Comments on: FDL Book Salon Welcomes T. R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

By: libbyliberal

libbyliberal — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:09:00 +0000

thanks Tom and Merrill and Bev et al. for a great salon, once again!

By: selise

selise — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:06:59 +0000

The most important goal of any legislation, for moral and practical reasons, should be Universal Coverage.

amen.

thank you for your time and for your book. happy halloween!

By: selise

selise — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:06:10 +0000

Hacker’s plan got hacked immediately, 129 million covered quickly scaled down to 10 million covered? Hmmmmm. So that is what they are calling compromising these days?

hacker’s plan was never on the table (i think it was hidden with single payer).

that pre-compromise is what i call pre-capitulation.

By: T.R. Reid

T.R. Reid — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:03:56 +0000

The most important goal of any legislation, for moral and practical reasons, should be Universal Coverage. (If this means more profit for insurance companies, so what? If they covered everybody, I wouldn’t grudge them profit.)
I think Washington has given up on universal coverage, because ofthe focus on costs. so I hope activists will push to get the largest coverage possible on any bill. You can remind your reps in Washington that universal coverage saves money. At least, that has been the case in every country that tried it.
Thanks so much, everybody, for tuning in. –trr

By: Peterr

Peterr — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:03:55 +0000

To me, that’s more of an argument for paying for health care out of taxes, rather than an individual mandate for employer-based insurance.

By: Scarecrow

Scarecrow — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:03:49 +0000

Thanks much to both our guests for answering our questions. Great discussion.

By: selise

selise — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:03:08 +0000

hahaha! i’d love to talk with you about that on another thread — i just don’t think it’s so (first of all, we’ve never tested them with the strong po).

By: TheLurkingMod

TheLurkingMod — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:01:12 +0000

emptywheel is upstairs! Hung Out to Dry: One Former VP Chief of Staff

By: T.R. Reid

T.R. Reid — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:59:06 +0000

Mandatory health insurance should be seen as a matter of personal responsibility. if you’ve got the money, or a job, you should make provision in case you get sick or get hit by a truck. unless you’re broke, you don’t have the right to put this responsibility on others.
That’s the Republican argument for the individ. mandate. People who could buy insurance, but don’t, are free-riding off the rest of us.
The economists’ argument for the mandate is the nature of insurance pools. you need a bunch of people paying premiums, but not making claims, for any insurance scheme to work. All the people whose house never burns down are paying to provide re-imbursement for the poor guy who does have a fire.
Finally, there’s a simple equity position. The premiums paid by young and healthy people go to pay the claims of those who are old and sick. Young and health people should be willing to pay their premiums, because the one thing that is absolutely certain is, they won’t be young and healthy forever. And then they’ll need to drawn on insurance.

By: Phoenix Woman

Phoenix Woman — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:58:33 +0000

The thing is that they’re fighting even a weak PO just as hard as strong POs.