"Handed the country"? The way I see it, he volunteered for this!

Amongst all of the hope and change rhetoric…I seem to remember him stating that change would be quick and that a healthcare plan would be in place by the end of his first year.  While I believe this is impossible to do CORRECTLY if it is rushed through….and that other programs take time to be effective, Obama did open himself up for this type of criticism.

Most thinking people don’t really expect this president to accomplish ANYTHING. If you want to know what’s REALLY going on in this world of “politics,” take a look at a totally non-partisan video. It’s almost two hours, but well worth the time.

It tells the truth about Bush AND Obama.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7886780711843120756#

I was not suggesting Medicare be expanded, but instead was saying somehow the supplementals to Medicare had been required to be standardized…each co’s Plan A containing the same benefits as every other company’s plan A. I was saying, why couldn’t the existing insurance companies do this for everyone—so we could compare on price and choose the set of benefits right for us.

Phyllis, while I’m not a huge insurance company fan, the harsh reality is that ANY business must make some sort of profit in order to stay in business.  I agree that when shareholders are involved, that profit margin is sometimes pushed to be bigger, but whose to say that the money invested by those shareholders did not go to benefit patients?  If you invest in any type of company, do you not wish for a return on your investment?  Unfortunately, there is a fine line between greed and a reasonable profit invested properly to assure funding in the event of a disaster.  There are good insurance companies and unethical ones, just like any business.  This is quite unfortunate, since we are addressing healthcare.  I believe the best way to BEGIN to reform our healthcare, is to allow purchase of healthcare insurance across state lines.  This would foster some fierce competition and start to bring prices down.  We also need to address the fraud and abuse involved in Medicare billing.  Medicaid can be expanded to include those that are NOT ELIGIBLE for emplyee provided insurance, this would catch those who work in places that aren’t required to provide health benefits as well as those who have lost their jobs.  This could be provided on a sliding scale according to income, if any.  In order to pay for this, a 1 or 2% national sales tax could be implemented.  This money should be restricted to healthcare ONLY, with clauses strong enough to prevent fund diversion as happened with SS/Medicare.  This would make everyone responsible for funding it. Much like a performance improvement model, a year later these changes need to be reviewed for effectiveness and need for further programs.  Adjustments need to be made for what isn’t working well at this point.