If someone else has already posted this, excuse me..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yony3z8K51Q&feature=player_embedded

The only bailouts in the Pelosi Bill are for the health insurance industry.

I just checked the bill text and the 125% prevailing rates section the congressman is referring to in the video clip is actually the short-term risk pool "solution" included to try and reduce the cost of the bill (Bad #2 in the post.)

So maximum 125% of prevailing market rates in this case, believe it or not, is actually better than the current state of risk pool premiums being 125%-200% more than prevailing market rates! No, it's still not a great bill in my opinion.

Thank you for saying this so well.  This is exactly what my husband and I were saying ourselves.  Nothing in the bill for the struggling working middle class.  We have already been informed by my husband's employer that our premiums and deductibles will increase by 30% after the first of the year.  I am disabled and waiting for the government to allow me to receive the benefits I have paid into for 30 years.  Talk about the INSURANCE companies not paying out.......  So, we are devastated by this.  Great, we won't be wiped out by our medical bills in bankruptcy, but there is the distinct possiblity of being homeless and heatless just paying for our premiums and deductibles.  What a DEAL.

Pelosi can shove her bill up her...

Our current healthcare system is not perfect, but it is much better than any "change" that will come in the next three years.

Do you want to know the only way to truly gain access to GOOD, QUALITY healthcare?  Tell the government to get its nose the heck out of our healthcare industry!  Are they doctors?  NO.  Are they insurance agents?  NO.  So why do we allow them to control our healthcare industry/education industry/economy/automobile industry/etc.??  The government specializes in NONE OF THESE THINGS.  And it is pretty obvious since every time the government sticks its nose into something, that something DIVE BOMBS. 

Basically, with a huge out-of-control government, such as ours, I choose the lesser of two evils- which happens to be upholding THE BEST healthcare sytem IN THE WORLD.  Take away the GOVERNMENT'S regulations and corrupt relationships with its chosen successful insurance companies.. and you will get a FREE capitalistic medical industry, one in which the PEOPLE make the decisions and demand the types of insurance they want.  If the insurance companies do not cater to the need, then those companies GO UNDER and a new ones fill the gap.  It is simple economics, people.

If you are all for destroying what is currently the best medical industry in the world, then please keep your change to yourself.  You are attacking the wrong side.  If you do not agree with me, then be careful what you wish for.  Consider yourselves warned.

Responding to what Lana said, first off, "Pelosi can shove her bill up her..."  way to not have respect for the leaders of our country.  She's clearly un-American and not patriotic.  She makes it sound like if the government were to just "get it's nose out of healthcare" then all its problems would be gone.  Sounds like she has a bad memory.  That is exactly what Bush did for the last eight years -stripped regulations and funding away from Medicare and other health industries. 

Was it a health care renaissance?  Stripping the evil government out of a private industry allowed all those kind empathetic business people the freedom they needed to really CARE about their customers??  We all know that was not the case.  What happened was the insurance companies stopped caring for the people who couldn't afford insurance!!  But who cares about the Poor?!  

Lana makes it sound like the government (the organization who's purpose is TO GOVERN) is a bunch of evil people just out to make a buck.  I'm sure this is true about a lot of Republicans and Dems alike, who take bribes and listen to lobbyists, but stripping the regulations away from the health care INDUSTRY (it's a business with leaders who just want to make a profit just like the auto industry and the like) will only make our health system WORSE. 

Right now, if you have money, you can get insurance.  If you're poor, you should just die.  That's what the insurance people are telling us.  I come from a broken home and live with a single parent.  He's a teacher and I'm going to college.  I work, go to school, and can't afford health care, does that seem right?  Stripping away regulations will make the health industry care about me less.  More regulations might just mean my family won't go bankrupt if one of us has a serious injury.

Take your Republican faith in business and shovel it.  Bush stripped more regulations away than any other president.  Are we better off?  No.  If you don't believe that, go read What We've Lost, by Graydon Carter.  

