Cost... this article leaves the issue open-ended with the answer being obvious: “If 37 percent of insured families cannot afford to the deductible and co-pays, what good is the (Mass. Plan) insurance?” Read the studies of all similar plans over the past 30+ years whereby States try to lower the cost of private health insurance and require manditory purchase from every resident. They have always failed to cover everyone for one simple reason: Profits are made by covering only the healthy who rarely use the services. Private Health Insurance Corp., like any other responsible business, only seeks to guarantee Profits to their shareholders. It is clear everyone needs basic Health Insurance. It is also clear Private Health Insurance Companies play no role in basi Universal Health Insurance. Lowered cost and coverage for all is automaticly generated when the 30% profit margin is removed from the pockets of Private Health Insurance Corps. Quality is guaranteed as Health Practitioners still operate under their own fundamental guidlines. All three legs of this issue remain standing when true Single-Payer Universal Healthcare exists.
Nothing dramatic like Socialized Medicine... just a Single-Payer Plan like the Canadian system to guarantee all Health Practioners get paid, and all residents can afford their services when necessary.

I think Edward and Dave may be right that insurance doesn't work.  I think if we step back and look at the business of insurance, you will see that it is a pyramid scheme where the many pay the bills of the few.  Insurance companies are forced to deny coverage and scam people to make a profit.  This makes me wonder if it is possible for the many to pay for the few, or if the few are becoming too many.  What if insurance companies engage is this horrible behavior because they can't afford to do it right?  I understand that the hope of single-payer lies in cutting the overhead of the current system, but isn't it possible that the fundamentals of insurance just don't work?  That the "pay-in" group doesn't generate enough money for the "take-out" group?  If that is the case, transferring the system that doesn't add up to a single-payer doesn't seem to solve the cost problem.  I am aware that I could be wrong and I don't have enough numbers to say that it doesn't add up, but I sure hope someone is doing more that just avoiding those questions because they rooting for a solution like its a football team instead of keeping a cool head and being realistic about its shortcomings.

Even if health insurance becomes "affordable" (and I have to wonder what that really means - according to whom is whatever price asked "affordable")... there will still be plenty of people who CAN afford it who wil choose not to - as we have at least in California with auto insurance and then we end up with the same effect. Everybody else will end up having to pay for the people who choose not to purchase insurance.
With 21% of every health care dollar going to profit (yearly compensation of execs that are upwards of $20 MILLION) and another 20% going to just the administrative handling of fulfilling the requirements (and then some) of the multitudes of payers of health care (i.e., insurance companies), this is what would need to be seriously cut in order to "reduce" costs. 
I have worked for MDs and have dealt with the insurance companies from that end as well as that of patient ...and I've worked for some of those insurance companies as well. I could tell you some stories about waste by the insurance companies that would make your toes curl - more than just the usual stories of executive excess.
It's not the fault of MDs and health pracitioners that you are not getting enough health care bang for your buck - blaming the caregivers is ridiculous. Students are leaving the profession altogether given the inability to even make enough of an income as a primary care physician to afford to pay for a receptionist let alone the insurance costs, et al. 
Here are my questions:1. Why are we still so unwilling to do the right thing and simply fix the problem by taking the profit out of health care?
2. Why do we value property (which we protect with police and fire paid for by taxes) over people's lives?
3. Why are we still so afraid of the insurance industry?
Anything less than a single-payer solution is a band aid ...and everybody knows it. Nobody yet, though, is willing to genuinely do the hard but right thing - get rid of the insurance part of the picture, period.

