I have a bad feeling about this health care plan...

[misanthrope]

...It resembles the Massachusetts plan too much and that state's plan is already starting to have problems.

For one thing, I don't think any health care plan with teeth has a chance to win approval. Insurance and Big Pharma have too many folks bought outright inside the Beltway.

What I believe this to be is a token effort that will fall apart and become a scapegoat for the "look we tried" excuse that suits the powers that be and keeps our American system of serfdom in place.

Single payer is what is needed. Anything else is a distraction and canard.

[stuball111]

1. mee too.

Anything but a paralell and unique Universal Health Care system like Europes or Canadas would just be a half measures. You can't have a Universal for-profit plan! That's like trying to operate a non profit Wal mart! It would sink like a rock. The Dems are definately caving in to pressure where there is none. All they have to do is put a universal plan on the table and start twisting arms, THAT"S how you get something through. If it's not crammed down the throats of Americans, then they will never see its benefits. I guarantee you, if it is implimented and put in place despite the right wing and big medicines bitching, big medicine will be gone in a year, and EVERYBODY will be shaking their heads and saying, "Why didn't we do this sooner?"

[eridani]

2. The Senate plan definitely does

Whether the public option proposed by the House will get around that remains to be seen.

[misanthrope]

8. The Senate plan...

...that I heard explained takes money from public coffers and shovels it directly into the pockets of the insurance companies. It's not just ineffective, it's a plundering of the public sector.

Things are approaching the catastrophic in this nation.

[mmonk]

3. The fact lobbyists are in on the plan bothers me. They aren't paid

and don't pay money into elected officials' coffers for nothng.

[Greyhound]

4. Well put. Universal (as in every single citizen) Health Care (as opposed to insurance), period.

Anything else is, just as you say, designed to fail and give them another excuse.
:kick: & R

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Public Option is Different

I believe that our Mass. plan is all privately-run plans with some level of state subsidy, and Medicaid which is 100% subsidized. There are some small cost savings through government negotiations with the private insurers, but not a whole lot.

The public option being discussed would be an insurance plan actually run by the government. This should produce enormous savings.

[ipaint]

6. Info on the failure of the Mass. plan

http://pnhp.org/mass_report/mass_report_Final.pdf

If the current plan being proposed nationally can cut the uninsured down to a number the middle class don't feel threatened by it will have served it's purpose for lawmakers and the ins. industry. In my adult lifetime we have always had 10-30 million expendable americans. The middle and upper classes were never too concerned about them. The 50 million number though hits too close to home. So the middle class screams and yells and they get it down to that acceptable level of easily forgotten uninsured again.

Taiwan went from 50% of it's population with no health care to 97% full coverage in 6 years.



A Consolidated System

They wanted a system that gave everybody equal access to health care — free choice of doctors, with no waiting time — and a system that encouraged a lot of competition among medical providers.

To finance the scheme they chose a national insurance system: a single, government-run fund that forces everybody to join in and pay.

The result is a system that works a lot like Canada's, or like the U.S. Medicare system, but with more benefits.

"It has drug benefits, vision care, traditional Chinese medicine, kidney dialysis, inpatient care, outpatient care, just about everything under the sun," Cheng says.

To satisfy the patients in Taiwan, there's no gatekeeper who controls access to specialists and no waiting lines.

If you woke up in Taiwan with shoulder pain, for example, Chang says that you would be able to see an orthopedic specialist the same morning, no recommendation from a general practitioner required.

"Our people don't like the idea of gatekeepers. They want to decide by themselves," Chang says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89651916


We are being proposed a tiered program which rations quality of care according to how much money you have and includes a very weak public option that will not be fully implemented for 10 years. And that's before it's vetted by our multi millionaire fully insured representatives in the senate who are raking in the dough from the ins. lobby.

When are people going to wake up to the fact settling for less is exactly what the health insurance industry is counting on.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. No, this is a good plan. n/t

[Laelth]

9. I think it's a trap.

Many of the fifty million people in the United States who have no insurance will very much resent being forced to buy it. That may turn them against the Democratic Party in 2010.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Jakes Progress]

10. It's a gift to the insurance industry.

Legally mandated profits.

[Laelth]

11. That too. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[defendandprotect]

18. Loved Rep. Bernie Sanders comments on this not being about keeping

private insurance companies/private health care interests in business . . .

it's about providing the best care for our citizens.

[Jakes Progress]

19. People who lie like that

belong in hell. People who vote for someone who lies like that belong in hell working for the people they voted for.

[maryf]

12. K&Rnt

[alfredo]

13. Don't watch sausage being made either.

[Greyhound]

20. The difference is, in the end, sausage tasted good and is what was represented

as the product.

I've read both the House and Senate versions and this is far worse than nothing.

[alfredo]

21. That's it, the end product is what is important, but still the process

is rather unappetizing.

[defendandprotect]

14. Medicare for All -- keep badgering senators/reps and OBAMA . . .

[maryf]

16. Everybody in, NOBODY out...

no reason for anyone to be without healthcare, or for anyone to be profiting from another's health or lack of it!!

[maryf]

15. Poor People may be fined

Can't afford health care? That's a spanking, with a fine...

[JimWis]

17. K&R

[spin]

22. Remember, the people we elect DON'T represent us.

We are a nation of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.

Lots of money can be made by the corporations that provide medical coverage in our country. Lots of money will be spent to insure these corporations continue to make money.

The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.
This Story

The tactic is so widespread that three of every four major health-care firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls, according to The Washington Post's analysis.

****snip****

The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.

****snip****

The aim of the lobbying blitz is simple: to minimize the damage to insurers, hospitals and other major sectors while maximizing the potential of up to 46 million uninsured Americans as new customers. Although many firms have vowed to help cut costs, major players such as PhRMA, America's Health Insurance Plans and others remain opposed to the public-insurance option, a key proposal that President Obama has endorsed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/05/AR2009070502770_2.html