IF we get no health care reform this time...

[samrock]

I may NEVER come up again in our life time.. after the 1993 debacle added to failure this year... NO politician will ever bring it up again... The insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies will have won..

[ejpoeta]

1. well, in another twenty years, moving along the timeline we seem to have

established here... then how many americans will be without health insurance then?? in twenty years I will bet a majority of americans will be without insurance... and maybe THEN they'll see why we need reform.

[sandnsea]

3. That's what we said in '93

We simply have got to get something passed, something that gets everybody health care so people quit understand they don't have to suffer the way they have been.

[ejpoeta]

7. I want reform.... but i fear that 'something' for the sake of it will end up being worse...

if they pass something without a mandate I wouldn't feel so afraid of it.... I don't want to be mandated into THIS system. I want them to fix it.... the insurance companies can do whatever they want... cover it, not cover it... kick you off..... and they do, regularly. and they get away with it. it has to change. I want it to change.

[sandnsea]

12. Once everybody *has* to pay

They'll start demanding they get the service they pay for.

[dflprincess]

15. And who's going to listen to them?

Not Congress and for sure not the insurance companies.

If we were listened to, we'd be getting reform that improved access to health care, not reform that requires the purchase of insurance.

[Leopolds Ghost]

24. What a disturbing (and historically inaccurate) philosophy. Up there with Rangel's draft theory.

Same theory, in fact.

[Leopolds Ghost]

25. Do you support taking away people's privacy rights, including the right to say no to insuricorps?

To purchase or not purchase private goods -- and Obama/Hillary want to make it a private good -- as they see fit?

This plan does not make health care universal, it merely criminalizes lack of access to health care, putting it on the same platform with the way we treat the homeless and those without jobs -- the way neoliberals in cities like DC treat the homeless and jobless, in fact. How fitting in that the neoliberals are the people standing up and cheering now.

Did you know the neoliberal mayor of DC wants to permanently end welfare as a source of income and kick all the remaining people off it? He wants to impose the Gingrich/Tommy Thompson plan on welfare and public housing. You know what? Obama probably agrees with him -- and all the neoliberals on the blogosphere who said nothing when Gingrich first advocated it. Their hero, Clinton, supported it. DC's mayor says it is the moral duty of these people to have a job.

They are morally accountable to the state to have good credit (meaning usurious levels of debt), health insurance from a private supplier, etc.

(the state is NOT responsible for providing it publically to those who choose not to purchase it privately, or else the notion of a fine would make no logical sense, which is why the lack of logic/debate education in schools has resulted in support for this plan among self-professed liberals who claim to want Universal Health Care, i.e. the opposite plan.)

Why stop there? I say we jail 'em if they don't insure their family with the best insurance MONEY can buy, since after all this is a class based society in which all goods are monetized by the neoliberal fuckwads.

[sandnsea]

28. Everybody *has* to pay for single payer

I really don't understand the denial on that issue.

I don't support mandates, I understand their purpose though, and why they would eventually be needed no matter who administrates health care payments.

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. I don't understand the denial you have -- Under this plan, everybody *has* to pay a PRIVATE PARTY

Even the public option would be administered by the private insurance industry as a hood ornament. There will be no breaks for those who don't qualify, or wish to go on with their lives without you forcing them to contract with the insuricorps: They will simply be fined, and YOU will cheer.

I imagine you support the duty of Americans not to paint their houses purple if it injures the property values of the haves, who already have insurance.

[sandnsea]

55. There will be breaks, that's the entire point

And everybody will qualify because there will be no pre-existing conditions. My husband and I are currently paying $55 a month for insurance that is restoring my hearing, getting me a mammogram, relieving his back pain, fixed his lifelong hernia, treated his Hep C, and treats my hypothyroid.

Holy fucking hell YES I cheer.

There are more idiots in this country than the ones who fear "death panels".

[cabluedem]

42. But there isnt going to be a single payer plan. nt

[eridani]

49. A.. single payer is WAY more comprehensive than any plan on the table

B. It us one HELL of a lot cheaper, by far.
C. You get to choose your doctor.

[sandnsea]

56. I pay $55, cheaper than that?

I get to choose my doctor. Why would you use a right wing talking point?