Tim is right about the three legs of the stool. But cost is one leg that can telescope to infinity if the major reason for the rising cost of healthcare is not addressed. And that is, simply, the Allopathic world view. What is that? It is the way conventional doctors and administrators see the world. Conventional medicine is based upon one major assumption: you are a skin bag of biochemical reactions. If we just knew what those reactions were, we could pour in other chemicals and you could be the person you want to be. This is the assumption driving all of the pharmaceutical research and drive for more fancy and invasive surgeries. 
The only answer to cost that allopaths see is rationing care. The combination of single payer, universal access and allopathic world view is one that you do not want. Believe me. 
We can get around this dilemma by either changing medicine to be truly preventative (you talk to an allopath about prevention and they think you're talking about immunizations and a few screening tests.) Conventional medicine is great for traumas and surgical emergencies, it is very poor at keeping a civilian population from getting sick in the first place. There is much more that can be done in the realm of prevention that could save the US billions of dollars and decrease medical utilization without the need to ration care. 
Another fix to the dilemma would to offer universal access but not through a single payer. With a single payer, there would be no incentive for innovation or to be responsive to the needs of those served. Healthcare is too important to put it all into just a few hands. It needs to be responsive to and accountable to the people. The best way to do this is to have it paid for by local, non-profit companies that are publicly regulated, much like a public utility. 
We also need to uncouple research into the concepts and modalities that are truly health and cost effective from drug companies. Right now, drug companies pay for the majority of medical research and up to 90% of post-graduate medical education. So what are doctors going to be taught? Publicly funded medical research will free the scientific community to gather the data needed to sway doctor's thinking toward true prevention. 
We want our medical system to give us universal access, be cost and medically effective and responsive to our needs. We need to plan carefully for what will give us this. This kind of opportunity and momentum for change doesn't come up often, we need to use it wisely. 
Steven M. Hall,MD www.stevenmhallmd.com

The only solution is Single Payer Universal Health Care (HR 676) The Insurance Companies are the Problem. Any system which has profits as its goal is doomed to fail. Beware of Organizations pushing the Insurance Complex's Hybrid Plans such as Health Care for America Now, SEIU, Change.Org, Move America Forward, AARP, Move On,etc.,because they may be front Organizations for the Insurance Complex. Check them out!!

This from the January 2009 issue of the Progressive pretty much sums up the way to go. Fortunately, President-Elect Obama already knows it:

"Perhaps most impressive are the moves made by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Physicians for a National Health Program, and Progressive Democrats of America to ensure that the option of single-payer is not forgotten as Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi establish their domestic policy priorities. To that end, sixty activists from these and allied groups met one week after Election Day at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington with Michigan Congressman John Conyers, an early Obama backer and the chief House proponent of real reform, to forge a Single-Payer Healthcare Alliance and plot specific strategies for influencing the new Administration and Congress.  The point won't be to teach Obama about single-payer. Less than six years ago, he told the Illinois AFLCIO: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody . . . a singlepayer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House." Since then, Democrats have taken back the House, the Senate, and the White House. The man who set those prerequisites in 2003 will sit in the Oval Office in 2009."


Our futrue President has said it isn't about him, it's about us. And he is signalling to us to build the movement to help him do the right thing and bring a plan like Rep. John Conyer's H.R. 676 to the table.


With all due respect to Andy Stern and company, this is not the time to capitulate.  It is the time to lead and lead boldy. This is the nation that put a man on the moon.  A single-payer system will save billions and ensure once and for all that, like all the other industrialized nations of the world, health care is a right, not a privilege.  Marylin Clements Health-Care Now has it right.  This is not the timid Health Care for America Now that was organized to dilute the needed change because some don't want to confront the real problem with health care in America--the insurance industry.  PDA, CNA, PNHP. The Labor Party, and Health Care Now  are leading the good fight. Join them in this effort.

I agree with what many have said here. We need universal single payer and we need to reduce costs by increasing access to PREVENTATIVE care. That should include complementary medicine such as homeopathic, naturopathic, accupuncture, herbalism, etc. Many natural remedies work as well or BETTER THAN allopathic treatment such as pharmaceuticals and are much less expensive.

Between insurance overhead and pharmaceutical companies trying to stomp out natural remedies since they can't be patented, citizens are getting the short end of the stick.

And, for extra credit, let's also ensure that CODEX ALIMENTARIUS is NOT implemented. As Americans, we need to ensure that we have Health Freedom. We should have complete control over what goes into our bodies. Realize that a huge component of our health is being able to access organic foods and non-GMO foods, being able to decide for ourselves whether or not we receive vaccines, etc.

