Obama health care plan to be drafted to prevent evolution into "draconian" single-payer.

Evolution bad. Unintelligent design good.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105442888

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Republicans have also raised the specter that a public option could evolve into a single-payer health care system where funding comes from one source — usually the government. The GOP says that such a system would lead to health care rationing and long delays in treatment.

Asked if the administration's program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says: "I think that's very much the case, and again, if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion."

Sebelius says such concerns are unfounded because a single-payer plan is not under consideration, and these "draconian" scenarios have muddled the conversation over the president's proposal for a public option.

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Piss off the base, make repukes unhappy, leave millions uninsured, and accomplish nothing.

Congrats!

>>health care rationing and long delays in treatment<<

What they really mean is that it could lead to the rich not being able to buy their way to the front off the line while the poor die at the back.

The rich will always find ways to make the best of any situation. Thats what money does.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they develop their own chain of clinics coast to coast of private doctors who refuse insurance of any kind. Cash only sucker, and the rest of us can live with whatever the flaws are in UHC.

that health care is not currently rationed, as opposed to the reality that it is already being rationed on the basis of income (rather than need).

Those doctors who think they can make it will leave "public practice" and create private practices with draconian rules excluding public insurance.

That will result in a loss of doctors and a shortage of caregivers.

The rich will be able to buy care in their private practices and everything will be business as usual for the wealthy.

And care will be rationed on need by the public care, and income by those who want it paying cash.

I had no trouble finding doctors, and I don't think my parents (who are on Medicare) are having any trouble currently - I know my mother currently still sees one of the top cancer docs in the state.

I am far more concerned that whatever plan is implemented will not require insurance companies to play by the same rules (accept all applicants, cover pre-existing conditions, not base premiums on health, and no lifetime caps). If insurance companies are still in the game (and they almost certainly will be) they must be prevented from cherry picking the profitable patients and leaving the rest with no options but what will be a high priced plan that still cannot afford to pay doctors enough to participate (because it has to cover all of, and only, the expensive patients and still manage to be "affordable")

the front of the line.

They know that - they are fully cognizant of the advantages of being rich. Therefore, it is not THEMSELVES they are worried about.

They worry that with UHC single-payer they will be less able to control the masses.

by paying taxes instead of insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc., if the tax is not capped then the rich might wind up paying slightly more than they would if they were paying for private insurance. And if they disdain the public option and carry private insurance anyway, they'd be paying well above their 'fair' share. Of course, if they had the public option and carried supplemental insurance as well - as is offered in most single-payer systems - they could have their cake and eat it, too, and that is what I'd encourage them to do ... EAT IT!

God forbid that we should have what every civilized nation on earth has.

protected the Insurance Companies and Big Pharma with the Medicare
Prescription bill. The largest amounts of money went to the Health
businesses---they are continuing the same pattern here.

The GOP will direct those Government subsidies (46 million) directly
to the Health Business once again. Watch Baucus, and Centrists
cave. Watch the Activists once again make exuses for the Senate.

Keep in mind -- Obama will only sign the bill. The Senate Dems
write it.

Once again Welfare for Big Business and the people be damned.
How long will it take the Senate Dems to cave and we have a Republican
Lite plan. It will fail and in a few years we will be back screaming
about Health Care.

The only way this could happen is if public insurance is cheaper and higher quality than private insurance. W/o that not enough people will join the public plan to make it happen.

there is a very real risk of this happening. At one time Obama suggested that the public option may only be open to those who can't get insurance elsewhere (specifically mentioning preexisting conditions). There may be a public option, but it will be set up to fail by only allowing those who already have big medical expenses into the pool - yet another way to protect the private insurers profits.

YES WE CAN!

(but we're not going to)

:shrug:

to the insurance companies.

All signs point that way.

:shrug:

then we're better off if nothing gets done this year because it sounds like we're going to be trapped into a system designed to perpetuate the insurance companies without improving anyone's access. You will, however, be forced to contribute the insurance companies, even if you still can't afford see a doctor.

Better we wait until the current system collapses on its own (it shouldn't be too long), maybe then we can get real reform.

They think they can hoodwink us but there are more of us than there are of them and we need to make the insurance companies get out of the way and the legislators to do the right thing. Obama can do this. FDR was able to bring us Social Security. LBJ was able to push through Medicare. We have the same conditions today, both houses with a majority of Democrats even if you discount the DLCers. Obama has to stop listening to the DLCers on his staff and use the power of his presidency to push the legislation through in both houses that have already been introduced for single payer. As someone else said, we have to make him do it. Start phoning and writing. I already do two or three times a week, but I can't do it alone. It will require a tsunami of phone calls and faxes to accomplish this.

