He is still right, but the task has been made much harder by the TEA Party Patriots.
I will complicate the issue with a few details, but it remains simple, fair, and rational to provide an Option for insurance that is national in scope, the same way the private insurance companies are national, and in some cases international.
We can change the outcome of the 2010 election. We can only change it by making the Public Option an issue in congressional races The election of Democrats to the Congress is the only hope fora public option to pass. We should allow any American to buy into medicare, and provide it as we do now to retirees who have paid into it. And if the plan for medicare is not changed, retirement will mean not paying for medical insurance anymore.
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Comments: 21
I just wish people who think Ryan doing the "Medicare voucher" thing would think through the implications -- sick people have to pay more for insurance .... how do they think this will affect seniors.
As to public option, as long as buying into Medicare is included, there is potential for that to really make commercial providers look at cost. Without it, the commercial providers are going to milk subscribers for all they can.
As was cap-and-trade.
Just more examples of the utter dishonesty of the modern Republican party.
The Surreal Circus.
As an example, the law introduces regulations about "sterilization". A legal terminology which covers momentarily and permanent sterilization. The law cannot introduce, at this level, any notion of time.
However, the GOP/TP extremists are introducing the idea that sterilization is exclusively permanent while "birth control" defines exclusively momentarily sterilization: the daily pill for women.
They deny any legal writing and from there they keep "suggesting", I mean STATING, that the government wants to apply permanent sterilization to teenagers even.
They suggest that the health insurance will cover such "permanent sterilization" and use such misrepresentation as a political tool. When informed about their misreading of the law, they hide behind the notion of "opinion".
Far not the truth within continental Europe where, to the contrary, the system is not only every day improving sciences applications but even the administration.
You may not be aware of how many Americans, if they have the means, come to Europe. They could have a health insurance covering them several times in the US but questioned it seems they don't like the actual disorganization of their own country.
Visionaerie B. ,
You are not presenting an accurate picture of the Illness Profit System that owns health care. A government health system that is not owned by Pharma, Insurance, medical trade unions like the AMA makes sense. By 2015 it is estimated there will be a shortfall of 50,000 MD's. Why? To make profits by limiting supply.
Millions of American Veterans have medical care in a pure socialist system. It's called the VA. I do have to wait about 30 days for a Physical, but urgent care, say for the day I burned my hand, is virtually immediate.
Five years ago I went in with a sore throat, I was seen within a couple of hours, referred to a cancer specialist the same day, and within a week I was being treated.
The government owns the VA system, every person employed in the system is a federal employee, the custodians, security, medical professionals, and the food service workers are civil service workers.
There have been problems, and every time the public demands they get fixed, and the politicians fix them.
In Tucson when a maniac opened fire at a town hall meeting, the ONLY level 1 trauma center available was owned and operated by a State University. A government institution. Every for profit trauma center within a two million square mile area around Tucson had shut down. They were hemorrhaging red ink because so many uninsured individuals were using them for care.
IT IS IDIOTIC TO CONTINUE THE WAY WE HAVE BEEN PROVIDING MEDICAL CARE IN THIS COUNTRY.
One other thing about VA provided health care is the research and training that goes on in every hospital and clinic. Basic research in cooperation with Drug Companies. Participation in trials is totally voluntary. Even the follow-up questionnaires about care received are voluntary.
However, I am still concerned that the efficiencies of maturing technologies in health care are not keeping up.....things still cost too much.
This is also the case in several other sectors e.g. higher ed.
I suggest that (at least in the US) we train more specialists (2 or 3 x) and make use of clinic facilities 24/7. One need only try to make appointments for health care for elderly folks and find that the clinic is booked 9 months in advance to realize that something is wrong. I suppose such problems are typical of too much regulation, but I think that the regulation may come from several sectors..not just government.
Higher ed. may be nearing a turning point in which prestige is going to be downplayed
in favor of accomplishment via the democratization of education via internet learning.
There is a shortage of MD's, caused in part by regulations that restrict Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants from diagnosing and prescribing for routine illness.
I certainly understand the issue. I have a problem with my right eye that is intermittent. It cannot be treated if it is not acute, and I have to get a referral to see an Ophthalmologist. Invariably the problem subsides between the time I get the referral and the time the corrective surgery can be scheduled.