It's already been said here, but the insurance industry is a for-profit industry where millions in profits are made on the backs of the sick. Insurance provides no added value to health care. In many cases, they are deciding what treatments you should have rather than you or your doctor. In the meantime, they have one-sided control to determine whether or not you are covered and what treatments are covered at a plan level. Many who receive employer-based insurance are at the mercy of whatever plan their HR selects as to what level of coverage and what deductibles and co-pays you are responsible for. This is a bad system for America (or anyone for that matter). It's sad that America is the only industrialized nation that doesn't offer health care to all its citizens, while we continue to slide down the rankings for longevity and health compared to other nations.

I have heard that Germany has the best health care system in the world and that France's is quite desirable as well. Why not look at these systems and try to incorporate the best of them into a system for us?

Our dis-ease care system is well described here, practiced here, and fails here, generally speaking.  I agree with everything that's been factually said here.  Health care encompasses everything that supports the body, mind and spirit, all 3, none in isolation and involves our own responsibility with the help of others when needed.  It seems to begin with your parents choice of your birthing, their choices of the food and products they put on and in your body, school lunches, after school snacks, exercise programs, stress, sleep .... it's called lifestyle.  Obama could use the bully pulpit very effectively, one tip a week; i.e., exercise in the schools, the school lunches, talk to parents, read to your kids ... called education.  Look what happened when one day he taught the citizens about air inflation in our tires and conserving on fuel .... so simple. 

I am 77 years old, had fabulous parents re lifestyle, now pay for massage, chiro, accupuncture, homeopathy .... but how nice to be healthy and expect a quality of life to the end.  Yes, Medicare is universal health care for all over age 65 and there's nothing wrong with that.  We already have that system in place.  Let's start with that as a basis and build on it. 

P.S.  I just thought of something else.  Why don't we start instead a CAM (complementary-alternative-medical) healthcare system as an experiment and allow those of us who don't do drugs and chemicals to join, and after a period of time compare the two systems.  With no cancer, heart disease, hip/knee replacements, etc., etc. let's see how it all comes out.  With a topnotch immune system created by the alternative method, there would be fewer sick people.

There would have to be a section that covers folks who catch something of an illness or ones who have accidents. 

I agree with Wm. Ferguson Reid. HR 676 is a must & we must be very wary of those who are fronting for the insurance industry.

I also agree with Wm. Ferguson Reid - - Insurance companies are the problem.  Single pay universal health care is the answer. (HR 676) He is also right about checking everybody out.  In my opinion, you should include checking out liberal "progressive" organizations--even if they say they're against insurance companies.  They may not be fronts for insurance companies, but, they may have an ineffective organizational infrastructure, leadership, or strategy.

Bring on the single payer.  Out with the health insurance industry, which adds nothing of value and does not deserve to exist.  And all the ridiculous middle-in-the-middlemen cropping up all over now; read Don McCanne's column from yesterday on http://www.pnhp.org/.  They are a joke. 

Obama and his team had the idea for this website, which was a good one, and they have heard from it that the vast majority of Americans want single payer and support HR676.  This takes away the excuse that "people don't want it, so therefore let's not bother" or "it would be too much trouble".  Let's see Obama and his team summon up the courage to get us single payer.  Many comments above eloquently describe why we need it.  No more excuses.  Both Tom Daschle and Barack Obama have themselves in the past said that they acknowledge single-payer to be the best, most economical system.  I want to see them act as true public servants and serve us, the public, for a change and not lobbyists and corporate interests.

There are a few shortsighted people who just serve to illustrate the perverse mentality in this country that smacks of outright cruelty, but couched in the guise of "every man for himself", which is supposed to be some kind of carryover from the frontier days.  It's more like "kick 'em while they're down."

Well, it is interesting that Canada had a western frontier too, and yet their mindset is totally different on this issue.  They voted Tommy Douglas, the founder of their nationalized health care system, the #1 Canadian, and they like their system in spite of the nonsense that is being fed to the gullible public here about Canadians coming here in droves.

Ditto - single-payer plus preventative care. However, unlike the poster who first mentioned preventative care, I think we must pursue single-payer first.  Preventative care can be addressed by the medical industry and the government (as the payer) as a means for further reducing costs and improving outcomes, but the most important and urgent change needed is to eliminate the private insurance industry from teh health care picture.

