If we can't get a public option, then screw the sick people. They should continue to go bankrupt.

We should not give them money to either fully pay or partially pay for health insurance.

And for people who have pre-existing conditions? Screw them. We shouldn't make it illegal to discriminate against them. They should continue to have to pay 10-20 times what the average person pays. And if they can't? They should lose all of their possessions, including their house. Then they should quit their job (if they have one) to qualify for Medicaid.

We also shouldn't make it illegal for insurance companies to drop paying customers as soon as they get sick. Health insurance and healthcare should remain only for healthy people.

They don't matter. None of them matter. Sick people and poor people do not matter . The only thing that matters is that I not be required to write a check (fully or partially subsidized) to a private corporation. That is all that matters. Just me, and my wishes to where my check goes. Nothing else matters.

:sarcasm:

The above could be considered ridiculous if it weren't the actual mainstream position here on DU.

I'm not saying I disagree with the premise of your post, I'm just saying that insurance isn't keeping people from going bankrupt.

do not if true nor about the other bills.

How much more do you want to give them? When does it end? When is it no longer compromise but surrender?

As far as you are concerned, you compromised. You should not have to compromise any further. As I said, screw the sick people who might otherwise have benefited from a further compromise. It should be all about you.

I did that with single payer, It didn't happen so now I'm for the Public Option and I say no more compromise. And if they say no to the preexisting conditions measure will you have the same attitude or will that be the place where you say no more?

thats not a position of power. The GOP right wing compromises as well as they haven't taken over the country - thats not compromise thats just a lack of sufficient power.

When I write my Rep and the President I'm not pushing my desire for Single Payer only I'm trying to support the Public Option. That's how I compromised.

I compromised. I will compromise no further. Free cats or no healthcare reform. Because I gave up my first choice, and that somehow matters in the slightest bit.

Pony. Chess. Conversation over.

Is there anything you're not willing to compromise on?

is a bill that should be passed. I do not support not helping people because we couldn't help them as much as we wanted to. I support the most helpful bill that can get 218 votes in the House and 50-60 votes in the Senate.

I think if all we got out of this is a few provisions that make more people buy for profit health insurance then it will have been a huge waste of the Presidents political capital.

It is somehow better politically to not pass an entitlement to health insurance (through subsidies), vs. passing nothing at all?

:rofl:

He can then come back and try again. If they pass a toothless bill they'll shake hands say jobs done and it's all we'll get from him. If they pass nothing it will force the President to try again at a later date. I hope that there is a strong Public Option but if not I'm willing as a person with no insurance to say let it fail.

Does it really make you roll on the floor laughing?

You really think it will be easier to get 12 blue dogs (necessary to hit 218) to vote for a bill in an election year? Really?

Or do you think it will be easier to get a public option through a Republican controlled house after 2010?

Most people can probably see why I am laughing. But apparently not you.

You've already conceded the house to the Republicans in 2010? I guess compromise would be our only choice in that case. I've told you where my line is we're just running in circles now.

I guess you enjoy kissing Republican ass.

than it is to pass a bill that helps sick people. You should be jumping for joy.

If you get beat down to half a slice, then you get beat down. But don't go in bidding against yourself. "Please Mr. Republicans, can I have a public option?" "How about can I have a little more coverage and you'll only increase my rates by 50%?" Horseshit on that.

Fake "reform" is WORSE than no reform.
The insurance industry will NOT police
itself, and we will just be SET BACK
another 5 or 10 years.

How many people will be bankrupt by then?

The federal government would police the insurance companies. It would be illegal to discrminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions, as opposed to legal (as it is now). It would be illegal to cancel coverage once someone gets sick (as opposed to legal now). No self-policing required.

Insurance companies, hospitals and pharma inflate
costs beyond realistic means to pay.

We have to put the brakes on them sometime.

Bandaids will not staunch the hemorrhaging of
our current health care system.

You know, the 2/3 compromise didn't stop
slavery....it just prolonged our agony.

We have to do it NOW, while we have
the majorities.

It was an argument about apportionment and the compromise was made to get the Constitution approved. That has to be the most irrelevant analogy I have seen to date on this issue.

I would love to have a public option now. This whole post is assuming that we don't have the votes for such an option (and any objective observer would acknowledge that we don't).

the point is these fractional compromises
only hurt us in the long run.

If the insurance companies can still
bill the crap out of us, and we are
REQUIRED to buy, we will be WORSE off
than we are now.

And we will have put real reform even
further off.

These people should not have gotten sick in the first place. It's obvious they were doing wrong or have some moral failing that caused such illness. Anyone can see they are irresponsible. They are not of our ilk with beautiful lifestyles for if they were they would not have had these ills and wouldn't be crying for help. So in summation it's their fault to begin with and we beautiful lifestyler's shouldn't have to take care of everyone as we've got to stay focused on ourselves.

:sarcasm:

60 years of baby steps and look at the progress. Now maybe with 60 more years of baby steps we might get healthcare for most people but it's those incremental baby steps that will bring results. Stay committed, stay focused, I'm in it for the long haul. You want to quit be a quitter. Not me.

The all or nothing folks are going to ruin everything. All those decades of future struggle, sacrifice and loss of life, by others of course, all that future mind numbingly slow potential progress via baby steps down the drain. I want my great, great, great, great grandchildren to live in a country with health care for all, and you want a pony.

:sarcasm:

The funny thing is, much of what you say is correct, regardless of your sarcasm tag. If people like you controlled Congress, we would have no Medicare.

Now I see. :rofl:

those getting the rate cut, and weak regulations enforced by ins. lobbyists strategically placed on "oversight boards" will get health care to 50 million uninsured and 100 million underinsured.

