I guess your parents didn't see things the same as you, your still alive.

Ah, some of the wonderful effects of obamacare! Now there will be even less children covered due to obama's work! Good job!

I didn't realize that a private business had to take on losing customers by force. I hope all businesses are not forced to do that. (sarcasm)

This was an idiotic move by Obama, and of course, it backfired.

I am sorry that some children are sick, but a private company should not be forced to pick up the tab for a child coming in with a big bill from the outset.

The health care reform was never reform. The biggest problem in the heath care insurance industry is the shareholders are not the people who pay the premiums.

Go back to non-profit health care!

kathy - 475969

Please say this was a tongue in cheek comment and you weren't really serious! I just can't believe anyone could really say and mean "Hitler had it right".

kip, maybe you should look up the definition of SARCASM.

Conservatives blaming this on Obama .... and these ignoramuses would suggest that insurance companies never did things like this before health care reform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WellPoint : "In July 2008, WellPoint subsidiary Anthem Blue Cross agreed to a settlement with the California Department of Managed Health Care. To resolve allegations of improper policy rescissions (cancellations), WellPoint paid $10 million and reinstated 1,770 policy-holders whose plans they had cancelled. They also agreed to provide compensation for any medical debts incurred by these policy-holders in the meantime. However, WellPoint did not officially admit liability"

What parallel universe, only inhabited by half-wits do Conservatives live in ?

I say - boycott these bastards. Do not pick any of them in your open-enrollment (I hope you have non-profit insurers available to you, if not, ask loudly of your employers). Yes, they're private business who's only purpose for being is to MAKE MONEY. So, insuring sick people (young or old) is a losing proposition. Before the law kicked in, they would just cancel your policy as soon as you made a claim. They figure most individual child policies are purchased by parents who believe their child will need it - so its bad business.

When they start losing their customers in a meanful way, especially those healthy (therefore profitable) ones, then they may reconsider the ethics of their decision. This is no different than BP and the gas/oil industry at large - why should they invest in disaster prevention until there is one? It's not good for business.

did you read the article? it isnt that hard... insurance companies stopped selling these products because with the new change in the law people could wait until they got sick to purchase insurance... you cant price a policy that people can buy after they become ill... think about homeowners insurance..would you pay premium every month if you could purchase insurance after your house caught fire? of course not...if the law said you could how much do you think they would charge

SEE! Max Baucas and the Democrats let the insurance companies and Pharma write the new law. The Demos on the Senate committee, big PHARMA and private health insurance wrote the law. Get ready to be taken advantage of, but don't worry the Repubs will do the same thing. They all have their own insurance and they do not give a single thought to the rest of us.

Whatever private insurance agreed to, you can bet te public in general will get screwed.

Typical rich PRICK attitude.....kiss rich ass and screw everyone else!

This is the kind of sewer health insurance management is. They will happily take all those new customers required to buy, but the other side of the deal, that they provide coverage to everybody they will try to avoid as long as insurance is private and Republicans work to water down every attempt at regulation. No public option=no accountability for private insurance.

How many of you delusional people buy auto insurance after you've wrecked your car? Home owners insurance after your house has burned down? Democrats as usual myopic. Always looking for that free lunch. I suggest we keep this law in place and require anyone in favor of it to foot the bill. Let's see how long it lasts then.

Problems like this are generally handled by an "open season"; you can only aquire or change your coverage for one month in the year. Why don't insurance companies establish an open season? Because the greedy bastards don't want to cover these children at all, ever.

Companies dont survive by being stupid and nieve. If you're stupid, you're out of business. Only the good ones (for the company) survive. No such quality control in govt.

Stevene, congratulations, you just made a very compelling case for the individual mandate. Get insurance before you get sick. Now will you stop channeling Huckabee.

Now, pray you don't actually develop a chronic condition and then say, loose your job and need to rely on the free market to obtain health insurance. You'd be SOL if things remain as they were. Or are you all for social programs in that scenario?

Public option or single payer. @!$%# the insurance companies, lets join the civilized world and improve the healthcare of millions of Americans.

