Dean says Obama plan will open Medicaid to all along with other

[BR_Parkway]

private insurance on Chris Mathews earlier - anyone know where the details of this are?

[eleny]

1. At 62 I'd take it

I was a state employee where we didn't contribute to Social Security or Medicare. I'd choose Medicare and pay a premium. I bet it would be less than my current BCBS Anthem PPO premium through my retirement plan.

[liberalmuse]

2. I love Howard.

It would be really nice if he were HHS Secretary. He successfully reformed health care in Vermont. He sure as hell knows what he is talking about now. Why not?

[4lbs]

3. All they need to do is prevent private insurance companies from refusing based on pre-existing

conditions and I'll be happy.

Even if the private insurance companies are allowed to increase their premiums 25% to compensate, I'll still end up saving money over my current health care plan.

[CTyankee]

6. If you do this, how will the private insurance companies make money?

They can't of course, that's why.

[4lbs]

9. I figured I've paid about $20000 in health insurance premiums over the past 5 years.

I've visited the doctor only a handful of times and had to take medication just once for several weeks.

That's hardly $20K worth of medical care for me.

If I was able to go private insurance and even with their 25% increase in premiums to compensate, my cost over that 5 years would have been halved.

Hmmm... how could I have "stimulated" the economy with a few extra thousand dollars each year...

[CTyankee]

10. Of course. Thank you. That's the whole point.

Think of the stimulus to the business community if health care were to be lifted from their shoulders? They know it, too...they see what's going on with their biggest competitors, which happen to be the rest of the industrialized nations of the entire world...dear god...

[CTyankee]

4. He really said "medicare" not "medicaid." People WANT medicare.

Since medicaid is for the poor, it is not something the nonpoor wish to aspire to. However, they have seen their health care assurance disappear with their jobs, either slowly through a steady decline in benefits or through outright loss of the job itself. I know people in their 40s and 50s who say they wish they could get Medicare. No wonder.

[and-justice-for-all]

5. medicaid is national health care that just needs expanded...

to every one else.

Get that and in time it will evolve into a proper NHS.

[FrenchieCat]

7. I talk about it

Here ---> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8222228

Obama's health care plan leads to single payer without trying.

[shadowknows69]

8. This is the one hope I probably have of getting back to a normal, semi-healthy life

And there's a lot of us in this situation Mr. President. Please make this happen.