Fully 80% of Americans have to put up with the current health care programs, and we know how disfunctional and limited they are. We know what we mean by change that we can believe in. We know how difficult it is to get good care, the time it takes, the co-pays, and all of the other costs of getting care including drugs, appliances, equipment. We know what it means to lose one's job and and insurance. We have come to assume that our next job will provide reduced wages and health insurance benefits. We know the ridiculous co-pay costs for dental insurance and know that it is a scam to have to pay separately for insurance for medical, dental, and mental health care, drugs, and all of the rest. We also know that the interests of the health insurance industry is to make a profit, and we know that they are willing to do that by limiting or refusing to provide coverage for essential health care needs: we also know that it is obscene and cruel on our loved ones.

We don't just need this public option: we need the ability to pay for it. We need to have safe, secure, good health care as a right of citizenship. We call it providing for the general welfare, and I don't care if James Madison had a much more narrow definition of the term. We have a right to interpret it to meet our current needs.

Keep in mind that we are not talking about the provision of health care but its financing. I know that there is a direct correlation between of the level of care money to pay for the provision of care. We know that the hospital industry has been de-skilling their work force and reducing the quality of care for decades; this is a direct result of attempts to limit funding for care by both the health insurance industry and government. These issues can be addressed later.

The problem is that we are looking at the issue from the point of view of political consultants and staff, politicians, media talking heads, and (most importantly) the health care industry. The vast majority of those people (except for those struggling in health care reform organizations) have good if not the best health care coverage in the country. Someone needs to start looking at it from the point of view of our parents, siblings, and children.

This is a time for partisanship in support of those 80%+ of us that have to deal with this. It is not a time to grovel before the powers that be. Show some fucking imagination.

God Speed,

David

If the public opition is not on the table, then we might as well declare defeat.

America wants health care reform that will benefit the majority of us. Why let the minority rule the majority?

If this plan fails, we will have given the radical right a major victory. It won't benefit our country, but will give THEM what they want.....an Obama failure.

They will cut off their nose to spite their face. IGNORANT PEOPLE.

approaching twice what it costs most of our modern industrial competitors. Our problem is NOT how we can find the necessary funding. It's how we choose to allot and assign the funding.

spreadsheet:

approaching twice what it costs most of our modern industrial competitors. Our problem is NOT how we can find the necessary funding. It's how we choose to allot and assign the funding.

Are you saying that additional taxes will not be needed to fund this socialized medicine scheme?

If I am misinterpreting, then I apologize.

If that's what I am reading here, then you are living on Fantasy Island.

I hoped that you would see the note. I was curious about your opinion. I believe that it is ultimately a political issue; both Medicare and Medicaid are underfunded and there has been a study erosion in benefits, as you know. We will have to be diligent about insisting that funding is adequate: my wife says that the benchmark should be the care provided the members of our national congress. I agree; perhaps we should legislate that the level of care provide to the public is the same for members of the Congress.

God Speed,

David

Still those bureaucrats have maintained their privileged positions for a hell of a long time. Dare I say that maybe we're the dumb ones? :-)

God Speed,

David

You now pay through the nose for your health care, and a large percentage of it is devoted to lobbying and TV ads about getting hard. I'd pay higher taxes just to avoid having to listen that crap.

Furthermore, a major reason that health care is so expensive is because of how disorganized the system is. A perfect example is the doctors orders for procedures just to pad expenses. Currently, a hospital night costs you or the insurance industry thousands of dollars. For that amount of money you could keep them at the Hilton. Those costs to us are fabricated in order to expand profits or cover the real cost of care that is provided; it is more than just hospital or doctor gouging.

Competition is one of the most important achievements of Capitalism. I say this as someone that would rather abolish Capitalist relations of production and its attendent evils. Competition is something that will transcend Capitalism, as will entrepreneurship. So, it is a good idea to have health care providers compete with one another. In addition, private insurance can and should compete with public funding.

The problems with our stereotypes about socialization is that we don't go beyond the meager achievements of the Soviet Union and its client states or other self-described Socialist countries. Let me say this plainly: none of those states came close to achieving Socialism. Their basic failure in the political economic arena is that they never abolished the Capitalist division of labor. The Chinese discussed this in the 60's. While 'Socialist' countries were socializing the division of wealth and, to a certain extent, income, they continued to have one group of people (an elite) determining policies and supervising work for higher salaries, and another much larger group of people who were still required to work for wages or its salary equivilent in a routinized job.

Early Communists actually praised Ford assembly lines. One of the most insightful section of Capital by Marx is his discussion of the relationship of workers and employers on a personal, individual level. Another extraordinary section talks about working people being alienated from the things that they make; earlier craftsmen actually controlled their crafts. The production processes in factories could as easily be controlled by the working people that do the work. Capital stifles their creativity by denying them the ability to express it. Also, everyone who uses public facilities or public roads should have to help clean up. Everyone should have a craft or real skill that they can practice, and everyone should have an opportunity to practice is some kind of profession if one wants.

Forgive me for rambling, but I am non-plused about the word 'Socialism', and I'm not a Socialist: I'm a moderate who believes that a people have to look at various tasks or hurdles based upon circumstances, including resources and urgency of resolution. For instance, we have to begin right now to radically change the way the world produces and uses energy. Still the planning for the infrastructure to accomplish such a monumental task requires long term planning and forethought. We should neither rush forward into change like a blind man in a river current nor refuse to make the big decisions that need to be made like ending social inequality.

God Speed,

David

"We don't just need this public option: we need the ability to pay for it. We need to have safe, secure, good health care as a right of citizenship. We call it providing for the general welfare, and I don't care if James Madison had a much more narrow definition of the term. We have a right to interpret it to meet our current needs."

You are saying that congress has the right to ignore the meaning of the Constitution and Force their will on us. Wish congress would consider a constitutional amendment, but that is no longer necessary. They do whatever they want and tell us it is for our own good. That is why liberals are such a threat to individual liberty. The majority has excellent healthcare.

We need free market reforms. End employer based healthcare and privatize medicare and medicaid. Expand medicaid to cover more poor an uninsurable. Let individuals be free to choose their own coverage. Then we only have to figure out how to fund those who can not or will not take care of themselves.

wobblies:

I hoped that you would see the note. I was curious about your opinion. I believe that it is ultimately a political issue; both Medicare and Medicaid are underfunded and there has been a study erosion in benefits, as you know. We will have to be diligent about insisting that funding is adequate: my wife says that the benchmark should be the care provided the members of our national congress. I agree; perhaps we should legislate that the level of care provide to the public is the same for members of the Congress.

God Speed,

David

We can't afford it. No country offers all their citizens that quality of healthcare.

The public option would not come close.

IS THE ONLY PLAN THAT MAKES SENSE.

STUPID PELOSI AND OBAMA REINVENTED THE WHEEL AND ADDED THEIR STALINISTS TWISTS.

JERKS.

Good Afternoon NC~

I'm curious why you think that a sales tax would be the best way to fund Medicare for All. Mind you, I would agree that expanding Medicare to cover all citizens would be a good idea, but only if the coverage were expanded to cover dental insurance and better coverage for things like eye glasses. By the way, what Stalinist twists are you referring to in your post?

I hope that life is treating you well.

God Speed,

David