How would this be any different for a nonprofit? Lets say we make no profit and have three healthy children that cost us 500 a year so the company charges a 500 dollar premium. Now, the fourth child wants insurance but has brain cancer that will cost my nonprofit 2K a year. Now my costs are 3500 dollars a year. Obama says I can't charge people with pre-existing conditions more than the others. What will I have to do? Raise the premiums for the other 3 children to almost 900 dollars to still break even. Or, I can decline that fourth child and keep my exisitng customers. Nonprofit or not, it doesn't make a difference----children (or adults) with pre-existing conditions will be a drain on the companies resources.

So Karen, what exactly are you proposing for those children (and adults) with pre-existing conditions requiring expensive treatment?

@Karen, that's actually the reason why we have the individual mandate, with a significantly large enough pool of paying members it is unlikely that enough of them will have long term expensive care to not be able to absorb those costs. Also the insurance companies have mathematical models to factor in the potential costs for each additional paying customer to be able to effectively pay for their own care plus overhead. The for profit companies however are charging this rate, but have historically denied care in order to improve profit margins. And they are now increasing premiums to increase that level of profit to punish American's for electing a "Bad" man.

Karen, first and foremost, non-profits are bound by regulations that for-profit is not. The major difference is non-profits used to be required to refund heath care premiums not used by lowering the cost in the next billing cycle (most often used method) or by refund checks.

Back in the days before For-profit healthcare, non-profits were required to have x-amount of payout in cash/liquid assets. I believe it was 25% of policy holders, worse case scenario. Dont ask me for the exact formula, though I could get it. X amount offset for administrative costs (and total admin costs were regulated). There was a time lapse lag of one or two years where if the insurance collected more than the required set back, the policy holders were refunded the money by premium decreases.

This worked for years and years.

The for-profit health care could not compete so they lobbied for changes in non-profit health care requiring the non-profit health care orgs to have a HUGE % of potential payouts in liquid assets (if memory is correct, the change jumped to 200%). This raised premium prices greatly. As a side note, for-profit can invest your premium money in areas non-profits were forbidden. So this huge liquid asset/cash on hand applied to non-profit, but not for profit.

Anyways, as soon as health care became an investment for people who were not policy holders, the focus has not been on healthcare, but on returns on that investment. A clear conflict of interest.

As a side note to this, I do not understand why our government regulators have not undertaken a full blown criminal investigation into healthcare and big pharma under RICO. I think the evidence is pretty clear that the same companies selling the same drugs are gouging US citizens, while providing exactly the same product to people in Canada, the UK, and other places in Europe (and the world) for greatly reduced prices.

Even better let them continue to not sign up and to deny to write policies to children with preexisting illness, children 26 and under and then to everyone with preexisting diseases when the part of the law becomes active. Bye, bye insurance companies. Hello Single payer.

Mr. President, Mr. Bernanke and Federal Reserve do not bail them out or TARP them. Let them fail. Let them earn their income/business as it should be.

already pay lots of taxes including premium taxes... increasing taxes = higher rates..is that what we want?

When you have to argue with "bob" from mumbai about why the er visit for your heart attack couldn't be precerted 48 hours ahead of time and should instead be paid rather than the denial they issued then talk to me about protecting these profit greedy companies from taxes.

These companies want tax breaks to send thousands of jobs overseas. They will also want a large piece of the insurance exchanges pie money too. I say if they wont market these child policies they don't get either.

No one said they couldn't price these policies higher to cover the risk. Just that they couldn't decide that the case of sniffles your child got at age 2 is a reason to deny them a policy at age 12... They offer guarantee issue to seniors, its time our children got the same privilege. nothing stopping the big companies from setting open enrollment at the same time for all of them. They just don't want to play and so have gone home in a huff.

They'll just pass the taxes through and YOU'LL pay even more. Take a econ class or something. geez.

Public option or single payer. That is the answer.

@ Genenut, yes they did say that the companies cannot price the policies higher to cover the risk. That provision kicks in later. So the companies would not be able to charge a child receiving treatment for say, cancer, any more than a child with no health conditions at all.

Face it people ALL isurance companies are thieves...they gladly take your premium, but god forbid you should ever make a claim, they drop you like a hot potatoe.....I will never do business with these 5 companies for sure! Hopefully they will lose alot of customers particularly those with children!

