I have to say, Olympia Snowe is a Republican with really good ideas.

[maineman]

That's like saying that AIDS is really bad so I'll get cancer to see how bad AIDS could really be.
Public option is bad. There is no reason to vote in a bad policy to demonstrate how much worse something else would be.
The right course is to figure out what the proper approach to solving the problems at hand would be and then voting that in. The public option and single payer will not do those things. Ergo they need to be off the table.

That's a really badly conceived metaphor.

How about:

That's like saying "Kissing is great, I should try heavy petting" or "Chocolate Milk is delicious, perhaps I should make a chocolate milkshake"?

There is every reason to vote in a policy people honestly believe would be beneificial, in order to try out their theory.

That's what leadership and innovation is all about.

OK, fair enough.
Except the pubic option is terrible. It has flunked every test in MA, ME, TN and CA. The result was the same everywhere: spiraling costs and poor quality of health care. Believing that somehow "it's gonna be different this time" is the very definition of insanity.

understanding that the economies of scale will most probably make it much different nationally seems to be beyond you.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Stupid comparison, Rabbi, very stupid.

You are terrified that the option will spectacularly be successful and cost effective. You should be terrified.

And you know what? You get to help pay for it! What a deal!!

Do you live in a fantasy world that you believe what politicians tell you when they say "trust me"?
Can you demonstrate any gov program that is designed to help citizens that is not filled with long lines, bureaucracy, fraud, waste, unnecessary management posititions (wasted taxpayer money), and total lack of efficiency?
What , who, how, when and where is it possible for the methods used to miraculously change into a system that will work as stated in the beginning?

Seriously, consider: if this gov is sooo great:
why doesn't it fix the waste and fraud in medicare?
why doesn't it fix the waste and fraud in medicaid?
why doesn't it fix the financial state of Social Security?
why doesn't it fix the post office?
why is it still sending checks to dead people and inmates?
why doesn't it fix the corruption in DC (as promised)?

Why don't you, as a taxpayer, demand the gov demonstrate their ability to accomplish one task well before you allow them to distract you out of your freedoms thru personal greed (having someone else pay for something you want)?

Why don't you as a taxpayer ask yourself, my friend, why national health care works very well in civilized, industrialized countries that have it at half the cost of what we pay here?

Do you really, really believe that we as the U.S. can't do it right?

Of course you are American, in that you are greedy as many of us but have no moral compass like a few of the far right wingnut wackos.

Shame on you.

 

[The Rabbi]

That's a really badly conceived metaphor.

How about:

That's like saying "Kissing is great, I should try heavy petting" or "Chocolate Milk is delicious, perhaps I should make a chocolate milkshake"?

There is every reason to vote in a policy people honestly believe would be beneificial, in order to try out their theory.

That's what leadership and innovation is all about.

OK, fair enough.
Except the pubic option is terrible. It has flunked every test in MA, ME, TN and CA. The result was the same everywhere: spiraling costs and poor quality of health care. Believing that somehow "it's gonna be different this time" is the very definition of insanity.

understanding that the economies of scale will most probably make it much different nationally seems to be beyond you.

Economies of scale?? WTF are you talking about? It's like losing on every transaction and making it up on volume.
That's the most idiotic asinine assertion I've seen on this board yet. And that includes all the anti-semitic tripe out there.
It will be exactly the same dynamic: make something free and more and more people will use it until they overwhelm the system. Who could possibly think that won't happen? That's why they will have to go to health care rationing.

 

[maineman]

OK, fair enough.
Except the pubic option is terrible. It has flunked every test in MA, ME, TN and CA. The result was the same everywhere: spiraling costs and poor quality of health care. Believing that somehow "it's gonna be different this time" is the very definition of insanity.

understanding that the economies of scale will most probably make it much different nationally seems to be beyond you.

