Arkansas Blog

"But Dr. Snyder remains hesitant about a public plan and is emphatic that it must preserve patient choice and pay for itself. He said he had positive experiences with Medicaid, however, calling it his practice's "most efficient payer."

Well maybe you should heed your own words, if the private companies won't pay or pay late doesn't that give you a clue. Also if folks cannot afford a prescription then shouldn't that be a hint as well? Seems like Vic been drinking too much of that lobbyist kool aide. The reason so many folks are so concerned with this issue is that they have little or no affordable health care. Take thyself back to your GP, in a rural area or poor part of town. I think you'll begin to remember what it's all about.

I hope Vic is reads the ArkTimes blog. He should know better than to buy into into the industry's straw man argument that a public plan would do away with choices and would not pay for itself. Vic is regurgitating their propaganda.

What is the use of having choices if you cannot afford any of the choices? While the stockholders of health insurance companies are raking in money, the cost of health care is skyrocketing, businesses are shedding health coverage or going under and people are getting sicker and they are going bankrupt due to medical debts. They current system is financially good for this country??? Congress is letting people die so that insurance companies can make profits. I call that murder for hire.

"Pay for itself...?" If providing health care coverage for American citizens through a public plan is a budget-buster, how are the grossly inefficient private insurers able to make profits quarter after quarter?? That's even with their bloated corporate bureaucracies. Private insurers are only efficient in denying care. By any measurement, compared to insurance companies, Medicaid and Medicare are the epitome of efficiency.

Don't you think that America would be wealthier with a healthy citizenry? Or is wealth only to be measured in dollars in a quarterly report, not in improving human life? It's no longer of, by and for the people - it's of, by, and for the corporate campaign contributor.

Why does Congress continually subsidize the private health insurance companies by denying Americans real access to medical care? The insurance companies know that with a public plan, their lucrative cash-cow becomes rotting burger. Everybody (individuals, businesses, government) who has had to fork over their income to the private insurers will realize that they have been cheated for many years. They'll realize that a public plan is actually less expensive and infinitely more humane.

Vic, you have been away from practicing medicine with real people for too long. You have become a private-duty proctologist for the insurance industry.

Jim Lendall, RN

Apologies to proctologists who do great work in spite of being the butt of too many medical jokes.

Vic -

I like the comment that this should be both a Demo and Repub mutual interest topic. Yet it feels, once again, that the repubs have the louder momentum. How is it, that with Demos in control(for the most part) that Demos come across so weak?

Now is your time to surround yourself with past and current health-care professionals and come up with a solution that most can live with, YET better than what we have..it is out there!

Is it that you hear the foot steps behind you and feel a mini-me threat to your seat? I understand you maybe losing a bit of sleep with three times a baby, yet snap out of it!

P.S. Jim - Thanks for the save on Proctologist's fine work and avoiding making an "ass" out of yourself

I wonder if the health plan our Congressmen are blessed with pays for itself.

I would much rather hand my money over to a federally operated single payer system than Blue Cross-Blue Shield. Lest we forget, BCBS was set up as a collection agency for hospitals and have steadily expanded that role.

You heard about the proctologist and psychiatrist who practiced together -- specializing in odds and ends.

But Dr. Snyder remains hesitant about a public plan
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That is disappointing...I think the public plan is crap also but not for the Health Care lobbyist talking points that Rep. Snyder uses. His voting record is middle of the Dem. "pack" but I thought he would be a more vocal advocate for UHC-Single-Payer.

Cartoon. Do the clicky

I've been saying it for months... On health care there is not a dimes worth of difference between our Republicans, Blue Dogs, conservaDem Senators and the New Dem.

Has anyone here read one bill or heard from one credible source (with link) of a bill under consideration that would take away patients choice?

Vic is repeating a false insurance industry "scare" talking point.

And of course it should pay for itself.. that's why a progressive tax on upper income folks is (once again) in order. And it's why the public plan must resemble single payer by allowing everyone who wants the public plan to buy in... Including - especially younger to mid aged healthier working folks... who should not be triggered out and forced to buy private insurance. This will be good for everyone... people and small or medium sized business.

