Quote:

---

The House plan does include a government insurance program to compete with private companies. It would be financed by premium payments, not taxpayer dollars. Insurers are strongly opposed to a government-sponsored plan, saying it would drive them out of business. Democrats say a public plan would help everybody by injecting competition into a health care market that in many areas is dominated by a handful of major insurers.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
BTW Rap

I suspect a lot of people have noticed you have nothing of substance to post.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
We keep hearing that government is inept and wasteful. And yet, even business doens't seem to think so. In health insurance...

Quote:

---

The House plan does include a government insurance program to compete with private companies. It would be financed by premium payments, not taxpayer dollars. Insurers are strongly opposed to a government-sponsored plan, saying it would drive them out of business. Democrats say a public plan would help everybody by injecting competition into a health care market that in many areas is dominated by a handful of major insurers.

---

If health insurances are so damn efficient, why are they so afraid?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
BTW Rap

I suspect a lot of people have noticed you have nothing of substance to post.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

---

Always have substance, just not as much by way of volume lately, as I've been working a lot. Thanks for your concern though.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Geezer:

You really should provide cites for your quotes, so folk can read the entire article, not just the edited version you provide.

Edit to add.

This assumes that the government's plan works as efficiently and effectively as they propose. Wanna bet?

---

Quote:

---

Seems I recall W wanting to try to fix this. Like he wanted to fix Fannie and Freddie, long before they blew up in our faces.

---

Quote:

---

Providing cites , or even something more than half the truth , really wouldn't fit in with the SignyM/Rue national-Socialist agenda , though , would it ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
GEEZER- Speaking of half-truths (something you're expert at) .... The situation is that the House version has the government-available coverage, the Senate version has the mandatory coverage.

---

Quote:

---

The summary of the House proposal says one of its main goals is to "minimize disruption" for people who already have coverage by allowing them to keep their coverage. All Americans would be protected by an annual limit on out-of-pocket costs, a safeguard already in the best private plans.

Individuals would be required to get coverage, either through an employer or government plan, or on their own. That's something Finance Committee senators now have basically agreed on, as well, Baucus and Grassley said.

Employers would be required to provide coverage or pay the government a percentage of payroll under the House Democrats' plan. The issue continues to divide senators.

---

Quote:

---

On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee met behind closed doors for eight hours to debate whether their bill should include the choice of a government insurance plan for middle-income families.

Insurers, hospitals and employers oppose the concept, and so do most Republicans. The senators' long discussion brought them no closer to agreement, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and top Republican Chuck Grassley later told reporters.

---

Quote:

---

The House Energy and Commerce plan provides for individual subsidies for health insurance that would be offered on a sliding scale to those earning up to four times the federal poverty level, or $88,200 for a family of four, according to the document.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
"Seems I recall W wanting to try to fix this."

Yes, he wanted to put SS money into private investment - so that rather than face a merely theoretical shortfall years in the future - people could have their retirements GUTTED and be destitute and penniless now !

That is SO much better for them, don't you agree Rap ?

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

---

Quote:

---

He wasn't going to force anyone to privatize their retirement.

---

Quote:

---

Oh that's right...he can't prosecute Wall Street without dragging half of Washington into the indictments as well.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RIPWash:
As I recall, he wanted to give people the option to either privatize their retirement funds or keep their money in Social Security. He wasn't going to force anyone to privatize their retirement.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by RIPWash:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
"Seems I recall W wanting to try to fix this."

Yes, he wanted to put SS money into private investment - so that rather than face a merely theoretical shortfall years in the future - people could have their retirements GUTTED and be destitute and penniless now !

That is SO much better for them, don't you agree Rap ?

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

---

As I recall, he wanted to give people the option to either privatize their retirement funds or keep their money in Social Security. He wasn't going to force anyone to privatize their retirement.

*********************************************
Mal: You think she'll hold together?
Zoë: She's torn up plenty, but she'll fly true.
Mal: Could be bumpy.
Zoë: Always is

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Why the fuck are LIFE Insurance companies getting billions in TARP? What toxic assets do they hold...insurance policies on people that actually died, and they had to fucking pay out?...oh the horror!

Does repeat tax-cheat Geithner have ANY fucking clue what he's doing? His record as Chair of the NY Fed is a testament to utter failure. Now he and the smarmy thieves he protects are bankrupting the country for decades.

