Notice how Obama and Senate bill supporters don't talk about the "typical family" anymore?

[mcablue]

We're only hearing about the uninsured when we hear senate bill proponents make their case. I feel good for them. Many of them (though not all) will get help in the form of subsidies.

But what about the 80% of the insured who get it through their employers? Obama used to say that premiums would decrease by up to $2,500. But now, even the bill with the public option would make a difference of nearly zero in premiums, relative to the increase if current law were to continue. So it's not convenient at all to mention this huge bloc.

Again, good for the uninsured, but that wasn't the only goal. This was supposed to be health reform for everyone. Those with employer-based insurance were supposed to get a nice fat discount, according to promises. The French and every other European developed nation spends half as much as we do in health care and get a better service. We are doing nothing to close the gap.

I'd love to know how many of us DU'ers are uninsured or have individual insurance, as opposed to those who get insurance through their employers.

[dkf]

1. You're right...we don't hear about average costs anymore.

I'd be curious to know how it scores. Also, does anyone know the breakdown of the uninsured? How many are "young and healthy" vs. all the other possibilities?

[valerief]

2. People don't matter to them. Insurance stocks do. nt

[sandnsea]

3. Help For The "typical family" in 2010

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/16/health-reform-help-families-2010

[ProSense]

6. Yesterday? Has he done it in the last hour?

:rofl:

[mcablue]

9. He didn't do it yesterday either

The piece does not single out the "typical family." And your partner misled us when he said "typical family" because the White House piece he linked to does not speak specifically about the typical family.

[mcablue]

7. Why did you put "typical family" in quotation, if the term doesn't appear in your link?

The article talks about insurance companies not being able to discriminate regarding pre-existing conditions. But typical families already have that benefit. The piece talks about families in general. It does not single out the "typical family."

[eridani]

8. Most of this is utterly useless

Why do I fucking care if my former employer gets money for an insurance plan that I don't want because it DOESN'T COVER MY DOCTOR? How does insurance get cheaper if those benefits get taxed? People in that age group with no access to employer insurance at all are just disposable human garbage.

The part about not dropping coverage for sick people is a lot of crap. They'll drop you, and because it is illegal, you'll complain to the government. The government will take action eventually, but by that time you'll be a lot sicker or dead.

They will still deny you coverage for pre-existing conditions if you happen to have a bad credit record as a result.

[Mimosa]

4. Here, BC/BS $10,000 each deductible, 70/30 plan, 800+ a month! Exclusions, too!

DH and I have been self employed over 20 years. Once you hit 50 age bracket, really inclusive coverage would cost us at least 1,400 bucks a month. That we cannot afford.

[ThomCat]

5. $800 a month for a plan you can't use

or $1400 a month for a plan you could have used. What total absolute crap! :(

No wonder Obama isn't bragging about this any more.

[Mimosa]

11. We could use it if we got cancer or stroke or auto accident....

Then we'd have to pay $10,000 -a person- a year which we don't have. Or the hospital would refuse treatment when we couldn't pay once we'd borrowed all we could from cashing in an insurance policy. I just cashed in $5,000 of an insurance policy to pay for some medical treatments. Couldn't afford to put the treatments on credit cards as we'd maxed them during the 18 months after Katrina when we didn't have any income. (Being self-employed, we had no unemployment benefits, and NO, there was no Fed aid for Katrina victims beside $1,400 from FEMA we had to pay back less than one year later! Some people never had to pay it back. It was a crapshoot!)

What happens to people like us that we're too afraid to carry no health insurance so we buy whatever policy BC/BS makes available at a low price because we're too afraid to have none. We're not poor enough for medicaid, thank God. If we got in an accident or sick with cancer or heart attack the only property we've got -our home- could be taken from us.

I've heard many stories of people losing their homes because of hospital's collection efforts. And if we dropped insurance, then we couldn't go to no decent doctors or clinics for routine care. 'Real doctors' do not accept patients who have no health insurance. And if either of us became ill if we couldn't produce proof of insurance, then we'd have to go to a hospital 15 miles away (a dirty broken public hospital) instead of a modern nice hospital only 3 miles away.

[asdjrocky]

10. Somethin else that's funny?

They never talk about poor people. Or the homeless.

[bigwillq]

12. Or gay people

unless it's throwing them under the bus.

[Generator]

13. I posted two links the other day that said

middle class premiums would go up drastically. That's me-very middle class now. It made me mad. I also posted that the senate bill would force most poorer families off CHIP to make them buy insurance that's more expensive through the exchange. That makes me scared because if my husband dies or loses his job I will have my kids on government insurance as the most money I ever made in my life was 20k a year as an office worker-a job I'd be lucky to get know as I am nearing fifty and haven't worked for many years. I got excited about buy in to medicare because I never know if my husband will lose his job in a few years. ONLY EIGHT YEARS to wait for health care. Whoo hoo.

Also I don't want more families to suffer.

But these posts supporting Obama and the admin and how I am too uncaring rich and educated or immature and haven't voted or whatever shit Ezra Klein and Chris Matthews wants to throw at me(absurd!) are the reason I think Howard Dean is telling the truth and not the White House- get many reads.

My post with links got six replies. So whatever. I believe Dean and the progressives. Not Rahm Emmanuel and Joe Lieberman.

[butterfly77]

14. We don't have a bill yet..

so what will they call whatever it is after it goes back to the House?