Nothings stopping you as an individual from helping someone else pay for insurance coverage, but I bet you don't

Better yet take that money an organize a people run and owned healthcare payer agency.

Better yet take that money an organize a people run and owned healthcare payer agency.

They call that "Universal Health Care" in the rest of the industrialized world....you know we are the only modern nation without it and we pay twice as much for medical results that are below standards for those other countries.

Yes I know. It was President Franklin Roosevelt that helped install it post WWII in Europe but he could not get it here. So if our politicans cannot because of the insurance companies and their lobbyist, then we the people should create our own.

Public option or single payer. The time is NOW.

What a great idea. All of you wanting single payer systems, pool your money and create your own insurance company. Then, you can take all those declined by "big bad greedy ins. companies" and provide coverage for them. Stop waiting for the rich to pay for everything---take some initiative on your own.

The Greed Over People party doesn't care about poor kids, or quality health care for any poor people. That's christian values folks. Oh, that and torture.

How amusing! Dem or Die, Obamas Health care reform did this and you're complaining? Didnt you vote for this guy?

And on the hilarious flip-side of the coin is Dancnman blaming the GOP for Obamas @!$%#ed up mess!

OH MY FRIKKEN GOD!!! Can you stupid ass Democrats ever agree on ANYTHING? This is why your party is so blind and @!$%#ed up! You have so much fighting in the ranks that a house divided against itself cannot stand! These November mid-term elections will just rip the Democratic party apart. Although I voted Republican last election doesnt mean I wont vote for a Dem. I would consider myself Independent because I have voted Democratic in past elections. But because of the infighting I see now, it sours my views of Democrats. I wish you all good luck in life, you're going to need it....

And by the way Dem or Die, what the hell gives you the RIGHT to take away money I have EARNED?!?!?! Who gives a @!$%# if I put it in my mattress? Its my money! I went out and busted my ass for it and you just want to take it and GIVE it away? Why not have those @!$%#ing lazy people work for their OWN GODDAMM MONEY?!?!?!

Waiting for the mindless rants to follow...Ho humm......

Insurance companies will never act with integrity as long as they own the Republican party. They'll just use the "political fix"; for a fee you can get Republicans to block any regulation you don't want.

How much have you donated to a children's hospital? Anybody can be generous with other people's money.

Time for the public option or a single payer system.

BS--- so true. The left has no problem calling those against HCR "unchristian", yet most of them pay no taxes and probably contribute nothing to the poor.

Karen must be a member of that Greed over People Party...probaably also in the top 3 % who want to f**k everyone else in this country to!

Good reason to just shut them all down and implement single payer coverage. No more greedy executives denying coverage just to line their pockets for a few more dollars.

Hmm...maybe the GOP shouldn't have gutted the bill then, huh? This is what happens with half measures. By the way, these companies have been denying and cancelling people's coverage for decades. This is just SOP for them, and is a big reason we need real reform, not the baby steps the GOP has been pussy footing around for more than a decade.

Of course it's not Obamacare - only the 90 IQ'ers could be duped into believing that.

Here's the problem, and it's funny that the best illustration of the issue comes from a corny early 70's TV series - here was the weekly introduction, "A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability.." (The Six Million Dollar Man)

In a sense the United States still is the Greatest Country on earth. It's true, our Pharma folks and our medical industrial complex is filled with unbelievably smart, innovative people who spend every waking moment thinking about Cancer therapies and Smart bullets and miracle stents and anti-rejection strategies and a thousand other things. All of this costs money - in some cases tons of it for a single course of therapy for a single person (much more than that individual has perhaps ever paid into the system in his or her lifetime). Grandpa and little Jenny and me and you all have a much greater chance of surviving into old age because of this science. Who'll pay for it? Will we all get the best care possible? Or only the young? Or only the rich? Or only the Righteous?

That's the problem, and that's the question we will have to answer soon as a society.

Only the what? The righteous? I think I'm gonna puke...

That is the Republican position, put all social services under the control of the religious right. You want medical care? If Republicans get their way, it'll cost you your freedom of religion, and maybe not even then.