[eridani]

63. Because you get subsidized in some way

What you are doing is telling the unsubsidized to fuck off and die. I used to pay $55 until I took early retirement. My COBRA is $450, reflecting the unsubsidized cost. I prefer the $100 single payer charge to that.

[sandnsea]

73. EXACTLY. I get subsidized.

I would like EVERYBODY to get subsidized.

Why are YOU telling all those people to fuck off and die.

[eridani]

78. Subsidizing private insurance kills and bankrupts people n/t

[sandnsea]

79. I'm not dead, I'm alive

Not that anybody around here gives a shit.

[eridani]

80. yep. You and 99.9% of the population. 22,000 ia auch a tiny percent of 350 million

If it's that small a percent, who cares?

[sandnsea]

81. Because I Have Subsidized Insurance

I actually care very much. Those who are sitting comfy with Medicare, Medicaid, or some other insurance - and telling me that only single payer is good enough for the uninsured - well ya know - fuck them. They're idiots.

[eridani]

83. The subsidy is to companies that kill and bankrupt people for profit

It harms other people. 22,000 dead and 350,000 bankrupted a year, to be exact.

[cabluedem]

41. No some wont pay and they will get jailed. is that what we want? nt

[leftstreet]

43. There aren't any jobs, so we might as well fill up the prisons n/t

[Leopolds Ghost]

46. They have single payer in prison. And guaranteed employment for good behavior.

Just saying. :shrug:

[leftstreet]

47. Hmm...

So there IS a plan!

[cabluedem]

74. Yeah. Its called plan "P", not B. For Prison when all else fails. nt

[cabluedem]

77. Woo-hoo! I cant wait to make license plates for 15 cents and hour and healthcare too. nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

57. The Private prison industry must be positively giddy over that prospect.

x(

[cabluedem]

75. They are. Prison guards in CA can make well over $100,000 per year. No joke. nt

[cabluedem]

84. Yeap. Prision gaurds make 100 to 150 k per year. Just a HS GRAD or GED required. nt

[cabluedem]

76. That way we can hire more prison guards. So everyone will be on one side of the bars or the other. n

[lumberjack_jeff]

58. Not me. I'll be on medicare.

Then I can join the "I got mine, so I will settle for nothing less than single payer" purists.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Meh. People and their apocalyptic melodrama.

[KT2000]

6. I think he/she is right

This time it is obviously about who we are as a people and from what I have seen, increasingly selfish, mean, gullible and afraid. The majority of the yellers appear to me to be Medicare recipients or close to it. In the community where I live, the old people get the best medical care there is - it is the younger people who are not faring very well.

Our population is aging and soon Medicare will be choking with an abundance of old people and fewer healthy people to support them. Tell the people on Medicare that reform will limit their medical care and they will again send the younger people down the river whether it is 10, 15, or 20 years from now.
Old age does not cure selfishness, it exacerbates it.

[Warpy]

4. The majority party will become the minority party

with the Democrats in Congress once again being blamed as spineless do nothings the way they were in 1994.

The Republicans did a lot of damage in their 12 years as the majority. I don't want to see that again.

[HughMoran]

5. No, because there will be no insurance companies if we lose

,

[elocs]

8. Like SS or Medicare, major healthcare reform would be an Obama legacy.

It would be a major mark in American history and Republicans know damn well that if he succeeds, then his healthcare program will become as untouchable as SS and Medicare.

[deaniac21]

9. I have no doubt that you will come up again. Hang in there!

[BlueIdaho]

10. Refom is coming...

If 14,000 people a day are really losing health care coverage - that's 5 million people a year. As more and more people lose access to health care, and see their deductibles raised above $1,000, and see more medical procedures declined, the demand for change will overwhelm the status quo. Reform will not sink from view - it will stay on the front burner. If congress blows it this year they will face it next year, and every year until meaningful reform comes.

The system really is broken and political foot dragging won't change that fact. Its not if, its just a question of when.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. RISE to $1000?

I and a bunch of other people I know would love to see our deductibles DROP to $1000. Or better yet, be eliminated entirely.

[Leopolds Ghost]

34. Will fining the uninsured do that? What would introducing a huge pool of inelastic demand

do to the marketplace?

Let's ask the industry lobbyists, why don't we?

[LiberalAndProud]

50. Who will get fined?

It is my understanding that small businesses netting more than $250,000 per annum would be fined. Am I wrong?