Hi Merry--

Just a quick FYI -- Change.org is not the same as Change.gov.  Change.gov is the site that Obama's transitional team runs.  The community we're building here at Change.org is a central platform informing and empowering movements for social change around the most important issues of our time.  Change from the ground up, baby!

Welcome!  Thanks for commenting!

As an ex-Canadian nurse, I just hope whatever healthcare plan you come up with, is not based on the Canadian system, where people die just waiting for treatment.  Just how will this new health care system be funded?  Isn't Medicare broke and isn't that a single payer system?  The VA, isn't that a very poorly run system.  It would be a tradgedy if we ended up with that kind of care.  If too many people drop the plans they have now, will it end up like the Hawaii health care plan for children - scrapped after seven months?

As an American living near our northern border, I have many Canadian friends who adore their health care system, and have never heard from any of them that "people just die waiting for treatment".  Even if you don't like Canada's system, there are many other models for national health care systems to study and learn from, such as France, Sweden, England, etc.  I'm sure that we can come up with an excellent program here in the United States that would enable us to provide for everyone. If we will not care for the least amoug us, who are we?  I agree that the profiteering, for-profit corporation should have no place in health care.  We need to de-consumerize health care, and how about ending the practice of pharmaceutical advertisements.  Not so many years ago, that was illegal.  I think it should be again.

Rose, I attempt to answer your question about the VA here:

http://healthcare.change.org/blog/view/the_va_the_greatest_story_never_told

The VA is far from a very poorly run system.  It represents, with no exaggeration, the best health care system currently operating in the United States of America.

We can have National Healthcare Through Medicare.  Our National Wealth is 58 Million. A tax on National Wealth would not affect our Income Tax (except for possible reduction).  We would eliminate most of our Medicaid spending.  Medicare pays 80% of bill.  The 20 %  remainder is necessary so that people do not ask for unnecessary services.  The tax on National Wealth would be less than 2%.  People setting up estates are presently getting free protection.  A  one to two % is very little to pay.  It is not double taxation, because if they had spent it, they would have no tax to pay.

Correction our National Wealth is 58 Trillion.

I just thought I would pass along the link to an article I read today, Sick and Uninsured at, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7833290.stm.  

Having had insulin dependent diabetes for 37 years, lived & worked in 3 countries in Europe, depended on private insurers for 20 years, and finally being accepted by VA eight years ago, I am incredibly satisfied with the extraordinary medical care I have received from VA (single payer) doctors.  I am also a licensed CPA with 25 years experience as a cost and systems analyst.  I have actively pursued healthcare finance reform in California for the past 15 years.  We are closer to that goal than any other state in the U.S., and I root for HR 676.  But it seems to be 5 or more years behind what has been accomplished with grassroots organizing in California.

You cannot manage what you do not measure and there is no administrative transparency or oversight of the private health insurance industry nor any acturarial standards by which their rates are established, i.e., you are living in the healthcare disaster that your passivity has enabled for the past century.

I fully agree with most of you about the need for single payer healthcare first and preventative healthcare right afterward.
I am an aviation industry out-of-work employee and have no insurance and would not buy into any policy I've found.
AARP is just the Hartford Insurance company in disguise. Most of the "programs" are just that shills for some insurance company trying to hide from the truth.
The Insurance industry (owners of many hospitals) controls Congress through their lobbyists and their money. Go look who got what from whom before the election....none are guilt free.

I am currently taking a sociology class and did a project on health care access in the United States.  I was shocked to learn the statistics on the number of people in the country who are without insurance.  The one thing that was most disturbing to me was the amount of money that is paid every year to executives in the insurance business and the pull they have in the political arena.  I encourage everyone to get informed on the issue and make their own judgement on the passing of HR676, Universal HealthCare for All.  We need to pull together and make sure our voices are heard.  The power of the people needs to outweigh the power of the "money". Please get involved by signing petitions, contacting your congressmen and senators and letting everyone you know to also get informed and involved.  Democracy is supposed to be a government where power is held by it's citizens, not by whoever has the most money.  It is time we all stood up  and took that power back and passed the bills that will benefit the people, not the "money".

