'Public Option’ in Health Plan May Be Dropped

http://www.nytimes.com/20...ml?_r=1&hp

Mars23 said:

Of course, I'm a Liberal! I'm an American, damn it!

This country was founded on the premise of Liberty and Justice for ALL...remember?

My wallet is STILL on hiatus!

The Democrats received more money from the health industry than the Republicans in the election year 2008. And this year they're still leading the Republicans by a fine margin in this regard. I guess the industry wants to exert maximum "influence" on law makers, and the Democrats have the majority. Maybe this can help to explain the watering down of their proposals.

dammit. Just let me pay my way and allow me to opt into an insurance plan that comes from a pool of real choice.

I don't understand why I can't purchase wholesale medical insurance on a national level without it being a government run option.

Why are employers responsible for providing health insurance? Isn't it a BENEFIT and not a right?

Also, the republicans haven't been exactly LYING. They've been quoting the bills and asking hard questions. Things that real journalists and congressfolk SHOULD have been doing from the get go.

Pundits like Rush, Beck, et all have only been extrapolating the direction in which these bills take the government. Basically, saying if you give an inch, they'll take a yard. And the greedy little House and House wanna-be republicans have been exploiting this to rile up votes for next year's elections.
[Edited 8/17/09 8:11am]

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All Glory To the Hypno-Toad!

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Since I am loathe to rely on shill newspapers, I'll use an oft quoted source to illustrate the point.

http://www.huffingtonpost...60733.html

Dauphin said:

Mars23 said:

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All Glory To the Hypno-Toad!

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Mars23 said:

Of course, I'm a Liberal! I'm an American, damn it!

This country was founded on the premise of Liberty and Justice for ALL...remember?

My wallet is STILL on hiatus!

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Mars23 said:

Of course, I'm a Liberal! I'm an American, damn it!

This country was founded on the premise of Liberty and Justice for ALL...remember?

My wallet is STILL on hiatus!

We cave again and again.

JellyBean said:

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All Glory To the Hypno-Toad!

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I will wait to see if this is Chess or stupidity before flipping out.

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Mars23 said:[quote]

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Of course, I'm a Liberal! I'm an American, damn it!

This country was founded on the premise of Liberty and Justice for ALL...remember?

My wallet is STILL on hiatus!

I believe that what Mars23 is alluding to is the fact that the white house has lost control of the message and are now trying to modify it to regain some percieved loss of support. Many of the president's grass roots supporters are disappointed and rightfully so.

Secondly, the corporate owned congress critters have pretty much left the president on his own. The corporate media also gives a lot more air time to the staged dramas unfolding at the so called town meetings than to the actual details of the proposal currently on the table. They have effectively misrepresented the fact that the majority of Americans still favor health care reform.

I'm not overly impressed with Obama's approach to the issue even though I realize that he alone cannot get this legislation passed. It would have been better if he'd kept it simple...for example, something like what I read today on Thom Hartmann's blog.



http://www.thomhartmann.c...ent-obama/

Dear President Obama,
I understand you’re thinking of dumping your “public option” because of all the demagoguery by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich and their crowd on right-wing radio and Fox. Fine. Good idea, in fact.

Instead, let’s make it simple. Please let us buy into Medicare.

It would be so easy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with this so-called “public option” that’s a whole new program from the ground up. Medicare already exists. It works. Some people will like it, others won’t – just like the Post Office versus FedEx analogy you’re so comfortable with.

Just pass a simple bill – it could probably be just a few lines, like when Medicare was expanded to include disabled people – that says that any American citizen can buy into the program at a rate to be set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) which reflects the actual cost for us to buy into it.

So it’s revenue neutral!

To make it available to people of low income, raise the rates slightly for all currently non-eligible people (like me - under 65) to cover the cost of below-200%-of-poverty people. Revenue neutral again.

Most of us will do damn near anything to get out from under the thumbs of the multi-millionaire CEOs who are running our current insurance programs. Sign me up!

This lets you blow up all the rumors about death panels and grandma and everything else: everybody knows what Medicare is. Those who scorn it can go with Blue Cross. Those who like it can buy into it. Simplicity itself.

Of course, we’d like a few fixes, like letting Medicare negotiate drug prices and filling some of the holes Republicans and AARP and the big insurance lobbyists have drilled into Medicare so people have to buy “supplemental” insurance, but that can wait for the second round. Let’s get this done first.

Simple stuff. Medicare for anybody who wants it. Private health insurance for those who don’t. Easy message. Even Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley can understand it. Sarah Palin can buy into it, or ignore it. No death panels, no granny plugs, nothing. Just a few sentences.

Replace the “you must be disabled or 65” with “here’s what it’ll cost if you want to buy in, and here’s the sliding scale of subsidies we’ll give you if you’re poor, paid for by everybody else who’s buying in.” (You could roll back the Reagan tax cuts and make it all free, but that’s another rant.)

We elected you because we expected you to have the courage of your convictions. Here’s how. Not the “single payer Medicare for all” that many of us would prefer, but a simple, “Medicare for anybody who wants to buy in.”

Respectfully,

Thom Hartmann

THOM

HARTMAN

IS

RIGHT

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

OH the DNC the party of cowards.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

THOM

HARTMAN

IS

RIGHT

uPtoWnNY said:

babynoz said:

I wish that the democrats or for that matter any politician would stand up and push a single payer option through and not be so damn concerned bout their next election.

It would be wonderful for just once that a party would put the people who elected them first. Some may fall in the next election but once this hurdle of health care was put to rest I think the majority of people in this country would be truly impressed with this plan once it was implemented and come back to the fold in droves.

but alas.

lazycrockett said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

lazycrockett said:

I wish that the democrats or for that matter any politician would stand up and push a single payer option through and not be so damn concerned bout their next election.

It would be wonderful for just once that a party would put the people who elected them first. Some may fall in the next election but once this hurdle of health care was put to rest I think the majority of people in this country would be truly impressed with this plan once it was implemented and come back to the fold in droves.

but alas.

don't be tryin to make me miss large balls Hillary was in charge!

babynoz said:

Obama is a grandma killing, communist, socialist, ………this all reminds me of a movie I once saw.

[Edited 8/17/09 18:34pm]

I told you guys a few days ago. Most of the Pharmaceuticals and most of the major doctors were giving Obama's plan the nod. Right then I knew the pay off gone down. American greed.

Mars23 said:

Mars23 said: