Health Insurers Boost Public Option

George just clicked on the ‘add to my wish list’ button.

I have always felt, when something needs to be fixed. I start from the main source of the problem. Health care is killing Americans bank accounts, Where were our country leaders at the time Health care, and insurance costs began there skyrocketing price adventures. Coming up with a New Gav. run system isn’t the answer! Fix the systems we already have.Pentalize the GREED.

Only Obama’s official propaganda arm, ABC, could draw such an erroneous conclusion.

Many of you know very well that all other industrialized countries in the world DO provide universal health coverage. So, why cannot America do the same? Second, what child or grandparent or any person are you going to deny coverage to? I will tell you what, let us put you in charge to make that decision. You decide if a child is going to live or die or be sick for the rest of their lives because you denied them the need. You can choose to be GOD with their health and their life. Put yourself in the place of decision and ask yourself, are you able to decide another human being’s fait. I ask you now, if you are a Christian, how would Jesus choose in this need for our society and how would Jesus choose for each person’s needs for proper health care or life and death. So, I ask again, what would you do?

Why don’t you liberals call it what it is….a GOVERNMENT OPTION.

This is on the AP today. AP – Insurance companies aren’t playing nice any more. Their dire message that health care legislation will drive up premiums for people who already have coverage comes as a warning shot at a crucial point in the debate, and threatens President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority

Public Option = Government Option. I see nothing wrong with that and support it either way. Anything is better that the strangle-hold that the corporations plans that trumps profits over human beings. keith | Oct 12, 2009 7:49:24 PM — Thanks for the suggestion!

Jim | Oct 12, 2009 7:57:32 PM: I agree that a universal national health coverage plan would be the best plan to solve most of our problems but we cannot get there unless we find a way to move past the greed of the private coverage providers whose profits supersede each individual American’s health needs and our countries competitiveness in our capitalist markets. We are fighting 70 years or more of the private industries strangle-hold of this countries health and financial needs. They are holding back on the countries competitive capitalist needs and our ability to be healthy and versatile in the job markets, let alone, healthy at all. The private industries present plan is to cover only the healthy and throw away those that are not. I support the public plan now in whatever form it may be and future universal coverage plan when it comes about sooner than later.

Jim | Oct 12, 2009 7:57:32 PM: I agree that a universal national health coverage plan would be the best plan to solve most of our problems but we cannot get there unless we find a way to move past the greed of the private coverage providers whose profits supersede each individual American’s health needs and our countries competitiveness in our capitalist markets. We are fighting 70 years or more of the private industries strangle-hold of this countries health and financial needs. They are holding back on the countries competitive capitalist needs and our ability to be healthy and versatile in the job markets, let alone, healthy at all. The private industries present plan is to cover only the healthy and throw away those that are not. I support the public plan now in whatever form it may be and future universal coverage plan when it comes about sooner than later.

“So, why cannot America do the same?” Probably because so much money is being spent to accommodate non-citizens with multilingual publications, free schooling, emergency health care, etc. that there’s nothing left to spend on the citizens. I’m curious to know just accommodating those utopian societies are to illegal aliens.

Where is Obama’s healthcare bill?
I guess the Baucus bill is Obama’s biil

“Where is Obama’s healthcare bill?
I guess the Baucus bill is Obama’s biil”
Not according to Sarah Palin. She said Obama’s evil healthcare reform plan was house bill HR 3200.

All of the five bills in Congress have the will have the same outcomes which will be all bad. The entire purpose for health care reform was: 1) universal care – the bills do not achieve this. 2) cost containment – the bills do not achieve this. 3) not raise deficit – again, the bills do not achieve this. 4) Higher quality health care, Cuts to Medicare will hurt health care services to Seniors. The Democrats have become crazy with unfettered power. They no longer listen to the people. The reserve status of the dollar is at stake with our current deficit. The jobless numbers are rising. Credit hasn’t loosened up. People are just trying to survive and our federal government wants to raise our health care costs and our energy costs. It doesn’t make sense . . .unless you’re out to destroy the country. Soros needs to be neutralized by the IRS or RICO. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama need to be removed from office as quickly as possible so they can cause no more harm.

