The health care bill is a foot in the door...

[cynatnite]

I view health care reform as a process of steps over a long period of time. All we need is the first step and then the rest afterwards will come far easier.

As I understand medicare, the services evolved over a long period of time to cover more people with a wider variety of disease and whatnot.

That's how I see health care reform progressing. While we may not have a singler payer system at the start, eventually we'll get there. I really believe that we'll get to the point of having an effective nationwide system that covers everyone.

The repukes know this.

[Oregone]

1. Now they will slam the door repeatedly on your foot till it is bruised and bleeding

They will laugh and watch you cry as they slam, slam away.

[sharesunited]

2. I am already looking forward to tweaking it.

For starters, restore anything taken from Medicare. Fight and fight for proper funding and pricing of reimbursements under the single payer system we already have!

[vadawg]

5. i am waiting for the first person to be fined or jailed for up to 5 years

this would be the election meme of the right that would probuably sweep them into power for a generation, will be interesting to see how much this is going to cost us as individuals as well, i seem to remember being promised that there would be no tax increases on me ($250,000) but im pretty much thinking that was a lie....

[sharesunited]

7. Put any such case side by side with the case of someone refusing to file their income tax return.

This is not such a foreign concept to most people. Juries send tax protesters to prison all the time.

[vadawg]

10. yup but you realise that paying tax to the government is different than being forced to pay tax to a

private enterprise, think about it you are now going to have to buy a policy and there is the threat of jail if you dont.

[sharesunited]

15. I must buy an IRA to avoid taxation on part of my income.

If I refuse to buy an IRA and refuse to pay the additional tax, I have committed a federal crime.

This is an idea to which we are already accustomed.

[eleny]

3. It's the truth

[ZombieHorde]

4. I think we already had many steps, such as medicare and medicaid. nt

[malaise]

6. Absolutely correct

Rec

[and-justice-for-all]

8. I was looking for more of a "kick the door off its hinges"

more so than just a foot in the door.

[unkachuck]

9. "The health care bill is a foot in the door..."

....no, the healthcare bill is a dick in the ass....

[kenny blankenship]

12. I was gonna say "it's a foot broken off in your ass"

but I must admit your phrasing is more economical.

[Mz Pip]

11. The repukes know this

which is why they are fighting this so hard. If anything gets passed it can grow, change, {i]evolve and as much as so many of the repukes refuse to believe in evolution - they can't deny it with the passage of even watered down health care reform.

The Republicans aren't worried that any health care reform will be a disaster; they are worried that it will be a success. That it will evolve - into something they won't be able to stop.

Evolution. It's not just a theory. It's a fact.

[TicketyBoo]

13. I do think that

as it stands, this bill is better than nothing.

The Republicans are talking about how "their plan" would lower premiums. I know from experience that this would be, at best, a temporary measure. Very temporary. Even if they managed to cut premiums in half (fat chance!), the insurance companies would just raise them again each year. Lowered premiums with no government oversight is NOT reform. Not by a long shot!

[John Q. Citizen]

14. Nope. everyone over 65 was covered by Medicare from when it first passed. By 9 months after

it was signed into law it had tens of millions enrolled, almost every person over the age of 65.

They did add some other expanded benefits over the years, but all the main components of the program was basically in place within 9 months of when it became law.

It was the first step and viewed as the first step toward universal coverage. It was tax funded and open to everybody over 65. The reason they didn't name it Eldercare, or some such was that everybody expected that soon after it would be expanded to cover everyone, of all ages.

This bill in front of congress now is a step backwards. It envisions a permanent role for private for-profit health insurance companies, unlike the Medicare model.

I agree that one day we will get to Medicare that covers everyone. We won't be able to afford anything else. But it looks like we will be somewhat farther away by tomorrow than we are today. This bill is a bailout for the insurance industry, and it will mean that they will hang around longer than they otherwise would have. Private insurance was covering fewer and fewer people every year, it was a dying industry. Now it will pick up 30-40 million new customers in one shot, a bonanza. It's not sustainable, and I predict, that like the MA Romney plan it's modeled after, that it will get more and more expensive and people will see their benefits cut little by little over time, and then eventually we will get to the point where people are again demanding reform.

Hopefully next time we will follow people who don't get big checks from the industry we want to phase out. Hopefully our leader's campaign chairman won't be a big lobbyist for the insurance industry, like Daschle is.