Barack Obama believes in the Golden Rule.

[kentuck]

"He who has the gold makes the rules."

And the President is smart enough to know that. The big insurance companies and Big Pharma have the gold. They make the rules.

The President knew that the only way they would agree to cover 30 million more people was to make it attractive and profitable for the insurance companies. So they agreed to a plan.

Big Pharma would get $80 billion dollars over 10 years and who knows what the health industry was offered? But the upside would be that we would cover 30 million more Americans with healthcare.

The White House agreed with the Big Pharma that drug prices would not be negotiated and also agreed that drugs should not be imported into this country from Canada. And the White House agreed with the insurance companies that there should be no public option and that employees would not be able to opt out from the plans their employers offered them.

So they made an agreement. They would cover another 3o million Americans with healthcare. They would offer to take the cap off annual allotments for illnesses. And they won the argument that there would not be a Medicare "buy-in".

And the insurance companies and the pharma stock soared. It reached an all-time high last week. Basically, we are all becoming stockholders in the insurance companies.

[LWolf]

1. Why did they need to "cover" 30 million more people at all?

We could have offered a single-payer not-for-profit plan that wouldn't have required for-profit insurance companies to cover anyone.

[Edweird]

11. For about 1/4 of the cost. And no one benefits from your suffering or death.

Yeah. Kinda sucks the way things worked out.

[LWolf]

13. Thatt it does. nt

[laughingliberal]

2. stockholders with no options and no dividends nt

[varelse]

3. I thought there were 42 million Americans without coverage

what happens to the "expendable" 12 million? Or did someone report the math all wrong to begin with?

[kentuck]

5. Can't cover those 'aliens', you know.

The Republicans would not like that.

[Jamastiene]

15. Don't forget childless people in poverty who

have extenuating circumstances due to sick family members (and many other situations) that the government doesn't see as worthy of aid.

[NMMNG]

19. If you're not procreating for The Lord

You don't count. Didn't you get the memo?

[dflprincess]

10. There are

and with this bill, there will still be 23 million uninsured by 2019

http://www.startribune.com/business/79720077.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

Plus the number of underinsured will continue to climb and, I would guess, the number of medical bankruptcies.

[varelse]

16. I'm so confused now

I thought the whole point of this "deal with the devil and his advocates" compromise was to achieve full coverage? When was it decided that 12-23 million Americans can go without and it'll still be a great Health Insurance Reform bill?

[Edweird]

4. They only get to make the rules if our leaders are in it for the gold.

If they were in it to actually make things better for us, they could take away all the power the insurance companies have. Expand Medicare, increase the Medicare deduction on your paycheck and maybe a sales tax on things like big screen tv's and jewelry. That would put the insurance companies out of the 'deny care for a profit' business. We would all save money. Win/win.

But that's not what's happening.

We have the highest per capita costs, and we damn sure aren't getting our money's worth.

It's about to get a whole lot worse.

[kentuck]

7. You are right.

That is not what is happening.

[blues90]

8. and remove the tax cuts for the ulta wealthy . nt

[Edweird]

9. Hell yeah.

[varelse]

6. My mind puts "trickle-down" economics and the "golden rule" together in a very disturbing way

excuse me while I hunt down an umbrella... can't trust a tarp these days :(

[dbonds]

12. Ah, the Golden Trickle

[Jamastiene]

14. It's Reaganomics on steroids.

Reagan said piss on the poor and the middle class and said he wanted to see the middle class destroyed completely. Then, he proceeded to piss on us.

Obama said one thing and did another and so did many of our Democratic leaders. Only this time, the poor and the middle class are ACTIVELY being beaten up and robbed.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Somebody 'splain to me. Just what health care does the Insurance Companies provide?

About the only procedure that I can think of as somewhat similar is the greasy finger prostate check.

[bobbolink]

18. So, you have a piece of paper that says you're "covered".

So what?

[TwilightGardener]

20. What do you mean, Big Pharma will "get" 80 billion? I thought they agreed

to GIVE 80 billion over 10 years to fix a Medicare-drug donut hole, in exchange for not allowing the re-importation thing to go through.