A single-payer healthcare system is the only meaningful and productive solution.

Are we not already paying for those with no insurance through increased premiums and higher pricing at the source? I am not sure why we need to throw more money into health care. On the contrary we need innovative approaches for doctors to reduce their student loans, malpractice and administrative cost burdens while providing a cost structure that allows a comfortable living for providers that does not bankrupt the patient. When the cost of one illness or injury exceeds average annual income, we are finding ourselves priced out of the system.

A single-payer system is certainly not the ONLY solution... but anything that leaves the HI Companies (as presently constituted) in place, let alone actually in a stronger condition, is certainly not a solution to any of the problems we presently have.

This new system being proposed is fiscally unsustainable. At a time of 1.4 TRILLION DOLLAR ANNUAL DEFECITS now is not the same to ramp up such large, intrusive, burdensome government spending, rules and regulations.
Health care reform should be voted on piece by piece.
Everyone does deserve health care.
Where is the tort reform?
Pre-existing conditions should be accepted.
I should be able to shop for insurance in all 50 states.
But this piece of work, as is, is just fiscally unsustainable.
Raising taxes during an economic recession is sheer folly.

Passing a bill this massive and invasive is crazy - CBO predicts it will "only" cost about $900 billion the first 10 years - and that's because benefits don't start until 2012 or 2013. Gov't will just be collecting our taxes to try to pay for this mess until then. If you guys actually believe the CBO price tag, it is no wonder that Madoff was such a success for so long!

Remember the promises of Medicare (1966)? That it was just a safety net that would cost $3 billion and only $12 billion by 1990 (even adjusted for inflation)? At the end of the day, the only way to cut costs is to cut care.

There are absolutely essential reforms in the bill--no life time caps, no exclusion for preexisting conditions, no increase in premiums for being a woman, no later recission for withholding minor information in the initial application, kids can stay on their parent's health insurance until age 27 years, less out of pocket expenses in the form of co pays, a health exchange where small businesses can obtain competitive rates for employees, and help for just being a low wage earner without added requirements like a disability to get this help or subsidy. But there is no way the reform will not balloon our deficit. It is an expensive proposition with plenty of subsidies for the poor, the unemployed, children and even the lower middle class. Taxing high end health insurance premiums is not popular in Congress. The money can only come from taxing the rich and members of Congress will fight tooth and nail over the definition of "rich". As time goes by and more and more sophisticated genetic and biotech wonders become available to treat commonly occurring chronic conditions like arthritis and diabetes, people will clamor for them. The only way to keep cost down then, will be through denial of care (which is already occurring and should actually be reformed) and this, of course, is not acknowledged in these bills. Neither is it spelled out, in these bills, how the ever escalating cost of health care will be controlled nor is it clear why this won't add to the deficit. The insurance companies are being promised a bonanza in the form of millions of newly insured so they can make up for what they are sacrificing to health care reform. Enforcing mandatory insurance for all will be difficult. There will be scofflaws-- those who will take chances and cough up the federal fines when caught, rather than spend on health care. If the newly insured are very sick and if enough don't actually sign up, I don't see how the private insurers, stripped of their usual bag of tricks, can actually survive. Considering there is a dearth of doctors and nurses in the system, and the waiting time to see anyone for treatment is unacceptably long already, more new entrants won't ease that pain. In the end, with long waits, denied treatments and unaffordable medications, to the newly insured, health care reform may not make a whit of real difference. For docs this will be nothing but a nightmare--long lines of patients, less time for each, less pay from Medicare for seniors seen, confusion about billing, testing and prescribing--what's possible and what's not, same exorbitant malpractice payments and same large debts to be repaid for having chosen a medical education. You never examine both sides of the coin--for you health care reform as proposed by Barack Obama and engineered by the Democrats in Congress is always peaches and cream.
Cynic

single-payer healthcare system is the only meaningful and productive solution.

Posted by: NotableM | November 24, 2009 7:32 PM

I second this opinion.

Forcing the citizens with threat of fines and jail, to purchase a service from the mandating entity is nothing short of INDENTURED SERVITUDE.

It is no different then the coal mining companies of long ago. The mine owner built and owned the housing, the general store and the other services in the mining town. The mine workers would get their paychecks with their purchases and rent deducted from their pay. Many times the pay was a few dollars because the mine owner could charge what they wanted for the services. That was indentured servitude.

When the citizens of this once great country are FORCED to purchase a service and we have no say in it or its cost, and those payments are deducted from your pay, it is INDENTURED SERVITUDE!

I will refuse to comply.

It is a work in progress and we need to lay it on a foundation of proven ideas and those that are both successful and financially predictable. The public option is a good example that should look to where it's already been doing well. Like here: http://cli.gs/z3AtaY/

Healthcare reform is indeed essential. It's foundation MUST be to curb the spiraling costs of healthcare -- total national health expenditure, not just the federal burden. Having done that, we can/should expand coverage (and/or care) to all, and address the sorely needed insurance reforms that make health insurance "portable". That said, having good objectives is wholly insufficient to achieving the desired result. that's the problem with where we find ourselves today. all of the legislation we have seen to date, while having some good points, is sorely missing "market reform". Healthcare represents $1 in every $6 we spend in the USA. it is made up of a huge marketplace of doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical device manufacturers, etc. We need economic incentives that will sensibly increase the supply of services (while reducing unnecessary demand). Taxing healthcare (insurance, devices, pharmaceuticals) will only result in higher prices for care. Providing subsidies to help families pay for health insurance will have the unintended consequence of supporting policy prices. These are natural laws of economics. Ignoring them -- possibly because taxing the big guy and helping the little guy feels good -- is like planning to jump higher by ignoring the law of gravity. Sadly, the bills on the table will very likely accelerate the rise in healthcare costs. if so, we all lose!
pete wolcott
bear valley, ca

Anything short of the One-Payer-Plan is a capitulation to the fraud that is currently in existence, or is likely to come out of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries' highly manipulated and compromised effort to kill real reform. The only threat that will make a meaningful difference is if the autocracy of wealth, currently in charge, is fearful that a general mass uprising to demand that change. The end of slavery and the civil rights movement, were not decided by corporate owned corrupted "representatives" sitting in Washington, they were won in the streets and on the field of battle. Because the current health care system is such a money funnel for the rich, they are apt to defend it far more vigorously than they did slavery and the repression of civil rights.

Every people deserves to have a health care plan or pension everyone needs to be healthy. No matter it may cost them