If Democrats Don't Pass Health Insurance Reform This Year, What Do We Lose? And What Do We Gain?

As soon as I saw that it will be a MANDATED plan (individuals are required to participate if they don't have other health insurance, or face a penalty equal to 2.5% of their adjusted gross income) I saw sixteen shades of red.

What the heck happened to Obama's promise that a government health insurance plan would not be "forced on anyone" but would merely be "one of several options"????

Here are the provisions as reported online:

-- A Health Insurance Exchange providing individuals and small business with choices for coverage, including a government-funded public option.
-- No more coverage exclusion for pre-existing conditions.
-- Affordability credits for low- and moderate-income individuals and families, available to those with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or $43,000 for individuals and $88,000 for a family of four.
-- Limits on annual out-of-pocket spending.
-- Expanded Medicaid coverage to individuals and families with incomes at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
-- Required participation by individuals, with a penalty of 2.5 percent of adjusted gross income for non-compliance.
-- Requirement that businesses with payrolls exceeding $250,000 provide their employees with health insurance or contribute up to 8 percent of their payroll on their behalf.
-- A series of measures intended to reduce costs of Medicaid, Medicare and other existing systems.

I am okay with all of the above provisions EXCEPT the "required to participate" one. Just because Massachusetts did that, doesn't mean it's right or fair.

And btw I am one of the howevermanyMillion with NO health insurance health insurance coverage and am not likely to have any for another five years until I qualify for Medicare. So I should love this proposal, right? Well, sorry, people.... the fastest way to get me to oppose ANYTHING is to tell me that I HAVE TO join in (and at my own expense!) or else I will get fined.

Thoughts?

If incisive, independent commentary and journalism mean anything to you, support them with your donations. That's how Black Agenda Report survives. Or not.
links of london|links of london charm| links of london bracelets

The issue of health care reform is neither what we loss nor what we gain it’s all about what could be  the best interest to  the constituents, after all that’s all that matters.   No doubt America is in trouble aside from it has long way to catch up with the normal economic growth unemployment remains to be one of their dilemmas. And now there’s another mass lay off. Microsoft is a company that excels and innovates- even with Microsoft layoffs!  The 5,000 that were sent packing weren't apparently, enough, and now 800 more will join the ranks of the Microsoft layoffs.
 

Healthcare Apartheid along the way, Norman Soloman, "The Next Phase of Healtcare Apartheid.":
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/05
 
 
"But the House Democratic leadership has not been content to serve up a grimly pathetic "healthcare reform" bill. Speaker Pelosi has used her political leverage to quash Congressman Dennis Kucinich's amendment -- approved months ago by the Education and Labor Committee -- that would grant waivers so that states could create their own single-payer system. Pelosi removed the Kucinich amendment from the House bill.
The California legislature has twice passed a strong single-payer bill, both times vetoed by the state's current execrable governor. The official position of the California Democratic Party is unequivocally in favor of single-payer healthcare. And yet Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, did what she could to sabotage the single-payer position of her own party in her own state."
 
Why do Californians continue to vote for Pelosi?
 

Dixon: "Ever men and women of their word, Democratic leaders in Congress have stripped out of the president's bills any chance for states to pursue their own single payer regimes, and backtracked on promises to allow a floor vote on the Medicare For All measure, HR 676."
 
I don't think we necessarily lose anything.  I realize the pragmatics, the incremental benefits of covering more versus less people under the current corporate bill, however, even accepting it's meagre portions one is left with (a) essentially a bullshit campaign promise inasmuch as the bill is not operative until the next reelection cycle (will we ever know wtf's in the Bill, huh?) (b) mandated, uncompetitively priced, high-costing shitty medical care (baseline at best) that, given the current economic and job downturn, will punish more people financially as well as create a unworkable enforcement regime (c) "socialistic capitalism" that will force money for citizens pockets into the coffers of the for-profit medical complex thus increasing their lobbying and political influence, (d) eventual cuts in medicare and medicaid as the Blue Dogs, perpetrating as "moderates and liberals" have promised "fiscal discipline"  i.e. corresponding cuts in medicare and medicaid to "balance the budget" (whatever the f***k that means).  
 
Is it not better to start from scratch versus voting for windfall profits to for-profit medicine so they can in turn buy off our even more, or more generously our  "legislators?" and thus, put the screws to our asses with increasing vigor?  The Billions of $ flowing to these asses will damn near seal our fates.  In contrast, don't we need to defund these bastards?
 
Failure also creates the opportunity to forge a "regional" or "state-by-state" grassroots approach to the electoral process.  That is, if a candidate for Congress or Senate, especially, does not back, at minimum, the rights of states to pursue their own single-payer regimes then we destroy them, including boycotting if we can't produce viable candidates.  Lesser evilism is nothing but cowardice and a slow death.  As someone astutely said elsewhere, the progressives states will grow economically as not only more attractive environs for creative and enlightened individuals but indeed for corporations too.  A state by state approach might, might just mimic Canada's province by province acceptance.    
 
So, for the present bill, window dressing and bullshit all, failure is (indeed) an option.   A damn good one at that.

=no vote or throw out incumbents.  How do I tie this into single-payer Medicare for All?  I think that people are going back to not voting after large turnouts a year ago, indicate voter anger turned to apathy.  I disagree with the philosophy, but it might be that's why there were lower turnouts.
(NYC had 25% voter turnout, which helped Bloomberg squeak to a win.  The media do and will lie - and that relates to the coverage about single-payer - as we know, but worth reminding.  The biggest kept secret all though the campaign was that Bloomberg was scared, as the media hyped his "why bother with an election, Bloomberg has it".  The only clue was spending $1million a day for ads, which as pointed out on DemNow didn't add his personal philanthropy to nonprofits and could be counted as election spending in one sense - or cents.  Negative advertising worked again, as designed to: people don't like negative ads and didn't vote.  But it was a 4% win.  I'm hoping my absentee ballot for homebound disabled gets counted and there's a lot more votes like mine.  Someone I know voted against Bloomberg before going to a hospital for a test.)
      The more we fight for single-payer Medicare for All, the harder to ignore it by pols.  We will get single payer, it's just "when".  To paraphrase the former Vietnam vet who fought for peace upon his return, now a US Senator and former Pres. candidate: who will be the last person to die before we have single-payer health care?
       I am glad this is the lead article today.  Thanks.