It’s kinda funny that around 56 percent of people always support the public option, and the same number of Senators do. Not that there’s always a direct correlation between the people’s wishes and the Senators votes, which combined with Senate rules, means that unless about 2/3rds of our country is demanding something, they’re probably up shit’s creek. And that, children, is the story of how modern America came to be.

Have heard 60% over and over again. But they are just a bunch of “mao loving, Jesus hating, whack shit, terrorist, socialist”

Great, unless you have a way of getting 60 Senators to vote for it, you won’t have the public option that y’all are wanting. I want a single payer system, but I will accept this less reform as compared to nothing.

The key here is we need to start demanding a 51+ vote. If Harry Reid can’t find a way to do that, then this is his failure and he needs to step aside. 60 votes for something like this is BS, enough is enough.

The 60 vote filibuster rule only dates back a few decades. Nothing magic about it. You can just pull a Bill Frist and do away from filibuster with the nuclear option.

This is a surprise because ??
I want single payer; public-option is the compromise position.
The way things are going, what we’re going to get is another f*cking giveaway to the corprats.
I suspect a lot of people have figured this out.

Created this poll about this article:

Do believe the recent rash of health care anger is genuine?
http://www.polladium.com/poll.php?poll_id=229&location_id=1

Take a sec and vote anonymously.

Tony S.

Are you sure the public option is dead? I thought so once I heard about Reid’s formation of the gang of 10 on Monday. Now, I’m wondering if maybe, just maybe…

Extending Medicare to 55+ IS moving people into a public option.

Extending Medicare to 55+ IS moving people into a public option.

If it were to be available as an option to everyone 55+, I would agree with you.

But that’s not what they’re proposing.

As it is now, it won’t be available to everyone 55+, but only a small number of people 55+.

This reform? The one with mandates and no cost controls and insurers dumping sick people between 55-64 on taxpayers? Is this the one you are supporting?

Or is it the public option as a second choice after single-payer.

I understand the second choice, but not the first.

From your lips…

True, I was mostly talking about the shitty turn American history has taken in recent decades, which I guess nicely coincides with the filibuster rule.

I will accept this less reform as compared to nothing.

This isn’t “less reform.” It is nothing, or at least it won’t be reform in any real sense. No single payer advocate would write what you’ve written. Flip to page 16 of that playbook they gave you.

Insurers are thrilled not to cover the people who are between 55-64 years old who are not insured. They don’t want to insure them now and all those sick people make them look bad. They are happy to give that up.

They will never give up young people who are mandated to pay premiums. They are perfectly happy to charge forced monopoly premiums with high deductibles from people who are unlikely to need care and then dump older people on taxpayers (the same people who are getting hosed on the premiums).

If you think the public option was hard to get now, just imagine how hard it will be to change things then.

Wondering what percent will be left unprotected with the latest iteration. Guessing they’re counting on most people being satisfied.

But as to extending Medicare, the reason it’s working now is it’s heavily subsidized by the privately insured. Extending it to more people without a subsidy will be expensive. And I thought a big part of health care reform was not only covering more (if not all) but reining in costs.

Kip Sullivan has studied some numbers.

a six part series.

Many Single Payer advocated will have read it.

‘Public Option’ enthusiasts should read it as well, in order to help hone their talking points.

support for SP and PO is differentiable, and should not be so casually conflated.

additionally, SP is simple, definable and in practice already in many civilized countries, and the, PO, is not.

I wonder if OFA is making the best use of the money that average Americans are contributing because Obama asks them to and because they are putting all their hopes on Obama’s leadership to reform health care.

Average Americans who need Obama to fight for their interests contribute whatever they can to OFA, and OFA sends people out to talk up bullshit by calling it reform?

If not OFA, then who are all these people?

I’m just as worried by a watered down public option as I am by no public option. So this bill is bad no matter how you look at it. The public option has become political football. Unless it’s prepopulated with tens of millions of people, available to everyone who wants it and from 2010 or 2011, don’t see much point fighting for it.

I’d say put a match to this legislation and come back swift and hard with single or all payer.