Bottom line,Vic said no. For a human being, much less a congressman to be on the fence of denying 50 million people care and all the other problems underinsured folks have... is just cold hearted to the core.

And it's why the public plan must resemble single payer by allowing everyone who wants the public plan to buy in
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I agree and the Obama administration has specifically said that the health care legislation will be written to prevent it from evolving into single-payer. I think Bernie Sanders is the only Senator who still advocates eliminating the blood sucking insurance industry.

"And of course it should pay for itself.. that's why a progressive tax on upper income folks is (once again) in order. "

In addition, House Dems may have bought into Obama's "entitlement" reform and plan to cut $500-600 billion out of Medicare and Medicade. How many years have Dems fought the Republican meme that Medicare is an "entitlement" and now that Obama has called it an entitlement it OK. Gag me.

With the economy in the tank and State revenues falling, cutting Medicade is an assault on the most vulnerable people in society.

We spend 17 cents out of every GNP dollar on health now. More.. Way more than enough money to paint every ambulance in gold, roll out red carpet at every entrance, and provide extravagant care for every single human being in our borders. And still we would be able to reduce overall costs.

It's just a matter of redistribution... it's just a matter of deciding we will not treat each other the way we have. It's just a matter of whether or not enough folks will hound 535 people in DC for all the shame they have so richly earned.

Isn't commander vick so nice and so elusive. He know what a disaster medicare and medicaid are. Doctors are opting out because it doesn't pay enough. The fraud is huge and totally inefficient. He knows this but doesn't want to step on the toes of his supporters who tend toward the moonbat. Medicare, medicaid and social security represent a $63 trillion unfunded liability and totally unsustainable. He aslo knows that. However, he knows that his moonbat constituency will march blindstep into national bankrupcy without a wimper. I also noticed that the well off commander vick didn't offer to pay the bills of those patients who couldn't afford his doctoring skills. I guess living in Robinwood requires a lot of 'bread' and commander vick can't afford that kind of 'I feel your pain'.

mike.. You are grossly misrepresenting the 63 trillion dollar meme:

Here what it says on the House.gov page

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$63 Trillion and Rising
May 1 , 2009
By: Paul Ryan

Yesterday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its update on the Nation's Long-Term Fiscal Outlook (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09405sp.pdf). Under a current policy scenario, GAO estimates that the government has unfunded obligations of $62.9 trillion.

This is the first government report that has been issued to show the updated long-term outlook since the financial crisis erupted last September. According to GAO, the forecast has darkened considerably.

GAO uses two scenarios in its long-term fiscal simulations. The first assumes Congress will not alter current law - i.e. middle class tax cuts will expire, the marriage penalty comes back, child tax credits are reduced, Medicare payments to physicians are reduced by 21 percent, and nearly everyone starts paying the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The second scenario - using history as a judge of what is likely to happen - assumes Congress keeps current policies in place.

Neither scenario paints a pretty picture for our nation's long-term fiscal health. GAO estimates the fiscal gap - the amount of spending reduction or revenue increase that would be needed to keep debt as a share of GDP at or below today's ratio - to be $33.7 trillion over the 75 year period in its extended baseline scenario and nearly $63 trillion in its alternative scenario.
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So that's worst case scenario over 75 years!! roughly 400 to 800 billion a year.. worst case scenario in terms of all spending... not just health care.

Now, what if we reduced defense spending to double what Russia and China combined spend? Answer: we could be talking about surpluses in a few short years.

Now, what if workers (and everyone else) had actual care at costs (30 to 50 percent lower than we) of say 35 countries who do far better at care for all for far less money than we? What if people could improve their lives, improve their careers, or entrepreneurs could do their thing without fear of losing care?

What if we didn't fork over bailouts to fraudulent insurance companies like AIG to the tune of 180 billion dollars (or more) when the company value is worth mere pennies on that amount?

Estimates of the bailouts for criminals in the financial industry range from 7 to 15 trillion in less than the last year alone! What if we stopped rewarding actual criminals?

What if we as a country killed off insurance companies who provide no care for a minimum fraud of 30 percent to 100 percent of their take? Answer: would could be talking about surpluses in a few short years.

fraud in medicare is a tiny fraction of the fraud of an entire industry (private insurance) which is based on fraud. Fraud happens to medicaid and medicare, not because of medicaid and medicare.

