Kos: Remove the mandate, or kill the bill.

[smoogatz]

What I've been saying all along. Sorry if this is a dupe.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/15/814776/-Remove-mandate,-or-kill-this-bill

[LooseWilly]

1. I was about ready to post this OP myself... Cheers!!

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Yes. Right to the point.

[smoogatz]

3. Yep. I think this is where the progressives should step in

and make their presence felt. If one guy can threaten a filibuster and get the public option stripped out, then Russ Feingold and/or Bernie Sanders can sure as hell get the mandate stripped out. Russ? Bernie?

[Bolo Boffin]

4. Sounds like a plan. n/t

[Buns_of_Fire]

5. But will Joe the Arbiter approve if his insurance company friends aren't put on the gravy train?

I can see the scenario where if the mandates are stripped, ol' Love-How-You-Love-Me Lieberman will rear his head again. If they're NOT stripped, we're all screwed.

Actually, I think we're going to wind up screwed EITHER way.

[smoogatz]

7. Let him come out swinging, in public, for his insurance company pals.

Let's see him justify it. And if he does, fine--the bill dies the death it deserves. That's when you strip Lieberman of his chairmanship and chuck him out of the caucus. With us on everything but the war? Riiiiiiiiiiight.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[smoogatz]

8. How about not trying to hijack my thread

with your irrelevant bullshit? Alerting.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gregorian]

11. It will be interesting to see. I read a post earlier that indicated how important the mandate is.

But I can't mention just whom that was. :)

[maglatinavi]

13. Dissent?

Not permitted? Why??? :wtf:

[Nikki Stone1]

10. The can't remove the mandate. That's the core of the bill.

Everything else was just window dressing.

[smoogatz]

14. You're actually not far off.

Mandates were always the point, for Baucus anyway.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. The only way this scheme works mathematically is with mandates.

Without mandator buy in, there's not a ghost of a chance that the insurance companies would even consider it.

[smoogatz]

19. And they're the ones calling the shots.

Evidently. It sure as hell ain't us.

[grahamhgreen]

21. Exactly. Kill it dead.

[chimpymustgo]

25. More from Kos on the mandates:

-edit-

My take is that it's unconscionable to force people to buy a product from a private insurer that enjoys sanctioned monopoly status. It'd be like forcing everyone to attend baseball games, but instead of watching the Yankees, they were forced to watch the Kansas City Royals. Or Washington Nationals. It would effectively be a tax -- and a huge one -- paid directly to a private industry.

Without any mechanisms to control costs, this is yet another bailout for yet another reviled industry. Subsidies? Insurance companies are free to raise their rates to absorb that cash. More money for subsidies? More rate increases, as well as more national debt. Don't expect Lieberman and his ilk to care. They're in it for their industry pals.

-edit-

[Lasher]

12. Remove the mandate and the tax on employee benefits.

All the things we compromised to get are history. So why not remove all the things we compromised?

[LaPera]

15. Kill the current bill! As hard as that is to say....Kill the fucking bullshit bill!

[grahamhgreen]

22. [phone] 00000000000000000000 000000000000000000000 00000000000000

[LaPera]

16. But Obama wants this bill as his center piece of achievement for his State of the Union Address

Any bill will do, even a bill that does virtually nothing to stop the insurance companies gouging, collusion & monopoly, or their obscene profits and absolute command of health care for profit only, as this current Lieberman bill allows.

Fuck the American people, the sick, the dying the workers, the middle class and the poor.

Obama wants to get behind this fucked up bill so he could parade around and call this piece of shit bill "health care REFORM" and claim the bill as a victory for himself, his administration and the American people.

As this pile of shit bill will be his center piece of achievement during his State of the Union Address next month.

Kill the bill! Put this watered down to nothing, bullshit weak bill to death!

[smoogatz]

17. Strip out the mandate, and it's not such a bad bill.

It's not actual reform, but it's a step in the right direction. A mandate with no public option is a disaster, and a bill that Obama ought to veto, assuming it actually made it to his desk.

[Waiting For Everyman]

20. Exactly right.

[eomer]

23. You can't remove the mandate unless you put back the pre-existing condition exclusion.

Because otherwise people can choose to go uninsured while they are well, knowing that they can always buy insurance later on when they incur major health expense losses that need to be paid.

In order for the system work at all it needs to be some form of insurance, where people are required to pay premiums during the time when they are exposed to the risk but have not yet experienced the loss. Otherwise you are just splitting up the cost of the losses among people who have all experienced large losses, a cost that will be too high for anyone to afford.

This proposal is about as smart as proposing fire insurance that people can wait to buy until their house is already on fire.

[smoogatz]

24. You just described exactly why we need the public option. n/t

[eomer]

29. Yes, I absolutely agree. n/t

[smoogatz]

30. But without it mandates are essentially a giant tax on the self-employed

which we then hand directly to insurance companies--a bountiful reward for screwing people over all this time. So what I propose is more/better regulation without mandates, since the public option appears to be dead. Or no bill at all.

[eomer]

31. I think it needs to be no bill at all.

Because I'm strongly opposed to a mandate without a public option. But without a mandate it is impossible to eliminate the pre-existing condition exclusion. It is a domino effect so that once you knock the public option out then you've got to take the mandate out and once the mandate is out then you've got to put the pre-existing condition exclusion back and then we're left we something that is not worth doing.

[pleah]

26. K&R

[mzmolly]

27. Absolutely!

:toast:

[mzmolly]

28. This is what we need to say to our Senators. Call their offices and say "kill the mandates or kill

the bill" ~ Stole that line from other DU'ers. ;-)

[Raine]

32. Kill this piece of shit! nt

[TheWebHead]

33. sounds like a dilusional argument

strip the mandate but keep the pre existing condition abolishment and remove caps and those greedy insurance co's with under 4% after tax margins will go bankrupt in a year. While we're at it, let's have life insurance require coverage for people after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Or instead of OnStar you can have OnInsurance that will activate coverage only after you plow your Lexus into a telephone pole.