Majority of Americans Support a “Public Option” in Health Reform?

Uh, don’t think so. As was so eloquently dialogued in Goodfellas, “Clean your loop” and try again.
Tina

This is true. Only through a public option will health insurance companies start doing right by consumers. Currently they are able to avoid and mess over the average Joe. The desire for profit overrides good sense in caring for our citizens. We MUST have a major overhaul to ensure consistent and reasonable access to healthcare for ALL Americans. Right now what we have is SO POORLY designed, it is incredible.

Hey, I’m in favor of a Government Option if the folks who sign up for it can only go to Government run Hospitals and Clinics.
Sort of like an expansion of the VA but for people who can’t afford private insurance.
Just make sure that with this Government Option that it’s illegal for private hospitals to administer care to people with YesWeCan Care Insurance.
Problem Solved.

That’s known as BLATANT media manipulation.

The Goatherder is a typical example of someone you cant have a rational conversation with because they use examples that make no sense. I work I pay for those public roads you speak of. This is America. You have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No where in there does it say you have a right to a free anything. Its not my resposiblity, or anyone elses, to provide health insurance to people who cant afford it. Health insurance isnt a right to anyone. Its an option. The constitution says all men are created equal. It doesnt say we die that way.

DJ, exactly you pay for it through your taxes, the same as would be for health care. You cant have it both ways, socialism is socialism, where the govt. takes money from taxes and builds an infrastructure and services for the population. So lets be real capitalist and get rid of Social Security, Medicare, Public Schools, no money for supporting roads and bridges, let the communities who have them take care of it, or private companies have them and charge tolls. No police or Firemen (that is also funded by govt. by taxes), let people hire private security firms and firemen. Lets not mess around and stick to your guns, lets have real capitalism, or support socialism

bkm | Sep 25, 2009 12:52:21 PM: We have been residing on Earth in the U.S. of America. You need to come back from you base on Pluto which is not even a planet. The “PUBLIC OPTION” IS supported and desired by the majority of Americans. As much as those like you try to distort this, reality will not be driven away from those of us who get it and do care about our needs and God forbid the needs of others too.

The only acceptable “public option” is national health care for everyone.

Posted by: JLG | Sep 25, 2009 1:58:09 PM
You Shouldn’t have to pay school taxes if you dont have children I totally agree with you. Yes I have been to a doctor but like most working people I pay for my own Insurance and I dont want it for free. Your right every person does use the Health Care system and everyone should have to pay for it.

So you must support the public option also? Remember, the ‘public option’ is that people are allowed to BUY insurance provided by a public entity. No one is advocating that the government subsidize the public plan. The part of the Reform Act that subsidizes insurance for the poor is a different part of the plan; it is the part that mandates that everyone has to buy health insurance. Since I pay for healthcare for the uninsured right now, through the free care they get in the emergency room, I am getting a better deal that way.

DJ, Do you pay full price for your health insurance, or do you receive group insurance through your employer? Many “working people” do not get health insurance through their employers and they are the ones least likely to be able to afford the huge premiums charged for private insurance. If they can even get insurance, period. And if you think you’re not paying for all of those people’s medical care already, think again. They go to hospital ERs and, when they can’t pay the bills, those costs are passed on to everyone else in the end.

Sorry, you are right, you did not call it socialism. But you did say that you could not have a rational conversation with someone like me. My examples are very rational. It is just that they do not seem rational if you look at it only from a ‘what’s in it for me’ point of view. The Constitution begins with “We the people,” not “Me the individual.” Like it or not, we are bound together in a civil society.

Get to get it right Charlie, YES a majority of the people support health care reform, but not the president’s plan. Reform needs to be at the provider and Insurance carrier level. Not start another government run insurance. That gonna cost more, heck they can’t even figure out the cost. They Can’t even run medicare and they want a government insurance. No this not a republican or democrat issue either.

