Atlasian National Healthcare Bill (Law'd)

[MasterJedi]

Atlasian National Healthcare Bill

Section 1- Eligibility and Benefits
a. All individuals residing in Atlasia are covered under the Atlasian National Health Care Program entitling them to a universal, best quality standard of care.
b. The health care benefits under this Act cover all medically necessary services, including at least the following:
1. Primary care and prevention.
2. Inpatient care.
3. Outpatient care.
4. Emergency care.
5. Prescription drugs.
6. Durable medical equipment.
7. Long-term care.
8. Palliative care.
9. Mental health services.
10. The full scope of dental services (other than cosmetic dentistry).
11. Substance abuse treatment services.
12. Chiropractic services.
13. Basic vision care and vision correction (other than laser vision correction for cosmetic purposes).
14. Hearing services, including coverage of hearing aids.
15. Podiatric care.
c. Such benefits are available through any licensed health care clinician anywhere in Atlasia that is legally qualified to provide the benefits.
d. No deductibles, co-payments, coinsurance, or other cost-sharing shall be imposed with respect to covered benefits.
e. No institution may be a participating provider unless it is a public or not-for-profit institution. Private physicians, private clinics, and private health care providers shall continue to operate as private entities, but are prohibited from being investor owned. For-profit providers of care opting to participate shall be required to convert to not-for-profit status. For-profit providers of care that convert to non-profit status shall remain privately owned and operated entities. The owners of such for-profit providers shall be compensated for reasonable financial losses incurred as a result of the conversion from for-profit to non-profit status.
f. It is unlawful for a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act.  However, nothing in this Act shall be construed as prohibiting the sale of health insurance coverage for any additional benefits not covered by this Act, such as for cosmetic surgery or other services and items that are not medically necessary.

Section 2- Finances
a. The Atlasian National Health Care Program, through its regional offices, shall pay each institutional provider of care a monthly lump sum to cover all operating expenses under a global budget. The global budget of a provider shall be set through negotiations between providers and regional directors, but are subject to the approval of the Director. The budget shall be negotiated annually, based on past expenditures, projected changes in levels of services, wages and input, costs, a provider's maximum capacity to provide care, and proposed new and innovative programs.  Under this Act physicians shall submit bills to the regional director on a simple form, or via computer. Licensed health care clinicians who accept any payment from the Program may not bill any patient for any covered service.
b. Funding for this Act shall be appropriated from existing sources of Federal Government revenues for health care, and from an additional sales tax on all alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana products.

Section 3- Administration
a. This Act shall be administered a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.  The Director may hold other office.
Spon: Sen. Fritz

[MasterJedi]

I hereby open up a vote on this amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

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Aye

[MasterJedi]

With 7 Ayes, 0 Nays and 0 Abstentions this amendment has passed.

[MasterJedi]

I hereby open up a vote on this amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

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[/quote]

[MasterJedi]

Aye

With 7 Ayes, 0 Nays and 0 Abstentions this amendment has passed.

[MasterJedi]

I hereby open up a vote on this amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

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[MasterJedi]

Aye

With 7 Ayes, 0 Nays and 0 Abstentions this amendment has passed.

[MasterJedi]

I think this is an actual amendment so:

I hereby open up a vote on this amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

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[MasterJedi]

Ok, I'll stop the vote.

[MasterJedi]

I don't know if anyone said anything about it yet but the main reason this won't work is there aren't enough doctors to go around. There isn't enough as it is now to care for everyone and the number of doctors and nurses is dropping each year. If we pass anything we'll be bringing on rationing in all but name so say bye bye to any care for old people and many others.

[MasterJedi]

Unless I'm mistaken this is the next amendment:

Section 2 shall read as follows:

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I'll continue to vote to amendmend this to make it better. And if it's still bad like I suspect it'll be come in the final vote time there should be enough votes to sustain a filibuster. It only takes 4.

[MasterJedi]

Aye on the amendment.

As for filibustering, go right ahead. I see no reason to unless you just want to whine about it. If you lose the vote, you lose the vote. You've not participated in this discussion in the slightest and now you want a filibuster? Speaks volumes about the opposition, in my opinion.

There is no vote yet. I'm just giving it till tomorrow morning to open up a vote. This needs to get actual good debate time first since everything's so jumbled.

[MasterJedi]

I hereby open up the vote on the following amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

Section 2 shall read as follows:

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[MasterJedi]

Do you have an amendment to propose to the amendment, Mr. PPT?  I'm inclined to vote in favor of it, but I'd be willing to hold off for a  bit if you have changes you want to propose.

Oh well, I guess not. 

I meant amendmening the bill in general which I do not have an amendment as of now.

[MasterJedi]

Aye

With 8 Ayes, 0 Nays and 0 Abstentions this amendment has passed.

[MasterJedi]

I hereby open up a vote on this amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[MasterJedi]

Aye

With 7 Ayes, 0 Nays and 1 Abstention this amendment has passed.

[MasterJedi]

As of now there are no more amendments.

[MasterJedi]

Is it possible for some brave soul to post the text of the legislation, after all amendments? Pretty please?

I two would like to see the current text.

MJ has some issue with his internet if I'm not mistaken, so this may take a day for him to get to.

Correct, still no internet at my place. Damn landlord needs to act about it. -_-  Anyways I'll post the bill as it stands now on my lunchbreak.

[MasterJedi]

Unless I missed something this is the current bill:

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[MasterJedi]

So are there going to be any more amendments introduced? If not I'll open up the final vote.

[MasterJedi]

Can we bring this to a vote please?

You can call for a cloture vote to speed it up so we don't have to wait 24 hours.

All righty then, I call for a cloture vote.

MJ, you there?

Must be his internet is still not working. We should all petition his landlord (or whomever) to get it fixed.

Not the landlord's fault, go blame AT&T.   But may I ask to stop the vote on cloture? If you do I'll open up the final vote right away instead of having to go through the cloture vote.

[MasterJedi]

Nevermind, we'll just do it your way and longer:

I hereby open up the vote on cloture. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

Aye

[MasterJedi]

With 8 Ayes, 0 Nays and 0 Abstentions cloture is attained.

I hereby open up the final vote on the bill below. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

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[MasterJedi]

Nay, I can't vote for national healthcare system. But at least this bill was made better than the original.

This bill has enough votes to pass. Senators now have 24 hours to change their votes.