Everybody's asking, "what happens to health care reform if Brown beats Coakley in Massachusetts and Democrats lose their 60-vote filibuster-proof margin in the Senate."
Personally, if that happens, I'd love to see something even stronger, such as Medicare for all, passed by reconciliation (only need 51 votes), but I have no idea whether that can legally happen.
GOPers claim a Brown win in liberal Massachusetts would be a repudiation of Obama's health care plan. That might carry some truth. But that doesn't mean people don't want health care reform. They do. Remember, most people polled say they WANT a public run insurance plan.
The current plan has been ripped and critiqued and fought over and debated, under the cloud of a recession, so that most people have no idea what it does, and of course don't view it favorably.
Folks want a plan they can understand, one that lowers cost and expands access. Wouldn't it be great if everybody could buy into a Medicare-type plan where cost would be contained by a huge pool of insured and everybody could afford going to the dr and nobody died from not having insurance.
Why is it that health care is a commodity like refrigerators or diapers? Some things that are systematic to a society NEED gov. control. Why isn't universal, affordable health care a pro-life issue?
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"GOPers claim a Brown win in liberal Massachusetts would be a repudiation of Obama's health care plan. That might carry some truth. But that doesn't mean people don't want health care reform. They do. Remember, most people polled say they WANT a public run insurance plan."
No, what the majority of the people want is health reform, NOT Government ran Health Insurance. There is a HUGE difference.
Furthermore, I feel compfortable in saying that what the majority of this country wants is less government, not more. What this country wants is the transparency that Obama promised (C-Span C-Span C-Span C-Span C-Span C-Span C-Span C-Span. EIGHT TIMES!), and the bi-partisanship that Obama promised. We don't want shady deals done in the wee hours of the night that gives this state a better deal than that state, or this group (unions) a better deal than that group (the rest of us). We want a government for the people, by the people. A government we can trust.
Is that too much to ask?
I hope Brown does win, and he does kill this bill, and then maybe we can start over on reforming health insurance. And this time we can do it better than this jumbled up mess they are trying to pass right now. And if Brown does win tonight, and they hurry and pass this mess while the democrats in Mass. stall the vote count, it will be political suicide for all those involved. The American people will not stand for that kind of treachery.
So SG, lets continue the discussion. It's good to blame the President (any one of them) for the health care debacle.
Discuss what incentives the HC industry has for reform if there is no impetus or competition from government.
the HC industry is investor driven. People want >10% rturn on their moneys invested and every company offering stock to shareholders knows the deal. If you can't meet that expectation the investors will take their money elsewhere.
So, why again do you think the industry will reform itself when, from the eyes of its borad of directors and its shareholders the industry is doing quite well?
In a capitalist economy (of course on another discussion I called it an exploitist economy) why would anyone posting billions in profits change their practices so that they only post millions instead?
Think it through. Federal government intervention is the only way that the uninsured will ever have a chance to get insurance. It is also teh only way that profit margins won't be the first, if not only, consideration in what course of treatment for a condition will qualify under a system where profitable insurers have dominion.
Can't you see the fallacy behind reluctance to pay for proactive measures like mammograms and prostate checks versus catastophic cancers thatcould have been detected treated and minimizes.
The folks who are financially destroyed are the individual and the supportive family - not the HC industry. Families are losing home and savings being wiped out through current practices. Peek on NYSE and see if those same devastations are hitting the HC conglomerates.
I suppose it won't matter or make sense to you until you see knocking on your own front door. It's the people facing financial ruin for the sake of fighting cancer who want something better done.
It's the parents with young children who must weekly make choices between plannig for their own retirement or spending out of pocket money for prevetive care for their young who are weighing in the balance.
They are continuing to suffer and struggle while we host the national political debate over R vs D.
Sad day when we (figuratively) consume our young for the sake of survival of HC conglomerates and the shareholders who back them.
Buyer's remorse...
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