Now this is what Obama led us to believe would happen, not this so called health care reform, crap. Even he backed down in the end when it came to real reform on healthcare.

I think he has been open, even during the campaign, that single-payer was off the table. He always pointed out that in the U.S. we largely have employers providing healthcare benefits, and for whatever reason he didn't want to mess with that (probably because he knew that it was politically unpalatable). Obviously, I don't agree with him about how to approach this problem. Besides, employers could pay the government for healthcare just like they pay insurance companies to cover employees. I'm not saying that this is how it should work, but the possibility is not excluded by the idea of a single-payer health finance mechanism.

And I agree that, if for no other reason than the exclusion of a public option, we got a sh_tty healthcare bill earlier this year. But this is not a reason to vote for Republicans, Tea Partiers or otherwise! The problem with the healthcare legislation passed is not that it offends conservatives, but that it's not progressive ENOUGH. They talk about it as if it's some wild-eyed liberal scheme.

You're absolutely right, every American should give the government 95% of our pay checks, we’ll all be very poor but at least we'll be very healthy.

No, Lenny, with your attitude I think only you should pay 95% (well, and everybody else who has the same attitude).

With your attitude I bet you donate a lot to charities to help people less fortunate than yourself. I'm I right? NOT!! And don't say you donate your time, people can't eat time.

RedMike,

Just to be clear, "single-payer" means government-run. It means that the single-payer (the government) would define what medical care would be paid for by this system and what would not, just as insurance companies do now. The government would also define how much a health care professional would be paid for such services. The government would define how much the system would pay for prescriptions and medical devices such as wheelchairs, prosthetics and so forth. Health care professionals would be compelled to accept the terms of the government or choose to work outside the system, essentially providing health care only to those who could afford it. Through the rules established by the government for this system, the government would be managing the means of providing health care service and allocating the resources necessary for this to be done. Given these conditions, this means that the government would control the health care resources of the country. Government would essentially own that part of the economy.

Based on the definition of the word, this is “socialism” as it pertains to the health care portion of the nation’s economy. Before anyone jumps all over this as hyperbole, remember the definition of Socialism: “an economic and political theory advocating public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism). If you don’t like Wikipedia, try http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism where socialism is defined as “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.”

I’m not saying single-payer, or socialized medicine, is good, bad or between. I’m just suggesting that we stop euphemizing terms and call it what it is: socialism.

Accepting that this is socialism, at least to a limited degree, we must ask ourselves if this is what we really want to do. It may be, but moving that direction has its implications. It means that we are embracing a concept of socialism into our nation and culture. One might try to use all sorts of slippery-slope arguments against moving that direction. Such arguments may or may not be valid. However, we still need to ask ourselves if that’s really what we want to do.

Something else to ask is how effective and efficient is such a system likely to be? Better than what we have? Maybe. Perhaps we don’t have very many models from which we might draw a reasonable conclusion. All we have are some examples of other single-provider institutions such as the IRS, Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Administration, unemployment, welfare, food stamps, and other national, state, and local social services.

I suppose this may all be moot because the health care reform bill was passed by congress and signed into law by President Obama. But I think it’s worth considering as we move into the future every time we decide to turn control of any part of our lives over to the government.

I don't have a problem with single-payer being socialistic. Healthcare is but one sector of the economy. It's not like the government is going to start establishing production quotas for General Motors or designing the cars it sells.

The reason it's okay is because healthcare is so fundamental to the overall well-being of the nation. I'm not saying that such a system would be perfect, as no human institution is, but overall it would be more efficient and fair, and perhaps even less expensive per capita. And ultimately the populace would be in control via the ballot box.

Why are we so afraid of something just because it can be called socialism? In regard to healthcare, I think it's the word that people get hung up on rather than the reality of what single-payer would actually be. The same semantic tactics were used when LBJ was trying to pass Medicare. Are most Americans in favor of abolishing Medicare?

Has anyone considered that we already have a form of "socialized" insurance? The single payer option has been the only one for unemployment insurance. If you actually work, look at your pay stub and see that you pay for this insurance. In order to avoid anything that even looks like socialism, you will have to give up that coverage. Do you think the large numbers of unemployed will be willing to do that just to avoid socialism?