Lana,

As much as I deplore the bills up for consideration, it is the dogmatic and rightist assertions that you make which have lead to the destructive "bipartisanship", fear of labels, and industry lobbying which destroyed the democratically elected hope for reform. Like it or not, your ilk lost the last election. So, thankfully, I do not agree with you or your dire warnings. Moreover, I place the blame for these lousy bills square on the shoulders of those in the electorate and in Congress who embrace the "free market" as a panacea.

There are market theories and then there are macroeconomic realities. As observed by economist by Friedrich List: "Industry entirely left to itself, would soon fall to ruin, and a nation letting everything alone would commit suicide." The government cannot and, by our Constitution, should not be removed from the economy.

No economy can exist without the people or the institutions of the people and the purpose of any economy is to manage resources toward the fulfillment of needs by limiting infinite wants and desires. That is simple economics.

A health care and education systems are infrastructures, not industries. They are part of the foundation for supporting the workforce, the people, as the go into industry. The auto industry messed itself up by denying market demands, supplying what they wanted, not what the people wanted. As for the economy, it was the instruments of finance seeking a profit beyond what the market was bearing that put us where we are. Was the government complicit in this? Yes. Was that because the government ought to be or must be complicit with private industry over the needs of the people? No. If you ask me, I'd have let Wall St. sink. But, then, from whence would stream your libertarian/ Randian rhetoric, the doctrines of "free market" which you parrot? The "specialists" in finance and auto manufacturing are obviously not capable. The people, however, are and We, the People, are the government.

A wiser man than any on the right-wing now holding forth or holding office, Theodore Roosevelt, in looking at our Constitution tells us "The government is us; we are the government, you and I."

To believe that the invisible hand applies to large corporate structures as they do to local entrepreneurs and that bad insurers would go under is naïve and denies the whole purpose of joint stock corporations. Once assets and property no longer belong to an individual and the part owners are shielded from liability by the public construct of a corporation, the "free market" no longer obtains. In fact, the owners are diversified to the point of not caring about one small portion of a portfolio. At that point, we regulate and watch the industry not to protect the investors, but to protect the livelihoods and workplaces of those employed.

That private capital is undermining our government is not due to the nature of government but to the nature of private capital. It is not a human thing, with human economic goals of serving needs, it is an amalgamation of wants and desires for more than what is needed. It is the private, capitalistic desires of our representatives to profit from their positions which undermines us and it is only by stepping up and taking back what is ours - our power, our government - and not giving in and dissolving our rights that we can turn the tide against self-serving capital.

There is no objective fact or reasoning to the assertion that we have the best health care system in the world. The opposite is the case. I would no more have the system persist under the same agents controlling access and service as private and capitalistic than I would have a private and capitalistic navy. Anything that is essential to the nation and all the people in common cause ought to be controlled by the institution, in which, our common causes are supreme, our government.

"Increasing taxes after the 1930s Depression did'nt help then, it won't help economic recovery now."

Well, the Post-Depression/ Post-War era did build a boom economy on very high personal and corporate tax rates. If you want to look at the source of overall debt, this nation has invested into into wars, hot and cold, money that ought to have gone into human services and infrastructure.

It will take more than health care reform to work down the deficit. Many other areas of spending will need to be cut and it requires a prosperous, tax-paying economy.

It is too often cited by economists that taxation suppresses growth but that often ignores the fact that the lack of taxation too often limitis the distribution of benefits from that growth. THe EU runs a very prosperous economy with a high standrd of living for a greater percentage of the population on a higher tax structure.

You're right about the 20% tax being passed to consumers and what's really crime is that those most in need of devices, the least healthy, will be affected. That's a crime.

Have you seen the recent story about NY State tackling Ingneix/ UnitedHealth Care? Do you think tackling a national-wide operator on a State-by-State basis is efficient? I would think that if Americans anywhere are being screwed over in the same way that our federal government is the place to hash it out.

Hey Harold, I like reading your posts.

