wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

[What about the mental health of health care promoters? Saw the following, BTW, on the web.]

DAVID LETTERMAN'S HATE, ETC. !

David Letterman's hate is as old as some ancient Hebrew prophets.
Speaking of anti-Semitism, it's Jerry Falwell and other fundy leaders who've gleefully predicted that in the future EVERY nation will be against Israel (an international first?) and that TWO-THIRDS of all Jews will be killed, right?
Wrong! It's the ancient Hebrew prophet Zechariah who predicted all this in the 13th and 14th chapters of his book! The last prophet, Malachi, explains the reason for this future Holocaust that'll outdo even Hitler's by stating that "Judah hath dealt treacherously" and "the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this" and asks "Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?"
Haven't evangelicals generally been the best friends of Israel and persons perceived to be Jewish? Then please explain the recent filthy, hate-filled, back-stabbing tirades by David Letterman (and Sandra Bernhard and Kathy Griffin) against a leading evangelical named Sarah Palin, and explain why most Jewish leaders have seemingly condoned Palin's continuing "crucifixion"!
While David, Sandra, and Kathy are tragically turning comedy into tragedy, they are also helping to speed up and fulfill the Final Holocaust a la Zechariah and Malachi, thus helping to make the Bible even more believable!
(For even more stunning information, visit MSN, Google etc. and type in "Separation of Raunch and State," "Michael the Narc-Angel," "Bible Verses Obama Avoids," and "Hate Bill Favoritism.")

I think posting # 28 (Muri) said it all. If this doesn't happen I am not voting for another Democrat again! After all what's going to change?

The health care bill as it stands is an implementation of FOCA without having to have a vote on it. See Stoptheabortionmandate.com internet program presented in late July.
It's not even clear that it will save money. It does include rationing of health care for the elderly and disabled and very sick.

@ Calls'em - Those books you're hawking are as out of the mainstream as they are laughable.

If you want "fair and balanced," get out of WNYC's reputable and legitimate news site and go to FOX.

Pt. II -- Everyone can get care in this country including illegal aliens, drug addicts, criminals... they just have to walk into the ER of any hospital. Everyone else has access to Medicare or Medicaid when they need it. At a minimum, let's have a 5 year pilot program starting ONLY with Congress and all Federal workers to see how it works. The proposed NAZI health program is also a vile assault on privacy and civil liberties. Where are the liberals on this? Let’s put all of their private info into a computer, first for all to see. Of course this would include producing and inputting valid birth certificates (something that the President Barry Soetoro a/k/a Barack Hussein Obama can’t produce). The Democrat Congress should put its money where its mouth is before its put our money there. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AREN’T STUPID. Even many in this liberal metro-area are seeing the light. THE DEMOCRAT PARTY WILL BE FINISHED AFTER THIS DEBACLE.

PS -- once again WNYC lets a loser lib flog their book that isn't going to sell, while ignoring some of the biggest best sellers in recent history -- Mark Levin's LIBERTY and TYRANNY and Glenn Beck's COMMON SENSE. WNYC needs to start being more fair and balance, like it used to be.

Pt. I -- What a bunch of lies! What planet are these people living on? Former Senator Tom Daschle was run out of his state for corruption and couldn't join Barry Obama's misadministration because he was one of seven tax-cheats the former ACORN worker appointed to his Cabinet (not that most of them matter now since the Bama has appointed a shadow Gov’t of personal Tsars (a hate speech word if there ever was one).

Here’s the bottom line -- THE GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER IS ALREADY IN PLACE. Don’t you liberal lemmings have a single brain between you? Yes, some changes need to be made, like portability, but the system “ain’t” broke. The Prez is just creating another crisis, taking a page from Saul Alinsky and Carl Rove -- destroying the greatest health care system in the world for political reasons.

