I come from an Island with one "critical access" hospital. Some of your rural "island" communities are in the same boat, and they,too, can see the visible workings of the health care system and private health care insurance work. In MA we have universal coverage based only on the private insurance industry. There is no "public option" for working families who get kicked around, unless they lose their jobs and then qualify for public welfare.

Even though our Island is only 7 miles off the coast, people are frightened to challenge the hospital or insurers. Our dream in an emergency is to be helicoptered out to Boston or Providence.

I have worked so many decades with both feet in the unnecessary human suffering from health care in every region of our country that I have no fear. Only determination to persevere.

I wrote this today for an East Coast Newspaper's Health Care Blog:

There are so many layers to exploitation and outright fraud and waste of tax dollars that raise the costs of care and deprive people of the networks of providers they want when they get private insurance.
For instance, in my home on an Island in Massachusetts, under the Romney Plan, on the Island where the Obamas will go on vacation in a few weeks a lot of these needs for reform are visible.

A couple of years ago, "Partners" in Boston "bought" two Islands' hospitals (Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard Hospitals) through Massachusetts General Hospital, which "Partners" owns along with some other hospitals). If you can figure out what this corporate monster health care holding-company really is- other than a giant high-cost Middle-Man with lipstick, let me know.

Our two Island hospitals were two of four "critical access hospitals" in MA. Apparently Partners found that if they could motivate one of these two tiny hospitals voluntarily de-certify themselves it would re-set some of the region's Medicare caps for their highest-cost teaching hospitals and bring in $170 million per year: reportedly $60-70 million per year for Mass General and some for Brigham and Womens’, and unintentionally some for UMass Memorial in Worcester (which they don't own). These are 100% federal tax dollars for doing nothing. I would guess that the final number for all of that region's high-cost teaching hospitals above $170 million.

In return Mass General/Partners said that they would guarantee the bottom line of these two little hospitals which had been somewhat stabilized by their "critical access" designations, but had bottom lines that went up and down like yo-yos (sometimes deficits as high as $2-4 million in the worst years, surpluses in others). Both Island hospitals received a lot of community donations whenever they asked.
Martha's Vineyard has 15,000 year-round residents and a bunch of wealthy summer visitors and property owners. They were in the process of raising $40 million in private donations to replace the old hospital facility.

In April 2009 the hospital announced in the paper that roughly 1,200 of the Island's low-income working families who had a partially-subsidized Romney Health Plan with a Boston-referral system "outside of" the "Partner's Network", would have to "voluntarily switch" to a Partner's-friendly Boston network. These 1,200 were 8% of the Island's year-round population. Later they ignored our protest, said it was less than 1,200 and did it anyway. No one had a choice. The Romney Plan does not include a "public option". Every private plan "slices and dices" MA's health care delivery system based on "incentives".

A few years earlier the hospital bought up and hired all the Primary Care physicians on the Island (except for one tiny rural health clinic which they fought initially).
So all those working families would lose their pediatrician and internists as well as have to fight with the only Island hospital if they did not use the state's "Health-Connector" to change by May 31st 2009.

Last week I saw headlines in the paper that the hospital is charging fees that are 4-8 times the usual and customary charges in MA where average health care costs are 30% higher than any places I have lived and worked before moving here in 1995.

So, let's see: the community raised $40 million from its users and supporters, Partners "purchased" the two tiny "critical access" hospitals to generate $170 million more for some high-cost teaching hospitals, Island hospital fees are 4-8 times the state average, which are 30% above most of the US, and 8% of the Islanders had to change plans or lose their doctors.

I am so grateful that I now have the "public option" -- Medicare, an affordable entitlement. I, like President Obama, am tired of having our citizens being "held hostage", by private insurers, incompetent or greedy healthcare providers and their "middle-men", and having our tax dollars plundered irresponsibly.

I am sure that someone will drive the Obama's by the impressive new hospital building. The only thing missing is a new hospital board, new hospital administrator, a full-time non-interventional cardiologist, more professional handling of granting medical staff privileges, a few independent primary-care docs on the Island not salaried by the hospital, some "public-option" safety from the reach of private insurers, and reasonable management of health care charges and costs.
This sounds a bit like the need for health care reform, doesn't it?

What a strangely scripted, "I could be from anywhere and nowhere at all kind of comment." Looks like the Obama camp is sowing the field for their upcoming visit. Most people I know still find Government run 'business' the most inefficient form possible. Let's keep Uncle Sam out of the health care business.

