DISQUS

munjoyfan · 5 months ago

Wow I am sitting here registering voters on a VERY slow local election day here in Portland Maine, and signed on to this blog for the very purpose of talking about the public option.
We here in Maine know this option works: workman's comp premiums went DOWN after the state set up its own "alternative" to the private companies--who all threatened to leave the state should the alternative be enacted. They didn't all leave, and the alternative is thriving.
My Senator, the "independent" Senator Snowe, announced yesterday she wouldn't support the public alternative because it would force many private companies out of business. Right there we know it's about profit. They won't go out of business, but the employee rewards like golf weekends at Myrtle Beach might be cut back.
I am writing to both my Senators, to the President, and to Senator Kennedy today to support this alternative.
I am working three jobs, and get half health insurance from one. I need the public alternative. For others, it won't make much difference though your rates will probably go down.
Please do something today. A letter to the editor of your local newspaper is a powerful tool.

Houndentenor · 5 months ago

I don't get why big business (other than insurance companies) are fighting this. If everyone had health insurance there would be fewer lawsuits (of the slip and fall variety), far fewer bankruptcies (60% of bankruptcies are from medical expenses) and the overall cost of health care would go DOWN (because we treat the uninsured who are mostly healthy in the least effecient and costliest way possible...emergency rooms).

AnalyticalLiberal · 5 months ago

I may be too much the optimist, but I think the tide is turning against the status quo and in favor of consumers. The polls show that Americans are following closely, they are engaged, and they are demanding REAL change. Republicans are getting shrill and engaging in even more demogoguery. Baucus is being forced to listen to single-payer advocates in DC and to pay attention to his pissed-off constituents in Montana. Ben Nelson is being forced to keep a public option on the table. And Obama is being forced to get more directly involved and to demand a real public option. And behind the scenes in the Senate is the long-time warrior for working people, Ted Kennedy, who is driving the effort for a true dismantling of the insurance company/big pharma/medical industrial complex that has resulted (as so-named by nyceve at Daily Kos) in Murder by Spreadsheet. I'm starting to get hopeful... a little bit... maybe.

RonNYC · 5 months ago

Krugman is totally right on. With a decent public health insurance plan, who would need private insurance? Perhaps the very rich would want it for boob jobs and the like; or as a wealthy supplemental to public health insurance. I can't wait for public health insurance and say good riddence to all these phony companies.

Angelar · 5 months ago

I don't trust the insurance industry. I would like to know why more advocates of real health reform aren't also addressing the issue of the outsourcing of our health care. It is definitely being invested in by the insurance companies.

The American public needs to learn that our health care is at the very beginning stages of being outsourced overseas to places like India and many other countries. Medical tourism and outsourcing health care is in the infant stages. Look forward someday to your health insurance company giving you a menu that includes some procedures being covered outside the U.S. Just google medical tourism and outsourcing healthcare and find volumes of material on the subject. Try this article for instance, "the Future of Health Care: Outsourcing the Patient." you can find it at www.portfolio.com.

The insurance companies are starting with "electable surgery" but history has proven that kind of thing is just to get a foot in the door. Later the list of limitations emerge.

With the profits to be made in this industry it is naive to think the insurance industry is interested in real health care reform in the U.S. All they need is to buy time for their new business model to kick in.

Here is an example excerpt..."UnitedHealth, which has over 70 million Americans under its care, has already moved to make Bumrungrad International hospital in Bangkok "in network." When Aetna, with 37 million members, bought the overseas insurer Goodhealth Worldwide last year, Aetna's CEO explained the move by saying that globalized surgery is "an important emerging trend." The company has already started a pilot program to send patients abroad for hip and knee replacements."