Economies of scale?? WTF are you talking about? It's like losing on every transaction and making it up on volume.
That's the most idiotic asinine assertion I've seen on this board yet. And that includes all the anti-semitic tripe out there.
It will be exactly the same dynamic: make something free and more and more people will use it until they overwhelm the system. Who could possibly think that won't happen? That's why they will have to go to health care rationing.

since when did ANYONE EVER say that the public option would be FREE?

 

[Meister]

That's a really badly conceived metaphor.

How about:

That's like saying "Kissing is great, I should try heavy petting" or "Chocolate Milk is delicious, perhaps I should make a chocolate milkshake"?

There is every reason to vote in a policy people honestly believe would be beneificial, in order to try out their theory.

That's what leadership and innovation is all about.

OK, fair enough.
Except the pubic option is terrible. It has flunked every test in MA, ME, TN and CA. The result was the same everywhere: spiraling costs and poor quality of health care. Believing that somehow "it's gonna be different this time" is the very definition of insanity.

understanding that the economies of scale will most probably make it much different nationally seems to be beyond you.

Like waste, and fraud...yeah that will be off the "scale"

 

[Vast LWC]

It means once the camel gets its nose thru a tent, the rest of the camel will eventually follow.

Ahh, ok, thank you for explaining, I seriously had no idea.

 

[Vast LWC]

OK, fair enough.
Except the pubic option is terrible. It has flunked every test in MA, ME, TN and CA. The result was the same everywhere: spiraling costs and poor quality of health care. Believing that somehow "it's gonna be different this time" is the very definition of insanity.

Now that is in fact an excellent argument.

I will have to do some research in order to repond to this.

 

[GHook93]

I'll bite! Not sure I like the idea! What happens is the government run option would be inevitable! Face it healthcare is an issue the MAJORITY of Americans will never be satisfied with no matter what the form is!

In healthcare's issue, is one of the areas I abandon my fiscal conservative philosophies and SUPPORT a German like private/public system!



I just recently had another incident where the healthcare system failed my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law operates a small business. He operates a property management business, while its not the most lucrative, it still pays the bills. He gets his insurance from his wife's employer (who works part-time and receives full benefits). He is now going through a divorce and immediately the bitch dropped him from her plan! My brother in law has MS!

Do any of you who love the current system know what its like for him now! He is basically going for individual insurance. Most the insurance companies he is going to are outright denying him (Yes haters that is a form of healthcare rationing). The subpar insurers are trying to put in a rider NOT TO COVER HIS MS! Wow that is nice of them, the thing he needs covered they are rationing away from his plan! The sub-subpar companies (you know the ones, like Great Benefit in The Rain Maker, who deny everything) are giving him astronomical rates that no one could afford.

So he is left with one option. Close his small business, that he worked so hard building up, and take a lower paying job (which are not easy to find right now) at a corporation that offers group healthcare!

 

[Vast LWC]

OK, fair enough.
Except the pubic option is terrible. It has flunked every test in MA, ME, TN and CA. The result was the same everywhere: spiraling costs and poor quality of health care. Believing that somehow "it's gonna be different this time" is the very definition of insanity.

Now that is in fact an excellent argument.

I will have to do some research in order to repond to this.

OK, as far as Massachussetts is concerned, it would seem that there is no public option in place. They have universal health care, but through private insurers.

The Heritage Foundation actually seemed to like most of the legislation, as can be seen here:

The Massachusetts Health Plan: Lessons for the States

And surely the Heritage Foundation is no liberal organization.

They did express trepidation at the expansion of medicaid to include more people, but there is not a "public plan" in place as has been suggested for the federal level.

 

[The Rabbi]

There are lots of stories like that. If I needed to go out and get health coverage now no one would write it for me. So I am stuck in my old policy, no matter how high the premiums run. So what?
These things happen. There is no right to health insurance, any more than there is a right to anything else. MS is a costly disease. Insurers would be paying out far in excess of any premiums they collect from your brother. That isn't sustainable on any measure.
As they say, if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free!