This country can’t fully run or fund social security, Medicare, Medicaid or the VA, how is it going to impose authoritarian health care system that makes people SWITCH doctors, WAIT for critical tests and care and DENY treatment to elderly people? It is discriminatory and disgusting. The poor, minorities and the elderly will be worse off, not better. We will all be worse off. This health care bill will wreck the economy as well as health care. There is no money for it. The Dems must stop printing money - it is destroying the economy. In a few years the debt service will be as large as the current debt. This alone is treason. This bill will wreck private insurance for the 80 - 85% of the country that has it on any given day. All that has to be done is modify the safety net for those citizens or legal residents who need help.

We need a public option for healthcare coverage. For the generation of workers in the baby boomer age group who are laid off, what new employer will hire us in new positions never mind provide healthcare coverage.
The non profit cooperative doesn't sound like an option to consider. On a local news item, didn't the Health Insurance Plan (HIP -NY) recently complete an IPO called Emblem Health for a profit entity? Like one of the callers asked, why are these institutions switching toward a profit structure? Not having a public option is an outrage.
As a comparative there are many Hospitals which are run under a non profit model/structure yet these Hospital executives are earning significant salaries, the hospitals are run like for-profit entities and not serving their respective communities well.
Brian should get the authors of Critical Condition Donald Bartlett and James Steele on the show who wrote a book on healthcare in the US about 4 years before Mr. Dashcle did.

which blue dogs take corporate money

I am so glad Daschle was prevented from becoming our health 'czar'.

Rhea
are u for real?
the government is not going to control healthcare and u will always be able to buy more private insurance if u need to keep some old lady alive beyond her natural life cycle?

Rhea, #35, I think Bush WAS able to control these things:

"Would you have wanted President Bush to have decided whether or not you were able to get abortion, fertility treatments, Viagra and/or end-of-life care?"

We elected democrats to put an end to his control there. Abortion? Supreme Court. Fertility treatments, stem cell research, Viagra, are you kidding?

I think men can live without Viagra being subsidized by insurance. If they really need it they can pay for it.

America will never have a health care system for everyone for one simple reason: we do not care about people. We say we do, but for about 50 years all we have done is say we care if people have health insurance.

Every level of government in the US spends money on the health care system, from research, to tax breaks for health institutions, grants to medical institutions and everyone pays to license and regulate doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc. Only a percentage of people get affordable, full coverage under their health care plans. So people who do not have health insurance subsidize people who do.

Health care is not a "right", not part of the social safety net, not something deserved only by those who can pay enough. Every one of us helps fund the health care system when we pay taxes: income, sales and all the other small bites of taxes that are tucked into the services, like phone service, we all pay.

Money is being transferred from the pockets of the people who do not have health insurance into the pockets of those that do. And that ain't socialism.

Are the Dems ineffectual or just plain dishonest? Is this what all the effort and excitement of the last election gets us? Polls say single payer, expecially when explained well which I don't see the President or any leading Dem doing, is popular, yet they proclaim it dead. What they call a compromise is more money for the industry, more costs for the public, little public benefit and a new Republican majority when the bill comes due.

Rhea (#35), you’re living in a fantasy world. Do you realize how much power HMOs and PPOs have over the healthcare people receive? Can you pick whomever you want as a primary care physician or specialist, or do you have a list? Do you get whatever drug you think you need because the television, newspaper, and magazine told you you need it, or do you get a generic because the co-pay is less? Or, do you get the drug big pharma marketed to your doctor, because they are getting kick backs to prescribe it? Since you’re not male, maybe you don’t realize the male dominated insurance industry will pay for Viagra where they won’t pay for drugs for female sexual dysfunction. (Believe me, Congressional men LOVE sex and will pay for Viagra. Republican, independent, or Democrat, they will pay so they can bed their mistresses) Tells you what they think of women. You mention 72 year old grandma…. Is she suckling at the public teat of Medicare, if so, she’s already on a government plan. And do you realize how much money will be spent to help her make it through the next ten days, ten weeks, ten months not to mention ten years? We should have a compassionate system, but (not even knowing what you do) I can say with certainty extending her life 10 months under the current system, depending on how ill she is, will cost more than you make in 2 years pre tax.

