Do you support healthcare "reform" WITHOUT a strong public option

Do you support healthcare "reform" without a strong public option
This public option would be similar to the current medicare system you have for senior citizens.

I also will not support any corporatist prostitution excuse for a political party that cannot pass such a bill despite having the White House and significant majorities in both houses of Congress.

This is my line in the sand. I am DONE with the Democratic party if they fuck up this one.

one in front of Congress.

option.
If there IS one, someone please show us.

Somebody is going to have to do it though, because they aren't going to be able to magically plop one in during conference. I doubt anything coming out of conference will be any better than anything going in.

what's more of a "public option" than single payer?

All of the other bills are non-reform "reform".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6369387

https://madashelldoctorstour.com/Home_Page.html



The Plan:



Mad Doctors Hit the Road

On September 8, 2009 a group of dedicated Oregon physicians will take the message of Universal Health Care "on the road" in a wrapped and branded Motor Home headed for Washington D.C. Our cross-country mission: to stop in big cities and whistle stops alike, conducting pre-booked, local and national media appearances for a curious press. Every move we make along the way will be recorded on camera and then edited and uploaded to the internet that same day. This will allow our Mad As Hell Doctors Tour to leverage the edited video segments on social networking web sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, et al. In this way, our effort becomes an unprecedented hybrid of reality television and political activism that offers people the opportunity to follow us, in real time, as our story unfolds. The message will be unmistakable: caravan with us to Washington and help make a public demonstration of support for Single Payer Health Care that will be heard around the world.

Imagine...

Thousands of cars pulling into the nation's capital for a protest on the White House lawn. The sidewalks are filled with supporters carrying signs in support of the Mad As Hell Doctors who have captured the imagination and the ignited the passion of their fellow citizens. We wave and honk at the camera crews, as do the endless line of cars behind us, as we wend our way toward the White House. On every antenna, on the backside of every car, and flapping like flags from sidewalk supporters, is the symbol of this new movement: the White Ribbon.

+ ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

:patriot:

under Bush, why the hell can't we get Dems who will stand up for our Democracy?!

...will make the insurance companies more powerful in the future, in itself.

Without a public option in this year's bill to reduce their power, it will be MORE difficult to get a public option in a future bill.

Because there is no such thing.

be set up for everyone.

My idea for health insurance reform is exactly what Lawrence O'Donnell has said: Introduce legislation that removes the qualifications on Medicare (age 65 or on disability).

Removing that from the Medicare program would open it up.

Period.

This is a republic where once you elect an asshole to make decisions for you, he is free to jam it up your ass for the next two years if he is a congressman, four years if he is your president, and six fucking years if he is your senator.

There is no such thing as a recall referendum here.

Then, when the asswipe's term expires. You can elect him again for another ass raping session.

Oh, did I forget to mention that he gets paid your tax dollars?

insurance company give away.

won't kick in for years and the bill mandates we buy insurance. Most of us will be stuck buying from the insurance companies.

Even with a public option, HR3200 should be named "The Health Insurance Company Protection Act".

prefer single-payer or NHS-style universal health care). If we don't get one, I will be confused and disappointed as fuck with the Blue Dog assholes.

BUT I would rather see a bill pass, even one without a public option, that eliminated pre-existing conditions, lifetime limits, and imposed yearly out-of-pocket maximums for the consumer, than continue with the completely untenable status fucking quo.

ETA: I'm still pissed at the whole idea of making it mandatory to buy coverage. Obama gave Clinton all kinds of crap during the primaries for her mandatory coverage plan...to me that makes it dishonest of him to push for any plan that requires the purchase of health insurance.

The Insurance Cartel were still able to get around those laws, because there was a wait time. People who are ill don't have the luxury of waiting six months for treatment. Without a strong public option they will find ways around laws.

Deductibles are a form of rationing by cost.

will kill us.

There is no reason that private insurance should be subsidized with tax dollars. There is no reason that congress can't outlaw pre-existing conditions, mandate community rating, require guaranteed issue, and impose out of pocket caps.

The problem is our president and our congress are bargaining with an on-going criminal enterprise when they should be disbanding them.

