No, the real cost of freedom happens when you catch the bum's tuberculosis. This is one of the arguments for universal care.

We aren't that far from a "single payer."

That single payer is the taxpayer.

If you add up medicare, medicaid, the VA, the DOD health system, tax deductions for health insurance, federal employees, and other misc stuff, the government is funding most of what we have now.

Funding it, but not supporting a rational system.

Except for a few details, we already know who will be paying and roughly how much. The who is the same people that are paying now, both directly and indirectly. The how much is the same amount as now but more.

We need rationality.

"you can put two parts of the House and Senate bills together, and it will still be a **** sandwich."

That about sums it up. Congress is nothing but a cabal of gansters and whores.

{Insert cuss-filled invective here} When you're right, you're right.

Until proven otherwise, it appears to be one "mell of a hess" to me!

Funny thing is, if we can't get true reform now, when can we? There's no second chance at this. Screw it up now with no real fixes and it stays that way until it collapses. Putting out 10% of a fire is not really doing anything at all in the long run.

The public option as presently proposed will be a catastrophic failure. When it is, the Republicons will say I told you so, and the sheep will line-up behind them to be rescued from the "evil govt" just like the did when Reagan blamed everything on welfare. Remember, you heard it here.

What Harry & Tom said.

"if we can't get true reform now, when can we?"

Call me a hopeless, naive optimist, but....
I don't think we need reform, I think we need rationality. And we are moving in that direction. If I am right, then there is actually quite a hopeful future for health care, since rationality is much more possible than reform.

The difference, I suppose, is that we have a system with so many moving parts, no one really knows what will happen. However, it is virtually certain that there will be *enough* change that future change is inevitable. And some of that change will be integrating bona fide technological breakthroughs in information technology that change is unstoppable.

But, this is definitely a best case/optimistic view. I don't blame people for being in a funk.

If you can get insurance of any type for 38 million people, go for it. What in the hell do you lose? What we have now?

Well today is election day, so go out and vote and make your feelings known in that old ballot box. They may be gangsta and whores but they are OUR gangsta and whores, so we still have to work on fixing it...the health care issues that is.

i'm with Owl. when you're right, you're right, man. good job! and love love love

My reptile brain posted this, but my cerebral cortex is functioning now. As I indicated from the last posting, we are at the darkest hour. Now, if things go according to what I think will happen, this toothless piece of crap hellth reform bill will be voted on by both houses of Congress for something resembling a party line vote. (Thank you, you asshat clowns who are worthless whores of the insurance company.) Then it will go to conference committee where the committee heads will strip away almost all of the bad stuff (or Baucus stuff) away from the health care bill, transforming it into a budget bill that will then be voted on by simple majority. One only wishes that Monty Python were around to to the Congressional process.

The alternative is even more painful. If this current crock of ruddy puddy goes through Congress unmolested for the President's signature, it's a sign from Jesus that the Democrats are an even more spineless, craven bunch of self-destructive jellyfish than most people think right now. That will clear the way for the Sarah Palin presidency for all I care, and then we can get the Great Depression II that we all deserve.

The problem has many facets:
- it is not a marketable good since you can't reasonably buy only when you need it; thus require all to be covered from birth
- there is a continuing effort to segment the market rather than cover all (HMO --> Healthy Members Only); which appeals to Young Adults who are less likely to get ill, unlike the old and juveniles
- the Right Wingnuts are happy to block "an up or down" vote, now that they're a shrinking minority
- too many of the Blue Dogs are in bed with the industry (so are regular Dems, just a bit less so; not counting my home state of CT, of course)
- stupid people (e.g. Right Wingnuts) are willing to believe that their good fortune is due solely to their abilities, and problems are due to The Others; thus the Tea Party nutballs who demand that gummint stay out of Medicare
- the Right Wingnuts have, since Nixon (but not AuH2O), have been adept at playing the Paranoid Gene, even while lying through their teeth
- Media is more fully controlled by Right Wingnuts than ever, save possibly the Spanish American War
- much of the cost of health care *does* go to keeping Granny breathing for another couple of weeks; we need to stop doing that
- Pharma *does* have too much control over compounds; that didn't used to be the case when research was largely funded by the gummint and compounds were in the public domain
- I could go on for days, so I'll leave it at that

It blows, but is an improvement on what we have much less the past bill that actually made things worse, forcing people to buy from HMOs which are half the problem. Taking 30% of medical costs while their only profit incentive is to refuse payment for medical care. A public option will be a big start lowering costs because these assmasters now have to compete with the government on costs. Meaning everything could come down about 25%. And HMOs will be on the ropes.

Excellent rant. I couldn't have said it better.

well shoot, i'm with tom and harry. we'll never get another try, and then we'll all die in horror and despair.

wait. perhaps i'm being a trifle hasty. so i would like to withdraw my agreement with the liberal nihilists and instead agree with kaly martin. hot models and handsome men all around... what's not to like?

We'll get true reform when Hell freezes over or that crack in Ethopia fills up with water and becomes a new ocean.

Scientists predict the Ethopian Ocean will be viewable in about a million years.

Come back then when the change has happened with the health care and no more crooked politicians!

:)

I am all for single payor medicine in this country. Its the only sensible position for myriad reasons. But as always, if Congress does this incrementally, it gives them many more chances to put bs into it that benefits some little special group or other. Here is an article that tells you about what Orrin Hatch has added, with the support of John Kerry and the late Ted Kennedy:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-health-religion3-2009nov03,0,2239900.story
Its really obscene.