As proposed "Public Option" will only cover 20,000 Americans and not Kick In until 2019!

[KoKo]

This was just stated by reporter Ron Brownstein on Tweety's Show just now. I Googled the phrase: Public Option to cover 20,000 by 2019 and didn't come up with anything I could post.

Anyone have any information on this? If this is the "Public Option" that Progressive Dems are fighting for...it sounds like something so weak it's almost invisible.

:shrug:

EDIT: I refined my "search term" and this came up from a DU Post this Summer by "Better BelieveIt"

--------

http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:S5D1dio3hQIJ:www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php%3Faz%3Dshow_mesg%26forum%3D132%26topic_id%3D8528438%26mesg_id%3D8528438+Public+Option+won%27t+kick+in+until+2019&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

And after the Senate is finished weakening the bill, who knows, it might not kick in until 2020 or later or they may include a so-called trigger.

Read pages 117 and 14 of the House healthcare bill at:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahc...

A Daily Kos writer knew this a month ago:

My Thoughts On The Public Option In House Draft
by slinkerwink
Daily Kos
June 21, 2009

Here's what Wonk Room had to say about the House bill below:

"Unlike the HELP bill and the draft (leaked) language of the Senate Finance Committee, the Tri-Committee proposal seems to contain a fairly robust public insurance option. While details are still being worked out, the proposal establishes a public plan in 2013 that will compete with private insurers, within the Exchange, on a level playing field. The public option will be required to abide by all marketing, operations, and rating rules and would initially be allowed to use Medicare plus rates. After some time, the plan would have to independently negotiate fees with providers."

And there it seems that it might be wrong about the public option in the Tri-Committee proposal being available everywhere on day one. How can it be available on day one if it's supposed to be available in 2013 and the National Exchange that's proposed to cut down on costs is established in 2013 as well? This is one of the sticking points for us to push back on starting tomorrow. We'll have to ask the House Education and Labor Committee if the private insurers will have to be regulated immediately after the passage of the legislation or if the regulation starts in 2013. The delay for this puzzles me.

Always remember, the devil is in the details.

Another sticking point for us to push back on is that the public option will have to stop using Medicare plus rates at a certain point in time. Here's more from Karen Tumulty at Time Magazine on what that means:

"In the early stage, the public plan would reimburse health care providers at rates that are "similar to those used in Medicare"--that is, significantly lower than most private insurers pay them. This is something that the insurance industry, doctors and hospitals will all hate."

According to the summary, this tie to Medicare rates would be "severed over time as more flexible payment systems are developed." In other words, this public plan would eventually evolve into something that looks--and competes--more like a private insurance company, albeit one that happens to be run by the government."

This is the biggest sticking point for us to push back on along with the one about the public option having to be self-sustaining only on premiums, and we'll need to ask the Congressional Progressive Caucus to push back on this as well. Basically, we'll have a strong public option at first, but over time, it'll be weakened. I don't think this is right.

Please read the complete article and what you can do to demand a strong public option at:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/21/745208/-My -...

[depakid]

1. I'd be VERY wary of anything Brownstein has to say

He's proven in the past to be an unethical and dishonest reporter.

[KoKo]

3. That may be true but it was discussed on Tweety's Show as if it was a "given."

So, I wondered if anyone here had information to refute him? :shrug:

[depakid]

18. I wouldn't trust anything I heard on that show, either

[ElsewheresDaughter]

33. ditto

[dflprincess]

42. I just changed computers and don't have my old link

but if you Google "HR3200 CBO report" you should be able to find where the 10 million by 2019 is coming from.

"2013" is how year 1 (Y1) is defined in HR3200 itself.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

34. I concur

[dflprincess]

2. Actually, if we're talking about HR3200 it will kick in in 2013

but, per the CBO, it will only cover 10 million people by 2019. Not that that's an improvement over what you posted.