Chauncey Gardner · 5 months ago

I've worked in film and advertising my entire life. I've learned that the most effective way to get a message out is to keep it simple. It is obvious that corporations run the government and we are not being represented. If progressives like John and Atrios and Kos started a campaign it would probably spread very quickly. Here's my suggestion.
Follow the money and always label pols according to which lobby is bribing them.
Max Baucus (D-Blue Cross-Blue Shield)
James Inhofe (R-Exxon)
Mitch McConnell (R-UPS-Ashland)

sittenpretty · 5 months ago

sorry about the bad link
imeant this theif/jerk

On October 15, 2006, it was announced that McGuire would step down immediately as chairman and director of UnitedHealth Group, and step down as CEO on December 1, 2006 due to his involvement in the employee stock options scandal. Simultaneously, it was announced that he would be replaced as CEO by Stephen Hemsley, who has served as President and COO and is a member of the board of directors. [12] McGuire's exit compensation from UnitedHealth, expected to be around $1.1 billion, would be the largest golden parachute in the history of corporate America.[13]

McGuire's compensation became controversial again on May 21st, 2009, when Elizabeth Edwards, speaking on The Daily Show, used it to support her argument for a public alternative to commercial insurance[14]. Edwards stressed the importance of restoring competition in health insurance markets noting that at one point,

nicho · 5 months ago

Hey John -- congrats. You are attracting a better class of trolls these days. Still not top-level trolls, but better than you used to get.

Rob Mule · 5 months ago

A corollary to "Don't trust the insurance industry" that is often intentionally blurred in the background noise is "don't trust their unidentified hired spokespeople" who inhabit the over exposed cast of usual suspects that populate lazy corporate cable...The snide little error-filled digs, the rewritten history and born again fear mongering are bountiful in the electronic sour grapes vineyard.

larkohio · 5 months ago

I think we should have national health care like most of the world. Health care should be a right. Health care should be non-profit. The only reason that this is being opposed is money. We all know it. The insurance companies and the drug companies do not want national health insurance because it hurts their bottom line.

Houndentenor · 5 months ago

Because the insurance lobby's arguments make no sense. They are going to come up with a solution for containing costs and making policies less expensive? But they didn't do this for the last 15 years because...? But the funny ones are "you won't be able to choose your own doctor" and "bureaucrats will make your health care decisions". Ha! That's what we already have with private health insurance. Plus the higher cost to pay big bonuses to corporate executives.

Igormarxo · 5 months ago

Old Russian saying...You can tell same lie 1000 time but not change truth!

Difference between USSR Communist media and USA "mainstream media"

In Russia government make media say what they want - even if lie.
In USA "mainstream media" try make government what they want - even if lie..
.....eventually they become same thing?!

It very hard to have credibility to reform health care when one can not perform such a simple medical task as producing his own birth certificate.

Therefore, I Igor produce Obama Birth Certificate at www.igormaro.org

Compare Obama Care vs Igor Care at Obama vs Igor Care

Steve_in_CNJ · 5 months ago

Fox News with a fake accent. lovely.

katiec · 5 months ago

The problem is our president cannot get our health care passed without help. Any of you living in states with misguided democrats needs to contact them every way you can and often.
And, any intelligent republican needs to get ahold of your politician and tell them it is time to start putting our country and us first.
The hypocrisy, obstruction and party first has to stop.

True Bob · 5 months ago

There is no such thing as health insurance. All those companies are health care deniers.

Maria · 5 months ago

But how to pay for all this health care reform?? As economist Marty Sullivan compellingly illustrated this morning at Tax.com

Health Care Reform Legislation=Major Tax Legislation

nicho · 5 months ago

Currently, about 60% of our health care system is financed by public money: federal and state taxes, property taxes and tax subsidies. These funds pay for Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, coverage for public employees (including police and teachers), elected officials, military personnel, etc. There are also hefty tax subsidies to employers to help pay for their employees’ health insurance. About 20% of health care is financed by all of us individually through out-of-pocket payments, such as co-pays, deductibles, the uninsured paying directly for care, people paying privately for premiums, etc. Private employers only pay 21% of health care costs. In all, it is a very “regressive” way to finance health care, in that the poor pay a much higher percentage of their income for health care than higher income individuals do.

A universal public system would be financed in the following way: The public funds already funneled to Medicare and Medicaid would be retained. The difference, or the gap between current public funding and what we would need for a universal health care system, would be financed by a payroll tax on employers (about 7%) and an income tax on individuals (about 2%). The payroll tax would replace all other employer expenses for employees’ health care, which would be eliminated. The income tax would take the place of all current insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket payments. For the vast majority of people, a 2% income tax is less than what they now pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments such as co-pays and deductibles, particularly if a family member has a serious illness. It is also a fair and sustainable contribution.

