The gift that just keeps taking - obama care. And we ain't seen nothin yet.

Well I have a so called Cadillac plan so even when this all goes into effect not much will change for me other then paying a crap load more to subsidies lazy ass people not willing to pay for their own. Already there is a lot of talk outside of the media that there will be primary care all the way to ER services for non gov program coverage's that are superior. That is great because since I pay my own way and now for others I deserve superior services when I need them. This whole healthcare for everybody is wrong. To tax the working class to pay for it all is wrong. People like me expect to be treated with preference since we are getting @!$%# on and having to support those who fail to make a merit to society.

This does NOT have to be. A hospital triage system can send a patient away if a person is not truly an emergency case.

I lived in Elyria, OH an Elyria Memorial Hospital had a doc-in-a-box emergicare center next door. Anyone who showed up in the emergency room who wasn't an emergency case, was set out the hospital doors, across a breezeway and into the doc-in-a box.

All perfectly legal - and no more strain on the system.

I never understood why this wasn't replicated at every hospital in America.

DBE what do you mean by "gotten through in less than 5 horus?"

Are you saying it takes that long before you see the Dr. or that long before you are back out and on your way?

I would say that if you are in a true emergency, it is highly unlikely that you wait 5 hours to see the Dr. (think gun shot wound or heart attack). Also, in the case of most real emergencies, you are staying in the hospital, so you should have no expectation of being released in 5 hours.

Just wait until 2012 when you have to pay your 2011 tax bill and you find out that you have to pay taxes on what your employer paid in for your insurance. If your employer paid in $10000 for your insurance that will NOW be taxable TO YOU. Can anyone say "screwd"!

Elyria Memorial Hospital has just been reported for EMTALA violations................

The Health care bill was never intended to help Americans.

To add if you are waiting for 5 hours then your case is not an Emergency. It emergency room is set up on worst case first rather then who is first. Its for emergencies, not something you can have seen by your primary care or 24 hour clinic.

Thank you MSNBC for your timely (after the fact) reporting of the REAL effects of HCR. I guess that is the liberal thing right? Spout off nothing but positives about HCR while hiding the true cost and all the downsides. Then once it is passed act like reporters again and not lackeys of the democratic party.

The majority of Americans KNEW this HCR REFORM was a bad idea that will only get worse (and it hasn't even started yet)

Obama is the worst president in this nations history...by far. This country will be lucky if we survive him.

Its just like the article they wrote to justify immigrants being allowed to stay here because the guy prevented a crime. Stopping a crime does not cancel out your own. I am happy the town in Nebraska has passed a law that tackles immigration and severely punishes those who rent to or hire them. Kudos to them!!!

The President said these arguments were simply false when he was pushing Obamacare. msnbc must have it all wrong! How could this change 180 degrees only after Obamacare was passed? Oh right... the ultra-Liberals don't want to hear about reality... they only care about a Socialist ideology. Should the American taxpayer be forced to give everything to everybody all the time, no matter what, or should we simply help people that can't help themselves? I'll vote for the latter.

We all knew the problems going in... Massachusetts tried state healthcare and it doesn't work but I guess Massachusetts can't print money or borrow it from the Chinese.

Dump the prez, dump his bill, dump his pals, dump his agenda. Do it now!

This does NOT have to be. A hospital triage system can send a patient away if a person is not truly an emergency case.

But time is wasted.

True story.

I ended up in the emergency room with an infection (sometimes happens and comes on quick and painful due to lymphodema). The emergency room was backed up and they were lining us in the hall, the guy ahead of me (not sure what he told triage) ended up he had a toothache and wanted them to do something about it, when they told him they would charge him $100. he left. So while they were attending to him my infection was working its way through my body by the minute and before all said and done ended having to be hospitalized.