[KoKo]

5. He didn't mention the bill by Name/Number...but if he's putting Disinformation out there

I'd like to have a link. There's a big difference in 20,000 and 10,000 and I'm assuming he got his info from some source that's current. He might be a liar and shill but he does have to keep some kind of reputation. :shrug:

[KoKo]

6. Dupe glitch.

[TheWraith]

4. Please don't post completely unsourced trash. nt

[KoKo]

8. Excuse me...this was MSNBC/Matthews Show and DU'ers do Watch MSNBC..

So Fuck Off and don't attack Me ...give me a link to why this is not true. I've done my searching and can't find anything to refute what he said, so far. So I asked for help. GIVE A LINK if it's a LIE!

[inna]

7. according to the CBO (i don't have the link right now, but i could find it again)...

it doesn't kick in until 2013 (not 2019), and it will enroll at most TEN MILLION *BY* 2019.


numbers that you quoted sound even more disappointing, i hope they are wrong.

[KoKo]

9. Thanks...I hope others will post more info. Brownstein is not liked here...but he

does have sources inside DC ...so whether we like him or not...he's getting his info from somewhere.

[frazzled]

10. Stop citing the facts--it confuses people

And besides, most people only read the OP header. Any corrections made inside are beside the point.

Here's one reference to exactly your dates and figures:

The strongest public plan on offer is in the bill being considered by the House of Representatives. This plan is limited to the health insurance exchanges, which are in turn limited to employers with fewer than 20 workers. So that's the first point: The vast majority of Americans would be ineligible for the public plan, even if they wanted it. The CBO estimates that by 2019, the public plan would have a likely enrollment of 10 million Americans — and that estimate (pdf) imagines a world in which the exchanges are opened to businesses with 50 or fewer employees, which is to say, it's more favorable than the actual bill.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/the_public_plan_is_not_the_sam.html/

[KoKo]

11. Thanks...what I get from this is that it's an "estimated enrollment" that

Brownstein was screwing with the numbers with...but the bad news is that the Public Option would be extremely limited.

Thanks. I'll go read the whole article. I replied to the specific snip you gave. Doesn't sound good to me. Not as comprehensive as I think many of us hoped for, though.

[KoKo]

13. Do you have a different link...I get "not found" from Wa Po.

Is there an article title I can put into Google to find it? Thanks!

[frazzled]

19. Just go here and scroll down

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/

I think it's one of the essential go-to web sites for policy information on health care proposals.

The particular post in question is titled "The Public Plan Is Not the Same Thing as Cost Control"

There's also an excellent link to a surprisingly lucid, basic "cheat sheet" about the various plans: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/8-questions/index.html

[inna]

27. thanks for the links. from your second link,

The proposals would pay for about half of this by squeezing money out of Medicare and Medicaid, including the subsidies that now go to private insurers that offer Medicare Advantage plans and the Medicaid payments that go to hospitals caring for a disproportionate share of the uninsured -- the hope is that more of these hospitals' patients would be covered after reform.

am i the only one who thinks it's a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE idea to pay for this unfortunate health (scratch..., i meant *insurance*) reform by cuts to Medicare and Medicaid??


seriously, i don't understand why this point rarely gets brought up and why the progressives are not livid about it.

[frazzled]

32. THe savings come from getting rid of Medicare ADVANTAGE--subsidies to private insurers

Legislation in 1997 allowed Medicare recipients to receive their benefits through private insurance companies, instead of through traditional (government) Medicare. Essentially, to make a long story short, the government is paying billions of dollars in subsidies to private insurers that offer consumers no better coverage than traditional Medicare. And: "The Government Accountability Office reported that in 2006, the plans earned profits of 6.6 percent, had overhead (sales, etc.) of 10.1 percent, and provided 83.3 percent of the revenue dollar in medical benefits. These administrative costs are far higher than traditional fee-for-service Medicare."

Obama is absolutely correct to want to end these subsidies to private insurers under so-called "Medicare Advantage" (just as he has proposed getting rid of banks as intermediaries to process student loans, and let them come directly from the government). We will save billions that can help to stabilize Medicare and help pay for its continued fiscal stability.

It's not in the least horrible. It's commendable.

[DutchLiberal]

25. Is this *really* what's all the fighting is about?

How disappointing. I thought the 'public option' was going to cover all Americans, and that that was the reason why the Republicans and 'Blue Dogs' were fighting it tooth and nail.

