Hey Jane not to be picky but I think you meant September 2009.

I am glad he released something now we can start to process of cleaning up this shit pile of a proposed bill.

see scarecrow on this.

You are a couple in your 40’s making $45,000 a year. Baucus makes you pay the worst junk plan for about $6,000. If you get sick (and hopefully your condition is covered) your out of pocket fees will be 11,900.

Way to go Democrats you make a couple pay 18,000 on health care, 40% of their income.

We’ll be watching closely to see if any members of the veal pen are dragged out to validate this middle class travesty

if you count those groups in Jane’s earlier McClatchy link . . .

I have Divided We Fail in the pool

Baucus wealth care plan for insurance companies.

to be fair to Max, $2.8 million in bribes has to buy his owners some love ;-)

The sad thing is that even the AHIP isn’t this mean. Their plan that they wanted Congress to adopt was far more generous and provided better coverage.

Not to worry, Obama has us covered. That the White House (Axelrod and Gibbs and Emanuel) are poles apart regarding what is or isn’t in Obamas plan is designed to keep the GOP off balance so a coherent response is more difficult. Right? Right? Right :-[

Way to go Max.

Please be assured that in the case of a popular uprising, you’ll be high on the rebels’ A list.

FWIW, if I were you, I’d check the box *****.

*****Mod note: Violent reference removed.

Actually, I do not think that triggers over the next 3-4 years that would force a public option are a bad idea. Always remember this. The good should not be sacrificed for the perfect and in this case the votes for a public option are simply not there. I really hope that the entire health coverage debate does not just fall apart due to some demanding someing that can not be passed. Keeping dems in line like the rethugs do is impossible. As someone once said, bossing dems is like herding cats. All you wind up doing is pissing off the cats.

Is that true? Shocking.

Well sure it is. In fact, with a mandate, that’s why they not only don’t oppose doing away with the old practices of not paying based on pre-existing conditions, they welcome it!!

Because with a mandate, the more they need to cover, the more it costs. And the more it costs, the more profit they make, even if the profit percentage remains the same.

It’s a win-win for the insurance companies.

Which is also why a mandate without a public option is just about the dumbest damned thing I’ve ever heard of. Just imagine how much premiums are going to rise now that they have to pay for all those procedures and patients they didn’t before when then they could “pre-exist” their way out of paying.

And then just imagine the same, say 7% profit margin on all that extra total health care spending.

Little wonder they’re paying millions in ads on TV in support of it.

Yessir, a mandate to purchase along with a mandate to pay for things they didn’t pay for before equals big time increases in premiums, and profits!!! Hooray!

And if Baucaus’s junk bill passes Obama will sign and raise the 1000+ pages over his head and declare, “we have healthcare in our time.” Obama is the U.S. equivalent to Neville Chamberlain.

Steal this and post it to your own site:
No guts, no glory.

The really odd thing about the political calculus (if one believes it’s about getting votes in elections) is, no matter how anyone feels about the public option, can you imagine, a year from now, there’s a successful health care plan that people like, someone potential Democratic voter in Indiana or Nebraska is going to say, ‘The Democrats are doing a fine job, but since their health care plan included a public option I just can’t vote for them.’ On the other hand, if the plan includes forcing you by law to buy crappy insurance you can’t afford and don’t want, I’m pretty sure that’s going to cost a vote or two.

Weird. Or, subservient to corporate interests above all else.

RIP, Van Jones. Progressives thinking of going into public service, don’t worry: Obama’s got your back.

I’m watching the news. Just saw a shot of the president wearing an AFL-CIO jackeet and baseball hat. Oh, that makes him look like Everyman. Not. I’m thinking about that photo of Dukakis in the helmet. But, that’s just my eye.

Right, Obama has your back with a knife in his hand.

I really hope that the entire health coverage debate does not just fall apart due to some demanding someing that can not be passed.

The healthcare coverage debate fell apart before it even happened. What we got instead was an insurance debate, and the focus of that debate was who would sell out to insurance company interests the most. The best we can hope for is that whatever bill that comes up will get killed. This is a case where something really is worse than nothing.

“The good should not be sacrificed for the perfect”

Bullshit. Absolute, reeking bullshit conventional “wisdom” that leads nowhere.

Or he’ll push you over and have his way with you…

Baucus plan – Sacrificing the good for the outrageous

As simply as I can say it, The current healthcare debate is insane. It’s like a street mugger politely asking you if you would rather be shot in the left knee or the right knee.

