I’d like to propose a research project: Let’s find out whether the “public options” in the Senate HELP Committee bill and the House tri-committee bill really are different from the co-ops Baucus is considering. This little project is on my to-do list, but I haven’t had time to get to it.

Based on a quick reading of the “public option” sections of the two bills, I got the impression that the authors of both bills are not talking about a single national public health insurance program like Medicare, but about many insurance programs, serving only sub-national areas, run by non-profit “entities” that contract with the Dept of Health and Human Services. If this impression is accurate, then the question arises, what “entities” would DHHS want to contract with? What “entities” would be capable of cranking up a insurance company on short notice? The first “entities” that spring to my mind are the non-profit insurance companies such as Kaiser Permanente headquartered in CA (and savaged in “Sicko”) and all the Blue Cross BS companies that remain nonprofit.

As I said, this is a half-baked impression only. I might change my mind once I reread some of those convoluted sections describing the authority of the “public option” program director. Obviously, if my suspicion is correct, the “public option” in the Senate HELP and House tri-comm bills will turn out to be just one more giveaway to the insurance industry.

I’ve got some other projects I have to deal with. If anyone else can do the research before I get to it, please do and tell us what you find.

Kip Sulllivan

However, it’s still not to late to establish this ’standard’.

For all these many years, I have advocated the expansion of the VA’s Medical and Hospital Systemic. And as such, I ask all of whom have posted to this thread, “Have you ever visited the VA in your geographical area?”

And thus, my second question is, “Does Obama’s Public Option for an Insurance Exchange measure up to the history and success for “medical care delivered” done by the VA?”

I look forward to reading your responses.

Jaango

And term limits are worse than the incumbency problem. A large part of the incumbency problem is due to politicians being allowed to shop for constituents in the redistricting process. In most of the country (everywhere the State Lege does the districting) the first rule of map drawing is, “Protect the incumbents.” The second rule is, “Improve my district.” The third rule is, “Help out my party.”

You will notice that none of these rules are, “Draw districts with meaningful geographies”, nor “Draw competitive districts”. When safe districts are drawn, the primary election of the dominant party is the important election in the district. Primary elections draw out the party faithful. In the case of the Regooplican Party, the faithful are the tin-foil hat wearing batshit crazies. It’s part of the current problem in Congress: most of the voters are in the middle, but the middle is marginalized as much as possible by the districting process. To stay in office, incumbents have to win their primary. Regooplicans especially have to appeal the reality-challenged to win the primary. They have nothing to win (and everything to lose) by compromise.

This whole health care system battle is already lost because the obstructionists view it as a way to defeat Obama (making it his ‘Waterloo’, is that what I heard?). I’m sick of the debate – so sick i might have to use my $ 555 a month health insurance to get inoculated.

That said, I would really and truly like to see substantive debate – not name-calling or fear-mongering. I also don’t want to see something rushed through with little or no thought behind it. I don’t want it to be a PR war, as torgo2009 said.

Term limits or no, there are no statesmen anymore. We’re getting what we’ve voted in to office and they’re not listening because they don’t have to – no one’s making them and I see no recall efforts initiated to get rid of the bad ones. Most of these folks end up running unopposed with either no opposition or opposition that’s so anemically financed that they may’s well not be running.

I’d like to see a system that won’t break the bank, that takes the onus of coverage off employers so insurance is portable, and that doesn’t cost more to administrate than it does to actually provide care. Why is this so difficult?

The government is going to make private coverage illegal.

See for yourself.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2233

What I hear from them is that there can be frustrating delays, but NEVER with life-threatening stuff. And for those who like to talk about Canadian delays, I challenge you to make an appointment with your current doctor for tomorrow morning. A lucky few might be able to get in on such short notice, but I suspect most of us will be looking at at least a week or two before we can get in.