Yeah Mark just like Obama said Palin was lying about death panels, I guess no one listened to Berwick, Obama's rationing czar when he said:

“We can make a sensible social decision and say, ‘Well, at this point, to have access to a particular additional benefit [new drug or medical intervention] is so expensive that our taxpayers have better use for those funds.’ We make those decisions all the time. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care—the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

my-pockets: responding to your first comment . . . you hit the nail on the head! The wait time for surgery in Canada alone is off the charts? It had gotten worse in recent years, not better . . .

Why am I mentioning Canada? They have been doing this for a long time!

Americans that have worked abroad in countries that practice socialized medicine said they were actually afraid to get sick.

Yesterday under another article I posted the FACT that the majority of Americans did not want this Reform . . . A reply stated that I was correct due to the fact the REPS scared senior citizens into not wanting this reform as they would be thrown under the bus so to speak . . .

And guess what???!!! They are!!!!!! Send up the flares and let people know the truth! This was already speculated before anyone saw this Reform in its entirety . . . Then we get yet another article yesterday with Obama stating that there may be OHHHHH a slight problem regarding people with pre-existing conditions . . . Take a wild guess!!!! THEY MAY NOT BE COVERED!!!! What a surprise!!!! One can only surmise what other little details worth mentioning are within this REFORM'S 100s of pages. There will still be "better" insurance plans if you can afford them or if you company offers them. Forget about the taxes that are coming down the road to support this fiasco . . .

Majority did not want it when Hiliary brought it up while hubby was in the WH nor when Romney presented it . . .

As Pelosi kept ranting over and over again saying, "We are doing this for the American people!" . . . my question would be, "exactly which ones?" Should not be a tough question as there will probably only be a "handful" under this "Universal" Reform . . . Happy 4th . . . GOD BLESS & HELP US!

We were consistently told by supporters of mandatory health insurance that the opponents to the bill were lying, "just to scare you". More and more we are finding out that the opponents were in fact the honest ones and it was the supporters, who shoved this bill down our throats, that were the ones who were lying.

In the past two months the CBO has stated that yes, the bill actually does cost more than advertised and that still doesn't even count the "doc fix"...a Health and Human Services report shows that much of the Medicare savings that was supposed to fund half of the legislation's cost will never be met...this study shows an overloaded health care system will lead to worse care than before the legislation and will likely lead to some sort of rationing for the system to not crumble under its own weight...and we also know that instead of going down, our health care costs will be going up. Thanks Dems!!!

(Please note extreme sarcasm in that last sentence).

Also, how this story gets immediately sent to the back page, yielding to the tripe that is on the "headlines" now, is beyond me.

"This does NOT have to be. A hospital triage system can send a patient away if a person is not truly an emergency case." - serious

serious, did you not read the article? The article clearly states:

"We just don't have other places in the system for these folks to go."

...and...

"They're coming to the emergency department because they don't have access to alternatives."

Are you not paying attention to the article's content, are you purposely ignoring the article's content, or are you suggesting that you just kick these people out on the street without any viable alternative available to them (making their conditions worse)?

Oh yes, also...it's Bush's fault!

Just had to get that in there, because I know somebody's going to say it!

Again serious, read the article:

"A 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, found ER patients who should have been seen immediately waited nearly a half-hour."

Would you like to have a life-threatening gunshot wound and have to wait a half hour to be seen? Off course with this new law, that half hour turns into an hour! Yipeee!

Actually a ER can do a "health screening exam" and if the condition is not deemed emergent the patient can be sent away. Problem is this screening exam takes timealso patients complain leading to lower patient satisfaction scores and in the future lower reimbursement, so while it is fine in theory. It is easier to "treat and street" than to send away.

Triage works like this. Those who can sit, stand, or walk don't have a true emergency and are sent back out the door with instructions not to come back. Those too far gone to save, sent to the morgue annex to die without hurting the morale of those with a chance to live. Treat the rest.