I disagree with folding to end the status quo. The insurance industry want to end the status quo. Lets not fold cheap.

We are more powerful than we think. As America ages the insurance company leeches have fewer people to sell their useless product to.

As prices go up fewer people buy insurance.

They are very quick to come to the table to make sure that we give them a trillion in new tax dollars every decade and that they get all that private money from mandates.

I say we hold out for single payer, or at the very least, a mega public option that utilized Medicare reimbusments, that negotiates for drug prices, that starts out covering 130 million people, that lets everybody and anybody in the pool who wants in.

Why are we selling out for a bunch of fucking bullshit? A mega public option, fully functional and ready to rumble is already the sell out position.

...Absolutely Essential!!!!

Can't call it "reform" without a public option.

is a sell out compromise doomed to fail IMHO. I don't support anything less than single payer and the fucking politicians don't even consider single payer an option. Turn about is fair play I suppose. I no longer consider some of those fucking politicians to be viable options to getr my vote to retain their position.....

As it is, ww have inadequate regulation of private insurance combined with an inadequate public option.

I'm thinking until then, some people really like the non-union status they already enjoy.

So we need choices. (kind of like in health care, right)

Yeah we should make it that there is a labor pool that some people can get into if they want to but only if their isn';t another pool they can affiliate with, but other people shouldn't have to affiliate at all if they so choose. Now that will cost the union extra money, to just represent part of the workers at any business, but the other pool can represent those other workers.

See, we need a free market solution to unionization, until that day we wake up and do it right!

OK

I'm attempting satire here and it probably isn't funny.

But neither is this free market alternative to a socialized risk pool for health care crap. Please tell your union rep, single payer. The rest is republican bullshit. You know it and i know it.

Peace!

1. Health Care reform. Meaning Single Payer or at least a strong public option.

2. Enactment of The Employee Free Choice Act.

3. Lobbyist and Campaign Finance Reform.

4. End of all wars. Or at the least a significant withdrawal by '10 and total withdrawal by '12.

I'm a UAW member. I was expecting EFCA to be signed into law by April 1st. Then I woke up and realized that Dems are in charge and they're about as capable of passing cornerstone level legislation as Rush is at saying nice things about our president.

The list of Dems that are opposed to EFCA grows. And it's a disgustingly growing list. How these people can actually call themselves Dems is beyond logic.

Which is why I might be voting straight Socialist Party in '10.

If they can't pass EFCA then fuck the Dems.


BTW I got your satire, and you're better at it than you give yourself credit for.

:hi:

Peace

...... bent waaaaaay over ...... and kissed my ass goodbye.

But then, most folks have resorted to calling it health INSURANCE reform anyway. Without a PO, it's just a mandate that we subsidize the insurance industry CEO gigantic compensation, and industry profits.

Perhaps they feel if they push it out another few months to a year, that there won't be time for those that are *FED UP* to start a new party to try and do away with the corporatists come 2012.

I'm utterly fed up with the corporatists.

Both of my grandfathers were union organizers back in the 30s and 40s, so perhaps it's in my blood to want a party that stands up FOR THE PEOPLE - average working people, and the poor.

Where either we do massive primary challenges in 2010, or that we're starting a new party right there and then. Maybe both!

If we try and get that word out the very same day that bill gets signed, and find some way that the M$M can't avoid talking about it, that would make that whole "just claiming a victory" goal to seem hollow, so they will have done that whole mess for nothing, other than to show their protecting their corporatist cabal, and giving us a whole raison d'etre for putting in place a new party.

Maybe talk a whole bunch of Democratic House members as well as a few in the Senate like Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean, etc. to switch to joining this new party then.

The old meaningless phrase was "universal health care." What does "public option" actually mean these days? Heck if I know.

payer.

Then Hillery co-opted the term and tried to pass the soup du jour alternative market driven fad plan, "Managed care."

Public option is the new alternative market driven fad plan.

But what we all really want is single payer because we all know it works and provides everyone with access, and it's pretty easy and simple.

But they won't let us off the hook so easy. They want their cash and they want some more.

no one who uses that term explains what "affordable" means - or mentions anything about the insurance companies.

and those asscarrots sucking off the insurance money tit.