But this... this is, again, disappointing. Even if Obama 'wins' this battle, the American people aren't better off after all, it seems.

It's beginning to look like Obama will be another Clinton: get elected on progressive/liberal rhetoric, then once in office, betray all those progressive ideals and throw the left under the bus.

[frazzled]

36. Yes it is ... but you're just finding this out now?

The House plans and the HELP (Kennedy committee) Senate plan have been out for several months now. They've been discussed widely. Yet I've always felt that people didn't really understand what the proposals for a public option really were. By the way ... they aren't Obama's plan: they were crafted by committees in the House and Senate.

But it's why if we have to lose them now to get the rest of health care passed, we truly aren't losing all that much to begin with (despite the hysteria). What we would be gaining, however, is a vast structure on which to build that would pave the way for further, strengthened legislation in the months and years to come. Think about what is left in these combined plans even without the private option:

Bills approved by the Senate health committee and three House panels are similar in many respects. All four versions would:

Require every American to carry insurance, with discounts for people who cannot afford it and penalties for people who refuse to buy coverage.
Require most employers to contribute to the cost of employee coverage or pay into a health fund, while small firms would be exempt or receive tax credits to reduce the price.
Expand the Medicaid health program for the poor.
Provide insurance discounts for people earning less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $73,000 for a family of three.
Impose new restrictions on insurance practices, such as prohibiting the denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions.
Create a new marketplace, dubbed an "exchange" or "gateway," for individuals and small businesses to comparison-shop for insurance.

Think about it: scores more of poor Americans will have access to Medicaid, because the limit is being raised to 133% of the poverty level. Millions and millions of Americans (those earning possibly up to 400% of the poverty level) will receive subsidies to buy insurance--insurance they couldn't afford before. And it would be insurance that couldn't turn them down for a pre-existing condition, or drop them when they get cancer. It would help small businesses to pay for health insurance for their employees. This is stuff that can easily pass ... and it's still a huge step forward, if the legislation is crafted well. And it could leave the door open for adding a pubic option to the exchange.

But if we don't pass the bulk of it now, it's not going to get any easier to do in a year or ten years or twenty. It will be harder. And we'll never get anything. I'm not being a defeatist about the public plan: I've been out there at vigils with my Public Option sign; I've spent time talking to my Congressman's office about his not signing the "threat" letter. But in the end, I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. THis is the toe in the door we need to begin the ongoing battle for health care ... ultimately, I hope, leading to a single-payer, universal, non-profit system.

[DutchLiberal]

46. Yes, I just found out now. There are 5 different plans circulating...

And I can't say they have been "widely discussed". Whatever media outlet you take your information from, be it the newspapers or the cable tv, be they left or right, have always spoken about one single effort to create a "public option" to cover "all Americans". I'm not that into the details because I'm not able to read or watch all American media outlets that much, but that's what I have understood from the many, many segments I've seen on YouTube and the articles I've read via DU. You can't expect from me to get all the details of American legislature. I think most liberals who are fighting for the public option don't even know this.

[frazzled]

47. And all the plans say the public option is for the uninsured and small businesses

All of them. No, I do not get my information from cable news, although I watch them (when I can stand it). I do read the newspapers (2 a day: the NYT and the Chicago Tribune). They contain charts that compare the plans. I also follow blogs like Ezra Klein's at the Washington Post, which have been discussing each of the plans in excruciating detail. He's really good if you want an ongoing, fairly simple to understand, explanation of the policies (as opposed to the politics, although he ventures into that, too, sometimes).

I have never heard anyone say the public option, as proposed in any of the current plans in Congress, would cover all Americans. It would be great if we could get such a thing--it would, essentially, be a single-payer system. We knew from the beginning that such a sweeping overhaul of the system, all at once, was not on the table.

And yes, I think you are right: I do think that many liberals have been misinformed about the proposed public option. Even Keith Olberman seems not to get it.