Our current "Health Care System" is utterly unacceptable, unjust, ineffective and wasteful. The status quo is not an option. We cannot let industry dupes obscure the facts.

If that comment about the Obama Camp is about me. That's not me. I have been a pain in the butt about our local "critical access" hospital for years. I couldn't get a physician. I had to take a ferry and travel an hour to get to a community health center for primary care, and go out of state as an uninsured patient for surgery. The local hospital wouldn't accept my insurance. They frighten to death the elderly and keep billing them for every little thing and won't accept even some of the commercial Medicare retirement plans that those seniors are tied into.

When I traveled through the Far West doing some evaluations of innovative programs 2003, I found people's families (not undocumented immigrants) encouraging them to commit petty crimes to get jailed and start treatment for Hepatitis C which they couldn't afford. In other states like Washington there were innovative telephone networks for people in rural Washington coming home from hospitals of all kinds with no medical or mental health services available.

I happened to stumble on your web site several months ago and it was good honest, respectful dialogue. I thought I might be pushing things too far telling the most recent story of my Island - didn't want to disturb you.

The only encouraging thing I see now is that there are so many young people involved, not just people over 65 like me. I ask them why they are so interested in health care all of a sudden. They don't really have any specific reason.

I got laid off suddenly and was feeling a bit down and read about
"10 tips for Older laid-off workers". When I read that "older workers meant "40-55" and that their unemployment rates were twice the younger group I was surprised. if they're older workers, then I'm "ancient". According to that view of things-- I guess I had a pretty good ride staying employed this long.

These are surprising times, aren't they?

How are the working public supposed to get tickets to this meeting? I stopped in at the Belgrade City Hall this afternoon and was told that although the City offices open at 8am, tickets won't be available until 9. They have a 'maze' cordoned off in front of the building in anticipation of a huge number of people waiting in line to get their tickets to the meeting. Since I will be at work by 9, I have no chance of getting a ticket (I was planning on taking time out of my day on Friday to attend, but I can't take hours off tomorrow morning too). So i guess the meeting will be attended mostly by students, the unemployed, the retired, and the 'independently wealthy'. Most of us out there working to pay taxes for the government to spend are being excluded. Democracy in action?!

There are lots of rumors floating around Big Sky today about an Obama family visit. Lots of helicopters have fanned the flames. One rumor is that Rt. 191 will be closed on Friday afternoon. Another is that the Obamas will be staying at the Summit Hotel at Mountain Village. Time will tell.

Andy, you just discribed the crowd responsible for Obama's raving success! Evryone out there is going to be hoping for the figurative money thrown out of the hovering helicopter. Meanwhile, those of us w/o law degrees will just have to keep the real world operating by working.

Government healthcare is not the right decision. We need to stop giving away free healthcare to illegal aliens and America needs to exercise more.

Our current healthcare system is the best in the world. It is also free-market based and people have choices. Sure, there are problems that need to be addressed, but why is every solution Obama has for anything to nationalize everything and vote on it before anybody can read it ? Why is the cost always $1 trillion for every program ? Obama clearly wants a single payer government controlled program, while most Americans do not. Obama seems hell-bent on bankrupting our nation.

Why can't they just address the few problems with the system. Maybe give those without health coverage vouchers for VA hospitals. Medical savings accounts are a good idea. But the real purpose of Obamacare isn't to fix healthcare, it's to nationalize healthcare and move us towards a socialist/communist society. Stand and oppose it, or don't whine when you're fitted for the shackles of bondage. These people think that we are here to serve them.

It's interesting that for Obama's visit, the Belgrade City Hall did not get any tickets, and no lottery was imposed as promised. Instead, Baucus and Tester operatives called all their local supporters to show up at 6:am, at which time they quickly handed out the tickets and left, not giving the general public a chance. And these are the people that we elected. If they can't fairly and adequately hand out tickets to a Town Hall meeting, they certainly should not be entrusted to devise a new health care plan for our nation. Throw the bums out.

