Health Care Reform

[WakeUp]

Health Care Reform


Latest Developments | Updated: Aug. 27, 2009

• The death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy became a rallying point for advocates of health care reform and could provide a new tone in the debate. Aug. 27
• Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, President Obama's special health care adviser, has come to personify the attacks on the plan. Aug. 25
• Democrats said they were increasingly confident that they could pass a bill that includes a public plan with a simple majority in the Senate. Aug. 24
• The concerns of many older Americans as they look at the health overhaul bills focus on the savings intended to come from Medicare. Aug. 21
• Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority's cooperation in approving any overhaul. Aug. 19

OVERVIEW
For more than 75 years, Democrats have dreamed of creating a comprehensive national health insurance program. With the election of President Obama, it appeared that they had the best chance in a generation to accomplish that goal. As drafting of the legislation began, the difficulties of what started as a pair of gargantuan tasks -- expanding coverage and reining in spiraling costs -- became ever more evident.

By the start of August, Democrats on one Senate committee and three House committees had approved bills, while the Senate Finance Committee struggled to find a compromise that would win even a few Republican votes. As Congress headed home for its summer recess, missing President Obama's call for both houses to vote on bills before then, outside groups on both sides stepped up advertising campaigns in an increasingly heated battle. But the conflict, and the growing public unease over changes to the system, obscured a new, broad bipartisan consensus on a number of important changes.

Lawmakers of both parties agree on the need to rein in private insurance companies by banning underwriting practices that have prevented millions of Americans from obtaining affordable insurance. Insurers would, for example, have to accept all applicants and could not charge higher premiums because of a person's medical history or current illness. All insurers would have to offer a minimum package of benefits, to be defined by the federal government, and nearly all Americans would be required to have insurance.

Lawmakers also agree on the need to provide federal subsidies to help make insurance affordable for people with modest incomes. For poor people, Medicaid eligibility would be expanded. Members of both parties in both chambers want to create health insurance exchanges, where people could shop for insurance and compare policies.

Lawmakers also agree on proposals to squeeze hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare by reducing the growth of payments to hospitals and many other health care providers. They are committed to rewarding high-quality care, by paying for the value, rather than the volume, of services.

The most heated points of disagreement concern employer mandates and the idea of a publicly run health plan. Details of the major House and Senate bills differ, but most employers would have to provide insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage for employees, with exceptions for some small businesses. Democrats also agree that Congress should create some type of government insurance plan or nonprofit cooperative, which would compete with private insurers. Mr. Obama says the public plan would keep insurers honest, but Republicans say it could eventually drive private insurers from the market, leaving consumers with fewer choices.

Seeking broad popular support, the president and Congressional leaders have played between the 40-yard lines of the health policy spectrum. Those who favor a single-payer, government-run insurance system have been marginalized, along with those who would unleash the system to the free market.

In the legislation now being considered, there is broad Democratic consensus on mandating that almost all Americans have coverage, expanding eligibility for Medicaid, subsidizing insurance for the working poor, establishing an insurance marketing exchange and requiring insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions.

But there are profound disagreements on other proposals, including the Medicare cuts, tax increases to pay for the subsidies, and the public-plan option, which virtually all Republicans oppose and which insurers regard as a threat to their existence.

As the drafting of the legislation began, the number of interest groups voicing opposition to particular provisions increased, and the difficulties of reconciling broad goals and fiscal realities became more apparent.

BACKGROUND

The Democrats' desire for universal access to health insurance runs deep. President Franklin D. Roosevelt hoped to include some kind of national health insurance program in Social Security in 1935. "The right to adequate medical care'' was also in the "second Bill of Rights'' he proposed in his State of the Union address in 1944.

In a speech to Congress in November 1945, just seven months after taking office, President Harry S. Truman proposed a national health care program, with an insurance fund into which everyone would pay. Truman said he wanted to provide health care through "expansion of our existing compulsory social insurance system.'' But he insisted, "This is not socialized medicine,'' because doctors would not be government employees.

Since then, every Democratic president and several Republican presidents have wanted to provide affordable coverage to more Americans. In recent years, Republicans have advocated a mix of different policies, including tax incentives, tax credits and health savings accounts, but have not hammered the issue as hard as Democrats.

President Bill Clinton offered the most ambitious proposal and suffered the most spectacular failure. Working for 10 months behind closed doors, Clinton aides wrote a 240,000-word bill. Scores of lobbyists picked it apart.

