Democrats Push Public Healthcare Option in House and Senate
Some argue there is a lack of competition in the health insurance market
Reader Comments
WE THE PEOPLE
Let the GOVERNMENT figure out how to pay for covering the LEGAL uninsureds and leave the rest of us ALONE. It seems mighty odd that HOR & Senate, covered by a pay all plan that cost them nothing, should be mandated to participate in the same plan they come up with for these uninsureds.
WE THE PEOPLE are the government, not the 600 or so people we elect to represent us. The majority of these elected morons have no idea what the average working person does to sustain a decent life and livelyhood and if they do, then they do not really care.
The average family, when considering all forms of taxation, already pays 30% to 50% of their income in some form of tax. Federal, State, Local, Sales, Gas, Property, Real Estate, and others are just a few of the ways we are taxed.
The majority of the uninsureds are made up of people who pay hardly any of the above mentioned forms of taxation. They do not have a job or much of a job so they pay any, or very little Federal, State, or Local taxes. The probably do not own a vehicle so they don't pay much in the form of gas taxes. They don't own property or real estate, so they don't pay these taxes.
It just seems like the majority of hard working Americans do not want to stand up and say..I had enough and I'm not going to take it anymore.
One of the main reasons we sought independence in the first place was TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Now we are being taxed for everything and have very poor representation and to be perfectly honest, WE THE PEOPLE put ourselves in the mess and WE THE PEOPLE are going to have to make the changes necessary to correct the mess.
total lunacy
has everyone gone crazy. by forcing businesses to do this, unemployment is going to be so much higher. small business owners are not going to be able to afford to keep extra empolyees if they have to do this. but then again what does our newly elected muslim president care about the people. he hs his health care given to him, his democrat cronies have plenty of mony to afford theirs. so if a family makes a choice to feed their family and cant pay the new "FEE" they get penalized. way to look out for the american people MR. PRESIDENT
Single payer health care system
For me it's a no brainer. As I exited my doctor's office following my recent mid-year physical, I noticed the rather large number of personnel handling administrative and clerical functions not actually assisting the doctors in providing patient medical services. Question: Actually what patient services do insurance companies actually perform for patients other than profit from processing claims. Recently learned that Wall Street grades health care insurance comnpanies on what, I believe, is called a Maximazation Ratio. A higher Ratio indicates that the insurance company has been successful in minimizing the amount of monies paid on submitted claims. Might this be a form of rationing health care? Also a higher Ratio results in higher profits, higher stock prices, higher bonuses, and greatly profitable opportunities for converting lucrative stock options. This is a system that essentially continues to increase our nation's health care costs contrasted to the lower costs enjoyed by most other highly industrialized nations. There is no way that our nation's major corporations and all our medium and small businesses can be competitive. Incidentally, citizens in nations that have a single payer system don't become bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills. It is my understanding that the major cause of family bankruptcys is the inability to pay major health care
charges. It seems to me that a sensible approach to health care reform for a select group of non-political broad base health care specialists, experts, etc. be appointed and charged with examining successful single payer systems of other nations, the quality, access for all, costs, etc. and develop a plan that would include the best parts of the systems examined and design a plan for the United States that would cover all our citizens at a lower cost than our current costs which does not cover all our citizens. Is this approach to difficult to consider. I think not. NOTE: Currently my wife and I are covered by Medicare Part A and B and by a corporate retirement health care plan whose premiums keep rising significantly every year.
At any rate, these are my thoughts.
Yes To PUBLIC INSURANCE
Fire Department Run BY Government
Police Department Run BY Government
Postal Service Department Run BY Government
US Military Service Department Run BY Government
You can have US Postal (public) with FedEX (Private) and UPS
Who's afraid of the public option? Health care debate is stuck on a straw man.
This BROKEN system wants you to be BANKRUPT "first" then medicare may help. WHY BANKRUPT people so insurance can make profits?
health
Wow. Quoting Michael Moore, we stooped pretty low.( See comment above.) I run a small business. When the government imposes an additional 8 % ee tax, I will be forced to fire one employee. I'll check bumper stickers (Obama) to see which one goes. Thanks O man .