To all those opposed to Health care Reform. I was one who thought I would never be on the dole, until the corporation I worked for divided the money between the CEO and upper management and left their subordinates with no job, no pension, no health benefits. You may all think you will never need help but no one has the ability to foresee what the future holds for you. A stroke, heart attack, cancer, any dibilatating illness where you can no longer work and provide for yourself or family. You are all just one illness away from losing your home and poverty. And, please remember we seniors PAID for our Social Security and have been and are paying for MEDICARE. Who knows, you just may need Medicare/Medicaid yourself someday, so quit bellyaching about people being moochers, the majority are not, they were just that one illness, job loss away from having to accept help.

Yes YES. There are many of us out there who think a public option of some kind is fair and necessary. “The Goat Herder” makes a terrific point. People who want nothing from the government should avoid public schools and universities, and stay off the roads. The government is an integral part of our life. Health care should be no different. If you don’t want a public option, don’t use it!

The NY Times and CBS are so deeply in the Obama/Democrat tank, their “polls” have absolutely no credibility or significance.

The New York Times has no credibility so people don’t believe their Pro Obama polls.
How about the poll that has been the same for years: The American people believe that the major news media are in the tank for Obama and his goons. You can throw ABC(All Barack Channel) in there too.

The poll did not give people the option of no reform or non government reform. It assumed that everyone wanted government reform and then 2/3 said they wanted a bipartisan approach. It was a push poll essentially.

Why do you think congress just voted to NOT put this blunder of a bill on the internet? And they don’t want you to know how much you will pay for it. I wonder why.

I think your data, ABC NEWS, is completely wrong and you are printing bad data in order to try and help the Socialists vote in Government run medicine. This is why you have no credibility on these issues. You are biased!!

The source for this is the NY Times? You are kidding of course, that scandal sheet has zero credibility on any issue other than the sports page.

The NY Times poll had Obama beating McCain by 17 points in 2008.
The NY Times poll has Obama’s approval rating 8 % points higher than any other poll.
The NY Times never asked about the pubic option.
Given the lack of credibiity at the NY Times, the exposure of scandals and its censorship and propaganda, does anyone take them seriously?

So, where are Republican ideas for healthcare reform? All they are doing is arguing the same dead argument over and over again to delay the vote. We need healthcare/health insurance reform NOW, and the best way to get insurance costs in line is to have a public option. Even the Mayo Clinic and most doctors agree that a public option is needed. Let’s get this done now!

And if you don’t support the option, pay your fine, or go to jail for up to one year!!!…Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.
Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it “Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold.” you say Police State!!!!!And for all the morons who say “well, they make you get car insurance (and there are some very high level morons who have said this!!) that required insurance is if you impact someone ELSE’s CAR…so yes, if my having an operation is going to make someone else have to go to the hospital, then this all makes sense!!!

The key to lowering health care costs — which is the number one problem facing our economy — is getting competition through getting rid of the abuses, monopolies and conflicts of interests in the health care “market” and actually making it a market in reality rather than in name only. Seriously regulating the insurance industry, taking away their anti-trust exemption, in return allowing insurers to sell policies in all 50 states instead of just their own, requiring that doctors operate independently of hospitals just as optometrists operate independently of eyeglass shops — these are all ways of achieving this goal. Unfortunately, neither party will do any of these.
But at least the Democrats will do the public option, which is another way of achieving this goal.
If you don’t have competition, if you don’t regulate or eliminate conflicts of interest, and if you don’t have a public option, you’d better get ready for more health care hyperinflation, more cuts in Medicare, and more outsourcing of jobs overseas as employers flee this country in search of cheaper employee health care.

How about we get rid of all you representatives who are better than us. when you give us a health care program that is good enough for yourselves (being OUR representatives) then it will be good enough for us. how can you represent us when you place yourselves above us???

I’m not a big fan of any of the health care bills because I do not see them reining in costs by gradually removing for-profit health insurance as every other high-income nation has. But I don’t see ANY benefit unless a public option or non-profit coops are included. Getting these included would be a tremendous win over the special interests who control so many Congressman. Even Dem. Mike Ross, whose lifetime campaigns have cost $7,000,000, has been funded over $900,000 by insurance interests and about $3,500,000 by insurance, health, and big pharma. Any wonder he says, as his masters’ demand, that he won’t support a public option?
Even super-capitalistic “Japan Incorporated” realizes it’s absolutely ridiculous to regard for-profit health insurance as “free-market capitalism”. How can you keep health costs down when your corporate plan requires greater amounts of sickness and higher costs in order to prosper?

