people do not totally give up on working, they will find illegal ways to gain income and cheat on their taxes in order not to pay for things such as healthcare for a variety of reasons. In the end, healthcare will fall apart and will not be able to properly serve anybody, even those it was designed for, because the government will not have enough money or resources to fund it for what has happened, provided that some sort of civil war or violent conflict does not emerge between the government and the people who are tired of the government taking away their hard-earned money. We will then be right back to the beginning, except all we have done is stolen money from those who have it in an attempt to give it to those who do not, most likely created a culture of more complacency and self-entitlement, given the message that people can receive for not working, people can rely on the government for their problems, and started a massive and probably violent division in the country.
Ryan Lowry MWF 9-9:50
ReplyDeleteThe national debt is unbelievably high, we are all in agreement about that. However, does anyone else agree that causes like this one which give almost every American health care, are worth the price? We are the only Democratic nation in the world that does not provide it's citizens with government sponsored health care.
Whether you add money to the deficit, or reduce the deficit, there are other ways to do it. There are programs in this country which are over funded, and programs that are underfunded (education for example), Health Care isn't the real problem. It is past leaders making terrible decisions which put us in the place we are today.
Jessie Fox
ReplyDeleteSec 001 (MWF 9-9:50)
"If CBO is right, 32 million people will be added to the health entitlement rolls, at a cost of $938 billion through 2019, and growing faster than the economy or revenues thereafter."
Ryan asks is a cause like health care is worth the price, although it is a simple question, I think that many people would disagree with one another's answer. I think that every American should have the right to health care, and since government sponsored health care is not provided to American citizens automatically this issue has become a price that must be paid. Health care isn't something that only some people need and want; it is something that everyone should be secured with. This issue was bound to surface through time, and with time there is always a price to pay.
With some many opinions it is hard to say if the Health Care legislation would reduce or expand the deficit. Numbers and money estimations have been thrown around, but none are definite. The price we pay will be high no matter what, the way its budgeted will be the key.
John A Bauer said, “I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit."
“C.B.O. is entitled to their opinion,” he said, but he said Democrats had manipulated the rules established for determining the cost of a program under the 1974 Budget Act."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/us/politics/07cong.html
Zhao Liu (MWF 9-9:50)
ReplyDeleteLet's put aside the national debt issue for now and look at the actual function-ability of the health care. As a risk management and insurance major, I study the laws and how insurance functions. Health care cost adapts extreme increasing speed and the government tries to introduce something called the universal health care to decrease the cost growth. Health care insurance is lower than the actual cost when patients pay because the lower risk, the healthier, subsidize the higher risk, the less healthy, with their insurance premiums. Therefore, the less healthy people tend to purchase insurance than the healthy population, and as a result, the insurance cost increases because the healthy people realize it is too costly to purchase insurance when they never use it and stop purchasing it. The above phenomenon is called adverse selection. When adverse selection takes place, insurance cost will then increase to a point where the insurance cost is equal to the actual cost of health care.
When adverse selection in place, the government can do two things, in my opinion: 1) make it mandatory for everyone to join the health care plan so the low risk will subsidize the high risk, or 2) the government pays for it. When the government makes everyone joins the same insurance plan, they will be criticized as a socialist country, and that was how England and other European countries do it. When the government is to be in conflict with the political stand point, laws are usually not passed and there will be a big fight between parties and lobbyist that means it will take them forever to make it happen. The second way is to have the government subsidize the most part. This is what this article has been talking about – this won’t work. America is in too much debt that we have to pay for and they are thinking of going into more debts. The most important part is that this plan will not work. The government currently is not having enough ways to make income and have too much to spend for, they cannot afford to go into more debt.
When the government is having too much debt, then it is either they print more money or borrow more money. Either ways it will hurt the country even more.
Conclusion: U.S. is thinking too much about spending but not enough into producing income.
Christina Macey MWF (9 - 9:50)
ReplyDeleteUniversal Health Care is a beautiful concept, but it stops at that. The United States isn't a socialist country and isn't going to run like one. Adding more to our deficit is a terrible idea in itself, no matter how worthy the cause.I realize that living without health care is a terrible and painful ordeal. Yet, if you think about it logically, there is a problem with government hand outs because they reduce productivity. Why work for something that is handed to you? That aside, the deceptiveness of the ACA isn't a great representative of the possible future of the health plan.
