Health Care Inform Needed.

[fenderlove]

Does anyone have a link to the full health care reform bill that can either be read online or downloaded in a PDF file format? And please, no fake ones with garbled legal jargon from Liberty-whatever or any of those other crazy sites that are telling Americans that the government's just gonna kill everyone once they hit 60. I've got a friend who lives with people who thinks that the government is trying to kill Sarah Palin's baby, so she needs some proof against their insano-flake claims. Thanks! :D

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

At the moment, is there even one bill? I think there are several committee bills afloat. I do think that there is a copy of the one most are referring to as the bill floating around (John Stewart clearly had a copy he'd read) but I'm not sure where. Perhaps on that myths and facts healthcare site the White House set up?

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I've been to the Reality Check website on the White House website, which gives a lot of excerpts from the bill (or bills/proposals), but I could have sworn that there was a link that I had been to which was the full thing. I sent an inquiry to the healthcare.gov website to see if they can point me in the right direction.

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

There is a pdf of one of the options but I believe there are several.

It's all terribly complicated

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

You don't happen to have a link to the various options, do you? Sarah is losing her mind with her roommates, and she doesn't want to argue with them, just wants them to have something resembling the actual bill so they stop spouting off Fox News and Palin's Facebook as the only sources for their opinions (but they won't go to the Reality Check website or any of the White House's official sites for some reason).

You know, now that I think about it, even if they had any of the proposed reforms, they probably wouldn't read it because it might crush their indignant righteous fury. *head desk*

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

I give fair warning

It's a HUGE document and will freeze all but the fastest computers

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That was the exact thing I was looking for!

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

That's the one I was going to link you to. It's actually a great site, since you can ctrl-f search it, and then permalink to certain chunks.

Here's a PDF: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf

Here's a good link for refuting bullshit: http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/fight_the_smears

And another: http://www.healthcarereformmyths.org/HealthcareReformMyths.php

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Those are great! :D

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I read a lot on this. (cough understatement cough) If I find any more, I'll let you know!

We don't wanna kill granny

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much!

Sarah's mother was fairly young and had terminal cancer, and she made a DNR and listed Sarah as her power of attorney for her medical affairs. However, her mother, who wasn't from this country, did not know enough about the legal aspects of her eventual death, such as wills and probate courts and such. When her mother did pass away, Sarah at twenty-three years old was left to deal with a host of legalities and paperwork she was ill-suited to handle. The hospital and the insurance companies gave her the run around for days before she could actually get her mother's funeral arrangements taken care of. There must be others in this country who have gone through the exact same thing. No one should be shoved around and taken advantage of while they are in a period of grieving. If we had the part of the reform bill that at least helped people who are diagnosed with a terminal illness and are of a certain age make these decisions, I think that it would take a lot of stress out of the process. I mean, I know that Sarah would have appreciated maybe being able to sit down with her mother and her mother's doctor or some sort of representative to discuss what actions Sarah would need to take upon her mother's death. However, Sarah did not get that. She was tossed around and treated like a child by the medical authorities.

Also, when her mother was comatose and to the point where Sarah would need to make the decision to let the DNR go into effect, the hospital tried to pressure her into "pulling the plug." Sarah wanted to bring her out-of-state and out-of-the-country relatives in to be able to say good-bye. The hospital basically told her that if she did not make a decision within twenty-four hours, then the insurance company would make the decision for her and take her mother off life support. The doctors at the hospital told her that by waiting to make the decision that she was being cruel and causing her mother immense pain. Sarah was able to bring in some family to be with her during that troubling tim. There was no compassion in what that hospital did nor how they treated Sarah afterwards. So, when the crazies spouting off about death panels in the reform bill start yammering, I wish they could hear Sarah's story about how an insurance company made a hospital threatened, intimidated, and berated someone who was dealing with a terribly difficult decision. What the hospital and the insurance company did was a real death panel, and it is inexcusable.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Yup, been there, done that.

The first paragraph-that's another industry that needs reforming-the funeral home industry. They're f'ing vultures.

And wills, etc.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Probably for the same reason that whenever I send my sister info she sends back a wiki entry claiming that the site is "liberal" then sends me something written up by The Heritage Foundation. :/

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I think you're right. I just don't know how one can counteract the arguments of others when they use a singular entity such as Fox News as their only source of information and decries everything else as being lies and untruths without bothering to even look. I think I keep trying because I don't want to give up on people, but it's getting harder and harder to keep offering up perfectly valid varying points of view when they'll be shot down without a glance.

Thanks for posting that blog entry about people using Naziism as a method to create fear, by the way. The post really summed up my feelings on the matter. I went to that blogger's page and enjoyed reading several of his/her other posts.