I do think that tackling nationwide insurance carriers on a state-by-state basis is effective in keeping legislative decisions at a state level. 
We are faced with giving extreme amounts of control from our state capitals, to the nation's capital, where fraud, waste, and abuse of power are harder to control from so far away. 

I can agree to a public option that does not operate in the red (like the post office or Amtrak).  AND, does not set different coverage standards from the private insurance industry.

On the industry: What is the only way that insurance companies can increase sales/profit?  They make more money by increasing number of services covered, or increase the number of people covered.  Our government has been steadily increasing mandated services covered, and now they are MANDATING THAT EVERYONE has coverage. 

The debate that a "Public Option" will keep insurers honest is narrow-minded.  Insurers will make a fortune by mandating that everyone has to have coverage. 

Public Option is fine if it is OPTIONAL, and can operate without raising TAXES, and is truly OPTIONAL... not forced taxation upon all citizens at every spectrum in the economy.

Amen, 11 trillion and climbing!  Our current president put 1.5 Trillion on the national debt in 9 months.  In perspective Bush added about 300 billion last year (I am NOT a fan of his). We don't have the money!  The more the debt, the more we lose jobs.  What is Washington thinking?  We need to trim the debt and watch this year's deficit.  Why is congress so so so out of touch?

Pelosi is one of the problems.  When we had Clinton we were reducing this debt.  Where the#%^& is congress coming from with Obama?

The number one issue in the country is debt, but it is ignored.  Why not just throw another trillion on the deficit and make the debt 12 Trillion?  3 billion a day in interest! Yipes!

I am not a big Kicinich fan, but he sure has it right on this.  It's a dirty shame that he isn't given alot more credence when it comes to helping the middle class.

Bill--you can send an email to your representatives supporting the immediate reinstatement of the Kucinich amendment at http://www.democrats.com/state-single-payer

Thank you John.  My husband and I are seriously thinking of moving to Canada if he can transfer there through his employer.   We have lived here all of our lives, but see no future here under our government.  What a pity.  Wish us luck.

John, unfortunately, we here in the US KNEW what you meant .

Jim, I agree except the time for altruism, patriotism, and old fashioned honesty is NOW.

What we currently have in Washington is truly a one party system wholly owned and opeated by corporations. If there is anything this health reform "experience" has taught us it is this. 

What do we do now??? Get MAD. Help others open up their eyes to the reality that is our sham of a government and begin to try to take our country back. There are a few down there in DC who get it, the rest are living in an insulated dream world funded by special interests. NOTHING is real to these people. As far as I am concerned the majority of them are just doing "fly bys" over the challenges and hardships of their constituents.

Laura, I totally agree.  But what we need is someone to represent us.  I don't mean a lobby, they would never allow that in Washington, but someone strong and believeable that cares about us and is willing to start a movement.  And I DON'T mean some extremists with an agenda.  I mean a real life normal human being that simply can get everyone together who feels the same way we do.  Like a new Martin Luther King of any race.  We need help.

Gloria, you are correct. Yesterday, I heard Wendall Potter speak at UCONN Law School and he stated that we need to "do it like the lobbyists" to get some legislative attention. At first I thought, "gee, this makes sense", but then I thought, "you know what, you can look like a lobbyist, act like a lobbyist, and talk like a lobbyist, but when it comes to Washington, unless you have the money of a lobbyist, you probably aren't going to get invited back for lunch."

Nevertheless, we do need to start a movement of people and never underestimate the power of YOURSELF. Potter also sated the importance of talking with your friends, neighbors and family too. 

It is natural to feel like we as individuals cannot accomplish much in face of the huge institutions that run our world. This feeling of powerlessness fuels a vicious cycle that only worsens the situation and increases people's sense of futility. We all have a source of power in our lives, and that is the realm of the spiritual or religious if you prefer, but whatever it is we belive to be the truth, in general it is this: that the inner determinatiion of an individual can transform everything. This belief in ourselves gives ultimate expression to that infinite potential and dignity inherent in human each life. 

