Health care plan question

[Stinky The Clown]

I posted this before and only got one reply. Hopefully some of you will try to help me out.

Will the proposed Obama plan allow people like me, who must now buy health insurance at the incredibly high individual, non-group rate, to buy into "the federal plan" or to "buy into Medicare" or to somehow be able to buy insurance at lower rates?

Private insurance can easily exceed $2,000 per **month** for people with medical 'history'. How will they be helped by the Obama plan?

Universal single payer is the mountaintop. For now, we need *at least* a first step into the foothills.

[yellowdogintexas]

1. my understanding is that is the exact purpose. The uninsured and underinsured

are the target audience here so to speak

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Unsing me as an example .... I am neither un- or underinsured ......

.... but I pay at a skyhigh rate. An obscene rate. We pay street prices for individual coverage. Will people like us be able to buy into a lower cost system?

[yellowdogintexas]

4. I should think so, because even us folks with group coverage can opt out

of our company's plan if we like the gov't one better.

Yes the overcharged consumer definitely is part of the target group. It is essentially going to be the biggest insurance group in the nation.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Oh I hope that's how it goes down .....

.... again, I want universal single payer, but this will be a welcome first step.

[alsame]

7. Me too. I've been self-employed since the late 90s and buy

individual coverage. The monthly premiums have more than tripled in the past 8 years although there has been no change in coverage or my medical status.

Obscene is exactly the right word. I'm hoping that I too will be able to buy into the system.

[Clear Blue Sky]

2. Medicare is a fairly generous system, and expensive.

I suspect the "federal plan" will be more like Medicaid, otherwise the government won't be able to pay for it.

[Cleita]

6. Medicare is being bled into anemia by privatization.

If they kick the for profit insurers and HMOs out of it, they can extend it to cover this without excess expense.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Howard Dean was on TV the other day saying exactly that.

A menu option for opting into a public insurance system (medicare) is the line in the sand. Anything less than that is not reform.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. I know ..... I posted about that and quoted him ... but got no replies

I don't know if that was his hope for the system or if it was an actual part of the Obama plan.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. He told the interviewer that it was part of Obama's plan. n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

11. That's good.

We need this to happen soon.

[dflprincess]

12. My biggest fear is that we'll get some kind of half-assed change,

(like forcing us to buy insurance), it will get called "reform" and it will be another 30 years before we get single payer. With so many other countries having single payer systems, this shouldn't be so hard. It's not like it's a new idea.

Minnesota is looking at doing its own thing and I asked my state senator why they didn't look at the systems in other countries and he gave me this line about "we'll have a uniquely American solution". I pointed out that we already have a "uniquely American" system and it's a disaster - but I didn't get a response.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. I don't mind being forced to buy insurance... provided public insurance is one of the choices. n/t