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I have a friend whose place of employment dropped their insurance because they said they couldn't afford to insure everyone equally. He's a tad pissed because he had great insurance and it was the only reason he worked there. The insurance where I've worked for years is fantastic, but is being crapified, also.

I half wonder if Jervis had a hand in this bill.

A little news item from John Deere and catipillar on how much health care is costing them:

http://www.topix.com/forum/com/cat/TC8KTMHKO6URHQNCE

http://www.deere.com/en_US/newsroom/2010/releases/corporate/25mar2010_corporaterelease.html

If Obama and the Dems wanted to drive manufacturing totally out of this country, they're on the right track.

As long as the Dems are dipping everyone's hand into my pocket to pay for their health care, I'd like to propose the following:

1: Raise the taxes on smokes and alcohol substantially since those are both known to adversely affect health. I don't feel like entirely footing the bill for the stupid choices of people using this stuff.

2: Hefty fines for convicted users of illegal drugs. Same for people operating vehicles under the influence. Same reason as above.

3: Heavier taxes on equipment for high risk sports such as skateboarding, skydiving, rock climbing, etc. I've seen enough of the participants in these activities going to the emegency room that I don't feel like paying for their lifestyle.

4: Fines for being unhealthy through lifestyle choices. Like eating at McDonald's 5 days a week? Be ready to pay a fine based on how much over the right percentage of bodyfat you have.

Rant over.

My benefits package is being dropped. Though it doesn't matter to me. The coverage was crap, so I've been paying for superior package out of pocket. If anything the absence of benefits will make it easier for me to negotiate my way to industry average pay this Fall.

Relapse wrote:A little news item from John Deere and catipillar on how much health care is costing them:

http://www.topix.com/forum/com/cat/TC8KTMHKO6URHQNCE

http://www.deere.com/en_US/newsroom/2010/releases/corporate/25mar2010_corporaterelease.html

If Obama and the Dems wanted to drive manufacturing totally out of this country, they're on the right track.

And of course the fact that John Deere and Cat are companies with conservative markets would have nothing to do with their politics?

I have a friend whose place of employment dropped their insurance because they said they couldn't afford to insure everyone equally.

See the issue here.

The thing is Health insurance should never be tied to one's workplace in the first place. Now with the money they save from dropping everybody they hire new people right?

I have to wonder how many times it is true and how many times it's a good excuse to cream off a little more profit.

whatwhat wrote:

Relapse wrote:A little news item from John Deere and catipillar on how much health care is costing them:

http://www.topix.com/forum/com/cat/TC8KTMHKO6URHQNCE

http://www.deere.com/en_US/newsroom/2010/releases/corporate/25mar2010_corporaterelease.html

If Obama and the Dems wanted to drive manufacturing totally out of this country, they're on the right track.

And of course the fact that John Deere and Cat are companies with conservative markets would have nothing to do with their politics?

Politics doesn't have anything to do with how much money this bill is costing them or if they end up having to lay people off because of it.

As a side note, the conservative market statement is a tad strange.

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George Spiggott wrote:I have to wonder how many times it is true and how many times it's a good excuse to cream off a little more profit.

I've had great insurance at work for 17 years and after this bill went through, it gets changed. People work hard at my company and the owners have always done right by us. It's why I've stayed there so long.

Thus far there are a multitude of rumours around the shop that our insurance benifits are going to be dropped.
However,nothing confirmed from the "higher ups" as of yet.

Let's not forget people.

No surprise this news is.

The Force is weak with PresO it is. Hmmm?

Yeah, soon your country will be on par with 3rd world hellholes, like Sweden and Canada...

Fateweaver wrote:Let's not forget people.

No surprise this news is.

The Force is weak with PresO it is. Hmmm?

Fateweaver makes a post mocking the president and doesn't actually say anything that has to do with the thread. Shock! It's as if he has nothing useful to say!



I've never worked at a place that offered health insurance without opt in payment and required full time workers status (funny how they would then drop my hours to below full time every 3 weeks so that I was two or three hours short of qualifying). I do believe that I'll be able to stay on my parents insurance longer now though.

Politics doesn't have anything to do with how much money this bill is costing them or if they end up having to lay people off because of it.