Congressional Democrats took potshots at it. And Republicans used the specter of government-run health care to help them take control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1994.

One of the most significant differences between 1993-94 and 2009 is that employers and business groups, alarmed at the soaring cost of health care, are now among the most ardent advocates for change.

INSURANCE AND COSTS

Insurance companies, which helped defeat the Clinton plan, now say they accept the need for change and want a seat the table.

Insurers say they are willing to accept all applicants for coverage, regardless of illness or disability, if Congress requires everyone to have insurance. Without such a requirement, insurers say, many people will not buy health insurance until they need it.

As Congress and the nation debate proposals to remake the health care system, two of the biggest, most contentious issues are the cost of any plan and the role of government.

Insurance is expensive, in part, because health care is expensive. Millions of people cannot afford to buy insurance on their own. Most proposals to expand coverage, offered by Republicans and Democrats alike, assume that private insurers will continue to operate, under stricter regulation. The proposals also assume that the federal government will offer subsidies, tax credits or other assistance to help people buy insurance.

Insurance companies have been adamantly opposed, however, to Democratic proposals to create a government-run insurance plan as an alternative to their offerings. They argue that the government's ability to undercut them by paying providers less -- as Medicare currently does -- would inevitably lead to a state takeover of the health care system.

THE OBAMA PROPOSALS

Mr. Obama's effort to change health care began with the stimulus bill, which directed new money toward the computerization of health records and research on the effectiveness of medical procedures.

In his 2010 budget, Mr. Obama gave an indication of the scope of his ambitions on health care reform when he asked Congress to set aside more than $600 billion as a down payment on efforts to remake the health care system over the next 10 years, partly by limiting the income tax deductions that the most affluent taxpayers claim.

But after sending Congress his budget plan, Mr. Obama's White House, displaying a surprisingly light touch, encouraged Democrats in Congress to make the hard decisions while the administration held forums around the country to hear suggestions from ordinary citizens.

By the end of March, the chairmen of five Congressional committees had reached a consensus on the main ingredients of legislation, and insurance industry representatives had made some major concessions. The chairmen, all Democrats, agreed that everyone must carry insurance and that employers should be required to help pay for it. They also agreed that the government should offer a public health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurance.

RUN UP TO LEGISLATION

On May 11, representatives of doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies came to the White House to voluntarily offer $2 trillion in cost reductions over 10 years. For Mr. Obama, the event was both an important boost, giving his effort additional momentum, and an opportunity to showcase his consensus-building approach.

But in the days following the event, representatives of the groups who attended began to hedge or pull back from the bold announcement, saying they had not committed themselves to specific year-by-year reductions.

In another sign of the difficulty that can lie in the fine print, officials said that not all insurers were willing to extend the commitment they had made for big changes in the individual insurance market to the market for small business coverage. Small businesses employ about 40 percent of all workers, and providing their coverage has been a profitable business in recent years, even as the owners of the small firms have complained about being squeezed by rising costs.

By late spring, Democrats were working on three separate paths to develop legislation. In the house, three committee chairmen were cooperating on a single bill, which would include a public plan. In the Senate, the Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee, led by Senator Kennedy and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, worked on a bill with a public plan, while the Finance Committee, led by Senator Max Baucus, worked on one that sought to avoid one. In the early summer, a bipartisan group of seven members of the Finance Committee, all from small states, came together to work on a compromise bill; early indications were that it would favor some formed of consumer-owned cooperative plans in place of a government-run system. And in late May, a split on a crucial issue developed between the two Democratic senators leading the efforts.

Public opinion polls suggest that many consumers would like to have the choice of a public plan. But insurance companies and Republican lawmakers say a public plan could drive private insurers out of business and lead eventually to a single-payer system run by the government.

Mr. Obama and the heads of the committees all appeared to agree that there should be a requirement for all individuals to buy health care, with exemptions for those who could not afford it. (This was the position favored by Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries; Mr. Obama then said the requirement should only apply to children.) Most of the Democrats also favored a mandate for all but the smallest businesses to purchase insurance for their workers or pay into a fund to provide subsidies; some members of Mr. Baucus's group - and Republicans in general - rejected such a requirement.

The drafting of both Senate bills was delayed in mid-June by estimates from the Congressional Budget Office which put the cost of the Finance Committee plan at $1.6 trillion over 10 years, while the health committee's bill was seen as helping too few of the uninsured.

Both Senate bills would seek to expand coverage by offering subsidies that could be used to purchase policies through insurance exchanges, new regulated markets in which consumers could pool their purchasing power.

