Mass. health plan drawing interest as model for US

Universal healthcare, an issue the White House and Congress have largely abandoned since the early 1990s, has reemerged as an issue on Capitol Hill and around the country, with lawmakers looking to Massachusetts' landmark plan as a political and structural model for the nation's 46 million uninsured.

Healthcare specialists and government officials across the political spectrum say the healthcare debate has reached a turning point, with both liberals and conservatives ready to compromise.

Liberals are setting aside old demands for a single-payer system, while conservatives are showing a willingness to consider more government involvement in the provision of healthcare.

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/other/articles/2006/12/18/mass_health_plan_drawing_interest_as_model_for_us/

The only thing more bizarre than this hypothetical plan is that anyone would want to use it as a model. There is no plan yet - large parts are simply agreements to figure out how to do it. And, frankly, I think the plan is trying to defy the fiscal laws of physics.

We'll see, I suppose.

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single payor system! It seems more logical now than it ever was. Even an old conservative like Lou Dobbs seemed to see it as the right way to go. Get the insurance companies out of deciding if we live or die, stop corporate interference in our lives. And honestly I don't know much about Mitts plan but who in their right mind would trust a Republican these days?

that this turkey will be confusing enough to pass muster as 'universal healthcare' so that their de facto arrangement with the government to extract rent from the citizens of this nation can become fully legalized as a mandate on you and me to buy their crappy insurance programs.

It ain't universal healthcare.

for big insurance, big pharma, and big health care. Anything to preserve their huge CEO salaries.

I'm not willing to set aside a single payer system that eliminates the billions paid out to these companies. Those billions could buy us a system that would provide a more than adequate level of care for every man, woman, and child in this country including the millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans. Throw in all the money we're throwing down a rat's hole in Iraq and that Halliburton has stolen from us and we could fund a 4-year college education for everyone who wants one.