*Mandatory Health Insurance is not Universal Healthcare*

[JackORoses]

Making it illegal for people not to have Insurance is not Universal Healthcare.

Garnishing wages to pay a 3rd Party Insurance Company is not Universal Healthcare.

This is actually a windfall for Insurance Companies who will have millions of new customers on a promise of lowering their rates. Yet they will still determine the final price, for profit.

It is another bill in the mail for Americans, some of whom simply cannot afford it.

Universal Healthcare is what Europe has. It is non-profit. It is included in taxes. No 3rd Party Vultures are feeding at the trough.

Mandatory Insurance is not Universal Healthcare.
No matter how many times Hillary tries to sell it as such.

[liberal N proud]

1. AMEN!

[asthmaticeog]

2. True. Amazing how this flies right by so many people.

Obama's excuse for a plan is shit too, though. Be fair.

[JackORoses]

7. at least he wants to have negotiations out in the open, broadcast to the public

that is a world away from Hillary's top secret negotiations

[Liberal Veteran]

3. I agree. Any "solution" that involves the insurance companies is a non-starter

They have already proven they aren't to be trusted to help our health care system.

[Vinca]

4. Thank you, thank you, thank you and well said. nt

[Buzz Clik]

5. Exactly. I don't think any of Dem candidates (at least not the final two) have addressed.

If we want the only health care "insurance" system that works (i.e., the systems used by Canada, UK, France, etc), then we aren't hearing about it. Mandatory health insurance is just a bigger pile of bullshit than the pile we have now.

[Guaranteed]

6. KICK. THANK. YOU. nt

[doublethink]

8. K&R ....

Pisses me off enough that my tax dollars go to fund the Military Industrial Complex ..... instead of true Universal Health-care. This garnishing wages idea of Hillary's for mandatory insurance (anybody see sicko?) is just stupid. Peace.

[Lost-in-FL]

9. Let's do what we are good at...

Complaint about everything and create division. Funny how many people think that it is soooo easy to create Universal Healthcare plan in as short at 4 years, like in Europe!!!

Yes... and I watched the movie Sicko and I happen to work in Healthcare and I can say there's lots of people making lots of money not just insurance companies. They will oppose everything about Universal Health Care and will get Healthcare workers worked up about how much money they will lose with Universal Health Care. It will not be easy to bring Universal Health Care, not impossible but hard.

[JackORoses]

11. do you really think continuing the profiteering of Insurance companies is the right way to go

[Lost-in-FL]

12. I happen to know that Insurance companies...

aren't the only ones profiteering from patients. I am NOT defending insurance companies but the days where people came to the health care field to help patients are GONE. There's lots of self interest in that industry. First their scapegoat where lawyers fighting on behalf of patients care and their rights, now is insurance companies. Why Insurance companies? Cause they are robbing Doctors not cause they are profiteering from patients. Doctors and private Hospitals are losing money from Insurance companies and they want their money NOW!!

[JackORoses]

13. so why should we give those Insurance companies permanent customers?

[Lost-in-FL]

17. Huh????

Insurance companies will never run out of customers, just like funeral directors will never lose jobs in a bad economy. BTW, there are privately owned affordable health insurances in Canada cause some people don't like having to wait so long for examinations.

What I am trying to get to is that we must find a way to bring about universal Health Care and it is not by criticizing every plan that a politician brings to the table. It will take YEARS to erase the notion that Universal Health Care is bad for the USA brought up by Republicans(I think Universal Health Care it is great!!). Not because it works in Europe will work here, we are different. Notice that in France people do not pay any money but in Canada they do pay a fee. But unlike the USA, 90% of their hospitals are public and not private. There are MUCH more private hospitals in the US than public hospitals, in my town alone there is one trauma center that is publicly funded and twelve other private hospitals!! . With a war still going on and our responsibility to rebuild a country WE destroyed, you cannot expect to have free health care for a looooong time. But that, is my very unprofessional opinion

[Thrill]

10. Stay AWAY from our Paychecks Hillary

[suston96]

14. "Mandatory Health Insurance is not Universal Healthcare"

Yes it is. Mandatory refers to everyone. That means universal. 5th grade English.

[JackORoses]

18. You just don't get it. Insurance is not the same as Healthcare.

Ask anyone whose Insurance company has refused their claim.

Mandatory Insurance means 3rd party groups are profiting off a government enforced program.

Mandatory means everyone's wages are garnished like with Social Security in order to pay their Insurance Company.

[suston96]

20. Mandatory health care means universal health care. nt

[mrreowwr_kittty]

22. Auto insurance is mandatory. Yet 15% of drivers don't have it.

Ergo it is not universal.

5th grade logic.

[Bluerthanblue]

15. thank you for making this so clear- eom

[Bread and Circus]

16. Thank you.

[f the letter]

19. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

People are really missing the point with this Clinton vs Obama nonsense... we need universal single payer healthcare, period.

