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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (131296)	2/23/2010 3:31:24 PM
From: Suma	Respond to of 541768

I like this Karen . Very well put. or me it's the model. I simply can't find any reasonable assurance that the model would be sustainable over time. It's a lifeboat drill writ large. I see a shrinking fully-loaded lifeboat with still-increasing load. Neither leaving people in the water, which we have now, nor sinking the boat, which seems to me is the inevitable result of what is proposed, is a good solution. We need a solution that rationalizes the relationship between the load and the size of the boat.

To: Lane3 who wrote (131296)	2/23/2010 4:08:08 PM
From: Travis_Bickle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541768

I simply can't find any reasonable assurance that the model would be sustainable over time. It's a lifeboat drill writ large. I see a shrinking fully-loaded lifeboat with still-increasing load. === I had that problem with my group plan, every year BCBS would increase the cost by a considerable amount, and I would pay and pay, until it got to the point where the last increase in premiums threatened to sink the entire boat, and I could either go down with the ship or jettison the health plan. The BCBS model was utterly unsustainable. Many of my small business clients have come to the same conclusion and jettisoned it. A LOT of small businesses in Florida have been dropping health insurance as a benefit. To me the Canadian system is perfectly rational. I get a vested benefit right now that is worth a great deal to me ... in return the government has a claim for a percentage of my future earnings. The key to me is that I get a vested benefit NOW, while the cost of the benefit is CONTINGENT, i.e., if I am flush I will pay a considerable amount for the benefit (but who cares given that I am flush), while if I am in dire straights due to illness or whatever I may pay little or nothing for it ... seems like a good bet. I agree that the sustainability is in question, but our current system has proven unsustainable, and the U.S. government has made good on its obligations for far longer than BCBS or any other corporation in history. Given that I will not be paying for the benefit (guaranteed health care) until some time in the future (when I hopefully earn the income that the government will tax), national health care seems to me to be the best solution to the problem.