Also, we are not talking about covering people who refuse to work. Medicaid already does that. The people currently not covered who would benefit most from a single payer system are hard working Americans who are not covered by their employers, and don't make enough to be able to afford private insurance. Why don't you mind paying taxes so someone too lazy work can run their kid to the emergency room, yet you complain about changes that will allow a working person to get basic care for themselves and their family. ? Should families have to decide to quit working so they can get a sick child on Medicaid?

I'm sure places like India would be totally against single payer since the insurance industry outsources so many jobs to them. The people who actually work for the insurance industry in this country should be given priority for similar work with the government. Of course the republicans are against this because the CEO's who won't be needed are their bread and butter. Taking their millions of dollars in salary and perks out of the equation will save money right from the start.

Medicare is a "single payer system". All you have to do is survive the insurance companies rape of America and at 65 you are home free. Of course, if you are poor, 6.5 years old and sick, you're screwed.

Its socialism if the maxiimum number of people control it. Single-payer would centralize control to the minimum number of people (in govt) which crosses over to communism.

More christian values...

The worst slums I've seen anywhere were in "socialist" countries. Socialists' record of taking care of the vunerable is no better the capitalists. Socialism cant generate the surpluses needed to pay for their own programs and it eventually drives productive people into curruption, sloth or escape. See USSR.

The worst slums I've seen anywhere were in "socialist" countries.

That is total and utter bull@!$%#.

Try looking at Sweden, Denmark, Norway, in fact, most of Europe.

Try looking at Sweden, Denmark, Norway, in fact, most of Europe.

Or Greece---socialism is working wonderfully.

Have you ever been to Greece?

Let's hope so. I hope they included Snowe's idea for the public option to kick in if the ins. co. did not do the right things but I fear it did not.

Currently, legislation is moving in California, and Gov. Schwarzenegger will sign it, whereby any insurance company that does this will not be able to operate its business at all for 5 years in California.

I'm hoping that all other affected states will follow suit too.

R. D - I hope so, too. It would go a long way toward shutting down these health hostage holding hypocrites.

some wont play and california will have less competition which drives up the cost

some will play and the cost of these plans will go thru the roof making it unaffordable for those who currently have them

if people can wait to get sick to buy the plan then insurance companies have no alternative than to charge much more for insurance making it unaffordable and leaving more people uninsured

'just wondering', the insurance companies are largely responsible for the increases in health care costs, and by extension, premiums, in the first place. California has, and the other 49 states have, every right to regulate how insurance companies operate in each. If California is the leader in preventing these despicable practices, then more power to it.

The premiums went up in anticipation of the health care reform before it was even passed, pure and simple. Wasn't it Wellmark (BC/BS) that tried increasing premiums 39% in California last year?

People wait until they get sick to buy insurance because they can't afford it all along in the first place. Again, it's the result of how insurance companies structure premium.

The fact is, by eliminating those children-only policies, the big 5 have taken the first step - fired the first shot, so to speak - in price fixing and monopolizing the entire market because other, smaller, insurance companies don't have the customer base over which to distribute the costs. If the states put a stop to that, they keep competition open and bring these underhanded practices to a halt. The big 5 want access to the 31 million new customers only so long as they can cherry-pick them. Well, that was never the intent of health coverage reform. The intent was that everyone is covered and can access health care. The big 5 thumbed their noses at reform and California has said "not so fast, buster". All the states should follow this lead and level the playing fields.

"the idea of not allowing companies which find and exercise coverage loopholes like these from inclusion in the upcoming 'exchange'"

I heard Pelosi on NPR the other day say that this is in the reform bill.

It took the threat of being excluded from the exchanges to make insurance companies insure children in family policies. The insurance industry will fight to steal every medical dollar they can. They already can take 20%, but they want more. When Republicans are in charge, insurance companies will be free to steal as much as they want, because Republicans don't believe in regulation, and won't even enforce the laws that are on the books.

Just Wondering: You know you just made an argument for the individual mandate, right?