Maybe you should go to your lawyers' office instead for that heart attack...............Tort reform RIGHT..................AMA = best paid union to scr!!ew the sick and maintain their status as #1 protectors of the status quo..............Look guys/ladies..........if it wasnt for those Caribbean medical schools millions in the US would be dead or dying BECAUSE of AMA monopoly

http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-the-medical-cartel-why-are-md-salaries-so-high

No worries here...

ObamaCare will not make it passed the supreme court.

cheers

:)

"if the condition is not deemed emergent the patient can be sent away." - rja-618795

"Those who can sit, stand, or walk don't have a true emergency and are sent back out the door with instructions not to come back." - JohnCarter-428979

I'm assuming you made it through high school, so I'm a little concerned with the level of your reading comprehension skills. You say "the patient can be sent away" and "are sent back out the door", but the whole article is a statement about how there is no place for these people to be sent to. I'm not sure what you don't get about that.

The religious say there is a place, they call it Hell. Not being religious, I'll settle for Juarez.

The answer is for the hospitals to send people away who are not truly emergency cases.

Hospitals are legally required to treat and stabilize people who are in genuine danger. But they do not have to treat kids with sore throats or ear infections. They can send them to a doc-in-a-box.

They figured that if patients had to wait 5 hours to be seen at a hospital, they would choose to go elsewher, but many patients don't consider it - but would if the hospital told them where to go.

serious, you must not have been to an ER in the last 10 years. Here in central Illinois, while my aging parents were still alive, we knew we were devoting at least 5 hours- probably more - whenever we wanted to take them to a hospital to check out even a minor complaint.

Most of the time neither parent was admitted to the hospital. I can only imagine what conditions are like these days in areas with greater population.

Why are you taking your parents to an ER for "a minor complaint?" Do you not have emergicare centers? Do they not have a regular doctor?

ERs aren't for "minor complaints."

serious, et al,

Please see response #1.17 and please read the article to post intelligently about the matter.

With all due respect Dr.

I don't want to doubt your gut feeling and experience, but I live in a town on the Canadian border. The wait over in Canada is extremely long, and non-threatening surgeries (such as fixing a deviated septum, or cosmetic replacement surgery, or organ transplants where the patient can still get treatment from non-surgery) take years. A lot of Canadians will come to the United States for these surgeries, and ironically a lot of Americans will go over to Canada for weight loss surgery or laser eye treatment, because doctors up there will push the privately insured up to the front of the line.

It is my understanding that there is no private insurance plan in Canada. England, yes, but not Canada.

serious;

As far as I know there is no private insurance plan in Canada. But that doesn't mean doctors don't get paid from priveately insured Americans. I said that Americans will go up there because they generally get pushed to the front of the line because our private insurance companies will pay the Canadian Doctors (that is of course unless you belong to certain health plans in which you have a "network")

Yes, yes tps88...I'm sure Dr. Angela Gardner (American College of Emergency Physicians president) doesn't know what she's talking about, neither does Dr. Elijah Berg, nor does Dr. Kellermann. They're all idiots who don't know what they're talking about. You though...you're a genius.

Its a step into socialism. The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party is about tearing apart the Social Healthcare system, Shrinking the government and its agencies (not the military), start capping taxes until they can be cut, gun rights, and stopping all bailouts. Let the dying horse die instead to keep trying to save it. Something are just need to go. (GMC, AIG, etc)

GM is doing fine now and employing plenty of Americans. All those people would be out of work if the Tea Partiers had had their way.

GM doing fine? Making money? Not yet.

Employing how many Americans compared to even 5 years ago?

They are doing better because Americans are buying more cars than they were when the economy was at low ebb.

Yes GM is making a profit. GMAC is not making a profit yet, but GM is.

No, they are not. They are making sales profit but not operations profit. See below:

When GM emerged from bankruptcy as a new company in July, the Treasury converted most of those loans into a 60.8 percent stake in the new company's common stock, $2.1 billion in preferred stock and $7.1 billion in loans. About $400 million in loans was repaid almost immediately, leaving GM with about $6.7 billion in government debt. The balance of the loan was originally due July 2015, but the date was later accelerated to June 30, 2010.

