Obamacare is not cured

[vision63]

Win Congress. Super Majority the Senate then install re-attach the Public Option is the next step. This is going to happen.

[cbelt3]

vision63 wrote:
Win Congress. Super Majority the Senate ... This is going to happen.

I expect this would be the likely result of a Trump presidency, but the country would be in such terrible shape that nothing could be paid for.

[vision63]

cbelt3 wrote:
[quote=vision63]
Win Congress. Super Majority the Senate ... This is going to happen.

I expect this would be the likely result of a Trump presidency, but the country would be in such terrible shape that nothing could be paid for.
I don't necessarily think the super majority or winning both houses is a sure thing. Only the eventual winning of the Public Option as "some" point before I perish.

[rjmacs]

Pam wrote:
Money. Healthcare costs need to be addressed. Until that is genuinely done, insurance costs are a red herring. And that ain't going to happen.

Taking the private market and publicly traded profiteering out of healthcare would go a long way toward fixing the 'money problem.' There are certain professions that ought not be universally privatized, because they respond to matters of public good, not market wellness or profit. Healthcare is one of these. A private, boutique medical profession will always exist for the super-rich, but it should be a tiny sliver of the overall picture.

In countries where universal care is provided at public expense, and medical education is also paid for, doctors enjoy high social status (if not outrageous, extravagant wealth) and can practice responsibly without constantly navigating conflicts of interest. Compensation can follow measures of effectiveness rather than market pressures. Private (and public!) employers can get out of the business of negotiating healthcare contracts and focus on their core business (or public) concerns. Pharmaceutical companies can negotiate reasonable prices with a central provider, and stop wining and dining individual docs and pressuring patients to demand treatments they know 30-seconds-worth about.

This kind of system (Medicare for All, for lack of a better term) empirically saves money, encourages effective treatments, reduces the problems of under- and non-coverage, and vastly simplifies complicated systems of healthcare delivery. It reduces the need for dozens of systems of regulation, each different by state. This wasn't politically viable in 2009, but it's becoming clearer and clearer over time that it's the only real way forward.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

cbelt3 wrote:
What almost everyone in this country forgets is that Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA0 was a piece of legislative sausage created from the floor sweepings of decades of health insurance industry lobbyists proposals. And directly supervised BY health insurance industry lobbyists, who, as I recall, had an office in the West Wing.

So of course it was designed to benefit the health insurance industry. But they bought into their own propaganda, and believed that only health people were running around without health insurance. Oops.

Do you remember that Republicans almost doubled the number of pages in the bill and then all voted against it?

[pdq]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
[quote=cbelt3]
What almost everyone in this country forgets is that Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA0 was a piece of legislative sausage created from the floor sweepings of decades of health insurance industry lobbyists proposals. And directly supervised BY health insurance industry lobbyists, who, as I recall, had an office in the West Wing.

So of course it was designed to benefit the health insurance industry. But they bought into their own propaganda, and believed that only health people were running around without health insurance. Oops.

Do you remember that Republicans almost doubled the number of pages in the bill and then all voted against it?
Yeah, it was a classic rope-a-dope that went on for nearly a year. Obama (and the congressional Dems) learned a hard lesson about the worth of pursuing "bipartisanship" with the current crop of GOP'ers.

[vision63]

pdq wrote:
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=cbelt3]
What almost everyone in this country forgets is that Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA0 was a piece of legislative sausage created from the floor sweepings of decades of health insurance industry lobbyists proposals. And directly supervised BY health insurance industry lobbyists, who, as I recall, had an office in the West Wing.

So of course it was designed to benefit the health insurance industry. But they bought into their own propaganda, and believed that only health people were running around without health insurance. Oops.

Do you remember that Republicans almost doubled the number of pages in the bill and then all voted against it?
Yeah, it was a classic rope-a-dope that went on for nearly a year. Obama (and the congressional Dems) learned a hard lesson about the worth of pursuing "bipartisanship" with the current crop of GOP'ers.
It was a "sigh" moment.

[Speedy]

vision63 wrote:
[quote=pdq]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=cbelt3]
What almost everyone in this country forgets is that Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA0 was a piece of legislative sausage created from the floor sweepings of decades of health insurance industry lobbyists proposals. And directly supervised BY health insurance industry lobbyists, who, as I recall, had an office in the West Wing.

So of course it was designed to benefit the health insurance industry. But they bought into their own propaganda, and believed that only health people were running around without health insurance. Oops.

Do you remember that Republicans almost doubled the number of pages in the bill and then all voted against it?
Yeah, it was a classic rope-a-dope that went on for nearly a year. Obama (and the congressional Dems) learned a hard lesson about the worth of pursuing "bipartisanship" with the current crop of GOP'ers.
It was a "sigh" moment.
No, it was a 'we royalty screwed up' moment because the Republicans wouldn't have even bothered with bipartisanship if they had super-majorities. But, remember, the Bluedogs made it very close in the House.

[vision63]

Speedy wrote:
[quote=vision63]
[quote=pdq]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=cbelt3]
What almost everyone in this country forgets is that Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA0 was a piece of legislative sausage created from the floor sweepings of decades of health insurance industry lobbyists proposals. And directly supervised BY health insurance industry lobbyists, who, as I recall, had an office in the West Wing.

So of course it was designed to benefit the health insurance industry. But they bought into their own propaganda, and believed that only health people were running around without health insurance. Oops.

Do you remember that Republicans almost doubled the number of pages in the bill and then all voted against it?
Yeah, it was a classic rope-a-dope that went on for nearly a year. Obama (and the congressional Dems) learned a hard lesson about the worth of pursuing "bipartisanship" with the current crop of GOP'ers.
It was a "sigh" moment.
No, it was a 'we royalty screwed up' moment because the Republicans wouldn't have even bothered with bipartisanship if they had super-majorities. But, remember, the Bluedogs made it very close in the House.
Democrats are not Republicans. Republicans only have to concern themselves with ripping apart society, supply siding our economy, blocking, stopping etc. They're not burdened any longer with crafting legislation that requires both bodies. The Democratic Party is a big tent and Blue Dogs are a valid part of the party. Nothing we want can be easily passed. We need a little GOP buy in.

[Speedy]

vision63 wrote: We need a little GOP buy in.

Maybe, but 2009 had a solid Democratic majority in the House. And a super majority in the Senate for seven months. The Democrats won't make that mistake again.