But I am heartened that even a small public option will be something on which we can build in the coming years ... and eventually expand it to include everyone. It doesn't bother me a bit that it is starting small. Even Social Security did not start by covering everyone. But it was strengthened over the years.

It's gonna be okay. Or at least it's going to be better than what we have now.

[DutchLiberal]

48. Dutch media keep reporting the public option would cover all Americans...

Another confirmation that it's not only the American media which is going downhill fast... ;)

[Junkdrawer]

12. House version...Senate version is worse...

...

As readers of this blog no doubt know, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and three House committee chairman working jointly, published draft health care “reform” bills in June. (The third committee with bill-writing authority, the Senate Finance Committee, has yet to produce a bill.) According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “public option” proposed in the House “tri-committee” bill might insure 10 million people and would leave 16 to 17 million people uninsured. The “public option” proposed by the Senate HELP committee, again according to the Congressional Budget Office, is unlikely to insure anyone and would hence leave 33 to 34 million uninsured. The CBO said its estimate of 10 million for the House bill was highly uncertain, which is not surprising given how vaguely the House legislation describes the “public option.”

...

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/

[KoKo]

15. This does sound pretty bad. So..why is Pelosi carrying on about "PO" being

a definite when it's so weak. She seemed to be the Hero with the Senate as the bad guys. But then, JunkDrawer you've been on DU long enough to remember how we used to do "running threads" watching C-Span over votes and were disappointed ...time and time again.

I guess it's all the "Smoke & Mirrors" they usually do. House claims they are "fighting for the people" and it's the "evil Senate" who did the "deed" and it's around and around and what gets passed is so different from what we ever thought and then Bush would do a "Signing Statement" and it all would change again. Remember the kid staffer who in the "dead of night" changed one of our big bills and he was never held accountable? I don't remember the Bill (so much terrible stuff has caused me to seem like Alzheimer's victim) but it was serious...Like Military Commissions Act or something really big.

Anyway...one would hope that Obama might use a "Signing Statement" to make the Bill REALL WORK...in Public Option as Doorway to Single Payer...wouldn't we. But, given who he's surrounded himself with and that the RW would go after him for doing an "illegal signing statement," forgetting how many Bush did....I guess that's all a dream in the Progressive Dems Nightmare Closet.

:hi:

[Junkdrawer]

20. While we fight for a "Public Option" that, in fact, is just a cruel shadow....

of the original idea, the real action is in the Individual Mandate:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6485037&mesg_id=6485037

This will not end well. But, hey, Reid and Pelosi's jobs will be easier when that embarrassing Majority problem goes away.

[KoKo]

24. I missed that Incredibly Detailed post of yours...Sorry...I went over and kicked it!

I was off DU today and missed it. Many thanks for the link.

And also thanks for finding that link to the "Aide who slipped the defining language in that bill and Specter said..."I know nuthing...nuthing." Thanks! So many criminals so little time...it all crowds together in a mish mosh in the mind. I had hoped Obama or any Dem would put an end to this NIGHTMARE.. but...alas. The task is too large and the crimes are too overwhelming.

[Junkdrawer]

26. Do you ever find yourself writing books in your head....

trying to make sense of it all?

"...and then Nixon dropped the Gold Standard and we became utterly dependent on the control of oil and our military hegemony for the dollar's value...."

Some day...Some day...

[KoKo]

28. Yes...and if you were an "Opus" Cartoon Fan...I realize now why Berkley killed him off after the

Election.... I had no idea...until now. And, his "dark closet of the nightmares," haunts me. I have two large file drawers of Bush Administration crimes. Printed the articles out I'm looking at them...and figure I will just take out to back yard and burn them. I don't know what else to do with them. They will never be investigated...yet the evidence even back to "stolen election" is in file drawers of articles from the esteemed (at that time) Washington Post and NYTimes!

I often think of Naomi Klein's "Shock & Awe." I think they've "Shocked & Awed Us" so bad we have PSTD if not early Alzheimer's from the assault on what used to be "reasonable, logical thought processes." Just do another "9/11" with Cheney already plotting and that will finish us off ...those of us who still have "partial memory." It will be considered good...the Final Solution. :crazy:

[Junkdrawer]

30. Sunday morning without Opus is just not the same....

*heavy sigh*

And I was just thinking of Naomi Klein's "Shock & Awe." Do you realize that the whole Real Estate Bubble/Bank Rescue thingy was financed with fear?

