Any legislation which doesn't authorize the birth of a "public option" health insurance plan will be unacceptable to the leadership of the new National Socialist Party. The "public option" will be their gateway drug to an eventual central government takeover of the entire health care industry. When this goal is finally realized they will be able to control ALL elements in the daily lives of the American public by labeling them "health related."

I personally think there needs to be some sort of health care reform but both of the parties need to work together and come up with something both sides can agree upon and is good for americans.Our current Insurance company's suck and continue to raise our premiums every year and continue to take benefits away each year.
But for the senate to say the bill is dead upon arrival is unacceptable from these clowns.
I could care aless about the public option but make it where people can afford it in the public sector and not be turned down for insurance.
If I had to buy insurance right now in the public sector I could get it for all of my family with the exception of a couple of my children because of the medication for ashtma they take.They wil not insure them.This is a crock of crap and these are the type of things that need change.
Everybody that is against this where it makes it where everybody has insurance think about it people who are on medicade through the states for their children would now have insurance and even if it was paid for by the goverment it would be cheaper then the goverment paying all of the medical bill that could pile up.
There needs to be something done and it needs to get done soon so all of the senator and congressmen need to get something done for the american people.
Maybve we could have the health insurance we pay for them then we all would have excellent health insurance.These bumbs do not care they got what they want from us.
They need to qiut sweeping this under the carpet and get something done that both sides can agree upon and put it behind us and move on to more important issues.

god bless lieberman.

This past summer, my wife received notice that effective January 1, 2010 the cost of her BCBS health insurance premiums will TRIPLE. Not just raise a little or even double but TRIPLE in cost to almost $700 a month. Something needs to be done to control the insurance companies.

zeke,
You are correct something needs to be done to control this.Insurace company are getting away with legalized robery.At the same time our benefits are getting taken away and we have less benefits.

REFORM yes, adding people to insurance at an excessive tax cost NO. Reform is improving not making illegal immigrants legal and insuring them with our taxes. Reform is NOT reducing Medicare to accept others into insurance. Lets be real Obama and the democrats want the public "beholding" to them like public housing and food stamps then they can run the country into socialism. If they want reform, fine but they are not offering reform they are forcing more tax burden and costs on us and our children. Do not follow the empty suit pied piper and his crooked cohorts (he deceived you into voting for him and he thinks he can continue lying and deceiving don't allow it).

So who is going to pay for this bill?
Yes, insurance premimums are going sky high, employers are cutting benefits.
I don't have an answer to this huge problem, with a 10% unemployment rate there are tons of people out of work and on very limited incomes, it's the wrong time to try to get this bill accomplished.
More taxes upon more taxes to pay for all the benefits.
Tax me now because I won't have health insurance.

We in this country have seen Pres. Obama work on health care most of this year but we don't have jobs.
More attention needs to be paid to the job market, getting the country back to work and then try to fix the health care problem.
Reform the current system, regulate the current system and take care of the problem at hand. NO NEW TAXES until we get AMERICANS BACK TO WORK!!!!

I've was engaged in the health care field for much of my career. I've continued to be involved in retirement through membership on boards and councils.

Our national health care system is a disgrace. Our infant mortality rate is a disgrace. Our unaffordable prescription care is a disgrace.

Roy Blount helped substantially worsen the mess we now have when he supported the Medicare "Reform" and "Improvement" act of 2003. It was purely and simply a means to loot the public treasury, written by and lobbied for by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

I agree with Dennis Kucinich who would not vote for the bill on the grounds it gave even more money to the insurance industry-dominated unworkable system. We need a single payer system and we need it posthaste. We are spending 30% of our health care expenditures on insurance industry bureaucracies and have fallen well behind the rest of the industrialized world in standards and quality of care.

you don't sound like a skeptic to me, you sound like you are a well educated person. i agree with all that you had to say. when are we going to stop paying through our noses to the insurance company's? they telling us what we owe and just accepting it as gospel.

The idea of a single-payer system of health insurance should be put in the skeptic tank where it belongs.

