A HSA solution got some airtime at the Atlantic recently. I expect if there are any sane republicans they’ll be picking up on the “free market” memes found in that article. After watching the first minute or so of the video it looks quite similar.

And zed!

You have Big ones Mike.
My hat is off to ya.

How much is the family of 4 or 5 making 40k a year going to be able to put aside for this mythical health savings account and private social security account? I can see the family that pulling down 200k+ being able to do this, but not someone in the middle.

Read the Atlantic article: it was suggested that the HSA and catastrophic coverage be subsidized for lower income families. The author said everyone on Medicaid could be given a $12k HSA grant ($3k each for family of four) annually for current Medicaid costs.

I don’t know if this is accurate.

The article deserves some critical attention, as the mythological sane moderate Republicans may use it as an alternative policy.

Kucinich on MSNBC

Flash! Kucinich on MSNBC – health care status: Dennis will join Ed Schultz on ”The Ed Show,” MSNBC, today August 19th at 6:30 pm EDT, to discuss the status of the health care reform proposals.

BE THERE!

I have a worry about this being able to buy across state lines. I have visions of credit card companies eliminating state usury laws and of state AGs trying to prosecute predatory mortgage companies and getting shut down by the OCC.

That guy is shitty at what ever it is that he thinks he does. He doesn’t make sense. Right, people are going to save enough to provide health care not only to themeselves but to their grandchildren, too. As opposed to today when relatively well off middle class people are losing their life savings and going bankrupt due to medical billing.

So, did he drive the ‘illegal alien with the broken leg all the way back to “where they’re are citizens of” or did he keep interchanging that guy with someone who is “bleeding to death on the street”? I got tired of listening to him dodge that one and might have missed it if he cleared it up.

I got an idea lets do health savings plans and invest them with Bear Stearns or Lehman – oops

me too,
methinks it’s exactly what they want.

So how much should I be socking away for the ticking time bomb catastrophic health nightmare I will/may/could be facing any day/time/year? Sure, I make a decent living. So I should sock away funds for the illness that will wipe out everything I have worked for all my life and still enrich someone in the medicalindustrialcomplex. Really? Is that what we’ve come to? I call Bullshit!

Let’s invest them in US Treasury bonds.

I asked Howard Dean about the “Solution” from the Atlantic article yesterday. He didn’t see how it could do cost control for catastrophic care. Having Medicare or a government catastrophic care insurer would seem to help that problem, but that would mean private health insurers would be big losers (something the article sees as a benefit), making the politics very difficult.

Ed Schultz on GeeEee TeeVee is not nearly as polished as neo-con troll Jonathon Alter so-called journalist. Ed is shouting Public Option! Alter is telling Democrats and liberals what they must do. This defender of the blood sucking parasite Insurance Company tells us WE must accept The Co Opts.

Jonathan Alter, Please kiss my bright shiny metal laptop. (Than you Bender the Futurama Robot, who supports single payer.)

Good old earnest Ernest Istook from OK is saying not to tax the wealthy because they won’t invest in businesses. Gee where have I heard that BS before. Oh trickle down theory.

Should be humorous when Joe has to explain that he’s a Christian so he really doesn’t belong in Hell, no matter what he did on Earth.

Now wait minute. Thomas Sowel scoffed at us ‘liberals’ saying that there never was such a thing as “trickle down effect”. We just made it up.

The Trickle Down Economics Strawman
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1115

Here’s something I don’t hear much: do people (like Mr. RW Big Shot here) think that the undocumented don’t have jobs and/or pay taxes? Do they really think they come here, buy a trailer, and collect welfare?

I can tell you for a fact that plenty of illegals have jobs with paychecks from which their contributions to SS and Medicare are duly deducted.

Deductions, of course, which they will never collect on. How much are they contributing, dollar wise? I bet it’s not a small number.

and you can identify them on sight, or speech. Speak Spanish = Illegal — how else can the FoxCrowd be so certain the ER is full of illegals?

