But I may just end up in ‘neutral’ and simply not bother to vote.

You & me & 150 million other disappointed people…

You’ll be savaged, by those who refuse to see the writing on the wall, and by those who are frantically trying to cover up the writing on the wall, for this common sense, rational analysis.

Cantwell’s plan, while it may help some people, is not a public plan and hopefully the rapid response by many on the left against calling it a public plan will be effective. It’s not that it isn’t a good thing, but it is not a public plan.

And frankly, it’s not a stable thing either. One thing that has not received enough attention is that Washington’s Basic Health Plan is shaky from a financial standpoint and their legislature has been looking for ways to cut people from its rolls all year. There was a state budget cut and they were openly trying to reduce the number of people who have Basic Health Plan coverage even as the demand for it increased. There are 15,000 people on the waiting list for this plan.

The state won’t strip thousands of low-income residents of their subsidized health insurance but will make them pay more for the coverage next year.

No eligible person will be booted off the Basic Health Plan, though state officials expect planned hikes in premiums and deductibles will be too costly for some and drive them from the program into the ever-growing ranks of the uninsured.

It’s a trade-off viewed Monday by state and nonprofit health care leaders as the best of bad options for dealing with the Legislature’s slashing of $238 million from the Basic Health Plan budget.
http://www.heraldnet.com/artic…../706099891

It’s worth taking the time to read about Washington state’s problems with their admirable attempt to provide health insurance for low income people who don’t qualify for Medicaid. But when considering this plan, remember that some significant percentage of the money spent on this health care plan goes to the profits of insurance companies. This is not a non-profit thing. The state is negotiating rates with insurance companies to cover these people. The state officials admit that people are making choices between food and rent and that many will go uninsured. How many more could be covered if the insurance company middlemen were taken out of the equation?

Obama is all about image and promises and no follow through. Haven’t you noticed that Obama called a WH conference on health care reform in Feb. and failed to invite a single speaker for single payer. He took it off the table immediately and instead substituted the weaker “public option” as an option. But then he met in secret behind locked doors with insurers (breaking his campaign pledge to hold all health care reform in public and televise them live on C-SPAN) and lo and behold, Obama began talking about “insurance reform”. In Colorado, he gave a speech about the “public option” being a sliver. You have to look at what Obama does and not what he promised to get elected. There’s a big difference and not in just in the area of health care reform!