Insurance companies are powerful, when it comes to lobbying and collecting (and raising) premiums. They are powerful when it comes to keeping their anti-trust exclusions so they can stifle competition from new or other insurance companies and divide up the pie among themselves without violating anti-trust laws. Unfortunately, they have almost NO power when it comes to controlling medical overcharges from hospitals and doctors and clinics and labratories, etc. They cannot negotiate fees for services and they cannot keep doctors and hospitals from practicing defensively to avoid lawyers and malpractice and etc. All they can do is sign the checks and raise the rates accordingly. It is absurd to think that insurance companies can do ANYTHING to reduce medical expenses or contain costs, other than to interfere with services delivery, dodge pre-existing conditions, limit amounts paid out for high-end, unhealthy customers, etc.
Now, it IS true that they took advantage of their exclusive and safe position in the health care industry to gouge out huge profits and executive salaries, but it is ludicrous to imagine that they would ever be in any position to contain costs or control expenditure at the doctor and hospital and drug company level. That is where the problems are and that is also where the insurance companies are POWERLESS.

For the ones on here that think health care reform is not needed tell us your plan please because from where I stand I think it needs to be some sort of health care reform for thew american people.

One provision that would NOT be in is a prison sentence of five years and a fine of $250,000 for not participating in the plan. Yes, that penalty is in the bill passed by the Pelosi House. Is it constitutional? Who knows.

MM1967, you want a plan?

Allow insurance to be sold across state lines and legislate major tort reform.

MM, do you have any idea how many health insurance providers there are in the US?

Do some homework - then ask yourself why you only have access to maybe 3 (BCBS, CHP and Aetna, is it?).

By changing the market from 3 providers to over 100 what do you think would happen?

What happens to the price of anything when the supply is greatly increased?

This is your homework for the day. Then tell me it won't work and that a "public option" is necessary.

You know - part of the reason your kids can't be covered under current laws is because of liability. If they cover your children, they have to accept them and perform any tests/surgeries that need testing.

Very few doctors are willing to trade their careers to operate on a child with breathing problems. And with tort reform the way it is now - that's exactly why no one will touch your kids with a policy. That and the fact that the chances are great your child will require a lot of coverage at a cost to the company. Well - your legislators let that happen.

Once again, reform yes - turning the whole system upside down to accommodate a TON of lazy people and a FEW hardworking Americans who can't catch a break? No way.

They're afraid if something goes wrong you're going to sue the pants off of them. And why shouldn't they think that? Lazy-ass Americans have made a whole niche out of such practices.

Tort reform and open state lines. Give that plan 2 years and see what happens. Why not? The Osama-bama plan wouldn't go into effect until AFTER the next election anyway - what's the harm?

You can't give me one good reason other than the twisted notion that somehow, despite all of it's past failures and current examples of failures, the US government will be more efficient at running health care than doctors and businessmen.

LibertyorDeath,
You have a complex with people you think everybody is lazy and out to get something for nothing.Nowhere did I say this should be free.Also so you do not believe any reform is needed and children like mine can just continue to be turned down for health coverage?You have a few screws lose somewhere if you think this.You are almost saying that these children and people should just die becasue they cannot get insurance.
I like the way you group all americans into one group as being lazy.Look on the post about jobless rate I left a reply for you on there as well.
If you think it is so damn bad here there are plenty of other countries that accept people like you.China might be a good start for you.

You obviously didn't read a damn thing I wrote.

Try again.

I have a hard time reading things from people such as judgemental self.Sorry.
I am for health care reform in some shape or form if it maen opening up where insurance can be purchased in a different state and it is cheaper so be it.It also has to included where children and people that have health care issues to be able to purchase and not be turned down.Who do you think pays for the uninsured we do.Why do you think the doctors and hospitals charge so damn much because we pay for the uninsured.
We cannot pass something to help with this issue but we can pass a 700 billion dollar bailout for banks and company's which some of the company's will never pay us back.Talk about screwed up.We also can pass a stimulus that is not doing a damn thing for our country.But when it comes to health care reform we cannot.I do not believe it should affect the medicare system for our elderly at all or the Vets benefits at all.But something needs to be done and all of the senators and congressmen need to get off of their high horses and work to gether to get something done bothsides could agree upon.Here's another idea listen to the american people.

