Breaux: The Baucus Healthcare Bill Can Pass, and Will Work

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More government controls, mandates and taxes on employers and individuals, and restrictions will drive UP costs, kill job creation, and make our government even more beholden to China to finance our debt. The unsurprising conclusion of the insurance industry study that this bill will make insurance even more expensive exposes the fallacy of Breax's argument. We need:
--price transparency and readily available information on the track records of medical facilities, as Dr. Healy has advocated,
--vigorous competition among insurers, as there is with auto insurance
--a change in tax laws so individuals can buy insurance on the same tax basis as employers to increase individual choice and make policies portable
--more individual choice, not less.

Dan of AZ 3:22PM October 13, 2009

The Medicare "fix" is an embarrassment. That's a weak way for Breaux to lead.
More interesting is how Breaux implies that some fault resides with those who choose not to have insurance. That should be their decision, right or wrong. Of course, they should (and do) have to accept the consequences. So what if the rest of us pay a bit more for charitable reasons. That is our choice, and that extra cost per insured person has been exaggerated anyway. I don't think too many of us (outside of a few Xenophobes) are worried about that.
How do we make healthcare more affordable? Instead of suggesting that we let the free market work for a change, the fascist control freaks in the Democratic Party (please pardon my redundancies) want to go after the deadbeat uninsured. This is the usual political misdirection we are all tired of.
The fact remains that there are solutions, which have been proposed for years now, that the Democrats won't accept because those solutions don't make people dependent on government favors (i.e., on the Democratic Party). With responsible solutions, Breaux and his buddies don't get to look like heroes. Sorry, but that isn't our problem.
Forcing people to buy a commercial product, essentially at the point of a gun, is fascist, no matter what noble-sounding language you cloak it in.
Medical Savings Accounts combined with higher out-of-pocket amounts, eliminating interstate barriers, reducing regulatory barriers to treatment and medicine options, eliminating the mandates for predictable and budgetable problems, bringing some sanity back into the torts process, and so on. Why don't we try these obvious fixes first, as has been suggested for years?
And while we're at it, let's realize that we can't make healthcare a right without enslaving (to some extent) someone else. In other words, it's theft of liberty. If you steal because you are hungry, you have my sympathy, but it's still theft.
There is no right to health care, food, clothing, shelter, recreation or a job. These are things that have to be earned. Sometimes sacrifices and hard decisions have to be made -- on the individual's part.
So, Senator Breaux, if I choose not to buy insurance (why is irrelevant), I get fined, right? If I don't pay the fine, what happens next? If I don't cooperate with what happens next, what happens then? We are now clearly in fascist territory. I had hoped that that corrupt Huey Long tendency in Louisiana had gone away. I'm still hopeful, but less so after reading your comments.

Ret Miles of AR 1:06PM October 10, 2009

They both were bought and paid for while in the Senate. Now these two buy Senators and Congressmen.And Mr. Breaux expects me to believe him when he speaks about health care reform. Sort of like asking a homeless person how the housing market is. Nonsense.

JDZ57 of WI 5:13AM October 10, 2009

With Trent Lott and John Breaux telling us how good everything will be in health care reform even without a Public Option, we have the perfect example of what's so wrong with American politics. Here are two ex-politicians who now lobby for health care interests presuming to tell Americans that less is actually more. Not at all so.
Without a Public Option, health care costs will remain outrageous compared with just about anywhere else in the world.
"The best health care system in the world" will remain far less than the best in fact and, in fact, the priciest. The very fact that health care components in this country are "for profit" assures higher cost and less consideration for the well being of those insured. Compare internationally and see. Look to the testimonials from elsewhere and see. Above all, don't listen to well paid spokespeople for the health care industry.
The Public Option, second choice in itself to Single Payer,
is a last hope for real cost savings for the insured. Don't be fooled by shills for the health care industry.

Ron W. Smith of UT 5:16PM October 09, 2009

The health insurance industry, of course, as these two paid industry whores (excuse me, lobbyists) will tell you. Millions of new captive customers who will be forced to buy coverage. Yum, yum!
If they were honest, they would tell you that health insurance exchanges are doomed because insurers outside the exchanges will cherry-pick the healthier consumers, leaving the exchanges to collapse under the weight of a pool of the least healthy among us.
Why not allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices under Part D? Because it would reduce the profit margins for big Pharma, which already enjoys one of the highest rates of return of any industry in the US. And heaven forbid I should be allowed to buy my drugs in Canada or Mexico at a fraction of the cost! Oh, that's right -- opponents of health reform (i.e., insurance companies) would target seniors with scare tactics.
I can only hope US News charged the industry for running their ad.

Ben of ME 3:51PM October 09, 2009