George, just because you say so does not mean it is. Give me a break. I want the same insurance Obama and Congress have, that is the only public option I want.

We already HAVE a PUBLIC OPTION: Wait 12 hours for treatment in the emergency room. We’re the only industrial democracy that thinks it’s OK for tens of millions of their citizens to be without health care insurance, and we pay for it with 1) the LOWEST LIFE EXPECTANCY 2) the HIGHEST INFANT MORTALITY 3) the highest level of preventable conditions. But of course, as GW Bush said, “America has the best healthcare system in the world.” RIGHT! And Iraq had nuclear weapons, too!

Ok, if folks will put on their thinking caps for one minute, do listen. This is going to work like Social security. Young healthy folks pay in and most likely, dont need coverage. Young healthy folks also have the most disposal income- no house, no kids, not expenses. The oldest folks need the most care, have the most expenses – kids, house, and they’re fat now and need meds for high cholesterol or they’ve already had a heart attack. If you dont make EVERYONE pay, then folks will only buy health insurance when they need it -when they’re older and sick. Just like social security, for this to work, you must get EVERYONE to buy health insurance because when you’re old, you will pay less insurance premiums than you will use. You will have ten of thousand of dollar of care, or more, maybe hundreds of thousand of dollars of car, yet only pay in premiums, a few thousands. SO how does that work? Where does the rest of the money go? to higher premiums for everyone who pays which is again, only those older who need care (who use more than thye put in) along with, again, white collar businesses who offer their employees health insurance. What we need, WHO we need to get into this pool, are the young ones. The ones who, in 20 years, will be sucking the system dry, just like social security . you pay for 30 years and by the time you’re using it, you’re taking out far more than you ever put in, but some folks dont survive, and hopefully it all evens out. But if you dont have a option that gets EVERYONE health insurance, none of it works. And we need it to work. We need to take the stress OFF of businesses who offer health insurance. WHY do business flock to massachusetts? why is mass coming out of this recession faster than other states???? because it is CHEAPER for business to have a business here, bevcause they are NOT shouldering all the healthcare costs for everyone in ths state becaues everyone MUST have health insuranc,e either throug their employer ,or buy their own and if you pool together all the folks who do not have health insurance and get better rates for them as a group rather than on their own, it’s CHEAPER For them to get a plan. It’s no big deal. Essentially the government acts as a human resources department at a white collar business. It just negotiates an affordable plan. It’s a good thing. we need the slackers to get their own plans. We need the young ones to start paying their dues now. It has to happen . We have too many folks sleezing off of others for too long. It’s time.

“The only people who want a public option are the ones on the fringe left that represent only 20% of the population (if that).”
20%? Not even close. Here are October poll results showing support for the public option.
CBS News: “The much-debated ‘public option’ –a health insurance plan like Medicare administered by the government –- still gets majority support.”
GOV’T HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN
Favor 62%
Oppose 31
Quinnipiac: American voters “support key parts of the plan, including 61 – 34 percent for giving people the option of a government health insurance plan that competes with private plans…”
Pew: “Would you favor or oppose… A government health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance plans”
55 Favor
38 Oppose
Ipsos/McClatchy*: 53% said it is necessary to create a public health insurance plan to make sure that all Americans have access to quality healthcare. 42% said access to quality healthcare for all Americans can be achieved without having to create a public health insurance plan.
Even Rasmussen** said: “46% favor the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option that people could choose instead of a private health insurance plan. Thirty-seven percent (37%) are opposed.”
*Tied with CNN as most accurate pollster in 2008 Presidential election results
**Choice pollster of conservatives

Every Western country can offer universal health care except the wealthiest country USA??!!
Incredible suffering by American’s and the only reason is the profit greed of insurance companies and this makes sense to you?
There needs to be free government health care and a second private health care system. No American should be denied health care but for those who want 5 star treatment, let them pay. Not everyone drives a Rolls Royce but Ford will still get you there.

