Given the public outcry and demands for a bi-partisan solution, the democrats are going to start having to offer massive amounts of concessions if they want to stay in power.

More than immigrants, administrative waste, frivolous tort or corrupt fee-for-service arrangements, it's the “miracle of modern medicine” that makes it so expensive. And there is little we can do about it. We live longer today and expect successful treatment for things that would have been fatal only a generation ago. That's a good thing. But it means we have to find a means to pay for it. And if that means more taxes – even on me – I'm all for it.

Actually, I think it is the mandating of insurance in the first place that broke the medical system.Medical covereage has not been a free market system since the goverenment first started forcing compaines to provide health coverage.

I need time to put together a long a detailed post to make all my points, as this synopis simply doesn't have the depth to cover all the nuances, and I am sure you will attack, but I just don't have that time now.

But as government forced insurance coverages on larger and larger groups, first by mandating coverage based on company size, then hours worked, etc., costs went up, and as the market will do, companies looked to reduce those spiraling costs to remain competitive. That lead directly to more and more part-time employees (yes, that is the government's fault for incentizing companies to do just that)

You see that as evil capitalism; I see that as companies needing to stay competitive.

Each time the government has tried to force the insurance issue further down the chain, costs have gone up more, benefits and quality have gone down.

Yet now we are told to believe that by giving the government even more ability to force insurance coverage (and when you will be fined if you don't have it, it is indeed being forced), that miraculously this time costs will go down, and coverage will get better.

You have to believe in fairy tales to think that, and ignore history. I do neither.

Since we already know what you consider to be the problems of our health care system…………….correct, the free market was never designed to provide free lunches.

My point was that while you made the statement I responded to, your other comments don't seem to support the most recent one. Again and again you support the existing system. You are never clear on what changes you would support, except for the same old tired ones that have been Republican staples for years. States have had tort reform. It never helped like the Republicans claimed it would. Yet they still claim that tort reform would make a huge difference in spite of the facts that don't support that.

You, like most liberals it seems, confuse 'health care' with 'insurance'. “Is health care a right” is a political question, but is not about health care itself, it is about who pays. The same is true for ObamaCare.

All you seem to care about is taking the money and redistributing it as you see fit. i.e., socialized medicine.

No, I don't confuse health care with insurance. I recognize that the insurance model is a failure. The free market is incapable of taking care of the problems with our health care system. You will never admit this. You will never come close to admitting this. Your religious faith in the First Church of Free Market is too strong.

Not true in the absolute if you are on an individually rated plan. Your premiums will rise with your experience and health profile. You may get the benefit of a timing difference for awhile but not forever. A group policy will disguise the individual's cost even longer because employers tend to absorb the adverse experience in their share. But all group plans today are experience rated as well. The 2 big distinctions as to why I accept the private insurance pooling concept though, is that at least everyone is paying something……there are no permanent freeloaders as there are in public option. Secondly, everyone starts out on an relatively equal footing. Most of the morbidity pre-65 is either prescreened out or left to be totally random. In your favored approach, you are going to be a vacuum cleaner for adverse selection.

These 2 distinctions will be a loss cost differential of somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion a year. Hardly suggestive of being the same model as existing private insurance.

What's being addressed is _health_care_, not health insurance only. It's more like treating health care like any other government-funded project, through taxes (like “socialized roads” or like the Post Office).

I also won't accept the dishonest label “social insurance” that's just a deceptive euphemism, as it is in the case of old-age payments by Social Security; obviously growing old is not something that people ordinarily avoid and don't experience, the kind of event addressed by insurance, _by_definition_. (Note the distinction between old-age payments and true Social Security _disability_ insurance.)

As usual, you're wrong again. I was quoting Austin Roth to prepare what I actually had to say myself…

* * *

“The real issue is the pressure it will have on Congress.”

