torpedoman: I think some of the more diehard obama supporters will vote for whatever he wants but I don't think they are going to be able to ram anything through. Obama has already lost his luster and his popularity is fading as fast as his healthcare advocates are getting trounced in their 'town hall' meetings when they come out to explain what he wants, which is simply a blank check.
All the disappointment with obama aside, I think one main reason why his healthcare proposal will fail is because they don't have a plan as to what to do or any firm notion of what they want. I think obama just wants the Amerikan publik to glad-hand him the authority to put a plan in motion, when they finally get one thought up, but I think the American public has seen through this fascade and is not about to glad-hand anyone anything that has such a horrendous price tag and is as questionable as a national healthcare program.
We already have a national healthcare program for those who are uninsured. The Medicaid, Maternal and Child Health and Hill Burton grant programs are the basis for this. Every hosptial in the US that participates in one or more federally funded programs, like Medicare or Medicaid, must accept any patient that comes to its doors for care - they cannot refuse to care for them or turn them away. If a patient does not have health insurance and cannot pay for the care provided, the cost is written off as a bed debt and every six months the hosptial reconfigures its federal reimbursement needs to include bad debt losses. So hospitals already get 'paid' for providing care to the indigent but those costs are hidden under the Social Security so we never know exactly what they are.
The only thing he can do that would make sense and show some accountability is to pull Medicaid, Maternal and Child Health and some other grant programs from under the Social Security Amendments and fund them separately. This would allow Medicare, Social Security and Veteran's care to continue, but would create a separately funded national healthcare program that would be subject to visible public scrutiny, which would keep it in check. Right now, Medicaid and Maternal and Child Health, the two largest expenditures under the Social Security programs, are 'hidden' by Social Security costs and the public never knows how much is spent for these programs. I think if they did it might spark the revolution. Public scrutiny of the funding for a national healthcare program would have the tendency to reduce unnecessary expenditures rather than increase them and keep program expenditures in check. By just funding healthcare for the indigent, the current free enterprise system that we taxpayers and insurance purchasers enjoy would continue to provide more healthcare options for us, while the average voter would be able to see how much of his/her tax dollar is going to public health care and use his vote to say yea or nay to increases.
There is nothing wrong with a two tier healthcare system - a public system that provides the basic services as a matter of need and the private systems that provide more options for those who pay private insurance premiums. A public system need not backrupt the country and when the costs of such a system are subject to public scrutiny that scrutiny keeps expenditures down. If you try and pay for a public healthcare system that provides for everybody, you will go broke, period. If the public healthcare system is funded separately it is subject to voter scrutiny. Public healthcare should be based on the need for service, not a desire to have equitable systems for all. Services based on need are quantifiable and can be controlled. Private insurance is based on need AND the options the payer seeks under his/her insurance plan. Right now, in nys, Medicaid patients get the same level of service as private payers and if the average taxpayer knew this they would probably want to hang their politicians who are giving all their tax money away - this knowledge is one of the reasons obama's healthcare advocates are having such a tough time selling his program in these town hall meetings (I believe)..
Here's a example:: in nys the state's Medicaid program continues to draw from the taxpayer's dollar yet we never know how much is taken out because the costs for that program are hidden under various state funding formularies, and as a result the democraps continue to add new benefits to the program (for their constituents) that we taxpayers never find out about unless we get lucky, and then we complain about it. This is one cost our current state administration DOES NOT want us to know about or they fear we would probably lynch them for spending so much and for giving away benefits we taxpayers and wage earners pay for. Most of us don't mind some public health programs as long as we don't have to pay through the butt for it. Another example is the Kalifornika Medi-Cal program, which has cost the state so much it has helped drive it into bankrupsy. We should take from our own examples as much as we should learn from those other nations foolish enough to have burdened themselves with public healthcare.
Obama wants a glad-hand to spend as much as he wants without having to deal with program accountability - he's such a liberal. If the American public gives him this blank check we will go bankrupt. If we let him have a program but demand specific program accountability and public awareness of costs, we can keep expenditures down and save, at the least, Social Security for what it was meant for. On the other hand, if we demand close public scrutiny and accountability he may (hopefully) just go 'sour grapes' and table his proposals..... One can only hope..... jmtcw.
