Paying For Healthcare

Typical fare from the union thugs. They want to raise taxes to pay for all of this -- as long as their members are exempt from paying those taxes.

This hurrying through of this is just insane. We need to slow down, Congress needs to actually READ what is going on, we need to talk about it longer.

steph

Amen! You would think they would already know this!!

I understand where you are coming from with this thought. But, the fear is that they will slow down to a complete stop. It's happened several times already.

I disagree - the fear is that they won't have the power forever and so they have to get all their agenda accomplished quickly.

I do not think addressing health care issues will stop if we take some time to actually study this single-payer idea (which I completely disagree with).

steph

I'd say you are spot-on with your first assesment, 2010 is right around the corner and if the country votes the Congress back to the right-wing. Any chance of health care reform will be squashed immediately. The Obama administration is an ambitious one, he wants to get a lot done. And there is more chance of that happening with a left-leaning Congress that a right-leaning one. Another reason I think they should get it done soon, is because people are losing their jobs, and with job-loss comes health insurance loss. There are many that needed help yesterday, so I think there is certainly a sense of urgency.

Perhaps I misunderstood your second point, but why would the Congress examine single-payer? Obama has said himself that he wants to fix what's broken and keep what works. Single-payer would do away with private insurance for the most part ( an idea that I support fully) and Baucus seems to maintain his stance that it is "off the table".

Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth. The Heritage Foundation has researched this and they observe that 15 million people may be employed by companies that will elect to pay a tax and dump the employees into the national health care system. The White House came out after Obama's comments to the AMA and said Americans should not take Obama so literally.

http://www.heritage.org/

http://www.volokh.com/posts/1245550653.shtml

Less than 24 hours after Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner questioned the veracity of President Obama’s persistent claim that, under his health care proposals, “if you like your insurance package you can keep it”, the White House has begun to walk the President’s claim back. Turns out he didn’t really mean it.
According to the Associated Press, “White House officials suggest the president’s rhetoric shouldn’t be taken literally: What Obama really means is that government isn’t about to barge in and force people to change insurance.” How’s that for change you can believe in?


steph

I don't understand how the interpretation could have been taken out of context. The government isn't going to force employers to drop insurance for their workers, conceivably, they are going to force insurers to compete. But, with the inclusion of a public option, in the exchange he is going to create employers could drop benefits for their workers and pay a tax.

From what I gather the public option will be one option of many that can be selected from the insurance exchange. And the private for-profit health insurance companies can either lower premiums and/or increase coverage (obviously they would have to make cuts in pay, here's an idea, start from the top and work down) or go out of business in which case the government would have to implement a single-payer option. My hope is for the latter scenario, but, the more I follow developments, the more I think we won't have a public option.

So, you ask "how's that for change you can believe in"? I will believe change in regards to our health care system when I see it.

Well, we shall agree to disagree.

I don't think the government is the place to go to solve health care issues.

Just one of the articles on heritage.org . . .

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2290.cfm

"It is becoming increasingly clear that the congressional creation of a public health plan to "compete" with private health insurance plans is a roadblock to serious, bipartisan reform of the American health care system. Such a plan would likely result in the massive erosion of private health insurance options for individuals and families, restricting personal choice and competition."
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My health care economics instructor had us watch Sicko and then John Stossel's "Sick in America" which rebutted MM. I am on John's side. I liked what he had to say about Health Savings Accounts and the part about insurance for groceries. This is a really good clip . .the rest are in the link below:



http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...=john+stossel+