No, really. Spooked investors around the world bought US Treasuries at ridiculously low interest rates as a safe harbor. And the minute they stop being scared, we are well and truly screwed.

Shock and Awe Forever!

[KoKo]

37. Speaking of Spooked Investors...and the Wall St. Boondoggle..

I read this article this a.m. from Vanity Fair. The bank bailout was worse than we thought. I wouldn't read it before bed...Better to read it when you can have time that it won't ruin your sleep or a nice activity. Actually, maybe just skip it. Who needs to know more than we already do.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/10/bailout200910

Good Billions After Bad
By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
October 2009
As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system—without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. The authors reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed.
The Bailout Nine

Kashkari and other Paulson aides cobbled together the Office of Financial Stability under immense time pressure. They press-ganged people from elsewhere in Treasury and from far-flung government departments. By the end of the year, there were more “detailees” on loan from other offices (52) than there were permanent staff (38). They were spread out all over Treasury, from the ground floor to the third. Some occupied space in leased offices six blocks away. It was a strange agglomeration of people—stretching from Washington to San Francisco—who had never worked together before.

There were no internal controls to gauge success or failure. The goal was simply to dispense as much money as possible, as fast as possible. When Treasury began giving billions to the banks, the department had no policies in place to ensure that the banks were using the money in ways that met the purposes of the program, however defined. One main purpose, as noted, was to free up credit, but there was no incentive to lend and nothing to stop a bank from simply sitting on the money, bolstering its balance sheet and investing in Treasury bills. Indeed, Treasury’s plan was expressly not to ask the banks what they did with the money. As the Government Accountability Office later learned, “the standard agreement between Treasury and the participating institutions does not require that these institutions track or report how they plan to use, or do use, their capital investments.” When the G.A.O. asked Treasury if it intended to ask all tarp recipients to provide such an accounting, Treasury said it did not—and would not. “There’s not a bank in this country that would lend money under terms,” Elizabeth Warren, the chair of a Congressional Oversight Panel that was eventually charged by Congress with overseeing tarp activities, would tell a Senate committee.

There wasn’t even anyone within the tarp office to keep track of the money as it was being disbursed. tarp gave that job—along with a $20 million fee—to a private contractor, Bank of New York Mellon, which also happened to be one of the Big 9. So here was a case of a beneficiary helping to oversee a process in which it was a direct participant. Most of the tarp contracts—for everything from legal services to accounting—were awarded under an expedited procedure that government watchdogs regard as “high-risk,” because it lacks a wide array of routine safeguards. In its first three months of operation, the Office of Financial Stability awarded 15 contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to law firms, fiscal agents, management consultants, and providers of various other services. There was enormous potential for conflicts of interest, and no procedure to deal with them. When the possibility of conflict of interest was raised, two of the contractors voiced vague promises to maintain an “open dialog” and “work in good faith” with Treasury, and left it at that.
Ask and You Shall Receive

In those first few weeks, money gushed out of Treasury and into the tarp pipeline at a torrential rate. After giving $125 billion to the big banks, Treasury moved on to the second round, wiring $33.6 billion to 21 other banks on November 14 in exchange for preferred stock. A week later it sent $2.9 billion to 23 more banks. As noted, by the time Barack Obama took office, the tarp tab totaled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars. In its first six months, the new administration disbursed an additional $125 billion to banks, mortgage companies, A.I.G., and the big auto manufacturers.

To the public, the bailout looked like a gold rush by banks competing for tarp money. It was indeed partly that, but the reality is more complex. While some banks lobbied aggressively for tarp money, many others that had no interest in the money were pressured to take it. Treasury’s explanation is that regulators knew which banks were strongest and wanted to get more capital into their hands in order to free up credit. But it’s also true that spreading the money around to a large number of small and medium-size banks helped create the impression that the bailout wasn’t just for a few big boys on Wall Street.