GM had already repaid $2 billion in loans. Last week, it announced it had repaid the remaining $4.7 billion.

The automaker, however, didn't repay any of the loans from its earnings. Repayments came from "other TARP funds currently held in an escrow account," according to a report by the special inspector general overseeing TARP funds.

The auto maker took almost $50 Billion in aid from the US and other countries that it operates in. GM is repaying goverment loans like paying one credit card with another. It does not matter if the workers went out of work or not. They are still doomed since GM can not make the profits to post all its debts. They are selling off piece by piece of the company in efforts to save it but its not working and simply will impload. Sad for the workers but thats life.

Facts and factual information are not "propaganda" and referring to people you do not personally know as "regressives" is a device used by progressives or leftists when they have no valid argument or point to make.

There is no shortage of doctors. The problem is so many of them choose to become specialists.

There is no shortage of students who want to attend medical school.

The answer is to pay for students to go to medical schools at public universities in exchange for 15 years of service as general practitioners or family doctors.

Serious: You can't be serious! Do you mean that all medical students will get a "free" education, which takes about 8 years of undergraduate work and medical school combined, go to a 2 or 3 year residency program at very low wages, and then work as an underpaid primary care physician for 15 years(albeit with less debt)? OK, so now the doctor is in his/her mid-forties. Do they go back to another residency for 2 or 3 more years and become a surgeon or whatever? Who will be the specialists of the future? Under your plan, I guess a bunch of senior citizens. In this part of America, there is a shortage of Doctors, period.

No, they have to get through and pay for their own undergraduate education.

And they have to go to a medical school at a public univeristy. (U Cincinnati med school costs about half of what Case Western Reserve costs).

So, they graduate with much, much less debt, they get out in their mid to late 20's and they stay a GP for 15 years.

by then, in their 40's they probably choose to stay GPs and never do specialize. Nothing says they have to specialize ever.

By the way, this is how the military gets most of its doctors. We'll pay, but you'll stay in the military (and make less $) for X years.

I remember the ever progressive Nancy Pelosi smugly telling us that in order to learn what was in the bill, we'd have to pass it.

It passed, we're learning and I don't want any part of it.

Nancy and her cohorts should be lynched.

That's why I joined the TEA party. Hopefully more people start coming over and supporting the cause. As a mater of fact we are having a 4th of July parade (one of the USA's oldest parade locations) this weekend in Bristol Rhode Island and the organizers will not let the TEA Party take part in it. Figuring since rebelling is what the country was founded on this would have been no problem.

Yeah, you were a republican and voted for all those folks..right.

1. Clinton's "surplus" was created by the dot com boom, Regan's policies and a republican congress. It was not a surplus, as the national debt went up. Clinton had very little to do with NAS 5K despite Gore's claim of internet invention.

2. 9-11 had some more to do with the economic downturn. I know, Bush's fault.

3. I agree we should not have gone into Iraq, but it remains to be seen how that will turn out.. remember, the dems got us into Vietnam.

4. As far as offering no suggestions, the current Democrats in the house have passed all the appropriation bills in the last session under a "closed rule" for the first time in the history of the country. This is a rule that does not allow any amendments to the spending packages, and limits debate to 1 hour. That seems very bi partisian. Did you watch any of the "bipartisian" committee hearing on the HCR? Republicans voted down on each and every amendment by party vote. The same was true in the Senate (until Brown changed the field).

5. In short you are repeating the slogans of the left. They have little basis in fact. One more fact about your beloved democrat controlled congress. Why no budget this year? Please explain how that is the Republican's fault.

Keep drinking the Kool Aid.. those argument you made are stale and last year.

Wow. Impressive, "GetReal". You've memorized and incorporated every liberal buzz-word and slogan of the last year, and seemingly used them all here. 'Course, they're about as meaningless as Obama's promises, but hey, glad to know you've found someone to think for you. Lord knows this administration doesn't want people thinking for themselves...

