Two things I didn't realize before the press conference:

1. Insurance company profits are going up.

2. Rising premiums are one reason wages have stagnated (although I should have realized that one!)

with their access to the media? Its obvious they will fight any reform tooth and nail.

As healthcare costs go up, a great portion of potential wages must go to healthcare benefits in order to maintain the same level of benefits.

and will not be open to most of us for several years will change this how? Especially when you consider we will be required to purchase insurance from the private companies. I'm beginning to suspect the insurance companies wrote the House bill.

the tab if you can't afford it, you have the option of buying into a non-profit government plan and your fees aren't raised to compensate for those who have no insurance but need emergency care.

that passed out of 3 committees in the house and said that by 2019 10 million people would be enrolled. That's 3.5 per cent of thew country, a drop in the bucket. At no savings over private insurance.

Who pays for uninsured emergency care then? If the government does, then we do, through taxes or premiums.

And what happens if prices go up, since there is no cost containment. Are everyones benefits cut like is currently happening in MA?

How is this any different that Romney care?

3.5% of the country after 10 years?

It's a joke.

the last I heard was 2013 (hence my "several"). That was bad enough but this thing gets worse the further you dig into it, doesn't it?

I nearly had apoplexy (but I can't afford to) this morning while listening to Stephanie Miller. Rep. Donna Edwards was on pushing the bill. What nearly drove me over the edge was that, at one point she said she had read the whole thing, then later mentioned that people can't afford private plans with $5,000 annual out of pocket expenses. If she actually read the (House) bill she would have seen that a single person making more than $43,000 would a have maximum out of pocket of $5K (over & above premium costs). Of course, in the bill it's now called "cost-sharing" so maybe she didn't make the connection that it's the same thing, different name... As is pretty much the whole bill.

I just love the people who call in to shows extoling the virtues of the systems in other countries and the hosts agree with them - but never mention that this bill is a long, long way from any of those programs.

in.

So the CBO estimates that the pool might have as many as 10 million enrollees after 7 years

haven't it been implied that the 45-50 million who are currently uninsured could get into it quickly - in fact would be the first ones in?

This whole thing really is a bait and switch scam.

new info.

He nailed that piece right up on the insurance industry's door.

Hell yeah, the private health insurance corporations have a right to play. But they also have to be able to compete. Otherwise, they can find something else to do.

The profits of U.S. health insurance companies are about the same as what the entire Canadian health care system costs (to cover 31 million people).