And I'll probably pay the fine unless the policies that health insurers offer improve. And I won't have to pay the fine, because my business does not net more than $250,000 /annum. And if I did, I would increase salaries so then I wouldn't.

So many things to consider in the mix.

[Leopolds Ghost]

68. Businesses won't get fined, only uninsured individuals. Corps. won't be asked to sacrifice anything

Ironically, fining employers would be a major attack on freedom (I guess?) but fining individuals is considered an attempt to establish a new covenant with citizens that we live in a commonwealth where the individual citizen's duty is to strengthen the state, by proving he has (insurance/papers/you name it) on his or her tax return and not the other way around. Unfortunately a lot of up and coming Americans (liberal and conservative) buy into this idea because of the lack of civics education... they naturally assume the individual's responsibility is to the state (like in England and Japan) and to prove to the rest of society that they are not dragging other people down. "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down". I'm a civil libertarian so I believe very strongly in Roosevelt-style liberalism at best, where the individual rights of the citizen are paramount and the purpose of the state is to protect them from depredations of corporations, not enforce good corporate citizenship on them by checking for insurance and credit score on their tax returns. I'm more of a left libertarian but that's more of a long term goal. And the irony is even in authoritarian England and Japan, where citizens are nominally considered subjects of the crown, there is more liberty when it comes to health care because individuals are not forced to contract with private parties for health care outside their own free will. And I actually have a problem with any plan that would fine small businesses, simply because most wouldn't be able to offer benefits without going under and large donors would be only too happy to support additional bureaucracies that kill the competition and leave only megastores with their own special tax breaks, exemptions, and state-constructed parking garages. BUT! The idea of single payer was many of those industries and small businesses would not have had to shoulder the burden of health and pension benefits, which has killed many unions by allowing Wall Street to defund and offshore unionized businesses by pointing to the cost of benefits packages.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. Oh, I am totally opposed to a Massachusetts-style mandate to buy private insurance

I was simply responding to the remark about deductibles "rising" to $1000. My crappy insurance passed that mark long ago, and I know people who have $10,000 deductibles.

[cabluedem]

40. Thats no joke. 1000 dollars isnt close to reality these days.nt

[Orsino]

53. I agree.

It's why I'm not so angry as I might be about the half-assed and eighth-assed "reforms" being discussed now. The problem isn't going away.

Congressional Democrats ought to consider committing to real reform, though; it would cement their majority as more than a brief swing of the pendulum.

[JimWis]

11. It will happen eventually. It will get to the point that hardly anyone

will be able to get health care, insurance companies will price themselves right out of business and damn near ruin the economy in the meantime, doctors and nurses already want it - an that will not go away, labor unions want it, and I still think there is a majority in this country who want health reform - despite all the loud noises against it. At that time, there may even be a huge outcry by almost all Americans to do reform. And as a previous poster in this thread said - it's not if, but when.

[rhett o rick]

13. We will never get decent health care reform. CorpAmerica is too strong. We will have to wait until

people are literally starving in the streets. But even then, they will own the military and will take down any revolt. How can we clean up a corrupt Congress?

[babylonsister]

14. You're whacked. I bet we do get it. Maybe not what 'everyone' wants,

as that's impossible, but it will happen.

We'll get it.

[rhett o rick]

17. Sorry to be negitive. I will work for it. but if we get anything without a strong public option, it

will be the end. It will be so bad we will all hate it. I just can't see us winning against the forces of CorpAmerica. call me whacked.

[babylonsister]

18. Michael Moore:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=6288411

[rhett o rick]

20. Thanks, but aren't Democrats already starting to hedge on the public option?

Why has Pres Obama started to say insurance reform? I am just nervous that we might lose this. It is a huge test of our power against CorpAmerica. Why do I think the DLC isn't behind us?

[babylonsister]

21. I don't know, think what you want, and be as skeptical as you can be.

I was an optimist even when idiot son was around, so I'm certainly not going to stop now.

I haven't noticed what the prez has said, I await what he does.

[rhett o rick]

23. I have been putting pressure on Sen Cantwell and she finally committed to supporting a public

option. So my two senators and rep all support public option. but i get nervous when the Democrats talk about getting bipartisan support. the repukes won't give an inch. and I don't want mandatory insurance w/o a government plan as an option.

ps: didn't mean it to sound like Sen Cantwell did it because of my emails. but it mite have helped.