There is a huge difference in terms of intent and actual dollar amounts.

This is America.. you should speak freely and completely. Cheer for denying care to 50 million, cheer for all the working stiffs who are trying to play by the rules, who will still lose their homes as soon as they make a private insurance claim.... cheer for rich financial industry criminals. Just be clear that's what you are doing!

He know what a disaster medicare and medicaid are
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Yea...all of the seniors are burning their Medicare cards in protest about how sh*tty the program is. After having to spend >$50,000 in out of pocket costs for health care over the past 2 1/2 years, getting my Medicare card, a few months ago, was one of the best days in my life.

Eureka, your economics is terribly naive. The debt burden on $63 trillion dollars is unsustainable. Forget about defense and all the other 'discretionary' items of the budget. The unfunded liabilities and the debt burden will soon account for 100% of our budget minus defense and all of the other 'discretionaries'.

Obama knows that he will have to ration care and the seniors are the ones who will pay for it. Canada and the UK have already started that. Health care costs regardless of who pays. When it reaches a certain point then the only way to control the costs without politically unsupportable taxes is to ration. It is just common sense and to ignore this is to being wedded to an ideology over rational sense. Baby boomer are the ultimate beneficiaries of this nonsense and I can't think of a more deserving generation.

Oh, now it's the "naive" attack. Did you learn that in elementary school checkers tournaments? Be specific!

One should not forget about anything. We do agree there are huge problems... funny how the naive one is willing to face facts and look at everything they can possibly find.

i guess that's your national health care solution too. Tumors? forget about it... just keep the system we have.. that will surely work... since it's what got us here. Oh, wait!?

If you think that national health insurance is such a good idea why don't you ask the Canadians? They will give you an earfull especially those who are older and have catastrophic illnesses. Check out how long it takes them just to get an appointment with a specialist. Also, how are you going to pay for it? We are in the trillions as far as deficits and the debt are concerned. We are talking about including about 50 million more people than are covered now by some form of health insurance and you are advocating something that will require coverage for all Americans and more than a few illegal aliens. Who is going to foot the bill? Are you willing to pay a hefty increase in your taxes to purchase a sledge hammer to kill a knat?

>>If you think that national health insurance is such a good idea why don't you ask the Canadians? They will give you an earfull especially those who are older and have catastrophic illnesses.<<
strangelove

In fact someone did. But, warning those who asked were not Rwing, insurance whore-spin doctors.

click on eLwood for a survey of what Canadians, USA, English think of their health care, 2005

"Aside from a lower rating in Britain in 2004, the personal healthcare ratings in the three countries have not varied much since 2003."
Gallup

Hospitals under the national health care system have an above overage rate of death and infections than American hospitals. They are notoriously dirty. There are surveys everywhere designed to prove whatever point you want but the bottom line is that Canadians come here for health care instead of using there own system. They are sweating what we do relative to health care as much as Americans because they may no longer have an alternative.

Where are we going to get the money to pay for this? Will 'obama care' be as efficient and effective as medicare and medicaid? Will it be cost efficient as medicare and medicaid?

Studies Compare Canadian Healthcare Costs to U.S.

Healthcare bureaucracy cost Americans $294.3 billion in 1999. The $1,059 per capita spent on healthcare administration was more than three times the $307 per capita in paperwork costs under Canada's national health insurance system. Cutting US health bureaucracy costs to the Canadian level would have saved $209 billion in 1999.

The authors found that bureaucracy accounted for at least 31 percent of total US health spending in 1999 vs. 16.7 percent in Canada. They also found that administration has grown far faster in the US than in Canada. Between 1969 and 1999, administrative and clerical personnel in the US grew from 18.2 percent to 27.3 percent of the health work force. In contrast, the administrative/clerical share of Canada's health labor force rose modestly, from 16 percent in 1971 to 19.1 percent in 1996. These labor force figures exclude the 1.65 million employees at US insurance companies and agencies, as well as the small number of private insurance employees in Canada.

