Don't forget the future (I thought of this right after he made that new analogy, as I heard the speech.)

** Employee Free Choice Act to be passed and applied to employees of “public option” enterprises?

[singing] “AFS, CME — AFSCME, AFSCME”

Did you notice that Obama dropped the Post-Office-Fed Ex-UPS analogy in favor of the “public education” analogy, something he felt no doubt was more effective to use, instead?

Never mind that public education itself presents a wealth of criteria for criticism.

Yes I did notice and yes it does. Gotta love the comparison especially given Obama's statement about a public option being self supporting without taxes being used for it. Yeah like your taxes aren't paying for State schools and Universities whether you use them or not. What a joke.

It's good to see that the right has now decided that states rights matter only when they are against something.

The Democratic party has not championed a States' Rights issue to any degree since the Dixiecrats left. For you to say the right is just now addressing that issue is frickin' hilarious. The GOP has consistently been the pro-Federalism party in Congress for the last 30+ years. I really have to wonder what planet you been spending time on.

I don't get what you don't get. Private insurance and “the free market” have NOT brought down costs. Just the opposite. As Obama said, insurance premiums have risen 3 times faster than wages. The cost of private insurance has gone up more than the cost of health care (doctors, drugs and hospitals). Private insurance has been a MAJOR CAUSE of increased health care cost. In every country with a public system the cost is less and outcomes better. Perhaps Obama is actually serious about considering every good idea, whether Democratic, Republican or ahem, French.

At least Ted Kennedy (subject of sappiness in last night's speech) was honest, though wrong: He wanted to impose price controls. (“Let us insist on real control over what doctors and hospitals can charge…”)

Obama's speech was lacking here. The review of appropriate-care standards and cost controls in this light raises again the decades-long history of politics related to rationing, denial of care, and activism for euthanasia (the obvious reality denied by the scummier defenders of the current effort, who attack all mention of “death panels” dishonestly and stupidly). The “magic” ending of waste, fraud, and abuse is simply not believeable, as well as exposing another hypocrisy as well as defect in the effort underway; logically, reforming Medicare (the vow by Obama to do this nobody intelligent had believed, anyway) should come before federal expansion. Totally bizarre was the disgusting description of Medicare as a “sacred trust” (as with Bill Clinton and Social Security as “the sacred covenant” that I predicted he would, and did, say years ago) followed by the vow that no Medicare trust funds would be used to pay for the health care effort! What a pathetic failed effort at distraction!

At this point, at least I can say he was more clear and in control than lib Dems in Congress, and how the question is, will a measure of sanity be superimposed on the House bill in the Senate, or will the Baucus bill in the Senate become the new basis for reform legislation and be turbo-charged by the progressive kiddies in the House?

The speech was well delivered, as always, but fell far short on how health care costs would be contained, how insurance premiums would be lowered and how it will all be paid for.

Welcome to the club. When I moved from Washington state to Arizona, I maintained Washington insurance (as did many others, in addition to those who got Washington insurance while living elsewhere, because it was a better deal than in their own state). When Washington ended out-of-state policies, it was a case of several complete rejections in-state (due to a pre-existing condition) until I got an individual policy for $740+ a month — and this was over ten years ago.

Currently I'm in Michigan on Blue Cross at $320 a month for an individual policy, set to rise to around $500 as early as next month.

Now, bear in mind that when you move you are also subject to state laws, and some states have ridiculously extensive minimum benefit packages, which has long been discussed (including on this site) as part of the problem. True “insurance” would be for catastrophic events, hospitalization, etc., not pre-paid comprehensive care, including preventive care that in many cases is not cost-effective.

Oh, he does want the feds to pick up the high risk pool and he still would like a universalist public option to engage in rigged competition with the private insurers. And he wants to require individuals to pay for insurance if employers don't provide it (in which case they'd pay fines). But he wants to use (harness) the existing system as much as he can, at least initially, rather than correctly and directly insist on portability, as would have been consistent with what has been discussed for ages.

[laughing loudly] Did you notice that Obama dropped the Post-Office-Fed Ex-UPS analogy in favor of the “public education” analogy, something he felt no doubt was more effective to use, instead?

Never mind that public education itself presents a wealth of criteria for criticism.

