The dumbest health plan ever is being proposed by a Democrat,

[Cleita]

Zeke Emmanuel, who is apparently the brains behind Obama's health care reform according to this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5793788

Really, some times doctors should just stick to being doctors and not venture out into matters financial or legal.

From a NOW interview of him. http://www.pbs.org/now/news/315.html

BRANCACCIO: Alright. Well give me some of this plan now. You're not talking about Canada or Britain, where the government pays doctors—for all this. What are you proposing?

DR. EMANUEL: Our proposal is for universal healthcare vouchers. It's a plan where everybody in America gets a voucher to buy health insurance from an insurance company or health plan or a managed care organization. And they get a basic benefits package. If they want to buy more, they want—wider choice of doctors, they want better services, say, better eye glass services, or they want more mental health services, they can pay more and they can buy up.

Wwwww..what! So the government is going to give us a voucher to buy health insurance. Apparently a sales tax of 10% is going to pay for this. Not only that to actually get health care we need we are going to have to buy up on top of it. So nothing changes except that a very regressive tax is going to be levied on all of us and we still are going to have the same shitty system of large deductible, co-pays, denials and the insurance industry get's to slurp up dollars at the government trough, taxpayers dollars.

Read the rest of the interview, it only goes down hill from there. Also there isn't a mention of how this would affect patients, only how it will benefit corporations "relieving them of the burden".

As someone pointed out this interview is two years old, but it's important because Zeke Emmanuel is advising Obama and Congress about this today.

:banghead::nuke:

[Joanne98]

1. It SUX

[BlooInBloo]

2. /facepalm

[Mythsaje]

3. It's not complicated enough now...

We want to make it even worse!

:eyes:

[sandnsea]

4. This is two years old

Nobody is proposing this.

[Cleita]

5. Really? Then read this instead.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5796772

It looks like the same old plan to me.

[HughMoran]

8. That's a link to "My DU"

??

[Cleita]

9. Sorry! I fixed it. n/t

[sandnsea]

10. I'm ignoring the author of that thread

You'll have to link to a direct article because I'm fed up with the Naderites and Negative Nellies around here. If you're talking about what some nincompoop said about the Kennedy plan, don't bother because I've read it and know what's in it.

[Cleita]

11. Here.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55514G20090606

[sandnsea]

12. The Kennedy plan

which is not vouchers so I don't know where you got that from. The Kennedy plan is pretty much what Edwards, Dean, Kerry, Obama - everybody has been proposing for years in various forms.

[Cleita]

18. And they all sucked. Everyone of them is a variation of keeping the

insurance leeches in business and business as usual.

[avaistheone1]

21. All the plans are created for the insurance industry by the insurance industry.

Little wonder theses plans suck.

If our elected leaders had let people sit at the decison-making table who have the best interests of the American people at heart like the single payer advocates we would probably some good plans to work with by now. But that did not happen. What a disgrace.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sandnsea]

16. Who did I call out?

:shrug:

I simply asked for a link to the article.

A logic based person would get that.

Oh, when you will be joining Robert Reich in fighting for the public option - which was completely illogical the last several weeks when I begged people to start organizing to do just that.

[girl gone mad]

15. Actually, this sounds fairly close to ideas that they've been floating recently..

except that they are talking about a VAT as high as 15% now.

[sandnsea]

17. Who?

I missed the VAT, whose idea is that?

[tularetom]

6. Where did all the money go I already paid them?

I'm on medicare plus a supplement now but before I turned 65 I was paying an average of $500 per month for health insurance coverage for the last 15 years.

That's a total of 15 x 12 x $500 or $90,000. During that time my wife and I submitted exactly ONE claim, maybe $500, for some stitches where my finger met a circular saw. That's $89,500 of net income for the insurance company.

I assume that they have invested that money so that it will actually be there,compounded, so that it proves sufficient to cover the costs of whatever illnesses we incur as we get older. They didn't just pay it out in stock dividends or exorbitant salaries to their upper management did they?

Can I at least have a pony?

[Cleita]

7. That probably paid for one of the CEO's swimming pools. n/t

[immoderate]

19. You Kidding? That probably paid for the foot bath for one of their swimming pools.

They go first class!

--imm

[Faryn Balyncd]

20. K & R