THE THREE BILLS

On July 2, the Senate health committee put forward its bill, in which the subsidies to help the uninsured buy coverage had been scaled back.

Under the Kennedy-Dodd proposal, employers with 25 or more workers would have to provide coverage or pay the government an annual fee of $750 for each full-time worker and $375 for each part-timer. The government would pay the start-up costs for the public insurance option as a loan to be repaid, and premiums would be set up so that the option was ultimately self-sufficient.

On July 15, the bill was passed by the health committee on a party-line vote of 13 to 10, with all Republicans opposing the package. Both Republicans and Democrats acknowledged that the health committee bill was just part of what will eventually be a single Senate measure once the Finance Committee completes work on its version of the legislation.

The day before, House Democratic leaders introduced their bill, which included efforts to slow the pace of Medicare spending, a tax on high-income people and penalties for businesses that do not insure their workers.

Starting in 2011, a family making $500,000 would have to pay $1,500 in additional income tax to help subsidize coverage for the uninsured. A family making $1 million would have to pay $9,000. Employers who do not provide health insurance to workers would generally have to pay a fee or penalty to the government. The fee would be equal to 8 percent of wages for an employer with an annual payroll of more than $400,000. The surtax would apply to any adjusted gross income exceeding $280,000 a year for an individual and $350,000 for a couple filing a joint return. The tax rates would range from 1 percent to 5.4 percent.

The bill got a boost when it was endorsed by the A.M.A., which had previously been opposed to a public plan. The House bill also contains a provision that would repeal a law that called for sharp cuts in Medicare reimbursement levels to hospitals and doctors, a measure that had previously been blocked by a series of one-time moratoriums.

A partial, preliminary estimate by the Congressional Budget Office said it would cost slightly more than $1 trillion over 10 years to expand coverage as provided in the House bill. But Democrats said the cost would be fully offset by proposed savings in Medicare and other health programs and by revenue-raising changes in federal tax laws. The budget office said that by 2019 the bill could reduce the number of uninsured by 37 million, leaving 17 million still without coverage, about half of them illegal immigrants.

Republicans and business groups attacked the bill, which they said cost too much and would discourage small businesses from hiring.

The Senate Finance Committee continued bipartisan talks on the question of how to pay for the package. Senate negotiators had been eyeing a tax on some employer-provided health benefits but shifted course after the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and other top Democrats voiced opposition. Instead, they seemed to be narrowing their focus on a plan that would tax only the most generous employer-provided health plans - those worth $25,000 or more a year - as well as a modified limit on tax deductions proposed by Mr. Obama.

All three approaches received a setback on July 16, when the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas W. Elmendorf, testified that none of the plans being discussed would curb the overall rise in health care spending, which he called "unsustainable.'' His words reinforced a growing fear among conservative Democrats that the package would end up being too costly.

In response to those concerns, on July 20 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested revising the tax-raising provisions, one of the most contentious parts of the House bill, which would impose a surtax on high-income households. Ms. Pelosi said she would prefer that fewer people had to pay the tax, which had been approved three days before by the Ways and Means Committee.
In a primetime press conference on July 22, Mr. Obama sought to rally support, arguing that the public would be better off with a new health plan than the current system, and urged Congress not to delay. He indicated support for the tax increase included in the House plan, if narrowed only to cover households with incomes of over $1 million, saying it did not violate his "principle'' that the burden of reform should not fall primarily on the middle class. And he signaled that he was also receptive to another idea under consideration in the Senate: taxing employer-provided health benefits, as long as the tax did not fall on the middle class.

A DEADLINE MISSED

On July 23, Mr. Reid announced that no floor vote would be scheduled in the Senate before the recess scheduled to begin Aug. 8, meaning in practical terms that no action would be taken by either chamber, since House members were not eager to pass a tax increase that the Senate might reject.

Negotiations continued among Democrats in the House, where seven fiscally conservative members of the Blue Dog Coalition threatened to block the bill. After a 10-day impasse, an agreement was reached that would cut the bill's cost and exempt many small businesses from having to provide health benefits to workers. The bill was passed by the the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on July 31 by a vote of 31 to 28, with five Democrats joining all the panel's Republicans in opposition.

Under the House agreement, the federal government would still establish a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers, but the public plan would not use Medicare fee schedules to pay doctors and hospitals, as envisioned in the original House bill. Instead, the public plan would negotiate rates with health care providers, as private insurers often do. States could, in addition, set up nonprofit cooperatives to offer coverage to individuals, families and small businesses. The Senate Finance Committee is coalescing around a similar idea, as an alternative to a government-run insurance plan, but it was not in the original House bill.

