I don't get it. Back in the 90s Chrysler, I think, was complaining about soaring

[question everything]

health insurance cost. It had a one page ad in the paper asking the public what it should do. It was said that its health insurance expenses were higher than what it paid for steel.

Why do we still tie health insurance to employers?

We hear how small business owners whine that if they will have to pay the penalty they will have to either pass the cost to customers or cut jobs. One would think that they should welcome a "public option."

Our premiums have more than doubled since 2002 and our employer continues to grumble that he does not know how long he will be able to offer health and dental insurance. (Of course, top management all being Republicans blame the poor who use the emergency room...)

I would gladly send the same amount in premiums in a form of tax, or fees, to secure a single payer health care that will keep cost down and will never be cut or eliminated.

[Mimosa]

1. I remember that!

Question Everything, this is the most true health insurance OP on D.U.

My best bud who's an MD and I have recently discussed that relieving people of the PRESSURES and worries about healthcare coverage would release a flood of creativity to start businesses and solve other problems in the USA.

[question everything]

7. Like public education

Thank you, Mimosa, for your kind words.

For almost 20 years I have been comparing health care to education. We provide it to every child, regardless of income level or of "pre-existing" conditions, and we support this with our taxes. And the ones who want private schools can go ahead and pay for it.

Thus, the ones who "do not trust" the government can purchase their own health insurance and can pay for their health from their own pockets.

[MichiganVote]

2. Not in favor of a tax until the income / tax disparities tween wealthy & middle class r dealt with

[question everything]

4. We cannot wait. This is what Obama has been saying

this evening and all along. We have to move forward, to get something on the table.

We can always tweak it later. Obviously, each one of us has to deal with our own finances, but when I see how our premiums have been growing 20% a year in the past few years with one never knows how much cover will be there when catastrophe hits, I'd rather send the same amount of money to a single payer.

[MichiganVote]

6. That is not what Obama has been saying. You are simplifying the whole thing.

Neither love nor money not Obama is going to earn my approval of another tax on the middle class until the income/tax disparities between the rich and the mc that my government created are resolved. And yes, I have spoken, written to my reps about this view.

No deal.

[frogcycle]

3. you are correct, but

it was the auto industry that fought AGAINST a public option 'way back when. They PREFERRED to negotiate with the unions offerring healthcare in lieu of wages. They started the trend. They thought business would just grow and grow (never dreamed Asians could make cars) and the payout to retirees would be trivial because they would be sooooo big and sell sooooo many cars.

But it was when Nixon deregulated HMOs and allowed healthcare to become a for-profit business that they really got bit. Suddenly dollars were just flying from Detroit to Hartford and Omaha.

It never made sense to have healthcare be a "benefit" - employers don't pay for auto insurance, homeowners insurance...

Not-for-profit BC/BS was working just fine, could simply have been subsidized for the poorest - but Republican-aided greed by big business screwed that pooch

[inna]

15. wow. that's why i love the DU. thank you for the most interesting and educational post!

(and what's BC/BS, btw??)

[question everything]

16. Blue Cross Blue Shield

that supposedly are not for profit. Or, at least, do not trade on the stock exchange and do not pay their executives obscene salaries.

[dflprincess]

5. The way the House bill is written, large employers will not be able to

buy into the public option for several years so currently it will not help companies like Chrysler or GM. (The first year only companies with 10 or fewer employees will be able to use the public option or that's what I heard on Hartmann's show).

I don't quite get how this "reform" is going to help the economy when it isn't going to help most employers pay for insurance and it really isn't being set up to control premium costs.

[question everything]

8. I know. And this is why I have my doubts about all the versions

of the "reform." However, we have to start someplace and then we can always change and tweak it. I suspect that as more and more votes lose their coverage that they "love" so much, and as testimonials will come about the public option, many will change their minds.

Instead of having that Canadian woman saying how the Canadian system would have killed her, we will have our own ads.

[dflprincess]

11. It would be nice if we actually started with some reform

not this insurance comapany and campaign donation protection act which is clearly the intent of the House bill.

I don't have a lot of faith that there will be any tweaking done that's in our interests. Anything that gets fixed it will be the items the insurance industry wants their congressional stooges to rewrite.

[SoCalDem]

9. The 10-year gap "helps" because

within that 10 years, ALL the WWII generation will have passed on, and probably a significant percentage of the Boomers too. At the end of that 10 year span, how many of the underinsured (now) chronically ill will have gone too?

It's an "insurance war" of attrition.. Sooner or later, the US will be "down to fighting weight", and considerably "younger". The rabblerousers are not "of" the younger generation. These are people from a generation that grew up in front of tv & video games. They "accept" better than people of WWII and Boomer-generations.

The "youngers" turn out en masse for the launch of a new iPhone or for concert tickets, but for political reasons?..maybe not so much.. They are the acquiescent generation..

Long-term thinkers probably plan on the health care issue "working itself out" by deaths of sick/old people, and some fear of immigrants accessing helath care.

[dflprincess]

10. Ten years from now the oldest Boomers will only be 73

and the numbers born in 1946 wasn't any where near the peak years. Most of us won't even have gotten to the years when we'll really start to cost money.

[SoCalDem]

12. 73 is not old, but for the millions who have been underinsured, and are ill

many will not make it.. Every person gone, is a person who will not need health care coverage:(

[global1]

17. Prediction Here - We'll Get Health Care Reform & A Public Option But.......

long term care insurance (i.e., nursing home care) will be the expense of the person and not included in any healthcare reform - us baby boomers who will be in need of that care - and the cost of that will bankrupt us. I heard that they had a bunch of actuaries in some of the committee meetings. What do you think they were discussing.

[inna]

13. please see this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6123857&mesg_id=6124004

[question everything]

14. Thank you for the link

sobering thoughts. Of course, GM and Chrysler and even Ford are in no position now to push the reform but perhaps other corporations can. Instead they just layoff workers, as Caterpillar has recently done.