"Universal Health Insurance"

[SHRED]

Isn't that what we should call it?
To make the payment for treatment a public pool?

So many say, "Universal Health Care" instead.
I think that leads people into the false thinking that we would then have government run Doctors and hospitals.

No, leave them private and expand a Medicare type payment system to us all.

[GOPBasher]

1. Good idea.

That's a good way to put it. And polls show that a strong majority agrees with us on that issue.

[Liberty Belle]

2. Dems should start by proposing healthcare for all pregnant moms and babies.

Challenge the pro-lifers to put their actions where their words are.
Most abortions occur among poor women or women who feel they can't afford a baby. If a woman has no health insurance, or has insurance with a very high deductible so that giving birth would cost her thousands of dollars, that's a major incentive FOR choosing abortion, especially if she has other children to care for.

Isn't this a more humane way to "save babies" than by making abortion illegal and putting women's lives at risk through back-alley abortion?

Even those who favor banning abortion should still be persuaded to support this, because it saves women's lives, saves babies, and would prevent many abortions, legal or otherwise.

[Selatius]

3. Dennis Kucinich has been pushing single-payer health care for years now

I don't know if that's the same as socializing the entire health care infrastructure, but Medicare/Medicaid expansion to achieve 100% coverage would probably mean the same thing.

[johnaries]

4. "Single-Payer" seems to be the popular choice of phrasing. nt

[Ravy]

5. Universal coverage is a better term. (nt)

[Mika]

6. As long as its WELL regulated.

We all saw what the repukes did in the prescript drug bill - preventing medicare from negotiating w/drug companies on mass purchases like the VA does.

A publicly paid for system to private insurance/h-c companies really needs to have serious watchdogs overlooking and regulating activity w/price increase controls.

[Rosemary2205]

7. Medicare is in deep shit - you really don't want to go there.

Just ask your doctor about what they deal with on medicare and why so many specialists are opting out of taking medicare patients.

If you want to keep private insurers in the equation, expanding they system that federal employees are in would be a better choice -- or allowing small businesses to pool together to buy group coverage.....etc.

[OzarkDem]

9. Its still a better system

than private health insurance. GOP has truly screwed it up because they wanted to kill it. No doubt there will be improvements to Medicare when Dems take over.

That said, its not always going to be what doctors want. They don't adapt to change easily. Remember when the medical profession fought like crazy the idea of developing a uniform system of coding health care services? They've actually taken the ball and run with it, now promoting hi tech programs for sharing information on health care and medical practices.

[Rosemary2205]

11. A private insurer doesn't put docs in jail over coding errors.

I know a GOOD doctor, honest to a fault, that had to spend nearly half a million to defend himself against fraud charges because for 2 years his office staff was coding a certain procedure wrong for medicare by mistake - and it was an incredibly easy mistake to make because of the way medicare changed it's rules. The overpayment from Medicare over the 2 years was under $10,000 and the doctor's office is actually the one's who realized the error when a new staff person was hired and had interpreted new rules differently. The government wanted blood, not repayment.

This is not the exception, this is typical. Medicare is so riddled with outright fraud that they view every mistake as criminal. Doctors cannot, and will not put up with that.

[OzarkDem]

8. An important distinction, single - payer system

That's the biggest conservative talking point against health care reform - that government will control (and "ration") health care.
It won't be accomplished overnight, but we may eventually see it happen.

The problem with private health insurance is that it isn't a guarantee of health care either.

[misternormal]

10. I worry about the "HMO Factor" in Universal Health Care...

... where it is "bean counters" and not doctors that determine if a particular procedure or test is warranted.

I haven't had any problems with my HMO, but I've read stories of those that have.

[LWolf]

12. Why reinvent the wheel?

Is it just so that someone else can "claim" the issue? Kucinich has a plan. He's had it for years, as another poster pointed out. Why not support the time, effort, and plan great Democrats have already labored on?

<snip>

Our health care system is broken, and H. R. 676, the Conyers-Kucinich bill, is the only comprehensive solution to the problem. It is also the system endorsed by more than 14,000 physicians from Physicians for a National Health Program. Nearly 46 million Americans have no health care and over 40 million more have only minimal coverage. In 2005 some 41% of moderate and middle income Americans went without health care for part of the year. Even more shocking is that 53% of those earning less than $20,000 went without insurance for all of 2005. In fact, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance.

The American health system is quite sick. Pulitzer Prize journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele, in their stunning analysis of the health care industry, Critical Condition (2006 Broadway Books), insist that "... U.S. health care is second-rate at the start of the twenty-first century and destined to get a lot worse and much more expensive." Considering the following facts from Tom Daschle's article for the Center for American Progress: "Paying More but Getting Less: Myths and the Global Case for U.S. Health Reform":

More:

http://www.kucinich.us/issues/universalhealth.php

[phiddle]

13. One of Clinton's major mistakes in '94 (IMHO)

was to bill it "Health CARE reform" instead of Health insurance reform, coverage, etc. At the time, polls showed that the vast majority of Americans were satisfied with their "care" (doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc.) and dissatisfied with their insurance. Calling it healt care reform allowed the insurance industry (remember Harry and Louise?) to spread the false notion that people's would have less choice in their care and a diminished level of health care. Words DO matter!