I don't care how you vote but that's funny $hit.

ok time for some math here. for given your estimate of 6 million and the most recent cbo score of 1+ trillion (I will round down to make it easier) you get a 10 year cost of 166,666.00 per person that is 16,000 per year per person covered which works out to be about 1390 per month. now mrs. sambo and i pay for our own insurance through bcbs at a rate of under 500 per month. that is a huge difference for coverage to people who are not putting anything of their own money in - don't you think?

we all know that there is no way in the world that they will cut medicare 400 billion or whatever figure they are using today. they can't even get up the mortal fortitude to cut the doctors what was it - 235 billion that they tried to sneak through the other day? so that money might as well be history. which means we will borrow that 400 and surely more.

now what if the 6 million figure is wrong by a factor of just two? who is going to pay for that?

OK, since U1lock read the bill, he missed a couple points which makes the "good ole boy" exemption clauses necessary. Inserted several times throughout this document are little clauses that make you default to the public option should you change your insurance coverage in any way. Basically, once the law is imposed upon us, you may keep your current coverage if you have it and don't make any changes. Should you choose to change carriers, your new carrier will be the government. Should you choose to change the scope of your current plan, your new plan will be the government's. Should your employer choose to change your plan or your carrier......you belong to Uncle Sam. I know you missed those little tidbits, but hey, it's only 1900 pages long.

1) sambo, the cost of the billl is not just the public option. the way the public option is currently designed itis mostly funded through premiums. the majority of the cost of the bill is NOT the public option, nor is the public option free. its an insurance policy that you can purchase, just like one through blue cross etc. subsidies are going to be given out to help low income people afford coverage, and i believe medicaid is being extended to those who make up to 150% of the federal poverty line. that is where a decent part of the bill's cost come from, and if youre of the mindset that you dont want your tax dollars paying for other people's healthcare, than this is where you need to focus your anger. these provisions are in place in versions of the bill that didnt have the public option, and the public option actually reduced the long term cost of the bill about 100b or so if i recall. the point is, even the original version of the bill without the public option cost something like 900b, so pretending that the entire cost of the bill is the public option is lazy and completely incorrect.

2) dano, that is not at all what those provisions mean. the bill sets minimum standards that all insurance policies must meet. this includes all the changes to pre-exisiting conditions and such, as well as including preventive care (mammograms etc.). once the bill passes, all policies sold in the us will have to cover all these things at a minimum. from what i understand, if your policy right now (before reform) doesnt include any of these things, then it can be grandfathered in for a time, and not immediately have to change to cover all the new stuff. but if you were to drop your coverage after reform passes and buy a new policy, it would have to include all the new minimums, which the public option , as well as any other private policy sold, will have to include. that is what the provisions you mention entail. in no way do they force you into the public option. they force insurance companies to offer policies with minimum coverages, which is the whole point of reform. theres no point in making new rules to attempt to make thing fairer if companies dont have to follow them. those measures were in the bill even before the public option was added, and just mean that insurance policies have to offer a certain level of service, whether they are public or private. no one is forced into the public option. it is indeed an option.

ok, I see where you are coming from based on what the bill states...however WHO can just change their carrier!!!
I get to sign up once a year (prior to being laidoff-31 Oct 09'), I have worked for (in my short life) 4-Fortune 500 companies all the same...on the last two there was NO OPTION either HMO or PPO from ONE AND THE SAME PROVIDER!!!! who has all these options/choices etc....you can't go out and get health insurance like hmmmm lets say CAR INSURANCE...that would be (I would support this) TRUE CAPITALISM...the service is bad let me change, the premium goes up to much (example...IMHO) and I say see ya just as I can fire State Farm, USAA (I can served 11 yrs), or anyother car insurance, BUT think about YOU can't do that w/the health insurance provided by you employer!!! And b4 u come back yes you could't do that w/government health ins either....but WHY are Rep. missing this point???WHY cant I just pick up the phine and shop around? There is no incentive for the Insurance Giants to Compete they OWN US!