Currently, 47 million people have no insurance and hundreds of thousands of people with insurance are bankrupted when they have an accident or illness. Employers who currently offer no health insurance would pay more, but those who currently offer coverage would, on average, pay less. For most large employers, a payroll tax in the 7% range would mean they would pay slightly less than they currently do (about 8.5%). No employer, moreover, would gain a competitive advantage because he had scrimped on employee health benefits. And health insurance would disappear from the bargaining table between employers and employees.

Of course, the biggest change would be that everyone would have the same comprehensive health coverage, including all medical, hospital, eye care, dental care, long-term care, and mental health services. Currently, many people and businesses are paying huge premiums for insurance so full of gaps like co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services that it would be almost worthless if they were to have a serious illness.

Webster · 5 months ago

Now why would you want to confuse Maria with facts?

kalithiotis · 5 months ago

Unless 100% of employers offer complete and comprehensive health coverage they should be taken out of the equation. Health coverage should be complete,portable and available to all people with legal status and with reasonable provisions made to people that are here on questionable circumstances.
Health should be a right regardless of income,job status and other conditions.

sittenpretty · 5 months ago

Please PLEASE pretty PLEASE,can we KEEP GIVING jerks /thieves like this BILLION DOLLAR BONUSES?

http://www.selectsmart.com/DISCUSS/read.php?16,...

Linda Smith · 5 months ago

Read article in June 9 Wall Street Journal on op-ed page by Dr. David Gratzer. The article is entitled Canada's ObamaCare Precedent. The last sentence reads: "Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries [Canada, Britain, Sweden] that have experienced it for so long are backing away?"

nicho · 5 months ago

Oh yeah, Wall Street Journal, fierce advocates for the people over the corporations. If the WSJ says it's bad for us, then you know it's good.

kalithiotis · 5 months ago

The Wall Streer Journal that is now owned by Rupert Murdoch is no longer a paper with any credibility but the paper version of FOX news.

cab02149 · 5 months ago

You can only find three? The industrialized world has national health insurance of one form or another. You have heard false rumors about only three? And you believed it, for real?

Jim in California · 5 months ago

Of course, the public health care option should be available. But, I think that, politically, it is a red herring, because the real issue, the one that really matters to people, is not so much the insurance provider, but how it is paid for. As it stands, it will be paid pretty much the way it’s paid for now, with everyone paying a similar premium for similar plans. The uninsured will be forced to buy in with money they don’t have or be forced to enter into the indignity of some kind of welfare plan. We are going to have, eventually, something like a quarter of the country on some kind of subsidy or welfare plan. This is nuts. I can’t imagine a worse thing to do than to push people into a welfare plan…it’ll just be a gateway for other welfare plans.

Here is the economic truth about health care insurance that no one else has discussed: HEALTHCARE INSURANCE /COSTS ARE NOT SCALABLE. That means you cannot scale your healthcare costs to your income like just about everything else in human life except for primary and secondary education, which of course has a public option. You can scale your food costs: beans and rice are a lot cheaper than filet and lobster. You can scale your clothing costs: you can choose between Goodwill and Saks. You can scale your housing costs: You can choose a $10 million mansion or to share an apartment. Not so with healthcare. You can fiddle around the edges but otherwise you are stuck. The current plans only helps out hospital Emergency Rooms and municipal health clinics and budgets. It doesn’t help the people.

So we have to figure out how to pay for it in a way that is effective and dignified. I’d favor the European single payer plan in which everyone is entitled and it’s paid for through income taxes. Or even a social security type plan in which it is paid for by a payroll deduction of the same percentage for each worker. More radical, but I think better is an increase in the minimum wage so everyone can afford the mandatory program. That would be around $7 per hour, I think. But that won’t happen as long as Democrats keep falling into the Republican Philosophical Catch 22:
Republicans believe that everyone should pay his own way, BUT Republicans absolutely refuse any measures to enable people to have the income needed to pay their own way. Income should be left to the Godless market. This is the box the Republicans use tcage every debate. And the public, activists and Democrats fall for this time after time after time. Lets inject some reality into this debate and force the Congress to reconsider how any of these reforms are to be paid for, because 50,000,000 people can’t afford it because they are underpaid.
Jim

Healthy_lifestyle · 5 months ago

A "public option" component is absolutely necessary to ensure that the system becomes socialized medicine. If the "public option" takes one penny in public funds, it becomes a tax-payer financed insurer and thus able to underprice all existing insurers until they are driven out of business. Then, we have a single-payer socialized medicine system.