To be exact, its the EXISTENCE of the insurance companies that makes everything so expensive. We've got them paying for what WE receive and we have state regulators telling them what they have to cover. Providers are going to change what the market will bear cuz they're companies and so high prices get passed through to us via premiums. We're the ones not behaving correctly in a capitalist system. Its not coencidence that uncovered procedures are the cheapest ones. The market (us) wont bear the higher prices therefore providers figure out how to do it cheaper.

Again, christian values. Don't you get it?

And how do we know they are Christians? Just asking.

The CEOs of Anthem, Bluecross Blueshield, WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna and Humana

I would also ask these same CEO's...what is the going price for the life of a child?

That's simple...it is what they vote that it is. They don't give a tinker's d*** about the life of an individual. They answer to their stockholders but not the government. Watch them get out of this one when they get asked to testify to a senatorial committee. They will just lobby harder than ever. (Lobby=renumerate=bribe) Only within the Beltway are some forms of bribery legal.

I also have a problem with hospitals being owned by stockholders. HMA for example. It is one thing to pay administrators to manage a hospital, but another to have to answer to a bunch of people who expect to profit, through stock, every time someone gets sick. It's like the insurers are ticks and the private hospital corps. are too and they are both sucking the public dry as fast as they can.

$96,000. The feds set that price regularly.

The same way they explain murdering people for not following their ideals, it's what God wants. Haven't we heard that everytime they kill an abortion doctor or blow up a clinic?

Right wing religious extremists..........Christians or Taliban.......samey same.

what is taking Texas so long to suceed for the country come on get with it and leave and then we can bomb you to the back ages

Wish that we could. As the nations largest domestic provider of oil, natural gas, cotton, cattle, and a dozen other items we would be one of the richest countries in the world. Other than that and the fact that we cannot legally succeed, contrary to the popular belief of the other 49 states we would be happy to.

And defend yourselves from Mexico? Exactly how, dipstick?

Just like we did the first time. We are also one of the largest arms producers in the world. Haven't you heard Texans like guns.

Texas54321

Yes Texas does provide an abundance of idiots!!

Thanks. But don't gives us all the credit. Most of them are northerners that have come down for the jobs.

Do you think that looking at it from a cost-benefit point of view the federal government would be any less efficient administering a single-payer scheme, in which all are covered, than are the multiple present players in the current system?

Texas, I have military training (Infantry), 3 shotguns and a nice pair of cowboy boots. I may be a Northern City Boy, but have no fear of getting down to the nitty-gritty. I've slept in the woods under the stars. If'n y'all do secede, --

(-verb (used without object), -ced·ed, -ced·ing. to withdraw formally from an alliance, federation,or association, as from a political union, a religious organization, etc.)

-- I'll bring my guns and walk that border with ya. I'll herd the cattle and work in the oil fields too.

RedMike. I'm a believer in the idea of the "single payer" system but here's what I fear would happen. The conservatives would pass laws that blocked everything they felt was against thier values. The would block payment of fertility treatments (God doesn't approve), they would block all contraception (except abstinence) and of course abortion for any reason (even if it meant the mother died). On the flip side I'm sure all the wonderful Dems will decide that facelifts should be covered because it will support mental health.

Am I exaggerating? Yes, but not much.

So while I really hate having the health for profit insurance companies I know our wonderful lawmakers will probably mess it up.

So do I think the federal government will be more efficient? Gee I think they can do a great job of screwing things up without much effort which will be just as bad as when private insurance companies only cover those people that are already healthy.

Well, cgtrav, NO system is perfect.

So we're back to which will work better.... I just don't have faith in either system.

I'll give up my Medicare (single payer system run by the government) when you pry that card from my cold, dead fingers. Baggers, Birthers and Buffoons support corporate profits over the best interests of their fellow Americans but don't want anyone messing with their entitlements. LOL!!!!!!!

Yes, Medicare seems to run very well and efficiently in a market private in which private industry failed.

I guess the problem for the rest of us is that private industry's failure is not impossible to ignore -- yet.

Texans would do fine. They're the one's that beat the mexicans in the first place.

And defend yourselves from Mexico? Exactly how, dipstick?

They can't do any worse than the Fed is currently doing.

govt cant force you into a line of business. Otherwise they could make the oil companies provide health insurance. Govt can only destroy business.