Part of the bill was meant to do this by design. It's to encourage companies to seek better deals on insurance, business insurance being one of the more corrupt and inefficient rackets in the industry.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Fateweaver wrote:Let's not forget people.

No surprise this news is.

The Force is weak with PresO it is. Hmmm?

Fateweaver makes a post mocking the president and doesn't actually say anything that has to do with the thread. Shock!



I've never worked at a place that offered health insurance without opt in payment and required full time workers status (funny how they would then drop my hours to below full time every 3 weeks so that I was two or three hours short of qualifying). I do believe that I'll be able to stay on my parents insurance longer now though.

I was going to slam him harder. I was going to say "Let's not forget people. PresO knows more about how to take care of us than we do."

I'm sure not every company dropping insurance (because they can get away with it until 2014 and even then unless the fine changes it'll be cheaper for the companies to pay the fine than insure people) had good or even decent coverage to begin with but crap or good if people got insurance cheaper through work than can get it currently now it's putting lots of people in a bind.

Shuma coming in and attacking my post per usual. Double shock!!!

Shuma coming in and attacking my post per usual. Double shock!!!

Of course I did, it was contentless and dumb. It had nothing to do with the topic at hand, referenced no on else's post, and contributed nothing.

I'm sure not every company dropping insurance (because they can get away with it until 2014 and even then unless the fine changes it'll be cheaper for the companies to pay the fine than insure people) had good or even decent coverage to begin with but crap or good if people got insurance cheaper through work than can get it currently now it's putting lots of people in a bind.

Would these same people not then be capable of getting private insurance that would likely cover them just as well? Also what was preventing these companies from dropping their insurance in the first place?

Relapse wrote:I've had great insurance at work for 17 years and after this bill went through, it gets changed. People work hard at my company and the owners have always done right by us. It's why I've stayed there so long.

I don't see how this answers my question. I can put a '1' in the companies genuinely affected column if you like. How many companies are there in the US?

Relapse wrote:If Obama and the Dems wanted to drive manufacturing totally out of this country, they're on the right track.

Actually, the overblown cost of US healthcare has been given time and again as a cause of the US' inability to compete in many manufacturing markets. The only way to address this is with a fundamental review of the health industry, looking to increase competition and remove incentives to over-treat patients. The bill is doing this.



This whole debate is so stupidly partisan when the bill itself simply isn't. I can guarantee that if this same bill were proposed by a GOP legislature we'd have Democrats on here posting articles about how some company somewhere is talking about recognising an increase in future tax liability, and Republicans jumping in to talk about how necessary the bill is.

This whole debate is so stupidly partisan when the bill itself simply isn't. I can guarantee that if this same bill were proposed by a GOP legislature we'd have Democrats on here posting articles about how some company somewhere is talking about recognising an increase in future tax liability, and Republicans jumping in to talk about how necessary the bill is.

I doubt the Republicans would be so adventurous as to try.

Wait wait wait.... I thought this bill was a good thing? Or am I seeing this wrong as not having much of a clue about it... All I know is that your getting a system like ours... and ours is beginning to become more and more like yours... wich is crap IMO.

Soladrin wrote:Wait wait wait.... I thought this bill was a good thing? Or am I seeing this wrong as not having much of a clue about it... All I know is that your getting a system like ours... and ours is beginning to become more and more like yours... wich is crap IMO.

The bill does not make our system like yours. It's meant to address some of the major issues inherent to our system, and several companies are using it as an excuse to cut health coverage in order to save money. Such acts have become a lightning rod for media attention as they appear to be representative of a botched set of laws, though realistically they often have absolutely nothing to do with them.

Oh, what i've heard/read so far it was pretty much same as in: everyones getting health care. If that's not the case than please correct me.

Soladrin wrote:Oh, what i've heard/read so far it was pretty much same as in: everyones getting health care. If that's not the case than please correct me.

Certainly. Thats not the case. You have now been corrected. There are hundreds of websites on the internet that explain the bill in relative detail.

Guess i'll look it up some time. Can't be bothered atm. But yea, that's how some of the media(and my dad) has told us here(at least the newspaper I always grab on my bus ride told me that).

