Key Senator Rolls Out Sweeping Universal Health Care Plan

Washington Post:

Two of the Senate's most influential leaders are working separately behind the scenes on legislation that would dramatically alter the way Americans get health care, hoping their early efforts -- including the release today of a position paper -- will push President-elect Barack Obama to move rapidly on the issue and spare the incoming administration some of the missteps that killed Bill Clinton's health reform initiative in 1994.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is unveiling a 104-page blueprint today that serves as the opening move in a fierce competition in the Senate to frame the debate. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who is battling a life-threatening brain cancer, has directed aides over the past several months to convene negotiating sessions with a diverse group of stakeholders, including physicians, patient advocates, small-business owners and insurers. He intends to have legislation drafted by Inauguration Day.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[Mannock]

If anyone gripes about universal health care and cites Canada as a failure, keep this in mind: Canadians want universal health care and never want to return to the old private system. Unfortunately, health care in Canada is under budgeted , but that has to do with the government of Canada. The previous Liberal governments did little to help the provinces in funding. The present administration is under Stephen Harper who, before becoming an elected official, was the head of the Nation Citizens' Coalition, an organization hell-bent on getting rid of universal health. I hope that you get health care for all Americans.

[PATina]

I don't know many Canadians... but I've never heard any of them complain about their health care system. The few I know think that it's a great system... much better than what we have here.

[MossyOak]

I operate an inn close to the Canadian border and some of our guests cross the border from Canada to obtain medical treatment in the U.S. Every one of them says the same thing: they have a serious issue that needs immediate attention and they don't want to have to wait. Canada has great medical care, it's just not quite speedy enough to satisfy some people, and of course it depends on what the problem is. Personally, I can't get health insurance so I'm envious of these folks who can afford the best of both countries!

[miamia]

I'm sure they are writing it with the help of lobbyist.

[mpeachhead]

Sounds great. I'm glad they are moving forward on this plan. I don't like the idea of taxing my insurance though. That sounds too much like McCain.

[SunshineDaydream]

i don't like the idea of health insurance period. an industry profiting off the (non)health of americans is ridiculous.

[justobserve]

Agree wholeheartedly!

[JeanV]

I agree with your sentiment regarding private profit at the expense of the illness or health of individuals. Making money from people who are sick seems genuinely un-christian. So much for the constant rant about our Christian founding principles. But then people in power all seem to have an overabundance of hipocrisy when it comes to the politics of health, life and death.

[darthdarcy]

Get the profit motivated Health Insurance companies out of the system...

Run them if we must as not for profit, or give everyone Medicare that alone would cut Heath Costs by 32%...

Everything else is bovine scatology..!

[SunshineDaydream]

word!!

[BlueOnBlue]

Single payer.

Get the insurance companies out of the health care business. Actually, get them out of the health care denial business, because that's what they do.

For a good plan, you need go no further than Medicare. And Dennis Kucinich.

[suregena]

This was a huge, huge issue for me at the very beginning of these campaigns. I am an Arizonan, living abroad in the UK. I have used their National Healthcare myself, and I also work for a hospital over here. I have also worked for hospitals when I still lived in the States. National Healthcare is wonderful. I don't know why any sane human being would be against such an idea. American healthcare is just absurd. My UK coworkers are absolutely shocked when I tell them the sort of costs people can expect for just the most simple of procedures. Some of the first things they always ask me is, "... shouldn't that be illegal?!" It is a strange, strange thing indeed. Instead of providing citizens with a service that should be their right and that they should have access to - it is treated like a business. And instead of us being citizens, we are consumers. It is a very twisted way of doing healthcare; no other Western country looks at Americans in envy of their healthcare system. They think it is absurd, and as an American myself... I agree with them!

[MizLiz]

Every time McCain talked about "free competition" and "free market" in regards to health care, my blood pressure just shot up. what does HE know about being bankrupted by enormous medical costs?

[comacoma]

After this campaign I think it's fair to ask if McCain knows anything at all...

[MASHON]

HUZZAH!

