You got that right Libertine!

Do we spite thirty million out of some sort of honor?

Bravo!

Why would anyone sacrifice anything for honor?

We're talking about physical well-being here!

Honor is for fools, or aristocrats, or heroes!

Not for us!

No. The law provides for no competition in the insurance industry and the current system of insurance market monopoly remains fully intact.

What do you mean by monopoly? Is there only one health insurance company?

Or do you define it as a monopoly purely on the basis that only private companies are allowed to compete?

Monopoly in this context is not a national reference. Market monopolies exist all over the US. For example, many states have one health insurance provider in their market that so dominates the market with it's share (often upwards of 75%) of the business that it is for all and intents and purposes a monopoly in the classic sense (states are the only regulatory authority over insurance companies remember). This is the case in almost every insurance market in the US. Sometimes two or three companies will divvy up a market, but even then it's like a trust or collusion with prices, etc... this is very well known stuff. Not a secret by any means.

I think the $100/day penalty is assessed for businesses that drop an employee from a health plan and push them into the national/state 'high risk' govt. subsidized pool, it is not for insurance companies, the employee could still get coverage through the fed/state high risk pool for which hundreds of millions of funding is planned.

I searched the 2400 page bill and didn't note any specific requirement for insurance companies to sell insurance to everyone although it seems that will occur at some point, ...2014??

I did note that there will not be a mandatory federal 'review' of premiums until 2014. Who knows what rates will be by that date.

This law is exactly the law the industry and our congress had in mind when they started out. The only real written in stone objective was to make certain corporations and persons more rich. Anything else it does is an afterthought. Anyone outside of Washington who has been watching this unfold for the last year knows that.

Oleeb,
I want to thank you and many, many others for comments posted to one blog or another in the past few weeks that have collectively identified, one nail and board at a time, how we, collectively and as individuals, have become boxed-in without a crow bar:
exempting insurance companies from anti-trust litigation;
tightened requirements for filing personal bankruptcy;
enactment lag for credit "reform" that gave banks time to inflate interest rates to usurious levels;
short terms resulting in constant campaign mentality, leading to indentured servant relationship of pols to corporate contributors;
the SCotUS ruling on corporate personhood and free speech;
unwillingness of pols looking for money to cross corporate agendas;
framing of HCR, from the get-go, according to corporate agendas resulting in the prohibition on single payer, or public option as viable considerations;
if HCR bill is passed, enactment lag time that will give insurance companies time to raise rates at will before any caps, thereafter, will pertain;
deferred attention to job stimulus program;
ever escalating numbers of applicants asking for relief in the form of insurance pools, or Medicaid, or unemployment benefits which results in overburdened state budgets, and more and more people being turned away.....

HealthJustice sent out an email today that offered predictions for the future, as well as a recommendation to buy stock in WellPoint.

Cynical, yes, but also logical thinking:
https:
//mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/12774397d313b53c

If you don't mind your car being keyed (if you live in Republican territory) you can buy a Medicare for ALL bumpersticker from them here:
http://www.cafepress.com/1payerdotnet/

Just confirms what I keep on saying...ideologically Obama is closer to conservatives than he is to liberals. Hearing that makes me serious consider trying to bring down his conservative agenda. Centrist? Centrist my ass...when it is more important to keep conservatives happy, by proudly saying he rejected the ideas of the left, time to fight.

"Now, we can fix this in a way that is sensible, that is centrist. I have rejected a whole bunch of provisions that the left wanted that are — you know, they were very adamant about because I thought it would be too disruptive to the system. "

The more I ponder this passage the more my blood is boiling. So he takes pride, while being interviewed by an arch-conservative Fox TV news personality, in blocking liberals in his attempt to maintain the status quo, one that totally fucked up this country to begin with. HAHAHA...yeah, this is supposed to be the change we can believe in, huh?

Our most beloved Lincoln suffered from this political malady as well, catering his speeches to accomodate his southern Ill. audiences to the point of sometimes racist jokes on the stump.

I know Obama is different, but don't forget he is only a politician. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

ww said:

enactment lag time that will give insurance companies time to raise rates at will before any caps, thereafter, will pertain

Right now the legislation stipulates forming a board of "industry experts" who will set "limits" on annual increases.

Of course that implies the rates will be going up every year.

So our definition of a "cap" and the government's definition of a "cap" are quite different, I'm sure.

I don't hate the player I do hate the game. The game is centrists (Obama, Clinton, Rahm et al) playing the left for suckers. They are more interested in playing nice with the conservatives and have nothing but scorn for the left. We have been repeatedly insulted by Rahm then taken for granted and written off by our president. How the hell are we supposed to react Joe? I, for one, am damn tired of turning the other cheek. Now he is telling us progressives that we must jump on board with the corporate giveaway, which he drafted with the conservatives, masquerading as reform or we progressives will doom his presidency? What is wrong with this picture?

Don Corleone once said, "I don't care about things that don't affect me." While this is a hugely selfish and socially unresponsible statement, I do feel a sort of relation to this sentiment. Whatever the inner workings of Congress are--if you need healthcare, the thing is to get it passed, not to worry over procedure or graft, or politics of the sausagemaking. We have more IMMEDIATE needs.

