Without a Medicare like Public Option this bill is not health care reform.

[Cleita]

The prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, has defined five criteria for healthcare reform. This bill fails on every level.

http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2004/Insuring-Americas-Health-Principles-and-Recommendations.aspx

<snip>

In Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations, the committee offers a set of guiding principles, based on the evidence reviewed in the Committee's previous five reports and on new analyses of past and present federal, state, and local efforts to reduce uninsurance., for analyzing the pros and cons of different approaches to providing coverage. The principles for guiding the debate and evaluating various strategies are:

Health care coverage should be universal.
Health care coverage should be continuous.
Health care coverage should be affordable to individuals and families.
The health insurance strategy should be affordable and sustainable for society.
Health insurance should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable.

Although all the principles are necessary, the first is the most basic and important. The principles are intentionally general, which allows them to be applied in more specific operational and political processes. A fact sheet on each of these principles and a checklist of questions based on the principles are available below.

<snip>

This is the reason Dennis Kucinich can't support this bill as it stands. Put in a public option making Medicare available to anyone who wants it, then he will support it.

[harun]

1. Or open the door for states to do Single Payer systems.

Any one of those three things could bring in Kucinich, they won't do it though.

[Cleita]

5. It would bring him in because he has proposed it himself and it was voted

down by the corporatists and it would provide the feds with a fig leaf that they could use during the campaign season.

[MisterP]

2. bbbut I saw a cartoon of Fearless Leader pushing a gurney labeled "reform" into an ER,

blocked only by the wicked Elephant Goldstein, who doesn't want Americans to be cured of their ills, which will doubtless happen with this divinely-inspired HCR...
:sarcasm: (yes, this post needs it)

[Warpy]

3. What they need to do to this bill is lower Medicare eligibility age

to the corporate expiration date of 55. That will buy them the time over the next 3 years to design a public option, one reason I suspect one isn't in this bill.

To say that this bill contains no reforms is disingenuous at best and reflects the thinking of someone who has not read any of the proposals. The bill contains quite a bit of reform, but without a Medicare buy in for people who have been thrown out of work for having too many birthdays, it's incomplete.

Read the overview of the "bad" Senate bill for yourself: http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill49.pdf

[ProSense]

4. So posting this and then making the claim that the bill doesn't meet these requirement is a fact?

Health care coverage should be universal. (this bill provides universal coverage)
Health care coverage should be continuous. (coverage is continuous, even for the unemployed)
Health care coverage should be affordable to individuals and families. (coverage will be affordable, with provisions for hardship exemptions)
The health insurance strategy should be affordable and sustainable for society. (the entire idea behind reform is to make the system sustainable, which it currently isn't)
Health insurance should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable. (•In many cases coverage will be more comprehensive and accessible than what is typically available today in the non-group market, so premiums cannot easily be compared to what people buying insurance on their own are now paying.)


Now, how does Kucinich think killing the bill fulfill the stated requirement?

[leftstreet]

7. Universal, continuous, affordable payments to for-profit Insurance companies

Got it

[sixmile]

15. +1,000,000,000!

'Provide' is not equal to 'forces upon'.

[ProSense]

16. "Universal, continuous, affordable payments..." See you agree.

the OP said nothing about it being for-profit or non profit.

Mischaracterization is all that you're interested.

[sabrina 1]

9. Romney Care in Mass gives the best preview of

what will happen if this bill passes without a PO.

The OP is correct on many of the points made. Romneycare, defended just as this one is being defended, has seen premiums go up every year and it's only in its third year.

With the much smaller population of Mass, hundreds of thousands are still not covered. Those who have bought into the system but could only afford the cheapest premiums to avoid the fines which also have gone up, nearly triple what they were three years ago, cannot afford the co-pays and deductibles.

Premiums rose again this year and the state is now facing the dilemma of how to keep costs down as promised. And so far, it looks like they cannot.

This on a much larger scale, is what we have to look forward to because this Administration insists on bailing out the failed Insurance Industry.

And the experience of having seen a smaller version of Obama's bill in action, was a big reason why Democrats lost Ted Kennedy's seat. No other state has had the up close look at these mandated insurance policies and windfalls for Insurance Corps that Mass has had.

[sabrina 1]

6. Bernie Sanders said last week that he is willing to

put forward an Amendment to include the PO.

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/bernie-sanders-prepared-introduce-publi

Greg Sargent reports:

Senator Bernie Sanders, in a brief interview in the Capitol just now, confirmed to me that he’s willing to commit to introducing an amendment that would add the public option to the Senate bill’s reconciliation fix.

This is important, because as far fetched as this seems, if this amendment is introduced, a vote on it would be very hard for the Senate Dem leadership to block. The only thing that could stop it from happening, according to Senate expert Robert Dove, is for the parliamentarian to rule that it’s not germane to the Senate bill somehow — something that seems unlikely

I don't know what happened to that but this statement pretty much sums up this 'fight':

From the same link:

Ryan Grim reports that the public option is still viable, but he says it's a matter of will and not votes.

The public option faces its last stand. With more than 40 senators publicly willing to vote for a health care reform reconciliation package that includes the option, the opportunity to reinsert it into the final bill has never been greater, though the battle is nearly over without having been fought.
--
That balance of power gives House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) extraordinary leverage of a historical nature. Pelosi, however, has yet to concede in negotiations that it is the obligation of the House to go first. And the deal that is being reached is driven largely by the White House. But both the Senate and the White House need Pelosi. And the House, of course, has already passed a health care bill with a public option.

If the House does move first, the Senate would essentially face an up-or-down vote on whatever Pelosi sends over. Durbin was asked by HuffPost if he would whip a reconciliation package from the House that included a public option. An analysis of past statements and positions taken by members of the Democratic caucus indicates that there could plausibly be 53 votes for a public option and perhaps several more.

As he says in the article, 'the battle is nearly over WITHOUT EVER BEING FOUGHT.'

[GinaMaria]

13. I hope he does, for the simple reason it will force

these cowards to vote and show us where they really stand. Let them show themselves in the light of day. The bill is on track to pass. There isn't much we can do about it, but we should know who stands against us. That can be achieved by an up or down vote on Bernie's amendment. I really hope he does it.

[sabrina 1]

17. Yes, exactly. But I haven't heard any more

about it since three days ago. I imagine he will be asked not to introduce it for the reasons you stated.

[leftstreet]

8. K&R

[SlingBlade]

10. Your Right. It's 100% Corporate Bullshit. NAFTA Revisited.

Obama fucked everyone here.

His fucking and that of his little band of Congressional Shills
will be returned come November, Guaranteed.

[GinaMaria]

11. This hasn't been health care reform for quite some time now

So I guess none of these five points matter to those who abandoned this cause and instead worked for health insurance bailouts.

Some sort of public run option would be a great balance to the mandate. Without it the mandate should go.

[Echo In Light]

12. k/r

[damntexdem]

14. It's not an adequate HCR; but it is a reform.

Regs on insurers and expansion of eligibility (e.g., extension of coverage of dependents to age 26) are welcome reforms.

[Vinca]

18. The real mystery is why the POTUS is traveling the country

trashing the insurance company practices while serving us up on a platter to them.