Anyone want to discuss substance? What about Obama's healthcare plan? Good and bad?

[GOTV]

I don't like that it's not single payer but I do like that:

* It allows importation of medicine
* Requires some contribution from large employers
* that it allows portability
* requires transparency over costs and performance
* require a certain percentage of premiums to be paid out as benefits

I have mixed feelings about the existing condition prohibition. What's to prevent a person from not purchasing insurance UNTIL they need it?

What else? good and bad.

[SteppingRazor]

1. What you said, plus I like that it mandates that you can't get turned down for insurance...

because of preexisting conditions. That's pretty sweet.

[eleny]

2. By the time any health care plan makes it through Congress we won't recognize it

I want a single payer Medicare for all type plan but am not holding my breath.

[polichick]

6. Exactly. An NPR guest today said that was partly the reason...

...voters aren't focused on the details of the healthcare plans. Since the actual legislation won't look anything like what appears on candidate websites, many people aren't voting on things like that. Bottom line, they want to feel empowered and good about their country again.

[eleny]

17. Yes, I agree

Surely people are voting based on their emotions. How they feel about a candidate may very be how that candidate makes them feel when seeing them.

[polichick]

22. True...

I just posted this on another thread, about that NPR program:


It was also pointed out that there are actually more details on Obama's site than Clinton's ~ and, importantly, that Obama knows what people want from personal appearances, and that's not policy details but to feel excited and involved.

One guest told a story about a five-year-old, who said to his parents, "If Obama comes to town, can we go to the concert?"

[eleny]

23. The concert?!

:rofl: :patriot:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

15. That's the naked truth

I also want single payer health care. Not that I expect to see that happen.

Whatever they might decide on will be a shadow of anything being proposed right now.

[eleny]

19. I supported Kucinich

And we know where his ideas went. In the end I think Medicare for all is about the only thing that will work. We can't keep making insurance company investors flush and expect to insure everyone at a price Americans can afford. Especially given how our good manufacturing jobs are a thing of the past. My folks worked in a clothing factory while they put me through college back in the '60s. Try that these days.

[Critters2]

3. Anything less than single payer is too much kow-towing

to the insurance industry. Obama is a corporatist, and it shows most clearly in his health care plan.

[WilliamPitt]

7. How can we pass such a thing?

Seriously. We won't. Not until we have 5-10 more election victories under our belt. In the meantime, for lack of a perfect system, people will die because they couldn't get health care through a workable stopgap measure that understands the ground we're playing on.

Any any any health care that operates on a for-profit basis is, by definition, a catastrophe. But until all those insurance-industry-donation-collecting House reps and Senators, the ones who sustain their standing by the largesse of that for-profit industry, until they're gone, we have to deal with them and this fucked up system as we find it.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. In this case, even "shabby" is better than an absent perfection.

:hug:

[progressive_realist]

18. Stop using logic

You'll make people's heads explode.

[ProgressIn2008]

10. That's my feeling -- I want someone to stand up to the insurance industry

I saw Sicko recently and I'm pretty pissed. That kind of ... god, I don't know what to call it but feudal power... should not be acceptable. It needs to be called out and it needs to be named and it needs to be fought. When that kind of power is accepted by powerful politicians who never need to worry about paying for medications or visiting the emergency room, that says a lot about the country.

[amborin]

4. hillary wants EVERYONE to get insurance, and those who can't will get gov't subsidy

Hillary's plan will mean EVERYONE is covered

those who can't purchase, will get gov't subsidy to purchase it

this means no free riders

it means the US taxpayers like you and me will not have to fund people's ER visits when they get really sick and don't have insurance

we pay less in the long run if we give lower income people the subsidies to purchase insurance

this way there are NO free riders

the problem with Obama's plan is it allows free riders, there is no mandate, except for kids

every single Dem economist says Obama's plan is not that good

if you allow free riders, you allow people to make a gamble: they think, the odds of me getting really sick this year are low, so I will not purchase insurance....then they get really sick and yoiu and I end up paying WAY MORE to cover their ER visits, etc.....

[GOTV]

8. That's a likely advantage of Hillary's plan....

... if the mandate works, she has not been specific about the form that mandate takes has she?