I also remembered that a great deal of what are side effects from bigpharma and their influence on medical practitioners and people who risk trusting their doctors, end up back in the system for these side effects, also known as the indicators. In advertising, this information can go on for more than 2 pages of very dense text.

These bigpharma influence and side affect factors also are what is increasing the cost of healthcare and fouling with its quality. By no means should we socialize any of this.

BigPharma also knows it will loose with the collapsing econonomy under the G20 agreements unless we repeal this and liberate ourselves from the global corporates' abuse of power and those of our EU allies. for the collapse and shrinking economy, that is the only reason BigPharma is on board.

the problem is cost---and profit included therein---people are scared that if we correctly reign in the excesses of insurers
( rewarding their bad behavior with ceo bonuses and payoffs to providers for denying care )drug companies ( no import competition
and ridiculous markup )hospitals ( the famous $8 aspirins )and doctors ( crowded waiting rooms and you see the dr if at all for 5 min )
they have no idea what the system will look like and what happens to all those jobs of people employed in these fields ????---
but what happens to all the people who may be happy with their coverage if we allow premiums to rise year after year while their wages are stagnant ( even if they keep their job )???
so far yes we can't make the perfect the enemy of the good-BUT if we put a bandaid on a broken leg and it never heals those who oppose reform will say " i told you so " !

part 2
2. The increasing amount of processing and livestock pharma that is in the US food supply and livestock that is ABSOLOUTELY PROHIBITED IN THE EU AND ELSEWHERE AROUND THE WORLD. In the EU, they utterly prohibit the use of stimulant horomones and livestock antibiotics in their dairy livestock. The EU has far less disease as produced by these deleterious, poisonous substances intheir livestock that also produces health/disease results such as increasing amounts of breast cancer in women, such tht keepign their food supply clean eliminates the sickness polluted food would produce in the people, which in turn would have increased the flow of those sick people into their healthcare systems which are paid for 'socialized'. This is a serious problem in the US where the food is processed and poisoned.

In the EU, alternative medicine is vigorously supported, while in the US there are moves to thwart effect pushback against Dairy and livestock pharma, notice too the erosion in the organic labeling, etc, because there are craven interests that know that in the US, the volume based revenue model where ignorant and wimpy people stuck in the processed food/polluted dairy groove, and and a groove in general of poor diets, fall into and are stuck in the in the US health system.

As I've said, it is a volume based revenue model, where the more people that fall in and stay in by bad advice and outcomes, from the pharma, polluted food, etc and doctors who should be paid salaries rather than by proceedure are all a part of the problem. at each state level, this can be acheived, or by the medical insurers who can insist in the states where they provide medical insurance to insist the hospitals they cover, have their doctors salaried rather than paid by proceedure. this eliminates some of the traction the Mengele medical system has had in increasing costs and experimentation on the people.

Kate
you would rather the likes of sarah palin?!! good luck with that!

Supporters of 'public health care' omit 2 key flaws in their argument:

1. The economy's collapsing over the last 15 years in part related to US agreements to shrink our economy to meet "G20" constraints, has off-shored production into the former colonies of our allies, both of those groups comprise most of the other among the "G20". With more production off-shored, it has give the appearance and the unfortunate increasing % of the US economy's representation of Health care as an ecnonomic sector compared to the decreasing representation of the sectors as their part of the US Economy. This is where Daschle is getting his 'facts' about how much of an increasing % healthcare expenditures will be in comparision to GDP.

Part 2 on next email.

Outrage. The Govs. of W.VA and MA are both Democrats -- if Byrd and Kennedy are too sick to vote, they should quit and let the governors appoint new Democratic Senators.

The solution outlined by Dashchle is NOT ACCEPTABLE. I will switch my registration to Independent if this passes, and I am a third generation Democrat. Stop them.

As a member of the Freelancers Union Insurance Co., which I believe qualifies as a private, not-for-profit insurance company similar to the type the senate is discussing, I want to say it operates exactly like a regular insurance company. Meaning it is very expensive, I spend a lot of time on the phone arguing about what was covered, I have high co-pays and there are all sorts of hidden costs. Yes, I have insurance and it covers services but last year I paid close to $10,000 in premiums, copays, co-insurance and deductables and I'm a young woman who was just trying to have a baby. I worked for Pres. Obama. I really expected he would get a public plan through. This is only a solution for people to get into a plan, not to change the system to create equities for patients as well as doctors.

If the absence of two sick senators, and
the 60 vote margin they fail to constitute,
then Senators Byrd and Kennedy must resign and
be "replaced" with like thinking legislators
who will be able to vote. This bill is
too important for even well intentioned
sentimentality to risk unacceptable compromise.

The Dems' argument that "it's the best we can do, if we don't have the votes" is unbelievable, given their numbers. Where is their backbone?? During the Bush years, Dems went along with numerous policies that were (supposedly) antithetical to their philosophy. Why? The Republicans believed in their cause and fought for it.

Who is fighting for the working person now??

There is no good news coming out of Congress on healthcare reform. Daschle is the pocket of industry and special interests. Once again the progressive side has totally lost the debate to the right who have a simple message that gets repeated over and over. Those who care and want real reform need to speak out. Maybe it's time for a march on Washington. If this isn't an important issue -- then what is.

the answer to brian's last question is the lewin group, owned by the health insurance companys & often used as a credible source by the GOP thugs

Brian, You challenged the guest almost not at all. His silly cliche about perfect being the enemy of the good is little more than obfuscation.

Brian, Don't give up so easily. You should have repeated and repeated that 60 votes in the Senate is a totally artificial barrier. If the Republicans are going to be obstinately obstructive, the Democratic majority should grow a little spine and make them perform an authentic filibuster, talking on the floor of the Senate until they collapse.

Tomorrow is a Lobby & rally in DC sponsored by Healthcare-NOW! A Single-Payer Advocacy Org.

Bus leaving from midtown Manhattan. $35.00 round trip. Leaving 7am from 41st and 8th Ave, and returning that evening. For tickets, please contact Jean Fox at jeanmaryfox@yahoo.com.

Daschle is substantively lying about Pharma and Insurers -- they may be running pro ads, but they are lobbying against reform.

If the republicans want to sink this no matter what for political reasons, why are you freaking compromising?????

WHy give it all away????

actually this bill could be passed under reconciliation rules with 51 votes as dacshle well knows- so we could have had a more "perfect" bill than whatver this Baucus thing looks like. also there happens to be another bill coming out of the house as well as another major committee in the senate.

and what about what's coming out of the finance committee? there will be no employer mandate, no public option and but an individual mandate. sounds like a disaster to me.

but it will make the insurance companies happy- which is the constituency of Baucus et al.

the Democrats overall, including Obama, are weak, just as daschle was. and that's why we are going to have not much healthcare reform.

These coops offer very limited coverage. You are tiering care. The industry loves this plan because it is giving them millions of new customers at public expense.

I too would be very angry if the Democrats can not pull off health care with a public option.

Also, didn't the Democrats talk about passing health care legislation using the budget reconciliation process so that they would not need 60 votes to break a filibuster? what happened to that approach?

(http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/142858.php)

I run a not for profit health care co op on the lower east side of Manhattan

The profit that corporations take out of the system for their overhead and the shareholders and their bloated salaries (so called health insurance companies) .... IS the problem.

Having ONE single national form is worth it.

What the USA pays to health corporations does not equal the cost of health care.

If for profit companies were cut out of the loop, there would be enough health care for every one. Right now the people they "dump" go the the ER anyway!

Even GM closed due to the money they owed to private health corporations.