To suggest that the "public option" is anything less than a means toward single payer socialized medicine is intellectually dishonest.

vito12234 · 3 months ago

you rather have your insurance company deny benefits than your government.You know they have peeple that theirjob is to deny benifits

NAVDOC3rdMAR · 5 months ago

MEDICARE FOR ALL NOW!

Telephone # of Congress(House/Senate): 1-202-224-3121

Call and ask for any Senator or Congressperson and voice your mind.
Nothing rattles a politician more than an informed and vocal electorate.
SEMPER FI!

Lorene M. · 5 months ago

I would suggest that not only does Obama
"need to step up", we the citizens have to step up and be heard loud and clear. Someone said that the highest office of the land is not that of the President, but that of the citizen. Get involved in your local health care reform meetings and participate on June 27th for the President's call to service. Make your voices heard!

notmd · 5 months ago

with more patients covered by a public/government plan ,the lower the price that will be paid for these services. It will probably be close to medicaid and be cut each year as the government tries to balance the budget. that is one way of reducing the costs, but what about malpractice costs,teaching costs,new drugs and therapies..well those mismanaged providers will have to figure out to reduce the waste?..really?..

Ed Bradford · 5 months ago

The corollary to Paul Krugman's mantra is:

1. Trust your government
2. Trust your government

parity fanatic · 5 months ago

Its amazing how the BUSH Republicans passed and PRAISED expanded Medicare advantage programs as giving Medicare consumers more choices than the traditional Medicare. They even wrote the legislation to discriminate in subsidizing the private insurance carriers.
NOW when we talk about a public "option" in the NEW Health reform program, they scream bloody murder. A little competition is exactly what our misguided system needs.

cab02149 · 5 months ago

Roosevelt tried, but maybe he wasn't first. This country can only do Pentagon, CIA, FBI stuff well. The government can't get the rest right. But neither can the public. American people have a hard time
tolerating one another.
Lets see: The government takes care of the elderly and the poor and the veterans; all high risk. Leaves the gravy to the private companies. That is not enough for them. Government even pays private companies to do the government's healthcare paperwork.

Jaime Lefebvre · 5 months ago

Call me a naysayer, but I see the slippery slope coming way too steeply. How can private industry compete with the single largest employer, who at a whim, can change the rules in its favor. And honestly, if you can get free health insurance from the government, why would you pay for it, thus enacting the single pay system.

catherinebowman · 3 months ago

Thank you for explaining the idea of public option. In recent weeks many have tried to muddy the waters and confuse people, but the way that you have explained it is clear - no longer will insurance companies how a monopoly to set any price and deny any service. Increased competition is a good thing and I think the insurance industry is in fear of the competitive playing field which is the basis for any capitalist society.

John "Birther" Samford · 3 months ago

I would trust the insurance company over the government.

Actually the problem with any health care reform is that is doesn't touch the true issue.
Health care is a scarce resource. Right now that resource is allocated by the Free Market, which actually isn't free. Not even reasonably cheap. Changing the means of allocation from the market to a bureaucracy isn't going to make health care any less scarce. History shows us that it will make health care even more scarce.
The American public understands this. They are letting their various congresscritters know that they fear the thought of the same sort of person that runs the drivers license bureau being in charge of the Health Care system.

If that thought doesn't fill you with fear and loathing you either work at the Drivers license place or are a potted plant sitting in the window of the drivers license place.
Most of the congresscritters that vote for the Obama care plan will be job hunting in Jan '11. They know that. So when the Usurper threatens them if they don't vote his way, they are telling those congress critters that they are hosed, no matter what they do. Desperate congress critters do desperate things.
I'm a conservative, NOT a Republican, so all this makes me happy.

Eric · 2 months ago

Public option is not health care reform, it is merely adding more people to a system that is already broken. The practices that are ruining health care are the managed care practices that only pay 20-30 percent of the bill from a provider. This leads to providers charging ridiculous amounts because they know they will only get 20% of what they bill. Guess who started this practice....Medicare. Insurance companies are greedy and say if Medicare can do it, so can we. Government can't run an efficient program, they need to focus on getting out of health care rather than increasing their role.