But since that's not case... damn, sorry to hear it's effecting you guys so negatively.

ShumaGorath wrote:I doubt the Republicans would be so adventurous as to try.

No, they held congress and the presidency for six years and didn't try, but it's hard to get past how market oriented and well, conservative much of this bill is. It's no surprise it looks so much like Romney's own state bill.

And yet... death camps, socialism, government takeover of healthcare...

Yeah Obama should have just made the bill as left wing as possible, since that is what it was billed as anyways. Idk why he keep reaching out to people who just bend him over. They won't work with you...ever....on anything...nomatter what. We saw this when people rejected bills they thought up. You arn't even American to them, 1 out of 4 think you are the anti-christ. Hillary would have gotten the job done.

Even if their ability to pay for healthcare WAS going to be affected, eventually, by the bill... it wouldn't be yet, and there's no reason why coverage would be dropped NOW. It's a dodge, pure and simple. Too many companies are going with the "this will cost too much" idea (because at heart they don't WANT to give benefits to employees when it's much easier and cheaper to hire someone new if a worker gets sick) and ignoring the "my bargaining power just increased by at least double since I represent so many more potential customers; let's get a cheaper price for the same thing" idea... because, you know, workers are expendable.

George Spiggott wrote:

Relapse wrote:I've had great insurance at work for 17 years and after this bill went through, it gets changed. People work hard at my company and the owners have always done right by us. It's why I've stayed there so long.

I don't see how this answers my question. I can put a '1' in the companies genuinely affected column if you like. How many companies are there in the US?

Check the links I provided. That's just two of the companies affected for over 100 million by this bill. It's not too smart costing companies this much money during the economic times we're having. A lot of people work as temps at these places and now they have to get the same type of insurance as full time workers.
In any company with 30 employees or more this has to be done. A lot of small business owners I know personally can't afford to keep pace with the demands of equal insurance, so are looking at having to drop the insurance they carry for their employees altogether. The result of this is that the employees, who have been having a hard time making ends meet as it is due to reduced hours, and other things these businesses had to do to survive now have to fork out money they can't really afford to get insurance.
This might be alright for a single person living at home or with room mates, but someone with family and a morgage is seriously hurt by this.

Relapse wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:

Relapse wrote:I've had great insurance at work for 17 years and after this bill went through, it gets changed. People work hard at my company and the owners have always done right by us. It's why I've stayed there so long.

I don't see how this answers my question. I can put a '1' in the companies genuinely affected column if you like. How many companies are there in the US?

Check the links I provided. That's just two of the companies affected for over 100 million by this bill. It's not too smart costing companies this much money during the economic times we're having. A lot of people work as temps at these places and now they have to get the same type of insurance as full time workers.
In any company with 30 employees or more this has to be done. A lot of small business owners I know personally can't afford to keep pace with the demands of equal insurance, so are looking at having to drop the insurance they carry for their employees altogether. The result of this is that the employees, who have been having a hard time making ends meet as it is due to reduced hours, and other things these businesses had to do to survive now have to fork out money they can't really afford to get insurance.
This might be alright for a single person living at home or with room mates, but someone with family and a morgage is seriously hurt by this.

Considering caterpillar, one of the example companies you gave, had a revenue of 32 billion dollars in Q4 2009, the worst it's experienced since the great depression I think you may have something else going on than a simple marginally heightened expense on healthcare (something that hasn't even happened yet). The majority of CATs workforce doesn't even live in the U.S.

This is smoke and mirrors.

Relapse wrote:As long as the Dems are dipping everyone's hand into my pocket to pay for their health care

Yeah, why should we spend our valuable money to save the lives of other human beings?

It's not like countries like Denmark who have socialized medicine have lower infant mortality, higher life expectancy, and objectively higher levels of happiness among citizens.

Oops. Nevermind, continue to fear anything that says "socialism" like Frankenstein's monster fears fire.

sexiest_hero wrote:Yeah Obama should have just made the bill as left wing as possible, since that is what it was billed as anyways. Idk why he keep reaching out to people who just bend him over. They won't work with you...ever....on anything...nomatter what. We saw this when people rejected bills they thought up. You arn't even American to them, 1 out of 4 think you are the anti-christ. Hillary would have gotten the job done.