Count me in. I’ve been supporting a public option since I was a senior in college 28 years ago. And believe me, I’ve spent those 28 years examining and considering all of the angles and also enjoying, for some years, the benefits of a western European single-payer system in a country that cannot, otherwise, be described as anything but enthusiastically capitalist, with a population that intensely appreciates individual freedoms.
People who fear a public option do so because they’re terrified that it will be extremely popular. The irony of this is delicious: “Let’s deprive the American people of this possibility because we’re afraid that no matter what they claim now, they will really want it if they’re offered it, if they see that they can get health insurance cheaply and without worrying about pre-existing conditions or job loss, and what will happen to all those execs at the private insurance companies?”
Capitalist European countries have to worry about taxpayer expenditures on their health-care programs, that’s true, but in a reversal of our situation, their citizens would mount a revolution if they were deprived of those benefits. And it’s worth pointing out that France, considered by the WHO to have the best health care in the world, spends 11% of its GDP on health care, with ALL French citizens being covered, while we spend 16.5% of our GDP on health care, despite the fact that around 20% of our adults under the age of 65 are uninsured. If you are unfamiliar with statistics of this kind, you’ve never lived in any countries abroad or enjoyed their benefits. I have.
I’m not unrealistic enough to think we can institute a single-payer system here, but a public option is the next best thing. I repeat. Count me in.

CONSTITUTIONALITY ISSUE?
Apparently National Endowment for the Arts director of communications Yosi Sergeant has resigned after the squabble over arts organizations funded by NEA promoting Obama’s health-care agenda.
The news media (if it isn’t in the Obama camp) should submit Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests for the applications to the NEA of those art organizations that have been supporting the Obama healthcare agenda.
But, don’t hold your breath these are democrats we’re talking about. Plus government run healthcare itself isn’t constitutional!

Government run public option?? Just look at the bill coming up in Congress for a $4,000,000,000 bail-out of the post office!! What a perfect example. The Gov. should run nothing.

Look the Government spends money recklessly. We all know that and agree on it. There is a lot of waste and a lot of Fraud. It is really easy to defraud the government because it is too big. look at Bernie Madhoff and the SEC and Barney Frank and Fannie Mae, Rengle, Dodd, Pelosi. so don’t tell me there will not be rampant fraud when the politicians start taking over the health insurance companies. And think of all those pitifull Retirees who invested their 401 ks in Atena, Humana,Cigna, Well Point. Au Revoir! We will have the media to thank!
oh by the way….Did you read all the earmarks in the last bill. I rest my case. They are just using you guys!

You have to look how our politicians in Congress do business. Our Senators are going to change health care?
How? They are the ones in the pocket of the health care system.
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike take huge contributions from the health care industry.
They still allow doctors to take money to represent drug companies.
They still refuse to pass the flat tax Social Security Act. Why? Ask the senators why.

I pay enough taxes, that’s what taxes are for so we don’t have to pay for something that we already have paid for by paying taxes, healthcare, roads,briges, are kids education that what we pay taxes for to supply the need of Americans. And healthcare is needed just a much as drinking water is need, is that simple enough for you haters.

Support for public option has the support of 75% of doctors – those who should have a clue about how the healthcare system works.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112818960
Why is it those most opposed to the public option HAVE access to good medical care?

Posted by: Chris | Sep 25, 2009 6:07:22 PM
“JLG, you pay taxes that fund schools because, even though you don’t have children, you benefit from the existence of those schools.”
Believe me, Chris, I grasp that concept. My argument was solely to counter DJ’s complaint that he will have to pay for a public health option that he doesn’t use.
I’m perfecly fine with paying to have public schools that every child can attend. I’m also perfectly fine with paying for a public health option that will provide health care to the millions of people who don’t get health care because cannot afford insurance. If that makes me a “socialist”, so be it.