How can USA corporations hope to COMPETE internationally against businesses that don't have the crazy for profit health care burden??? We need desparately to DISCONNECT health service from employment.

yours

dr david in NYC

Regarding the Canadian Plan, where will the Canadians go for health care when they get rationed out of the system if not the US, because the US adopted their system!

Tom

I am outraged with the Democrats. More specifically what I have been hearing about the Blue Dogs. They are really Republicans calling themselves Democrats. I was an independent voter and switched my affiliation when President Clinton was running in the primaries. I felt very strong about real change in healthcare. Now with President Obama the lobbyist are influencing a watered down healthcare reform. I am unemployed and have just lost my healthcare! Mr.Daschle I disagree, its real change or keep the "status quo" and take this country down an ugly path. Maybe then people will really do something about!

"Political courage"? That's rich, coming out of Daschle's mouth. His and his fellow Democrats' cowardice is breathtaking. And damnable.

Private Blue Cross plans went public so they could have stocks and stock options and make the executives rich. Just a few years ago, the CEO of BCBS in NYC had total compensation of twenty-million dollars for just ONE year - at a time when the workers were losing pay and benefits. The whole company had about 5,000 employees and CEO made $22 million. Ridiculous.

To echo Kale from Fort Greene, if Obama caves on the public option (as he has caved on Wall Street, 'preventive detention', etc.), I *will* vote against him -- not for a Republican but for a third party candidate.

caller Kathy is right, this is watered down insurance reform not health care reform. If we do this, it will only make it more difficult to get real reform down the road. Let's get it right, reduce cost and have a public option. If the private marketplace is so good then they will have a competitive advantage and will prevail in the marketplace over the public option. However they are deadly afraid of true competition, at the very least have a system where the true cost are transparent.

Why isn't having the government pay most of the costs of becoming a doctor on the table? That way the doctors don't start their practices with enormous debt. Then they should be willing to accept salaries or other income limits.

We are a Republic not a Democracy Sen. Daschle. We are not a pure democracy. Otherwise you would have the votes for a public option.

Come on, Mr. Daschle. Democracies dictate all kinds of things. Measuring systems (like metric, Myanmar is the only other country that still doesn't use that). Safety standards. Taxation. All things that are dictated.

i like the callers point. we can't try anything other countries have done. it's like that on many topics

THINK people, esp liberals, about the power you would give to the government over your biology if we had single-payer.
Would you have wanted President Bush to have decided whether or not you were able to get abortion, fertility treatments, Viagra and/or end-of-life care?
For that matter, would Republicans supporting health care want a different president to decide that, even though you want to preserve your embryos for future reproduction, the government can't afford to store them and thus they will be destroyed?
What if you want Viagra but the Congress decides sex is not medically necessary, even for a married man?
What if your 72-year-old mother wants to live another 10 years but she needs intensive respiratory support, and the Congress decides it would be too expensive to keep her breathing just to be a grandmother to her grandchildren?

Also the pro-life community is against this bill since it supports abortion as a required item that is covered. It's supporting Planned Parenthood.
There seems to be no evidence that this plan will save any money.
It also seems that this plan will make the government the health care provider, private plans will not exist as such.

Obama will not win a second term if there is not a public option. All of the progressives and first time voters who came out for Obama will lose hope and fade back into the wood-work again.

I am really disturbed by the lack of support Pres Obama is receiving on this issue. He is the first president in a long time who is trying to do something meaningful to ensure we provide healthcare for the millions of uninsured Americans. I wish the criticism of former Pres Bush had been as fervent on so many mishandled issues. It only shows how those who have don't really want reform. It means they will have to give up a little and that is scary to so many people. Let's focus on doing the right thing and support the President on such an important issue

And ask the former senator about his and his wife's ties to the industry. And all the money to Baucus and other Dems.

I agree entirely with the caller who expressed anger about the apparent likelihood that the public option will be removed. Without this element, the change will be wholly inadequate. And my support of Obama will all but evaporate. Daschle should be ashamed of himself. And his health care-car purchase analogy is insultingly stupid.

