If Republicans and Blue Dogs are going to dump the PO now, just wait until 2012-2013 with the rate of premium increases out of many average citizen’s financial reach. Employers do not have any plans on the horizon (with the exception of the financial sector) to offer COL salary increases. So insurance premiums go up (in my estimate 8-10%) while employees receive no cost of living increase. Add to this picture that many of us, nationally, just went through a year filled with furloughs and for many, that will continue into the next year (or two). The cascade will probably happen faster than the health insurance industry realizes; making a public option essential due to the rapid rising rate of uninsured and the loss of productivity with employees due to dropping their coverage because they cannot afford it. Now, I will tell you, economically, our family falls into a middle class category. There will be no safety net for us in terms of health care.

So, we have the forecast of the uninsured rate climbing to record rates within economic classes no one expects it to climb in, and no safety net, all the while we are being faced with the growth in pandemics?

Sounds like the health care “perfect storm” crisis. In the end we’ll end up with such a big public option the private industry will be moot.

If that is how the private industry wants to fight this. They can. They will cut off their nose despite their face and a large chuck of medical research, medical R&D will dissolve in the US as a result (one area where we have been an international leader). It. Makes. No. Sense.

And then PaulaT’s comment at 23 comes into play:

I keep wondering where the other business/corporate interests are. Why aren’t they lobbying Congress to do something considering their profits and prospects are going down the tubes to higher health insurance costs? It seems like it should be big insurance and big pharma against the rest of the business world, but apparently it is not.

In short, Congress and the President need to cut the crap here. The only thing that’s going to work for real people, in the short run, is HR 676, Medicare for All. We need to pass that, and make it effective in less than a year.

The chances that health care reform will pass now is precisely due to the issue you point out: not only can’t many corporations and smaller businesses afford it, but neither can state and local governments.

However, here’s what I’m seeing: Wall Street still calls the shots **in D.C.** While much of the rest of the nation holds Wall Street (aka, ‘finance’) and banksters in increasingly low regard, the key decision makers inside government/DC are aligned with Wall Street. Which badly needs the health care sector for profit maximization that is no longer coming from other, already looted or eviscerated, sectors.

It’s been a couple of years now, but I recall a little info about Howard Schultz (of Starbuck’s), and the CEO of Costco meeting with WA Sen Patty Murray; both Starbucks and Costco have been highly rated as companies to work for and both provide medical to even many P/T employees. (One reason there are so many P/T baristas, I’m told.)

So the Starbuck’s baristas, the Costco cashiers, the teachers, cops, and firefighters are all underwriting — via ‘cost-shifting’ — the Wal-Marts and other companies who don’t provide medical to their employees. So everyone else underwrites excessive ER visits, and you know the drill…

But how is Starbuck’s or Costco really supposed to go up against Merck or Pfizer or Premera or UnitedHealth? Who do you think THEIR customers are…?

So the ball goes to D.C., which is in the clutch of healthCo and pharma and finance.

Which is why the rest of us need to keep the pressure on!