Why I Support a Public Option.

[Samson]

There is NO reason anyone should be making 7 figures as an insurance bureaucrat.

7 figures is a drop in the bucket compared to the Medicaid/Medicare budget

You're talking about giving more administrative responsibility to a government that cannot keep 12 million illegal immigrants from crossing its border.

A government that cannt regulate investments in "derivatives."

A government that cannot control the activities of goat-herding "terrorists" after 8 years and $$$Billion$

There is absolutely no basis to believe a Public Option would be well managed by the US government.

There's one. Social Security.

1.2% efficiency compared to 22%.

Derivatives are something our government, at the behest of Alan Greenspan and a well-oiled financial lobby, chose very purposefully not to regulate. To the chagrin of Mr. Greenspan too, in hindsight.

FRONTLINE: the warning: interviews | PBS

Brooksley Born - Google Search

There is a huge difference between 'incompetent' and 'calculated theft'.

Not sure how the comment "1.2% efficiency compared to 22%" Justifies saying that the government well manages social security? But then, I didn't mention social security as an example of government's ability to manage anything better than a for profit business, because I don't see how the comparison can be made: What business competes with SSI?

To my knowledge, I have no choice other than to pay SSI, or to become a Government Employee, and then reap an unusually generous federal retirement benefit.

 

[TheSuaveOne]

Social security and Medicare runs so smoothly, they are running right out of existence. MC by '17 and SS by '37.

Good stuff, so we must need more.

-TSO

 

[Old Rocks]

We can't afford a public option. Cuz the gummit spent your great-grandchildren's money already. We're tapped out. Government, like individuals, should not spend irresponsibly.

OK. Fine, then we cannot possibly afford these high priced execs.

In the name of economy, then, we need to just terminate all of the health insurance companies, and go to the Canandian system. Their costs are far less than ours.

We have the highest costs per capita of any nation on earth, and do not cover a significant portion of our population.

Yet, in spite of those high costs, we are #37 ranked in health, and headed for # 50.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I don't think I assumed that about you as your post did not indicate such. What I was looking at was your analogy that the public option is essentially an insurance plan. It really is not insurance. It is forced taxation with a promise that should you need it the government will provide health care.

Personally, I don't look to favorably upon that promise.

Immie

It shouldn't involve taxes at all. Let me pay the money that I'm already paying to my current insurance company to Medicare instead, that way I won't feel guilty about making the inevitable Medicare claims I'm sure to when my lifestyle catches up with me around age 66.

How about they let me keep my current insurance and not fall victim to the bureaucracy ruining er, running, our lives?

Immie

Did you know it was the Republicans who wrote the original bill with a personal mandate? Back when Clinton was in office.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

If you remove the million dollar executives and their needs from the equation, costs to the consumer come down. Take banking for instance - I just received notice from my Not-For-Profit Credit Union that I had insufficient funds in checking to cover my last mortgage check. They transferred the cash out of savings and charged me $5.00.

Why don't we have a national credit union and a public option in insurance?

Good (insert your preferred Deity here) people!! We must look so stupid from space.

I so don't get the public option...not, at least, as I currently understand it.

Basically it appear to me to be the HC insurance dumping grounds for any client that the private insurance companies do not want.

It is, I think a terrible idea.

It could work out to be very beneficial for the private insurance companies, however.

When you get sick, they dump you and then you're the government's problem.

Does that really sound like a good system to you?

We give the private insurance companies the health population so they can make a lot of money insuring healthy people, while the taxpayer ends up with only the poor and very sick?

That's my understanding (or more like my instinct) about how a a public insurance coupled with private insurance companies is going to play out.

Makes you wonder if that requirement to own insurance was really the administrations idea or the insurance comapnies.

The Republicans...

 

[Immanuel]

It shouldn't involve taxes at all. Let me pay the money that I'm already paying to my current insurance company to Medicare instead, that way I won't feel guilty about making the inevitable Medicare claims I'm sure to when my lifestyle catches up with me around age 66.