A common example used to further the cause of "socialized medicine" in the United States is to point out how well it is working in countries such as France and Canada. However, those living in Canada know full well that their government run health care program is most certainly not working. As a matter of fact, many Canadian citizens choose to hire high priced brokers to find them quality health care right here in the United States because of the terrible bureaucracy that controls all forms of health care in Canada. For more about what is really going on with the Canadian health care system please watch these short but very informative documentary videos:
http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php
http://www.freemarketcure.com/twowomen.php
http://www.freemarketcure.com/thelemon.php
You Tube: Dead Meat by Stuart Browning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiXT0P3edfs
 
The number of actual uninsured's in the US has also been grossly inflated as well. For the real numbers: http://www.freemarketcure.com/uninsuredinamerica.php Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world.  Economists, government officials, insurers and academics alike are beating the drum for a far larger government role in health care.  Much of the public assumes their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex.  However, before turning to government as the solution, some unheralded facts about America's health care system should be considered, says Scott W. Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center. 

Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers:

Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom.Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway.The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries:

Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease.By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them. Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians:

Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent).Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor." Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom:

Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long -- sometimes more than a year -- to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer.All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada.In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment. Source: Scott W. Atlas, "10 Surprising Facts About American Health Care," National Center for Policy Analysis, Brief Analysis No. 649, 3/24/09 http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17770
 
Because of how the Single Payer System is designed Canadian citizens have NO WHERE NEAR the choices that we as American citizens do. As a matter of fact, until very recently (2005) it was simply not possible for a Canadian citizen to pay for their own health care or to purchase private medical insurance that would "bump them up the long waiting list" for medical treatments. The reason Canadian citizens now have the right to do so (and it is still limited) is a direct result of long hard battles (many that are still being fought) that have been waged by brave Canadian citizens like Dr. Jacques Chaoulli who took his clients case all the way to the Canadian supreme court and won! Dr. Chaoulli (http://www.healthcoalition.ca/chaoulli.html) and his patient, George Zeliotis, launched their legal challenge to the Canadian government's monopolized healthcare system after waiting more than a year for hip-replacement surgery.
 
Canada's high court found for the plaintiffs and in doing so issued the following statement: "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public healthcare system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public healthcare. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital healthcare result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness." Furthermore, Justice Marie Deschamps said, "Many patients on non-urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life. The right to life and to personal inviolability is therefore affected by the waiting times."

Furthermore, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute which keeps track of Canadian waiting times for various medical procedures. According to the Fraser Institute's 14th annual edition of "Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (2006)," total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, rose from 17.7 weeks in 2003 to 17.9 weeks in 2006. Depending on which Canadian province you live in, a simple MRI requires a wait between 7 and 33 weeks! Orthopedic surgery could require a wait of 14 weeks for a referral from a general practitioner to the specialist and then another 24 weeks from the specialist to treatment! For even more real life horror stories about Canadian citizens left in the lurch by the Canadian healthcare system read the well researched and fact based Wall Street Journal article entitled "Too Old For Hip Surgery" here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123413701032661445.html?mod=article-outset-box This is what happens when you put government in control of your health care decisions. Doing so in this country, would be nothing short of a train wreck. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply uninformed or "willfully ignorant".

Real healthcare reform can be accomplished through consumer education, weeding out abuse of existing Federal entitlement programs (via a legitimate needs assessment) and continued funding of State sponsored Risk Pools so that people who are declined for insurance have an affordable option to continue coverage if declined on the individual major medical market. Following these few simple steps will go a long way towards not only maintaining our current health care system, but also towards keeping the bulk of our nations risk where it belongs, namely with the private health insurance sector. In light of the recent multi Trillion Dollar "Bail Outs" and many other failing corporations coming to the table with their hats in their hands (and their private jets on the tarmac) the last thing our government should do is start cutting more blind "bail out" checks in an effort to "reform" the U.S. health care system.

I just want to go to the dentist man.

Universal health care will not benefit the majority of Americans if the insuranc and pharmaceutical companies are involved. Their business is making profits and our welfare will not be the prime consideration, that is if it even comes under consideration.

I even went through the whole SSI process with a lawyer, took 2 yrs, but I won. Bitter sweet though, I got $2 K back pay for 2004-2006, then was told Ken made $100 too much for 2 people to get any more SSI, and I was 2 work credits short to get SSDI!

