Reality is Obama needs to get this passed soon so its effects can start to suss out (along with the remaining 80% of the stimulus money that has yet to get out the door and have any effect on anything) and (hopefully) bear fruit in time for the midterms.

But good fruit only comes from a good plan, which I'm not convinced this is. So, hows about we get back to this after the August recess, let everyone actually read some or most of this monstrosity and reason with its effects and then hammer out something maybe possibly sensible in the fall?

First point, you can allow a govt plan to be a choice and compete, if it's required to compete fairly. The fear is that a govt. plan will receive subsidy upon subsidy and use that advantage to drive private coverage providers out of the market...leaving nothing but the govt. plan.

Second point...auto insurance protects the people one damages with their vehicles. It's minimum liability, not required personal protection. Further, driving is a priveledge and a choice...there's a quid pro quo in there.

Requiring that people have at least a minimum catastrophic health insurance does protect the public interest however because in the event that they do have some calamity we the people will (and do) be responsible for their health care costs anyway.

(this is the counter to the "why does a healthy 25 y.o. need health insurance?" argument I keep hearing. Because a healthy 25 y.o. male who doesnt think they need health insurance and who never goes to the doctor for a routine check up is precisely the kind of person who will jump off their roof on a Saturday night or saw their leg off at work or barring that, get testicular cancer.)

i broke my hand snowboarding in '01, without insurance. my bill was at least a few thousand dollars for the surgery (bennetts fracture, needed pins). the hospital came up with an automatic checking acct withdrawal payment plan, which was fine until i lost my job.

so i called the hospital and explained again that i didn't have insurance and that they soon wouldn't have any money to garnish from my wages, and they waived the rest of the outstanding bill. they said it was 'a one time deal' or some such.

obv it was great for me at the time, but it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize somebody had to pay for it...

And by "somebody" you mean that like all places of business the mark up is so high that you can haggle them down to 10% of the original list price and they still make money?

probably

i had only paid about $100/mo for 4 months on a 5K bill

i doubt my orthopedic surgeon covered his overhead with that scratch

Food for thought; back in '05 when I got my current wheelchair I had to haggle with my insurance provider to get it approved after I accepted delivery, since they don't do official pre-approvals.

Which meant that for a couple months I had statements coming to me for the $4,200 outstanding bill, until the insurance company relented and approved the purchase. I've been through this before, so it was kind of old hat by that point. The next month I get a revised statement. Wanna know what the manuf. charged once the insurance company got its negotiated rate? $900, of which I had to pay $200 and gladly wrote a check that very day.

So yeah, a 500-600% markup on durable equipment. There are couture fashion designers who couldn't get away with that.

the biggest douchebags that I've ever met were medical equipment salesmen.

It might be useful to explore if the desire to “make people thinkâ€

It might be useful to explore if the desire to “make people thinkâ€

I'm assuming this is exhaustion from the past week, but for a second there I was worried you'd had a stroke or something.

also, in case any thinks I am just being obtuse for the sake of it: the entire panel this morning on Morning Joe, including NBC Chief Washington Correspondent Chuck "Pudding Ring" Todd agree that no one really knows what the fuck this plan will do, and the President for all of his high minded rhetoric about treating the American people like adults, might want to 'splain the whole thing a little better, lest this die a crib death over the recess.

And my reading of this http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/healt ... =1&_r=1&hp
affirms my belief that this doesn't do much of what you are espousing, harry.

No boxing intended, neither fisticuffs nor reductionist filtering what you say. Just responding to the above... and spending any time at all on actually writing about the elements of possible reform legislation, and addressing you is because of course I understand your bluster is sham-for-fun, and there is a thoughtfull human somewhere under the seersucker-madras-weejun-loafer-betweenthehedges GOB.

I think one of the points of this recess is that there is no bill, but rather "dialogue" (town halls, bulletin boards) about possible reform. And if you characterize (like your heroic Morning Joe) the Prexy as not having spoken in any specifics, you haven't been listening. All of what I pointed has been mentioned specifically by Him and His staff. Has He had the needed impact to get this done? Time will tell. Old Lefty me points to his astonishing slime with Big Pharm and general wimping out in the name of bipartisan goals and I am severely disappointed with Pretty Boy Barry. But that's another story, my country is dying of poor health and something needs to be done.

That's right... dying.

One of the items mentioned during this mess was allowing insurance companies to cross state lines. Is this still in there?

If it is, is there some sort of control that prevents them from buying each other up like the banks did after the 90's deregulation? Without it, it seems that americans would have only 2 or 3 national companies to choose from before a couple of years have passed and we'd run into all of the problems that those opposed to a govt plan/co-op are predicting, but without any competition to keep them honest.

Small businesses are getting killed by the tiny 'self-insured' pools currently available to them and americans would benefit from bigger pools. But without some sort of not-for-profit system in place, there is nothing to keep the 'administrative costs' (aka executive salaries, corporate lawyers and lobbying firms) in line.

hey, i agree with loogar.

I think he's doing a terrible job of explaining, and controlling the discussion.

Same here, but as harry pointed out, he's told someone the details, it just hasn't been laid out there in the mainstream media, to allow the citizens of democracy to form their own opinion. The mainstream media (I'm counting FoxNews & MSNBC) is mostly reporting, and by doing so giving credence to, the sensationalized "teabagger" movement to sell ads on TV. Money is the root of all evil, if it is abused by the greedy/power lusting politician or businessman/woman.

the teabaggers are a "fun" story for both sides, and as such are going to get more media attention than the conversation they are preventing.

a fiver says he don't see no connection

6 Biggest Money wasters according to medical professionals

http://finance.yahoo.com/insurance/arti ... nce-health

I needed that cat scan on my head, dammit.

The Daily Show has been weaving comedy gold out of the people who have been showing up to these meetings the last couple of nights.

No weaving required. That shit writes itself.

Actually, you are correct. There were no punchlines. They simply showed some of these people at various meetings followed by Stewarts reactions.

My favorite was the clip where a Repub was speaking at one and there were several people saying, "WE ARE AFRAID OF OBAMA!!!".