A movement is starting Gloria and it starts with you and me and everyone else who believes that we need to restore democracy as our working order in which PEOPLE are the goal and purpose of government rather than capitalism that uses people as a means to an end. The message is crystallizing all around us and we will soon see a sense of decency being restored to our government.

Yes Lauren, but I write to all of my reps and even some who aren't mine.  I've written to the president several times.  I talk to my friends and anyone who will listen.  Unfortunately, we live in a part of the US that is EXTREMELY conservative, and sometimes I am afraid of attracting unwanted attention.  I need someone to write to who actually cares instead of pretending to care.  I still believe we need a new leader.  Someone who can get our message across, not start a civil war.  How can I change anything?  If you have any ideas, let me know.

Doc Larry, wake up! Don't you know we are all be herded into a system where not only do the insurers control the system.....they own it. Read between the lines, managed care, group rates, keep the government out. Well who do you suppose is going to keep the ball in the air? The ones who brought the system down are being positioned to build a new one, and this time theirs will be the only rules to follow.

Couldn't agree more, doc!

One of my biggest concerns is the widespread public denial of our human rights. I thought that, finally, this election signalled a change in public consciousness. Let's face it, we get the leaders we want. They stand for our ideals. That's the sad part. Mr. Hsiao is correct, this is an issue of OUR values and we are found wanting.

Are the American people so beaten that they can't stand against corporate tyranny and faux market dogma? It is easy to blame our leaders. Republicans are a known quantity, Democrats are afraid of loud Republicans. It is easy to blame the health care industry stakeholders who bribe, cajole, and market against human rights, who trumpet market-based entitlement.

On the whole, we have become extremists cowering in fear of some red menace accusing everything that favors or finds justice outside of property and wealth. We have, as a society, grown to value those who have over have nots as superior in every way. We are happy, cooperative victims. How often do you hear that we should elect "businessmen" instead of politicians or oohs and ahhs at self-funded milionaire's campaigns over grassroots organizing? Of course we speak against corporate funding but we don't buy in to an alternative.

Where our leaders have failed us is in bowing to minority passions with "bipartisanship", not being openly "liberal", fearing and denying progressive taxation, and giving no ear to minority passions for single-payer, ignoring the "Opinions of Mankind" concerning our rights. They value loudness over rational dissent and ask that we do the same, continue in our ways and fears.

I think this battle is lost and costs will continue to rise, people will suffer in greater numbers, and capital has won the day. So, where do we turn for justice? How do we build a case for human rights and single-payer? How do we continue the fight? If our neighbors are not moved by what they lack and seek to lack more, what will change that?

Lauren, see below.

Harold, this particular battle was never fought over the real issue, Universal Health Care, and Health Care as a Human Right.  So, there's no way we'll get either in this round.  

I'm turning my attention to the State campaign for Single Payer.  Even Schwartzeneggar proposed that 85% of health insurance premiums be spent on actual health care, but the Republicans wouldn't let that half measure through.

San Francisco has something going, within its bprders, but I don't know how well that's working.

Massachusetts should have been the prototype crash that called for a redesign, because its mandated insurance is way too expensive.

I think we need to resuscitate the Moral Majority and the Evangelists and all the right to lifers, and picket their churches.  The Catholic Church believes that Health Care is a Human Right.  They won't support universal health care that incorporates women's reproductive rights, but they are moral allies.

Any measure that passes will be expensive and incomplete and we need to keep reminding them why.  Any patch is expensive, and the only place to generate money is to keep wiping out the middlemen, the insurance industry, Big Pharma, for profit hospitals.

I'm not aware of any campaign that focuses on the immorality of health care for some.  We need to convince the charitable people of our nation, that health care is too big, too expensive, to be entrusted to good intentions.  It is like defense, and the threat of fire, or criminals.  We have an army, a police force, a fire department, a court system.  We need a health system, but first we need to agree that health is a human right. 

It's funny, Doc, I was just discussing this with my wife last night, about conflicts between American Catholics and Catholicism on this issue, about going to the anit-abortion websites to use rhetoric about defense of life against the right-wingers.