The polls are showing peopole want a single payer system, but we're being ignored (and yes, I'm calling and emailing - but I can't get straight answers from either my senator or my rep).

Thom Hartmann had some good comments yesterday about the "make me" philosophy of governing. The gist was that it's a cop out for a leader to claim they didn't lead because the people didn't push hard enough. Obama & Congress will do what their corporate masters want them to do no matter how hard we push - but they'll come back at us and tell us we didn't want it enough.

I would still not be able to vote if it weren't for the suffragettes and people of color would still be segregated and forced to work menial jobs if it weren't for the civill rights movement under Martin Luther King, who became a martyr to the cause. I think this is going to be a bloody battle too if what has happened so far is any indication. For instance those doctors and nurses who were arrested at the Finance Committee meeting about health care when they disrupted the meeting have been charged with felonies. They are playing hardball from the beginning. It's not going to be easy but if this is what you want, you are going to have to put yourself out there as an activist, demonstrating and disrupting business if you have to.

same for international diplomacy. He should have started with the single payer option. His compromise could have been a choice between private insurance or the public option of Medicare to be improved and made available for everyone who wants to buy into it. Instead he shifted his bargaining position to what he was willing to settle for, so now the lobbyists don't even want the public option. I guess he never learned barter in his fancy education.

I wish someone would take the man to a flea market and show him how negotiation is supposed to be done.

Good for diplomacy *and* a change to learn about negotiation.

I've been shrieking about that on a regular basis.

If the single payer people had stfu, the right wouldn't be able to wave it around as a boogeyman. If everybody had supported the public option to begin with, or would get off their asses and do it now, we'd be a force too big for the lobbyists to fight. That's what he learned when organizing on the streets of Chicago. It's too bad the people who claim the banner of grassroots still haven't figured it out. The lobbyists were always going to fight the final version of the legislation, which is about 90% of what Obama ran on. He's not surprised, that's why he created the OFA group and asked people to start organizing.

to the right to cooperatives and other such nonsense, like not competing with the for profit insurance companies. So what you are saying isn't working. As a matter of fact we should have pushed for national health care like in the UK where the government runs the clinics and hospitals and pay the doctors salaries. Then maybe they would have settled for single payer. You might want to go to a flea market sometime too to see how it's done.

"if you pass a public option you'll lose congress in 2010"...What complete bullshit, If anything if the Dems pass a public option they'll pick up seats in an off year election, unheard of in the past...But the dems as usual will believe the republicans bullshit and be frightened off....

It's all designed (Frank Luntz) republican talking points & spin, all republicans are using this same line, "if you pass a public option democrats will lose congress in 2010" and republicans know the democrats will fall for it....They always do.

Why do the Democrats always fall for these powerless republican lies and BLUFFS?

Democrat's still listen to republicans lies and threats of course the republican say all kinds of shit and make outlandish predictions and conceive outright lies, these are republican these are their tactics....fear-mongering!

The republicans will always paint the worse scenario possible...the republicans are & represent the greedy filthy rich insurance corporations....Dems should be screaming FUCK the minority republican party, they are all bluff, they have no real power just bluffs...STOP falling for them Dems!

Yes, let's hope someday public option will lead to single payer system and get "profit on the sick" insurance companies out of the health care business once and for all!

they don't have a heart and soul.

to go after only what they really want & care about, the money, privatize everything for GREED, it becomes their only real goal, no government, which means no regulations and of course "heart and soul" and the corporations keep growing & growing like monsters....

Republicans and corporations hate government because it gets in their way and keeps them from screwing everyone, (low wages, no benefits, no voice) the republicans & corporations don't care about people, and government is the people so they always put a bad label on "government" and the idiots & uninformed eat it up that their own best interest, government is their enemy.

Fuck the people, no regulations, cut corners, no where for the people to turn, collusion, and here we have insurance corporations throwing off sick people because it's hurt the companies profits & the bottom line...the corporations are the republican party and it's easy to out maneuver the democrats when your single agenda, goal & motivation is GREED!

that would change the perspective, I think

away from Franken...rightfully Franken should of taken his senate seat month's ago...but the republican party is paying for this to go on & on and then hopefully steal this six year senate seat from Franken and the Democrats.

Franken's Dem vote is very important (especially the vote on public option health care for all) and the republicans are doing everything to nullify & steal it.

And the MN court is taking an awfully long time to come up with a bullshit reason....let's hope I'm wrong....but don't be surprised if I'm correct.