Is living off the fruits of others labors a right in modern society too cause that is what Obama wants. It worked out for Greece, right?

My shallow world of self indulgence involves taking care of my families needs. I realize how selfish I am becasue I put my own familes welfare over some greasy, unemployed junkie that needs to go the free clinic for a shot of methadone.

STFU, Daryl

Why don't you just donate a large part of your post tax salary to the "healthcare of others" and leave the rest of us alone?

There are plenty of diseases that you simply cannot afford to "take care of your family's needs."

If your unmarried, adult child (over 26 years old) is diagnosed with MS. He/she may not be able to work and is likely to be uninsured.

How will you pay for his/her treatment? MS drugs (Tysabri, Rebif, Copaxone, Avonex) cost over $20,000 a year - for a single drug. Add in neurologist appointments, blood work (those drugs can kill the liver), MRI's etc.

Can you really afford to pay that out of pocket?

And by the way, MS isn't rare (about 1 in 1000 Americans) nor is it lethal. Count on those bills every year for DECADES.

ddaryl, they do not get the bigger picture. And everyone conveniently forgets that even when they have the private health plan, they are paying into an insurance fund for thousands of others. It is not really a 'private' plan.

As for this health plan that was approved, it has been changed from it's original form, almost to the point that it is not even an insurance plan anymore.

ddayrl

I'd be curious to know how old you are....I bet very very young....

ddayrl sounds like the free loaders that have been pushing this @!$%#. Im 26 and even I know this health care crap is horrible. I pay for my insurance and I pay for a very, very nice plan that is considered by the administration as a Cadillac plan. I have jumped on the TEA Party band wagon because of people like you. The American dream in not a right. It is something you have to work for and work hard. Any of my elders here will agree for the most part. Somebody who does nothing for themselves deserves nothing. Somebody who works their ass of will turn that grain of sand into a pearl. For me that grain is starting to turn and I'll be damned to see this country that if defended in Army turn to the land of the weak and lazy asses get handed dues they have to earned. The blood and sweat we invested in our future is stripped away by people like you Daryl. Got a idea for you. Go get a job and start paying for your coverage, if not enough get another job. You do not deserve anything, you have to earn it. That's what makes the American dream work.

GimDan - what happens if you get MS and YOU CAN'T WORK?

What happens to you then?

What if you get cancer - and 1 in 4 Americans will - and chemo knocks you out of the workforce? The minute your COBRA eligibility is expired you are no longer insured - and no longer insurable.

serious -Medicare/Medicaid are already government programs in place that provides medical coverage for people like that. Granted most people don't qualify because they make enough money however they spend their money of other @!$%# like going out to eat, vacation, drinking, etc that the do not want to give up in order to pay for a normal health care coverage. It all based on income. Also you can't be refused medical services, you can get them but you are handed a bill afterword that you have to pay.

You can most certainly be refused MS medications. If you can't pay for tysabri, you don't get it.

And then you as a citizen are not looking at your options. There is the TSPA accounts (think that the right program name) that allows you to deduct from your earnings a set amount up to $1200.00 for medical needs such a co-pays, medicine, and any general medical expense. Its your money that you would earn that is provided on a Debit card up from in the year beginning with the full amount you would pay into it. For me i allocated $600.00. All is tax free and is great tool if you have an unexpected emergency or need to by MS medication. The problem is there is a TON of programs out there that people do not know about and just do not do the research to find them.

Also to add you can tack on a flex spending account as well tax free at a max of $5000 if i recall correctly.

Hear, hear!!

Needless emergency visits can be greatly reduced.

Most emergicare centers have X-ray capability and are a lot cheaper.

You probably didn't need to go to the ER at all to start with.

Besides, part of your wait time is for the radiologist to read the X-ray. that radiologist may not even be in the same state as you. they sent the images out, now.