I think its because this is more or less the bill Obama wanted. I'm not convinced the public option was something the that much of the Democrat leadership ever actually wanted, and certainly not something they could get past the Washington lobbies. There is certainly decent support for it among the base of the party and among the House, but ultimately really substantial reform wasn't desired by a large portion of elected Democrats. Whether they're right or not, I don't know.


Hillary already had a crack at this, by the way, she didn't get the job done.


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ShumaGorath wrote:Considering caterpillar, one of the example companies you gave, had a revenue of 32 billion dollars in Q4 2009, the worst it's experienced since the great depression I think you may have something else going on than a simple marginally heightened expense on healthcare (something that hasn't even happened yet). The majority of CATs workforce doesn't even live in the U.S.

This is smoke and mirrors.

I just looked it up, John Deere's PAC gave $378k to GOP candidates in 07/08, and $171k to Democrats - but that Democrat money went almost entirely to Primary elections and to blue dogs like Baucaus (infamous for taking piles of money from the healthcare industry and using his position as chair of the Senate Finance Committee to shoot down any possible proposal of a single payer system).

The CEO of Caterpillar personally donated $33,500 to the GOP.

And then in the wake of healthcare they announce it'll cost their companies millions. I'm shocked to find gambling in this establishment.

Relapse wrote:

whatwhat wrote:

Relapse wrote:A little news item from John Deere and catipillar on how much health care is costing them:

http://www.topix.com/forum/com/cat/TC8KTMHKO6URHQNCE

http://www.deere.com/en_US/newsroom/2010/releases/corporate/25mar2010_corporaterelease.html

If Obama and the Dems wanted to drive manufacturing totally out of this country, they're on the right track.

And of course the fact that John Deere and Cat are companies with conservative markets would have nothing to do with their politics?

Politics doesn't have anything to do with how much money this bill is costing them or if they end up having to lay people off because of it.

They are making forecasts not publishing actual figures. Politics play a large part in deciding to do that.

As a side note, the conservative market statement is a tad strange.

You're kidding right? Agriculture especially is about the most conservative market there is. Hence why you find most places with a large agriculture sector are conservative/republican strongholds.

whatwhat wrote:

Relapse wrote:

whatwhat wrote:

Relapse wrote:A little news item from John Deere and catipillar on how much health care is costing them:

http://www.topix.com/forum/com/cat/TC8KTMHKO6URHQNCE

http://www.deere.com/en_US/newsroom/2010/releases/corporate/25mar2010_corporaterelease.html

If Obama and the Dems wanted to drive manufacturing totally out of this country, they're on the right track.

And of course the fact that John Deere and Cat are companies with conservative markets would have nothing to do with their politics?

Politics doesn't have anything to do with how much money this bill is costing them or if they end up having to lay people off because of it.

They are making forecasts not publishing actual figures. Politics play a large part in deciding to do that.

As a side note, the conservative market statement is a tad strange.

You're kidding right? Agriculture especially is about the most conservative market there is. Hence why you find most places with a large agriculture sector are conservative/republican strongholds.

It almost seems like you're saying: Our food and buildings, brought to you by conservatives. People taking the the money laborors earned from working on farms and buildings to support those who don't or won't work, brought to you by liberals.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Rabbit wrote:

Relapse wrote:As long as the Dems are dipping everyone's hand into my pocket to pay for their health care

Yeah, why should we spend our valuable money to save the lives of other human beings?

It's not like countries like Denmark who have socialized medicine have lower infant mortality, higher life expectancy, and objectively higher levels of happiness among citizens.

Oops. Nevermind, continue to fear anything that says "socialism" like Frankenstein's monster fears fire.

I'm more concerned with my family's well being than someone who goes out on drinlking binges, eats until they're better than 50 pounds overweight, chooses to chainsmoke, use drugs or do high risk sports. Next time you use a quote, use it in full context.

No announcement about benefits where I work, but my desk is 10 feet from the owners office, and he's been having a lot of closed-door meetings since the day the bill was signed, and he generally seems to be in a much pissier mood than normal.. He's always pissy, but now even more so than usual...