Harry & Louise 2009?

Actually no JNS, not this time. The country WANTS health care reform. Harry and Louise won't disway anybody today. What it WILL do is expose those people who want to work against the interest of the citizens of this country and THEY will be the ones who catch hell this time around. At a time where people are losing their job and thereby their healthcare everyday, now is decidedly not the time to phuck around with this issue.

What about one good ad campaign to show how our health care is already rationed? The system is not working, and people are going to demand that something be done. I think if every citizen got the same health plan as our members of Congress did, that would be acceptable. Or if our members of Congress had to pay for their plan at the market rates, they'd wake up and see the inequity.

Sorry JNS but this is not 1993. I know you and the rest of the national press have not yet embraced the new paradigm, but the idea that universal health care is a bad idea because it might provide information that would prevent nuts like the ones that just took out three cops in Pittsburgh or killed 13 people in NY is just plain out there.
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The voices and ideas you used to accept as representatives of the GOP or the conservative movement are now the fringe contingent. You have the leadership or at least the more vocal elected officials of the GOP calling for their constituents to be armed and dangerous in their opposition to Democratic policies, you have them calling nuclear disarmament a fantasy as the champion laser weaponry as a means to contain North Korea, you have them still questioning the presidents citizenship, asserting the president is a security risk and now asserting the president is speaking in code that tells us he wants to respect muslim nations but really means that he will submit to sharia law. When are you going to realize that these people have fallen down the rabbit hole?

Predictably, Time magazine and other socialized medicine political advocacy groups are already in fear that their dreams of socialized medicine may be die at the hands of "one good ad campaign that speaks to the fears of enough folks to bring down legislation this big." Just another press release from Time magazine decrying that opponents of socialized medicine may have something to say about Time magazine's political advocacy ....

What does 1.7 trillion buy us Jay? More clinics instead of ERs? People in lines waiting for healthcare that may or may not ever come to them?
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When the elderly Harry and Louise ads are shown, pushing them to the sidelines in favor of much younger patients, I believe you will see an outcry from the elderly voting block that will crush any socialist healthcare program Obama wants to have in his fantasy world.
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When an elderly woman can't get a hip replacement due to Osteoporosis because there are not enough ortho-surgeons to perform the surgery. The out-rage will be very deafening to the politicians.
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If Obama wants to one day have univeral health-care he must first get preventative medicine in place. It will not work otherwise. Without preventative medicine in place for a decade or more the cost and shortages will far and exceed any benefit of doing it all right now. As people begin to die waiting on procedures because they now have to accept the Governments healthcare insurance, and lost their great insurance benefits the outrage will be tremendous.

Mandates suck. The system should be opt out, and why the hell should insurance companies have a say in this at all? Who cares what makes "business sense" for them? for years it made "business sense" to deny coverage to everyone they could even after taking premiums for years. I say to hell with 'em.
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also rustyreturns: elderly people already have socialized medicine. It's called medicare, and most people seem pretty happy with it. And people are already rationing treatment and not getting the treatment they need, it's just that the rationing and denial is being done by private, for-profit companies who pay a bonus every time they can figure out a way to deny huge claims.

Even if mandates are a bad idea surely this gang of gun nuts has the worst rationale in history for opposing them. How about a little… what's it called… reporting on who & how delusional this group might be?

This may seem wacky but all it takes – as Harry & Louise proved – is one good ad campaign that speaks to the fears of enough folks to bring down legislation this big.

And also a corporate press who will not counter the insurance lobby misinformation.

The relationship between healthcare and gun control is so seriously stretched as to be laughable. I hope you are getting a kick-back for posting their link. How much do they pay any way? I might be up for it too if the price is right.

like (almost--KT is the exception) all the corporate press, JNS continues to frame the health care crisis in this nation as a "health insurance problem. its JNS's pure hackery that allows the issue to be framed as access to "affordable coverage" rather than access to affordable care.
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as for "mandates", it all depends on who is being mandated -- but the current "negotiations" are being run by politicians beholden to the same people that made thet the "Massachusetts plan" a failure; the business community that doesn't want an employer mandate, and the insurance industry that demands a mandate. Thus we have the failed "individual mandate" model in MA -- a model which the insurance companies claimed would result in rates that would be affordable to the individuals who are mandated to buy insurance.
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mandates shouldn't be an issue -- the only issue should be how the government pays for health care for its citizens -- should be tax businesses or individuals?

The insurance business might be the best scam in America now that Wall Street went bust.
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Let's see. The current insurance company system is broken. How do we fix that? I know! Let's make it illegal to NOT buy from the insurance companies! That'll fix everything.
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This crap makes me want to puke.

Your country can have the best health care in the world. But if you can't afford it then it really doesn't matter to you. With all the people losing their jobs and all the others fearful of being next to get the ax I think people are much more open to a health care overhaul. Maybe you feel like you take take your chances about getting into an accident, or tough it out if you get sick. But it's harder to feel that way when you have kids.

JNS:
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I think the price might be more than balanced by the fact that the playing field internationally for American workers might be levelled if we go to universal health coverage.
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I think that in this case, businesses other than insurance companies, would welcome the lifting of the burden of having to provide their employees health care.
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Let's add that to the mix before we decide it's too expensive, too!

Could someone please tell me what site Louise is looking at on her monitor to see the health program so I could look at it, I can't find anything that tells what is in it?