My son got X-rays in Erie, Pa and the radiologist who wrote the report was in Pittsburgh. He could have been in Bangalore.

What sectors of the economy are now currently not under the thumb of the federal government? Fiance, health care, energy are all under or will be controlled by the feds/seiu/soros. I guess business is free to "innovate" and "unleash the American entrepreneurial spirit". The consumer is free to buy more retail products to keep the economy (government) going.

As far as those businesses generating more of those nasty profits, that will be put to rest as well... oh wait, we need the profits to tax to pay for more of this government.

The system is near collapse. These latest liberal moves may push it over the edge. Your children will curse you.

It would be better to ask what sectors of the government aren't under the thumb of industry. Finance, Transportation, Insurance, Energy, Insurance rape the general public for the benefit of the few, all the while, government eases regulations and tax burdens. And, the best part, when their own greed destroys their own industry, the government finances bailouts of public funds, further sticking it to John Public.

WAKE UP!

Askew- Name seems appropriate considering: The US healthcare system actually ranks top 5 to top 10 in the world for quality over the years. It really is right up there at the top. When you see rankings of 45-35, that's the overall health of the nation. That is completely different as it is measuring the actual health of the population. The US enjoys some of the worst lifestyles for health and fitness of the industrialized nations and no amount of quality healthcare can make up for that. Imagine just how bad off the nation would be if our healthcare system truly did rank so low....probably would have 3rd world countries ahead of us in health and fitness.

Mitchell

The government doesn't have to force anyone. They can simply provide insentives.

The number of students applying to medical schools is UP from last year, which was UP from the year before, etc. There has NEVER been a seat in a medical school in the US that went empty.

Help them pay for it in exchange for years of service as a GP. Rural areas already do this.

What is the difference between force and incentives? It is true that you can "help them pay" for their education by transferring tax dollars to the universities, which are coincidentally dominated by liberals and unions. By providing a "free education" in return for civil service you will get a lot of "free doctors". This will reduce the number of specialists. I guess a doctor who is a GP is as good a heart surgeon as a person who specializes in heart surgery.

Tell you what: you use the GP for your heart surgery and I'll use the specialist. See who sleeps better at night.

The bottom line is that the government can provide incentives for anything, but there are always consequences.. and the bureaucrats are not the folks to choose the correct incentive, as they are nearly always isolated from the result. (Bet they don't use GP's for heart surgery)

We don't have a shortage of heart specialists.

We have a shortage of GPs.

Let's blame Obama for everything

Almost-twice-elected President Bush was saving our country!!!

Name one other president who has presided over the takeover of healthcare, financial system and possibly energy in the first 2 years of office. Mix a Chicago style politician, who is a community activist, with no non-government experience, maximum liberal with a overwhelming majority of both houses of congress. Add in the fact that both houses of Congress are dominated by very liberal leaders and you get what we have.

I know, blame it on Bush or Hoover or someone else.

Sure, madoss, but who's going to pay for the building, staffing, general overhead, and supervisory doctors for the neighborhood clinics? There used to be neighborhood clinics all over the place - as well as ER trauma centers - but they were closed because nobody wanted to pay for them.

So how would you pay for them? More taxes? That's the liberal mantra. Trouble is, more taxes take money out of the general economy. Bob can't hold his job anymore because the money people were going to use to buy the products he builds is now being diverted to the government to provide free services to other people - usually people with no job or a low-paying one, who wouldn't have purchased Bob's product anyway. Now Bob is in the same boat. And so it spirals down, until you're taxing the people who DO make money into the poorhouse themselves. This is a fundamental problem with the liberal 'tax and redestribute the wealth' model. It's never worked, and ends up eventually putting MORE people on the edge, rather than fewer.

Or do you think the people staffing those neighborhood centers should work for free? How do THEY put food on the table?

All these little theories sound great until you actually look at reality.

