Reply #18: The biggest problems is with the subsidies and aid programs. [View All]

[backscatter712]

In theory, subsidies and aid programs like Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, etc. will be used to make health care affordable to everyone.

In the sausage making process that Congress uses to make laws, the size and amount of money spent on the subsidies will be fiercely contested. And chances are good that the amounts won't be as big as we would like, after the GOP and the DINOs demand their pound of flesh in exchange for letting a health care package go through at all. There will be some help, but for many, it won't be enough.

Then what happens a few years down the road if the GOP retakes the presidency or Congress. Guess what. They're going to pull a Grover Norquist and they'll slash these programs. Before long, the poor and working class will be struggling even more to make ends meet, and we'll be back to where we started.

That's why we need to focus from the beginning not on mandates, but on making health care affordable. Yes, we need to use subsides and programs like Medicare, Medicaid and S-CHIP. But we need to attack some of the structural problems that are driving the cost spiral. We need to re-regulate the insurance industry. We need to ban them from jacking up premiums or denying coverage for people with preexisting conditions and medical issues. We need the government insurance program that Congresscritters get made available to everyone to work in competition with private insurers to drive costs down. We need to mandate minimum levels of coverage, and make them iron-clad, and make it known to providers as well as insurers, so they don't need to beg for permission from HMOs before providing treatments. We need to have Medicare empowered to negotiate drug prices with the pharmcos.