Recently as Ken separated from me and lost his job, I went back as I have next to NO income. They told me it had been 2 yrs, too long to automatically resume SSI. They are making me start ALL OVER!!! Will it take 2 more years!!! Now I am without meds the Cataplexy is Horrible, and the applications to get PPA from Nord, etc are impossibly lengthy and exhausting. Uggh,

TX Medicaid system only will help me NOW if I get pregnant. To me, I would rather support one person, rather than them and their child they cannot afford. For me to get pregnant would be an act of stupidity/desperation due to lack of health insurance. My severe Narcolepsy with Cataplexy, Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Chronic Lyme’s Disease, and Diabetes, I did NOTHING to contract. Pregnancy, except for cases of Rape/Incest is self-caused. Why only help the pregnant?

I love this post, my health insurance blog from a health broker has been screaming this forever.  We are doing a piece for CNN and will certainly throw a link up to this post on our site right now. 

The fact is though that first the costs must be controlled, otherwise what is the point of a public option?  The only other option if we cannot control costs is of course to regulate the whole enchilada and let the government control it like Medicare.  I would strongly recommend just expanding Medicare instead, as there are some excellent benefits on these plans and they are extremely affordable in comparison to individual.

You're all invited to partake in "WINDOW Treatment"

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=293263660251&index=1

Also have you seen this?

http://www.republicansforsinglepayer.org/?p=3

I love how liberals just make up numbers and try to make people think they are speaking the truth. 46 million people is by no means accurate. If you take out the illegal immigrants, single people who choose not to have coverage, etc, the number can easily be brought down to between 10 and 15 million people uninsured, and unable to receive healthcare. Although most of you seem to think we live in an utopian society, we don't. I don't feel we should get rid of the greatest healthcare system in the world, to provide poor service for less than 10% of our population. Thanks but no thanks.

I have a friend who just found out she's being furlowed by one of the airlines. I asked her what her COBRA costs are going to be. They told her her premiums were going to jump from $105/mo to just over $1000/mo! Granted, she is probably eligible for some subsidy (which means her premiums might only triple) which shouldn't be too difficult to cover now that she's unemployed... I remember when I left one of the major brokerage firms a few years back: my COBRA payments were $2310/mo (I won't tell you how quickly my family was without coverage). What's my point?

Mr. Zysman talks about inflated numbers, etc. and I'm not going to debate him (he's hallucinating and that's ok with me as long as he does it in the comfort of his own home) but let's just pretend he's correct. My comment is this: how many of us are right on the edge where a single circumstance regardless of whether or not it's in our control could push us over that edge? That would be an intriguing 'what if'. Could we as a nation survive if a given percentage of those currently covered suddenly were not? Case in point: I live in Las Vegas. I drive by malls and office complexes that stand 75% vacant. Are all of those people currently covered? If they're on COBRA, what happens when it runs out?

In scientific analysis, there are two types of risk (alpha and beta). One looks at the consequences of a false positive finding and the other at a false negative. I sincerely hope we can look past arguing about numbers that are frankly always a moving target anyway and truly ask, 'What if we're wrong?' along with 'What if we're right?' 

Both are valid and real risks but the consequences are vastly different....

I'll end by encouraging everyone who is insured through an employer-sponsored plan to 'just inquire' what their COBRA payments would be to keep their coverage if something were to happen and their job disappeared. Frankly, that's a very proactive thing to do anyway. However, it is also a very timely suggestion as we continue to wade through this process. 

Ok well I agree that there is somethign wrong with the health care system. I agree with reform but not in the way congress and the president are going about it right now. Obama feels that he can take his time on making a decision on Afganistan(Which I don't disagree with) but he needs to rush through a poorly planned health care package. Also, as the son of a hard working, self employed, small businees owner, I see every day how hard work ultimately wins out. He tells me everyday how important it is to be able to rely on yourself and your hard work. He did not start out with the ideal situation to start a business, yet he worked hard to provide for my family. As a 17 year old, I believe in hard work and following your dreams. Personally, I would not want to be handed everything as if I "deserve it" just for being here. NO! I want to earn it.