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Apartment for sale in Campal/Miramar area, Panaji, Goa. Spacious 3 bedroom flat (3BHK)available for sale in upscale area near Miramar beach Contact: goaengineer...@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:10:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Santosh Helekar <chimbel...@yahoo.com> Congratulations on a well-argued position on health care! Are you the commentator Rad21 on the Huffington Post blog by any chance? Many of the ideas you express, and the statements you make are verbatim from his comments. Please see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/rad21?action=comments Mario observes: Santosh, I don't know about Rad21, but the Huffington Post has been Gilbert's favorite, if not only, source of information for quite some time now. I guess I may have to wait until Rad21 addresses the question I raised about whether forcing the private insurance companies to accept patients with pre-existing conditions, which would be like buying auto insurance after an accident, will effectively put them out of business: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-August/181613.html Excerpt: Hey, Gilbert, If the government imposes an elimination of restrictions like pre-existing illness and demands guaranteed choice of coverage, why would people not wait until they had a serious illness before demanding to be insured, and paying for their own coughs and colds in the meantime? And what would that do to the actuarial estimates upon which sound insurance policies are based? Aren't such impositions a transparent method of putting private insurance companies out of business? [end of excerpt] Gilbert wrote: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-August/181676.html Excerpt: The 47 million uninsured (27% of the population under age 65) Mario responds: This 47 million number of "uninsured" was clearly shown to be a gross exaggeration by far left wing demagogues of whom American taxpayers really need to use common sense and logic in helping. The actual number who cannot get health insurance through no fault of their own is more like 15 million which is 5% of all Americans: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-August/181657.html Gilbert wrote: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-August/181657.html Excerpt: the AMA has officially endorsed President Obama's efforts and other participants have promised cooperation. [end of excerpt] Mario responds: A dirty little secret is that Obama has no plan. He is riding on the coat-tails of plans being developed by the House and Senate while pushing for more government intervention in the health care system, some of which he is now backing away from. Thus, endorsing Obama's "efforts" is not the same as endorsing any specific plan, just a pious platitude: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26158.html Gilbert wrote: http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-August/181657.html Short-term, significant savings (i.e no additional dollars needed) can be achieved .... Mario responds: Perhaps if Gilbert were able to convince Obama to dump his knee-jerk ideology that the government can solve this issue instead of coordinating an effort to find a solution, we may get short term savings:-)) Unfortunately, the House plan that has been "scored" by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that the effect on the federal deficit will be $1.042 trillion over “ten years”, though the program really gets going in 2015 so its more like a 5 year score. I hope Gilbert and his cronies caught this little detail: THE PROGRAM REALLY GETS GOING IN 2015, SO THE FINANCIAL DAMAGE WILL TAKE PLACE AFTER OBAMA LEAVES OFFICE. YET HE WAS PUSHING FOR PASSAGE BY THE END OF JULY BEFORE ANYONE HAD HAD TIME TO EVEN READ ANY OF THE PROPOSALS BY SAYING THAT THIS LEGISLATION WAS SUPER-URGENT.