THE BATTLE OVER PUBLIC OPINION

With the congressional recess in August 2009, the White House found itself suddenly at risk of losing control of the public debate over health care reform. As conservative protests mounted, the White House began playing defense in a way administration officials have not since the 2008 campaign.

Democratic Party officials acknowledged that the growing intensity of the opposition to the president's health care plans - likened on talk radio to something out of Hitler's Germany, lampooned by protesters at Congressional town-hall-style meetings and vilified in television commercials - had caught them off guard and forced them into an August counteroffensive.

The White House started a new Web site to fight questionable but potentially damaging charges that Mr. Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's health care system would inevitably lead to "socialized medicine," "rationed care" and even forced euthanasia for the elderly.

The president continued a series of public meetings to try to defuse fears and rebut critics. New television commercials disputing the conservative attacks were in the works. Allied members of Congress were sent home with a set of poll-tested talking points intended to shift the focus to the administration's advertised benefits of the plan from the scary situations opponents had laid out.

Conservative group seemed to find a rallying point on health care. The issue helped them speak to a constituency that had managed to gain significant anti-Obama attention in 2009, the fiscally hawkish "tea party" activists opposed to the president's spending. They dismissed Mr. Obama's promises that his plan would be fully paid for through offsetting spending cuts or increased taxes, and cast the plan as a costly takeover of health care by the government.

On Aug. 23, Senate Democrats said they were fleshing out plans to pass health legislation, particularly the option of a new government-run insurance program, with a simple majority, instead of the 60 votes that would ordinarily be needed to overcome a filibuster. They said they were increasingly confident that they could legislate creation of a public plan in a way that would withstand challenges expected from Republicans.

[Lonewarrior]

Originally Posted by WakeUp

This message is hidden because Lonewarrior is on your ignore list.

The robotic has spoken again.

Robotic?

I can think,act and care for myself..unlike a retard lib like you.

[WakeUp]

This message is hidden because Lonewarrior is on your ignore list.


Sleazy lies from the far right. Why bother reading it?

[WakeUp]

Health Care Reform Now

August 27, 2009


As teachers and principals shake the cobwebs off of our national education system in the weeks to come, there will be a new concern to accompany the normal anxieties about students, lesson plans and classrooms. After a summer in which many overnight children's camps were plagued by H1N1 flu infections, schools across the country are preparing contingency plans in case the highly contagious virus hits their campuses. While 700 schools closed across the nation when the virus first hit this spring, schools now are planning to stay open by quarantining the sick as soon as they are afflicted since the virus can be highly treatable, especially when it is caught early.

However, the challenge to quarantine the sick will not be easy since so many families in this country lack health insurance that they will refrain from getting an early diagnosis for their children. As a result, there is a grave danger that the death toll of 522 from the disease in the United States alone may rise. A recent White House report concluded that 50% of Americans may be infected by the virus this fall and winter and result in the death of up to 90,000 Americans. As the national debate about health insurance reform has been reduced to a narrow focus on the question of whether a public option should be included in a reform plan, it is important to recognize that the primary goal of health insurance reform should be universal coverage. Those Democrats in Congress who oppose any health insurance reform that does not include the public option are making a mistake that could greatly cost our nation and our party.

We need health insurance reform now to provide for the nearly 46 million Americans who currently lack coverage. This has been a goal of reform efforts since President Theodore Roosevelt included universal coverage in his 1912 Presidential campaign platform. Having nearly 18% of Americans too young for Medicare uninsured not only goes against the moral principles at the foundation of this country, it also has deleterious effects on our economy. And as a highly contagious virus spreads across the country, it is important to keep in mind how important it is that all of our citizens have coverage.

Many Americans support inclusion of a public option in a health insurance reform plan, and so do I. The concept of a "public option" refers to a government run health insurance program, similar to medicare, that would be created as part of reform to compete with private insurers. A public health insurance option, free of the burdens of the profit motive and marketing, likely would be a useful tool to keep private insurers honest. There is strong evidence that, without competition from a source unconcerned about maximizing profit, when it comes to a commodity as essential as health care, the insurance market will work to maximize profits without sufficient concern that escalating costs will be affordable for many Americans.