[Cha]

21. And "going after their wages" is not

very slick of gomamayeshecan.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

23. K to tha R!! nt

[exchange77]

24. You are wrong. Universal Healthcare wil not exist without some sort of mandate.

I’m actually from Norway, and here we are paying for a universal healthcare system with our tax system. But there are different ways to do it...No country are the same. But still, our hospitals and the system are run after straight rules, using capitalistic values to get the most out of the investments in health care.

You can take a look at our system in the cut scene from the movie Sicko:
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=27140

Michael Moore cut this scene about Norway from Sicko because no one would believe it.

20 % of the people stand for 80 % of health care costs. Most Americans are healthy, but when the day comes...and it eventually will, rest assure…you will get the best health care in the world for a reasonable price.

If you have health care today, you don’t need to buy into the plan. If you don’t, Clinton will give you tax rebates and other incentives to make it affordable.

As everybody is insured, the premiums will go down.

Also, we will get a national ID coupled to the health insurance with strong privacy protection. Making sure that every hospital and doctor are using state of the art communications and you can get the best treatment everywhere in the country.

It will save 80 BILLION a year alone...that’s 80 % of the costs of universal health care!

If there were no mandate, there would be no electronic health insurance card; there will be no lowering of premiums as the industry will put different demographic people up against each other.

[Jed Dilligan]

25. Taxes are progressive, mandates are regressive

Paying for a useless HMO-type plan will have a negative effect on my health.

[OneBlueSky]

26. "some of whom simply cannot afford it" . . .

make that MOST of whom cannot afford it . . . and, quite frankly, most of whom would NOT want to pay it to Cigna, or Humana, or any of the other megacorps who take a huge percentage of our healthcare dollar as profit while providing NOTHING of value to improve the effectiveness of efficiency of the system . . .

just as the Bankruptcy Act was a windfall for banks and credit card companies that are major campaign funders, and the Cheney energy bill was a windfall for oil companies that are major campaign funders, so will mandated healthcare be a windfall for private insurers and HMOs . . . which, btw, are major campaign funders . . .

this idiocy has to end somewhere . . .

[joshcryer]

27. A government not-for-profit insurer is in all the leading candidates' plans.

So I have no fucking clue what you're even talking about here.

[radfringe]

28. yes, need to make the distinction between Health CARE and Health INSURANCE

my partner was laid off in September - and with the loss of the job so went her health insurance

she explored the possibility of picking up and paying for health insurance on her own. yes, there were some plans out there that would provide individual coverage as opposed to group coverage.

the plans which provided the lowest deductible and or co-pays for doctor visits/prescriptions cost two arms and a leg

the plans with premiums we could afford had deductibles so high as to make the insurance useless, and had NO prescription coverage.

as a result, since September she has been without health insurance, or rather she has been on the republican health insurance plan which I call "Pray-GO" (PRAY you don't have to GO to a doctor)

thankfully, she's found a job and starts on Feb 11, and will have insurance 30 days after that.

[joshcryer]

29. Single payer *is* monopolized state insurance, think. Please.

The question is whether or not the private insurers can out-compete the government insurer. If they can, then that's great (and we have even lower premiums), if they can't, then we have single-payer!

[radfringe]

30. couple of other things to consider

the big argument against universal healthcare is "do you want the goverment making your medical decisions?"

this implies under private insurance - you have choices - but do you?

under the various health insurance plans that I've have for the past 30 odd years - I have to SEE a doctor on their "approved list" or pay significantly more to see one not on the list.

seeing a specialist requires PRE-APPROVAL and a referral, certain procedures/tests require PRE-APPROVAL

presciption drugs: if it's not on the "list" I need PRE-APPROVAL

if I lose my job - I have no insurance to pay for any form of healthcare except the DYI healthcare type.

so under a private insurance plan - who is really making the decisions? Me and my doctor or the insurance companies?

but yes, I agree with your premise

[depakid]

31. Actually, the problem is with adverse selection

namely- cherry picking the healthiest in order to maximize profits, while hoisting the less healthy or chronically ill on others.

Companies waste tens of millions of dollars that could otherwise be spent on "producing health care" in these cost shifting schemes, which will undermine any fragmented system.

[u2spirit]

32. Bingo

Well put. Western European and Canadian healthcare is universal health care.

[Hydra]

33. Well said

I foresee that if we do this, the insurance companies will get money from people like me who can't afford it, but the gov't will claim that "I make to much to be subsidized(20k with a disabled relative to take care of)."

I will then be forced to pay for it, be offered a tax break of some kind that is only a small percentage of it, and finally the insurance will refuse to pay my claims under whatever their favorite excuse is.

Otherwise, I can look forward to garnished wages or being made ineligible to work, tax penalties and probably jailtime if I don't submit my food budget to these overbloated companies.

Ya, that sounds like a solution to me! :sarcasm: