And Rahm? I KNEW Obama wouldn’t deliver when he picked him and then picked all those conservadems and R’s – WHERE are the progressives in his administration guys? This is another sell out – and after all that hope.

Screw them. The dems will continue to suffer until we learn that putting conservatives in our seats and calling them Dems is the same as cutting our own throats; Our ONE chance and look at what they’ve done to us! Obama calls us “fringe”????? Yeah, THAT is Rahm. I detest him and always have.

He’s a republican………shill.

Wonderful work. Absolutely wonderful.

Keep the calls going folks.

Your points, I think, bear some scrutiny regarding their implication:

The basic fact when considering an alternative to private insurers is that any plan that does not devote a portion of the premium to profit will necessarily be cheaper. This applies both to the PO as much as to the single payer plan. Public plans have a comparative advantage with respect to the price of premiums over private for profit plans. Everything follows from this fact.

An as yet missing piece of information is when does a plan to manage risk become viable. That is, what element of a plan to manage the cost of a risk allows for the price of the premium to fall. Presumably this happens when the aggregate cost of the risk decreases as the number of participants in the plan increases. But this can only happen when some proportion of the participants with low risk associated cost is reached relative to those participants with high risk associated costs.

If this is correct than it doesn’t matter what the total number of participants in the plan is. What matters in attaining the lowest premiums, is the proportion of low risk low cost participants relative to high risk high cost participants. This will be true if the number of participants is 47 or 300 plus million participants.

In this regard it bears re-emphasizing that premiums will always be lower in a publicly administered plan than in a for profit managed plan, because it is more efficient. That is, paying a bill is done more efficiently by single entity (think Medicare) than by 1,300 entities paying that same bill but retaining a portion of it for themselves.

So:

1- point number one becomes moot
2- even if mandates were imposed what matters is not the imposition as it is that the people that are mandated to acquire insurance be allowed to purchase a public as well as a private plan. And given that a public plan is cheaper presumably that plan will be chosen, if freely allowed.
3-costs of the premiums will be reduced by public plans relative to private plans, but the cost of the health services provided are a different matter altogether and have nothing to do with how the cost of premiums are arrived at between public vs. privately managed insurance plans.

Of course there is very strong need for clarifying with readily available calculations the benefits related to cost of premiums that public plans offer. It makes arguing for it so much easier.

Americans fought a civil war so slaved could have access to constitutional protection, and not be considered “property!” So what happens when we are all considered property to have access to health care and Life?

Who would you trust, AHIP or Thomas Jefferson?

I know it’s risky because many of us are old enough or have kids (or both) and feel we need insurance. But really, this is important enough to take that risk. What would happen if we all said “enough”? For 3 or 4 months we just stop giving them our money. Would they worry?

1) No Universal Access (if your job offers you a plan, your SOL), this is all the bills, which one looks like Hacker’s NONE OF THEM!

2) Mandates, Mandates, Mandates! Giving the real “Death Panels” our money just for the f__k of it, no other reason. It work for Mass. Didn’t it?

3)No true cost reduction

That’s why support drops into the 50% range

This is why again, if AHIP is going to throw a hiss-fit, then really “sock it to them” and say were just getting warmed up – Medicare For All

Nothing wrong with Blogs, its what politicians fear most. Because anything they say or do is instantly EXPOSED.

I like Cheetos and if you count sweats and a t-shirt as jammies then so be it, blog on…

We thought we were getting a leader with Obama, but got an appeaser, and a congressional suck up. He keeps letting the people who made the problems do the fixing for them.

His economic team isn’t much better it’s filled with people who supported what caused the problems, didn’t see it coming, were even in on it, and have no real idea on how to fix things. Good Job Mr. President.