well really now, the public option will be funded through premiums. that means that the people who are going to be on it will theoretically be willing to actually pay for it? some of the same people who could get it now and choose not to? oh, that's right they will have to.

now who in their right mind would ever sell insurance under the new scheme? they are going to be made to cover anything and everything. they won't be able to turn people down. what if they skip a payment? can they cut them loose then? just what do you think will happen to the cost of everyone else who already has insurance will do? skyrocket that's what and on top of that we will end up paying our share of the trillion dollar tab that the dc geniuses have concocted. now i don't know about you but that sounds like a royal shafting to me.

right it will only affect the upper class. if you believe that then there is nothing more that needs to be said here.

typical government action. work so hard fixing something that it is completely broken while giving humongous gifts of other people's money to your pet constituencies to buy their vote and keep your self in office. why else would they need 2000 pages to hide everything.

i'm so glad that we have such beneficent and intelligent politicians making all of our decisions for us. it gives me a chill up my leg every time i think about them working out my life for me. god knows, i shouldn't be trusted to make my own decisions and have to have the burden of reaping the rewards or risk failure. gee thanks.

two days to smack down day.

i give up. theres not any other way to say it, but the public option does not = a bunch of free loaders getting free health insurance from the government, funded by your tax dollars any more than the postal service = poor people getting free mail service. yes there will be subsidies for low income families, but those are in place even without the public option. obviously we disagree on the nature of the role of government in healthcare and such. i can understand you disagreeing with the plan, i just think you should disagree with whats actually in it/being done instead of b.s. thats not in the bill. as for the trillion, even the cbo has the bill at being budget neutral, and actually reducing the federal deficit over a 20 year span. granted there are a lot of assumptions that go into that, but its an improvement, deficit wise, over the current system. theres a difference in budgeting for a trillion and just passing a trillion dollar spending bill. if i stop eating out, buying beer, buying bike parts and such for a year and save that cash to buy a new car, its not the same as just charging the car to my credit card with no change in spending habits, even though the cost of the car is the same in both cases. as for your other point, people can indeed be cut loose from insurance policies for not paying, but not because they are sick, or have a preexisting condition (which now include rape, domestic violence and sprained wrists.) the bill requires people to have insurance, but doesnt entitle anyone to free coverage as you seem completely fixated on believing, regardless of the evidence against it.

as for your thoughts on the price of insurance skyrocketing, it could happen, but if everyone is forced to have coverage that means there will be a lot of young, healthy people who currently go without insurance buying into the system and offsetting the sick people who now wont be kicked to the curb and capped. if anything the bill is a huge boom to insurers in that is tosses them 30 million new customers who previously didnt have coverage. i personally dont see this as an affront to my personal freedoms, though obviously you do.

good luck with all of that. i guess we will have to just wait and see on this one too. it ain't a done deal yet but surely they have to pass something. i think that is what is boiling down to now. they just have to get enough goodies in there to win over the right votes. everyone has a price.

as for personal freedom, to me that is about choice. i find it incredible that anyone could consider that their choices will be better after the government tries to fix anything.

perfect example is the post office. our local post office is only open limited hours. us working people can't seem to make it there (almost no one works in our community) during their business hours which are somehting like m-f 9:00 to noon then 1:30 to 4 and on saturdays it is from 9:00 to 11:30 or some such thing as that. well mrs. sambo had a package she needed to mail. she went to the post office on saturday 20 minutes before they closed. the postage meter machine ran out of tape and the post person worked on it for 20 minutes without getting it to work (how hard would you think that would be) then she told my wife she couldn't be helped and that she was closing up anyway as she was going to go off the clock. that doesn't mean that she was going right home just that she was closing the window? this is what i mean by government people working in our best interest.

im not entirely sure one anecdotal incident with crappy customer service can serve as an indictment against all government action. overall the postal service is pretty good. you can get a letter to someone 2500 miles away in a few days for less than 50 cents. if anything, postal service is the type of thing that the government should be involved in. left entirely to a free market, people living in rural areas are screwed because its not profitable to deliver there. governmental involvement makes it fairer for everyone. also werent you just complaining a week or so ago about the postal service bleeding money and such, and now you complain because they have limited hours, something done to keep costs down? you cant have it both ways.