Social security and Medicare was passed with minimal republican support. The public option will do the same. And guess what? a lot of republicans will sign up for the public option too. Because it is the right thing to do.

In this recession the government should consider taxing religious facilities. We don’t encourage one religion over the other, yet we allow just about anyone to open up churches and other places of workship and not only do they get donations, they don’t pay taxes. They should be exempt from paying taxes on dobations but not property taxes. I don’t see churches and other religious buildings open their doors to the poor. In fact they only open for mass and when they get their money. Maybe we should all have churches as homes so we don’t have to pay for taxes either.

A strong public option is what America needs!! Enough of appeasing those who are in the pockets of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. No American should die or see their whole family go into financial ruin because they don’t have health care coverage, or because their insurer (who has no problem taking ridiculous premiums from them and their employer for years) finds a way to get out of providing the treatment they need once they are really sick. The burden of the overpriced, inadequate health care provided by big insurers is crushing Americans and American employers, while medical providers and state and federal governments are already being forced to absorb billions in the costs of necessary care for those who are denied or who can’t afford the jacked-up costs of insurance and care. A public option would be another alternative and hold these corporate behemoths cost-accountable, so they stop getting fat by holding the the pirate motto “Take what you can, give nothing back”. Why do you think they are fighting it so hard and so dirty? Because it would work, and end their gravy train of irresponsible corporate profits off the misery of the sick. A public option would be a stabilizing and regulating influence on medical costs and a safety net for the truly unfortunate.

…There needs to be free government health care and a second private health care system. No American should be denied health care but for those who want 5 star treatment, let them pay. Not everyone drives a Rolls Royce but Ford will still get you there.
Today, October 12, 2009, 15 minutes ago | Stopoil
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Well said and very accurate.
The upper middle-class and rich will still have the best care available because they can afford it.
Everyone else will have much better than what they have now.

How about those who don’t believe in meicine? Why should they be forced to pay for coverage they don’t want? My father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1992. Had he gone through the treatmets they wanted him to, I don’t think he would have lived as long as he did. He died in 2005, and that’s longer than most people would live with all the poisons. I don’t even take an aspirin and feel I look over 20 years younger than most people my age. I don’t want to know if something is wrong, because ounce you find out you have a death sentense that alone kills your spirit. I can see getting medical care for an accident, something man made, but with anything that is of natural causes, medicine doesn’t help evryone and I for one would rather spend the money on heath equipment and other means to stay healthy besides doctors. Just to give you an example. I ounce went to a doctor who told me i needed surgery to make sure I didn’t have a malignant tumor and I feel this was because i had great insurance and he would have made great money. Years later when I wasn’t insured I paid to et a test done, but didn’t tell the doctor what the previous one said, but the new test would have have mentioned something. Not one word about what the previous doctor claimed. I then asked the doctor, are you sure there’s nothing I should know about, and she said no, nothing. Then I told her what the previous doctor had told me and she smiled and didn’t know what to say. She did however repeat it again, you have nothing to worry about and sorry you were scared, but I’m confused why someone said that, myself. Scare on my dad’s sould this is true story. How can two doctors have two totally different outcomes? I don’t trust they know all. Besides where are the cures this country has spent trillions on? No cures, because it’s better to keep people drugged up, after all pharmaceutical companies make money. I don’t need insurance. Death is part of life and I don’t want to know when it’s tome to go. I rather be surprised/shocked and get it over with. Insurance should be an option, and not dictated by government.

I should have checked my spelling for errors, sorry…

Rapid, you predict what? Bwahahahah….You are joking right? They are working their way to a governement taxed for socialize health care, but it certainly will not reduce the deficit and will not cut costs. It will force the cost up by thousands yearly for everyone of us with us getting poorer quality care.