LiburtyOrDeth-If you think for a minute that insurance companies won't continue to conspire to keep healthcare under their control, you need to follow your own advice and read up. They operate completely free of anti-trust law (the only institution with that privilege, not counting professional baseball) and that is the reason there has never been any choice to speak of. Letting them peddle their expensive and exclusive product across state lines won't create competition because they have legal control and will divide the pie as they see fit. Get rid of the anti-trust exception for insurance companies and they will drop like flies. Fail to do that and they will maintain their chokehold on the market as long as they possibly can.

Lol, the American people, that can be bothered anyway, offer a resounding, "NO" to proposed legislation.

I'm not the one who said there aren't any problems. I'm the one saying the changes they are making will help NONE of those problems and only create more.

Don't talk to me about bailouts as if I endorsed them. If you're up for a discussion, let's have it but don't put an agenda on my plate that doesn't belong to me lest I Shearin you with what's on that plate.

The changes Pelosi would implement are primarily political payoffs.........NOT solutions to the problem

Enough with the dis-information:
Write Wingers fine and prison sentence are ridiculous and not in the bill. Where DO you get your info or do you make it up yourself. The tax penalty is $1500.

Insurance companies do have the power to bring down costs. However, they give hospitals a lot of room for high charges. Insurance companies cut little from hospital bills. Doctors are another matter. A doctor recently charged $5000 for a knee replacement, but only received $1800 from the insurance company. From that he must pay his staff, office costs, educational loans and medical malpractice insurance. Medicare is actually planning to incease payments to doctors so that they will actually see Medicare patients.

Sold across state lines: sounds good, but unless we have a nationwide set of guidelines, then insurance companies will move to the least regulated states and their performance will be a lot like the credit card companies--high charges and high profits with no recourse if there is a problem.

Malpractice reform borders on myth: Missouri's Republican run legislature did malpractice reform. What happened? The insurance companies did not appreciably reduce the rates.

Freedom?: How much freedom do you have when you have to pay $15,000 (deductible included) plus copays and out-of-pocket each year for access to health care and medicines.

Under the insurance reform plan, I could look for a different health insurance plan that costs less without be excluded for all our pre-existing conditions. I could pressure Blue Cross for lower rates, so I would not move. My mothers doughnut hole would be reduced or go away.
Eventually, the growth of medical costs would slow or even be reduced.

Recently, a Harvard business professor wrote that capitalism does not work without regulation. Neither Harvard nor any other business school has require a course in regulations for 40 years. Instead, students and now business leaders were taught to get by with what you can.

Those are not American values. I was taught the rule of civil law and the higher moral law. Our country is reaping the harvest of a 40 year decline of regulation with 1998-2008 being the worst.

And what did Blue Cross do in a year with negative national growth--they raised rates 9%.

It is time for reform in insurance and hospitals. $78-$110 billion per year is not very much compared to $500 billion or more for the "war" department. On top of it, savings and restoring some of the income taxes that the wealthy have avoided for the last 8 years will pay for it. No increase in taxes for most of us.
The senate needs to pass the bill quicky.

No, I don't make up my own information, I get it from a November 5, 2009 letter of information from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress of the United States.

The Pelosi bill imposes a penalty for non-compliance to purchase an approved health insurance policy. Failure to pay the penalty can result in the fine and imprisonment I described.

Read the JCT document in PDF format at:

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/JCTletter110509.pdf

The Senate needs to pass the bill quickly?

WHY???

The damn thing won't even go into effect for years. What's the damn rush... oh, I get it. So the people don't catch on.

Nothing noble is done in the cover of darkness.

And yes, there are fines AND criminal penalties (jail/prison time) for non-compliance.

Get YOUR facts straight.

peoplerule: My dad had knee surgery at the old Sister's Hospital; the doctor had 5 surgeries going at the same time so he was not only paid for dad's but also for the other 4 which was a very good pay day for him. There needs to ba a change in the way doctors,hospitals and drug companies charge. That is what is out of hand!

To peoplerule if you are still out there:

See and listen to Speaker Pelosi explain why it will be "fair" to jail anyone who doesn't comply with her health insurance scam:

http://www.thefoxnation.com/health-care/2009/11/11/pelosi-its-fair-jail-people-without-health-insurance