[tricky]

Originally Posted by St. Stalin the Apathetic

you think you health care will be better under Obama's plan?

if the bill doesn't collpase under its own weight prior to passage (will imo) and if people don't object to the unsustainability in terms of cost (requiring rationing) you'll see a two teired American medical regime. There will be expensive health care (which I can afford) and everybody else will get the same standard of gov't care. Which do you think will be better?

What do you think big business thinks about this? Do you think they'll be happy to shed hundreds of billions in benenfits costs? Meaning they'll quit providing insurance for most employees. Or, do you think they'll say, "Hey, we're going to keep spending dough on your insurance anyway"? Again, the Dems are now the party of big business.

Keep asking for gov't health care and you might get it...

did you get the funny cartoon about the Feds seizing a brothel in NV for back taxes. They couldn't run a business selling booze and pussy without fucking it up. How do you think they'll do with your medical care?

Oh, if I asked 75 gay people if same sex marriage should be legal and 25 strict catholics and came up with a 75/25 split on the issue would you think the poll valid?

Bahahhaha

There are 3 tiers right (but it's cute you think otherwise)

People like yourself that can afford everything and the kitchen sink insurance and still not be bankrupt when something bad happens, middle class with insurance that consistently get into bankruptcy when something major happens, and those like myself who have only the ER to go to.

Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias both catch President Obama making sense on the public option:

QUESTION: Wouldn’t that drive private insurance out of business?
OBAMA: Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.

I will say, however, that young Matt appears to be suffering from Vulcan

Via Andrew Gelman, Greg Mankiw describes the use of international comparisons of life expectancy as part of the argument for reform as “schlocky.”
Grrr. Not many serious advocates of reform use the life expectancy differences to argue that health care is clearly better in other advanced countries than it is in the United States; when it comes to care, the general assessment seems to be that it’s comparable, with no advanced country having a clear advantage. The reform argument actually goes like this:
1. Every other advanced country has universal coverage, protecting its citizens from the financial risks of uninsurance as well as ensuring that everyone gets basic care.
2. They do this while spending far less on health care than we do.
3. Yet they don’t seem to do worse in overall health results.
So Greg suggests that maybe it’s all because we have an unhealthier lifestyle — what Ezra Klein calls the well-we-eat-more-cheeseburgers argument.
Three things. First, surely the burden of proof here is on Greg. I mean, we’re spending 6 or 7 percent of GDP more on health care than other countries — call it a trillion dollars a year — without any clear advantage. That’s not the sort of thing you wave away with a casual suggestion that maybe we have bad habits.
Second: you know, people have thought about this — and tried hard to measure it. For example, the huge McKinsey Research Institute study on the cost of US healthcare tried to quantify the costs of lifestyle-related issues — and found that it didn’t explain much.
Third, read Atul Gawande!
Bottom line: this is the most important domestic policy issue we face. It deserves more than casual just-so stories about how the kids American health care might, despite all appearances, be alright.

both from Krugman's blog