Reply #6: Walmart is taking too much heat

[sandnsea]

for being a bad employer and they know they are going to have to start providing health insurance. What better way to level the competition then support a mandate on all businesses. In addition, they're opening those little instant clinics so they will stand to gain from the business end too. Win win all the way around for Walmart.

It is so nice to see such a rational health care debate. Should have known it would happen in here.

The problem Blanche Lincoln has with the public option is cost too. As some in this thread have said, what good is a public option if it isn't financially self-sustaining. Just because a premium might be set at an affordable rate, if it's being propped up by taxes then that doesn't mean it's cheaper at all. It's also important to make sure there is an honest accounting system in place that really measures equal service, not limited public care against the full care that the wealthiest expect and pay for.

I think there's a kind of shifting reasoning when people quote numbers proving single payer costs less, single payer countries spend less; and then when shortages are acknowledged they say the funding isn't adequate. Well if the funding isn't adequate, then how do we know if it's really cheaper if we are comparing it to so many people who fully fund their own health care here. It's not as if the health care of low income people isn't calculated into the costs because low income people do get emergency care and often get treatment as well. The cost is billed and included in health care statistics, it's just not paid for.

It's nice to hear Mass is at 97% coverage. Oregon is going to hit 95% of children covered with a new bill, and an additional 60,000 on the OHP. We passed some new taxes including a hospital tax which most hospitals thinking they will get more money by getting more people insured than they will lose with the tax. I think that's it anyway. We also passed a tax on premiums. http://www.oregonsenatedemocrats.com/press-releases/senate-votes-to-dramatically-expand-health-care-coverage-for-oregonian%E2%80%99s-children-and-most-vulnerable Health coverage here is basically OHP which is Medicaid, SCHIP, and then the Insurance Assistance which are subsidies that pay up to 95% of premiums. The Insurance Assistance has a waiting list, OHP and SCHIP don't. I have insurance assistance, there was an open enrollment a few years ago. It's fine, I have Blue Cross. Opening the federal employee insurance to everyone, with a subsidy, would probably be a huge step forward in itself.

One thing Oregon does that I haven't heard discussed at all - insist non-profits take all patients. I am so fortunate that the local Catholic hospital does real outreach and practically demands that you use their assistance program. Almost everybody qualifies for some kind of help and quite often it's 100%. They just built a huge new facility in Eugene so it doesn't seem to be hurting them any. It would be helpful to see why this group can do this, and other Catholic providers sometimes turn people away.