In Mike Davis’ “Planet of Slums” (2006), the U.S. is listed as the only developed nation with a slum population in excess of 10 million people. In the U.S., 5.8% of the population (12.8 million people) currently live in slums. Remember, this is before the Wall Street/Treasury/Fed robbery took place.

WHAT THE HELL?!

And here we are with a White House and Congress in “serious” conversations regarding a mandatory health care plan that steals money from the poor and working class for “fake” health insurance with deductibles that even staunchly middle-class workers will never be able to afford. As it’s currently being promoted, it’s really just another regressive tax. When is this going to stop? When the U.S. passes up Mexico and Brazil in total slum population? When our rich are forced to buy armor-plated cars to take their kids to school so their family members won’t be kidnapped and held for ransom?

There is no limit to greed, it appears. Not corporate greed, not congressional greed, not even White House (read Rahm “re-election coffers” Emanuel) greed.

Perhaps we should change the wording on our money from “In God We Trust” to “Be Rich or Die”.

Their take home would be about 36K after taxes so 50% of their income. I’m sure they will be fine ,just like mad max

Insuance reform is intended to insure Rhambo’s corporate dems coffers get larded up and to insure the republicans are not. He does this by forcing millions of people to tithe up to 15% of their meager incomes to the health insurance industry, a portion of which goes to fund corporate democrats re-election campaigns and none to republicans.

Rhambo will use a trigger to the heads of the health care industry for political finance compliance.

I doubt if the Baucus proposals will end up on Obama’s desk and then signed. Not unless BHO has some political death wish, for his party and for himself, I’ve failed to detect so far.

And what about the lousy Dem senators from Montana? One a corporatist sellout for the health insurance industry, and another who’s a wishy-washy centrist who doesn’t stand for much beyond the 2A (remind me again why some lefty bloggers were so excited about Tester getting elected …).

And to think that once not too long ago, and for a period of some 24 yrs, Montana kept electing a great, productive liberal, the former senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield.

You can all relax, no hat.

This is why this entire thing needs to be scrapped, and we need to begin again with real open hearings so that the public is informed all along the way and no back room deals are done.

The problem here is “Who knows what the heck is in the 1000 pages?” Yes, there are the bullet points that sound good, but who knows if there are many other things, the result of back room deals like with pharma, that we don’t like that are stuck in there too?

We need to scrap it, bring in the light of day, and begin again and design something that really works and includes all angles of reform.

Maybe single payer, maybe tort reform, maybe other reform.

Just junk it and begin again and do it right this time.

Soul train is runnin in Cincy!

It must have been a shot from some thing else. I wasn’t all that upset, though. But, thanks. You too.

He was proly grippin and grinnin at the pikanick.

Prolly. Really all I was saying is that some men wear tuxedos better than others. George Bush looked like a regular guy when he was dressed down.

Obama is using his campaign voice.

“The good should not be sacrificed for the perfect”

Is this the same as “too big to fail”?

That is, another excuse to shove huge sums of money at the corporate world?

In fact, it’s like giving the homeless a quarter and then feeling virtuous about it.

Ever see Barak go to his left and drive the hoop?

Polls show that it’s hhis strength. And, actually, I think he is campaigning with this speech. So, it’s a natural, no?

I don’t see where this is “junk insurance”. Junk insurance would be insurance that looks good for the first couple thousand bucks of costs and then Peters out and leaves you on your own afterwards. By limiting out of pocket to 12k or so, this is a big improvement over what’s available to a lot of people now. It would ELIMINATE junk insurance by my definition. Of course people could still buy insurance with better coverage on the first dollar.

Oh, I’m not saying he isn’t smooth. You might be misunderstanding me. I hope not, tho.

not at all

Goodie. I want to make no mistake. *g*

Actually, this won’t be the final Senate bill. The Baucus bill will be reconciled with the HELP committee bill.

I believe the subsidies will remain at 400% of FPL, and there will be a public option but with a trigger. While not perfect, I do think this would be a good start. Keep in mind it is a lot easier to add things later than it is to start health care reform all over again years from now. There is a reason Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton all failed to pass health care reform. It wasn’t because they had lousy plans or didn’t try. It is because it is COMPLICATED. It is impossible to reform something so complex without winners and losers, and its so easy to spread lies as the Republicans and business lobby front groups have successfully done.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the Medicare drug plan have a public option w/trigger? The public plan would be offerred in states with too little competition? This wasn’t needed as insurance companies rushed to the market. There are times things work out better than we think. If they don’t, it is easier to fix them than to start over. Keep in mind at first Social Security didn’t cover half the population – didn’t cover farmers just laborers.