"So, even if CBO's analysis were flawless, the authors of the ACA guaranteed a misleading bottom line. Their legislative prescriptions were written to create deficit reduction only on paper -- not in reality."
Conclusively, I agree with Zhao, the US should be more focused on the income and productivity that stimulate the economy rather than adding to our debt.
Andrew Kearney MWF (9-9:50 AM)
ReplyDeleteAmerica's mounting debt is of the highest concern right now. Passing the Affordable Care Act only puts the country in deeper debt in the long run. Health Care isn't a right, but a privilege.
Like Christina pointed out, government hand-outs are indeed a problem. They create a culture of dependency, which is what we have right now in my opinion. At this point, that's not what America needs.
Anything that can boost/stimulate the economy is a move in the right direction. The Stimulus Package itself has failed to do that and hasn't went according to plan.
Michelle Zei
ReplyDeleteMWF 10- 10:50 a.m.
I agree with Ryan. Even if health care increases the deficit it is a worth while endeavor. Offering health care does not mean our country is socialist, not that that is even a bad thing. We need to start taking better care of our citizens and we are long over due for health care. Perhaps now is not the best time, but if not now, when? I'm sure there will constantly be articles that advise financially against universal health care no matter what the state of our economy is.
Also "the fantasy of deficit reduction from the ACA is also built on a $410 billion tax increase over the coming decade, and a flood of revenue in the years after built on cynically replicating the flawed AMT-style revenue creep. New Medicare taxes initially apply only to individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples with incomes above $250,000. But those income thresholds do not rise with inflation, so more and more families will pay them each year."
This point is not compelling to me at all. Excuse me if I don't have great sympathy for taxing the rich. However, claiming that the tax will begin to affect many people because of inflation seems a little irrelevant. It's not going to be affecting anyone who can't afford it any time soon. Again, universal health care needs to happen and if taxes are raised to allow this to happen so be it. I think the result will be worth the cost.
Bruce Chubb MWF 10:00-10:50
ReplyDeletePersonally, I find it necessary to find some sort of medium, one that can not only alleviate the deficit, but still allow for heath care to remain viable. Now by no means am I a business major, but keeping universal health care no matter the cost should have prominence over the monetary loss. The United States wastes billions of dollars a year on nonsense,when realistically we should be using funds to allow for every American to recieve decent health care. The United States is no doubt reckless with money, but congress should recognize that most working class Americans have difficulty paying for health care. President Obama's Heath Care Reform allows for students to remain on their parents health care until they are 26. That alone is incentive enough for me to support health care. I can barely afford some of the costs of college let alone a health care bill. I am also a total liberal so I feel that anything the goverment can do to support the citzens they should,espically the ACA.
Nicholas Poiron MWF 10-10:50
ReplyDeleteI think that the article was intersting if not a little overwhelming and disheartening. As a Social Work major I feel that, yes social welfare and health care programs are great, in fact, they will help to keep me in a job some day. What I do not like though, is the fact that in order to keep these programs running, the government is digging its own financial grave. I feel that our economy, and way of life for that matter, needs a sudden and dramatic change. I personally feel as though this suedo-Democracy in America is obviously not the best.
Samantha Anderson
ReplyDeleteMWF 9-9:50
I absolutely agree with Bruce. Healthcare needs to remain available to folks who cannot afford it all on their own. At the same time, we need to restore "fiscal sanity". I understand the point made in this piece and I do feel that the Congressional Budget Office was very deceptive in its presentation that withdrawing the Affordable Care Act would increase the shortage by $230 billion over the next 10 years. Close examination, as the piece states, shows the opposite result.
Reducing the deficit is absolutely essential however people NEED healthcare. Its really easy to complain about "Open-ended entitlement expansion" when you and your family have healthcare". I'd like to see someone struggling to keep their children safe and healthy complain about the deficit. I feel like this is a complex issue, and the lies or misrepresentation of the CBO will not change or fix anything.
Greg Fuguet
ReplyDeleteMWF 10-10:50
While I would love to agree with all those saying that health care is worth the deficit, we can't just boil it down to the moral dilemma. If it was a question between health care and tax cuts on the rich, then the moral question is much more valid. Unfortunately though, it's not that simple.