Part of the plan. He knows this mess wont work and he can count on the insurance company's to dig their own graves . Its all about universal coverage . Now they have something to work from ..

If this is true the President is a genius!!!

Part of the plan. He knows this mess wont work and he can count on the insurance company's to dig their own graves . Its all about universal coverage . Now they have something to work from ..

Insaurance companies settled for taking 20% in the new law. Some were taking 40% or more before this law. On the other hand, some states did a good job at regulation; Minnesota limited insaurance companies to taking only 10%.

You must get that 1.5% figure from some right-wing propaganda.

Insurance companies also own a lot of the corporations that provide the actual care; so they can double dip, taking 20% off the top, and then take some of the profits of actual care givers.

Insurance has always been glad to insure healthy people, and always glad to dump them on Medicare when they get really sick or old.

I'd like to see those over 55 be permitted to buy into Medicare; even if it cost more than private insurance, it would be honest, insure everybody, and provide care rather than a rescission notice. But Medicare is efficient, and it would probably cost less than private insurance.

Right. Our soldiers and their families enjoy the benefits of socialized medicine.

Our soldiers and their families enjoy the benefits of socialized medicine.

As we all should.

You are both wrong. We all don't put our lives on the line for this country. I don't deserve your pay or benefits as I did not earn them.

Provided by doctors that would be in jail in the civilian world. Thei quality is as good as their price-- when the bullets arent flying.

So, John, you just want to be a burden on everybody else, or do you think you will never need medical care? Either way, it speaks to your intellect.

So I don't have to buy it for you with my insurance premiums.

But you will be buying it for him or someone else. Those people working will be paying for the insurance of those people who don't.

Yes, I'm already paying for John and all the others who don't work or who don't pay for their own insurance. I'm also paying the salaries of thousands of highly-paid insurocrats and their huge insurocracies.

Let's consolidate all of that. How about we allow all of us to buy into Medicare? That way our premiums will go to subsidize the health care of those who are no longer working or who are no longer able to work, without paying for the gold-plated lifestyle of the insurocrats.

there will always be people like John and his ilk who will demand a free ride.

The Tea Party's greed is so bad that they are willing to destroy programs they will need themselves in 10 years or so, because they are so scared somebody will get a benefit without paying thru the nose for it. How very "Christian".

So, John, you just want to be a burden on everybody else, or do you think you will never need medical care? Either way, it speaks to your intellect.

And a lot of people who get serious illnesses often have to take extended leave from their jobs and end up declaring bankruptcy due to loss of income. So, don't you think this bill should also mandate that everyone buy disability insurance too? After all, as a credit card user, I have to pay to cover potential losses to credit companies due to bankruptcies from people who fail to purchase adequate insurance

So you cherry-pick just like insurance companies. If an employee gets sick, how do you make them quit?

you are correct in one thing " Companies DO NOT pay taxes"!!!

But they should! I say up the tax on profits for business back to 91% and things will get better.

Yeah it will get better, it will get a lot better for the Chinese

The Chinese sure suffered under Dumya and the Greed Over Patriotism economic terrorists when he sold them $3 Trillion in Treasuries to pay for his tax cuts for the rich. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd be glad to pay cash for the care I need, but insurance companies have gamed the system so that if you don't have insurance, you pay 3 times to 10 times as much for the same care.

Take a look at a typical bill from a doctor in my area. He bills $150 and takes my $20 co-pay, the insurance pays $30. If insurance refuses to pay, the doctor bills me $150. Why does medical care cost $50 is you have insurance, but $150 if you don't? It's so universal it must be something insurance companies require of doctors. Hospitals gouge even deeper, a few days in the hospital can leave you with $100,000 in debt; but the insurance company pays $10K and they call it even.

Because the insurance company and the provider negotiated to established what the market (insurance company) will bear. Its not a cost-plus world. Your failure to realize that is part of the reason why you're not one the rich. You think "poor" therefore you are "poor."

ooo, more christian values...

I think too many of them read "Suffer the little children" and then just stopped right there.

Dancman---why not try to make an intelligent reply to his suggestion and leave religion out of the debate.