Love to be on my back laughing uncontrollably but it's just so incredibly insane. You won't have access to health ins in ten years. Without anything to reign in costs you won't be able to afford it either. But hey a short term toothless win is still a win if you can sell it as one. It's all in the marketing.

with "enforced by the government," and you will step away from an outright falsehood and closer to the truth.

You may as well have pretended that the bill contained death panels.

The government is the lobbyists and a rate cut is not by definition something you pay for with taxpayer funded subsidies. That's welfare for ins. companies because their product is laden with overhead and profit that you get to support with your taxes.

How naive can you be to believe that the insurance company will change unless money forces them to.

It is currently perfectly legal to discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions. The solution to that problem is to make it illegal.

But no, we shouldn't do that, because that's not everything you want. So screw the sick people.

You seem to think that insurance is your solution and that insurance companies will obey the law and that insurance companies don't have more lawyers than you do. They have years of experience at circumventing the laws. This ain't television. 95% of the time that they break the law, they get away with it. Anytime you let them write the legislation (which they are doing) they will wiggle out.

But cling to the dream that you can dance with the devil and he will cure you.

There will be something in the whatever comes out about pre-existing. For those who need it, I hope it helps them. Everyone else will be screwed, but that's the way it goes. Right?

We know when the public is being duped, and we don't respond to manipulative shit like this. If you want to curse the progressive caucus, go right ahead, but let's be clear about who's doing the screwing.

are responsible for the screwing.

That includes anyone that votes against a bill that would help people on balance. That specifically includes the progressive caucus, should they choose not to support a bill that would help people.

So we can all see if the Blue Dogs & GOP are hailed as heroes for allowing to pass what will essentially be a government-authorized racket.

We'll see how people who are suffering now - and advocating for the PUBLIC OPTION - feel about the progressive caucus.

This legislation is going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths, and pretty much lock-in private insurance as a necessary middleman between you and your doctor for years to come. Then, little by little, the lobby-controlled Congress will chip away at the price controls and we'll be worse off than where we started. With people being "helped" facing high premiums, or fines.

You act as if the private insurance industry isn't a necessary middleman between you and your doctor now. Apparently to you, banning them from taking into account pre-existing conditions and from cancelling coverage is a "government-authorized racket," whereas the current system (of allowing these practices) is not.

Bookmark away.

It's a racket despite those things. Let me know when you're ready to have an honest discussion about the contents of the proposal. You could also use a few poker lessons, seeing as we're still in negotiations. You're obviously not opposed to playing hardball - but you're awfully quick to compromise away the part of the plan that offers relief and security to all people (healthy and sick) struggling to make ends meet. I don't know what makes you think that an uninsured family living paycheck-to-paycheck (or no paycheck at all) can somehow afford to give up 15% of their income or face fines.

This wouldn't be a first time the scamsters have poisoned the well - using needed legislation to leverage a handout to private industry - then turned the tables on those who oppose the insidious parts of a bill.

This isn't a negotiation. This is the best bill that could get 218 votes. The blue dogs could practically write the bill. As long as we continue to elect only a minority of progressives to Congress, that is how it will be. The "negotiation" is a dog and pony show to make the other legislators feel better about themselves.

An uninsured family making no paycheck would have 0 income. They would qualify for fully subsidized coverage or medicared.

An uninsured family living paycheck-to-paycheck would only have to pay 10% of their income (not 15%) if they made more than 400 percent of poverty (88,000/family). If the cheapest insurance plan is more than 10% of one's income, the mandate doesn't apply. Period. People making less than 88,000/family would have subsidized coverage.

for the very poor, there will continue to be Medicaid. And the various bill drafts include proposals for subsidies for people making up to 300 or 400% of the poverty level. You are talking about the public option as if it is single payer, which it is NOT.

I don't believe I should pay them to continue funding campaigns against health reform.

Because it's all about you. They might have a different opinion. They might rather live, or not go bankrupt. But they are irrelevant. It is your opinion that matters.

Allow me...:rofl:

Thanks for correcting me. Silly me. I should have known that as long as you weren't making the decision for everyone, it is OK, even if you are making the decision for 2/3 of them.

:rofl:

Me, I'll give it 5 years with the accompanied spike in premium costs and inevitable cut in subsidies and the uninsured will have doubled thanks to the half-assed, compromised to death, lobbyist written drivel called reform by those guzzling industry kool-aid.

But, I forgot, how much will you be able to bank in insurance premium "cuts" in that time frame because we all know that's what is most important.

If you do, you're more than welcome to buy a policy if you're lucky enough to get approved for one and can afford it. Just be advised that the premiums are not going to go towards care. It will go to executive salaries, salaries of the folks in the denials dept and it will go to line the pockets of politicians so that they look out for the interests of the insurance industry.

Not sure how your comment is relevant to the bill at hand. Not only would there be no denials department, but no insurance policy would be allowed on an insurance exchange unless the government approves what it covers and what it costs.

forbids pre-existing conditions, etc. could be changed by the bribe politicians but a law that establishes a public option could not? Why?

There's a pretty good chance I'll turn largely libertarian if there is no public option. I'll have given up on what government can do because by that point it will be clear that government isn't looking out for the people. No more democratic votes from me.

Ooookay.

your comments got. For what it's worth, I agree with you. The public option IS important, very important, but not more important than all the issues you mention (and there are others) put together. And the suggestion some in this thread and elsewhere make that getting a bill that is far from perfect now (whatever the definition of perfect is) is worse than getting nothing at all has nothing to do with reality. The very opposite is true, not only because of the political impact, but mainly because history shows us that often you get a MAJOR but imperfect change that is then improved upon in time. Social Security would be an example.

This being said, I still hope that somehow the public option makes it in :-).

I would be dancing in the streets if we got a public option. I'm just not optimistic.