Comments on: Steny Hoyer Says “Public Option May Have To Go” For Bill Passage

By: Robt

Robt — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 08:15:57 +0000

The Public OPtion may have to stay in place for any bill passed.

Now see, it sounds so much better and accomplishes so much more.

By: MarkH

MarkH — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:01:37 +0000

Bloody ‘ell. Let’s not get too mad at our own people, eh.

By: MarkH

MarkH — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 03:57:45 +0000

Heh. What brand do you chew or are ya just spittin’?

Maybe after this reform goes through we ought to run a big ad campaign urging people to drop chewing tobacco. I know it’s been done before, but with the new reform in place it would seem only appropriate to raise awareness of personal health at that time.

Jeez, I’m glad I never used tobacco. Nasty stuff!

By: PJEvans

PJEvans — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:20:20 +0000

F*ck Steny Hoyer.
On second thought, hand him a rusty garden implement and tell him to do it himself.

By: BayGirl

BayGirl — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:37:48 +0000

Amen. I am so furious at Hoyer and all these Democratic creeps tyring to undermine the PO. The public option is not only a progressive goal, IT’S A DEMOCRATIC GOAL!!! Have these so called Democrats forgotten what the hell they stand for? The PO is about what’s best for the people of this country, not just one side of the political spectrum!!! I am so sick of this shit. Don’t these shitheads give a damn about Americans???? I swear to god, I am this close to bowing out of the political process for good.

By: pjack

pjack — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:47:38 +0000

uh; I think Vietnam was in the 20th century
Put your pipe down and exhale

By: Blub

Blub — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:31:35 +0000

and, by the way, if the PO isn’t strong enough or the underlying unit service cost doesn’t start falling as a result, even with the PO we’ll be right back where we started in 10 or 15 years - with a fiscally unsustainable system.

At that point, the only remaining option will be full-blown nationalization - seizure of a bankrupt system and all of its people, buildings and equipment, where every doctor, nurse, clinic and hospital will become part of the US Federal Health Service. It is not impossible that we’re only buying time with these “reform” measures, but only time will tell. We need to be willing to give the PO-based hybrid system a chance. We kind of don’t have a choice, because nothing else will pass now that’ll even remotely have a chance to work. If pass employee/citizen-mandate only or co-ops, we’re guaranteeing ourselves nationalization in only a few short years.

It is almost impossible to overstate how fundamentally sick and broken the American healthcare system is right now.

By: jonerik

jonerik — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:31:09 +0000

I have no idea how I got on their serve list. I noticed that I used to get some sort of emails from “Bloomberg news” and these seemed to follow that. Anyway, I assumed they were some sort of Scaife operation since the stuff they spew is typical disinformation/scare tactic stuff.

By: robspierre

robspierre — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:24:51 +0000

News flash: the public says, “Hoyer may have to go”.

By: Blub

Blub — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:12:48 +0000

see the Congressional Budget Office graph I linked in #57 above.

Basically, Medicare as insurance charges a lot less than private insurance for premiums but the underlying unit cost structure of services is exactly the same. In short, the math fails. Medicare cannot be extended in its current form without forcing changes in the underlying servicse cost structure, and nothing in the design of Medicare-style single-payer will do that (as proven by the fact that the blue line and red line basically track each other). We could’ve gotten single payer to work decades ago, but not now… not with costs as out of control as they are. Single payer, if introduced now, would simply fail.

Really we have two choices now: (i) a strong PO as price-setter and private-insurance as price-takers, with enforced margin-compression on the takers to force real productivity gains in the healthcare industry, or (ii) outright nationalization of the entire system (VA-for-all) followed by massive and brutal cost-cutting (my 97% pay cut for surgeons). Anythign else fails.