Don't waste our time.

A message to the Congress and the White House:

Governor Dean was on C-SPAN this morning and he made the comment that if there was no public option in the health-care reform, then we would be better off doing nothing. It would serve no purpose to spend $1 1/2 trillion dollars to prop up the present system.

I agree with Governor Dean. If there is no public option, take the health-care reform off the table and leave it be. Get on to other business. Do not waste our time with this Republican crap.

(and the ConservaDems) are pushing.

And that's not to say that Dean is wrong. I really like Dean and I appreciate all that he's done. But it just sounds so cold. It just seems wrong to say "Well we know that this would help bring your costs down a little, but it isn't the perfect fix so just keep paying what you're paying."

In fact, they'd be fined and still wouldn't get them.

Not to say this is a good plan. But there are a lot of loopy twists and turns but I believe there is an exemption for the poor RE fines.

A band aide on a sick and diseased health insurance system is irrelevant.

We MUST get rid of insurance companies ~~ that is the ONLY solution. Single payer...PERIOD.

JMHO

I'm still hoping something good might come out of this but so far I haven't seen it. And I will take it a step further than Dr. Dean: We're not going to get single payer so we're probably better off with nothing. The public option will be designed according to the wishes of the insurance companies and their GOP lackeys.

I tried unsuccessfully to call in to WJ this am. What I would have asked was:

Why are we not discussing single payer?
How is a two tier system fair ? If I have the Medicare for All option and you have private insurance, because you chose to purchase it, are we going to get the same level of care ? If so, then why would you buy insurance?

Other questions I have about the two tier proposal are:

How could having individuals purchase coverage directly from the insurance companies be more efficient and cost effective than having employers purchase it in bulk for us ?

How does keeping multiple insurance carriers in place provide efficiencies for the medical providers ? Providers complain (rightfully) about all the time and money they have to spend on paperwork to get approvals and get paid.

that Governor Dean and the President understand that most folks do not wish to give up their present coverage for what might be a "pig in a poke". But, if we can get any coverage with a public option, there will be something to compare to the present mess. If people like it, more will join. That is what scares the insurance industry.

I have an an answer to one of them. You would buy insurance because you would be forced to. But I believe that one was rhetorical on your part, to illustrate unfairness. Here's another one to consider: If you start taxing employer-provided benefits, how is that helping to make health care more affordable? This idea is actually a bone GWB tried to throw to his corporate backers, to get employers off the hook for funding workers' health care.

will be ... whatever you think it will be.

Sure, they're trying to rig it so that private insurance won't have to worry about losing their lucrative racket... but that's what we should be trying to stop, IMO... rather than just assuming any public option won't be worth it, and throwing up our hands in defeat.

Single payer didn't even get a seat at the table. Why? Insurance companies didn't want it. With the deck stacked against progressives like this, logic suggests the only public option to endure the conservative gauntlet will be one that is to the insurance companies' liking - one that is designed to demonstrate to us skeptics that everything, after all, is best done in the private sector. And just look at what is being considered. For one thing, Obama wants to take money out of traditional Medicare/Medicaid (single payer) to help fund this health care reform (privatized). I don't see how any true progressive could support such a thing.

Now if you can give me some tangible reason to expect something better from the public option or any other part of this legislative initiative I'd love to hear about it. Like I said, I'm trying to keep an open mind.

There is also no tangible reason to pull an Eeyore and assume there's no hope and just go around moping about an *assumed* outcome, no matter how 'logical' it may seem to assume it.

We all get to choose our own path.

But I am concerned that we could end up promoting a cure that is worse than the disease. And once we know the details it could be too late to do anything to stop it.

So OK, I'll be Eeyore and you can be Stimpy. :P

Especially when followed by a declaration that the public option will be worthless.

Glad to know I interpreted that incorrectly.

Just as long as it's called health care reform I guess that's all that matters.

I don't go around aserting that it won't be good. IMO that gives them impression that there's no point in pressuring elected officials.

we can be taken for a ride. I cited the possibility of taking money from Medicare & Medicaid. That's bad. Taxing employee health care benefits = bad. I offered specific examples. I invited you to identify something good that we can reasonably expect to see. You came back with Mary Poppins.

Have fun declaring that there's no reason to try for better, because you already know it'll be shit.

Good day.

If healthcare reform is written by the insurance industry it will not be reform. It really is just that simple. Yes I write letters, yes I call congresscritters, yes I make a fuss on the internet, so I have not, as you put it, '...given up.'

But we do have to consider that the only way for a healthcare system to work is to spend money on it and the only way it will be accesible to most Americans is for it to be single payer or to dramatically reduce current costs. It really is that simple.

Empty promises from the insurance companies or promises to provide some miniscule amount of medication to voluntarily will not solve a damned thing. And congress creating a system whereby the goveernment pays private isnurers will cheat patients, taxpayers, and even clinicians.

I would ask you directly "What do you want?" out of healthcare reform and "What are you planning on settling for?"

As is what I'll settle for. Right now I'm pushing them toward a viable public option, and not some watered-down or triggered nonsense.

And the problem is that the 'public option' is being bound by some 'state insurance exchange system' by the current legislation suggested that will probably let the free market psychos screw with the prices and rates for coverage.

We cannot allow them to enshrine in law something called 'reform' that exists soley to blunt actual progressive reform, preserve corporate profits, and knock health care off the table for another 20 years or so.

In that manner 'nothing' may be better than 'something' in that the issue will stay on the table and may actually be treated properly in the next legislative session.

If you have employer-based insurance and you lose your job tomorrow, the public option might look pretty damn good to you. Also, once people have the choice of choosing their own doctor and have guaranteed coverage, then they might change their minds about their present healthcare plan. That is what worries the insurance companies and their surrogates in the Congress and Senate.

Fixed.

:toast:

But thanks anyway!

Keep this up, and you just might be President Dean in 2016.

I take that to mean he will not sign such a bill but then again I have been fooled before by what Obama has said. "One Brigade a Month"

No more shell games.

closely on a bill and Kennedy is somebody I trust on health care.

Without a public option based on the medicare model it's just political horse hockey so politicians can tell the lie that they give a damn about their constituents.