Also, this plan will ultimately be judged by how much it helps both people and small business. It will not be judged by whether they purchase public plan, a cooperative plan, or a well regulated private plan. The public is going to find the bill outrageously expensive whether we scale it back or not – $800 billion and $1.1 trillion are both astronomical sums to people. However, if enough people and small businesses find the subsidies helpful, they will be happy with the Democrats.

I think progressives are taking a big risk by insisting on all or nothing. If Obama fails to pass a bill, the Republicans are going to win big in the year 2010 and maybe 2012. We will then get their “race to the bottom” plan which is to deregulate and allow people to buy across state lines. That’ll lower premuims for younger/healthy people, but premuims will go way up for older/sicker people. The GOP plan won’t reduce costs – it will shift them and shift them to sicker people.

I’m increasingly worried we won’t get a bill because Obama is boxed in from both the left and the right. Health care reform is hard – Truman, Nixon, and Clinton didn’t fail because they had lousy ideas or because they weren’t competent. They failed because it is such a delicate act to balance so many competiting interests and ideologies.

I’m just very worried we will get nothing, and then it will be another 15 years.

Obama not going to give away Wed. night address.

“Lemme say a few things about health care. . . every debate at sometime comes to an end. . . it’s time to act. . .a cap on expenses. . . no pre-existing, exchange, public option”!

I may be misunderstanding the plan- but it doesn’t look so bad to me (of course it isn’t really the health care plan- it’s the plan to pay for it).

Giving premium relief up to 300% of poverty sounds pretty good. They can buy any insurance plan they want if I understand it- they aren’t required to buy a high deductible plan- but the plan would lower the ceiling on how high a high deductible plan could be.

Making the insurance companies pony up to pay for the thing makes sense as they are going to get a lot out of the “mandate”.

I may be missing something but this sounds pretty good on the whole.

According to Digby the out-of-pocket limits in the Baucus proposal are as follows.

Mr. Baucus would impose limits on out-of-pocket medical costs — the co-payments, deductibles and similar charges for covered items and services. The limits would be $11,900 a year for a family and $5,950 for an individual. The comparable numbers in the House bill are $10,000 and $5,000.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

This is why some people are calling it “junk insurance.” They view the subsidies as insufficient for people w/ moderate incomes. They feel too many people around 300%-400% of FPL would be forced to buy high deductible plans because they still couldn’t afford more. Then they also couldn’t use the health plan because they couldn’t afford to pay $2,000 out of pocket.

Also, my understanding is deductibles often won’t pertain to prevention & to chronic disease management. This is where most health care dollars are consumed. Therefore, most people wouldn’t have to spend $2,000 but there are some who will be. I’m not convinced it is junk insurance myself.

However, read my comments above on how it is very important to pass a bill and get this started. It will be 1000 times easier to adjust the subsidies later on than to start health care reform all over.

Hey, Raven, with this story about Greenwood, I take back what I inferred before. He’s looking more like Everyman right now.

That’s not bad at all. It’s unlikely that a family will have EVERYONE sick- so $5k as a cap isn’t bad. Of course people can still buy whatever plan they want- and the subsidy level of 65k or so sounds pretty generous.

It’s just up the road.

Bullseye!!

What is described as healthcare reform is much more about how to shapeshift current for profit health insurance so the for profit premise is fully preserved and then expanded as well.

Single Payer Plan? Off the table before this “reform” even started.

Public Option? What was compromise position after SPP got axed now getting the axe as well.

Co-op Idea? Clearly being premised with emphasis on being weak,made small in scale and surely intended to discredit any trailback to SPP.

For Profit Health Insurance? Being given lots of protection,preservation and now with mandated compulsory buy in and open ended subsidies being proposed the for profit insurers are getting more profits thrown at them with some meekly structured side agreement/future threat of a “trigger” on a public option insertion which surely will be so gamed that it will never get pulled.

This is not any kind of reform of American healthcare.

This is giveaway and enchance for profit insurers formation via forced join/pay,open ended subsidies and public option/single payer shut out.

Fire it up, baby! One voice can change a room.

