Speaking of healthcare...

[BayCityProgressive]

Instead of the Dems pushing a insurance backed travesty or something percieved as "big government healthcare", why don't the Dems push for reform by giving individuals and businesses the option of buying into Medicare??? No it wouldn't be universal, but it would get us in the right direction and give small business and individuals an option for lower cost health insurance.

[Warpy]

1. The DLC

That's the main obstacle. They're still powerful within the party and they're still wedded to Hillarycare, a dog of a plan that would have left insurance companies able to suck profit out of sick people by denying care if they couldn't deny access altogether. It would do nothing to solve the rapid inflation in medical costs, also.

It's pure pride and stubbornness. The plan you cited is the sensible one.

Hillarycare was a terrible plan then and the years have not improved it.

[BayCityProgressive]

3. Did you know

Wellstone, Hillary, and Kennedy supported single-payer care? The Clinton's dropped it because even the Dems int he house and senate wouldn't get behind it at the time. By the time they could get somethign everyone could agree on it was a corporate mess and never made it to a vote. I don't think it's fair to pin that mess on Hillary...all had a hand in it.

[Cleita]

17. I wish they would go rejoin the Republican Party where they

came from. I can understand why they think corporatism should be supported, because Capitalism is better, yadda, yadda, but now that the corporations own everything, it's time for the people to start taking some of it back to where there is a fair balance between socialism and capitalism. That certainly is not true today.

[burythehatchet]

2. Because the health insurers need their 30 cents

of every healthcare doller. Any attemp to do otherwise will mobilize one of the most powerful lobbies in America.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. I was JUST thinking about healthcare!

the single largest cause of personal bankruptcies in the country. AND a large portion of the people declaring bankruptcy due to medical expenses HAVE insurance! Why doesn't America realize that everyone in this country is just one catastrophic illness away from living in a refrigerator box under a bridge?

I was just thinking that anyone who has medical bills they are unable to pay should have those bills amortized over their lifetime or 40 years, (whichever is longer )at a 1% interest rate. They would pay this amount into some general fund and medical bills could never be a reason for a personal bankruptcy. This fund might be used to reimburse hospitals or doctors for unpaid care.

Why couldn't this be part of a new bankruptcy bill?

[BayCityProgressive]

5. because they want their money now

with 20% interest damn it! I bash Hillary on some of the decisions she makes but one issue I respect her on is healthcare. She has worked her entire life for children and healthcare and I think they are important issues to her. If she is our nominee I think that will be a big focus of hers. Also remember, we may want single-payer but congress will never allow it. The first form of universal care that we get is likely to be far from perfect.

[cyclezealot]

7. having HMO oriented healthcare

will only cause less trust of government; having enacted another piecemeal looser. I'd rather just have the American people suffer a couple more years until the whole system just bankrtupts itself. Then we will get real reform.

[antigop]

6. That very idea has been proposed by several DU'ers

Pete Stark has a bill, Early Access to Medicare, that would allow buy-in for ages 50 and up. Granted, it's not everybody, but it would help those that are tossed out from corporate America simply because they got "too old".

[cyclezealot]

8. and such a plan would

probably do little to reduce personal bankruptacies.

[antigop]

11. Unless you have some numbers and real data, how can you make that statement? n/t

[cyclezealot]

14. true.

I can't recall any numbers ever being published by those advocating the early buy into Medicare. Compared to the rest of the world premimums are already higher than what the rest of the world pays in taxes. No one has ever said, Medicare be bought into at rates, members pay when they reach age 65. Which considering the lousy prescription drug plan costs more than many seniors can afford.
So, I can't but believe premimums will be drastically greater than what seniors pay at age 65.
Not meaning to slander Medicare. For those over 65 it is a close match to Single payer.

[Rosemary2205]

9. Medicare is in deep shit.

There are many MANY markets where finding a doctor who will take medicare is next to impossible and I don't see the will in Washington to really do the overhaul that's necessary to change that fact.

[antigop]

10. Medicare needs to be reformed -- you open it for everyone

One of the big problems with Medicare is that it was limited to older people who tend to have medical problems.

If you open up Medicare to people of ALL ages, you get the younger and healthier people into the risk pool, thereby lowering the cost per participant. That, coupled with Medicare's low overhead (3%), will bring the cost of healthcare down. With private sector insurance companies/HMOs you are paying for their marketing costs, inflated CEO salaries, profits, etc. You eliminate these costs by opening up Medicare for All.

The best solution is to open up Medicare to everyone and AT THE SAME TIME, force the insurance companies to accept everyone at the same rate -- NO PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS -- and see which wins.

[Rosemary2205]

12. I like it.

I think you have hit on the one thing that is a real benefit of universal care. The risk pool is distributed throughout the entire population and there is no profit taking - meaning a very low overhead. I'd love to see medicare evolve into universal care, but thus far I have not seen that willingness in Washington.

Why they don't listen to ME is puzzling! :)

[Cleita]

16. Seventy percent of the population wanted NHC when Hillary

tackled the problem. They were propagandized by the industry to view it as some sort of snake pit solution to health care. I think if people truly understand what's at stake, we would get that seventy percent back and then we could pressure Washington with sheer numbers. You know we did it in California, got the people to pressure the legislature and it passed both houses but Arnold Weeniewagger vetoed it. Well, half his support comes from the insurance and for-profit health care industry.

[Cleita]

15. That's because the Repubs keep cutting reimbursement to

health care providers. Letting employers and others buy into Medicare would divert those health care dollars that once went to for profit insurance and HMO's into Medicare and will give it a money boost. Also, I find in my neck of the woods, none of the health care providers accept private insurance either.

I had Blue Cross before I went on Medicare. None of my doctors accepted Blue Cross. I only kept it because the hospitals did, just in case. Now that I have Medicare and have not been turned down yet. So it appears to me that Medicare is preferable to Blue Cross. Oh before that I had Pacific Care and no one would take it.

[Rosemary2205]

18. Blue cross is about the only thing worse than medicare for doctors

I am an HR manager and I can't even begin to tell you HOW MUCH the medical providers HATE Blue Cross. What they have to go through to get payment is just assinine.

Medicare, the payouts are too low, but also there is a problem of getting payment from Medicare and also the ever changing rules that are difficult to keep up with - plus the fact medicare prosecuted doctors who's clerks make an honest mistake on processing due to the ever changing rules. The whole infrustructure of medicare has to be rebuilt in addition to improving the payments.

And I agree with you on winning back the population. :)

[Cleita]

19. My father was able to benefit from Medicare when Johnson

signed it into law. He was retired and found himself with chronic heart problems and no health insurance. Medical bills would have destroyed my parents retirement money. Back then it worked just like premium insurance did with the deductibles and co-pays, and good payment record.

I believe the Republicans have done their level best to make it into a byzantine ordeal like most of their legistlation for entitlements, vis a vis the prescription drug plan. I hope the Democracts streamline the system back to what it was in my parents time. It's really the way we have to go right now, but it's not completely destroyed and can be fixed.

[Cleita]

13. I have suggested this before.

We will never get single payer as long as the insurance and HMO industry are reaping profits. They will get out of the business when it no longer pays. Selling Medicare on the open market to individuals, businesses and states can be done for about half of what private insurance and health care plan premiums are selling for.

I believe a beefed up Medicare, that has this additional source of funding besides the traditional payroll deduction one, will be able to offer superior coverage to everyone. Also, Medicare has no reason to cherrypick so they could cover everyone regardless of their medical history.

Also, all the free market whiners carrying on about socialized medicine have nothing to complain about because this is as free market as it gets. Once, the for profits drop out of the market, then we can move on to real single payer universal health care.