If ERs simply turn away anyone who is not in an emergency situation, those clinics will have plenty of patients - and the total cost (regardless of who is paying - patient, insurance, government, or combination thereof) will be lower.

This is not rocket science.

Serious, if you're not a college kid, you think like one. Everything looks so easy when you ignore all those pesky details.

How are the clinics paid for? They cost money to build, money to staff, and money to administer. The medicines they provide cost money to make, money to distribute, and money to train staff and doctors in their use. The electricity costs money. So does the water. The courier to the testing lab costs money, as do the care and maintenance of the in-clinic equipment that provides samples and data for those tests.

The very people you're proposing to push off to the clinics by "simply turning them away from the ER" are the very people in the ER because they have little or no insurance. Think ObamaCare is going to cover them? Guess again. There will be millions of people STILL not covered under ObamaCare, and since the low-income families aren't simply being given free insurance and instead are being given a subsidy, a lot of them are going to use that subsidy to keep food on the table, instead of an insurance plan they may or may not use.

So when you "simply" turn those people away from the ER, you've just filled the clinic with people who have no ability to pay.

Which again begs the question: Who pays for the clinic? How does the clinic stay open? Do those people just work for free?

THINK before you make these grand, sweeping, "it's simple" statements. Think it through.

What aren't you getting.

Regardless of who pays, emergicare centers are cheaper than hospital ERs.

Patient A gets an x-ray and a cast at an emergicare center. Patient B gets the exact same thing at a hospital ER. The bills are very, very different.

Get the data.

AND emergicare centers are not going broke. Many are for profit centers.

Ok---will you hold the hospital not liable if they turn away someone who doesn't seem to have a serious illness but ends up with some rare disease that then kills him? Will you support a law that then says that hospitals and doctors cannot be sued for this situation?

Yes I would.

And I never heard of anyone having a mystery disease caused by a sprained ankle.

Most ER visists simply shouldn't be ER visits.

Glad we agree serious-----I assume you have also written the liberal congressmen/women demanding tort reform.

"regardless of who pays..."

It's what YOU'RE not getting. Who's GOING to pay when you push most of the 'cannot pay' crowd over the the clinics?

You keep ignoring that pesky little detail. You can't cut costs to zero. Or even close to zero. Somebody has to pay to keep those clinics open, and under your plan, it sure as heck isn't going to be the patients - especially since, even under ObamaCare, most of them still won't have insurance.

You can deflect and posture all you want, but until that fundamental question is answered, you've got nothing.

I don't know where you have been over the last few years, but MSNBC is nothing more than the bully pulpit of the left - current leader - the Obama administration. The bill was a bad bill that no one read completely before voting for it or signing it into law.

"...provided money to get more doctors out there to handle the new influx of patients."

Really. This is the first mention I've seen of that, even during the debate. Know why? 'Cause it's not true. I saw no provision for anything like this.

And how would they do it if they could? You think doctors are trained overnight? A friend of mine is just finishing up her ER specialist training after starting medical school in 1997. And she HASN'T been slacking (just ask her husband, who hardly sees her).

So by that sort of timetable, beginning in 2014 when the bill kicks in, you should start seeing those mythical 'more doctors' sometime around 2027...

What do we do in the meantime? Hmmm?

This is the problem with the left. You oversimplify everything and fail to actually think through the consequences of your ivory-tower policies. "It's all so simple!"

Except when it turns out that it's not.

You didn't read the bill. There is money for over 400 new community health centers along with staffing. They provide care for millions of Americans.

"Money for" is not the same as "doing". You still have to train up staff and physicians, or take them away from somewhere else, which just moves the problem around.

Most of the clinics here in SoCal are closing or closed. They can't operate on the funding provided by the government, and the patients they see largely can't pay.

And let's look at one more pesky little detail. "400 new community health centers". To serve 350 million Americans. Looks like they're going to be mighty crowded.

"Now calling patient 156 to the front counter."

"Dude, what's your number?"

"1,295"

"Bummer."