 

[The Rabbi]

OK, fair enough.
Except the pubic option is terrible. It has flunked every test in MA, ME, TN and CA. The result was the same everywhere: spiraling costs and poor quality of health care. Believing that somehow "it's gonna be different this time" is the very definition of insanity.

Now that is in fact an excellent argument.

I will have to do some research in order to repond to this.

OK, as far as Massachussetts is concerned, it would seem that there is no public option in place. They have universal health care, but through private insurers.

The Heritage Foundation actually seemed to like most of the legislation, as can be seen here:

The Massachusetts Health Plan: Lessons for the States

And surely the Heritage Foundation is no liberal organization.

They did express trepidation at the expansion of medicaid to include more people, but there is not a "public plan" in place as has been suggested for the federal level.

You are looking at an article from 2006 when the plan had just been proposed.
Fast forward to this year (Mar 2009) after the plan has been in place. This from the WSJ
Massachusetts's Health-Care Program Offers a Preview of Barack Obama's Universal Health-Care Plan - WSJ.com

In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls. As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. It was only a matter of time.

They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget. The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic. The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006.

More at the source.

 

[The Rabbi]

And here's an analysis of Maine's experiment in gov't provided care:
Peter Suderman: The Lesson of State Health-Care Reforms - WSJ.com

Reform measures in other states have proven to be expensive duds. Maine's 2003 reform plan, Dirigo Health, included a government insurance option resembling the public option included in the House health-care bill. This public plan, "DirigoChoice," was supposed to expand care to all 128,000 of Maine's uninsured by 2009. But according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2007 uninsured rate remained roughly 10%—essentially unchanged. DirigoChoice's individual insurance premiums increased by 74% over its first four years—to $499 a month from $287 a month—according to an analysis of Dirigo data by the Maine Heritage Policy Center. The cost of DirigoHealth to taxpayers so far has been $155 million.

Tennessee's plan for universal coverage, dubbed TennCare, fared even worse in the 1990s. The goal of the state-run public insurance plan was to expand coverage to the uninsured by reducing waste. But the costs of expanding coverage quickly ballooned. In 2005, facing bankruptcy, the state was forced to cut 170,000 individuals from its insurance rolls.

More at the source.

So why do people believe that "this time it's different"??

 

[Vast LWC]

Now that is in fact an excellent argument.

I will have to do some research in order to repond to this.

OK, as far as Massachussetts is concerned, it would seem that there is no public option in place. They have universal health care, but through private insurers.

The Heritage Foundation actually seemed to like most of the legislation, as can be seen here:

The Massachusetts Health Plan: Lessons for the States

And surely the Heritage Foundation is no liberal organization.

They did express trepidation at the expansion of medicaid to include more people, but there is not a "public plan" in place as has been suggested for the federal level.

You are looking at an article from 2006 when the plan had just been proposed.
Fast forward to this year (Mar 2009) after the plan has been in place. This from the WSJ
Massachusetts's Health-Care Program Offers a Preview of Barack Obama's Universal Health-Care Plan - WSJ.com

In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls. As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. It was only a matter of time.

They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget. The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic. The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006.

More at the source.

As respected as the WSJ generally has been as a journalistic source, it's opinion pages, which is where the article you posted came from, are known to have an extreme bias to the right.

Be that as it may, even the article states Massachussets does not have a single-payer system. It relies on private insurers, and subsidizes the insured. This is not the same as having a public option at all.

 

[The Rabbi]

Then you will have no problem finding articles that contradict the facts and figures presented by the WSJ op eds.
I will await this.

In the meantime, a public option will make things worse, not better. Insurers will know they can slough off higher risk people into the public pool and will cherry pick the best risks.

