I dunno who this lady is, but this is a *quality video.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Throbbin.

I can sympathize with the sentiment that this reform isn't going to be as meaningful as single-payer, but most of what she says about the bill that's coming down the pike is a re-hash of the false talking points Republicans use.

The bill requires insurance companies to insure everyone, regardless of whether they have a pre-existing condition or not (aka guaranteed issue). To prevent people from gaming the system and only buying insurance when they get sick, it mandates that everyone buy coverage upfront.

Becuase forcing people to buy insurance might be a big problem for people at the lower end of the spectrum, the bill includes subsidies that set caps on the percentage of your income you will have to spend on insurance premiums.

For people whose employers don't provide health benefits, there is a new, national "exchange" where you can buy private individual plans. These will be subjected to a number of regulations governing minimum levels of coverage, a minimum amount of money the company has to spend on actual benefits, and it will allow the individual customers to function as if they're part of a group pool (which allows for lower rates).

And that doesn't even cover all the reforms to reimbursement that are included that are the real changes expected to drive costs down...

It's a lot more of a rube-goldberg device than single payer would've been, and it is ultimately a far more moderate set of reforms, but it ain't crap by any stretch.

progressives had a general idea about how to fix health care and
corporations had an army of lobbyists and thinktanks and strategists and got there first.
Our system fails.

>> ^NetRunner:
I can sympathize.....

man u sound vulcan. are we too emotional 4 u? hehehehe

I'm not going to mention the massive surges in health insurance stock prices, or the fact that the bill was written by the health insurance companies, i'm just going to nurse my doubts privately and cry myself to sleep.

so nothing to argue about. no?

People who support and lobby for a public option have been cut out of the decision process since the beginning of this administrations push for healthcare reform. The blatant disallowing of single payer advocates from attending policy discussions with the senate and white house throughout the whole process has indicated to me that decisions have been made to try and tank the public option along time ago before any public discussion took place. I'm not sure if any policies of any kind can be honestly approached in the US without taking a massive legislative beatdown motion on lobbyists. Corporate lobbyists are so blatantly more powerful than the public interest.

@marinara, as much as I love a good populist outrage, I don't particularly think stocks going up tell us much. The health insurance stocks skyrocketed when reform looked like it was dead (i.e. after Scott Brown's truck got elected to the Senate), and they'll probably surge again when health care reform passes. Both sides spun the Scott Brown surge as vindication of their arguments, and the same will happen no matter what stocks do after reform actually passes.

Besides, I'm not sure one of the goals for reform should be ruining the stock value of the insurance companies. That would be illogical.

Instead, the goal should be to get them to actually work to better serve people's needs, rather than work to rip off as many people as possible.

@NetRunner
Let me first say, I'm constantly amazed at how level-headed you stay...my hat's off to you.

I agree that ruining stock value of the insurance companies shouldn't be a -goal-...it should simply be irrelevant. If all the health insurance companies go bust because reform made them unimportant, it would be a hardship for those working people they employ, but it would be a godsend for the rest of us.

I don't use the word "evil" lightly, but health insurance companies are exactly that. Health insurance companies had record profits last year...and yet, claim they need record rate increases this year. Those two facts add up to only one conclusion: they're getting while the getting is good, before they get shut down. They're no different than the Wall Street tycoons, they'll rape us any way they can.

Fuck this bill.

This is one of the times when I hope the cons pull it off and kill this thing.

Had the dems had the BALLS to do it right in the first place, I'd still be with them, but this bill is going to fuck us all.

There are no escape hatches. The fuckers are trying to make a law where everybody has to pay insurance companies pretty much what ever the fuck they ask of us.

This woman is right: no public option = no reform.

>> ^Stormsinger:
I agree that ruining stock value of the insurance companies shouldn't be a -goal-...it should simply be irrelevant. If all the health insurance companies go bust because reform made them unimportant, it would be a hardship for those working people they employ, but it would be a godsend for the rest of us.

I agree with that. Unfortunately, we're not doing something that would make them irrelevant.

It seems to me that if we pass a reform that relies on private insurance companies, but has the effect of killing off the private insurance companies, then the reform was bad.

It also seems to me that if we pass reform that relies on private insurance companies, and the private insurance companies start making record-busting profits without the quality and availability of health care improving for Americans, the reform was bad.

Ideally what we would see is that the insurance companies would grow in size due to more people being able to buy insurance, but their profits would shrink as competition makes them leaner. I don't know whether stocks go up or down in that case, but I think it's better for the country if we make these companies work for their money, and better for them if it helps them get on a sustainable business model (their current one isn't).