Tell me Hillary wouldn't be a socialist dictator.

[Starving_Artist]

@Hentor the Barbarian

Ah, the quarterly fart from Starving for Attention. You can almost set your watch to it.

Actually, it’s only been five or six weeks since you last said that. I’m afraid you’re getting a tad repetitive there, old bean.

@Hentor the Barbarian

Good on you, you old douche bag! Quite a rousing game of pull my finger you have going here.

It’s killed an afternoon for me, that’s for sure.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Starving Artist

How so? Care to…uh…elucidate? (And where the hell has he been lately, anyway?)

There was no attempt to limit access to private care for citizens.
There were no penalties for physicians providing such care.
There was no chance of prison for anybody (only monetary penalties).

The proposed penalties for the 'violations" in Lib’s link had nothing to do with either seeking or providing private health care.

[villa]

@Liberal

The penalties were for providers and plan managers. Theoretically, people who could afford to do so still could consult doctors privately, but in practical terms, doctors could be put out of business (and therefore not available to consult) for running afoul of several gotchas.

More importantly, though, the proposal will impose civil monetary penalties for a host of violations which do not have to be intentional, but which will be punishable if the individual or institution “knows” or “should know” of the violation. A penalty of $10,000 may be imposed for each item or service claimed, plus triple the amount of the payment claimed. These sanctions may be imposed by an administrative law judge–the government will not have to take the institution to court to impose these penalties.

[…snip…]

Perhaps most disturbing is the catch-all provision: these penalties may be imposed on any person for “failing to report violations of Federal law.” In addition, violation of any of the provisions just listed, or any of the others listed in the proposal, also will be grounds for exclusion from “health care programs.” Since all healthcare programs will now be governmental programs, exclusion will mean that the provider must close.http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3257/is_n1_v48/ai_14980653/pg_1

But reading through the article, these penalties, though arguably harsh and bureaucratic, were not to be imposed for treating people outside of the system, but were instead proposed as:

New fraud and abuse measures

Implementing data collection and billing functions under The Health Security Act of 1993 will not only require more work from financial managers, but also improved accuracy. The proposal specifies a host of new fraud and abuse measures that will overlay all data collection, reporting, and billing functions. It will contain, for example, new “all-payer” anti-kickback and self-referral laws. It will also include a new, general fraud statute that the proposal compares to the current (very broad) mail fraud statute.

That strikes me as saying if you attempt to charge the central system for services not provided, you will get in trouble. The article goes on:

The violations which can lead to civil monetary penalties are too numerous to list, but the following examples should illustrate the range.

Sanctions may be imposed for false statements made not only to government agencies, but also to healthcare plans and healthcare alliances. Thus, all dealings and negotiations between providers and healthcare plans will be under threat of sanctions if the provider knowingly makes a “false statement.” There are various provisions making it unlawful to “upcode” treatments or to “unbundle” bundled charges. A provider will be subject to the same penalties for “failing to report information or reporting inaccurate information that is required to be submitted to a data bank.”

These penalties will also apply to those failing substantially to provide medically necessary services, items, or treatment required under law or contract to be provided to an individual. Thus, disputes between a provider and a healthcare plan as to the scope or medical necessity of services furnished under a capitation arrangement, for example, will no longer simply be a medical dispute, but will be one subject to heavy monetary penalties. Failing to cooperate with the quality program or utilization review requirements will subject the provider to these sanctions as well.

Apologies if I have quoted too much here. I don’t see how this is applicable to the situation as described in the OP.

[Starving_Artist]

Thanks, Dunawake, I appreciate the help. Apparently your Google-fu is stronger than mine.

[Dunawake]

Does anyone know of a resource where we can find the full text of things like the Clinton health care plan? It would be interesting to be able to pick over the actual text rather than summaries and such.

[Liberal]

@villa

I don’t see how this is applicable to the situation as described in the OP.

I contradicted the OP, pointing out that civil penalties applied to providers and planners, not to patients. I am concerned that the gotchas are “too numerous to list”, but I can’t find the actual bill online. Even the Congressional Record only goes back to '94.

[Dunawake]

@Starving Artist

Thanks, Dunawake, I appreciate the help. Apparently your Google-fu is stronger than mine.

Yes, my Google-fu is practically legendary

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Starving Artist

Thanks, Dunawake, I appreciate the help. Apparently your Google-fu is stronger than mine.

Nothing against Dunawake but he quoted propaganda. Villa’s quotes are more relevant.

[villa]

@Liberal

I contradicted the OP, pointing out that civil penalties applied to providers and planners, not to patients. I am concerned that the gotchas are “too numerous to list”, but I can’t find the actual bill online. Even the Congressional Record only goes back to '94.

My bad - I misunderstood what you were citing it for, in particular after StarvingArtist seemed to think that article was the saving grace, presumably without reading it.

[Starving_Artist]

Well, at least now we’re getting somewhere. It looks like eventually we may either unmask Hillary’s plan as the dictatorial plan of the OP or that I may find myself recanting and apologizing after all.

Then again, maybe it’ll fall somewhere in the middle.