However, as much as the public option may be good public policy, it appears as if the votes are not there in our own party to pass a bill that includes this measure. North Dakota Democratic Senator Kent Conrad recently told the Washington Post, "[t]he hard reality is...that a public option does not have enough support in the Senate to pass." Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com recently wrote about the lack of support for a public option and concluded there are only 43-45 votes for the public option in the Senate, well short of the 50 votes necessary for passage.

The H1N1 epidemic reminds us all how much we need universal health coverage now. So members of Congress who refuse to support any health care reform unless it includes the public option are missing the larger picture.

As someone who worked in the Clinton White House Office of Legislative Affairs in 1994 when the Administration pushed hard to pass a health reform bill, and who has watched our country suffer in innumerable ways in the intervening 15 years from the lack of care for all of our people, I believe it is critical to pass health care reform this year. Refusing to vote for a health care reform bill just because it does not include a public option would be a classic case of making the perfect the enemy of the good.

If Democrats in Congress fail to pass a health care bill this year, they will tempt the same fate that the Democratic Congress suffered in 1994. The American people may conclude that the Democrats are unable to seriously address the problems facing the country and take away our majority in 2010. Would that truly be a better fate than substantial health care reform that provides coverage to millions of Americans but fails to include a public option? Surely the late Senator Ted Kennedy, whose dream of universal coverage went unfulfilled in his lifetime, would say no.

When Congress returns from its summer vacation in a few weeks, let us all hope that 218 House Democrats and 51 Democratic Senators (or 60 if a cloture vote is required) will choose half a loaf over no loaf at all.

[WakeUp]

Kerry: Kennedy Would Compromise If Necessary


WASHINGTON — A leading Democratic senator says the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy would have been ready to compromise on overhauling health care, but negotiations had not yet reached that point.

Sen. John Kerry says Kennedy would have fought for a public option in President Barack Obama's attempt to reform the health care system, but would opt for compromise if and when Democrats got to that point.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah says there is no disagreement between Democrats and Republicans over reforming health insurance regulation. However, Hatch says that the people of the United States have been clear that they do not want a "government-run" health system.

Sen. Kerry went on to clarify that the health care reform bills are not a government-run health system.

[WakeUp]

In healthcare debate, both sides cite Kennedy



U.S. Democratic Senators walk out of the West Wing after meeting with President Barack Obama about the "cash-for-clunkers" program and healthcare legislation at the White House in Washington, August 4, 2009. They are (L-R) Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Max Baucus (D-MT), Harry Reid (D-NV), and Dick Durbin (D-IL).


By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The day after U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy's burial, leading Democratic and Republican senators on Sunday seized on his reputation for compromise to call for cooperation in the healthcare debate but showed little give in their own positions.

The Democratic-led Congress returns in September to work on a U.S. healthcare overhaul plan criticized by Republicans as too costly and as promoting government-run healthcare.

"Here's what Teddy would do. He'd say: 'I'm going to fight the fight, and if and when we get to the point that we can't get there, we'll see whether or not we can do enough to make good happen out of this. And you can't make that measurement today," Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, said on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos.

Kennedy, who called healthcare reform the cause of his life, died last week of a brain tumor.

As President Barack Obama pushes for a plan that includes a public insurance option to compete with private plans to bring down costs, Kennedy's death leaves Democrats one vote short of the 60-vote supermajority needed to overcome procedural blocks from Republicans.

Some Democrats also are resisting the public option as part of reforming the $2.5 trillion healthcare sector and expanding coverage to some 49 million uninsured, leaving it in peril.

Some of Kennedy's closest friends, Republicans and Democrats, were on the Sunday television talks shows for tributes to him but on healthcare reform agreed on little other than the void he left in the debate.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch emphasized Kennedy's reputation as a deal-maker willing to make compromises to pass needed legislation.

"If (Kennedy) was here, I don't think we'd be in the mess we're in right now," said Hatch, who said he could be willing to rejoin the debate after dropping out of discussions in July.

"There are some ways we could do this. Both sides are arguing for insurance reform. That's not the issue. The issue is how do we put these things together," Hatch said on ABC.

But the senators stressed that a compromise would come only after an all-out fight in Congress and made no suggestion that they were willing now to surrender ground.

Kerry said Kennedy would fight for the public option and "do everything in his power to get it," but "if he didn't see the ability ... to get it done, he would not throw the baby out with the bathwater."

