THE USA IS NO LONGER THE LAND OF THE FREE….IT IS A LIE

i don’t have any insurance right now and if they’re going to make me a criminal for not paying those crooks and liars in the insurance industry, then the dems are going to have some big problems.

Unless people get healthier again or we provide more rational and preventive care, this country’s health problems will eventually cause a recession or worse.

And as far as out political system is concerned, for good or bad it is as dysfunctional as it always has been. This is a blessing and a curse, and to believe that our system or our people or our legislators are worse off today ignores our history as a nation.

I take as given that some kind of legislation will pass this year. The only prediction that can confidently be made is that it will structurally eliminate any accountability for the insurance industry. In its aftermath, what is quickly going to be come almost universal is what I will call sub-rosa rescission, whereby the insurance companies issue as many policies as they can, but essentially stop paying any claims, except to entities with which they have interlocking ownership. That already includes most hospitals and drug manufacturers. Group medical practices will quickly sell themselves to the insurance companies when they stop getting paid.

The idea that the courts can provide effective remedies for this is utterly fatuous. Think of the number of injured parties, the size of each disputed amount, and which side has the burden of proof. (Any legislation that makes it onto the books will contain a clause forbidding class-action litigation.)

In this time and place, the justice and political systems are totally dysfunctional and have lost all institutional legitimacy. There is no incremental way forward. Our challenge is to prevent as much backsliding as we can while waiting for the inevitable discontinuous transition (whose form cannot be foreseen).

As far as the legislative process goes, it’s the one we’re stuck with. I suppose Max Baucus could be doing something different, but in the end his committee has to mark up a bill and that bill has to make it out of his committee. There are a number of steps to go after that — there are four other bills that have to be reconciled with that one. And I am sure that he knows exactly how most Democrats feel about his process.

I guess the bottom line for me is that if we end this crazy process with a bill that makes things a lot better, even if it’s not the one I would hope for, I’m not going to count it as a loss but as a win.

Jacob Davies, about your taxes paid directly to a private party: because there’s choice what private party you pay it to, it’s no big deal. I’m not sure: is the choice with the consumer? In my opinion we are already in a situation where some things are almost compulsorily bought by everyone to support their life, so it is precendented by our lifestyles. If the government makes the choice, it’s really very similar to every time the government awards a private contract. That’s common enough for the way the government works, since they rely upon outside companies for the greatest part of their hardware and software, for example.

However, everyones rates will go up because insurance companies will want as few old/sick people as possible while maximizing the young/healthy people because only the young/healthy people make them money.

So whichever company at any given time has the lowest risk pool would be able to charge the lowest rates, however they wouldn’t charge lower rates, because if they did they might attract more customers? Why is that bad? Well, why is that good? New customers are more likely to be old/sick if they have the lowest risk pool. But even if getting old/sick people and young/healthy people was evenly possible what is the incentive to lower rates?

So they will not lower rates, they will put their rates up at the same level of their competitors to deter just anyone from joining while trying to get younger/healthier people into their plan and older/sicker people in the other’s plan via advertising. They might even advertise in favor of old people buying their competitors plans!

If the public option is included, they’ll all try to recommend older/sicker people to the public option to bring its rates up so they can to.

However, there is sooooo little competition to bring down rates anyway. Do you really think that the insurance companies would lower rates just because they might have lower costs?

Lol. Complain about costs and insurance companies and then write a law requiring everyone to buy insurance? Absurd.

In any case its a stupid idea, but not only that, it is a willful disregard for everyone’s rights to decide what to do with their own money and healthcare, and of course it is a new middle class tax.

Its also blatantly unconstitutional (against the law) and no amount of “interpretation” can change that.