Fun, isn’t it?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

In the absence of any ability to find the text of the bill or any credible coroborration, SA’s assertions still stand totally unsupported and would seem to be absurd on their face. I don’t doubt that the right wing propaganda machine may have engaged in that kind of fact-twisting, though (there was a lot of that going on at the time), so SA probably didn’t make it up. He probably heard it from Rush Limbaugh or something and took it as Gospel.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I personally know only one person who ever read all 1000 pages of that plan from cover to cover. It was my mother. She was a reporter and she had to read it. Most of the pols who voted on it and talked about it only read summaries themselves.

[Charlie_Tan]

I wont, 'cause she will be just that. She’ll raise taxes on gas so it’ll be $18 /gl, she’ll restrict Internet access to sites that are only White House approved and certified, she’ll nationalize Fox News and classify all conservative arguments as hate speech, she’ll force every single male to marry another man, making gay marriage the norm, she’ll force all women to get pregnant and perform abortions yearly, as to fuel the stem cell factories, used to produce perfect socialist clones, she’ll forbid religion and make christian belief reason enough to send you to “re-programming camps”, she’ll personally sodomize all newborn babies with a rusty file, she’ll invite bin Laden to be her secretary of defense.

And she will force sex education on five year olds, force all children to learn French, as well as Mandarin and Cantonese (so as to better serve the Beijing masters, whose puppet she is), she’ll completely disband all armed forces (with the help of bin Laden) and propose that the U.S. in the future must rely on U.N. forces for peacekeeping.

She’ll get the U.S. to become a vassal state of the U.N. world government and forbid every citizen to bear arms, including and down to pocket knives (though she gets to keep a rusty file). Flouridation will double, Christmas will be illegal and the only reading material available will be the collected works of Karl Marx.

To bad you found out, Starving Artist. However, the Liberal Media will drown out your lone voice in the Wilderness with its usual harping about global warming, Iraq casualties. and the lack of WMD.

Sweet dreams, Starving Artist. We’re saving you a *special * spot in the camps, come January '09.

[Starving_Artist]

@villa

My bad - I misunderstood what you were citing it for, in particular after StarvingArtist seemed to think that article was the saving grace, presumably without reading it.

I read part of it, didn’t have time to go through the entire thing…at least not now.

What I was thankful to Lib for was finding something to show that there was indeed an actual basis of some sort for the allegations I referenced. Now it’s a case of reading through the fine print to see just what was intended…and remember, the bill that finally got to congress did not necessarily contain everything that its authors may have orinially intended for it to carry.

And Dio, for what is probably the thirtieth or fortieth time around here, I have to mention that I don’t listen to Limbaugh…although given that so many of you around here are so certain that I do, perhaps I should see about getting a job writing for him. Might be big bucks in that!

[Bosstone]

@Starving Artist

And Dio, for what is probably the thirtieth or fortieth time around here, I have to mention that I don’t listen to Limbaugh…although given that so many of you around here are so certain that I do, perhaps I should see about getting a job writing for him. Might be big bucks in that!

You know, Diogenes, if you take him at his word, there’s only one logical conclusion…

Limbaugh listens to him. :eek:

[Rysdad]

I believe the original proposal came to be known as “HillaryCare”. Just do a Google search on: HillaryCare penalties
and you’ll probably find plenty to debate/argue about.

(I have no dog in this fight, and I don’t care, so I’m not going to link diddly.)

[kaylasdad99]

@Liberal

I contradicted the OP, pointing out that civil penalties applied to providers and planners, not to patients. I am concerned that the gotchas are “too numerous to list”, but I can’t find the actual bill online. Even the Congressional Record only goes back to '94.

Not that the link wasn’t appreciated, Lib, but the contradiction you justly claim is only to one tier, as it were, of SA’s assertion; that is, who would be subject to the penalties. The smattering of “gotchas” that you snipped, while not comprehensive, would have been very strong contradictions to his piggybacked contention that seeking to buy or sell medical treatment outside the system was to be prohibited.

Anyway, many thanks to you for the link, and to villa for the extra detail. For anyone who’s interested, the section referred to in Liberal’s link can be found on page 6. Go to that page, and search for the text “civil monetary”.

[Dunawake]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Nothing against Dunawake but he quoted propaganda. Villa’s quotes are more relevant.

I tried to make it clear that, yes, I knew that was the case. I merely quoted them to show that SA wasn’t the lone person in the universe who thought this was true.

Without the original text of the bill to go over, I don’t think we will be able to make a final resolution on what penalties and exceptions the heath care plan actually had. The rather large article linked earlier is still only a summary of the whole thing, and as such could potentially have its own biases.

[Starving_Artist]

@Charlie Tan

Sweet dreams, Starving Artist. We’re saving you a *special * spot in the camps, come January '09.

Compared to the scenario you just described, it sounds like the only sane place to be.

Now, seeing as how I’ve stuck around and fought the good fight, I’ve got other things to take care of and must bid you all adieu for a while.

And on preview, thanks for the info Rysdad.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Dunawake

I tried to make it clear that, yes, I knew that was the case. I merely quoted them to show that SA wasn’t the lone person in the universe who thought this was true.

I know. I was trying not to implicate you in it. You were just providing cites that the kind of propagagnda that SA was referring to at least existed outside of his mind and that he wasn’t making it up. He seemed to think your cites bolstered the substance of his claims themselves, which was not something that YOU claimed.