If Massachusetts gets a brand new hospital thanks to Sen. Dodd, I could care less. I care if I have access and affordability to health care, so in twenty years I can see my kids graduate and get married, as opposed to spending my third Christmas in a coffin.

See the context here? See the stakes? For me, it is not the Capitol and it's inner sanctums and minions. It is whether I am going to be able to be healthy or not. Whether my kids will have a father that can play ball with them or not. Whether I will be alive or not.

If you are going to oppose any change that involves even the smallest improvements for people like me, all I can say is you must be living more comfortably with this system than people like me. I believe the people who should have say so are the ones at the heart of the matter; people who don't have any health care. People who already have health care can't appreciate what it's like to be broke all the time and no doctor, and to try and live healthy with a serious disease, which I happen to have.

For me, for my kids--this is personal.

I'd like to be alive in 20 years. But I have had no doctor for over a year. I can't afford those medicines I was on when I had insurance. At this rate, I don't see how I will be alive in 20 years--age 52. That's just not right, and it should supercede any issues people may have with this bill. If it helps me get health coverage, you should support it for MY sake.

The argument over single payer in this bill has ceased.....

Maybe some day, but that discussion has happened for this bill. To not eat the cake because you really wanted a bigger slice is silly.

This is not a perfect fix. But if you are starving, you eat the damn thing.

It isn't as though the players aren't making a conscious decision for whom to play. They bear full responsibility for their betrayal of the common people.

As predicted , the first stages of the Health Care Bill was passed. Why, you ask ? It is because people wish to be seen for their in put of a view and not unite. What is lost is respect with in a concept of { Freedom Of Choice } to be a part of this system or not, with in this Health Care Force Pay Matrix.
What is offered by FASC Concepts is the Freedom Of Choice, because we feel it is unconstitutional to force pay into the failures of Health Care Insurance Companies and then Tax that money. As you can see our elected officials are paying little attention to the public. As I reach out to my computer and I knock , knock, knock on the screen, and I say is there any body out there?
This Health Care issue keeps taking turns and twist that bewilder the mind in thoughts. This $100 trillion dollar system ,as it would seem, I am counting up to $ 8 trillion 682 billion Dollars so far. On guy emailed me and he is up to $27 Trillion dollars.
You see when Harry Reid added a extra ....almost, $2 Trillion dollars in a tax forum, this through my numbers off with the 1 to 3 year spread of taxes.
Lets show you this way seeing how I run out of fingers to count on and I do not feel like taking my shoes off.....
to get a $4 Trillion dollar tax spread, it is based at a 0.25% up to 4 years.
To be able to see the amount taxed in one year as a whole at 50% is around $8.2 Trillion to $8.8 Trillion, please remember according to Government Officials this is to be a spread tax, 3 to 10 years.. There is over 10 thousand companies I have not even got to yet. So lets take this $ 8 trillion 682 billion Dollars , reach into your mind and say ,1 to 3 to 10 years Tax against the Health Care System, then take this 10% tax against the almost $4 Trillion Dollars, your factor must be a multiplication. Then you will see this Tax factor as net value of that system. But of course Government Officials will not show the a net value of a system or that one company, this wold make it to easy for the People to follow the Tax Dollar.
Remember this tax dollar does not include the split petition of the tax forum of increases in other areas, in the name of Health Care Reform. This tax forum I, or we can have very little effect against.
As for theses hidden taxes, they are not hidden. They are built into a split petition. They are meant not to be seen, only revealed as the Progressive Capital Tax Forum works the system in order to not over burden the money system. What is lost is trust because Government Officials by considering the public slow witted and as for this Bill, I want to read the Law that is to represent the Bill. This is because one word has a directive and a code and a sentence can lead to a different truth in concept.
So now it begins, the Civil Rights Law Suits and Constitutional Suits. We are not talking just a few law suits we are talking thousands will be filed because of the Freedom Of Choice is taken away and a Tax against money that is not Government Officials Rights to Tax, the Health Care Money for Coverage.
Within our web site we suggested to build a Government Web Site that will show the People the monthly income of this Health Care Dollar and what the dollar is used for. But of Course this can not be allowed this would audit the IRS and Government System.

So, what do you wish to do ? Sit back and complain or unite your voice as one and state that ,{ We believe in the Freedom Of Choice to be a Part Of this Health Care System or not. } We intend to give life to hope to where there is none.
FASC Concepts in and for Pay It Forward. Join the trickle effect and email President Obama .....
Our goal is to start a trickle effect and the goal is President Obama and this Bill to Law. To merge 250 million veiws for a honest Health Care reform. The trickle effect is , Email President Barack Obama
Mar 20, 2009 ... How to contact President Barack Obama and other White House Officials.
www.emailthepresident.com/ - Cached – Similar
and state we support FASC Concepts in part or in full, and share your views and be respectful in order to gain respect.
Health Care within a moral value, is to ,
{ GIVE LIFE TO HOPE WHERE THERE IS NONE }
Henry Massingale
FASC Concepts in and for Pay It Forward
www.fascmovement.mysite.com on google. yahoo, and aol.com
please take the time and visit all my new friends on the net and if you wish to post with FASC Concepts you will be most welcomed. So join us and share your ideas as one in one voice. Just type in the web address and you will see over Results 1 - 10 of about 6,730 for www fascmovement com and there is over 10,000 post that are 6 month old.