And STILL no prosecutions of ANYBODY on Wall Street. Where's fucking Holder on this? Oh that's right...he can't prosecute Wall Street without dragging half of Washington into the indictments as well.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
So, to get to the meat of the discussion, what would have been better - keeping the money in SS, or putting it in private investment ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SergeantX:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
So, to get to the meat of the discussion, what would have been better - keeping the money in SS, or putting it in private investment ?

---

Private investment. Gold in particular.

SergeantX

"It's cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

---

Quote:

---

Kevin Zeese, recently summarized Baucus' career campaign contributions "... from the insurance industry, $1,170,313; from health professionals, $1,016,276; pharmaceuticals/health-products industry, $734,605; hospitals/nursing homes, $541,891; health services/HMOs, $439,700." That's almost $4 million from the very industries that have the most to gain or lose from health-care reform. Another of the Baucus 13, Russell Mokhiber, co-founder of SinglePayerAction.org has been charged with "disruption of Congress." He was quick to respond: "I charge Baucus with disrupting Congress. It once was a democratic institution; now it's corrupt, because of people like him. He takes money from the industry and does their bidding. He won't even diffuse the situation by seating a single-payer advocate at the table."... The current official debate has locked single-payer options out of the discussion, but also escalated the movement — from Healthcare-NOW! to Single Payer Action — to shut down the orderly functioning of the debate, until single-payer gets a seat at the table.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by badkarma00:
The simplest way to do this is to open up the Federal Government Employees health care system to everyone, allowing them to pay the same premiums as federal workers. It has nationwide coverage, so it could be applicable to everyone.

But of course, then someone would complain about that. Medicare isn't the way to go. It has enough trouble as it is. Anything else piled on it would just make it worse.

Bad_karma
Great and Exalted Grand Pooba, International Brotherhood of Moonshiners, Rednecks, and Good Old Boys.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
"Medicare isn't the way to go. It has enough trouble as it is. Anything else piled on it would just make it worse."

Historically, Medicare was too successful and was on its way to becoming a de facto single-payer system.

That's why Ronald Reagan 'reformed' it with DRGs (diagnosis-related groups) in a effort to strangle it out of utility. And so it became a bureaucratic nightmare for hospitals, doctors, and patients. People get some of the care they need, and hospitals and doctors get some of the money they need - but nobody gets enough.

And then Bush finally tried to kill it off by bleeding it into the maw of multinational pharmaceuticals.

But Medicare has yet to go away because in this land of private medical-care plenty that does everything so much better that government, people need that government program too much - as twisted and deformed a thing as it was made into.


Don't blame Medicare for what was done to it in the name of conservatism. Or if you do, look in the mirror as you do that.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by badkarma00:
The simplest way to do this is to open up the Federal Government Employees health care system to everyone, allowing them to pay the same premiums as federal workers. It has nationwide coverage, so it could be applicable to everyone.

But of course, then someone would complain about that. Medicare isn't the way to go. It has enough trouble as it is. Anything else piled on it would just make it worse.

Bad_karma
Great and Exalted Grand Pooba, International Brotherhood of Moonshiners, Rednecks, and Good Old Boys.

---

Now you're on the right track, BK. I'll go ya one better, and I've suggested this before:

Give US (the taxpayers, the citizens, the PEOPLE) the same coverage that Congress gives itself. Or flip it - give THEM the same coverage they give us. The exact same level of coverage. And if they, or you, want any level of upgraded "premium" coverage above and beyond that, make it available at a price. But EVERYBODY gets the basic level of coverage. If they - a group of predominantly old men, who are getting older and more feeble - decide that the basic level of coverage they get is zero, so be it. My bet is we'd get basic coverage before they'd give it up.

Just something to ponder...

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
"And, as I said, my point was that regardless of how it came to be in the shape it's in now, it's not set up to manage healthcare for the whole country."

So why not reconfigure it ? And fund it adequately ?



***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Why not merge both systems into an integrated, unified whole with proper funding and quality control assured by local state boards ?

And subsidize the education of medical personnel in exchange for them participating ?

-F

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by badkarma00:
The simplest way to do this is to open up the Federal Government Employees health care system to everyone, allowing them to pay the same premiums as federal workers. It has nationwide coverage, so it could be applicable to everyone.

---

Quote:

---

BadKarma:

I've thought about that, too. I'd like to see it myself. An idea I had a few years ago was similar, in that young doctors and nurses would get reimbursement for their education on a year for year basis by serving on the staff of the local health department clinic, and anyone without insurance could see them, with payment based on what the person makes.

---