[Leopolds Ghost]

29. Option implies choice. The most liberal advocates of this plan say I will have no choice

I will not have the power to choose not to purchase insurance e.g. from a private supplier. In fact, the neoliberal Joneses in the Homeowners Association of America wish to compel me to do so. "A" public plan will be offered as an option amongst the list of private plans for which I may or may not qualify. But I will have no choice as to whether I wish to purchase insurance and therefore, having no free will in the matter, I will be compelled to purchase a private good from a private supplier (even the public option will be administered privately, like CREDO mobile was started as a niche market spinoff) at an inflexible price point.

Leaving aside the violation of free contract, making it the duty of the citizen-subject of the state to contract with private parties that the disturbingly pervasive corporate state has selected, leaving that aside for the moment: This is of course a violation of my constitutional right to privacy in matters of personal health, the same right to privacy that Roe v. Wade is based on. I do not expect American postmodernists who have no fondness for principled, reasoned debate to understand this, however.

[babylonsister]

30. Huh? I think you're wrong despite all your b.s. you

worked so hard to present.

You will have a choice, unless you believe you are being lied to. But if you think you won't have one, the r/w is lying to you.

There's your choice. Who do you believe. No one knows the outcome of this. I can't wait for the recess to end.

[Leopolds Ghost]

33. I think it's sad you view freedom not to purchase private health insurance plan as b.s.

But I expect you don't even remember how long I've been posting about civil liberties and just assume I am "deluded by r/w" voices.

All I know about the r/w criticism of this bill is that a bunch of yahoos are being called "unamerican" by Nancy Pelosi for exercising their constitutional right to disrupt public hearings -- a right which has consistently been supported when it comes to stuff we care about, like stopping the clear cutting of forests. So even though they are criticising the bill for all the wrong reasons I support their right to be heard. Then I hear LEGITIMATE anger about middle class people hearing they will be fined, and I see you lumping those people in with the astroturfers, which is exactly what the insuricorps want you to do. That's why they put the crazies out there to provide the appearance of public debate. It's the oldest trick in the book, and one a disturbing number of Democrats don't seem to comprehend.

You don't have a choice if one of the options is to be fined.

THE WORD "FINE" for people who do not CHOOSE to purchase PRIVATE insurance IMPLIES THE SO-CALLED PUBLIC OPTION IS A SHAM, A JOKE, A HOOD ORNAMENT for the insuricorps.

THEY WROTE THIS GODDAMN BILL at the think tanks back in 2000. Don't you remember when the insurance industry first started lobbying for it and who they first cultivated? I guess, living in the DC area, I assume everybody is informed about how this legislation progressed.

Public OPTION is like saying you have the FREEDOM TO STARVE or if you wish, to go on Clinton-style welfare.

I am all too familiar with this SHIT as I work for a nonprofit that is assisting a low-income homeowner facing foreclosure. The gov't and the major service providers has NO RESPECT, NONE, for people who need a "public option" such as HUD-certified foreclosure counseling or pro-bono legal assistance. Their attitude is "rotsa ruck, what's
wrong with her that she can't afford to pay for it like responsible MIDDLE-CLASS FOLK, there are plenty of plans available that are better than the public option, but she's happy to get on the waiting list as long as she's willing to pay the FINE in the meantime!" Y'all believe there is no excuse for not being ENTITLED like them, and hence it's ok to fine people for making other choices in life.

[Leopolds Ghost]

36. Put it another way -- fining people who cannot prove they have private plan is opposite of UHC.

Under most civilizations, a service is provided and people are not penalized if they choose not to purchase a private plan that goes over and above that service. A public option designed to serve the few who cannot be FORCED into the private health insurance market (and believe me when I tell you those numbers are carefully managed) is not an option at all, it is what is called a DISPENSATION.

E.g. by the gov't, upon individuals who deserve nothing in the eyes of the gov't and the already insured.

It's the way public transit is run in most areas of the US. I.e. "if you're stupid or desperate enough to need it, the option is available, but you'll likely be penalized for not having a car anyway." That is the way they see it. Oh, and a lot of neoliberal yuppies who claim to be "green" agree with that approach. They are only interested in "choice" riders...