Yes. I have to say, I was really surprised at how little I had to scratch the surface on other, more mainstream blog/post sites before the “illegals” meme reared its ugly little head. Most times, it’s about a paragraph of somewhat coherent thought before poster goes right off the rails into illegal alien/I got mine/taking my money away and giving it to the no goods land.
As good old Digby always says, “it’s baked in.”

If Jesus were alive today, and a Republican, as all good Christian are, he would have the following parable:

“A Mexican was going down from Atlanta, GA to Birmingham, AL, when he was mugged. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead with no clothes. An Evangelical pastor happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, sped away. So too, a Mormon, when he came to the place and saw him, he sped away. But a Republican, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and said, I shall drive you the Mexico as you are an Illegal Alien and then You are On Your Own. Then he put the man in his truck, took him to Mexico. ‘Lock him up,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will bill him to clean the blood off my seats.’

‘Which of these three do you think was a true patriot for the man who was mugged?’

Thomas is an advocate for what he calls “robust HSAs (Health Savings Accounts)” and allowing insurance companies to compete across state boundaries. . .

David Goldhill is preaching the same “solution” at The Atlantic. Shades of Bush’s personal retirement accounts.

Damn… I’m reading the New yorker article referenced in that Atlantic article. There really is a lot of inefficiency in health care. ICUs that don’t have proper supplies of soap? WTF? The John Hopkins Doctor Provonost is quite a hero and canny too, insisting on having a senior administrator involved helped get issues addressed quickly.

Yup (see first post on this thread). I’ve been pushing that article for a few days now at FDL – it seems very likely that some sane Republican (cryptozoological beast) will read it and say scrap HR3200 and go for HSA/national catastrophic care insurance.

Scarecrow is upstairs!
Prospect’s Starr to Progressives: Thanks for Being Pawns; Now Chill on the PO

Aka: If you have money you can get health care, but if you are too poor YOYO.

“Catastrophic care insurance” is something I remember being sold when I was 26 yrs old by Bankers Life & Casualty. The first two years, the premium could be handled. I was young and my age group wouldn’t be apt to the kind of catastrophic illnesses that cost them big money. Funny thing happened at about age 30 though: premiums quit inching up. They skyrocketed year after year. The Bankers Life & Casualty decided to leave my state and I had to find a substitute which, if you start older, also starts higher. I think it was some part of the Chubb group or something. Bankers told us they would assign our policies to them or we could go out on our own to find somebody else. Now remember, the basic policy outline was “catastrophic illness coverage” only and the only way the premium would hold steady for a couple years was to increase deductibles and co-pays and yadayada. Well pretty soon Chubb vacated and assigned us to BCBS.

No difference in the trend. Big difference in the policy offered at the prices I could afford. Then in my late 30’s or early 40’s. No more catastrophy–just basic health care, check-ups, some prescription reimbursibles, high premium and a ton of exclusions. And if I ever got another kidney stone things would increase yet again.

“Catastrophic coverage” is a joke. Don’t buy into that crap. God help people who really need it.

it’s worth RTFA before you say you’ll save and lose everything. There is a fair amount of material in the article, after reading it I didn’t get the impression that medical bankruptcy would be as big a problem under the policy.

I think President Doctor Dean identified a small problem with cost control in catastrophic care. One solution to this is to have a public catastrophic care insurance that controls costs.

As I think about it cryptozoological sane republicans aren’t needed, the rare rational Blue Dog might do.

the article proposed subsidized catastrophic care insurance AND subsidized HSAs.

It’s only eight pages and worth reading, not just bein’ agin’ it coz it ain’t single payer.

Mischaracterizing policy alternatives is beneath us. Lets discuss what is in the article, not what we imagine.

Mike,

You called right-wing radio shows?

You’re a TROLL???

Me too. Solidarity, my brother.