No, Medicare for 55 + is dumping olds onto socialized medicine and forcing youngs to buy insurance from private companies. It’s a ponzi scheme played with taxpayers’ dollars. And our youngbloods futures..
It SUCKS that this is what’s going down.

So ARE you really “justice”, Beese and I forget the other one.?. Enquiring minds want to know.

OT Obama administration allows drilling in Alaska. No link. No need.No big fucking surprise. LOVE their organic garden! Precious!!!!/s/

Yo K-Town (Hope you don’t mind, I just like Suz’s nick-name for you)

Aside from the OFA issue, don’t you think it’s a bit weird that nobody is happy with anything on the HealthCare issue?

Usually it’s CW that if nobody is happy, it’s the right thing to do. But that is absent from the biz right now, except for the hippy punching.

I mean, since hippies have been punched and everybody is pissed off, for some time now, why isn’t this done yet?

This is definitely one of those rare times when turning up the volume might actually be the best thing to do.

I think even the asses that have been pushing this bs might be realizing that there will be popular uprisings of large, but peaceful marches in the streets if they go forward with this.

If these cowards are forced out of fear to walk this all back and put the public option back on the table, I wish I could be in the room to see short ride’s face when hears that news.

That’s right. I’ve been called Knox by Jane and a few others, but only Suz calls me K-town. Feel free! Gotta step away for a moment…

My deep dark thought on ” Who are these people?”.
Are we the New Brown Shirts but we just don’t get it? Are we the “Good Germans ? We’re marching in lock step too comfortable to bring in the homeless, too sensitive to view the horrific impact of our “Foreign Policies” on people just like us who love their family and community,too afraid to really shelter our damaged vets and their families, tend the wounds of so many young soldiers…. Me, included.
It’s all cool to talk revolution from the comforts of a warm home.
Okay. Enough.
I’m struggling with these thoughts while rereading Kenneth Robert’s “Arundel”. I’m not sure it’s even in print anymore. This book I found sorting out family things, a book of my childhood. I can hear my father’s voice reading it out load to the family after dinner.
Living in Historic Times is a BITCH.
Also, no wonder I had a different understanding about the American Revolution and the events that lead up to it.

You actually think people are going to take to the streets over the public option?

Other than here, I rarely run into anyone that knows a damn thing about it.

It’s all cool to talk revolution from the comforts of a warm home.

I’ll speak for myself.

I’m talking democracy over plutocracy.

I’m talking about government working for the people and not for corporate interests.

I’m talking about caring about people who don’t have the comforts of a warm home.

I believe that citizens have the right to hold elected leaders accountable.

Sorry if that sounds too radical for you.

But if you think me and others should stop talking from the comforts of our warm homes, I’m sure that the Dems’ failure to lead on health care reform will soon be bring hundreds of thousands, in not millions, out into the streets in protest.

Anyone know how much they are talking that it will cost to buy into Medicare?

Not the cost to the government for the program, the cost to the individual per year to buy-in.

Funnily enough, I’ve been surprised by just how many people have been following the debate over health care reform. I really can’t think of another similar issue that has gotten so much attention in a long while.

Now, if Bean succeeds in fouling up the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (important if there is to be real reform in the financial services industry), I don’t think too many would notice.

But health care has hit a nerve.

Not too radical. It’s were I’m at. Chill. Fuck, see what happens when trolls walk among us, IMHO.?
I’m asking a question that seems fairly valid, to me. Given our country’s situation.
Maybe you don’t have the concerns of taking in family members, or have neighbors who need fundraisers to help with the mother’s terminal cancer medical bills so they can stay in their home a little longer.
Not to out bitch a bitch or anything…but, there we are.
It’s all good.
Peace

I agree that HCR has hit a nerve. The political forums and tea parties this summer and fall were proof of that.
My question to you is a bit more focused, specifically, do you find that people, regular folks, are informed and invested in the public option debate?

Yeah, all the ones most likely to have health problems while the rest of the country is forced to buy insurance through the industry . Nice.

Mr. Walker, I wish you’d head over to OpenLeft and tell Chris Bowers about the Public Option’s ongoing viability.

