Amen.

Expand medicare to cover the catastrophic, traumatic and similar bankruptingly expensive disease treatments. Just take these costs off the table entirely as a concern to individuals. Achieve the 100% actuarial base through taxes.

Whats left? The ordinary, the routine and for some the maintenance of certain chronic conditions they have. Pay your own way out of your own pocket for what are almost entirely knowable and therefore budgetable.

Have HSA and incidental insurance and deduct the costs of (almost) all of it.

et voila! Aetnaa nd Cigna and United and BC too... all go *poof*. Your costs are what YOU choose to spend for that level of quality that YOU value.

The Senate will have monumental issues with the bill as it is currently proposed. Most brought by the non voting right wing area specific to treatment of illegals and the ever present abortion issue. So how does Mr. Kucinich propose to expose this farce for what is is, or will he retire to the sidelines?

I was shocked to see Kucinich's name along with all of those ultra-right-wing Republicans and "Blue Dog*" Democrats. But I knew he must have had some very good sounding "left wing" reasons, and I was correct.

Kucinich is a good and well-intended man. But real progress is only accomplished by people, who are willing to make the compromises necessary in our imperfect system. Obama and Pelosi understand that and those of us, who worked so hard on the ground to get this Health Care bill through, understand that.

And a cople more "Kucinichs" would have scuttled a bill, which most of us have been waiting for, for a lifetime. So, this was no time for ultra-left-wing grandstanding. Anyway, THANK GOD we got this bill through!

*A question for all, "Blue Dogs": "Blue Dog, what do they call yo mamma!?!"

Love this bill or hate it, none of it will take effect for at least another two congressional election cycles.

There is a good Yahoo Finance article that details the nuts and bolts of the plan: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/091107/us_health_care_comparing_the_bills.html?.v=6

Businesses with over 500k of payroll would have to provide insurance or be faced with an 8% payroll tax. Note that as a payroll tax (as opposed to a traditional tax on profits) it can put a company in the red or exacerbate losses of one that already is.

Businesses with fewer than 10 employees can apply for tax credits.

Businesses with payroll from 500k-750k get a sliding scale/phased in penalty.

Individuals are forced to buy health insurance or be faced with an additional 2.5% tax.

Individuals can apply for hardship waivers.

Those with incomes less than 4 times the poverty level (88k for a family of 4) get sliding scale subsidies to make it more affordable.

All plans must be a "qualified" plan. High deductible, low premium plans are dis-qualified.

Failure to pay the 8% or 2.5% fines can result in 5 years in prison and or a 250k fine.

Nothing takes effect until 2013.

I'm willing to make a little wager that this plan in its present form will not, even come close to making out of the Senate.

I agree with MrRational in principle. The problem is in real life the politicians cannot help themselves but to lower the bar and increase the number and value of services the government offers.

As for David Irby, I suggest you do not get your hopes too high. In 2010 the Republicans will retake the House and in 2012 they will likely retake the White House. If health care is subject to the whims of federal politicians and bureaucrat how excited will you be then?

In reality, many opponents are not "blue dog Democrats" -- 15 of the 39, in fact -- and voted against it for some of the same reasons as Kucinich. Several were emphatic in supporting the "public option" which the insurance industry has tried so hard to defeat (Betsy Markey of Colorado, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, John Boccieri of Ohio, for example), but like many others said they opposed the bill because it did too little to reduce costs and was a giveaway to the insurance companies. "This bill doesn't do enough to rein in insurance companies," wrote Harry Teague of New Mexico on his website. He complained that it forces millions to buy insurance "but does little to make insurance companies control costs."
It may well be that the House Democratic leadership told some of these that they could vote against it, once victory was assured. The Republicans used to do that all the time when they controlled the House.

It's a given that the Senate will not pass the House bill in its current iteration.

I'm pro-health care reform, but the predominant bills (even without reading in between the lines) are nothing but a further legislative entrenchment of the current system. The only real "changes" are a bit of cost and mandate-shifting, but that's about it. Nothing but re-arranging the pawns.

I would like to clarify on Kucinich's comments, though--we haven't seen a 200% reduction in physicians alone since 1970. We've seen a drastic reduction in the number of med students pursuing the primary care physician option--and it's due to the fact that specialists draw higher salaries.....after racking up higher med school debt. Unless/until the medical research community starts putting forth truly ground-breaking medical treatments (really hasn't happened for decades), we really don't need an increase in any speciality beyond gerontology for the next 20-40 years.

If Kucinich voted against it, it is a bad bill.

Kudos to Kucinich who voted against a BAD bill for the RIGHT reasons. Thank God someone's out there trying to protect us!

I wonder if the congressman ever considered the administrative cost of running the federal government's programs. We could probably fund health care and social security with our tax dollars if the feds did away with their administrators.