Ferguson · 1 month ago

Don't trust the government to run an efficient business.

shininglight · 2 weeks ago

I can't believe that somebody said, "I would trust the insurance company over the government".

If you truly feel that way then you should probably get yourself a new government. Especially given the fact that insurance companies are so bad. Maybe you haven't had enough experience with insurance companies.

All Americans should be able to see a doctor, and get adequate care, all Americans should be entitled to health care coverage, regardless of socioeconomic status.

In Canada, France, the UK, all of europe for that matter, along with most of the civilized world they have government run healthcare plans, and they all work. They have great healthcare in those countries, and nobody is ever turned away from care, like the woman the other day who died along with her baby because a hospital refused to admit her without insurance! Tens of thousands of Americans die each year directly from lack of insurance, and many more suffer with conditions they can't afford to treat and don't have adequate insurance to cover. Medicare works, and better than HMO's I might add, and the choice of the option will keep the insurance companies rates down by forcing them to compete in states where they now enjoy pretty much a monopoly too.

In the richest country in the world, it is a crime for people to suffer and/or die because they can't afford healthcare, or because when it came time to pay up, the policy they had decided to find a loophole to get out of paying for care.

How many people go bankrupt from lack of care in those countries you ask? None.. Look up how many people that happens to here, or how many people die here from lack of care. If you already have insurance, you get to keep it, this is about choices, and it's about saving lives by putting people before profits.

The big insurance companies are trying hard to kill reform, we have to stop them, before more people die.

Is providing the fire department socialism? We all need that, and it saves lives, if our house catches fire, we want the assurance that the fire department will come and help us by putting out the fire. What then is so much different about healthcare, I mean without it, people will die, it's a basic human service that everyone should be entitled to, and not just the rich. People shouldn't have to worry that when they pay the insurance companies, they then will be cut off, or denied their coverage.

Can you imagine if you paid your car insurance company for years faithfully, and then when someone hit your car, they refused to cover you? That's just wrong, any which way you look at it.

PEOPLE NOT PROFITS, MEDICARE FOR ALL!!!

The majority of the American people are for it, even if a lot of the conservative trollers on here are not! They are protesting and having sit ins, and making their voices heard! We won't give up, no American should be without medical care, medicare for all will save lives!

We all pay to support things like the fire department, the police department, the army, the FDA to make sure our food is safe, and many more. None of these programs is socialist, so why is making sure we stay alive by providing a basic necessity such as health coverage considered socialist as if it were a drty word I might add.

Also, something to consider: Jesus may have been, by the conservatives definition a socialist. He shared bread and fish with everyone, he encouraged everyone to share everything with those less fortunate, and with eachother. The bible has over 300 verses about sharing with those less fortunate. If a man has two tunics, he is to give one to the man with no tunic, and it talks about sharing food and shelter too, and about how you should sell your posessions and give it to the poor, and then take up your cross and follow him. I'm sure that he most definately fits the Right wing definiton of Socialist.

If wanting people to live instead of dying because they are denied care, and wanting to make sure that everyone has the basic needs for human survival makes you socialist, then I consider it quite a compliment really.

People not profits, Medicare for all! We shall overcome, we must fight for what we believe in, so we can save lives!

The public option is alive, so lets keep pushing to keep it that way!

icthugs · 5 days ago

shinininglight...perhaps HISTORY and WASTEFUL SPENDING by those telling us we need health care reform will best answer your question. NOT ONE OF THEM HAS WORKED AS PROMISED!!! This is so great for the "American People" yet, they (FEDERAL GOVERNMENT) refuse to be part of it. Just as they refuse to pay into social security, medicaid, and medicare. I am a working, taxpaying American and I am tired of the political thugs throwing money around like it belongs to them. Social Security funds have been used for bailing out Chrysler to the most recent $600,000 get-away for employees. This whole health care BS is nothing more than government control and additional taxes for more wasteful spending. I'm not sure where you get your information from but I personally know people in Canada and the UK. Neither of them have one good thing to say about their health care system. Canada's is so wonderful they come to the U.S. for treatment. There are people that HONESTLY need help to get on their feet and they should get it. However, those who choose to sit on their butts all day and wait for the next handout, I will not support. If you're not willing to help yourself, then don't expect me to help you. Welfare is a support program, not a career. And, if you think the government is working with your best interest at heart...you are wrong!!!