Mike, All one has to do is watch Fox News or the Daily Show to know they aren't screening out irate conservatives and their "death panel" nonsense at these "Town Halls".

mike,
perhaps our country provides the best healthcare treatment in the world but the system as a whole certainly seems to have some major flaws. if the unemployment rate is 15% we know we're in the middle of a crisis. but with an uninsurance rate of 15% you say, "Our current healthcare system is the best in the world." that's over 40 million americans who have zero insurance. there are millions more with absurdly high premiums and prohibitive deductibles. maybe we should say our current health insurance system is not the best in the world and needs some serious adjustments.

bozeman bound,
i agree with you that americans need to exercise more. i don't agree with your xenophobic attitude toward immigrants. hitler also used scapegoats to focus popular emotion and draw attention away from real economic solutions. please don't follow his example. our comfortable lifestyle is subsidized by illegal immigrants working for substandard wages to wash dishes in restaurants, pick produce, labor on construction sites...all the jobs you and i don't want. have some respect and don't pretend all our healthcare problems will be solved by denying coverage to illegal immigrants.

Why would we want to screen out "irate Conservatives" even if we could? Our system only works with creative dissonance in the form of opposing viewpoints. If the U.S. government gets a major hand in the Health Care system, you will remember the irate Conservatives as you sit on hold to ask a government call center employee whether or not you can get in for a surgery. People involved in beaurocracies are always so helping, caring, and cost savings oriented. No skin in the game equals a poor business/monetary result. Who do you think takes better care of their car; the Sheriff's motorpool mechanic, or a private citizen?

BTW, stopping the LUNACY of paying for illegal aliens' health care would definately help.

100 million of us already have government health care: Medicare, Medicaid, VA, and SCHIP for kids. I love my Medicare. No middle men. My entitlement, the Public Option, works fine for me.

All the Congressional Bills exclude coverage for illegal aliens. Not an issue.

About the other comment: that "everything seems to add up to $1 Trillion now". You're right. That's true. That's Just the Media and spin-masters trying for good headlines for Health Reform. This is how it goes:

They say that Bail-outs cost a Trillion in one year, as a single event, not to be repeated. Do you believe that?

They say that war costs $180 billion a year instead of $1.8 Trillion over 10 years.

They say that Corporate welfare paid to commercial Insurers to "compete" with traditional Medicare is already costing somewhere around $100 billion a year instead of $1 trillion over 10 years.

They say that not getting the lowest available price for drugs for Medicare costs at least another $100 billion per year, but not $1 trillion over 10 years.

BUT WHEN THE MEDIA OR OPPONENTS TO HEALTH REFORM TALK ABOUT THE ADDED COST FOR UNIVERSAL COVERAGE THEY SAY $1 TRILLION (but don't tell you that is OVER 10 YEARS and not $100 billion in one year).

So, as they say, "on a level playing field", the war in Iraq costs $18 trillion over ten years.

The drug companies and insurance companies (just counting corporate welfare for Medicare) are wasting $2 Trillion over 10 years.

For Heaven's sake, compared to all that, the health and lives of 45 million uninsured Americans are worth more than the lives of 45 million gerbils or guinea pigs. We are living human beings, citizens not just "consumers". We are OUR TRUE NATIONAL TREASURE.

We waste hundred of billions on Bailouts and corporate welfare for corporations with broken business models, and investors who demanded 13% return on risky deals, but want their stupidity to be paid back to them in tax dollars.

We "little people" paid 20% on our credit cards, got 4% on Bank interest on Savings Accounts, and Adjustable Rate Mortgages. Since when I we now "a bad investment"? Since when are we now "a drag on the economy"?

Now we "little ones" pay 25% for credit cards, get 1.5 % interest on savings, and bailed-out Banks are refusing to negotiate down our mortgage loan balances on our primary residences, as they do every with people who own more than one house.

There's a good 4-5 years of detailed Health Reform work reducing the waste in the private and public health care sectors. There are hundreds of billions of low-hanging fruit that have nothing to do with patient care- just bad or fraudulent business practices and the costs of high-priced "middle-men" whose job it is to pull in more corporate welfare for private ventures.

There's no easy solution. Actually, there is. We could fix it in one day by offering Medicare to all citizens who don't have it.