it was not about the hours. it was about the sorry lack of service. that machine has to get fixed right? so why not say i'll stick around here till i get it fixed. isn't that what most people who have a job do? or do they cut out right on the minute? i'm not trying to condemn the postal service. it was an example of poor performance. not a big deal to me as i will just take time during my lunch hour next week and go by a different post office that doesn't close during lunch. and you are right the postal service is doing mostly a great job of moving small pieces of paper over long distances for little cost. i would like to see them at least break even though. if that means charging a buck for a letter so be it. we would probably use the service less but then all industries are changing now a days due to the internets.

i'm ok with getting back on topic now.

a little light reading for you u1lock (and anyone else who is still in favor of this health care reform idea)
wall street journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505423751140690.html

an over the top editorial that doesnt even have a name attached to it that extrapolates rediculous assumptions and wild assertations not backed by facts? fantastic!

Now we're talking. My Fortune 100 employer deducts a few grand our of my paycheck and probably pays a lot more to UHC but they are also being subsidized by the government for the provision that requires larger companies to provide insurance (isn't that a form of socialism ). Today, my company started the annual enrollment choice process and if I were to opt out completely, they would give me only $600. To answer your question...it's a big f'ing circle-jerk between your employer and the insurance companies to prevent a talent drain. Easy to acquire, competitive, and inexpensive insurance makes it easy for me to quit and do a startup or take a year off.

I'm really starting to worry about this relationship between big-pharma, big-healthcare, big-agri and our government. It's seems to be a bi-partisan capture of the government by corporations who use influence to prevent small competitors from cropping up. By doing so, they can sustain an oligopoly under the anti-trust radar but still drive up prices that we pay for with after-tax dollars.

I'm starting to wear my foil hat and think this left-vs-right bullpoop going on is being fabricated to distract us from this corporate takeover of the government. In the past 10 years, compensation for CEOs and bankers has gone up at a staggering % more than employees. We are all told to put our money in our 401ks, go long, be patient. All while the guys on Wall Street our doing back-room gambling with our money and pulling enormous bonuses. This takes points off our 401k returns - we're been funding this for years. Then. when they destroy the economy and kill 50% of the value in our 401ks they coerce the government to bail them out with our money again.

Then they get their buddies who own big media conglomerates, especially one non-U.S. citizen to use his news network to orchestrate the biggest con of the century - convincing half of these citizens to believe the government is to blame, and asking them everyone to make lot of noise so that nobody notices who is really calling the shots.

For the past 10 years, they have been taking seats on the lifeboats of the Titanic and asking us to hand them the oars. Parts of the economy are moving with them - like private schools and country clubs (even top-end bikes). But when there's any insinuation of regulation or reform, Fox goes ballistic and claims it's anti-free-market-fascism-in-the-making. People are feeling these pains and picking up their pitchforks...but they are being tricked into thinking it's the government or Obama. So philosophically, we are battling the wrong arguments and being suckered by the media into these strawmen fights.

Bankers got their bonus this summer, pharma is getting theirs right now with this manufactured H1N1 crisis, and insurance will get theirs this spring. So don't worry about this healthcare bill...whatever passes will surly screw those of us who make less than $300k and boost a CEOs bonus so his kids can hire our college grads to mow their lawn...if we can afford to send them to college.

And now we get the news that yet another back-room deal has been struck. Yes, Nancy and her Nancy Boys have shut out the other side and created an 800 page addendum to the 1900 page bill. Guess what, they are going to introduce it in the next 48 hours, allow a whopping total of 4 hours for floor debate and then vote on Friday. Anybody out there want to defend that? How does it feel to be a slave?

alright dano, im calling your bluff. i spent a little time this morning poking around for your claimed addendum/impending vote and saw nothing. i gave it the day and still havent seen anything on fox or drudge, who im pretty sure would jump all over such a story. lets see some links.