Yes, I agree that it is hard to speculate as to what will or won't happen to the deficit by repealing the health care acts, but we can all agree that as things lie, we're not improving our situation. The real issue becomes whether or not health care can possibly be sustainable. If the answer is no, or at least not in it's current iteration, then something needs to be done, otherwise we eventually run out of a way to fund it and it dries up. Either way you slice it, there is no more health care, despite how ethically difficult of a question it is.
Obviously I agree that I would love to have free health care, but we have to look at a sustainable way to do it, otherwise it all crumbles.
Abby Rosier
ReplyDeleteMWF 10:00 – 10:50
This article hits on the controversial issue of government-sponsored health care through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Throughout history, this issue has been argued and discussed and our government has finally recognized our need (or want) for it. We have made a move forward in providing a chance for all Americans to afford health care. As many have previously stated, health care should be affordable to all. The question here is at what cost, and it is our right or a privilege to be provided with health care?
As hard as this question is to answer, I believe the health care bill will have positive effects for our nation. The article argues that CBO has presented the public with misleading information about the ACA. The CBO has previously stated that repealing the ACA would only add to the deficit, but the article finds that repealing the Act is only logical to restore “fiscal sanity.”
“…The authors of the ACA guaranteed a misleading bottom line. Their legislative prescriptions were written to create deficit reduction only on paper -- not in reality.”
The article continues, stating that in ten years with full implementation of the ACA, it will cost close to $2.3 trillion. With our nation’s deficit at a severe high, it is obvious we cannot afford to leave the ACA stand as is and have a cost higher than our economy’s revenue. Clear changes need to be made to the Act to not raise increase spending to such levels.
But here we can see how important and noteworthy it is that our legislative process takes time, so that we can fix such problems within the ACA to ensure it will not increase our deficit beyond inescapable means. Call me optimistic, but I believe we should not simply real the ACA, but instead find ways to improve it.
I also agree that much of our political focus surrounding the deficit is based on cutting back on spending and not creating income, as Zhao has previously mentioned. We need to look forward in ways to increase our nation’s income and get our facts straight so we can allocate federal funding accordingly.
Nicholas Camaioni
ReplyDeleteMWF 9 AM - 10 AM
Fiscal sanity. Health reform. These two ideas stir such strong emotions within the hearts of everybody. It may be easy for most to pick a side on the health care debate. We all know people who are currently living without health care coverage. I myself had the unfortunate experience of entering the hospital without health coverage over two years ago. I'm still paying off the bills out of my own pocket to this very day. While I do believe everyone deserves health coverage, I'm not certain if the government should be paying for all of it. Shouldering the financial burden of two wars has crippled this country, and now the notion of providing health insurance for all is looming on the horizon. Ultimately our government needs to get its fiscal house in order, and at the same time, they need to overhaul our health care industry as a whole. Only then will we be able to move forward and heal our economy. The road ahead certainly will be lined with difficulties and hard decisions, but they will need to be made in order to repair the damage to our economy.
I agree with Greg that the issue at hand for this particular debate is whether or not sustainable health care is possible. Just like any other bill, we need to find a way to fund it. It’s not going to get paid for on it’s own and no one is going to let us slide. That's because, well, EVERYTHING is driven by money.
ReplyDeleteSince this is the U.S., and not Canada, our government does collect any and all information about an individual’s health (or a customers’ health) on a daily basis. Nothing is confidential, and nothing is free.
I also agree with what Nick said about the government digging its own financial grave in order to keep health care programs running is not the solution. In the long run, I don’t actually see how that will be beneficial for any American. Yes, President Obama's Heath Care Reform allowing students to remain on their parent’s health care until they are 26 is a short-term relief. But I think the shape the economy is in will dictate how it will pan out in the long run.
What is the logical FIRST step toward fiscal sanity does not cut it. Instead, one should ask: What are the logical comprehensive STEPS toward fiscal sanity and are both parties willing to come to an agreement to implement these steps without “budget gimmicks, deceptive accounting, and implausible assumptions used to create the false impression of fiscal discipline.”
Who, for this deeply significant national topic, actually has a long-term solution that is sustainable ? If so, can it benefit ALL Americans in this so called democracy we live in?
Josh Willgruber
ReplyDeleteMWF 10:00-10:50
Sorry, didn't remember to post name and class time again.
I agree with Greg that the issue at hand for this particular debate is whether or not sustainable health care is possible. Just like any other bill, we need to find a way to fund it. It’s not going to get paid for on it’s own. EVERYTHING is driven by money.
