If the Kennedy bill is the best the Dems can come up with, then health care "reform" is over

--as of right now.

In his home state, "affordable" health insurance is worthless garbage that puts people not quite poor enough for subsidies in the hole to the tune of 10 or 20 thousand dollars before they pay a single bill.

From Dr. Rachel Nardin of Massachusetts--



This is apparently what Kennedy wants to inflict on the entire country. This is far worse than the status quo. Right now, the useless shitstain intermediaries have the legal right to kill us and/or make us bankrupt and homeless to enhance their bottom lines. And I'm supposed to line up and support a proposal that would force me to PAY them to continue doing it? NO FUCKING WAY!

I will NOT be forced to pay for my own death or impoverishment! NO FUCKING WAY, Senator!!

This bill effectively ends health care "reform." There will be no Repub votes for any Democratic proposal, ever, from either the house or the Senate, even with a totally crappy "public option" written by insurance companies. Without the Progressive Caucus, reform is going nowhere in the House. If you think the Baucus hearings were rowdy, you ain't seen nothing yet.

--for the entire country.

And a stupid "connector" process facilitating that which adds 4-5% to the already ridiculous private insurance overhead.

I don't think that the Massachussets State plan is so much reflective of what Kennedy is doing now, as informing what he is doing now by its mistakes...

--that is supposed to help everyone shop for "affordable" private insurance which we will be forced to buy. This adds yet another 4-5% to the outrageous and useless private insurance company overhead. Only the poorest of the poor will be eligible for his version of the public option.

Medicaid expansion is also useless. Right now it covers only 70 cents on the dollar of provider expenses. For that reason, most doctors refuse to accept new Medicaid patients.

for his version of the public option"? Has his final plan even been released yet?

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D98KSOQ80.htm

Under the legislation, the government would subsidize premiums for people with incomes up to 500 percent of the poverty level ($110,000 for a family of four)

$60000 for my family of two. That would allow me to have subsidies. But what if I DO NOT WANT to subsidize a fucking parasitic insurance company? What if I do not want to pay them to take away my doctor of 25 years after my COBRA expires? What if I would rather have a public option open to anybody, like Medicare? LIke my husband has, who gets to KEEP our doctor regardless of what happens with "reform"? Unless "reform" includes getting rid of Medicare, in which case we are both screwn.

that is open to anyone, as Obama has expressed is his preference?

In other words.... nothing is "public". It's all in the hands of the greedy sons of bitches who care for nothing but the almighty dollar.

But what do you expect from Teddy? He's been a Senator since 1962, and a Kennedy all his life. How could he possibly understand what it's like to not be able to see a doctor any time you need to?

The rest of us will be forced to subsisize the useless parasites who created this mess.

I'm not much if a fan of forced purchase of a healthcare plan that isn't Single Payer... but at 500% of the poverty line subsidization, the idea of forced coverage suddenly doesn't seem so awful. If I'm earning more than 500% of poverty line and there's a public option... I'll probably buy it and not complain... presuming that the public option offered isn't the same price as the private plans offered by every HMO... unless those are lowered according to a theoretical law of supply and demand...

--which is utterly worthless in providing actual CARE. It just forces taxpayers to underwrite insurance company profits.

I want to hear real plans and real explanations for costs and benefits. My fear is everyone wants excellent health care but are not really in touch with how much that costs so people really are not prepared to pay the 20% of their salary that employees generally have to pay for health care. I pay approximately $8000 per year for single coverage for an employee. That is probably a bargain for some but I hope people realize the real costs that will not go away.

But that's only if we stop paying for bullshit like underwriting and profits. Global budgeting does a reasonable job of cost control in many other countries.

:kick:

Why are you so hung up on affordable health insurance when that is the option for those who chose to opt out of the public plan?

It seems the only way that those who want single payer or nothing can denounce reform is to focus on the insurance option.

The American Health Choices Act (everything you wanted to know)

HELP Releases ‘Affordable Health Choices Act’

People should be fighting to ensure the plan includes the strongest public option possible, not throwing up strawman arguments about affordable health care.

You are choosing to withhold your health care dollars from the pool of money used to pay for actual health care, and you are forcing all taxpayers to subsidize that choice. We shouldn't have to.

Health care is subsidized in numerous instances now, and in more expensive ways. For all the talk about how cost effective single-payer is and how many Americans support it, you don't seem confident that a public plan can stand on its own and would represent serious competition for insurers.

You can't have it both ways.





edited typo.

Inadequate funding = a dumping ground for the poor and sick, like Medicaid is now. Private insurers are useless sociopaths who add no value whatsoever to health care, and subsidizing them is essentially agreeing to kill more sick people. Isn't 20,000 a year enough for you?

Don't you know diddly about Medicare Advantage? 14% more expensive, and worse outcomes despite the cherrypicking antics of the murder by spreadsheet folks. That subsidy reduces the amount available for actual health care.

Rob the public system to subsidize the useless shitstains in the private system, and get worse results. That's the kind of "public option" the insurance parasites want.

The independents out there, including many who sided with us in the last election, want "government off their backs". Although this meme has been used by the Republicans to excuse everything from shutting mental hospitals to allowing polluters to pollute, at its core, this meme has its roots in the basic idea of American independence and freedom of the individual. During the time you spend days filling out complicated income tax forms, straighten out bureaucratic mixups with the local property tax office, wait in line at the driver's license bureau, get various occupational licenses, try to fill out government paperwork for your small business..etc. .. you may find yourself thinking "whose life is this anyway?" Not to say that those things are all bad, but some people are busier than othes and some people are less capable at handling it than others.

Some people ARE capable of supporting themselves in their own small one-man businesses (just as many of our ancestors did 100 years ago) but only if you don't add on a whole lot of bureaucratic red tape. They want the independence of being their own boss, OR they already work for a big company but wish they could break free of it -- but the obstacles in the way of doing so include the bureaucratic complexity imposed by modern government or the inflated cost of certain essentials like health care.

A hundred twenty years ago, an ordinary person could make a living repairing wagons or opening a bakery without a whole lot of government complications. Today, the level of sophistication required to do so (or to do the modern equivalents), and the number of accountants employed, is much higher. This takes up precious hours from those who are capable of managing through that complexity, and puts it beyond the reach of those who are not really capable of handling so much. Further, the playing field is heavily tilted toward the bigger companies by this complexity. I remember when Bush's government tried to make every owner of livestock put an RFID chip in their animals supposedly to improve the safety of the food supply, and wanted every person who sold jams or homemade cakes to register with the FDA. Certain requirements that appear to improve accountability of large corporations are also handy for keeping out their small usptart competitors. I personally believe that small can be beautiful and that decentralizing is a goal in itself.

So here we are, telling the person trying to eke out an independent living making or repairing widgets that they MUST go buy health insurance or else they MUST file paperwork to prove that they are poor so that they can get a subsidy? In the meantime, our country can afford to spend trillions on foreign wars.

Giving us a national healthcare plan (paid for through regular income taxes or through corporate taxes etc), or the OPTION of buying into a cheap public plan, would ADD to the freedom of the individual. Although the tax approach does cost people money (thereby theoretically reducing certain freedom), the overall cost to society will be less, and it could easily be accomplished under a progressive, not regressive, tax stucture.
Forcing all of us to buy into private insurance plans, or else be labelled and forced to prove that we are too poor to buy insurance, or else face fines -- these choices would TAKE AWAY the freedom of the individual.

The freedom to be left alone.