It’s impossible to overstate how casual the process was, or how little Treasury asked of the banks it targeted. Like most bankers, Ray Davis, the C.E.O. of Umpqua Bank, a solid, respectable local bank in Portland, Oregon, followed with great interest all the news out of Washington last fall. But he didn’t see that tarp had much relevance to his own bank. Umpqua was well run. It wasn’t bogged down by a portfolio of bad loans. It had healthy reserves.

Then he got a call from a Treasury Department representative asking if Umpqua would like to participate in the Treasury program and suggesting it would be a good thing for Umpqua to do. Davis listened politely, but the fact was, he says, that Umpqua “didn’t need the funds. Our capital resources were very high.”

The next day, Davis was in his office when another call came through from the same Treasury representative. “Basically what he said was that the secretary of the Treasury would like to have your application on his desk by five o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” Davis recalls.

The “application” was the paperwork for a capital infusion, and Davis was told it would be faxed over right away. By now he was sold on participating. “Here was somebody from the secretary of the Treasury calling,” Davis says, “and complimenting us on the strength of our company and saying you need to do this, to help the government, to be a good American citizen—all that stuff—and I’m saying, ‘That’s good. You’ve got me. I’m in.’”

The most urgent task was to complete the application and get it back to Treasury the next day, and this had Davis in a sweat: “I pictured this 200-page fax that would take me three weeks of work crammed into one evening.” Imagine Davis’s surprise when a staff member walked in soon afterward with the official “Application for tarp Capital Purchase Program.” It consisted of two pages, most of it white space.

If tarp accomplishes nothing else, it has struck a mighty blow for simplicity in government. The application was only 24 lines long, and asked such tough questions as the name and address of the bank, the name of the primary contact, the amount of its common and preferred stock, and how much money the bank wanted. Anyone who has filled out the voluminous federal forms required in order to be eligible for a college loan would die for such an application. Davis recalls that, when the two faxed pages were brought to him, all he could say was “Really?” As soon as Umpqua’s application was approved, Treasury wired $214 million to Umpqua’s account.

What happened in Portland happened elsewhere across the country. Peter Skillern, who heads the Community Reinvestment Association, a nonprofit group in North Carolina, describes a conference he attended where bankers explained that they had been “contacted by their regulators and told by them that they would be taking tarp.”

[Junkdrawer]

39. Thanks...

:hi:

[inna]

43. except that we're not taling some measly "quarter a trillion", we're talking TRILLIONS and counting.

current balance (money paid to the banksters) was 3 TRILLION already, at that point,according to this *early* link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32010841/ns/business-us_business

[inna]

31. thank you, and i kicked (and commented on) your post,

it was too late to rec it.


:hi:

[Junkdrawer]

21. Re: your Alzheimer's - I too had to Google a bit to remember....

Specter: "I Do Not Slip Things In"

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) angrily addressed his insertion of a measure that changed the law governing the selection of U.S. Attorneys during this morning's hearing on the issue.

As we reported last month, Specter inserted an obscure provision into the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act that made it possible for the administration to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys for an indefinite period. The measure was inserted when the bill was in conference committee. "Specter slipped the language into the bill at the very last minute," we wrote.

...

Later Update: OK. In later remarks in response to Feinstein, Specter said that he actually didn't know about the added provision until Feinstein approached him recently about the issue. After Feinstein's inquiry, Specter says, he asked his chief counsel about the issue, who then explained what had happened. So according to him, Specter's staff was responsible for the provision, but Specter himself didn't know about it.

...

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002487.php

[enlightenment]

14. Here are the links to the CBO analyses

of the two bills (House and Senate).

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10400/07-26-InfoOnTriCommProposal.pdf

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/103xx/doc10310/06-15-KennedyLetter.shtml

The House version does not seem particularly 'robust'. The Senate version is a joke.

A compromise bill will - logically - be weaker than the House version and stronger than the Senate version.

woo.

hoo.

