Back during the 2004 election I handled questions in the health care section of Kerry’s campaign forum for a while. Obviously many had their minds made up but there were a fair number of questions from people who I think sincerely wanted to know more about Kerry’s health care plan. A very common question was whether they could keep their current coverage if they wanted–which goes along with Obama also making a point of the fact that if they are happy with their employer’s insurance they can stick with it.\

It is amusing to see so many conservatives suddenly agreeing with Paglia. It is a shame it is over such a nonsense argument.

You have it backwards. Why should people’s FICA taxes go to extra subsidies to the Medicare Advantage plans, which primarily go to increase insurance company profits? The point is to reduce these subsidies so the money can be used to make Medicare not sustainable.

The details of any deals with Pharma remain murky (more here). It is inevitable that there will be negotiations between the White House and all players in health care if anything is to get passed. Obtaining savings on drugs is an important part of health care reform.

Nor am I interested in any of the whining that Obama supported a single payer plan in the past but now says he doesn’t. Obama has made it clear that in the past that a single payer plan was his preferred plan if starting from scratch, but the realities are that we must work with our current plan.

Sure, Obama is trying to some degree to cover himself with both supporters and opponents of a single payer plan. All politicians do this on many issues. The real issue is not what Obama’s personal views are now compared to what they were in the past but the plan which is now on the table.

For conservatives who think there is a plot to sneak in single payer: the White House has been pretty strong in rejecting the idea of a single payer plan and the proposed laws bend over backwards to try to appease the insurance companies.

For liberals who are upset that Obama is not pursuing a single payer plan: there is no chance of this passing. All the current opposition to the current plans would be greatly intensified if those who are satisfied with their own insurance, along with those who are paranoid about government plans, were really to be forced to join a government plan.

Many other issues related to health care reform are discussed in other posts here in the health care topic.

It is not the CBO report but all the other scare stories which are affecting the polls. The CBO report is a poor reason once you consider how the CBO is unable to score many of the projected savings.

“It is really so far a stretch for you to see that once a competitor with no cost or profit limitations enters the market that the result would inevitably be to dominate the market?”

I thought that conservatives thought that the market was so much more efficient, and that the government is totally inefficient. In such a case, why should private business fear a government entity?

UPS and Federal Express are not being driven out of the market by the US Post Office

While these aren’t the best of days for the broadcast networks, it is not NPR which is presenting them with competition.

Opponents of health care reform love to quote the CBO’s numbers on cost savings (ignoring how their methodology underestimates savings which cannot be coded). Strange you never seem to mention that the Congressional Budget Office has also disputed conservative claims that the public option will drive out competition from private insurance. It is predicted that more people will be covered by private insurance if we have health care reform than there are at present.

Besides, it is looking very likely that the public option will be dropped. If that is the case will conservatives then support the bill? (I doubt it.)

“Now, you want to warehouse the names and email addresses of people who criticize Obama’s government run health care?”

Hell no, we don’t want that. Present any evidence this is occurring and I will oppose it. Lacking such evidence my suspicion is that this is yet one more case of conservatives loving to play the victim, along with imagining conspiracy theories against them. But if you can demonstrate this is happening, I will agree with you in opposing this.

You might not think you need health insurance but many of the 47 million who are uninsured (as well as millions more who are under-insured) do not feel this way. Plus, you might be healthy and fit now, but should you develop an unexpected medical problem you will also likely go into bankruptcy. That’s not to mention the large number of people who are already insured who still wind up in bankruptcy due to medical problems as a consequence of our current insurance system.

“Please, open my eyes again, what am I missing?”

You are missing a couple of important points:

The way the CBO scores savings they can only score savings which are quite definite, and do not include those savings which will come about as a consequence of the advocated changes. Therefore the savings are considerably underestimated.

You also fail to consider the benefits. In the worst case scenarios in which savings are well under what the Obama administration predicts, the government would wind up paying less than 10 percent more per year than it is paying now. Even if we have to pay this much it is worth it to have a society in which almost everyone has health care coverage and people do not lose their coverage because they become sick, they lose their job, or they decide to change jobs.

Finally you are missing the fact that our current system is collapsing. Remaining with the status quo is not an option.