Another Bogus "Universal" Healthcare plan, this time from the Dems

[cryofan]

This one looks as bad as all the rest. Looks to me like they still expect poor and unemployed people to have to pay huge insurance premiums. No numbers given; big surprise there. Still no control on costs, it seems.....

This flatus of politics is from Ted Kennedy. Anyway, some excerpts:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Kennedy's plan would require most employers to cover workers and their families and would create a new government program to fill in the gaps. A Kennedy aide said it would cost about $100 billion a year, although savings in other government health programs would offset part of it.

...

Kennedy, one of the leading Democratic voices on health care, outlined legislation that would require large companies and prosperous smaller businesses to insure workers. His Health Security and Affordability Act would cap their financial obligations to 12 percent of payroll. Workers would pay 25 percent of the premium, but low income people would pay less.

For people who still would not be covered through the workplace or a government program for the poor or elderly, Kennedy would create a National Health Benefit Program.

His legislation would also allow U.S.-approved drugs to be imported from Canada and the European Union, and allow the government to negotiate to bring down drug prices for senior citizens on Medicare. The Medicare law signed last year does not allow such price negotiation.


http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=4181037§ion=news


>>>>>>>>>>>

Well, maybe it aint that bad. You tell me.....

[papau]

1. it looks solid - but it retains ins. co's -&I do not see how it can pass.

similiar to Dean's more limited approach.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. Medical care is a commercial product on the free market like any other

As long as you start with that as an unalterable given, all you are going to get is stirring rhetoric and pretty words and pushing food around on the plate.

[cryofan]

4. well. gosh....they do it in France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, and ...

.....Luxembourg and the Netherlands and Denmark and Norway and Finland and Switzerland.....YEEAAARRGGGG!

And for much less than we do.....

[Bandit]

3. Sounds like a redo of the Clinton Health Plan

I don't like the idea that employers are being forced to provide health care benefits for their employees. That should be the responsibility of the government. We are the only westernized country that doesn't provide for it's citizens. And if they use the cost too much Canard just compare to Canada which has run a surplus for the last six years. What we have right now "Cost too Much" period.

[olacan]

6. Why

should it be the responsibility of the government to provide health care benefits?

[FlaGranny]

8. Because the government wouldn't take

a profit from people being sick - in other words, no incentive to not treat.

Edit - not to mention cutting out middlemen (insurers) who must make large salaries and show profits on their books.

[cryofan]

the govt should do whatever the American people WANT, right?

Well, polls show that 60-75% of Americans WANT universal healthcare provided by the govt.

SO, now what do you say?

[Fleshdancer]

11. America is probably the only industrialized nation to think of health care

as a "benefit"

It's okay to give people a tax break on gambling losses or SUV purchases but not to take care of poor sick kids?

Corporate welfare is okay, but not health?

The concept that health should only be afforded by certain members of society is disgusting.

The concept that poor children should be forced to suffer because they were born into a family that does not have health care is cruel and unusual. We treat our criminals better than we do our sick and poor.

[Bandit]

16. The sole purpose of government is to provide for the health and welfare

of it's citizens. That is why.

[Kanary]

5. I'm disappointed in Kennedy

He has been so firery lately, and so right on target. He could do so much by pushing for REAL universal medical.

This is all just so discouraging.

But thanks for posting it, and keeping us up to speed.

I think he's going to get another phone call from me, and this time it won't be a positive one.

Crap.

Kanary

[FlaGranny]

9. You know, it is

disappointing not to get one-payer, but I don't believe that will come to pass in my lifetime. Trying too hard for one payer can only delay getting coverage to people who need it.

Edit: changed "have-payer" to "one-payer" - what was I thinking?

[Kanary]

14. So, I guess you're saying I'm just silly

Nope, I'm not going to buy that.

If we had LEADERS who would actually get on their hind legs and INSPIRE, we could have it.

The majority of the population wants it.

More and more drs want it, and have formed an organization to promote it.

We need LEADERSHIP!

not nay-saying......


Kanary

[FlaGranny]

7. My parents had such a plan

because my father was a retired federal employee. It was their Medicare supplemental and it was a wonderful plan. It paid everything that Medicare did not pay, even the deductible. The entire cost of the insurance was deducted from my father's federal pension, but it was very reasonable. I don't know how much the plan was for both of them when my father was alive, but my mother paid about $115-120 a month combined for Medicare and the federal insurance plan. It even covered 100% of her meds. She paid somewhere around 12 percent of her income for her health insurance and medical care.

I posted the above in LBN. While this program is not as good as one payer, everyone covered, it is the best insurance I've ever had experience with. It was affordable for my mother and she had it for years. She lived to be 94. If premiums are income adjusted with no premiums for the poorest, I see no problem with it. After all, one way or another, we PAY. I do not like the idea of insurance depending on employers though and hope there is a provision to always keep coverage, even when unemployed, retired, etc.

Again, there is no better insurance coverage than the federal employees' insurance.

[lapislzi]

10. Only when health care ceases to be a "for profit" BUSINESS

will we see anything approaching universal health care for all Americans. As long as profits come before people, there can be no real discussion, or any progress.

Sorry, I think I just said what DTF said...but this is one issue that chaps my ass big time.

[Devlzown]

12. That won't work.

Employers either won't hire or they'll keep people part-time so they won't have to give them benefits. Either way, it's not going to help us achieve the goal of universal coverage. We need price caps on drugs and medical care also. Since they're always yelling about tort reform, we should tell them that if they will accept price caps, then we will help pass tort reform.

[cryofan]

13. a sop-to-the-masses kic

[NashVegas]

15. Want to REALLY Bring Down the Cost of Health Care?

Force providers - hospitals, diagnostics, insurers - to charge their *marketing* costs to the stockholders and not the end user.

[SoCalDem]

17. Simplistic, but....

Why doesn't the government just buy all the hospitals, hire all the doctors, and play hardball with the drug companies.??

It would have to be cheaper than what they are doing now..

Dcotors might actually like the opportunity to not have to pay their staffs and run their own clinics/offices..

People need health care, doctors know how to do that..

I don't know why some legislators are obsessed with the idea that people would "abuse" a system where they had access to medical care.. I have never met a single person who LIKED to go to the doctor or hospital..

Putting the onus on the employers "allows" them to keep wages lower because of the "benefits" they may offer.. If the employers did not have to do all the paperwork and pay for the health care, they might actually be able to afford to hire more people..

The insurance companies could actually band together and form regional centers to do the paperwork for the govt, or they could all just "find other jobs".:):) Maybe they could move to India..their workforce could probably use their services :)

Medical benefits (or the threat of losing them) is holding people hostage to companies .....and making people ill from worrying..

I cannot believe that we have treated our own citizens so shabbily for so many years, and our brilliant legislators cannot seem to figure it out ..:(

Instead of panels of "experts", we need panels of CITIZENS..

[Cleita]

18. We will never have these health care rights until the

insurance industry is taken out of the equation as well as the Wall
Street for profit HMOs. As reported last week on NOW with Bill Moyers, 18 thousand Americans a year die because they don't have health insurance that don't have to die.