Editorial: A decision on health care reform is needed

Brian K.
03/24/2010 8:08 PM

joe r....don't you think that maybe you rates went up because the cost of health care went up? Don't you think that maybe the cost of health care goes up when people decide to take a vacation, buy a big screen tv, buy a new car, buy a new home, ect......rather than purchase health insurance first? Its funny how you are sooooo against businessses.......but they are the ones that keep you employed.

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Brett A.
03/24/2010 7:30 PM

Well Joe believes Govt is smarter than consumers....Govt loves to buy $300 toilet seats and $600 hammers....With Govt involved in daily healthcare concerns.... YOU GUESSED it! More bureacratic tape, more expense, and less HEALTH provided per unit cost--- but Joe loves Govt!! Govt can do the thinking for him! Anything that Joe needs Govt will provide---- but in the end... WHO WILL PAY FOR THIS??? Oh our grandchildren....they will thank us greatly... as they will be fighting the next American Revolution War to fix what this generation of idiots did to them... Then the grandkids can form a "more perfect" union-- by the people and for the people-- just as America was originally founded on!

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Darren H.
03/24/2010 2:33 PM

Lets look at this from a new angle, go back in time a bit and follow along HC is a product everyone needs. Insurance is not even offered. The cost of HC goes up. Insurance becomes available. The cost of HC rises higher. More and more people buy insurance to help cover costs. HC companies start to work with insurance companies on special pricing if you have insurance. More and more people buy insurance to help cover costs. Insurance companies start to pay crazy amounts for goods and services from HC providers (don't believe me for the price of two aspirins in the ER you could purchase thousands of them at a discount store) as long as they charge the general public the same cost. Everyone other then the ultra wealthy has to buy insurance. Insurance raises costs to crazy high prices. The government now mandates that you buy a product no one needed in the past. If this is not one of the best marketing plans ever please show me one better.

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Rick C.
Willmar, MN     03/24/2010 8:30 AM

Joe are you going to join me in encouraging the Drs to unionize? We don’t want to see “the man” keeping the workers down do we? $32 joe? Seems like a small price to pay for a non taxable union Cadillac HC plan.

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Rick C.
Willmar, MN     03/24/2010 8:23 AM

When bill and joe finally wake up to the fact that HC costs are driven by Dr fees, hospital and clinic fees and other medical professionals they will begin to undersand that attempting to control the meesely 6% of the cost of insurance they will begin to understand as Congressman Peterson (DFL) does that the bill does little if anything to control costs.

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Rick C.
Willmar, MN     03/24/2010 8:19 AM

BTW bill. Actually they do care about our health, the healthier we are the more profits they make.

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Rick C.
Willmar, MN     03/24/2010 8:17 AM

Well bill take it up with Rep Colin Peterson.

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bill h.
03/24/2010 6:17 AM

Rick C: The new bill doesn't control costs? That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Your lack of reasoning skills, while humorous, borders on schizophrenia. The insurance companies spent millions of dollars to get you to think the way you do, why do you think that is? Are they concerned with your health? Ha Ha!

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joe r.
Willmar, MN     03/24/2010 5:11 AM

As if health care premiums have not increased especially after the president decided to pursue health care reform. My insurance went up another 32 dollars a month for no good reason. The health care industry has acted just as the oil companies have, using any little excuse to increase premiums. If insurance companies want to increase their rates even more, they will find the government competing with the consumer who will then turn to the government for affordable health care, and not have to pay one third of their income and still be subjected to their caps should you become seriously ill. Hey why not ignore the fact that half of all bankruptcies in America are the result of health care costs, so who do you think has to eat those losses? Not the CEO's who were awarded million dollar bonuses, they have another yacht to ski behind, while someone is lying on an operating table worrying how to pay for a bypass, because of a cap on their health care plan. How about the poor smuck who works but can't afford the companies health care plan being offered? We seen some of the health care reform plans being proposed by the likes of McCain, or Palin, that do little for Americans, but cater to the insurance companies. Its kind of like the banks that borrow money from the government at 1% or less, then loan out that same money to the tax payers at 4% or higher and we were the ones bailing them out in the first place. Continued hypocrisy by our big health care insurance companies, banks, and big drug companies. Why is it that we are in the mist of hard economic times, yet the health care insurance companies are making big profits?

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Rick C.
Willmar, MN     03/23/2010 12:22 PM

Just for luke and bill's benefit. From Rep Peterson, finally some truth. "This legislation doesn’t control costs, doesn’t reform Medicare, and only covers 37% of the uninsured in the 7th District as opposed to an average of 68% nationwide. Some districts will see coverage expanded to cover as much as 92% of the uninsured and Minnesotans will be paying for that while leaving 63% of our 7th District residents without coverage. This is very similar to the way the Medicare geographic disparities problem was created back in 1982. The geographic payment disparity encourages cost-shifting and rewards low quality / high cost health care providers in other states while forcing Minnesota to do more with less. Instead of fixing that problem – which we need to do -- this legislation will lock us into that same disparity situation with regard to the uninsured. Minnesotans will be asked to do more with less while also covering costs in other states that aren’t doing the right thing for their own citizens. And on top of that this legislation will not control costs – in fact it seems to me that it will do just the opposite; health insurance premiums will rise. CBO has said that premiums for individuals will increase 10-13%."

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