[not_too_L8]

11. Health care comparison anyone?

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/theyve_got_you_covered.html

read it here

[GOTV]

27. That only addresses the coverage issue, which is interesting, but there are many other points....

... on which the plans can be compared.

When the difference between the coverage is not based on one plan being better, but just one plan mandating greater coverage, that doesn't seem like a great plus to me.

[amborin]

29. but mandating complete coverage

is a huge comparative benefit

don't have a link now...but studies have been done showing how individuals will opt to be free riders.....in significant numbers.....and some significant percentage of them get sick and use ER, etc....and the costs for this stage of care are WAY higher than if they were covered by insurance

and it's taxpayers who must foot the billl.....plus....the ERs are breaking under the case loads....AND....some free riders use the ERs for primary care....meaning the really critically ill may have longer wait times

so there are several reasons why mandating that everyone get covered makes better sense

so much so, in fact, that Obama has now shifted his position and is now saying he will propose mandate for all such as hillary proposes

[sandnsea]

5. If the preventative benefits are sufficient

then people will pay for it to get help with annual check-ups and lab work. The focus on pevention, health care instead of disease care, is what will eventually reduce costs most and make everybody understand what they're paying for. Also, according to Kerry, it also contains a measure where catastrophic illnesses will be reinsured through the federal government, so really sick people wouldn't be in a local insurance pool anyway.

[GOTV]

9. Good thought there! n/t

[GOTV]

13. Wait a minute, do most people who feel healthy participate in preventative care?

Of course they should but do they? If most people don't we would still have free riders even if purchasing the insurance made preventative care free.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

20. There needs to be more education and encouragement

Know what one of the best preventative treatments is? To lose weight if you are obese. Yet a lot of folks think preventative care simply means going for a checkup for cancer or something. Actually, learning to eat right is a HUGE step towards better health.

BTW, my non-profit health foundation provides free annual screenings for blood pressure and cholesterol as well as glaucoma. It's part of our health education fair.

[sandnsea]

25. Those with insurance do

I think that is something we should have been paying for all along. Right now, there is a heart health screening at the local cardiac unit for $69. Resting EKG, blood, diabetes, the whole thing. $69. I know my blood work alone cost more than that. So that's a good deal and anybody on Medicaid ought to be required to get it. I think we can turn this into a health program instead of an insurance plan, and create strong incentives to participate in the preventative measures. Carrots instead of sticks.

[leftofcool]

12. Nothing wrong with either plan

I do think, however that having it mandated to leave no one out is probably better. This would keep our elders and seniors (include me here) from having to go to the local pharmacy to pay for one heart pill at a time because that is all they can afford. If social security is mandated why not health care. It would also solve the medicare problem....do away with it. Everybody is covered. Those that can't afford it are covered with a subsidy that the rest of us won't mind paying for because we are also covered.

Left of Cool

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. It is a start

and let's face it, unless we get an overwhelming number of progressives in Congress, the entrenched special interest lobbyists will keep us from getting single payer right away. Personally, I want to see a health plan that is all inclusive as Kucinich suggested, but I fear it is a long way off. As someone knows many with pre-existing conditions that make insurance prohibitive, I welcome that option.

[dflprincess]

16. And both Clinton and Obama's plans will protect insurance company executives!

Which is probably why they haven't been screaming about how awful the plans are - and that should be our first clue that something is not right with either plan.

[GOTV]

24. I agree that the plans are not optimal but if you had to pick one... and don't we?.....n/t

[rinsd]

21. Its not single payer but its not bad.

The biggest factor with both plans is the massive expansion of the public health plan system which will make it compete with private insurance.

[Vinca]

26. Neither candidate has the solution the American people want. nt

[Kokonoe]

28. Clinton's plan is the only true universal plan,

if you don't pay you end up with coverage in jail.

[amborin]

30. that's untrue

if you *can't* pay, you qualify for gov't subsidies

you are mischaracterizing a good and viable health insurance plan

why?

[Kokonoe]

31. Well, I thought if someone makes enough money

to pay and refuses, or just has a lot of bad finances. The problems of money could balloon into self destruction and hurt families. Overall I guess its a good plan, I just don't like to see any cracks.