Angela Braly, CEO and President of WellPoint (one of the largest insurers and owner of Blue Cross Blue Shield), explicitly stated that WellPoint places a priority on profit over clients, customers, patients.

That tells us all we need to know about American health care.

As for Mr. Daschle's claim that he would be happy to have his own family on a plan under what is being proposed ... GIVE US A BREAK.

Daschle, as a former member of Congress, and his family is still covered by the health care plan that members of Congress enjoy -- a plan they would never vote for average Americans.

Here's an idea -- Mandate by law that Members of Congress and the President be covered by what is publicly assessed to be the *worst* option in the US (or let's make it easy -- the *average* option in the US).

Let members of Congress experience the conditions of average Americans. Then they'll be motivated to do something.

SO ANGRY!!!!
I've worked on every democratic presidential campaign since 1992, and last year I contributed over $1000.
NO MORE!!! I don't even think I will vote.
I am completed disgusted with the democrats. You're such freaking wimps. Are you that beholden to interest groups putting money in your pockets?!?!?! They sicken me.

Read Paul Krugman's opinion/editorial from a couple of days ago.

I understand Mr. Daschel’s conciliatory tone, but maybe what he doesn’t realize is there are enough disenchanted voters, after seeing the administrations positions on transparency, consumer rights, civil rights, gun control, corporate welfare transparency and control, and health insurance reform and ignoring a true affordable public option, that if the Democrats do not produce real health insurance reform, they will lose seats in 2010 and President Obama’s reelection in 2012 is unlikely. I’m not saying they would vote Republican, they simply won’t vote.

Like one of your callers, I am also appalled at the inability or unwillingness of the Democrats to give us a public option. And if they'd actually been paying attention, what we voted for was single-payer health care.

Saying they don't have the votes is a curious and telling statement -- when you consider that two thirds of the population support single payer, what do they really mean? -- not enough big-money donors support real reform? Maybe they should keep in mind that the voters support reform.

In plain english, this compromise is a JOKE. I cannot believe after all this time this is the best we can do. It is shameful. The Dems have really let down this country. I don't even need to hear anymore about the issue. It is DEAD as far as I am concerned, and I feel there are many that feel the same way. WHY BOTHER even campaigning for health if you are just giving band-aids away.

Why don't we consider healthcare a fundamental, basic right - just as we do education? All get access to basic public healthcare, with optional, gold-plated supplemental available for those who want it and are willing to pay? (just as in private schools) My understanding is that removing profits, marketing costs, etc from the healthcare system, we have enough $ for all. WHY ARE WE NOT DISCUSSING THIS???? Those of us who have "good" insurance through our employers are NOT happy...I don't know anyone who is.

Dems are once again being outmaneuvered by Republicans. This plan for health insurance reform, as distinct from health care reform, will contain poison pills which will burden the public and sink the Dems with little if any public benefit.

The Insurance companies are the winners here. Without a public option they have no competition to keep them in check. History proves that not- for-profits can't compete with for profit models.

This isn't a bridge, this is a dam, blocking any chance for a decent (in every way) health care system.

The plan will be unwieldy, expensive, and confusing, draining off any support for a clear and straightforward public option.

As such, it's worse than doing nothing.

We don't need sixty votes. We need 50 plus Joe Biden. Bush didn't have 60 votes and got everything he wanted.

This is not change, this is watered down. Just like the stimulus bill. This is not what the people's mandate voted for.

Get the lobbyists out of Washington!

With all this talk about health care, why is no one speaking about tort reform, I understand there are no OB Dr. in NJ because of the high cost of insurance?

Tom

It's not like this is an insolvable problem. We seem to be throwing our hands up and saying "this is just too complicated for us!!!!"

It's like we're in an accounting class with 30 other students, and we're the ONLY one who can't come up with an acceptable answer for a homework assignment. Meanwhile, EVERY SINGLE OTHER student has implemented a solution that works, in just half the time/$ that it's taken us to come up with out insufficient answer.