Hello Andy Leggett and Mike Comstock -

You both expressed concern about the fairness of ticket distribution for tomorrow's town hall meeting. Andy, you wondered how the average person could get a ticket and Mike, you said something about Baucus and Tester sending friends at 6 a.m. to gobble up the Belgrade tickets. I was in Belgrade this morning trying to get tickets myself. I arrived at 5:45 and there were about 100 people already in line...the first 50 or so all sound asleep in sleeping bags and the other 50 having gotten there in the wee hours before me. People could arrive whenever they wanted and alot of them got there before dark last night. And we were a real mixed group, believe me. And Andy, you're right, it's hard to make arrangements to do something like that. I heard stories of people doing all sorts of things to get themselves there. Working people, parents, the whole lot. Some folks went to great lengths to get a chance, and most in line did not get tickets. When the tickets were passed out I didn't get one and neither did the 300 people behind me in line. They ran out a few folks ahead of me. But that's life. And as my 7 year old daughter and I said over breakfast when I got home, a whole bunch of nice people in front of me DID get tickets. I hope they are as friendly and respectful of the opportunity to have an audience with our president as they were to each other this morning.

phat man

your delusional, paranoid rants about anti-everything are neither coherent nor do they have a point. Not everyone who works for a living in MT agrees with you or your wing nut rants and raves.

Oh, I am positive of that. What I don't see is your ideas on the subject other than being anti-Phat Man. Give me your non-delusional working Montanan take.

Another Obama Dog and Pony show....WoW!

Viral emails from Axelrod, plus NBC,CBS and the MSNBC cheerleaders are still unable to convince the public that they need a government take over of the healthcare system. The more people learn about the program the more they don't want it, we also can't afford to have this administration bankrupt the country.

Regarding the "Death Panels" and NO rationing, when Obama has his advisor on healthcare, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who is the health-policy advisor at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) plus a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research (FCCCER), don't forget to mention the brother of the President's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, it seems not to be off base.

January, 2009, Dr. Emanuel published a paper in the Lancet [Persad, Govind, Alan Wertheimer, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel,"Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions." The Lancet 373 (Jan 31,2009): 423-31]. In the paper he argues for the use of a "Complete Lives Systems" method of allocating care. Quotes from the abstract:

"We recommend an alternative system--the complete lives system--which prioritizes younger people who have not yet lived a complete life and also incorporates prognosis, save the most lives, lottery, and instrumental value principles."

"Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different states rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years."

No matter how you spin it, facts are facts! We are going broke as a nation, plus with a finite number of doctors and medical facilities care will have to be rationed. The bottomline is, Obama pushed to rush this through like the Stimulus(pork)Bill and never expected the American public to be able to really debate the issues in the Bill. They have been caught with their pants down and are scrambling around trying to defend an indefensible monstrosity that the CBO even states will not accomplish what the Administration says it was set up to accomplish.

You have to watch this group of liars like a hawk...Buyer Beware!

There are millions of people in America that are not illegal immigrants who have no ins. ,and for these people we have the worse healthcare in the world, how can we be the best when we are at 28th in the world for infant death mortality. I have 2 working sons who have no ins. one is half crippled over it, I have a niece who tried to kill herself cause she has a debilitating disease, and has lost her job, her ins. her cobra, her boyfriend, her meds are 900 a mo. and is now losing her home. She was a surgical assistant, Welcome to HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA. I also have a friend who has 2 grand daughters with lumps in their breast and cannot get a free mammo, these gals are in their 20's, the cancer places are for women over 40. welcome to healthcare in AMERICA. and a diabetic nephew who does without insulin sometimes and reuses syringes, he lost his job, and no ins. . Yeh its the best. all right.

Mike Comstock. What is in that koolaid you are drinking. VA for the uninsured. That is for our military people. Medical savings accounts? These people don't have any money. Do you not get it? They don't have money. You cannot save what you do not have. My husband stood in line for 5 hours to get our two tickets to see Obama. We were not called. The other hundreds he stood with were from both sides of the debate. Belgrade handed out 150 tickets. Have you read HB 676? Read it. Are you going to be opposed to your government run Medicare when you turn 65? Single payer is not socialist health care. It is run like Medicare. Do your homework. Don't spill this garbage all over the internet as well as our local paper until you are informed of the facts!!