It depends on how much sanity remains in the Senate, and what attention finally is seriously paid to paying for whatever eventually is sought. Obviously the public is objecting more and more to what it keeps learning about overreach in addition to the sloppy and silly-hurry manner of the House bill we've observed already. There's a lot that needs to be removed, reduced, or at least seriously re-throught.

Which reminds me… Ronald Reagan was a Democrat until he left the Republican Party in 1962 (or so). He claimed that he didn't leave the Democratic Party, but that the Democratic Party left him. He was against socialized medicine and wanted a limited government. Which is fine.

But then wasn't it in the mid-60's when Medicare and Medicaid passed under a Democratic president? And the beneficiaries are Americans from all political parties. Republicans who rail against an expanding government and against anything “socialist” and who nonetheless enjoy the benefits of Medicare (and social security) don't want to give it up their health benefits.

The real issue is that people don't want to pay for someone else's insurance. Yet that's the very nature of insurance…. I went for years paying for health insurance without ever taking advantage of the benefits. And the money I paid in went to people who had expensive operations, medicaitons, etc. But I expect that when I do need my insurance that it will be there and provide the same benefits for me.

Anyone (at least most people) who has insurance is already paying for medical treatments for others, at least unless you're one of the people who have expensive medical requirements.

The idea of not wanting “socialized healthcare” is odd, since insurance is a form of that. Just not run by the government, but by private companies who try to earn as much money for their shareholders as possible.

The big insurance companies are really proud of them all

America your racism is showing.

Very well said Shannon!

A better question – and I'm not sure if this could even be polled – is: “If these protests make you less likely to support Obama's health care initiative, were you undecided on the matter beforehand? Or did these protests reinforce and strengthen views you already had?” My guess is that if such poll question could be asked and answered honestly, the number of people whose views changed because of the protests would be close to zero. In other words, the protesters are not convincing anybody to oppose reform. They just serve as the “Amen Corner” for those already opposed to reform and frustrated at the non-existence of Republican leadership opposing it.

There are about 35% of Americans vehemently and ideologically against Obama's health care plans. There are plenty on top of that 35% who disapprove of Obama's handling of the issue, but many of those come from the Left frustrated that Obama is not pushing Congress hard enough. Obama did win 53% of the vote and most of that vote supports strong health care reform. The notion that that support suddenly morphed into Paul/Larouche far-right libertarian lunacy is not believable. These are simply different groups of people we're talking about.

The real issue is the pressure it will have on Congress. If Congress passes a semi-significant health care bill, the Democrats will reap serious rewards. The 35% will scream and holler, but the rest of the country will move on…or even celebrate. If Congress scraps health care reform, the Democrats will get routed like 1994. People forget that a major driver behind the 1994 election was the demoralization of liberals at Congress's failure to pass health care reform. Why vote for those bozos if they can't get anything done? Considering how razor-thin many of those 1994 elections were I bet at least half the Democrats would have kept their seats had the liberals not stayed home. If this Congress again fails to pass any sizable health reform package, expect liberals to stay home again, and the vulnerable Blue Dogs to get hit the hardest. Somehow I gather that the Blue Dogs know this, however. They will hem and haw for incremental adjustments to garner “cost savings” and will vote for the bill in the end – or at least enough of them will vote for it to pass. Failure = early retirement for the Blue Dogs.

With that said, this debate is pointless. Had the Republicans done a better job leading the last 8 years this issue would have never come up. Instead, you still have 70% of the population (around there anyways) that disapprove of the GOP and anything they do. These supposedly grassroots townhall screamfests make me want socialized healthcare even more knowing that they're largely Fox News fanatics with too much time on their hands and little thoughts of their own. Obamacare is going to pass eventually, anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. Obama and the dems still have the momentum and still have majority as far as followers go. So let these “independents” go back to the GOP now that they realize change means change.

I saw nothing in Jim's post to suggest “hate”. That is your word, and as such is in line with your general MO of trying to lower the standards for discussion; this would include your Nazi references, etc.

just can't seem to live without us

You are no doubt confusing ubiquitous presence with desire for said presence.