He’s folding so fast lately, it’s like he took a speed origami class.

What state are you in? Here in East TN, there are way more people who are invested in the debate because they’re against a public option. But ads on both sides air here on tv.

For all of HCAN’s faults, they run in my area a lot of ads that discuss the need for a public health insurance option.

There are also ads from a group I think was called Conservatives for Private Insurers’ Rights to Make Excessive Profits While Patients Suffer adn Die (Rick Scott’s gang), which lie about Obama’s insidious gov’t-run health care being an effort to stop you from keeping your doctor and spout other nonsense.

From what I understand, people in Arkansas, Nevada, Maine, Montana, and DC are hit with ads constantly.

Maybe the view is different depending on where you live.

Seem like there are strong feelings one way or the other out there, and, if polls are correct, most Americans support a public option by far.

Since they’re talking unsubsidized premiums for the Medicare buy in, I guess it’ll be about $520 a month. That’s a little over $420 for part A and a little under $100 for part B.

This doesn’t include premiums for prescription drug coverage and it’s single coverage. Also part B premiums go up for higher income levels.

So….maybe these are ballpark figures, and maybe the are just WAGs. I found the numbers here http://www.answers.com/topic/medicare#Premiums

If only a very, very few people 55+ will have the opportunity to buy in, do these numbers really matter in terms of whether or not we’ll be getting real health care reform, which at a minimum must include a public option that competes with private insurers to bring down costs?

What the Senate put on the table is a gift to private insurers.

Lieberman’s pleased. That’s something.

Medicare is not socialized medicine. DVA and DOD are socialized medicine, Medicare is a single payer system. There is a major difference between single payer and socialized medicine. In a socialized medicine system, the government owns and runs the hospitals and physicians are civil servants (like DOD and DVA). Medicare is a single payer system which means that hospitals are not owned by the government and have non government boards and physicians are in private practice. The first clue is that if the physicians are in private practice, that is, by definition not socialized medicine.

ok here is the deal demos from an independent voter that wants nothing to do with either party.

you are not going to get anything that the insurance companies dont want you to get.

follow the money from the lobbyists and you then will learn finally who congress and the white house represents.

this is not rocket science demos.

your party only pretends to represent you to get your votes.

reid and nancy will sell you demos out in a minute

watch and see

signed
an independent voter

ie only nader would have represented you no your went for the demos and they are selling you out as i write.

and your pres is off to pick up his peace prize while he sends troops to keep our wars for profits intact.

god wake up demos your party is no different than the war mongers repubs.

Canada has had a single payer system for 45 years and all Canadians have health care which is on a par with, or superior to, US insurance-run health care. Despite the many lies which Americans believe, Canadian health care ranks 6th in the industrialized world and US health care ranks 19th out of 19 industrialized nations. Basically, Americans have third world health care, courtesy of the insurance lobby, and since the insurance lobby has won, 45,000 Americans and 2600 American veterans (after Bush kicked them out of DVA health care) will continue to die annually from lack of access to health care. 1.5 million Americans annually will continue to come to Canada for treatment they can’t afford in the US. And hundreds of thousands of US jobs will continue to be outsourced to Canada because the single payer health care system means that business pay very little for health care costs, as opposed to the US, where Americans pay twice as much for health care that’s half as good in access, quality, and outcomes to what we have in Canada (and I lived in the US for many years and have used both Canadian and US systems). I would never touch US insurance-run health care again with a ten foot pole. I have health care in Canada which is which is far better than what I endured in the US.

The Quinnipiac survey was done From December 1st – 6th, so I think we need newer polls to see what people think about the new options being proposed.

For routine medical care for soldiers and their families, is increasingly outsourced to the civilian medical system whenever possible, which is paid for by the DOD’s single payer Tricare plan. For example, a friend of mine in the army recently needed some minor surgery, the military doc referred her out to a civilian surgeon for the operation. Tricare covers civilian medical costs, paying Medicare rates (and the VA’s rock-bottom negotiated drug prices).