Since this is the U.S., and not Canada, our government does collect any and all information about an individual’s health (or a customers’ health) on a daily basis. Nothing is confidential, and nothing is free.
I also agree with what Nick about the government digs its own financial grave in order to keep these programs running is not the greatest sound to the ears. In the long run, I don’t actually see how that will be beneficial for any American. Yes, President Obama's Heath Care Reform allowing students to remain on their parent’s health care until they are 26 is a short-term relief. But I think the shape the economy is in will dictate how it all pans out in the long run.
What is the logical FIRST step toward fiscal sanity does not cut it. Instead, one should ask: What are the logical comprehensive STEPS toward fiscal sanity and are both parties willing to come to an agreement to implement these steps without “budget gimmicks, deceptive accounting, and implausible assumptions used to create the false impression of fiscal discipline.”
Everyone has an opinion. But who, for this deeply significant national topic, actually has a long-term solution?
Keith Engelbart
ReplyDeleteMWF - 9-9:50
The point is that I have heard many argue that we have to rely on government to help society’s ills and problems (providing healthcare) because nobody else will, because everybody is so selfish. Well if everyone is so selfish, how does that exclude all the governmental personnel that will be handling taxpayer’s money or carrying out the healthcare bill, and how does it exclude the beneficiaries of healthcare. The problem is that we as Americans are all so damn selfish, including me, yet I am not denying the rare occurrences of unselfish acts. Grover Cleveland’s speech may sound archaic, because we have such a sense of entitlement in this country that our ancestors from the Great Depression would be sickened by most of our attitudes. We are some of the most ungrateful, most spoiled group of people on the face of the planet yet we act as if we have nothing. Many people have died trying to get into our borders for just a taste of the liberty and opportunity we take for granted daily. It is too often that abundance has only bred avarice and complacency in this country. I see it countless times throughout my day in small and larger ways, of how selfish people are. We go so far in our selfishness that we actually make more effort, and will even painfully inconvenience ourselves more to gain a fleeting modicum of comfort. People will actually rush to close the elevator door rather than to do nothing and stay in one place and let whoever gets on, gets on. Not too long ago, I was at student financial aid and heard a girl on her phone leaving crying out, “Can you fucking believe that bullshit, they’re only giving me 4,000 dollars, not even… Huh? No, it’s a grant. I can’t believe this bullshit.” Maybe I was born in the wrong time period, but shouldn’t that girl be going around thanking every taxpayer she sees that she was gifted a whole $4,000 dollars to attend school and the chance to receive an education, while a large portion of the world is still wondering where their next meal is going to come from? And this is only a sample of the culture that is all around. If you give healthcare from a government level, the nature of people is to believe that they are now entitled to it. At birth we are not entitled to anything, except the fact that we are all equal as human beings, anything beyond that is luck, a blessing, means of millions of people’s sacrifices and work that pay-off in later generations, or whatever you want to call it. Maybe we should just be happy that we still have relative freedom and that at night we do not have to worry about a war party tearing through our towns and slaughtering all those around us.
Keith Engelbart
ReplyDeleteMWF 9 - 9:50
Because of how people are, if we provide healthcare, it will ultimately turn into large abuses of the system according to the selfishness that is already prevalent. People will go to hospitals for headaches and scratches and to get unnecessary scripts for medications and drive up the price of healthcare while they pay for barely any of it. Meanwhile, the hard-working people will get sick and tired of most of their income being taken from them to provide for people taking advantage of the system, and will realize they will be better off if they stop trying so hard and seek to get free benefits themselves. It will not be everybody, but it will be enough. If people do not totally give up on working, they will find illegal ways to gain income and cheat on their taxes in order not to pay for things such as healthcare for a variety of reasons.
In the end, healthcare will fall apart and will not be able to properly serve anybody, even those it was designed for, because the government will not have enough money or resources to fund it for what has happened, provided that some sort of civil war or violent conflict does not emerge between the government and the people who are tired of the government taking away their hard-earned money. We will then be right back to the beginning, except all we have done is stolen money from those who have it in an attempt to give it to those who do not, most likely created a culture of more complacency and self-entitlement, given the message that people can receive for not working, people can rely on the government for their problems, and started a massive and probably violent division in the country.