How about they let me keep my current insurance and not fall victim to the bureaucracy ruining er, running, our lives?

Immie

Did you know it was the Republicans who wrote the original bill with a personal mandate? Back when Clinton was in office.

No, but ask me if I care.

It sucks no matter who wrote it. However, I'd love a link to support that statement, if you have one.

Immie

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Immi needs to watch Rachel Maddow. She called the Reps on this several times.

Republicans Spurn Once-Favored Health Mandate : NPR

Rachel had the bill's number, but I don't remember it

 

[jillian]

The health care crap in Congress right now does not improve anything. If you want Health care to be sold across State lines? It is not in there.

Ezra Klein - The six Republican ideas already in the health-care reform bill

the Senate health-care bill included a compromise with the conservative vision for insurance regulation. The relevant policy is in Section 1333, which allows the formation of interstate compacts. Under this provision, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho (for instance) could agree to allow insurers based in any of those states to sell plans in all of them. This prevents a race to the bottom, as Idaho has to be comfortable with Arizona's regulations, and the policies have to have a minimum level of benefits (something that even Rep. Paul Ryan believes), but it's a lot closer to the conservative ideal.

So rather than have the option of either public or private insurance, you'd rather pass legislation telling businesses what services they must offer?

Get tort reform in there. Get the shyster Lawyers out of our medical costs.

Tort Reform Unlikely to Cut Health Care Costs The Washington Independent

Eighty percent of malpractice claims involve significant disability or death, a 2006 analysis of medical malpractice claims conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health shows, and the amount of compensation patients receive strongly depends on the merits of their claims. Most people injured by medical malpractice do not bring legal claims, earlier studies by the same researchers have found.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/opinion/12baker.html?_r=1

is he really still talking about "tort reform"? he still buying the lie that 2% of insurance company costs are going to make a difference.


lol..

 

[Immanuel]

Immi needs to watch Rachel Maddow. She called the Reps on this several times.

Republicans Spurn Once-Favored Health Mandate : NPR

Rachel had the bill's number, but I don't remember it

Fat chance on getting me to watch any talking head regardless of which side of the political spectrum he or she resides on.

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out momentarily.

Immie

 

[Immanuel]

Immi needs to watch Rachel Maddow. She called the Reps on this several times.

Republicans Spurn Once-Favored Health Mandate : NPR

Rachel had the bill's number, but I don't remember it

Read the link. Thank you.

Although, there is no "proof" that the bills are similar, I will take their word for it because I am not going to spend the rest of the month researching it.

For the record, I do not have a problem with "universal health care". I do not have a problem being taxed in order to make sure that the poor have health services.

My problem is with the government, our government, managing it.

I do not believe our government can or should take on that kind of a burden now. I am afraid our economy is in deep trouble and this kind of thing will only make things worse.

That is the short spiel I have to say on that.

Immie

 

[AVG-JOE]

How about they let me keep my current insurance and not fall victim to the bureaucracy ruining er, running, our lives?

Immie

Congratulations. You have defined the word 'option' in Public Option.

Except that in the proposals by the Democrats 'option' is a misnomer. It is not an option at all. An option implies I have a choice to make. Under the Democratic proposals I have no "option". That was the entire point I made earlier. Maybe you didn't read that?

Immie

I am not touting the piece of crap 'reform' currently stalled in congress, and am I through whining about it. I'm trying to push a component that the insurance lobby quickly assassinated thanks to our sold out 'representatives'.

Just burn the reform bill and let me buy Medicare at the current rate. If I'm the only one foolish enough to exercise my option to buy into Medicare, what harm could there be in trying it?

 

[Bern80]

We can't afford a public option. Cuz the gummit spent your great-grandchildren's money already. We're tapped out. Government, like individuals, should not spend irresponsibly.

OK. Fine, then we cannot possibly afford these high priced execs.

In the name of economy, then, we need to just terminate all of the health insurance companies, and go to the Canandian system. Their costs are far less than ours.