Overhead in Canada's provincial insurance plans, which provide most coverage, averaged 1.3 percent vs. 11.7 percent for private insurers in the US and 3.6 percent for US Medicare. Bureaucratic costs were also far higher for US doctors and hospitals than for their Canadian counterparts.

>>Where are we going to get the money to pay for this?<<

Ask WalMart who is supporting BHO formula for providing health care at contained costs. Unlike you the management and owners of Walmart are millionaires and billionaires.

Let's ask you a question: Where are we getting the money to pay for the broken system we have now?

I say we go back to the good old days of Ronald Reagan and embrace the tax rates prevalent then.

.

What exactly is 'broken' about our current system? We are all being asked to take on a significant tax and debt burden so I would like you 'progressives' to tell me what we are fixing.

>>tell me what we are fixing. <<
strangelove

A majority of bankruptcies are due to medical costs. A majority of people filing bankruptcy have health insurance.

50 million Americans uninsured. I know a few. They simply cannot afford it.

My brother is very well off. He and his wife pay $25,000 per year for health insurance.

Private insurance spends 31% of its revenues to administer health care. That means 31% of the money paid for health care goes to non-care such as multimillion dollar executive salaries.

Medicare spends 3% on administrative costs, perhaps higher now since one of Bushco's parting gifts was to add $170 billion to the tab with his private billing services for Medicare.
.

.

I would like you 'progressives' to tell me what we are fixing.
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I am being very serious..Have you had a significant illness/accident in the past few years? Incurred major medical bills? If you haven't, I can understand your position. 60% of individual bankruptcy filings are largely do to medical bills. Of those people filing, 80% had medical insurance. A few years ago, I wouldn't have believed that, now I do. After co-pays, deductibles, denial of charges, and "balance billing", out of pocket costs will send many families into bankruptcy after a major medical event.

The profit margin/greed factor is the most blaring difference between us and Canada and Europe. Squeeze the more egregious parts out of the system and let's meet in the middle. The folks that I've talk to that have lived in Canada and Europe are generally ok with their care and purchased personal/private care for faster care. Not too expensive and available.

The elimination of those profiterring entites, which add little to no value to the equation, should be enough savings for us to meet in the middle; where we receive the care we want, while helping those 35 to 50 Million of our fellow Americans that are not currently covered.

One blaring example of the silly season, is to look at the rambling brick and motar expansion at UAMS over recent years...ask the folks working there, on the front lines, if all of these buildings have helped them provide greater care to their patients and as health care providers were asked for their input as to how to improve UAMS.

WWJD? (what would Johnnie Cochran do?)

Yes, but what national health insurance covers is ALL health coverage. If you are talking about catastrophic coverage that is a more limited issue than national health insurance. If you are talking about limiting all out of pocket expenses then you need to explain how that will be paid for. The money is going to either come from private insurance and out of pocket expensies to the insurance holder or the government is going to have to pay for it. That means the tax payer pays what the private insurance and the individual pay today. The money is the same it is just who is going to pay for it. The bottom line---taxpayers will pay for a lot more than they are paying for now. That means much higher taxes and an increasing deficit and debt. You are just saddling our children and granchildren with the cost of entitlements that they can never pay off.

If you are talking about catastrophic coverage that is a more limited issue than national health insurance.
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First...Have you had major medical bills in the last five years? And second, what dollar amount do you define as catastrophic? If you do have health insurance have you had an lawyer read the "fine print" in you policy? When you filled out the paper work for your health insurance, were you 100% accurate in answering the questions? Did you forget a medicine that you might have taken in the last five years, an illness, an abnormal lab test?? If you did, then if you start costing too much, the insurance company will pull you policy, look for any errors and if they find any, charge fraud and deny payment.

Paying for it, no easy solution but a place to start is to eliminate the 25-35+% that the private insurance companies take off of the top of the health care dollars.

Ok, then what you are saying is that you want the federal government to limit out of pocket expenses to a certain amount. That is still far short of national health insurance.

Yeah, maybe we should ask a Canadian. Clicky...

http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_12523427?source=commented-opinion

I'd like for Vic Snyder to do one of two things. Either give me the exact free medical care he's enjoying or give up the free medical care and join me in the ranks of the uninsured. Let's have one America, OK? Strip Congress of their free health care and we'll have a workable national health care plan in place by Christmas.

