Health Care Reform that I would like to see..

Well, it looks like health care reform is probably dead in the water now that Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate went to Republican Scott Brown. Massachusetts seems to be rapidly going from a liberal Democrat state to a conservative Republican state, and given the amount of educated people there and the fact that there are no jobs for educated people in MA, you would think that this wouldn't happen.

Anyway as I have stated before if this health care reform plan doesn't take off, you won't see anyone take a middle ground. As a working class American currently with health care benefits, there are two reforms that I would like to see. One, if they could force doctors and hospitals to take anything qualifying as health insurance and not give them a choice as to whether or not to be a participated provider. I would like to see a mandate from Congress that says, if you are a doctor or hospital and you want to practice medicine you must accept all health insurance, there is no choice to opt out.

Two, medical offices, health insurance, and hospitals have to be run as not-for-profits, this way there will be no temptation from these organizations to give profits priority over peoples lives.

Members of congress are so out of touch with reality that they would never propose such things. I hope Obama's strategy calls for some contingencies, and they just don't give up like the Clintons did back in the 1990s.

The health care reform bill looks like it will just raise health care costs...

The proposed health care reform bill seems very strange to me, with no clear explanation from the government or the media how this bill will actually work. The bill that formed in Senate which seems to be the leading plan for reform has a tax on high cost health insurance plans to pay for things. Now who pays this tax, the worker or employer? I can't get a clear picture from the articles that I read, maybe I'm a little slow, but I think things are being left vague on purpose.

And what if these plans become unpopular and the health insurance companies stop offering them, then where does the money come from. I read an article that said the bill has no provision for inflation, what if all of our plans reach the $8,900 ceiling for individuals and $24,000 ceiling for families, then we all have to pay the tax?


This might make our health care plans worse in order to avoid that price cap. It would make much more sense to tax rich people. The House version of the bill had a tax on invidiuals making over $500,000 and families making over a million dollars. This makes more sense to me. Heck, I would even say we should be taxing individuals making over $150,000 and famlies making over $300,000. This would raise even more money. But somehow, maybe through heavy lobbying by the wealthy, the US government can't get away from supply-side economics, I guess Ronald Regan's hypnotic powers haven't worn off yet.


This looks like it will be fiasco, we really need to explore the one payer plan for this county, but it doesn't look like that will ever happen. And Ted Kennedy's seat now going to a Republican it looks like it is over for health care reform.