 

[Vast LWC]

And here's an analysis of Maine's experiment in gov't provided care:
Peter Suderman: The Lesson of State Health-Care Reforms - WSJ.com

Reform measures in other states have proven to be expensive duds. Maine's 2003 reform plan, Dirigo Health, included a government insurance option resembling the public option included in the House health-care bill. This public plan, "DirigoChoice," was supposed to expand care to all 128,000 of Maine's uninsured by 2009. But according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2007 uninsured rate remained roughly 10%—essentially unchanged. DirigoChoice's individual insurance premiums increased by 74% over its first four years—to $499 a month from $287 a month—according to an analysis of Dirigo data by the Maine Heritage Policy Center. The cost of DirigoHealth to taxpayers so far has been $155 million.

Tennessee's plan for universal coverage, dubbed TennCare, fared even worse in the 1990s. The goal of the state-run public insurance plan was to expand coverage to the uninsured by reducing waste. But the costs of expanding coverage quickly ballooned. In 2005, facing bankruptcy, the state was forced to cut 170,000 individuals from its insurance rolls.

More at the source.

So why do people believe that "this time it's different"??

Again, the massachussetts system relies on private insurers and subsidizes costs with taxpayer money.

There is no "Public Option" alternative in MA as far as I can see.

 

[Vast LWC]

Then you will have no problem finding articles that contradict the facts and figures presented by the WSJ op eds.

I don't have to, Massachussets' approach is unrelated to a "public option" or to "single payer" insurance.

 

[The Rabbi]

Then you will have no problem finding articles that contradict the facts and figures presented by the WSJ op eds.

I don't have to, Massachussets' approach is unrelated to a "public option" or to "single payer" insurance.

Public option is a more radical version of what MA did. And what MA did failed. Single payer is a more radical option than the public option. So its an a fortiori.
Pretending that what is being proposed is somehow fundamentally different from what the states have tried is intellectually either dishonest or lazy. The basic dynamic is the same, gov't regulating insurance company policies, keeping hte price artificially below market, thus inducing rationing.

 

[GHook93]

There are lots of stories like that. If I needed to go out and get health coverage now no one would write it for me. So I am stuck in my old policy, no matter how high the premiums run. So what?
These things happen. There is no right to health insurance, any more than there is a right to anything else. MS is a costly disease. Insurers would be paying out far in excess of any premiums they collect from your brother. That isn't sustainable on any measure.
As they say, if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free!

Great, so should be brother-in-law just die?

LOOK, he can't even get insurance right now! So don't say the current system doesn't ration healthcare. He is exactly the type of person that needs a public option!

 

[JakeStarkey]

Then you will have no problem finding articles that contradict the facts and figures presented by the WSJ op eds.

I don't have to, Massachussets' approach is unrelated to a "public option" or to "single payer" insurance.

Public option is a more radical version of what MA did. And what MA did failed. Single payer is a more radical option than the public option. So its an a fortiori.
Pretending that what is being proposed is somehow fundamentally different from what the states have tried is intellectually either dishonest or lazy. The basic dynamic is the same, gov't regulating insurance company policies, keeping hte price artificially below market, thus inducing rationing.

Rab cannot prove this will not work at the national leve, and he can't refute that it works well for other countries -- better health, better mortality rates, less cost.

Rab, get over yourself. You are only full of hot air. This will pass, and you will pay your fair share for it. How truly appropriate.

 

[The Rabbi]

There are lots of stories like that. If I needed to go out and get health coverage now no one would write it for me. So I am stuck in my old policy, no matter how high the premiums run. So what?
These things happen. There is no right to health insurance, any more than there is a right to anything else. MS is a costly disease. Insurers would be paying out far in excess of any premiums they collect from your brother. That isn't sustainable on any measure.
As they say, if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free!

Great, so should be brother-in-law just die?

LOOK, he can't even get insurance right now! So don't say the current system doesn't ration healthcare. He is exactly the type of person that needs a public option!

At some point he will qualify for Medicaid. Look, you can't design a system around the worst cases. That will insure the worst results. I am sorry for your BIL's problems, but that's life. Maybe he should have married a different woman.