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| Re: Gibbs Can't Name Countries Where Government Health Care Works Better (465099) | |||
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Re: Gibbs Can't Name Countries Where Government Health Care Works Better |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Sun Jun 21 22:00:20 2009, in response to Gibbs Can't Name Countries Where Government Health Care Works Better, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Jun 21 21:28:28 2009. It doesn't seem to matter in terms of public opinion.Based on surveys.... The following are concurred with by a great majority: 1A. Health insurance costs are too high. 2A. Private health insurance administrative costs are too high, e.g., up to to 30 cents on each dollar. The following seems correct to most: 1B. A public health insurance plan (or plans) should be supported. 2B. There ought not to be a penalty for failing to carry health insurance. 3B. People should be able to purchase private health insurance of their choice. 4B. Health insurance benefits should not be taxed. ---- Since the Democrats' plan contradicts 2B and 4B, I don't think that it will be adopted. (4B, as I recall, was also contradicted by Senator McCain and Clinton, but supported during the campaign by then-Senator Obama). Going forward, I think that we will first have to address health insurance costs, which means addressing the consensus points 1A and 2A. The Democrats' plan attempts to do so via dropping 2B and 4B, but in my view this makes their plan politically DOA unless they can show that costs really will decrease substantially. I have not seen that demonstration. I think that the bipartisan compromise bill, the so-called Wyden-Bennett bill (Healthy Americans Act) is also a political non-starter unless it makes a similar demonstration since it also contradicts 2B and 4B; for the uninitiated, it also contradicts 2A, which is the main difference with the Democrats' plan. |
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