I wish I could support the mixed private/public plans that have been proposed in Congress.

[clear eye]

I wish a mixed private/public plan could provide good care affordably for all, and not create more economic pain.

If the first line of defense for rising costs is cuts in care and/or subsidies as in the currently proposed plan, and not insurance profits and administrative expenses, coverage and/or quality of care will inevitably suffer. That kills people. Just ask the nurses.

Virtually all of the reforms being floated by President Obama and other centrist Democrats have been tried, and have failed repeatedly. Plans that combined mandates to purchase coverage with Medicaid expansions fell apart in Massachusetts (1988), Oregon (1992), and Washington state (1993); the latest iteration (Massachusetts, 2006) is already stumbling, with uninsurance again rising and costs soaring. Tennessee’s experiment with a massive Medicaid expansion and a public plan option worked - for one year, until rising costs sank it.

and

Enacting phony “universal coverage” has not brought any state closer to a single-payer system. Since the early 1990s, Minnesota, Oregon, Maine, Florida, Utah, Washington, California, Vermont and Massachusetts have been among the states that have attempted to “patch-up” their fundamentally fl awed systems while retaining a place for insurance companies. All have failed. Upon passage, incremental reforms in each of these states were hailed by politicians and the media as a “step toward universal coverage.” Yet despite all the claims of pragmatism, incremental reformers have been unable to shepherd through meaningful change in nearly four decades of trying. And while reformers in these states continue to wait for the next “step,” residents continue to suffer.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/june/hold_out_for_single_.php

See also the human consequences of supporting a plan that includes the spiraling costs of the many for-profit insurers:

Because the U.S. going deeper into debt is certainly not painless. It's already costing me plenty in significantly reduced value of my IRA and pension and every essential purchase I make from food to utilities to transportation as the dollar loses value because of the U.S.'s excessive borrowing. It's costing me in additional state fees and property taxes as the state and local gov'ts have to try to make up for federal cutbacks and the inflation-fueled increase in costs for everything they use to provide essential services. Obama and friends think you can just keep printing money, not hold anyone to account in order to reduce theft, fraud, and excessive profit-taking and there will be no consequences. There already are painful consequences, especially to Baby Boomers who paid a lifetime in taxes and Soc. Sec. and find themselves unemployed and unemployable as businesses prefer to hire young people living in their parents' homes instead of 50-somethings. This economy is crashing down around our ears, with our few remaining large industries closing, and our gov't unwilling or unable to stimulate new industry as they promised instead of using our total revenue plus borrowing power each year to donate to banks and now to health insurance cos., and to service the debt on that expenditure. Debt in service of measures that truly revitalize the economy can protect quality of life and eventually pay for itself. What is happening now is just plain punishing for most people.

By not standing firm for single payer, we will also be abandoning hope for the economic stimulus of a plan that frees businesses, large and small, from crushing costs of insuring employees, the same costs that hastened the shut down of most of Chrysler and the bankruptcy of GM.

Americans need desperately to base our support of a measure on experience, if available, as the best kind of info, rather than repeating failures in hopes that the consequences will be different.

[Oregone]

1. "rather than repeating failures"

A system designed to help rich people profit, which actually results in rich people profiting, is not a failure by any means.

[clear eye]

5. From our point of view it is.

I understand what you're saying--that the deficiencies of care are not unintentional, that they're designed to maximize profits. But a plan that's sold as a cure for poor health coverage that instead spirals out of control and reduces coverage and then goes bust, has failed to accomplish what it promised.

[stray cat]

2. Right now doctors decide what tests need done and also benefit from each test profitably

its like a car salesman telling you what car and how many you have to buy. The profit for tests need to be taken away from those who ask for them. Many specialists profit directly from every test they have done.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. yet there is no talk of anti-trust legeslation to prohibit the multi level profitering

Why not?

Did the Republicans win the last election?

We need the insurance industry gone.

We need single payer.

We need Democrats who quit thinking of themselves as Republicans

[Dragonfli]

6. The "False Flag Democrats" (AKA Stealth Republicans) Are the Current Pressing Problem

We have to start treating them like what they are, not what they pretend to be.

They are Moderate Republicans that have burrowed into our party to help enable the sale of policy to various corporations.

Until we rid ourselves of them we will only have a majority in name only.
The end result will continue to be largely corporate friendly compromise legislation too watered down by the profit needs of special interests to accomplish what is in the best interests of the citizens that help elect these false Democrats.

IMO This False Flag Operation is destroying a great deal of faith in our party as well.


The republicans DID win the last election.

We have to vote out the Republicans that falsely claim to be Democrats if we are to expect Democratic policy.
The people that vote these Republicans in because they wear the Democratic Jersey and they can point to a number don't appear to understand this very simple dynamic.

Arlen Specter is not the only one making false party claims to get elected. IMO all DLC and Blue-dog Republicans are running a very successful False flag operation that has succeeded in extending republican rule and republican policies well into the foreseeable future.

[patrice]

3. I wish I could too. But I can't. And I won't. And I'm not going away.

"Health" "Care" providers will have to maintain BOTH payment processing mechanisms, so their savings will be minimized and, hence, so will expansion of markets and services covered.