Also, after fighting my husband's stage 4 cancer, I am happy to report that he is doing beautifully. We were given the best treatment in the world. (USA) i saw lots of foreigners from all parts of the world in the waiting room. They love American health care. Try as I may, I cannot think of another government institution that is run well. Post Office, Social Security, Medicare, hhmm. They are all in the red. The lines at the DMV and the pleasant people that work there are a result of NO COMPETITION. So, I for one do not want to wait in the DMV line of health care. If my husband had to wait (at all), he'd be dead. I'd have him write; however, he's at work making money, paying taxes.
Team of fools
My God,
I have given, and given more. Is there no end to how the minority with high incomes are forced to be obsequious and give into ANYTHING required by the voting majority. How are the 5% of people with these incomes supposed to protect themselves from obscene tax increases. We are a country founded on protecting minority socioeconomic groups from this very behavior by the government. Are we not a capitalist system guaranteeing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Who does this IDIOT think provides jobs? Who is it that pays for the insurance enjoyed by the vast majority of legal, working citizens in this country? How long does he think we who own large private Corporations will tolerate it? We will emancipate ourselves from his delusional insanity and leave this country a third world waste land.
The American dream is pursued by all and is the right and aspiration of any citizen.It is the pursuit of which that made this nation so powerful and great. Great that is before the Lazy, whiny Jerry Springer Nation Crowned this Jester Prince of Darkness, and now rallies behind the horrific fate he has in store for this country of sloth.
So all of a sudden the ignorant masses started listening to all the Communist News Network's (CNN) extremist liberal spun B.S.,then turned out in record numbers to elect a Worm-tongue promising change.
No affect on change is ever made without careful planning- lest the complete collapse of an entire infrastructure, flawed on not. An infrastructure that an entire nation relies on. What is proposed flies in the face of sanity and suggests a chaos far worse than any pre-prescribed form of communism. Even Marx had an idealistically sound platform, one that was impossible to implement in the real world, but sound in theory. This fool mock leader of ours offers nothing and his ideal appeals only to the bastion of chattel that have the right to vote without any pre qualifications or informed knowledge whatsoever.
I pity those of you who will be forced to live in the aftermath of his reign should the Senate and House not come to their senses before passing any more of his purposeful compromise of everything American.
Barack (Sadam)Hussein Osama-- Adopt your old African name and go back to the country of your father. Take a look at it hard and long for this is the debacle you have in store for the USA.
I for one can and will leave with many others and the few HONEST, HARD WORKING CORPORATE Owners who came from nothing to accomplish so much. We have and are being bled dry by your kind, whilst in the meantime trying to give our workers all they deserve and work toward. So when this country has become an amusement park for the rest of the world I'll be sure to stop by and buy a ticket to see the next installment of Jerry Springer Nation. Or maybe I'll hang around and do what those with backbone always end up doing and carry the pathetic on our back until we collapse. I guess my jury is stil
Public Health Plan
An enI have to admit that the concept of a public health plan generates a lot of noise, but much of it seems misplaced or at least misdirected. The basics of a public plan are that the government operates as an insurance company competing against other privately held insurance company. This idea provides some benefits as a non-profit operation like the government can charge a bit lower rates and provide coverage. I have no problems with any number of non-profits competing for my insurance dollars. However, the above article specially states that the CBO believes the cost savings from a government insurance plan of this type would be modest.
The major cost savings claimed by many of the proponents of the public plan come not from its government run status, but from its ability to legally require health care providers to pay less. If health care providers were making huge monopoly profits, than maybe you have a case for that type of legal fiat, but most health care providers are breaking even or loosing money. So if you force them to charge less for the public plan, they will either go bankrupt and provide no heath care, or they will charge private plans more. So the major cost savings of the public plan are really not savings at all. They are subsidies paid for the individuals in the public plan and paid by the indivudals who have private insurance. If you are going down that route, why not just make the program an simply to understand/manage subsidy program rather than hiding the subsidies via legal mandates.
In any case, all these arguments are irrelevant. The health care crisis is a crisis because the cost of health care is too high. Nothing about the above insurance program really addresses how to reduce the cost of providing healthcare. It is just having a huge debate over who gets stuck with the bill.