Everything our new friend mike says comes right out of the old tired Fox News playbook. The Canadians are happy with their health care system. And here in the states, have you met a poor doctor lately? When I was growing up I knew a lot of well off doctors. They lived up and down Free Ferry Road in the nicest houses in town. Good for them. But 30 years ago the bean-counters and the pr firms started moving in to medicine and suddenly the cost of having a baby went from 200 bucks to 4000. Sure the doctors got a cut of the profits, but a big part of those profits went to people who wouldn't know a colon polyp from a hemorrhoid from an umbilical cord.

Over here in Fort Baptist the bean-counters-profit managers-HMO groups have murdered Sparks Hospital, the leading hospital in this area for over 100 years. It's still standing, but bleeding out the ass. A recent buyer ran like hell when the true debt on the books came to the surface. A private hospital is going up a mile and a half away and people are already standing in line to do business with someone who IS'T Sparks Hospital. It's very sad. It's sadder that I can't visit any of them should that tumor I've been waiting on finally make itself known.

I spend every waking moment worrying about money....like everyone else on this blog. I have never even collected a day's worth of unemployment...I've never got a government handout until last year when FEMA gave me a check after a killer hail storm, the effects of which can still be seen today all over town. But because of preexisting conditions, I can't buy health insurance.

In the last year doctors have suddenly been showing me the door because they won't risk their practice treating a person who can't afford expensive tests. One of them told me very nicely...you're in a pickle....If I can't run the tests I need to run, I won't risk giving you an aspirin when your problem could be an undiagnosed cancer. His advice was to go beg the local charity clinic, which I did and was turned away because we make 7000 dollars a year over the limit.

So I guess when my diabetes meds run out in a month I'll be slipping through the night with a hacksaw and crowbar looking to break into a closed pharmacy. If that doesn't work I guess I'll just start making my way to the old elephant grave yard. I will not let an illness bankrupt my family and put my wife and kids under the bridge about the time I hit the graveyard.

But mike...let me help you....America has a never ending bank balance. Our money hasn't been based on anything since we went off the gold standard decades ago. Our government has as much money as they say they have...they pull the figures out their ass. So don't worry we'll run out of money....it's all in your head. Take a tablet if you can afford one.

" . . . [Y]ou are advocating something that will require coverage for . . . more than a few illegal aliens."
You folks knew that was coming, didn't you?

What's broken about the system, Mike? Not a damn thing, Mike. Not one damn thing. IF YOU HAVE INSURANCE YOU KNOW YOU CAN COUNT ON UNTIL YOU GET MEDICARE. (Oh, and if you're squawking about Medicare, then try to find ANY private insurance after 65. My father couldn't when he turned 65 before Medicare came on line and he was in excellent health. His only major -- snort -- health problem before that? A bad case of hiccups. HICCUPS!)
When my husband retired, I took advantage of COBRA -- keeping company insurance but paying for it out of savings. In my case, that would have lasted three years, except the company didn't last that long. I managed to get a BCBS policy with a HIGH deductible.
But as HenryS pointed out, you try to remember every doctor's diagnosis, medication, test, anything medically related that might have happened over your lifetime. That's how broad the underwriting questions can be.
Did I inadvertently leave something out? I wouldn't be surprised.
Or perhaps there's something in my medical records that a doctor suspected but didn't mention to me. That happened to me more than 20 years ago when I checked into getting individual coverage rather than continue to pay what I thought was an exorbitant premium for family coverage. The insurance company insisted I undergo testing before they would consider my application. Even though the test results were negative, the company offered me a policy at a higher premium than I was originally quoted and excluded coverage for all future gynecological issues. I stayed with company insurance.
That's one of a multitude of things wrong with our system, if system were even the right word. And it's not.
Right now I'm paying upwards of $4,000 a year for health insurance with no real assurance that I will be covered if I have a major illness or accident. Don't even try to tell me that my insurance company won't do their best to avoid paying a hefty hospital bill. When I broke my arm badly several years ago, BCBS contacted me five -- FIVE, mind you -- times to try to figure out a way to recoup their costs. I was asked repeatedly if I had fallen on someone else's property. (They could go after that homeowners insurance.) Nope, tangled with my own garden cart on my own property.
Now you tell me that company won't put my application under a microscope if I have a heart attack or am diagnosed with cancer.
But I'm one of the lucky ones. I do have insurance. I do have some chance that any future bills will be covered.
Mike, you can't see beyond your own nose. What I hear from you is this: "I've got mine so the rest of you can go to hell." I have news for you. You may not always be in that enviable position.
Of course the issue of cost must be addressed. So let's do that. Don't just say it's going to be too expensive so let's maintain the status quo.

