I hardly think our nation wants to move towards universal health care. Yet you can continue to make the claim that everyone wants it.

Obama care is now down to 42 percent support.

The proportion of Americans who think their families would be better off if health reform passes is up six percentage points (42% versus 36% in August)

These polls were published at HUFFPO….Not Fox news.

So you are 100 percent correct …….He seems utterly convinced that the vast majority of Americans don’t want to move towards universal coverage administered substantially by the government,

YEP…YEP…thats exactly what Im convinced of. Glad you cleared that up for me.

Probably too complicated but it would be nice if there was a national pool with the individual states being allowed to administer locally their premiums. That way the rate would be more spread out and likely lower. Issue I can foresee is that a dollar isn’t a dollar everywhere and what happens if someone moves.

I think the one thing that will come into play whether anyone likes it or not is that we are living longer. Technology and scientific advancements every year means we are having more years in the expensive part of the curve and that part continually is getting more expensive. It needs to be dealt with.

I really think that Republicans have lost a great opportunity to impact things with their input. If it fails, they likely take the biggest hit. If it succeeds, they only win if we all fail because it didn’t work. Either way they could have been constructive partners keeping in mind one thing. We had a referendum on the countries direction and they lost so they aren’t leading the debate but they could have constructively participated in it. Instead they chose to hang their hat on Death Panels.

Which is and has been my entire point. The democrats are trying to hide the public option because its so popular. In fact it keeps getting voted down because its so popular.

In fact Michael Moore had to threaten Harry Reid because its so popular.

My question to you is why are the democrats even debating it. The GOP just is going to say no. YOu have the votes…just ram it thru.

If everyone wants it,…..its so popular and Americans cant live without it then just ignore the GOP and ram it home.

Why does Michael Moore have to threaten his own party over it?

Further, since various states would do things differently, we’d have an ongoing opportunity to see what’s working.

That’s a fairly substantial contrast to doing a federal level program that seeks to fix almost everything at once. Even if it’ succeeds, they’d be lucky to get 60% of it right. And then it would take another generation or a fresh crisis to revise that monster.

I agree that doomed fails to make a very persuasive case on much of anything. He seems utterly convinced that the vast majority of Americans don’t want to move towards universal coverage administered substantially by the government, and sorry to say, his opposition to current effort borders on paranoia from where I sit.

Here’s the thing. Many or even most Americans feel that their current coverage is decent or good or even excellent. But these same folks are also quite concerned about what the future could bring in several respects. They are concerned that cost growth is making healthcare too big a cost burden. And they are concerned about what sort of coverage they’ll have access to should they lose their job and when they retire.

While the current system has substantial flaws and gaps, I don’t think this attempt at reform is really about the current state of affairs so much as it is about the disturbing trends in cost and coverage, and where those are leading us.

Doomed seems quite enamored of freedom. In the abstract, we all are. But when it comes right down to it, I have serious doubts about how much I would enjoy the freedom to choose between paying a really high premium or going without coverage. I am fortunate not to have faced such freedom of choice so far.

The public option is the debate and it is the distraction.

Sorry Aaron if I dont say the things you like to hear. I am simply pointing out to my fellow Americans on the left that the public option

IS THE DEBATE. Healthcare reform to the democrats means public option. If not pull it and then watch Michael Moore go get a bunch of democrats fired next year.

I will say, as a fan of the public option, I do really like the idea of breaking it down to a state level. Every state is vastly different, and letting each manage the best system for them is a good idea. It brings the system down to a more manageable size while increasing flexibility.

Without the public option there are still ZERO Republicans onboard so your argument is with reality, not me.

capture bounces Brundage – I guess that means Chicago will get the Olympics

Okay at least we are back in the same ballpark now on this discussion.

I know that the democrats want single payer but are willing to settle for the public option.

WHY? Why are they willing to settle for the public option when they literally can just force thru any bill they want?

two reasons.

1. They want to not be massacre at the polls next year.
2. They know that public option will lead to putting health insurance out of business and bring about single payer in the United States over time.

To pretend anything else is simply lying, or at the very least being deceptive and herein lies the publics perception that the GOP is the party of NO. I have listed many, many things that are in need of reform that I am willing to do in congress. The problem is that none of these are really central. What is central is the public option. Nothing else matters.

Reform for democrats means a public option and health care for all.

Reform for the republicans means making changes, doing a lot of things but NOT a public option.

Your sides conclusion is Republicans hate Americans and want them to die.