Put it another way -- none of these Reagan/Clinton Dems and Millenial Dems wish to be "fined" themselves, i.e. pay more in order to insure those who can't afford insurance who are deemed "freeloaders". they consider themselves entitled by virtue of the fact that they purchased insurance or signed up for a plan of their own free will, and want their premiums to go down on the backs of the uninsured.

[babylonsister]

37. You want to argue. I don't.

You work for a non-profit? Why aren't you cheering what's being attempted instead of trashing?

Ya know, I don't know and I don't have a lot of faith in you. Bon soir.

[Leopolds Ghost]

44. You don't have a lot of faith in me? What's that sposed to mean?

"Thank" you very much, yourself.

Not only do I work for a nonprofit relief org and another community planning org, I fucking started one. And what we do is help people directly, not waste our time lobbying to hurt them even more, like this bill would do for the people I'm working with.

As you'd know if you looked at how long I've been posting here, it is quite legitimate to criticise this shit from the "left" (the current schemes are in fact right vs. far-right. The plan moving forward now is known as the Mitt Romney plan.)

Perhaps you'd like me to post here a fax of the sort of shit they're required to prove in order to apply for the "public option" of foreclosure counseling, which not just anyone is allowed to provide, either -- they have to go to a HUD certified specialist! HUD, the most fucked-up, engineered to be anti-poor entity in the govt' AS OF YET -- we have a ways to go yet, since Dems are now in charge of the bulldozers and yet, there is no let up. One who will require them to produce literally 25 different forms of "papers, please" in true Kafkaesque fashion, to the point of outright saying "if she gets foreclosed on in that period while she's trying to produce all these documents, it's not our fault."

SAME logic behind the health care "option not to be fined for the 5% who don't acquiesce and buy into existing for-profit HC plans" bill.

if you don't remember how long I've been posting here and how many times I've brought up experiences of working as a community activist and dealing with prissy technocrats who only wish to fine the sort of people I have to help who "drag down their property values", then I question why you would wish to carry on honest and reasoned debate about the subject. I certainly don't need validation from folks who merely support whatever Congress dishes out and cheer all the louder if it "forces the deadbeats to rethink their lack of health insurance".

This bill is a poison pill designed to kill universal health care and "even the political playing field" to boot. In my opinion.

Divide and conquer by the insurance lobby.

Note how every provision BUT the individual mandate will be hashed over while that one -- the original one promoted by the insurance lobby among the Brookings Institution 10 or so years ago -- remains stubbornly intact, to the point where the idea of reform is lost and all we are left with is a dim memory of the need to "make sure everyone has insurance."

It doesn't take much to see that any bill will have the same probs, unless it's being trashed by the MSM. That's the only sign that someone's ox is getting gored. Someone who already owns an ox, and is not supposed to be injured... All America does anymore is figure out new ways to enrich the wealthy. "Reformism" by definition is and always did mean nothing but: to solve problems of liquidity in a system that consists of a conveyor belt moving money into the pockets of the haves, without changing the nature of the system in any way or doing anything that would god forbid reverse the flow (which would result in "failure" according to their metric, which is the number of people insured -- regardless of choice or cost -- and the profitability of the resulting system). If a substantial portion of the multi-million dollar political machine (including the on-line think tanks) is devoted to pushing for ANY plan to change ANYTHING, left or right, you know it has already been vetted behind the scened to ensure some major constituent is benefiting big time. Bill Maher was right.

[rhett o rick]

54. I am disappointed that you compare those of us that disrupt because we can't be heard

and those that disrupt because they don't have a clue what's going on. You say they have a right to be heard. I agree. That's usually why the people on the left disrupt. For example, Sen Baucus WOULD NOT ALLOW anyone to speak for single payer in his committee. The left disrupted his meeting to protest not being allowed to speak. The teabaggers are allowed to speak at town hall meetings and some do in a polite manner and they are heard. The town hall meetings do not exclude anyone that is willing to speak in a polite manner. The disrupters are acting as anarchists for their masters.

Seems to be confusion as to the definition of public option. Maybe I am wrong, but my definition is that there will be a government plan as an option for the public. To me anything less is worse than what we have today. Mandatory insurance for those that can't afford it, is stoopid.

[Leopolds Ghost]

67. I may be disgusted by their ignorance (and muddying the waters for people like us)

After all they drown out criticism of this bill from the left quite successfully. Had the Freepers mounted an attack against FISA reform while Obama were in office (as it happened, it got passed a year ago) I think you'd see every liberal blog in the blogosphere coming out to support the legalization of warrantless wiretapping simply because if these yahoos opposed it for the opposite reasons, it must be worth supporting.

In fact, as I recall, the FISA debate pretty much DID get shut down the minute both Dem candidates came out for it mid-campaign. "Not this again" and "if you don't like it go somewhere else" got thrown around alot.

But I'll defend to the death their right to be yahoos in public because this country was founded in the streets. By smugglers, in fact, people who were protesting the British East India Co. monopoly on tea trade, where the Brits were trying to fine people who didn't buy English tea. Which is very similar to the situation with the insurance lobby today.

[rhett o rick]

72. I will defend one's right to protest to be heard. But not to protest in order that others can not be

heard. The protesters at the Sen Baucus were protesting because they were not allowed to speak. The teabaggers are not trying to voice opinions they are disrupting meetings so that others can not be heard. Your analogy of comparing them to the patriots that fought against the big corporation of the East India Company is off base. These teabaggers are financed and mislead by the current version of the East India Company. The teabaggers are CorpAmerica's brown shirts. After the fascists are done with them, they better fear for their lives.

[rhett o rick]

61. Hey I was arguing with you first! JK. I do have a serious question. What does "public option" mean

Seems that you and leopold disagree. Does it mean that the public will have an option to buy a government plan? He seems to think that public option means being forced to buy private insurance.

[Leopolds Ghost]

66. It means being effectively forced to buy private insurance just as HOPE VI effectively forces people

To buy owner occupied units if they want to remain in public housing. The "option" of a few token public housing units is left on the table, carefully engineered not to be too many so as to disrupt the pattern (in that case, of deliberate gentrification; in this case, of deliberate use of the power of the state to strengthen the insurance companies' revenue stream in order to "fix" health care from the demand side.)

[lumberjack_jeff]

59. Cool.

I've called/emailed several times too but never got a commitment.

That's good news.

[rhett o rick]

60. Same with me. However, at the 1090 town hall last saturday, Bill Press

mentioned that he had listed all the Democrats that had not committed to a public option. He said he immediately started getting calls from their "people" and a couple came around including Sen Cantwell. She announced last friday I believe. Although she hasn't yet included the public option as a priority on her Senate webpage. Their she says that keeping good doctors is a priority.

[madville]

16. We're going to get something

We may not like it but they will pass something. Just might fall into the "Be careful what you ask for" realm but could they really make it worse?

[babylonsister]

19. No, they couldn't.

If there's something about no pre-existing conditions, that's worth it by itself.

I want something, and I have insurance. I want every person in this country to be covered.

[Leopolds Ghost]

22. Do you want to fine the uninsured? Make the purchase of private goods a requirement of citizenship?

Insurance as a private good? This is a Republican bill. Don't be fooled by the backwash...

[Sebastian Doyle]

48. Yes they can make it worse.

Mandatory corporate insurance would be FAR worse, because then they could make the claim that everyone is "covered" and the subject of TRUE reform would never be raised again.

[steelmania75]

27. Obama better get a solid public option in that bill

It's the only route for healthcare reform.

[Leopolds Ghost]

31. Option implies choice. Everyone I speak to who supports this bill wants to deprive me of the right

To not purchase health insurance, which would remain a for-profit consumer product under this bill, which is designed to strengthen the profits of the health care industry. That is the metric they are using to determine the success of this bill: If everyone is insured because it is criminal not to, the problem will have been solved in the same way most people on this board consider the "welfare problem" to have been "solved" by "welfare reform" and the "wiretapping problem" was "solved" by "FISA reform". Both spearheaded by neoliberal Democrats.

It seems Republicans prefer do-nothing, passive thievery while the Dems increasingly want to remove people's few remaining rights not to contract with the corporate crony-capitalist state.

"You have a duty not to drag down my health costs" I hear people say. "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."

These are the same people who want Americans not to have the right to paint their houses pink because of the "umbrella violation of others rights" to fair property values.