[short_circuit]

Originally Posted by WakeUp

SC, you admit that you don't even vote. How can you talk about the political process, when you don't even vote yourself? There's just so many times you can call a rat a rat. Then you stop talking. Engaging LW on these threads is like walking into a dark labyrinth. The only agenda of the far right it to stop government. Dialog can and will occur with those who want government to do its job. Obstructionist will only slow down the process. They won't accomplish their goal of stopping government. That's just ludicrous.

If a process is slowed down it means something is having affect and things could end up far from what was planned. What do you mean by “Dialog can and will occur with those who want government to do its job”, are saying that the government does not have dialog with those who don't agree? To say “They want accomplish their goal of stopping government” is not the choice of words I would use for a democracy, you’re making the democracy sound like a dictatorship..!

It's easy to post about political process, you can see me posting and even though I don't vote..! What you're actually trying to do is shut me up with the call “you don't even vote.” Have you ever tried shutting someone up at a meeting with the call “you don't even vote”, I think not? That call “you don't even vote” would be attempting in taking away constitutional rights of a person who is a citizen of a country. The same call of “you don't even vote” neither works on this forum to shut me up, I’ll post because as a member I'm entitled to my opinion. It's no wonder people end up shouting from the rooftops and disrupting meetings in the USA if what you're trying convey is an example of how people are treated at grass root, local level.

I have my reasons why I don't vote for any political party, I'm in protest against the policies that were adopted by all the political parties. One of the reasons I don't vote is because of Labour regulations that are in part anti-union regulations. A true value is to stand by what is right and not in support of everything a political party does just for the sake of a political party. Avoid becoming a sheep when a political party is going wrong, battle against the wrongs and regardless if you’re a follower of the political party. I've seen too many times where people are defending a political party because they are follower of the political and even when the political party is going in the wrong direction. I would rather not give a vote for hogwash, but I’m still a citizen with constitutional rights.

[WakeUp]

SC, of course anyone has the right to say whatever they want at TBH, as long as they don't troll a member. I'm not trying to shut you up. And you're certainly not trolling. I just mentioned the voting issue. It seems odd to me that someone who doesn't vote would even be interested in politics. I know people younger than me who dropped out of the whole political scene in the 80s and 90s. They don't vote and don't even want to talk politics. That's where I'm coming from on the voting issue.

I didn't clarify my above post. IMO, there are two processes. 1. Citizen debate - e.g. dialog at TBH. 2. Legislative debate in the US Congress. I see these two processes as distinct. Citizen debate can influence Congressional debate. But in the end, Congress votes what's best for the country as they see it.

This current US Congress is in a stalemate situation. The people elected the Dems. The Republicans do not want a democratic process. The Reps in the House committee put 162 provisions into the House health care bill but still all reps voted NO. It passed the committee with Dem votes. What the House and Senate Reps truly want is to say NO for four years, no matter what major legislation they're voting on. They fantasize that saying NO will cause the Dems to fail and the people will re-elect republicans back into office in 2010 and 2012. The vast majority of Republicans have said NO to every major piece of legislature including the appointment of the Supreme Court Justice. No matter how much the health care bill is altered, reps will vote NO. Therefore, the Dems will most likely keep the Health Care Reform bill going, despite the obstructionists' NO vote. Even if Ted Kennedy were alive, I doubt that he could persuade this republican congress to join in the debate; in the end, reps would have voted NO anyway. The climate is just so contentious.

Interestingly enough, one of the social programs in the 60s (I think it was Medicare) was passed in the same manner. Bob Dole, the leading rep, tried to get reps to support the bill. In the end, Dole told the Dem leaders to go ahead and vote it in without the republicans. Perhaps history will repeat itself.

[short_circuit]

Well thanks, WakeUp, for explaining what you meant by the no vote.

I somewhat agree with you on the healthcare issue. It’s wrong, on humanitarian grounds, for any political party to go against the healthcare reforms when what is being put forward is the right thing to be doing. I don’t always see eye to eye with the Liberal mentality but they are right in trying to bring change to the healthcare. It should not stand where 46 million people don’t have healthcare cover and can only get free healthcare when on death‘s door, an emergency.

[short_circuit]

Originally Posted by WakeUp

Yeah, you got that right.

I bet if we do it right, other countries like Canada and England will follow our example. Medicine, technology and record keeping are evolving so rapidly that new systems will improve quality and cost. I'm sure other countries will follow our lead if we do it right.

I was looking back over the thread and saw your post. England has already got the computerized record keeping and it works quite well. England is more advanced than the USA on the computerized record keeping, but in some areas like health consultant’s notes need to be entered into the system quicker than what has been happening.