Well, if old vic were being really honest he would advocate that you get exactly the same coverage he has as a federal employee. He won't because they have cadillac coverage. He also failed to mention that the benefits that federal employees receive will NOT be taxable under obama care. He won't mention these facts because he wants to be the hero of the 'progressive' community. However, those of us who are not lockstep vic supporters know better.

Well, if we use your logic, diogotta, then the government ought to provide everyone with what all the others have. How about the government give all of us $1 million? No, cause there would still be some that had more or something the rest of us don't have. Where does it end? Does it matter that the government can's afford to continue to give with no end in sight. We are bankrupting this country and the ones who will reap the whirlwind are your children and my children. You are consigning them to a bleak and gloomy future.

Unfortunately, the average American today views the government as a 'sugar daddy' existing to provide handouts if we want them. The end of that way of thinking is a bankrupt sugar daddy.

"The bottom line---taxpayers will pay for a lot more than they are paying for now. That means much higher taxes and an increasing deficit and debt. You are just saddling our children and granchildren with the cost of entitlements that they can never pay off."

Every time I see this kind of pitch I have to smile. It is really about the money the pitcher might have to pay that might be for someone's benefit. There's this and there's that but it comes down to I want to keep mine and screw you.

Mike. Stay well unless you really want to experience today's health delivery flaws.

You know what Mike?
You are probably an ass who has great insurance and does not care about everyone else or has never had a major health care crisis or knows no one who has lost their home because of their health care bills. I bet you think insurance executives actually want to help people.
But just in case you have an open mind, care about other human beings and think that being able to get health care is a basic human right, take a gander at Bill Moyers guest this week.
Click at the blue name.

Or are you one of those people who think food is not even a human right?
BTW, if people in Canada and England hated their health care plans they would be voting for pols who want to get rid of them. and really? Who are the Senior Citizens in their country who think medicare sucks and are working to get rid of it>
Guess what? There are none.....

Senior citizens also don't want to be sacrificed so that the demos can have national health insurance. If you think that they won't bear the brunt of obama care then you are 'whistling dixie'.

Rather than sit here and fight the trolls who repeat the lies about our health care being adequate and better than Canada's, call Snyder's office at 202-225-2506.

Anyone who says Canadians don't like their health care and look down on us for our piss-poor system hasn't talked to anyone from Canada. And no, Freerepublic isn't Canada.

Ya know, Mike, I excised a comment in my previous comments -- something to the effect that you need to quit twisting other contributors' words. Now you may consider it said.
For the record: we need to consider costs, consider how to pay for universal -- I hope -- coverage. But when you consider how much we are forking over to health insurance companies now for often questionable coverage, I'd have to say there is hope that we can cover the costs. For ironclad assurances any medical bills I may incur will be covered, the government can have my $4,000 a year.
And don't tell me there aren't savings to be made in a lot of places. For example, let's say DBI can get his meds now, and all the other care he might need, rather than later when he falls into a coma and his wife or daughters call an ambulance to take him to the hospital because you know they're not gonna let him go that easily. Meds, doctors' visits and even a few thousand here, a few thousand there for tests are much cheaper than hospitalization.
Mike, think about something other than "I got mine!"
Remember what I said about twisting words.
And do stay well.

Here is what I am thinking about and you are completely ignoring----$63 trillion in unfunded liabilities. That does not include obama care. You can slice it and dice it anyway you want but the $63 trillion is not going away and you will not be able to ignore it much longer. I have seen some fancy footwork to try and sluff it off but it represents so much more that our entire yearly GDP that no math in the world will explain it away.