This is the kind of speech that drives these cracker motherfuckers up THE WALL!

Amen, brother. It does indeed. I have to say, I teared up. Lordy, we need hope.

I am keeping an open mind on this as the sausage making plays out.

At this point, I am not prepared to join in the evisceration of Baucus.

Waitin for the firepups to eviscerate his speech. Back to chores.

Wow, we use the same term at the same time!

Me too. See ya, later.

I am looking forward to seeing where Grassley and the rest of idiots come down on this.

sounds like Baucus is playing ‘bad cop’ to their ‘good cop’ and we’ll wind up with what AHIP proposed – and give polite golf claps all around for their willingness to work with WH

So am I.

It’s junk.
1) 22-31% of every health insurance (sic) dollar does not go to medical care.
2) Is there any limit on pre-existing conditions? If yes, it’s junk.
3) Is there any cap on coverage? If yes, it’s junk.
4) Does it prevent rescission (denial) of coverage for procedures? If yes, it’s junk.
4) Does that $500 a month provide any doctor visits, screening, meds? If no, it’s junk.

But the key reason it’s junk is that it continues the current health insurance (sic) scam in which we as a nation waste $200-350 billion a year (based upon current growth rates $4 trillion over 10 years) on overhead, bureaucracy and profits.

125 million AMericans have 1 of 4 chronic illnesses – hypertension, heart disease, asthma and diabetes.

Those 4 illnesses are responsible nearly 75% of all medical costs.

Taking the link frm libbyliberal’s diary is a very readable account of what has been going on with the healthcare debate by Taibbi.

http://www.rollingstone.com/po….._and_wrong

Hopefully it will put an end to these ideas that this some kind of good faith exercise meant to help anyone other than the insurance, drug, and medical companies.

All directly related to inflammatory processes caused by lack of critters in the gut. See Thom Hartman for explanation.

There will certainly be a requirement to cover pre-existing conditions.

Your other issues aren’t addressed by Baucus because he’s not designing the plan- only figuring out how to fund it.

There are very few true single payer plans in the world. The BEST plan (France) is not single payer.

There are plenty of ways to skin this cat.

Can you tell me why it is assumed that Blue Dogs never have to compromise but Liberals always do? If they don’t want it to fall apart they need to vote for the public option. At the very least they need to support higher subsidies and medical loss ratios to make up for this giveaway to the insurers.

No disagreement that millions of Americans have these pre-exisiting conditions.

However, my understanding is deductibles wouldn’t apply to preventive care or chronic disease managment. The fact you have diabetas, hypertension, or asthma is not going to cost you much so long as it is a standard case and you go for check ups and refill your medication. Yes, there are people who don’t get this needed preventive care because they don’t have health care, and a treatable case of hypertension becomes a stroke. This actually happened to a 52 year old lady I knew. She had severe headaches and would pass out and didn’t tell anyone or make dr. appointment because she couldn’t afford it. One day she had a stroke and was taken in an ambulance. The surgeon told us she had serious untreated high blood pressure many years – he could tell from condition of arteries. This was a moral tragedy – a $4 a month generic blood pressure medication could have prevented both this sufferring and saved the taxpayer millions of dollars for her nursing home care.

I’ve said before the bill is not perfect and will need to be built on down the road. But it is a good start. We will need more subsidies, we will need
to look at things such as allowing people age 55 and above to buy into the Medicare program at decent rates. There’s more to be built on. I just dont want to see us blow this because we insist on all or nothing.

I’m not being the least snarky here but could you help me understand, in light of what I’ve just read in Rolling Stone about what’s in the other 4 bills, and what I read here about what’s in the Baucus bill, where you are finding positive things about this situation? Is Taibbi a liar or just wrong? And if he is then who has an equally readable and understandable explanation of what’s in the bills?

If Taibbi is right then all the bills suck equally and nothing will change for the better due to exclusions, grandfathering, exceptions, and watered down mandates. I would like to share your optimism but I am not able to find anything that will help me do that. Thanks!

The insurance companies have looked at the future US – declining real incomes, high jobless rate – and see their business, and profits, decline. This mandate is just a way for them to get a larger piece of a shrinking pie, because many stretched budgets simply will not now or in the future allow for health insurance. I don’t want more money coming out of my personal pocket or my taxpayer pocket to go to these thieves.