I've been banging my head against a wall trying to make this about rights and am making no headway. There is NO ONE representing this view with any vigor in our government. Do you remember when Obama, pressed during one of the debates as to whether health care was a right or a responsibility and he conceded that he believed it was a right? No one is holding him to that.

I live in NJ and the majority of the people I know, friends, neighbors, family, are Roman Catholic. Barely a handful would embrace the Church's position on this issue because they are, like most American "Christians", in the words of Harold Bloom, adherents to the American Religion.

There's an underlying current of favoritism and predestination where having indicates you are chosen and not having indicates that your faith has failed you and God is against you. That any anti-market sentiment penalizes the good and worthy to benefit the unworthy. So, you're right, the Catholic Church would be a good ally but for Catholic Americans.

Mind you, they're not alone. I am a conservative Lutheran. We don't, as a rule, consider ourselves part of the Protestant whole because we are sacramental and liturgical and our doctrines are quite different from Clavinist and Arminian protestants.

That being said, Lutherans tend to be quite politically, socially, and economically conservative. However, I note that Martin Luther, expounding on the Fifth Commandment in nthe Large Catechism, puts forth a doctrine of reciprocity: "Therefore the entire sum of what it means not to kill is to be impressed most explicitly upon the simple-minded. In the first place that we harm no one, first, with our hand or by deed. Then, that we do not employ our tongue to instigate or counsel thereto. Further, that we neither use nor assent to any kind of means or methods whereby any one may be injured. And finally, that the heart be not ill disposed toward any one, nor from anger and hatred wish him ill, so that body and soul may be innocent in regard to every one, but especially those who wish you evil or inflict such upon you. For to do evil to one who wishes and does you good is not human, but diabolical.

Secondly, under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto for you have withheld your love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been saved."

And, so, I come to this issue as a God-given right, backed by at least 500 years of theology, and have little standing against even the most faithful in this country. This is a great frustration for me.

I loved your response Laurence, but don't take your eye off the ball.

Health care legislation was introduced to save the overwhelming Medicare budget.  It was not started to save the little guy (this was just a sales pitch for spin and support).  Even McCain acknowledged the fact that we need reform.

We can't let republicans get a foothold on legislation if we go with emotions and are not pragmatic.

Americans are not idiots and know their money is going to waste like the "Scooter Store".

We need real fixes.  Those on Medicare can attest to discrimination against them when they find doctors don't take their coverage.  Should the government make this worse by expansion of this kind of program?

We need single payer or universal that kills high expense!

Objectively, either cover problems through tort and selling across state lines (cheaper), or go all out! 

I'm worried luke-warm with a high price tag, does nothing but make things worse for all.

Bottom line, will we save Medicare?

I've no worries about Medicare. Every day, the comments roll from seniors clutching their single-payer, funded-on-the-backs-of-working-families medical care access. They "deserve" it, they "earned" it, it isn't a right, it's an expectation.

They tune in to Republican lies and Republicans do just enough to keep the gray vote, keep them angry and fearful of change, of the possible ascendancy of young people wanting to have as much as they do.

It's more divide and conquer strategy aimed at a voter bloc that has time to campaign, stuff envelopes, socialize with the issues, protest. Medicare is safe as long as it belongs to the elederly alone.

Yes, Lauren, I am sure spiritualism is important somewhere, but not here.  It all comes down to capitalism and MONEY.  It also includes the scare tactics of the right.  Don't tell me that all of those gun toting lunatics on the right fringe are truly religious.  No amount of religion or morals is going to change Washington politics.  I have no idea what will change it (we voted for Obama the man of change) and we were fooled.  I probably shouldn't blame him entirely, he has a huge amount of obstacles, but in my opinion he has folded against the middle class and unions who elected him.  Has he forgotten that it wasn't the corporations who elected him, or was it? 
Anyway, I still think we need a new MLK of any race.  Some one who can bring us together and make change.  No radicals need apply.