:(

[KoKo]

17. Thanks...I'll check out...Hope I don't have to read "thousands of pages"

but will try to "speed read." :hi:

[KoKo]

22. Okay...I read both links. Seems there's so much "wiggle room" for interpretation

that it was all very preliminary before they went to recess. I notice that "Health Exchanges" feature most prominently in the Senate Version...and I heard Daschle (He's BAAACK) over the weekend on some C-Span "Think Tank" thing pushing the "Health Care Exchanges" full force. So, I assume that Daschle is the "point man" trying to get this legislation through for Obama even though he had to cut out of the Obama Administration for NON-PAY of BACK TAXES. Seems he's STILL THE ONE.

Both statements from your links were vague enough it showed that they had no idea from Obama as to what they were to focus on. Senate version seems to pick tidbits from what Senator Kennedy wanted...House Version seems poorly worded for the average American reader.

I'm not heartened by reading either of a Bill being sent to Obama that wouldn't make me very worried..........:shrug:

[defendandprotect]

16. MEDICARE is up and running and ready to go -- that's the ONLY way we should go --!!

[KoKo]

23. Given what I read from House Senate Committee Statment... with Waffles...SINGLE PAYER is the WAY!

The mechanisms are already in place. We could employ folks who worked in the Private Insurance Industry to manage it (no loss of jobs and maybe increase as more are covered) and it's simple and could be implemented much sooner than 2019 or 2013 according to what they are trying to get us to cough down, now. :shrug: How many years would we wait for any reform given the years out that they are proposing. What about all of us losing jobs and the economy not recovering for many years with a "Jobless Recovery" being predicted by even the Conservative Economists?

What about NOW for families being thrown off their plans, losing jobs...outrunning their COBRA or those who were just subsiting off the charity of Doctors who might be also having financial problems of their own from losses in the stock market?

Medicare for all or a combination of Medicare and Medicaid for the younger ones. It could work...simple...already defined...and then let the Rich Wall Streeters get a special thing for their "Gold Plated" transplants, Cosmetic Surgery, etc..on their OWN! THEY CAN AFFORD IT....rest of Americans CANNOT...they are barely existing!

[defendandprotect]

44. America needs MEDICARE FOR ALL .... NOW . ..!!!

by 2013 or 2019, the GOP would have buried it --

This is nonsense -- we're not reinventing the wheel - every other nation has done this!

Also would create 2.3 million jobs!!!

Personally -- I'd like to see Medicaid gone and everyone transferred to Medicare.

:)

[and-justice-for-all]

29. It should not take any more than 4 years for such a bill to take hold..

It would be better served if it was engaged in 3, before Obama's re-election.

Just expanding Medicare would be the fast way to do this, then there is no need to write a new service program. It could also be done by Social Security Number and then it could be ran through your employer when your number is up.

This really is not hard to do, they just make it bloody difficult.

[KoKo]

40. Medicare or Medicaid is so much simpler and could be done quickly

since the systems are in place. I don't understand why American People would find that scary...except the Fringe Folks who don't know anything from anything and follow that idiot Sarah Palin. :shrug:

[and-justice-for-all]

41. That is all they have to do, is open Medicaid/care to the rest of us..

who choose to do so.

along with the private insurance provider that is offered by ones employer, there would be a second option of Medicare/Caid. But unlike the private insurance, you could keep your Medicare/Caid at a fraction of the cost of private insurance.

After my job is over, I am screwed. I will not have any insurance. There is NO way I could keep my current private provider insurance, it is just impossible.

[Bonn1997]

35. 20 million, not 20,000 right??? It can't be 20,000!

[KoKo]

38. That's what I heard Brownstein say...and he repeated it...so

some have said here Brownstein was lying. And, maybe, since I was cooking at the time, he said 20 Million...but I don't think I would have been so angry that I would have posted if he said 20 Mil...

Whatever...it's bad if it doesn't begin until 2019? What use is it?

[Bonn1997]

45. Oh I agree 2019 would be ridiculous. If there was a public option covering 10 or 20 mil soon,

I would view that as a successful start, though. It would fundamentally change the makeup of our health care system and perhaps at some point in the future could be successfully modified. It would lay the ground work for bigger change.