In 2005, Congress opened Tricare up to an optional buy-in option for reservists and their families (as I’ve mentioned here before, THIS is the plan that Congress should let everyone buy into as a public option). Tricare Reserve Select (TRS) lets reservists buy in for for a low monthly premium (paying a higher amount to include family coverage as well). Tricare is better plan that Medicare, in that one premium covers hospitals, doctors, drugs and has a catastrophic cap (a Medicare buy-in would require four separate policies to get all that).

I found something interesting this evening. Since active duty Tricare coverage doesn’t require any premiums, the DOD had to figure out a premium structure to cover the cost of this new coverage. So they took the federal employee FEHB program (the basis for the Senates’s “FEHB option”) rates for a comparable policy– BCBS Standard. Then the Pentagon adjusted the premiums down 32% for individuals (8% for families) to account for expected lower costs due to age, gender and family size differences in he reservist risk pool. After a year, DOD was rather embarrassed to admit that, by using Blue Cross rates for federal employees, Tricare had collect too much in premiums than was needed to cover actual medical costs- WAY too much:

The premium for individual coverage under tier 1 was 72 percent higher than the average cost per plan of providing benefits through the program. Similarly, the premium for family coverage under tier 1 was 45 percent higher than the average cost per plan of providing benefits.
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d08104.html

So even after spotting Blue Cross 32% in individual premium costs, Blue Cross rates were still 72% more expensive than what a cost-neutral government plan rate would have been. The GAO report didn’t even mention the 30% lower Medicare rates or the 50% lower VA drug prices. It blamed the overpayment first, on a failure to adjust down premium costs enough (nice bit of circular logic) and second, on this point–
While TRS premiums are designed to cover enrollees’ health care costs and certain administrative costs, BCBS premiums are designed to cover these costs and also may include contributions to or withdrawals from plan reserves and profits.
http://www.gao.gov/htext/d08104.html

And that’s why we need a real public option. The “FEHB option” is going to mandate we pay the overpriced Blue Cross premium every month, not the Tricare one.

As I read these polls, showing 56% of the people want a public option, it galls me that the filibuster, 60-vote/67-vote rule crap – or even the senate still exists. It’s an outdated relic of the same ilk that created a non-representative senate to please slave owners. Well by God THE SOUTH LOST well over 100 years ago. So at least get rid of this undemocratic rule in the undemocratic senate and start governing for the 21st century. That a bunch of bloviating, self-important, prima donnas can individually and in small collectives stymie the will of the people is absolutely revolting. We’re structured for plutocracy, not democracy, and I’m sick of it.

You do NOT need 60 votes to defeat a filibuster people! Damnit, read the rules of filibuster! If Reid would actually REQUIRE a filibuster, old school as the Founders intended, then all that could be done would be that those opposed to the American people and in favor of corporations and big money would have only 2 opportunities to talk until they were blue in the face. That’s it. ALL that is required to beat a filibuster is patience. NO ONE can talk indefinitely. It is impossible. So, these idiots would yak and yak until they were physically unable to handle it anymore (hungry, potty break, lack of sleep, whatever…who cares?) and then they would have to quit. Then they would each have the opportunity to do it ONE MORE TIME as per the rules. Thus, there is a finite time that ANY filibuster can last regardless of the intensity of those doing the filibustering.

FILIBUSTER and then pass the bill on a simple majority vote. THAT is the way the rules read and how a filibuster works. All you gotta do is require the opponents to actually filibuster and let them exhaust themselves, then the bill hits the floor for a simple up or down vote, and that’s the end. 51 votes can defeat a filibuster. All it takes is sack by Reid.

I’d be astonished if anyone in Congress doubts that a “reform” that only mandates purchase of even more expensive private insurance will be massively unpopular. They know it. But they think that they can manage it.

The Democratic machine thinks that the Republican opposition is so discredited, so crazy, and so increasingly bereft of big-money backing that it cannot pose a serious threat. Alternative parties are even weaker. So, to them, it looks like the public has no choices that are any better.

And they are right–unless we either come up with a lot of significant primary challenges or boycott elections. The latter would have been unthinkable to me as recently as a year ago, but no more. One way or another, Democratic politicians who betray their party principles and their constituents have to be punished.