Obama's New Health Care Plan To Have Both Substance And Process

Voters will not fret about reconciliation. The tea party loons and their handlers will scream and the media will dutifully report, but most people won't even be paying attention. They'll notice when they or someone they care about sees the benefits.

The ‘reforms’ the White House wants 'an up or down vote on' are variously considered a sham, trivial or an
 institutionalization of the current disastrous health care system (only with 
more public subsidies to the insurance industry).

The substance of the President’s proposal is the current costly, inefficient and 
ineffective insurance system on Federal steroids.

Read the summary of the plan. Even in the summary, confusion and endless gyrations are evident. The muddle is the result of trying to fit ‘reform of the system’ into the system’s current contorted, inefficient and costly contours (in other words, the plan is not a ‘reform’, but more pasting things on to a broken system).

Here’s what the people wanted when the Democrats started:

“A mere seven months ago (that would be around June 2009), The New York 
Times/CBS poll found that 72% of Americans ‘supported a government-
administered insurance plan—something like Medicare for those under 65—
that would compete for customers with private insurers.’”

From then until now, Obama has:


1. Rejected single payer;

2. Stiff-armed the government option;

3. Mandated individuals and families pay premiums to private sector insurers; 

4. Assured billions in tax payer subsidies for private sector insurers; 

5. Stipulated actual health care service at 80 cents of every dollar, while 
insurers can spend
20 cents of every premium dollar on lobbying, ‘sympathetic’ 
candidates, CEO bonuses, ‘administration’, fighting claims for treatment and, 
now we can add, participating on the new Federal ‘rate review’ Board.

What Obama wants an up or down vote on is the current system supplemented with taxpayers’ money in the form of mandated premium payments and Federal ‘subsidies’. That’s no reform at all.

The plan the White House and Democratic 'leaders' have put forward deserves a resounding 'down' vote.