No mention is made of the umbrella right to privacy or freedom to do what we choose with our personal lives...

[babylonsister]

38. Don't buy it! You don't have to! Who TF are you listening to? Ugh. nt

[Leopolds Ghost]

69. Well, technically I probably fall under the "under employed" provision

Since I work for two nonprofits, take classes, and do construction on the side.

I don't plan on humiliating myself queueing up to explain to some functionary
why I, unlike the person sitting at the desk whose insurance package came with
their job, do not choose to purchase a $400 health insurance plan that has a
$1000 deductable from a collection of megacorps that sell my information to
shyster insurance brokers, to boot. I have a principled aversion to negotiating
with such people on the basis of "if you want to purchase this policy now,
because you'll be required to purchase it from someone!" Which is the same
sort of rhetoric that jacks up prices in the building industry. Probably the
worst abuse is the Realtor(tm) industry with their whole host of mandated
"certified" shysters of various stripes, all designed to "protect" the individual
while assuring them that they have no choice in the matter of whether to hire
such people.

The other problem with establishing a public option as an "option for those
who wish to avoid being fined" is that it structures it explicitly as a program
of last resort, which is what they are doing to public housing -- and what they
have done to mass transit in many communities.

Thanks for your considerate reply, however. I probably blew up in my last reply.

[Leopolds Ghost]

70. Bottom line is if they want to see a public option go up against Insuricorps, fining people into it

Will have the reverse effect by upping prices of private insurance and scaring people away from the public option because "it's probably cheap for a reason, look whose on it."

Which Americans are particularly prone to do. Just look at the SUV craze.

I remember people saying "I would question the fitness of a parent who had a large family and bought a compact car instead of an SUV or van. It's a matter of safety! The cost is worth it."

[ipaint]

71. I've downsized my life and live quite simply.

All I really need is health care so I will be keeping my earnings below the level to qualify for medicaid. Lousy universal health care for the poor but probably just as good as a bottom rung public plan offered by the insurance vultures.

If I do ever earn over the medicaid limit I will send my extortion premium check in the form of a donation to Remote Area Medical http://www.ramusa.org/ I will not work a second job to pay forced premiums to a criminal insurance industry. Fine the crap out of me. I own nothing for them to take.

RAM do a much better job delivering health care with real compassion and all you have to be is a human being who needs help to get it for free. They treat almost 400,000 folks a year for about what 1 CEO of a for profit insurance corp makes in a year.

If or when this country comes to it's collective senses I will be more than happy to contribute via my taxes to a medicare for all/single payer system that includes everyone.

I will not contribute to some half assed cobbled together system thats only reason for existing is to keep the for profit medical industry fat and happy while leaving other uninsured americans to suffer and die. I will not contribute to a system that offers any more human sacrifices to the insurance industry.

[tj2001]

35. It will happen before 2050

Newton's calculated end of the world

[WillieW]

39. And I will leave the country.l

[LiberalAndProud]

45. No. I t will come up again and again and again.

until it is fixed.

Nixon
Clinton
Obama


And Se can leave out the Busshes and Carter(?).

(ss..... beware the rattler)

[kenny blankenship]

62. at the rate healthcare costs are soaring, it would be ten years at most.

This system is in crisis, like a carnival ride with failed brakes. From 1996 to 2006 US healthcare costs DOUBLED. The all-wise, pleni-splendiferous, omnibeneficent Free Market, which we were told would contain costs, has revealed its preference to continually raise them instead.

In another ten years time, the average US family will have fallen off the ride completely.

This ride is ending. We are only debating exactly HOW and when to get off. Since the owner of the ride refuses to be reasonable about the situation it will end with a BANG. That's too bad, but perhaps it was the only way all along.

[loyalkydem]

52. and I hope

the right wing will stay as a minority for the next 100 years.

[steelmania75]

64. No, we'll just have to switch to a third party

[crazy_vanilla]

65. it will surely come up again

But we need to get it done now.

[Vinca]

82. If it doesn't pass this time, that's the ball game for me.

I can't live every day wondering if I'll die or go bankrupt because big insurance wouldn't give me a policy even if I could afford it. I actually lose sleep with worry over this on an almost daily basis. My husband is a Canadian/American and I now regret having lived our lives in this country. How sad is that? We'll have no alternative but to pull up roots and head north.