Well, when I was young, my dad would say that a young republican was heartless and an old democrat just a plain fool. I’m a conservative midwesterner, not a clueless city girl, but I’m tired of the corporate greed and I would bury every insurance company in the book starting with AIG if I could. Ok, so it’s a government option, and we are going to all pay, as if we already aren’t. Time for change, I’ll take a liberal with a brain and a conservative with a heart, anymore out there?

Why don’t you liberals call it what it is….a GOVERNMENT OPTION. Posted by: keith
****************************************
The insurance companies had plenty of opportunities
in fixing these problems, but only to hid it in the greedy stockholders pockets. The option is take it or leave it.

What did anyone expect that the insurance companies would play fair. For the past 20 years they have controlled the HC system and that is why we are here today. We know, according to them are responsible for 30 cents on every dollar brought in, and they claim their profit margin is approximately 5 cents on the dollar. Do you think they want to become a not for profit organization when the shareholder base is so vast?
We cannot do anything unless the academics, and I am serious, get involved with this and scrutinize all aspects of the cost/expense/revenue aspects from top to bottom. I am talking about economists, mathematicians, statisticians, business and management leaders. If it is not reviewed and there is a popular consensus of the ‘experts at crunching numbers’ and improving system processes, our Congress and Senate people are going to be spitting into the wind. It has to happen.
If it takes 6 months, 1 year, it does not matter; but everybody has to have buyin and lobbyists need to be removed from the equation. There has to be involvement with the AMA, ABA, anD AHA along with Insurance MANAGEMENT and not lobbyists.
We should not be at all surprised. It should teach us all that when we make promises to deliver something, do not place a time frame on it. Every process takes time.

“How about those who don’t believe in meicine? Why should they be forced to pay for coverage they don’t want? ” —for the same reason those dopes who say “Oh I drive safe” need car insurance. If they fall on the sidewalk with a stroke, the ambulence WILL come get them, unconscious they WILL get brain surgery and they WILL owe the hospital about $800,000 after their stupid lives are saved and that will be a fine time to say “Oh, I dont BELIEVE in medicine”… yeah right. Give those same idiots cancer and you’ll see their arses at the cancer ward so quick your head will turn. Everyone doesn’t believe in something when they think they’re infalable, but you give some kid at 105 degree fever and a virus they can’t kick and their high and mighty parents are soon in the ER BEGGING for antivirals and if they do not, they will be arrested for child neglect. Basically, everyone in a fox hole believes in God, and everyone once they eventually get sick, which we ALL will one day, will get off their high horse and beg for the operation, or the medicine, or the expensive ER visit and THEN cry poor me, I can’t pay, somebody else foot my bill, I dont have the $500K. SLACKERS.

I have often expressed my longing for the days of Huntley and Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Walter Winchell, Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Jimmy Breslin and the real article news and entertainment journalists from my youth who when in the public mode gave us news and not their agenda. The news today is much too self serving and sometimes concealing and in the end all Americans pay for it. I wrote about George Stephanopoulos standing up adamantly to President Obama in a recent
iinterview but although it remains a momentous moment for me because I am fond of George in a personal way and admired his astounding courage, he reverted to Democratic Party newsman the next day. Yes George, I agree that some mold of public option will creep into the bill because Obama and the Democrats are a huge segment of the negotiating process. Please understand that well heeled individuals like myself and high profile television stars
just like getting a ringside seat will continue to acquire first class health
care even if we evolve into a government
run system, destined to be chaos incarnate.

Personally, I think it’s time for everyone in America to boycott their insurance payments and flood the emergency rooms until a civil solution to this madness emerges.

dlboggan | Oct 12, 2009 8:07:53 PM
This is one of the few comments that makes any sense on this subject. Every person that blames the “insane profits”, I believe one person mentioned, of the insurance companies needs to do a little research in the fact that one of the largest healthcare insurance providers in the country is Blue-Cross/Blue-Shield. Which is a NON_PROFIT organization, recognized as a NON_+PROFIT organization by the same government that is trying to make us all believe that the insurance companies are making huge profits off the people of this country. And the left claims that the right is brain-washed. Wake up America, before we have no rights left. the government has absolutely no constitutional authority to force any of us to get health insurance. Obama’s statement that it will be like auto insurance only shows his ignorance. Auto insurance is designed to protect the other person, not the owner of the car, unless they choose to get full coverage.

