Screw health care reform.

[ClassWarrior]

What we need is health INSURANCE reform.

Which is precisely what Progressive reform advocates are proposing.

I support single-payer because it does it the most cleanly and efficiently. It leaves the health CARE system in place as it is. But it removes the waste, bureaucracy, and corruption of the for-profit insurance industry.

Thus it actually enhances the doctor-patient relationship by removing the middleman.

Other plans don't go as far as single-payer, but they also seek to reform the financing, not the care.

So it's not health care reform. It's health INSURANCE reform. And what sensible American could argue with that?

We should start talking about it that way.

NGU.

[phantom power]

1. Good point...

and framing it that way would help kneecap all this baloney about single-payer "dictating our health care choices." FFS, it would increase people's choices.

[ClassWarrior]

8. Exactly!

NGU.

[stray cat]

2. It would sound less threatening to most - its a good idea

[BeFree]

3. Medicare?

Do you know how much medicare costs and how much it will cost in a few years?

It is the whole system that needs reform, from top to bottom.

[CTyankee]

4. Medicare can only succeed if we are willing to pay for it through our taxes.

Most people in this country "get" that because the bottom line is that just about everbody likes Medicare. Your elderly parents have health care and you will have it when you reach 65. I don't think people will want to give that up.

[BeFree]

6. Exactly

Nobody is gonna give up anything. Why should they: They was promised.

[patrice]

5. Cost reductions from Single Payer may be big enough to finance HealthCARE reform with alternative

services, especially PREVENTATIVE disciplines and programs that have been excluded from coverage because of the increasing costs of coverage. Cut the costs of coverage with Single Payer and then look at what additional professional HEALTHcare services we want covered.

Solidarity, ClassWarrior!

NGU!!

[ClassWarrior]

7. Agreed, but first things first.

And let's make sure we're using terminology that's clear and direct. Because what we're proposing is what the American people want.

Peace, patrice!

NGU.

[patrice]

9. Agreed, definitely prioritize Single Payer NOW!

I fliered the party crowd in our area college-town last night. People are receptive to discussing Single Payer.

We MUST get out there on this.

I will flier my neighborhood maybe tomorrow, or sometime this week.

[ClassWarrior]

10. For sure.

Great job patrice!

NGU.

[Fire1]

11. Agree.

[Occam Bandage]

12. Health care reform is necessary as well.

Bureaucracy isn't the only problem with cost. Equipment, supplies, and medicine are all exorbitantly expensive.

[ClassWarrior]

16. You're talking about cost, not care.

:shrug:

NGU.

[Occam Bandage]

17. We can't afford to provide care without controlling cost.

:shrug:

[ClassWarrior]

20. Exactly. Cost is the issue.

:shrug:

NGU.

[verges]

13. I agree whole-heartedly!!

That actually occured to me this afternoon.

[TheKentuckian]

14. "What we need is health INSURANCE reform."

I like the way you frame. Good call.

[Faryn Balyncd]

15. We can't afford trillion dollar corporate welfare for insurance companies - Pseudo "reform" is WORSE

......than no action at all.

If the public option is stripped from the reform package ---- as the Republican and Dem's Max Baucus, Chuck Schumer, Arlen Spector, Ben Nelson, and even Ron Wyden desire ---- the result will NOT be reform at all..... Instead we will have corporate welfare that bankrupts America and still leaves Americans without affordable healthcare.

We must demand a viable public option ---- The best would be Single Payer Medicare for All.

If the so-called "reform" bill strips out the public option, we MUST DEFEAT IT!!!!!

For Democrats to be complicit with such a psedo-reform is to betray our principles, and to destroy the hope of ever achieving true reform.






Thanks for posting........K & R (Rec. #9)

[bvar22]

18. I STAND with you.

The "Centrist" Democrats will undoubtedly try to rig this so that America will be forced to choose between two Corporate Welfare Plans.

I absolutely OPPOSE any "reform" that channels taxpayer dollars (subsidies to purchase For Profit Insurance) to one of the RICHEST Industries in the World. This will only further enrich and entrench the For ProfitHealth Insurance Industry, and provide less Health Care/tax dollar.

[Clear Blue Sky]

19. Agree. Our health care is second to none. Delivery is the problem. nt