Are you trying to be obtuse?

YOU SAID:: Us leftists are quite honest about what we think will happen if a strong public option goes through. It will out-compete the private plans because it will have gigantic cost advantages.

And then you concluded.

BTW, the Obama plan doesn’t actually hurt the insurance industry.

Interesting logic. I like how you twist and conflate your conclusion by making a claim that you have no way of substatniating. How can you claim that it will not affect 90 percent of insurance carriers?

There isnt even a bill yet!

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today there will be a “public option” in whatever health insurance reform bill comes out of Congress.

“We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president’s desk,” Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan.

You were saying????

Sorry fellas but the Public option is nothing but a trojan horse to take over health care by the US government.

Dude, have you ever read the story?

The Trojan Horse was secret. That was the entire point. The Greeks didn’t put a note on the front saying “Bring this into the city, because we think you won’t expect us to be inside this thing.”

Us leftists are quite honest about what we think will happen if a strong public option goes through. It will out-compete the private plans because it will have gigantic cost advantages. Of your nine points 4, 5, 7, and 9 are already in Obama’s bill. 3 won’t be included because there are women in the Senate, and, to quote Debbie Stabenow, “I’ll bet your mother needed maternity care.”

2 won’t be included because most health care problems are, by definition, unexpected. Especially when you’re talking about a policy that applies to an entire family. It’s not like you can force a teenager to stay off drugs.

1 may be included. AFAIK the tort reform details haven’t been hammered out yet. Some kind of reform is necessary, and not just caps on punitive damages because it’s clear those don’t work. A major problem with the current system is that if your wife dies on the operating table you have to sue to see the medical records. Which means you don’t know whether it was malpractice, or an act of god until you’ve filed suit. That’s good for the lawyers, but not so good for everyone else.

6 would not be a bad idea under the current system. Under the proposed system, OTOH, fired people probably qualify for subsidies on the health Exchange so it may not be necessary.

BTW, the Obama plan doesn’t actually hurt the insurance industry. It’s quite good for the insurance industry. They get lots more customers, steady revenue in the form of subsidized premiums, etc. Even the public option won’t compete with them in 80-90% of the insurance market because it’s restricted to the exchange.

I think I like the ideas of giving a state’s residents access to the purchasing power of that state’s workers’ pool. One of the most troubling inequities of the current system is that folks without access to a pool pay higher premiums. Insurance cos negotiate premiums to get the business of big groups.

Another thing I’d like to see is some way to bring down the “sticker” cost of various treatments. You know, the full price tag that almost no one pays. Like,you get oh I dunno a custom splint to immobilize a sprain, and your bill says it’s $561, yada yada they accept your insurance which reimburses for $280. Some sap without insurance pays the full $561. If the doctor can get by with $280, n one sb paying the $561. Maybe their could be a rule where your sticker price can’t be more that say 30% greater than the average reimbursement you get.

Seems pretty opportunistic.

Please tell me when the GOP has pushed for Health Care Reform—EVER. Because if they had, we’d already have it.

Your opening premise was Democrats have a trojan horse to someday have a single payer plan. They are so damn sneaky about it that almost everyone says it’s what they’d like in a perfect world but that it isn’t likely which many would say destroys your premise since they said it in public or in front of cameras.

I have been repeatedly trying to show you that it is just as much if not far more plausible to say that the secret plan of the GOP is to kill reform and that everything they say on the subject to the contrary is every bit as deceptive if not more so than what you are railing about.

The Democratic premise, as I would state it, is that the system doesn’t work. Part of that system is that putting lives of Americans in a situation where profits determine someone’s ability to live is not a good way to run health care. They also take the position that although based on the market we get much less than we pay for when compared to other countries. You may think all of that is wrong. The most recent election shows that more Americans disagree with you than agree. Health Care Reform was one of the major reasons stated for the results.

You may disagree with that but Death Panels and Killing Grandma are where your side has made their stand. So who has really taken the deceptive approach to the argument? All of the independent fact checks that I have seen are overwhelmingly that the debate from the Right is not factually based.

Oh and I have never read Saul Alinsky.

Don’t want health care reform……totally wrong. They just dont want a public option and they dont want to do what YOU want them to do.

We will say and do anything to defeat Obama because we think it will be good for our Party

Now this might have some validity to it. It is after all a political test of wills and the Democrats just spent 8 years saying and doing anything to defeat Bush because it was good for their party.