Howard Dean Wrong to Urge Killing the Health Reform Bill

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I can't believe that I agree with Dr. Dean, but in this case he is right on!
We do not need 2,000 pages to reform health care, but there are things that should and could be done to increase access and lower insurance costs -
1. Significantly lower medical malpractice law suits, hence med malpractice insurance and defensive medicine. Unfortunately, life comes with risks.
2. Significantly lower existing insurance fraud - both government (Medicare and Medicaid) and private insurance from criminal providers and patients.
3. Open up insurance competition across state lines.
4. Provide the same tax deduction to individual health insurance buyers that are currently given to employer buyers - or even better, remove it from employers, ie., make it a level playing field.
These initial steps can be agreed upon and get underway. We have to get medical and health insurance under control. Putting these industries under government control will simply create another large bureaucracy.

JR Gordon of FL 12:09AM December 19, 2009

is an insistence by Senate leadership that we have BOTH a public option and Medicare expansion to younger-than-65 people in the bill. Then, the Senate leadership should have invited the much-ballyhooed filibuster and announced that no further business of any kind would be conducted on the Senate floor until the filibuster (endless debate on the bill) was concluded. It would all have been over in a week or two with sixty or more votes on board for cloture.
But, nooooo. The guts could not be mustered to take a real stand.
Makes you sick to watch it.

Muser of NM 7:34PM December 17, 2009

Good call out in this post.

Ken of WI 6:05PM December 17, 2009

Howard Dean is absolutely right - the "Health Care Reform" bill is a sham and a scam, designed to enrich insurance companies by holding us hostage to their greed. As Bruce of IL points out, the mandate to buy insurance steals money from those who don't have it for a product that will be worthless to them - after skimping or doing without to pay premiums, none would be left for the co-pays and deductible - so, no trip to the doctor. Requiring acceptance regardless of pre-existing conditions is meaningless if you can't access health care anyway, policy or no.
The Democratic Party should listen to Dean before they shoot themselves in the foot with an outrageous assault on the public's pockets - and rights. If this thing passes, folks will be furious to find that instead of being GIVEN health care they are left with only a bill for insurance company welfare.
By the way, Mr. Schlesinger, those without fat wallets realize that 10 percent of income taken away from folks with low incomes could mean 10 per cent of rent due or food money.
And these subsidy deals never cover the real doughnut hole - those of modest income - they only pay a bit for the poorest of the poor. Medicare, for example, will not assist people to pay premiums if they have a few thousand dollars in assets - despite the fact that many seniors are totally dependent on nest egg income to survive.
I just hope that at least one Democratic Senator displays the common sense and guts of Howard Dean and halts this debacle, which could bring the whole party down.

Liberty G of RI 5:46PM December 17, 2009

The government needs to be small like it was originally intended. Get out of health care. Get out of price fixing for food in the agricultural sector. Get out of NAFTA and GATT. No favors done for unions there thanks to Bubba Clinton and the Democrats for signing it into law. They wonder why they lost power in the house and senate back in 94.
Now were supposed to pay other countries for our prosperity with a global tax on Carbon? Morons! Fix the volcanoes first so they dont polute then I will think that maybe man makes a difference. When are you going to accuse the biggest green house gas of being a problem? Oh yeah, thats h2o. Maybe we need that.
This is what happens when you leave a retard like Gore to be a spokesman at the helm of something. Good thing he never became president. At least this guy for now is only hiding his birth and school documents probably because he is an illegal.
Only in America!

Jeff of WI 5:39PM December 17, 2009

The penalty is not a tax. It is a penalty. What do we get from it other than poorer? Nothing. It is not a default way to get health insurance. It is a punishment for those who don't have enough money to buy coverage from an insurance company bent on shafting those who it sells policies to and paying their CEOs obscenely outrageous income in the millions of dollars.
And the coverage we get in such BALONEY. Why do we have to pay 30% of costs? That's not insurance. That's just an expensive "discount" on overpriced services. When I buy auto insurance, I have to pay a $500 deductible, but then the insurance covers everything. I don't have to pay 30% of the outstanding costs.
AND, while you don't do so here, I am sick and tired of hearing people compare the mandate to buy health insurance to the mandate to buy auto insurance. Nobody is forced to buy auto insurance because nobody is forced to buy a car. On the other hand, everybody is a body and so would be required to shell out to the insurance companies to buy into their ponzie schemes (they only get rich because they continue to rake in more from new "investors" ie. policy-holders and pay out less than they take in, ie. they are RIPPING US OFF!) don't live up to their obligations by truly paying for our health care to keep us healthy.

bruce of IL 5:08PM December 17, 2009

Something is always better than nothing. If you reach for the stars and pull down only a light bulb, that's something.
That being said, we all ought to be pretty disgusted with Congress for destroying all hope (as usual) for real change. Their allegiance to insurers, big pharma, and the rest of the health care industry--well documented money in the bank for senators and representatives thanks to them--trumped the public good yet again. What we'll have as "health care reform" will be too costly, too limited, non-portable, and without so much that could have been had politics been about Americans instead of about politicians and their financial needs.
The next time the word "reform" is used in America, I hope it's in relation to our overpaid and underperforming elected officials in Washington, D.C. They're really asking for BIG change, aren't they?

Ron W. Smith of UT 3:53PM December 17, 2009

We are paying Senators and Congressmen/women to waste time writing bills that we don't like and when we tell them we don't like the bills, they don't listen and pass them anyway. I think it is time for the American people to vote on these bills to determine whether or not we want them. Perhaps then the lobbyists won't be able to BUY the President and the fools on the hill because the final say WILL BE WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

s of VA 2:05PM December 17, 2009

Government needs to aquire a steely set and start making decisions in FAVOR of The United States of America. We need to take care of our own FIRST! Then we can help others. No more vacations for congress because your doing a poor job to begin with. No bonuses for CEO's who bankrupt their companies. Where's our head cheerleader Obama. Get the guy a skirt and rally the teams. He's has no real world experience (how about a moritorium on forclosures you idiot!) God congress is useless. Stop belly aching and start making decisions for America the Beautiful! OR YOUR FIRED!

TioWedo of CA 12:34PM December 17, 2009

The Democrats are in control of the government, every branch. Yet they cannot do what they promised, make real change. They are weak and, especially the Senators, totally corrupt and under control of the corporations. They are not a government for the people. I say, get rid of the Senate. It is a waste of our money to pay these guys to sell us down the river.

Jim Dandy of CA 5:23PM December 16, 2009