We have the highest costs per capita of any nation on earth, and do not cover a significant portion of our population.

Yet, in spite of those high costs, we are #37 ranked in health, and headed for # 50.

You are truly deluded if you think the problem with our health care system is the salaries of insurance company executives. And you are truly naive if you think just making it cheap for people is going to make us have some great beacon of a health care system.

 

[AVG-JOE]

If you remove the million dollar executives and their needs from the equation, costs to the consumer come down. Take banking for instance - I just received notice from my Not-For-Profit Credit Union that I had insufficient funds in checking to cover my last mortgage check. They transferred the cash out of savings and charged me $5.00.

Why don't we have a national credit union and a public option in insurance?

Good (insert your preferred Deity here) people!! We must look so stupid from space.

I so don't get the public option...not, at least, as I currently understand it.

Basically it appear to me to be the HC insurance dumping grounds for any client that the private insurance companies do not want.

It is, I think a terrible idea.

It could work out to be very beneficial for the private insurance companies, however.

When you get sick, they dump you and then you're the government's problem.

Does that really sound like a good system to you?

We give the private insurance companies the health population so they can make a lot of money insuring healthy people, while the taxpayer ends up with only the poor and very sick?

That's my understanding (or more like my instinct) about how a a public insurance coupled with private insurance companies is going to play out.

That, is the precise reason that We, The People are Chumps.

Rich motherfuckers - the dudes that underwrite the private insurance bureaucracies - have worked out a 'deal' with us where we pay them lots of money when we are young, healthy and working to make sure that when the inevitable boo-boo / catastrophe happens there are a couple of dollars in an account to pay the doctor bill. Most of us are lucky / healthy enough to not need much in the way of doctoring until we hit about 65 years old, just in time to hand us, sans all the premiums paid between age 22 and 65, over to Medicare, which is funded by a payroll tax and a minimum premium of $100 per month from the retirees that depend on it.

American Chumps.

Pay all your working lives into a health care 'system' that puts billions of dollars per quarter into the 'profit' column, only to end up sticking your selves and your children with the cost of care as you age.

American Chumps. If I wasn't one of 'em, I'd be laughing my ass off.

 

[AVG-JOE]

7 figures is a drop in the bucket compared to the Medicaid/Medicare budget

You're talking about giving more administrative responsibility to a government that cannot keep 12 million illegal immigrants from crossing its border.

A government that cannt regulate investments in "derivatives."

A government that cannot control the activities of goat-herding "terrorists" after 8 years and $$$Billion$

There is absolutely no basis to believe a Public Option would be well managed by the US government.

There's one. Social Security.

1.2% efficiency compared to 22%.

Derivatives are something our government, at the behest of Alan Greenspan and a well-oiled financial lobby, chose very purposefully not to regulate. To the chagrin of Mr. Greenspan too, in hindsight.

FRONTLINE: the warning: interviews | PBS

Brooksley Born - Google Search

There is a huge difference between 'incompetent' and 'calculated theft'.

Not sure how the comment "1.2% efficiency compared to 22%" Justifies saying that the government well manages social security? But then, I didn't mention social security as an example of government's ability to manage anything better than a for profit business, because I don't see how the comparison can be made: What business competes with SSI?

To my knowledge, I have no choice other than to pay SSI, or to become a Government Employee, and then reap an unusually generous federal retirement benefit.

No business competes with SSI, which is Supplemental Security Income - a welfare program designed to make certain that people who are over 65 or are disabled have a minimum income of $674.00 per month.

Social Security is essentially a forced insurance program for 93% of the American Workforce. Work a minimum number of years and you are 'insured' against disability with a benefit of a monthly cash payment, the size of which is based on how much in taxes you were 'forced' to pay as a percentage of your income. Work ten years and you are 'insured' for retirement too, meaning you have a monthly cash payment available if you are lucky enough see age 62.