43 million people living in the United States are currently without health care insurance. This staggering statistic means that the remaining 260 million Americans are presently covered in one way, shape or form.
Now how is the medical community going to provide adequate services to these additional 43 million people if there aren't enough doctors around right now to take care of the already covered 260 million? Where are these new doctors to accommodate the additional 43 million people going to come from? The moon?
The ugly government solution/answer is pure and simple: RATIONING and long waiting periods for everyone (and the death of private health care companies) if universal health care is legislated and enacted!
Finally, the government bureaucracy can't be trusted running this vital 20 percent medical industry of the U.S. economy. Government takeover plainly and blatantly smacks of socialism! There is already 10% fraud and corruption in the government-run Social Security system. And just look at what's happened to the government-run Post Office and Amtrak train systems! They're both flirting with bankruptcy! In short, the federal government can't operate anything, except clumsily running this great country into the ground!

uhh Jack

are you forgetting that bush jr. already bankrupted america.
You wing nuts dont speak up when bush takes away our rights (patriot act) and trashes the constitution, launches pre-emptive strikes in the middle east, rapes the rockies for oil and gas etc etc.

but if you try to help the american public by giving them health insurance then oooh boy thats too much.

Dont forget who got us into this mess

THE REPUBLICANS and you think just like em

thanks wing nuts

Astel,

I'm still waiting to hear your non-delusional take on the Health Care situation you are chiming in on. Do you actually know anything about the issue? All I am hearing from you so far is what you DON'T believe in. What are YOUR thoughts on House Bill 676?

Please try to keep in mind, the government can't actually GIVE you, or others anything. They can only take from one person and redistribute to others. The Gov doesn't actually have any money - it's all OURS. I think most of the people in opposition to this Bill are interested in paying their own way, but not interested in paying for your health insurance.

Maybe Obama should take a page out of Bush's play book and have meetings and speeches on military bases for the next 3 years. It amazes me that people fight and rally to stop programs to help themselves, but have no problem with Halliburton selling cases of Pepsi for $45 each to our soldiers while they hire workers from third world countries for $30 a week.
So if you think the war in Iraq was just. Then put your tax money where your mouth is and pay for it, because Bush and Repub's borrowed the cash from CHINA and gave big tax breaks to the top 2%. That was fine right? But spend money domestically on Americans, can't have that can we? While you twisted Republicans are crying about helping illegal aliens working in the country, Bush has spent trillions building hospitals, roads, schools and yes paying for surguries and health care for millions of Iraqies.We are flying them here for healthcare Their unemployment is more than 50%. We are and have been paying for them the last 8 years.Thats when you should of been running yor d**b mouths.

Astel, NEWSFLASH...Bush is Gone!

This is the Obama mess, if you haven't seen it yet the deficit is up 4 fold to 1.4 Trillion this yr. and will go to 1.8Trillion or more. The last years of Bush were run by the Dems in Congress! The healthcare Bill from CBO states it will run over another 1 Trillion, we know that government estimates are always too low. This HR3200 will probably run 5 trillion over 10 yrs. What type of tax rate and VAT tax will pay for that?

Republicans have tried to get into the debate and were shut out by the House. Where is tort reform? Why can't we buy med insurance over State lines? The Dems don't want to discuss real insurance reform, they want to put through a liberal single payer program and totally control the system and 18% of our economy. This Bill is designed to drive people into a govt policy over a 3-5 year period. There are no free lunches in life the money and care is going to have to be re-distributed.

More problems ( facts), there are not enough doctors or hospitals and that equals long lines, rationed care and PEOPLE WILL DIE! The American public, by 80% is happy with their present care and don't want it totally redun because of an agruement based on fake inflated number of uninsured, especially using illegal aliens. The Bill won't cover everyone either, so if you are so concerned why are you for it!

I say mandate Congress to take the Program, they work for us! They don't want it, so don't ram it down our throats! This is the same old Liberal story, they know what's best for everybody and will BS facts to just get the agenda through. This Bill almost got ramed through in the middle of the night...IT WAS THE BLUE DOG DEMS that put the stop on it!

Jack is right on the money!

I don't think that there's much to worry from single payer during this go-round. Max Baucus had the physicians and nurses who said they wanted single payer expelled, handcuffed, and arrested for asking to participate on the Senate side. Single payer advocates were banned from and not allowed to speak at any of the Obama regional health summits in March and April. So they have not had a chair at any of the "tables" in any of the Senate hearings. I haven't heard any of them participating in the House discussions, but can't say definitely.

There is an HR 676 single-payer bill that will be voted on separately (with very little time for discussion) that some Congressman feel is necessary for this to look like a functioning democratic process to the rest of the world.

So don't feel like the Lone Ranger as a Republican. It looks like both of the ends of both sides were, as they say "marginalized".