Only in this case, looking at somebody else's answer isn't against the rules. In fact - when lives are on the line over getting a working answer, peaking at another's solution is a moral imperative. We need to admit we're doing it wrong, and look at somebody else's paper - but apparently we're not even smart enough to do that.

why not universal medicare????????

So, what exactly is the plan being proposed?

Nobody actually seems to be able to coherently explain to the public what the exact changes are that are being proposed. It seems that pure rhetoric and straw-man arguments are all that is being tossed around.

Can somebody make a video/infographic to explain the proposed changes (and what happens without the changes)?

This is totally ridiculous. I TOTALLY AGREE WITH KATHY who just called. As anyone on Medicare knows, a "public option" is by far the best health plan in America. How did the Democrats lose control of the message, which is really what's happened. The Democrats are letting a few centrists dominate THE MOST CRUCIAL issue in this country. It is indeed appalling.

Where's the full disclosure about TD's health industry speaking fees?
Almost a quarter million!
See: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004328

What provisions are being made for self-employed, part-time, essentially unconventional work situations where insurance is not provided by an employer? Indeed, organizations like the Freelancer's Union are wonderful for us but premiums rise at least once a year.

How would a public option reduce costs?

Without a "public" health insurance plan, how do you keep the "for profits" honest? I'd worked as a practice manager for an ophthalmologist, and my experience reflects an essential greed and dishonesty to the "for profits."

If this doesn't work out, will we ever have the will to do what Britain did in 1948 and Canada did in the 1960s--a single-payer system most people like, and an opportunity to buy private insurance to supplement it?

I'm an Acupuncturist in practice for 13 years.
No where have I heard in the healt care debate about using Eastern Medicine and other healing modalities which have proven to help alleviate many chronic conditions without expensive meds and is also cost effective?

The only thing I'm worried about with these co-ops is that the people who really can't afford to buy health insurance now still won't be able to afford private health insurance under the new co-op system. Will costs really come down so much so that people just above Medicaid but not really in the middle class will be able to buy health insurance on their own? I doubt it. It sounds like the Republicans are thinking about relatively wealthy suburban voters, not the people really in need.

What did Daschle think of the Jon Stewart interview with William Kristol of the Weekly Standard Magazine where he praised the VA and admitted that the government can run a first class healthcare system. But, said that the rest of us can't get access to the same healthcare.

Apparently he believes that benefits to people need to be tiered according to what appears to be a caste system.

If I join the communal health pool, how much approx. would it cost every month?

brian: here in nyc, many public employees are watching with trepidation as their non-profit
health insurer, GHI, merges with HIP to form an new for-profit entity.

Sen Daschle implied that "we don't have the votes" for a public option.

Which members of the senate, especially the Democrats, who do not support the public option?

I'd like to know so I can get on the phone to Washington.

Thanks!

The public overwhelming prefers a public option, so here we have yet another example of Obama and Congress serving the wealthy, not the American people.

As John Edwards mentioned last week, without a public option we do not have health care reform but only health insurance reform.

To pretend that what we now seem likely to get will seriously improve the American Unhealthcare System is delusional.

As many have pointed out recently, *all* but two or three of the industrialized countries with Universal Health Care also have greater life expectancies. That is, the four or five hundred million people who enjoy Universal Health Care also experience longer (and better) lives.

Too bad Daschle had his easily avoided tax-related lapse before his ill-fated nomination to Obama's White House.

The leadership and prior relationships he provided and which would have then emanated from the WH would have been very valuable, something that the current administration does not have on healthcare besides Obama himself.

Will they allow Medicare and Medicaid to bulk purchase pharmaceuticals?

I keep hearing that Max Baucus is a centrist Democrat.

What exactly is a centrist these days? What constitutes the center. I have seen headlines on news sites that the center has moved to the left. And, I have seen polls that state that people want a public option and are willing to pay more taxes.

So what is the center?