[chuckle]

??? Didn't you pay attention to the speech? Obama says that it's “responsibility” for employers to provide health benefits to employees, “irresponsibility” for them not to. In other words, he addressed the portability issue in a deliberately hypocritical manner insofar as the portability issue and the long-sought separation of health care (“insurance”) from employers is concerned. Maintain the existing employer-based system, or employers must pay fines (as individuals must pay now). Surprise!

If you're so aware of how the system can be gamed, I suggest you submit fail-safes to block those loop holes you think you see. It's one thing to complain that it'll never work, and quite another to work to make it work.
What pray tell, are you're solutions or are you just good at negation?

It's good to see that the right has now decided that states rights matter only when they are against something. Private Insurance must abide by a States regulations to sell insurance. If an Insurer resides in one state and sells insurance in another state, which state regulations do you wish them to ignore?

Get back to me on that when you're finished dismantling our current system of state based regulation.

If you want to bring down cost remove government restrictions and allow for cross state purchasing of insurance and market forces and competition to take effect. Also tort reform is needed. A database of medical services providers and up front costs is something the government could do productively, allowing the public as consumers access to better information when making healthcare choices and increased transparency.

We need the public option to control medical costs. No insurance company has any power to control medical costs. In fact since the insurance companies’ premiums are based on a markup on the actual costs they make more money the higher those costs. They have no incentives to try to control the costs even if they were large enough to try.

You can have competition between the insurance companies, with one asking for 20% markup over costs and another offering 18%, then another saying 15%. But none is large enough to cut down the base costs. Only a large public firm, large enough no doctor or hospital could stay in business by refusing the patients covered by it, can do it.

The biggest single blow to controlling medical costs was the conversion of the Blue Cross Blue Shield companies to for profit companies by the Republican controlled Congress in the mid-1990's. When they operated as non-profits they worked hard controlling costs and they were large enough to do it. When they became for-profits they had no incentive to control medical costs.

Before the conversion, the for-profit companies made money cherry picking the low risk clients. They let the high risk clients slide to the community based premium non-profits. They had an industry wide margin of about 5%. After the conversion they have pushed this margin to 20% (a 25% markup over costs). And they still cherry pick, letting the high risk clients go without insurance.

The precentage of the GDP going to administer the private health care insured system has grown from 1% of GDP to over 5% in less than 20 years. As a comparison Japan pays for its health care, all of it, with 8% of GDP.

The profits of the 10 largest health insurance companies increased by 500% from 2001 to 2007.

These guys make huge risk free profits, requiring no capital investments, and they will fight public options, co-ops, insurance exchanges, market based and all regulatory reforms tooth and nail using the strongest weapons they have. You are going to have to be for them or against them. Chose.

Your material from Rep. Stupak intrigues me. I thought that since 1992 and the Gov. Casey debacle at the Dem National Convention, “pro-life Democrat” was pretty much an oxymoron. Is he isolated, or is this a growing movement in the Democratic party?

Here is an example:
Dem: Prevent abortion funding, or I'll block healthcare

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/new…

A leading pro-life Democrat in the House is threatening to block healthcare reform if Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) doesn't allow a vote that would prevent the bill from funding abortions.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), co-chairman of the House Pro-Life Caucus, says the Democratic leadership must allow a vote adding the “Hyde Amendment” to the bill. That amendment prevents federal dollars from going to abortion funding.

“First of all, you have to give us our vote,” Stupak told CBN News, repeating the message he's relaying to the Democratic leadership. “If you don't give us our vote, everything's off the table.”

Stupak said he has enough votes to block the legislation in the House if the Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) prevents a vote on the pro-life proposal.

Stupak added that he's particularly “cautious” about the Hyde Amendment language because the Obama administration has helped beat back previous pro-life efforts this year.

“Every time we've tried to do it this year, under this administration, we've kind of been denied the opportunity to present our amendments, or we have some watered down language,” Stupak said.

Republicans and pro-life Democrats tried to add an amendment preventing abortion funding when healthcare legislation was working it's way through the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Pro-choice Democrats successfully blocked it.

Right now 44 Blue Dogs are against the current democratic efforts. 44 Democrats + 178 Republicans equals a majority. Now what would be awesome is if the GOP could reign in its own far wing and get together with these 44 and pass a moderate measure with no public option and more market based reform. I doubt they can anymore than I doubt the Democrats can reign in their far wing, but it would be a total coup and be funny to watch the leftist wing of the democratic party scramble.