Nor do the frequent mentions of risk pools that everybody throws out. The nation has to pay 100% of the health care costs of 100% of the people. Risk pools are only relevant when discussing a single insurance company’s ability to cover an individual (ie - Insurance plan XX can more or less easily handle a particular individual based on the size/type of risk pools they cover). They have no meaning when discussing the total cost of health care for the nation were everybody is effectively in the same pool.
To reduce the total cost of health care, you need to change how we provide health care to make it more cost effective – more administratively efficient, use more cost effective treatment, especially preventive care and provide specific guidelines on when we deny care to people who may be needy, but whose condition is simply to costly to treat given the likely benefits. All of these are very very hard policy decisions which are critical and where there is no agreement or even consistent practice nationally. This is where the health care discussion should be focused.
Health care, Illegal Immigration. Who pays?
CHOOSING THE USUAL PROFITING INSURANCE COMPANY, OR CHOOSING GOVERNMENT PLAN SHOULD BE UP TO AMERICANS?
The deciding factor in implementing health care for everybody--LEGALLY--in America, is the Publics voice? Those who want to just follow the same old road, can do so with the profit taking commercial insurance. Those who would be satisfied with a government run health care program, can now start demanding it from the lawmakers. Those who see a Universal health care system, similar to most developed countries in Europe, should start informing every Representative and Senate politician starting today. Rationing in places like England, was caused by the major impact of uncontrolled immigration.
Most American working class can do--without-- high premiums, pre-existing condition clauses. deductibles, co-pays that is representative of the wealthy medical care insurers. Whatever pertains to your family, you should start ruffling the indifferent feathers of the people in Washington at 202-224-3121 Just like illegal immigration , we cannot afford anymore to subsidize the business that hire them or the millions of illegal families.
Healthcare for all?
I cannot believe that people think a government run healthcare system is going to be the solve all for the health insurance woes we are facing.
I have worked in the healthcare industry for 20 years and have worked for one of the top 4 companies in the US. I have seen the entitlement mentality that we as Americans have. It is funny to listen to people blame the cost of healthcare on the big bad wolf of private insurance carriers like this is the only contributing factor to the cost of healthcare premiums! What about the direct marketing from pharmaceutical companies, litigation, technology, hospitals, doctors, fraud and our own personal accounatability for living a healthy life????
Insurance is not a free for all and you can have whatever you want when you want and it costs nothing. Look at property/casualty insurance or life insurance. How do you think these premiums are generated? It is risk based and pooled. There is good risk and bad risk and the bad risk drags down the good and rates go up. Healthcare is the same way. You need more healthy people in the pool to help with the sick.
Think of the 80/20 principal, but now things are really closer to 90/10.
I am not saying that the current system is working great and we should leave it alone, there are changes that need to be made, but having a government run plan when they cannot even handle medicare, medicaid and the VA system seems utterly ridiculous to have them add on additional responsibility and control.
Access to care will go down! Quality of care will go down!
I have not seen anything addressing the great things that companies are doing in promoting wellness, providing disease management programs to help educate and manage chronic diseases. What is the government proposing as to who will oversee quality and access to care?
We have an obesity epidemic in our nation which is a contributing risk factor for Diabetes Type II, Coronary Artery Disease, high cholesterol and more. What is going to be done to help educate, motivate and manage this crisis to help curb costs?
For every 100 employees, 66 are overweight and 24 smoke. These are lifestyle choices that people make and even in the current system we are paying for those that are making these decisions and accessing care and driving healthcare costs up for those that are healthier. 80% of healthcare costs are driven by lifestyle choices we make. We are part of the problem!
'Work or Break' health system
In case the health care reform provides the general public with peace of mind, the rising mental stress or illness caused by financial instability may bend the curve surprisingly,
in combination with kicking out the 'keep eating habit' to forget the deep-seated instability and apprehension, I guess.
'Work or Break' health system with no brake or safety system might be one of the biggest hidden causes of mental stress, obesity or overweight threatening the overall economy, I cautiously suppose.