The other task entrusted to Social Security is protecting and maintaining the most vast data base of personal and financial information in history. Think about the information and work history that the Social Security Administration has on you... Would you really want that data base in the hands of a for-profit corporation traded on the international stock market?

You are 100% right. In spite of being overseen by a corrupt congress, Social Security has no competition in the insurance industry.

Imagine what else We, The People could accomplish if we pulled our stubborn heads out of our Chump asses.

 

[Samson]

There's one. Social Security.

1.2% efficiency compared to 22%.

Derivatives are something our government, at the behest of Alan Greenspan and a well-oiled financial lobby, chose very purposefully not to regulate. To the chagrin of Mr. Greenspan too, in hindsight.

FRONTLINE: the warning: interviews | PBS

Brooksley Born - Google Search

There is a huge difference between 'incompetent' and 'calculated theft'.

Not sure how the comment "1.2% efficiency compared to 22%" Justifies saying that the government well manages social security? But then, I didn't mention social security as an example of government's ability to manage anything better than a for profit business, because I don't see how the comparison can be made: What business competes with SSI?

To my knowledge, I have no choice other than to pay SSI, or to become a Government Employee, and then reap an unusually generous federal retirement benefit.

The other task entrusted to Social Security is protecting and maintaining the most vast data base of personal and financial information in history. Think about the information and work history that the Social Security Administration has on you... Would you really want that data base in the hands of a for-profit corporation traded on the international stock market? Imagine what else We, The People could accomplish if we pulled our stubborn heads out of our Chump asses.

Actually, I'd prefer that NO ONE, private or public, collected any information about me that I didn't choose to give them, particularly if the rational is to Nanny me because they don't consider I'm competent enough to manage my own financial affairs.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

I do NOT want Government run health care for all. It won't work.

Are liberals missing a gene? What part of I don't want to pay for everyone else don't you get? What part of take PERSONAL responsibility for your self and your family don't you get?

You don't even understand what the public option is, you don't belong in this thread. Go away, correct your ignorance, then come back if you like.

 

[AVG-JOE]

7 figures is a drop in the bucket compared to the Medicaid/Medicare budget

You're talking about giving more administrative responsibility to a government that cannot keep 12 million illegal immigrants from crossing its border.

A government that cannt regulate investments in "derivatives."

A government that cannot control the activities of goat-herding "terrorists" after 8 years and $$$Billion$

There is absolutely no basis to believe a Public Option would be well managed by the US government.

There's one. Social Security.

1.2% efficiency compared to 22%.

Derivatives are something our government, at the behest of Alan Greenspan and a well-oiled financial lobby, chose very purposefully not to regulate. To the chagrin of Mr. Greenspan too, in hindsight.

FRONTLINE: the warning: interviews | PBS

Brooksley Born - Google Search

There is a huge difference between 'incompetent' and 'calculated theft'.

Not sure how the comment "1.2% efficiency compared to 22%" Justifies saying that the government well manages social security? But then, I didn't mention social security as an example of government's ability to manage anything better than a for profit business, because I don't see how the comparison can be made: What business competes with SSI?

To my knowledge, I have no choice other than to pay SSI, or to become a Government Employee, and then reap an unusually generous federal retirement benefit.

Misuse of the acronym 'SSI' notwithstanding, the last sentence is untrue.

Sort of...​

In 1984 Congress did something for Social Security - every Federal Employee hired after 1984 has paid SSA taxes and the days of the 'cush' government job were numbered.

Many in congress are already on the Social Security Retirement Program instead of Civil Service but the average age of a US Senator is well over 60 and most of those guys have been sucking at the DC tit since well before 1984.

As soon as we get rid of the dead-wood, our representation in government will have a vested, personal interest in shoring up the program for the future.

Just one more reason to vote against the old white haired dude.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Not sure how the comment "1.2% efficiency compared to 22%" Justifies saying that the government well manages social security? But then, I didn't mention social security as an example of government's ability to manage anything better than a for profit business, because I don't see how the comparison can be made: What business competes with SSI?