When the people are ready, a leader usually appears. If you study movements of change, you observe  a sense of gathering momentum that reaches critical mass.

Your opinion of Washington and gun toting lunatics is well taken. And I am as puzzled over Obama as anyone. But don't lose heart. Change never comes from the top down, it always starts from the bottom up and then it crystallizes in the form of a movement. Many thought Obama was the man, I was hoping he might be, but I think he will be the leader who gives the new vision an opportunity in Washington. Th biggest obstacle is that legislators are timid. DC rewards extremism. We are starting to see a sense of pragmatism and what some would call "fairness", which after 8 years of Bush/Cheney people see as welcome. But what needs to be done is more than that. We are moving into a new era of humanism where people are not merely viewed as a means to an end. You would have thought that the US would be taking the lead , but we are way behind, because of our reluctance to accept the fact that was a country we are founded on liberty, not vapitalism. Too many people don't understand that and as a result our entire historical sense of self, our national identity has beeen warped. It's like, as a nation, we are in the beginning phase of psychotherapy.

Never underestimate the power of your awakening to affect change in the world. Your sense of purpose in a more hostile environment makes your vision all the more important Gloria. You will awaken others. They are afraid and asleep. We will wake them up!

As for you, Lauren, whoever you are, you're spiritualism or whatever it is, is not helping anything.  And no, nothing will change with your views.  WAKE UP.  Are you a Republican who likes to comment on Democratic sites, or just near sighted?  Or worse than that, are you working for the RNC, or the insurance companies?

Gloria, I'm a self employed painter with a degree in chemistry. I registered Democrat although I feel like we need a third party. I have practiced Buddhism for 24 years, raised Catholic. 

I feel bad that you have no hope. I guess your sense of outrage keeps you going, mine does too but I will not allow the state of this world to alter my sense of the inherent good in ourselves and others.

Things change when people wake up to their basic decency Gloria. Love and compassion helps people do that. You cannot fight fire with fire. 

Lauren,

Guess what...I am a disabled American!  I can't get my disability yet because I haven't gone through the bureaucracy yet.  Look.....I respect your religion, I too, was a Buddhist once.  It's a great way to run away from your problems and see the world through rose colored glasses.  Tell me something, if you have a great degree like that, why are you a painter?  Don't tell me a swell person like yourself can't find a job in this wonderful economy?  Why you have such strong feelings you should get a job easily if you don't tell anyone.  Lauren, GET A LIFE.

dave, should we have continued to allow slavery because it was economically advantageous?

i suggest you consider what the term human rights implies. life is about more than keeping your tires inflated. 

Hey Dave, shouldn't you be attending a "tea party" or something?

Hi Dave,

I appreciate the honesty in your bio!  Basically, you are on this site to agitate, so it's difficult to take what you say as a contribution of any kind to a debate that should involve all thoughtful Americans. You might also find the Billionaires for Wealthcare worth your attention.

As Veterans' Day approaches, let me point out to you that human rights are not "free."  Many of our fellow citizens have given their lives to protect liberty and freedom, including the right of people to dissent, even if they abuse their opportunities.

On the chance that you're merely confused and inconsistent, let me point out that health care is something that must be paid for whether it is a human right or an entrepreneurial opportunity.  It is just the fairness of how our society regards the distribution of health care.

http://civilliberty.about.com/od/equalrights/f/Health-Care-Human-Right.htm 

" According to the most widely accepted international human rights treaties, yes.

Article 25 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reads (emphasis mine):Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

The industrialized countries of the world all agree with this statement, except the United States.  

Hey Jen, meet Dave.

Bravo Laurence.  It looks like Mr. James Turner knows Jen and Dave, too.  What rock did they crawl out of?

I'm in the same boat, somewhat James.  Loved Clinton, can't stand Obama.  You are right about the debt collector.  We are paying huge amounts of money on interest, but Obama, promises to not sign the bill crazy Nanacy put out.  It has to be deficit neutral.  Keep the faith that the senate will be a little more sane about fiscal responsibility.