missing the damned point, indeed...

This little rant (off a classical music blog, go fig) is at least far more polite than ANY of the right-wing pundit blogs and blowhards out there (like today's editorial saying that under the British system (which Obama has NOT modeled his proposal after at all), Stephen Hawking would not have gotten care for his disease...nevermind that he's, well, British, and was definitely under the British system when first afflicted).

Sounds & Fury: Caution! Off-Message Mini-Rant Ahead.:

Why off on the wrong track in conceptual principle? In short, because it focuses on and is primarily concerned with making health insurance affordable for all U.S. citizens, and that means centrally involving private sector insurance companies, all of which are for-profit businesses. When the matter is health care, that's a concept that's fundamentally perverse, even lunatic. No one in his right mind would willingly put into the hands of businesses and businessmen the securing of his access to those persons and institutions on which depend his physical and mental wellbeing.[rant continues with standard boilerplate discussion of insurance companies, profits, and their willful desire to not give you the services you paid for).

No, we've no magic-bullet solution to the at-critical-mass health care affordability problem in this country. All we can say, and say with absolute certainty, is that the involvement of private sector insurance companies in any capacity whatsoever is a central part of the problem, and no part of the solution.

Once again, this commenter acts as if Medicare doesn't exist, as do many on the right-wing, INCLUDING THOSE WHO USE THAT GOVERNMENT SERVICE (the # of "what is your insurance? ans: Medicare", stories coming from politicians at town halls is VERY disturbing).  Expanding the government health insurance programs is part of the proposed package, along with many other things.  If all this was doing was subsidizing the existing insurance companies, they'd be all over it - free money as far as they're concerned.

But it isn't.  It is, just like Medicare before it, directly introducing competition to the insurance industry that has turned itself into a cartel, and THAT is why they have embraced the methods of the right-wing to fight it so badly.  It WILL eat into their profits by introducing a competitive service with a proven track record of better service and higher cost-efficiency (not much higher, but higher none-the-less).

The trouble is the area it is directed to, and this is a legitimate concern (unlike ANY the right-wing has given us) - that by the time the bill finishes, it will (like many recent bills before it) target the wrong market.  It is meant to make health insurance (lets face it, health insurance prices ARE health care prices, once everybody is under some coverage, so the distinction isn't worth making anymore) more affordable to the lower classes.  The trouble is that the package is likely going to end up too attractive to the *middle* class, who will then desert any individual coverage they are paying for, AND possibly even opt out of any corporate coverage, since, well, they're covered for life already (and we all know how much of a pain it is to change insurers - my wife STILL has doctors filing claims to the wrong companies).  The fact that those pesky little "pre-existing conditions" will also become non-issues makes it even more attractive.

Insurance is a "ponzi" scheme like any other - it only works when more people pay vs the payouts being made, and that only works in the long run by increasing the number of payers.  This will hit the insurance industry HARD because it suddenly will freeze the number of people who pay by creating a package that not only works for those who couldn't pay, but also for those who can but would rather not.

Now, is this a bad thing?  It would be good for the insurers to get a better handle on their internal costs in reaction to competition, and in fact removing much of the bureaucracy from their systems would actually allow them to provide better services (i.e., actually pay instead of fight you over a claim), but the end result of THAT is, of course, unemployment for the middle-management bureaucrats and second-tier lawyers who do all that fighting against you.  For the insurance industry, there's a lot to lose for "America" to win.

There are better ways to be spending the money, in my opinion, mostly on subsidies to keep some things in America rather than making us dependent on overseas facilities beyond our control (especially in the vaccination fields - there's no reason we should be so dependent on the UK for the flu, for example), and subsidies of federal payments to stat and local school districts to support the student group-insurance systems many already have in place but can't afford to keep subsidizing at that local level.

But "socialism" or not, the money must be and WILL be spent, so you might as well give decent proposals on what to spend it on, and compromise over the details, rather than run this parade of lies that just make your party and your constituency look like idiots.

'cause the rest of us are tired of hearing only idiots oppose us.