Funny Comment Overheard on NPR:

Larry Mantle, he host of show I think may just be local, (AirTalk?), interviewing some representative of the Obama administration:

LM: But didn't the admin. think that his (whoever we're talking about, I'm sure it's in the news) would be a lightning rod for controversy?
Person:(somewhat disingenuously, I think) I think the administration imagined that people would be talking about the content of the plan instead of focusing on personalities.
LM (without missing a beat): Why would they think that?

Anyway, summer's over, I think it's time to start talking about the content--or the personalities. Anyone out there?

I'm here checking almost every day. I'm familier with most of these proposals and flaws within. Do you want to discuss?

It will probably be less of a discussion than you talking and me nodding, but I'd love to know what you think of these proposals. As my post may indicate, I've gotten to the point where I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore.

Bafflement A for discussion: when we're talking about getting rid of the public option in Obama's proposal--what else is there? I thought the whole point was the creation of a public option.

Please help.

We should make a date to discuss this. Question and answer on this topic is inevitable. Give me some times you might be available and I'll reply back as to what will work. OK?

with things the way they are for me right now, I'm only finding brief moments when I can check in with the board (or the internet in general). So perhaps we'll have to wait on the discussion--unless you have some thoughts you don't mind passing on and don;t mind waiting a bit between replies.

the whole point is not public option. The point is to get all the people who don't have healthcare some healthcare. There are lots of ways to approach that--vouchers, co-operatives, tax incentives for doctors and hospitals, incentives to do pro bono work, incentives and sanctions to direct insurance cos. to better address the public good, tort reform, loosening the grip of the AMA on medical education so there isn't an artificial scarcity of doctors, reform of intellectual property law to make drugs more affordable, etc.

People can disagree on public option--I think it's a bad idea, myself. I find the claims for it nothing short of bizarre. How is it budget neutral? Why would we believe that the state will always say YES when we need some drug or procedure?

Mrs Joe made a great point, I thought. Because our relationship with insurers is commercial, we expect it to be somewhat antagonistic. Somehow, we like to think the state is on our side. So a state saying "no operation for you" is somehow much more repulsive than a company saying it. We have a different compact with government than we do with corporations.

Is any citizen in this country denied some sort of healthcare? No. So that is not the issue.

The issue is the cost of healthcare. In the end if the government offers a public option but does nothing to address the factors that create the cost, NOTHING will improve. All that will be accomplished is making costs indirect with the marass of taxation.

Number ONE is tort reform.

After that, trying to reform insurance to offer Major Medical and doctors offering low rates if they don't have to deal with insurance.

Ten years ago, I bought health insurance for my family, it cost $9,000/year. It has to be almost $14,000/year today.

The problem with the politics is this, they are trying to roll this into one massive bill when is should be broken into 5 or 6 seperate bills that can be managed and debated.

The current bill is 1,300 pages. The regualtion that will accompany the bill is 30,000 pages. How can any elected official review this?

with you, I would prefer to reserve final judgement until an actual bill is before Congress. Without tort reform, I can't see any health delivery system truly working properly, among other things. There is a terrible shortage of primary care physicians and ob-gyns in this country and it won't change w/o tort reform.

is that in the countries most often trotted out as the ideals for healthcare, they have 50% more physicians than we do. For example, the U.S. has 2.2 doctors per 1,000 people, whereas France and Sweden have 3.3. More physicians means more choice and lower costs. But the number of physicians in the U.S. is kept artificially low.

Watching Sunday morning TV, Howard Dean explained that Emergency Rooms were treating the un-insured and this was causing high costs in the health care system because the hospitals had to pass the expense onto those who could pay.

So the solution is to insure those who can't afford the insurance and pass that expence along in the form of taxes rather then higher medical bills or higher insurance premiums.

Of course you won't be taxed personally, businesses will be taxed because that is impersonal and businesses can't vote.

The problem with this is; businesses do not pay taxes, people pay taxes when the businesses pass them along as a cost of doing business. If the consumer is unwilling to pay the higher price for goods or services, then the business will fail.

There are several major problems facing healthcare, mis-used emergency rooms are one of the them. I would think that the solution to the emergency rooms is to establish a free health clinc next to them. When an uninsured-unable to pay patient walks in with a non-emergency, they are sent next door to the clinc.