America has always been about big business and you wonder why the economy is on its last legs. Human resources must be the priority in this new globalised world if there is to be any chance of redemption. America do the right thing and pass the Health Care Reform bill.

We need a Public Option in the bill.
But how much Pork Barrel spending will be in the Health Care Reform Bill for it to pass?
The question of the day!
Will it be purely on Health care and lowering medical cost in the U.S.A?

Maybe there should be a bill past so these insurance companies cannot pass the “bill” down to us….they make enough money already……their just worried about their profits going down……OOOO…I feel so bad for them!

By their last minute attempt to foist bogus numbers to derail a vote on health care reform, the insurers have exposed their greed and dishonesty for all to see. They have shown that a public option is essential.

The liberals have done their job well in demonizing the insurance industry. Yet few blame hospitals for charging ridiculous rates to the insurance companies to cover below cost government reimbursements on Medicare and Medicaid or to recoup expenses associated with treating the indigent or poor. What how about state mandates requiring insurance companies to offer one size fits all plans driving up the cost for everyone. Then there is the closed system which doesn’t allow consumers to buy on a national level allowing insurance companies to have state monopolies. No one is blaming the government for the very regulations which for years have created the insurance practices that so many now rail against. The more government gets involved the more expensive things will get. It’s just too bad that many of you will realize this only after it’s too late. Not one person can provide an example of government driving down the cost of something without heavy subsidies which are paid for by higher taxes. Well, it looks like the liberals will have there turn. It’s like watching lemmings run off a cliff. God help us all.

Okay. I just got hit with new healthcare options at my job for 2010. My employer is not going to offer HMO coverage any longer (the least expensive) and will now only offer 4 tiers of PPO coverage. I work for a very large company, so the risk pool should be pretty formidable. Despite this, my premiums and out-of-pocket expenses will rise, and my choices will diminish. I can only hope that healthcare reform passes, because this is just crazy. I’m not due any raise this year because of the economy, and healthcare costs are due to rise. This is what I think is going to happen. I think some sort of public option will pass into legislation. It might be a trigger or state opt-out (which I think is the best way to handle it). Sooner or later, unless insurance companies change their business model or submit to additional federal regulations, they’re going to be put out of business pure and simple. 3 or 4 big insurance companies might survive, and then the federal government will step in and regulate like a utility. Insurance companies have NO business operating on Wall Street. None. They should go back and become mutually owned and accountable to consumers. This latest bromide from the insurance lobby actually made the case for a public option even stronger. When people see their premiums rise to ridiculous levels for 2010, EVEN BEFORE REFORM IS PASSED, then I think support will grow for a public option. They have to get to 60 votes in the Senate for cloture. Then senators can vote their conscience. They’ll be enough in Congress to pass some sort of public option, hopefully with an opt-out for those states who don’t want it.

Right…
Blame OBAMA, 9 MONTHS in office, for all the problems created by “Dubya” in 8 YEARS and others.
*Afghanistan forgotten about for 7 years by BUSH…
*Iraq, a WRONG war by BUSH…
*Health care reform ignored since Clinton…
*National debt doubled to $10 Trillion and Budget deficit to over a Trillion by BUSH after inheriting a HUGE surplus from Clinton…
*Not one but TWO recessions, including the GREAT one by BUSH…
etc., etc., etc.,
Hell, Obama can’t even travel anywhere without being criticized while BUSH spent weeks at a time at his ranch or daddy’s Kinnebunkport mansion…
Besides avoiding a great DEPRESSION, OBAMA has done far MORE for improving world PEACE already than BUSH and others did in their whole terms…
Any political PARTY needs HEALTHY competition, not bigoted lies against the LEADER by FOX-news buffoons !!!