So I know that real national health care is a dream, but about the public option,

[Cleita]

I just have a question. How can it only cover about 2% of the population and still be called a public option? How can it be called a public option if anybody who wants to use it can't unless they belong to the right demographic? Let me illustrate.

Now most Americans went to public school through high school and many of us went to private or parochial school because it was our parent's choice, choice being the operative word here. Now, I went to parochial school, but in the eighth grade my family got upset with one of the nuns, so they enrolled me in the public junior high school. Nobody said that because my parents could afford parochial school that I couldn't enroll in public school, that I was in the wrong demographic. A year later they put me into the local Catholic High School (different nuns). I could have gone back to the public school any time I wanted or I could attend the Catholic school. That is known as real choice. The difference is that the Catholic school charged tuition and often many Catholics could not afford the tuition so many went to public school. But no one is turned away from the public schools no matter how rich or poor they are as they are tuition free.

This is the way a real choice in health care should be. Also, almost everyone pays into Medicare, yet the workers under 65 aren't allowed to be enrolled in it even though they pay for it. What if the public schools refused to enroll your child for various reasons, but you still had to pay taxes for it? Sure people who send their kids to private schools do pay taxes for public schools, but their child will never be turned away if they choose to send them to public school.

Please explain to me how the way this bill is developing that the public option can even be called that? This truly is the Insurance Profit Protection Act.

[sandnsea]

1. If a person's share of employer based care

is too expensive - then they can absolutely go to the exchange and use the subsidy and find something affordable.

They are not requiring business to pay for whatever plan the employee chooses, that's what they aren't mandating. The employer will still have the power of numbers to negotiate premiums and will still be responsible to help pay for it.

It isn't a question of not allowing working individuals to join the public option; it's a question of not mandating employers to add the expense of managing a different plan for every employee and having their own premium rates go up as they lose employees out of their plan.

[Cleita]

2. You don't get my point. There should be no "if".

If any individual wants Medicare they should be able to enroll in it regardless of what the employer offers.

[sandnsea]

3. Who is going to pay for it? n/t

[Cleita]

4. It's already paid for. It's known as part of your FICA deduction on your

paycheck. Raising the caps and taxing billionaires will pay for it who will not miss the extra money. It has been laid out over and over again where the money is coming from and it's a lot more cost effective than what this plan is going to cost. If the CBO would only rate HR676 the proof is there but no one wants you to see the truth.

[sandnsea]

5. That is not enough to add infinite people

Once again, you won't deal with the reality of what we have and prefer to argue about a plan that isn't even being proposed.

If you want to know why the public option isn't open to everybody, I answered that.

If you want to have another rant about single payer, then do that. But don't confuse people by conflating the two because they aren't the same issue.

[Cleita]

6. What infinite people?

It works for all senior citizens. Why don't you think it would work for those who want to opt into it? All they have to do is increase a few taxes. Most people I know would gladly pay more taxes for a choice of a public plan of comprehensive health care if they could get out from under the plans they have now which cost them a lot more than an increase in taxes would. I am talking public option here not single payer. If they want to throw away more money for private insurance, let them.

This is how it would work. I don't like the plan I have at work, so I would prefer to take that money and buy into the public option plan preferably modeled after Medicare. See, it's simple.

[FLDCVADem]

7. It doesn't work for senior citizens

if you consider the fact that it's going broke at a rapid pace.

[Cleita]

8. Oh bullshit. I'm a senior citizen and it's the best insurance and one I

can count on that I have ever had in my life. Medicare part D which is a big wet kiss to the PhRMA industry is why it's getting drained because they can charge anything they want for drugs so we end up paying three to four times as much for the same drug that other countries pay. It not only affects Medicare but the price of your drugs too. lt's time for the government to stop the big PhRMA corporate welfare program and all will be well. Fix that and add the millionaire tax and it will be fine.

[FLDCVADem]

10. It's providing the care

but it's going broke. That can't go on ad infinitum.

And Medicare was in financial trouble long before Part D was enacted.

[Cleita]

11. Reign in the PhRMA costs and get rid of the privatized Medicare

Advantage programs, another corporate welfare scam brought to you by Republicans, and Medicare will be fine.

[FLDCVADem]

15. Sorry, but that just isn't so

I'm not anti-Medicare by any stretch, but it has real financial problems and has had those problems for many years before Medicare Advantage (which was put in place to try to help control costs) and Part D. There is no way in hell that getting rid of Part D and Medicare Advantage is going to fix the Medicare financial crisis.

[Cleita]

16. Well, there are a few Senators who will disagree with you like

Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer. We don't need to get rid of Medicare Part D. We need to fix it so that it's useful for seniors (it's not, I don't have it for that reason) and so it can manage costs like the VA does. It's not like there isn't a model out there that is operating successfully. We need to give seniors full basic coverage with Medicare and that will eliminate the Medicare Advantage programs, which are nothing but a scam anyway. In my area no doctors accept them, so when you go to get health care you find out that you have to pay out of pocket for that reason. I know they scammed by husband, gave him a list of doctors to see and none of them wanted to have anything to do with him.

[sandnsea]

20. Whatever - but that has nothing to do with the current bill

So there's no reason to make any reference to a public option if you're really talking about a completely different single payer plan.

[rollingrock]

9. Then it shouldn't be called a Public Option, should it?

the term is misleading and deceitful because that ain't what it is.

[Kansas Wyatt]

12. You have the option to....

Never work again, lose all your belongings, and go homeless for a year.

Then you can choose the Public Option.

The United States Government still wants you to be bankrupt and at the mercy of Corporate America, before you have any Public Option or help from the Government.

This country has become nothing, but a scam.

[Cleita]

13. Exactly, and we always had Medicaid for that anyway, so this so

called public option is neither public nor an option if you can't get it if you want it. Smoke and mirrors is all we are getting.

[Kansas Wyatt]

14. They are basically expanding Medicaid a little bit.

Like I said, they want people bankrupt and at the mercy of Corporate America, before they want anyone to have a Public Option or help from the Government.

Public Option = Small Expansion of Medicaid

[sandnsea]

21. No no no no, not the same thing at all

They are expanding Medicaid to either 133% or 150% of poverty, for all adults.

The public option is completely different and will be another choice in the Insurance Exchange. There's nothing about being without insurance for a year before you can choose the exchange or the public option. If you're employed, you have to stay with your employer based insurance unless it is over 12% of your income. That's all.

[kentuck]

17. I think the idea is to save Medicare?

It needs more people in the program in order to do that.

[kixat2550]

18. It's not public health care. Agreed

[PHIMG]

19. It's not public and its not an option.

It's a mirage to give gullible parstisan democrats something to feel good about and to neutralize the threat of medicare for all turning into a real movement. it probably bought the insurance companies about 8-10 years of freedom to prize gouge but the movement will grow and get it done.

it's not a dream - it's the future.

[Hello_Kitty]

22. I've thought the way you do for a long time.

I guess the difference is that the public schools started out as a "single payer" type of system, whereas we're now trying to cobble together universal health coverage while maintaining a private, profit-driven industry. I wonder how many DUers who support this subsidized mandate to buy private health insurance support private school vouchers and other efforts to dismantle public ed. I'm guessing not many.