In any case, once you tell the insurance companies who they have to cover (everyone, including pre-existing conditions), what conditions they have to cover, that they can not put any limits on the total amount spent by them during the year or your lifetime for your care, and charge them a fee if they make too much profit, it seems to me that practically everything they do will be controlled by the Federal Government.

Write a plan based on conservative principles and ideas. Let everyone know you have a plan and what’s in it. Oppose the Democrats’ plans. When and if they pass it publicize the flaws and hope citizens will realize what a pig in a poke they have bought. Otherwise, their bill will just continue down that “slippery slope” towards total control of the health care market. And, in my view, substantially accelerate it.

Amazing how effective your reality distortion field is. Can you mass produce and market this? As long as you can adjust for the desired reality, I’d love to have one of these. Actually, I think both fringes seem to have a fair supply of such devices.

As for this one little bit of “reality”, don’t know why I bother but:

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/was_barack_obama_really_a_constitutional_law.html

UC Law School statement: The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as “Senior Lecturer.” From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

Of course, I’m sure you want some kind of “non-existent” “official” document to prove something or other. . . he’s not human, we don’t have a copy of his genome by an approved right wing genetic lab. He wasn’t born on earth, no one alive has come forward as a witness.

Whatever, Gayle, enjoy your socialist medicare and hope the government keeps it’s hands off.

So you want the President to do what we the people want, right? No? Then that’s just fluff to make your bitter hatred sound patriotic, which is shameful.

Logic and reason? How unpatriotic of you busboy. It’s obvious that you hate America and are, by default, a socialist.

“I would remind everyone - and our president - that he is not our ruler, he is our EMPLOYEE and as such, he’s to do what WE think is best for us, not what HE thinks is best for us.”

That’s right. He has to do what WE think is best, not what YOU think is best.

The majority of Americans support a public option:
http://digitaljournal.com/article/278585
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/analysis-public-option-is-likely.html
http://washingtonindependent.com/48140/gop-poll-yes-people-want-a-public-option
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/08/26/AARP-poll-shows-divide-over-public-option/UPI-42171251305003/

So you want the President to do what we the people want, right? No? Then that’s just fluff to make your bitter hatred sound patriotic, which is shameful.

I don’t believe that any doggone thing that Bozo in the White House might be willing to sign into law is anything that I can live with - with the emphasis being on the living part! I’m 67 years old - on the chopping block by his lights!

Who will determine what are “unnecessary tests”? Despite biology and chemistry being a science, medicine is a merger of science and art. What works for one person doesn’t work for another and therefore an unncessary test for one person, is a necessary step for another to diagnose.

Excellent point. I’ve had THREE cases where my private insurance company tried to deny coverage of tests that they deemed unnecessary. Three very long and painful battles ensued between my private insurance company and me. My doctor worked with me as hard as she could and we eventually got them to concede, but it was a nightmare filled with insurance company bullshit and weak, uninformed (medically) logic on their part.

These “unnecessary steps savings” concept will not fly especially since the plan doesn’t address tort reform. Any savings/rewards for doctors may not offset the loss in the “sue the pants off them and make me instantly rich” mentality that exists today.

Bah. Nonsense. That idea is mostly a myth, and private insurance corporations do this already. Tort reform is a corporatist distraction from the boots on the ground reality. Tort reform limits rights and personal freedom, and is used as a red herring. A vast majority of “sue the pants off them” cases are tossed before they ever go anywhere, but only AFTER they gain headline attention. The sensationalist cases that get headlines distract from real people with actual cases of negligence and shoddy practice both by medial professionals and the insurance corporations.

For example: “4. Physician and hospital “value based” purchasing. The proposal would reward hospitals for the quality of their care for high cost services and reward doctors for not ordering unnecessary tests in some cases.”

Who will determine what are “unnecessary tests”? Despite biology and chemistry being a science, medicine is a merger of science and art. What works for one person doesn’t work for another and therefore an unncessary test for one person, is a necessary step for another to diagnose.

These “unnecessary steps savings” concept will not fly especially since the plan doesn’t address tort reform. Any savings/rewards for doctors may not offset the loss in the “sue the pants off them and make me instantly rich” mentality that exists today.

At the end of the day, I guess my bias will always be that a bill that doesn’t address tort reform will fail to bring down the costs which is the Administration’s reason for spending all this time, attention and money.