If we are going to have a trigger for the public option, then why not the same trigger for the mandate? If the health insurance industry deserves time to “clean up their act” then citizens deserve the same amount of time to purchase insurance on their own, without being forced by government mandates!

The bills do accomplish several things.

First, all except the Baucus bill contain a subsidy for small business and people earning up to 400% of poverty level. That will help millions. The bills will create a new Health Insurance Exchange where small business & individuals can pool together.

Second, the bills will introduce new regulations so insurance companies can’t deny people, drop them, or charge exorbitant premuims if they get sick.

There will be some sort of mandate – how much is hard to tell. The reason a mandate is important is so that more healthy people are in the pool but we also need to make adequate subsidy available.

The public option is a good idea, but I think it is counterproductive to say we want PO or nothing. I’ve said before, it is very hard to balance so many competiting interests and political ideologies. That’s why so many Presidents failed – Truman, Nixon, Clinton, and now Obama may fail. I’ve said from the start we need to pass something. These presidents didn’t fail because they had bad ideas or they didn’t try – they failed because it was such a hard balancing act.

I actually think the best idea would be “Medicare For All” but we are not going to get that.

It’s disgusting. There are a number of motives at work her:

1. Politicians who are indebted to insurance companies, doing everything the can to protect their profits, and doing barely anything to hide that motive.
2. Politicians who are also idebted to the insurance companies, but are less open about their motives.
3. Politicians who see the actual struggle that most of us have to go through to get medical coverage and want real reform.
4. Politicians who have no loyalty to either big insurance nor the people they represent and see this solely as a political issue and are maneuvering to take credit for something….anything.
5. Politicians that fall into number 3, except that they are petrified of any political ramifications.

If you want to has a critical eye for what the proposals are, you have to see it in those terms. Max Baucus falls into number 4, with a few dashes of 2. He wants to look like he’s taking on the insurance industry with all his rhetoric about them “paying their share” or whatever. But you can look at his plan and see it has nothing to do with the motives of number 3. We know the insurance companies aren’t going to decrease their exec bonuses to pay for the new fee. What they’ll do, in all probability, is create plans with extremely limited coverage that are just below the fee line. Which is great until you find out that your particular crisis is not covered.

I think it truly comes down to which one Obama falls into, and I think we’ll find out on Wednesday. I know, without a doubt, that he falls into number 3 or 4, otherwise Health Care wouldn’t have even been made a priority in his first year of office. I’m afraid that he’s a number 4 or 5.

I’ll hold out this hope: he want to solve the problem and knows what it takes. He knows the conflicting motives. He knows that members of congress that fall into category 1 or 2 should be ignored, since they are not acting in good faith. The only ones he needs to woo are the members that fall under 4 or 5. So he needs to take responsibility for the bill’s controversial aspect to give cover. And he needs to give credit for its successes and support to the purely political members. But he also must be ready to assign blame for those that destroy its affectiveness. It’s a balance, but until Wednesday, I’m hopeful.

A mandate is important, but only if you provide options other than the ones that currently exist. This can’t be stressed enough. For one thing, insurance companies operate outside of anti-trust laws, so they can operate like a giant monopoly. This plan does nothing to curb those costs, and does nothing to disincentify the enormous portion of what you and I pay that goes towards monsterous salaries. To say that Healthcare is as inexpensive as it can be when 40% of their gross goes towards overhead, including those $100K per hour salaries and advertizing, is acceptong a horrible system as the “best we can get”. Baucus’s bill will do nothing at all to address the root of the problem which is that Health Insurance is just too expensive. Even if you have it, you’re paying too much. The idea that you can dump 10% or more of your salary into Health Insurance, and only 6 out of 10 of those dollars goes towards paying for health. My family of three is barely scraping by, but I will still be expected to pay a huge percentage of my income toward Health Insurance under this bill. Another consideration, which no one seems to mention, is the really small business owner, independent contractors. My dad is one. His income would not allow him a subsidy, but his operational expenses cut his actual profits down to amount that leaves little or no room for him to buy coverage.

Thanks so much for answering! My questions still aren’t answered, however. According to Taibbi, the mandates in the first 4 bills are a mess (Baucus’s bill wasn’t out yet when he wrote the article in Rolling Stone).

Just one of the horrible examples he gave were: employers must offer something to employees or face a penalty, but in a giveback to the insurance companies, there is a grandfather clause that prevents employees from choosing a BETTER, more affordable option from the pool. He cited WalMart as an example. Crappy insurance with high copays and premiums. Employees mostly opt out and use Medicaid now (which states pay 50% of ).