[MizLiz]

I live for the day we have "socialized Medicine" in this country...as i see it, the only ones screaming and jumping up and down about it are the fatcat health insurance companies, and they can just go to hell. They've gouged us all for far too long. And way too many are excluded and left out. it's just wrong.

[PartyPartyParty]

I just wrote Senator Baucus and asked him to tell me what I can do to help, since the Senators from my allegedly left side of the country (California) are too cowardly to even talk about universal health care, much less take a stance on it.

[SunshineDaydream]

that, my friend, is how a broken country gets fixed. here is someone asking what they can do to help, not dogging the people trying to make a difference. well done.

[MASHON]

I second that emotion.

[PartyPartyParty]

Why thank youse!

I just hope I'm taken up on my offer.

[justobserve]

Good sense!

[23000Days]

Health insurance companies are our ENEMY. Any plan that includes insurance is doomed to fail, because the costs and profits in the industry are obsene. A good guess is that 35-40% of every dollar paid in insurance never goes for health care, but is retained by the insurance company. They are the middle-man that we must remove.
As in most civilized countries, a federally operated single-payer health care plan is the right way to go. Better care for all at 50% less cost to each individual seems like a no-brainer to me.

Yes, we will pay for single-payer in taxes, but at the end of each year the total per-capita cost will be far less.

[illinoisan]

This plan is a dead letter. Go to page 15 and hold your nose. We need to free employers from the burden of the present system, not weigh them down further.

[PartyPartyParty]

Oh yes, let's. After all, freeing employers has been so good for the country, hasn't it?

Free Enron!
Free Goldman Sachs!
Free Lehman Brothers!

[illinoisan]

I'm arguing in favor of single-payor in which everyone is automatically covered and the premiums are collected along with our FICA deductions. This would make our products and services more competitive. This is not about punishing or rewarding corporations.

[ellawensmom]

yeah, because happy employees are such a drag.

[VikingQuest]

Has anyone ever asked how in the crap we are going to pay for this?

Right now, we are looking at:

1. $1.5 Trillion dollar deficit next year
2. $11 Trillion and climbing of national debt
3 . $53 Trillion in unfunded debt for Medicare & SS

I think we need less lawyers running this country and a few more accountants to keep everyone in check.

[PartyPartyParty]

We are already paying - to for-profit corporations. The unfunded debt for Medicare and SS you cite is also misleading: Even taking losses to fraud into account, Medicare and Social Security are two of the most efficiently run systems in the country. The unfunded debt is from the government's borrowing from the Medicare and Social Security funds, not because those two programs lose money or are poorly run.

[VikingQuest]

Go check out some video of David Walker on youtube.com, the 60 minutes inteview is pretty solid.

Entitlements will end this country when the baby boomers are in full swing retirement.

[terragazelle60]

You think we are not paying an enormous amount for healthcare now? So how do you think that those 50 million people without health insurance gets healthcare? How about the Medicare drug plan where we could not dicker for better prices? You think we could not get savings? You think that being behind Costa Rica in child mortality is good? So why was it ok for Republicans to spend on war, torture, listening in on our phone calls...but ohh we can not afford to spend on health for our citizens?

So how much does the top 10% get in tax breaks? How much taxes will we have in the coffers after we get out of Iraq? How much productivety will we have with healthy workers? Really think...

[Zeje]

Without insurance companies, health care costs would be drastically reduced -- our system costs more than any other system in the world -- and we get far less for it.

[tyger]

Well while she was having a good time attacking the Obamas perhaps Miss holier than thou should have been taking care of her marriage! No one believed the Edwards picture either but it was for real!!!

[SunshineDaydream]

whoopsies, wrong thread. lol

[aOsO]

I forgot that Senators actually passed legislation, wow its been a long eight years.

[illinoisan]

No mandates without single-payor. If the government insists on mandates, the people should demand a single-payor system in order to ensure affordability.

[MASHON]

There you go.

[PatCroft]

to little to late! Main street is already very broken!

As for the argument of covering the cost of Health Care for everyone all one has to do is park all of the Air Craft Carriers this nation runs and whalla you have enough money for Health Care.