“Medicare for all is better than an insurance company for any. Medicare works, contains costs”.---Medicare and Medicaid cover ~1/3 of Americans yet account for ~40% of all health care spending in our country; efficient?

“Insurance companies write policies no one understands”--- Insurance companies write policies based on mandates in each state and are regulated for every policy by government regulators. Lawmakers in congress write laws that they themselves say are too complicated to read before voting; which of these to is the bigger problem to our nation, insurance companies or government?

Democrats have control and can vote their promise to insure that everyone has full coverage under one plan. It would cost less than current private premiums and various government programs for legislators, seniors, government employees, veterans, Moms and children, prisoners, the uninsured and poor. It would eliminate administrative inefficiencies and paper work.

Medicare for all is better than an insurance company for any. Medicare works, contains costs, pays, is paperless for the patient, your doctor decides your care and insurance companies can sell it.

Insurance companies write policies no one understands, claim wonderful benefits that may mean you are only covered in the hospital or not at all, decide your fate rather than your doctor, are the death panels that decide if you can get insured, what benefits you get and what will be paid. Your insurer will want you out of the hospital in a day while your doctor wants more time to regulate your medicine and progress, save your life or avoid complications.

Fair financing of health care should be a percent of income above the poverty level and deductible from paychecks. Employers could pay half like social security or all to keep their employees.

Obama has to decide if he wants to be President of the nation or a ideologue. His nature is the latter. If that continues he just might wind up with just one term. The downward slide of his administration is breathtaking and shocking to me. It is truly the old cliche "where's the beef?" I am afraid we elected empty words.

Big surprise, seniors that paid into Medicare since it started now want to use it.

NV...I hope that is the case too. If Obama refuses to sign anything without the public option, then this takeover mess will be dead in the water. We can finally move on and possibly support smaller scale, more responsible reform.......

I really hope that Obama refuses to sign anything without the public option. The simple option is to simply make medicare begin at birth. I do get a kick out of my anti health care friends who rant and rave about national health care, but love their medicare.

John, I think you have some very high quality answers among these comments. I agree with baby steps. When fixing an engine problem in a car, you could change the Oxygen sensor, spark plugs, fuel filter, and EGR valve, but if you were fortunate enough to fix the problem, which one was it? It is a crude comparison, but lawmakers need to identify what specific items they want to, or more importantly, need to "REFORM".

My solution is if you let each county put out a bid to any and every insurance company in America, with coverage that would consist of basic medical coverage (physicals, wellness checkup, x amount of office visits, major medical), you could eliminate government control. If you think about it, your garbage that gets picked up every week is from a company that won a bid to provide that service to your area. The government does not control it, but they facilitated it. A co-op is the way to go, and this is an organized, and efficient way to go about reforming health care. There would be a lot of details to sort out, but you could pick any doctor, any hospital, etc. The insurance providers would also offer additional packages for more premium forms of coverage for those who were willing to spend money out of pocket.

The big question is how do you pay for it? Everyone who pays their citizen tax would be eligible. A citizen tax, yes. No more primary residence property tax. If you live in the United States, everyone has access to the same things, yet, some pay more, and some pay less. With a citizen tax, everyone who resided in Rock county would pay no property tax on their primary residence, but would be liable for the exact same citizen tax. Fair is fair. Crazy. I know.

You know, for a party that's been talking about nationalizing medicine for nearly 20 years, now, you'd think they'd have had a plan ready to go on day one.

LOL@ sannio

Mr. E., I've finally figured you out. You're a CAPITALIST!

I totally agree with those who mention incremental bills. The problem with that, is that they won't help political figures claim victories before elections. A public option doesn't have to be as far reaching as Obama's plan. Wisconsin has an excellent example, where Badger Care is available yet insurance companies can still compete. Badger care puts guidelines and some buffers before someone can just jump on board.

President Obama could difuse the national healthcare issue and gain immediate consensus nationally by removing his 'urgency' crisis label he has attached to the current healthcare legislation. Obama should invite all the 'political' leaders - DEMS and REPUBS - in Washington to the Oval Office. The first thing must do is hammer out / define / present to the nation the American National Healthcare System Reformation Timeline PLAN.

I would think such an important timeline would be seqientional with milestones / dependencies established and realistic target dates -- ie; this may take the next 10 to 15 year before it is completed.

Each timeline milestone may have one, two or more major issues identified that require implemention BEFORE moving forward to the next helthacre milesone.

Each milestone may take 2- 3 years to complete and implement.

Breaking this healthcare reform legislation into smaller components or phases will better scale the entire healthcare reform task. In this manner nearly everyone will be better able to understand the legislation & can either support or reject it. That decision will then not be based upon misinformation, outright lies, or just plain stupidity - but rather on logic or personal desire.

CHSanDiego, reform is not the only problem. What is your solution to the millions that cannot afford health care and are uninsured? If not a public option, then what?

There is a fundamental problem. Obama wants to ultimately take over Healthcare with a single payor system, and he has said as much. That fact is the great divide. If Obama wanted only reform, there is much that both sides agree on and reform could move forward with haste, as everybody agrees about reforms to the existing system. But the Democrats want much more, they want the power and control of running the whole thing, and that is where the line is put in the sand where vast numbers of people will not cross.

So the question is do the Democrats really care about "reform", or is this just about power and control?

Think big, but begin small. A series of smaller bills over the next 2-6 years to fix each portion of the health care system incrementally makes much more sense. One can see what works and what doesn't. The first bill should do three things:
1) Portability-- de-couple health insurance from employment. Give tax rebates to people to buy their own insurance and change the employer/union tax benefits for providing health insurance.
2) Set up private health insurance exchanges and re-regulate insurance coverage to cover pre-existing conditions and harmonize basic health insurance coverages.
3) Incentivize the private sector to create local, regional, and national websites to compare provider costs easily and to let consumers intelligently shop for care like they do for everything else. So, if Mercy charges $1000 for an MRI and Dean Riverview charges $500, the consumer can better choose. Nothing drives down costs more than transparency, good information, and the power of consumer choices.
After that, assess how it is working and tackle the next 2-3 important issues. If after 6+ years it looks like a government option is needed, tackle it at that time, but at least the government option is not forced at the beginning.

For starters... all come to agree that a series of very small, comprehensible bills is far preferable to a single, thousand-page monstrosity. Any legislator who opposes that principle is red-flagging their attempt to conceal a hidden agenda. If an idea can't be clearly expressed in a couple of pages, then it is probably a very bad idea. (For example, the U.S. Constitution is six pages.)

If they push this plan forward the Democrats will loose the House and the Senate in 2010. Even Harry Reid is in trouble. Obama's best bet is to start over with a clean slate and work on a more bi-partisan level. In addition, he has to be willing to make compromises. He is acting very Bush like in terms of being head strung on one concept, but in this case it's sweeping health care reform. Kennedy was a great negotiator and though he was strong in his beliefs, would make concessions if it meant "something" was getting done. Reagan was the same way. You have to be willing to take a few losses for overall success. Obama is mistaking an election win, with the belief that everyone agreed with his politics. People liked Obama the person and believed he would work to bring people together. That is how he won the election. Instead, he's swinging the pendulum from the far right to the far left with little regard for opposing view points.