In at least one of the House bills and the HELP bill, WalMart would be grandfathered in and since they offer insurance, their employees would be barred from choosing a better plan that is more affordable. Their choices would be WalMart’s crappy insurance or Medicaid (after paying a pretty steep penalty) which would shift the burden to the states and there is no cost control or guarantees that the Feds will cover the difference.

I suggest you read Taibbi’s article if you haven’t — it’s online and free now. Very eye-opening to me and it convinced me that crappy isn’t better than nothing. It is dangerous and could be a huge disaster. There’s a whole lot of crappy in all five bills if Taibbi is right. Forgive me if I misquoted here — I’m working at the same time that I’m reading FDL, LOL, and I don’t have time to refer back to the RS article right now.

It’s messy, but I’m still okay with the path we’re on. Don’t confuse fighting and wailing with complete intractibility.

We’re getting there and that’s good. There will be a final product and it will be much much better than where we are now. It will be a great day to celebrate.

125 million AMericans have 1 of 4 chronic illnesses – hypertension, heart disease, asthma and diabetes.

Those 4 illnesses are responsible nearly 75% of all medical costs.

1. Exercise, stop smoking, stop eating junk food processed sugars and refined grains and trans fats. Perhaps even teach some kids what to eat for nutrition & health (protein, fat, carbohydrates and fiber with variety for nutrients and vitamins).

2. Get insurance rate discount! Maybe even a company bonus to keep it up!

But, I think you’re forgetting long-term care for the elderly. It’s expensive. Then there’s pharmaceuticals which are terrific, but somewhat expensive too.

Oh well, start with what we can do cheaply: health care reform with 1 & 2 above!

Just one of the horrible examples he gave were: employers must offer something to employees or face a penalty, but in a giveback to the insurance companies, there is a grandfather clause that prevents employees from choosing a BETTER, more affordable option from the pool. He cited WalMart as an example. Crappy insurance with high copays and premiums. Employees mostly opt out and use Medicaid now (which states pay 50% of ).

A lot of WalMart employees are NOT covered by them. They receive coverage because their spouse has insurance through THEIR employer (not WalMart). So, WalMart can say all their employees (or some high percentage) have coverage, but they do not provide it all themselves.

If there is a mandate that an employer must cover their employees, then there would have to be a large exception to let them out of that or else they would have to begin covering people they haven’t before.

Of course, WalMart also instructs many of their low-pay ‘associates’ to go to the local gov’t for poverty assistance instead of just paying them decent wages. They get away with a lot of crap because the economy isn’t employing enoug people and local governments are desperate for any employer of their size to move in.

We need more fundamental productive work and not just retail ‘associates’. Obama knows this.

heh, they’ll find a way to reward the Democrats for such a “gift.”

and it won’t be by electing ‘more and better’ thats for sure.

3rd parties should be ready to catch the outraged, disenchanted populace after such a plan is enacted, and offer them and alternative, finally.

“The hope is that employers would buy cheaper, less generous coverage for employees, thereby reducing the overuse of medical services.”
Happy Labor Day from Max Baucus

I would like to politely disagree – paying for medical care is both Baucus’ charter and what I’m concerned about.

A key fear is that people who currently have insurance will lose something. They think they’re currently covered but they can afford the premiums.

For these people Baucus’ proposal will a) tax current employee benefits, b) provide no additional care, c) provide additional justification for insurers to raise their rates to compensate for their “losses.” Where’s the win in that scenario for someone with employer subsidized insurance?

The current CBO scoring suggests we need $25-100 billion a year to balance the increased cost of universal coverage. At the low end the assumption is that we can reduce cost of increased in Medicare reimbursement, as well as some efficiencies in waster, fraud & abuse.

Alternative: We can strip out $200 billion a year, at minimum, from what Americans are currently paying for health insurance (sic) marketing, bureaucracy, duplicate forms and profits – and not change a single medical reimbursement rate.

I invent medical devices and deal with reimbursement as part of our business planning. I would welcome explanations why Single Payer doesn’t make fiscal sense for the US.

Instead of just welcoming explanations here, write Seminal Diaries and lay it out.

And welcome.

Thanks for invitation, but I’m in midst of a start up med device firm, meeting with private equity investors, interviewing prospective team members, setting up cap table, filing patent and corp docs, etc.