So now it's Blackmail from the insurance industry?

[walldude]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/12/health.care/index.html

Health insurance premiums for the typical American family would increase by another $4,000 by 2019 under a key Senate overhaul plan, according to an industry trade group analysis.

This is fucking blackmail that's all it is. It's not a trick or a real report, it's the insurance industry attempting to blackmail the government and the American people.
Single payer is out, a decent public option is on the ropes and they still feel the need to release this garbage? Here's your chance Democrat representatives, you have just been thrown down the gauntlet. Are you going to side with the blackmailers or the victims?

[Quantess]

1. Do as we say and nobody gets hurt

(knife held to throat).

[Blue State Blues]

13. "Except the people we're hurting now ...

we'll keep hurting them. And then we'll come for you. Better pay those premiums, or else."

[alsame]

2. Yes, it's blackmail. Anthony Weiner was on MSNBC this morning

right after an insurance co rep and he said this threat only proves why a public option is necessary.

[Andy823]

6. Exactly!

This should show the american people just how slimy these guys really are. Congress needs to stop playing games and crack down hard on these scumbags! Congress can make sure they can't raise rates by passing laws that will stop them. They can regulate the hell out of them, and force a single payer system on them if they keep up this crap!

[walldude]

7. Well the insurance industry just handed them an open shot

at doing the right thing and gave them an excuse to pass single payer. All they need is a little spine.

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. Call their bluff. Put Single Payer back into the mix.

Win-win.

[merh]

4. They use blackmail all the time.

Let us increase our rates or we will stop writing policies.

Let us increase our rates or we will pull out of your state.

Pass laws that require every driver to have insurance or we will increase our rates.

And on and on and on.

They are greedy extortionists and profiteers.

[notesdev]

5. Medicare Part D was a preview

It'll happen for the same reason drug prices shot the moon after Medicare Part D was enacted. The concepts of controlling costs and making sound business decisions are so alien to government that this will become yet another open spigot of taxpayer dollars flowing to big, politically-connected corps.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Exactly. They're making our argument FOR us. nt

[Enthusiast]

9. By 2019?

Guess what folks, it was going up that much or more anyway.

Time WE take charge, enact Medicare for all, end this circus.

[MineralMan]

10. Not blackmail. Extortion. It's the old protection racket.

The health insurance companies are just the mob, writ large. Youse wanna pay up so sumthin doesn't happen to youse. Rocko here will come by once a month...

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Exactly. nt

[bvar22]

11. There is NOT even a decent Public Option "on the ropes".

The very best Public Option currently in Congress covers "less than 5% by 2019". (Obama)

By my calculations (and the CBO), it is less than 3% by 2019.

Obama was 100% correct when he said the Public Option is a "thin sliver", and as we talk, it is being whittled down even more by our "Democratic" reps.

[walldude]

12. Yeah I'm starting to realize that... I haven't bothered to read the bill

because I didn't want to get even more angry. Now that I've started wading through this mess of legalese I'm angry and mixed up.

[jacko_be]

14. yes it is Blackmail, isn't that a crime ?

[felinetta]

15. Amazing how sure they are of getting their way, they have no problem being blatant.