Really? are they kicking him in the face? do you think they’re gonna rub him out?

During his address to Congress, President Obama effectively set a $900 billion ceiling on the size of the health care reform bill.

Every time I see these numbers, I seethe with anger, recalling the $700 billion that Bush, Obama and Congress so willingly [and quickly, and unaccountably] poured down the TARP rathole.

And what did we get for that?

BTW, Eliot Spitzer and Paul Krugman were on Bill Maher last night. Really, really good. Maher really laid into Obama. Michael Moore was also in the first segment. I’m sure it’s available on YouTube.

My Congresswoman has this to say about the PO:

“if a public option is included in the final legislation, it must be purely voluntary, self sustainable, and required to compete on a level playing field with private insurers.“

I have previously said that we could simply pay the doctors what they ask, but I think that would freak out the private insurers who like the current gimmicky system.

But, OTOH, to respond to your point, the PO could actually price like a private firm and simply put it’s “profits” back into the reserves or the federal treasury and it would still serve the purpose of being there as an option to serve the public. The idea of the option is to be there as a warning to the private insurers that if they don’t want customers they can go elsewhere.

That’s not to say I don’t favor the end of pre-existing-conditions. But, regardless of regulations the private insurers are still likely to act like private corporations. Having a public option as a last resort for people is important.

Finally, I still prefer running the PO as simply a non-profit which is indeed self-funding. Speaking of funding, remember the subsidies from Medicaid are available to any qualifying person regardless of whether they buy a private or public policy. That by itself would pump some more money into private insurers since they could at last take on (at least some of) those particular customers at a profitable rate.

Otherwise, if you allow only the uninsured to join, the private insurers will see to it that all of their subscribers become uninsured as soon as they become sick and elderly. The insurance companies will keep only the healthy and young, the part of the population that pays in more in premiums than it takes out in care. Essentially, the young and healthy will be paying premiums for nothing, because the insurer will drop them as soon as they try to file a claim.

No insurance system can work if current beneficiaries are the only ones paying premiums. You need healthy people to cover the expenses of the sick. If the public option is not an option for everyone, costs will rapidly outstrip subscriber premiums. Taxpayers will have to foot the bill, and private insurance will say that it told us so.

“if a public option is included in the final legislation, it must be purely voluntary, self sustainable, and required to compete on a level playing field with private insurers.“

I did email her the helpful suggestion that the best way to “level the playing field” would be to hire the Russian Mafia to run the PO and mandate that they [edited by mod] and bankrupt the same percentage of their insured as the private insurers do.

[Modnote: no violence, no fantasy violence, please. thank you.]

These same people therefore represent a higher level of cost to insure and in this sense it benefits private insurers to have them covered by the PO plan, since then private insurers are left with a much lower risk and lower cost group of enrollees, and therefore higher profits.

That people would continue to choose to be covered by private insurers when the PO offers a lower cost and more comprehensive health insurance, is their business. If they are stupid enough to give a portion of their premiums to some private insurance stock holder and do so willingly, well a fool and his money is soon and definitely parted.

Larry Craig would have been denied coverage to begin with because of his pre existing condition.

Imagine the yelps of pain if even millionaire Congresscritters had to accept the private-insurance/unreformed insurance practices only option they want to shove down Americans throats in lieu of credible reform.

John McCain would make a considerable dent in his wife’s ready cash if he lost his lifelong, government-paid health care. With his chart, his insurance agent wouldn’t even give him the application before laughing and telling him, “No way, No insurance, Hopeless risk.”

Imagine how readily and for how many reasons insurers would rescind the contracts for John Ensign and Lindsey Graham, David Vitter and Larry Craig. How quickly would Hatch or DiFi or Lieberman get coverage other than Medicare? Their full-blown, no questions asked insurance is a right; everybody else’s is too expensive. But it would be impolite to ask why it’s too expensive or to do anything about it.