To my knowledge, I have no choice other than to pay SSI, or to become a Government Employee, and then reap an unusually generous federal retirement benefit.

The other task entrusted to Social Security is protecting and maintaining the most vast data base of personal and financial information in history. Think about the information and work history that the Social Security Administration has on you... Would you really want that data base in the hands of a for-profit corporation traded on the international stock market? Imagine what else We, The People could accomplish if we pulled our stubborn heads out of our Chump asses.

Actually, I'd prefer that NO ONE, private or public, collected any information about me that I didn't choose to give them, particularly if the rational is to Nanny me because they don't consider I'm competent enough to manage my own financial affairs.

Assume for a moment that in order to have the lifestyle and communications that we enjoy, data bases must be maintained - What kind of a cluster-fuck would Toyota be dealing with right now if someone hadn't taken the time to jot down the names and addresses of the people who bought their cars? Do you want to carry your medical files with you? When you're 70?

O.k... Ass-U-Me-ing data bases are a necessary evil, who would you rather hold the keys to the ones with the most personal financial data, a for-profit corporation, subject to the whims of anyone who can afford enough stock, or some adequately paid bureaucrats subject to the whim of a congress that, in theory at least, you hold the keys to?

 

[Samson]

The other task entrusted to Social Security is protecting and maintaining the most vast data base of personal and financial information in history. Think about the information and work history that the Social Security Administration has on you... Would you really want that data base in the hands of a for-profit corporation traded on the international stock market? Imagine what else We, The People could accomplish if we pulled our stubborn heads out of our Chump asses.

Actually, I'd prefer that NO ONE, private or public, collected any information about me that I didn't choose to give them, particularly if the rational is to Nanny me because they don't consider I'm competent enough to manage my own financial affairs.

In 1984 Congress did something for Social Security - every Federal Employee hired after 1984 has paid SSA taxes and the days of the 'cush' government job were numbered.

Many in congress are already on the Social Security Retirement Program instead of Civil Service but the average age of a US Senator is well over 60 and most of those guys have been sucking at the DC tit since well before 1984.

As soon as we get rid of the dead-wood, our representation in government will have a vested, personal interest in shoring up the program for the future.

You want a nanny state to care for you: Terrific, let them garnish your wages today to pay for like minded individuals (today), PLUS your needs tomorrow.

Unhappily, there's no one in their right mind that would voluntarily choose this innane retirement plan.

 

[AVG-JOE]

The other task entrusted to Social Security is protecting and maintaining the most vast data base of personal and financial information in history. Think about the information and work history that the Social Security Administration has on you... Would you really want that data base in the hands of a for-profit corporation traded on the international stock market? Imagine what else We, The People could accomplish if we pulled our stubborn heads out of our Chump asses.

Actually, I'd prefer that NO ONE, private or public, collected any information about me that I didn't choose to give them, particularly if the rational is to Nanny me because they don't consider I'm competent enough to manage my own financial affairs.

In 1984 Congress did something for Social Security - every Federal Employee hired after 1984 has paid SSA taxes and the days of the 'cush' government job were numbered.

Many in congress are already on the Social Security Retirement Program instead of Civil Service but the average age of a US Senator is well over 60 and most of those guys have been sucking at the DC tit since well before 1984.

As soon as we get rid of the dead-wood, our representation in government will have a vested, personal interest in shoring up the program for the future.

You want a nanny state to care for you: Terrific, let them garnish your wages today to pay for like minded individuals (today), PLUS your needs tomorrow.

Unhappily, there's no one in their right mind that would voluntarily choose this innane retirement plan.

Ask any banker how much you would have to sock away each month from your $60,000 a year job to guarantee a pension of $1,200 per month starting at age 64...

Now, add a disability benefit starting at age 30 to your equation...

Now, go get your last pay stub and look at the premiums you paid in FICA taxes...

Reasonable insurance because it's administered by a public bureaucracy is what we get with Social Security if you ask me, but everybody gets to vote.