Republicans are having a full hearing in the Senate thanks to Sen. Grassley.

Personally, I still want citizens to have one public option to choose from among the 30 private plans and will continue to fight for it, unless they decide to jack up the prices on the "public option" to make the private insurers happy. Whoever heard of "leveling the playing field" to allow fair competition by jacking up the costs of the Best Buy?

Just curious. The Republicans in their trenches are firing volleys at Obama under the red banner of " No government intrusion into private health care ". ( Never mind MediCare and MedicAid and the V.A. clinics ). The conservative right wingers are railing and wailing against government intruding into private lives as usual, but Obama is the target.

Excuse me but aren't these the same rabbelers who just a few short years ago literally passed an act of Congress to keep just one person ---- brain dead unresponsive Terry Schiavo --- on her respirator at all costs. An Act of Congress that President Bush had to suspend his vacation to fly home to Washington from Texas to sign into law ?

Not to wholly excuse Max Baucus and his fellow Blue Dogs here, it's still painfully obvious that the GOP has purposely turned health care reform debate toxic. Purposely ; using the lowest form of political change: the mindless Angry Mob focused on the messenger not the message. The strategy conceived like Frankenstein's monster in the laboratories of the insurance lobbying firms to terrify the villagers into taking up pitchforks and torches. When the cabal echoing the outrageous claims of Sarah Palin and her ilk that Obamacare would establish Death Panels to ration care with extreme prejudice among the elderly and no longer productive , you really have to ask a fundamental question: how many deaths have already occurred in our For Profit medical system due to non-care, inadequate care or crisis-only care among the 40 million who cannot afford insurance int he first place? The GOP is protecting the profits of Big Medicine and Bigger Pharma at all costs. Americans who could've been saved by a single payer universal care system as practiced in Canada have already died because of Republicans heartless callousness.

To which I would say if there was ever a crash program that succeeded in developing a vaccine against both Greed and Hypocrisy , then the GOP would likely go the way of the Whigs and the Bull Moose Parties.... to the cemetary of political irrelevance.

I continue to hear people hold up the Canadian health care system as something we should aspire to. I found this article, published this week, very interesting. Seems like the Canadian Medical Association recognizes their system is broken? Read the article if you wish entitled "Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors". One quote I saw in the text had a familiar ring: "(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable,".

Full article at : http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jbjzPEY0Y3bvRD335rGu_Z3KXoQw

I have been sending the message below out today to try to show how using private insurers and meeting their financial demands to: level the playing field has worked out so far with Bush's privatization experiment in Medicare. Doesn't make any difference to insurance companies whether your Republicans or Democrats, they just run over politicians and consumers with a bulldozer if you challenge them.

I don't think that the public option is dead. The fat lady didn't sing yet.

"Now Americans who have not been angry are getting angry with the announcement of an abandonment of the public option by the White House, to be replaced by Health Cooperatives that no one knows how to run and scheduled for 2013!

We could flip the switch in Medicare and do it in one day with no start-up subsidies. There were successful Medicaid buy-in experiments in 2002 for disabled people with incomes above the Medicaid limits . Evaluations found no additional costs or complexity for state administrators.

The insurance industry is repeating what they learned before the pre-mid-term elections during the Bush Administration when they extorted an extra $1,600 per person/year for those people who chose the Medicare Advantage programs. They announced that they would be disenrolling a hundred-thousand since they could not compete with traditional Medicare.

Only 25% now choose Medicare Advantage, 75% still choose traditional Medicare. That Medicaid Advantage costs tax payers $17.7 billion annually in the Medicare budget ($177 billion over 10 years) WITH NO ADDED VALUE.

Hey, it worked then, so why shouldn't they try again?

If private insurers now gobble up just 40 million of the uninsured at $1,600 each/ year, that adds $700 billion for someone to pay over 10 years FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, NO ADDED VALUE! The two groups together waste $900 billion!

Our auto, banking, and insurance industries with broken business models require billions of corporate welfare. I recommend that we could try Grameen or Tata to run them."

All this ranting. The bottom Line is THIS - I'll Gladly take ANY Government Controlled Health Care System that The OBOE can dish up... When he and ALL the other Clowns in Washington, D.C. Step up in line ahead of me and get their coverage the SAME WAY that they are trying to impose on us. Until then leave me the Hell alone... SAVE U.S. in 2010 - the first step to re-gaining our Country from the idiots...