I hope that I stay well because someone my age will get only rationed care decided on a cost-benefit basis done by some punk in Washington, DC.

If vic is sincere about the efficient payment done by medicare then he is the only doctor in the AMA if thinks that. Many have dropped medicare.

Nobody is ignoring 63 trillion.. When addressed above and provided with numerous possible solutions where we could trim (creating surplus in a time of near depression for pete sakes).. you changed the subject to naivete and interest rates on the debt.

But it's clear you don't want solutions and you are very selective about what you see as a problem.

You are a troll.... and not a very good one.

Look, you can't do minor triming to reduce a $63 trillion dollar debt on top of the huge deficit obama is going to add to that. We have an annual GDP of about $14 trillion. Eliminate the defense budget and discretionary spending and you have only addressed about a third of the budget. You are ignoring the reality but providing puff remedies. Substantial changes will have to be made in SS, Medicare and Medicaid which means major reductions in benefits. The largest contributor to the unfunded liability mess are medicare and medicaid. I haven't even addressed our ability to continue to get the Chinese to fund these deficits.

vic hasn't anything to worry about. He will retire on the government dole and live comfortably in Robinwood continuing to 'feel the little people's pain' on your dollar. Oh well, guys like him can get away with it since 'progressives' always get a free ride.

Here's how it works. The Democrats scream National Health Care, during the campaign even though they know there's little chance if any of getting it done. When the Democrats get in they go about trying to come up with a health care program. We tried , we failed! Next election Democrats scream we need a national health care plan. Works every time.

"I hope that I stay well because someone my age will get only rationed care decided on a cost-benefit basis done by some punk in Washington, DC."

Right, because your insurance company does not do that now.
Are you one of those folks live in an alternate reality from the rest of us?

You really do seem like an ass Mike and for some reason I actually hope that you do get ill, soon, so you can find out what it is like to fight with an insurance company that you have been paying money to for years to cover the bills they are supposed to pay...or better yet have them drop you as a customer when you get ill and actually have to use your health insurance.
I bet you also think food is not a basic human right either, right?

"Senior citizens also don't want to be sacrificed so that the demos can have national health insurance. If you think that they won't bear the brunt of obama care then you are 'whistling dixie'."

Mike, this is foolish. Every politician knows that the one group that votes consistenly are seniors. That is why Social Security for current receipents won't be touched. Try to cut that and you will be an "ex" whatever. Even their mothers would vote them out!

When the 25% of the healthcare market going to the industry to assure that CEOs get their bonuses, there has to be a fix. To make the industry , which according to Republicans should be much more effective than "big government", more responsible, change all of them into mutual companies and let the policy holders decide whether the CEO of HealthSouth deserves a $350 million bonus. I doubt the policy holders who are now being screwed by thh industry would accept bonuses and might even want changes in management. If Lincoln wants to do a state co-op it should also be a mutual company with the policy holders able to vote on management retention, bonuses (vs reduction in premiums) and even whether the company should vote it self out of existence.

The more "mike" spews the company line, the more he sounds just like a lobbyist I once knew who was the shill for certain insurance legislative interests. The truth was always the first victim in his spiels. I wonder if his email address is "...@bcbs.com."

Mike is at least providing facts - unlike you liberals spouting platitudes. Vic Snyder knows that the elderly are going to get hosed by Obama's plan. Obama has made it clear that savings will be achieved by reducing expensive end of life procedures. The health care you receive will be based on your life expectancy. If you need a $190,000 pacemaker operations, you'd better not be over 70 - perhaps 60 if the health care fund is low. The elderly can expect long delays for life saving procedures. How long before we have mandatory abortions of any child with expensive birth defects under Obama's plan?

Apparently the American Medical Association was given a chance to vet the new health care proposal.

The Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.

The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve.

The Obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception. Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted.

Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the Pediatricians said, 'Oh, Grow up!'

The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it.

Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.

The Internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the Plastic Surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter."

The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea.

The Anesthesiologists thought the idea was a gas, and the Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the azzholes in Washington.