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"But the chairmen said they still did not know how much the plan would cost..."

I'm not sure the politicians care how much it's going to cost since it's not their money.

Will this bill stop the pre existing condition BS? Let you buy any plan that you want? UN tie it from your job?

How about having a Bankruptcy that is just for Health stuff and does not show up on any back round check?

Not let people ask about you medial history before offering your a job?

Make it so you can not be dropped by a insurance provider.

Is that the House Democrats are essentially following the blueprint for Healthcare provided by Republican Mitt Romney in Massachussetts. So far, the Massachusetts model has pretty much worked, in that, they did reduce the number of uninsured significantly. However, costs for the state provided side of the plan have come in way more than anyone either promised or expected. Quite frankly, the expansion of the health insurance pool did not increase the economies of scale and drive down costs for everyone. Now everyone just has procedures that they cannot afford done.

The other irony is that Obama's said to be considering the McCain plan's idea of taxing health care benefits and requiring employers to purchase it.

The question you have to ask yourself is, do you think access to health care is a right or do you think that it is just another commodity to be bought and sold. If you say health care is a right then you have to be willing to pay for everyone to have it, it will be expensive, very expensive. If you think it's a commodity then you need to admit that poor people don't deserve to see doctors, or deserve a substantially lower quality of care from understaffed and overwhelmed free clinics.

I happen to think health care is something society needs to provide to everyone equally. I know where the money can come from without raising taxes too. I have my eye set on the bloated defense budget. Cut the military fully in half (by dollars spent) and we'd still have the best armed forces in the world for DEFENSE of the nation and we'd have the money to take care of every sick and injured man woman and child.

There are other things we can do to reduce costs as well such as approve the use of drugs that are already available in Europe and Canada and have been proven safe, and reform the liability insurance system.

First, it appears to requires universal coverage. This is good. I remember a long time ago when universal coverage was not the norm for automobiles. All these irresponsible people would drive around, damage other peoples property, and then not pay. What was more they often continued to damage other peoples property with little consequence. This meant that those who were responsible had to pay higher premiums. Now everyone has to have proof of financial responsibility. One consequence of this is that I can get coverage against the irresponsible motorist for very little money. The benefit of health care should be similar. No more irresponsible people going to the hospital without health insurance. This should mean that those of us who actually pay for medical treatment, instead of expecting others to cover the bills,

Second, there will be a public option. Auto insurance in many states has the same option. Most of us do not use the public option. Most of us still pay private firms to carry our insurance. The public option is used by those those who cannot or chooses not to afford private insurance. Sure this public option costs money, but not nearly as much as having some irresponsible asshole crash into your house in his SUV, then discovering he has no insurance or assets because all his or her income went to pay the note of the truck. Every uninsured person costs us money. The public option will insure that hospitals and doctors get some money for every patient, so they do not have to gouge the rest of us.

Third, and this is what I hope, that they reform payments and set standards for care. For instance, it make no sense to pay 80% of a standard cost for a procedure, when in most cases doctors charge double the standard costs. Pay 100% of the standard cost, and don't worry about co-pays. The co-pay is built in with real and opportunity costs. Likewise, set minimum standard for diagnostics. Hospitals are spending money on proton accelerators rather than prene care. We can live without proton accelerators and other machines that go beep. What we need is care.

And this is what I think many people are afraid of. That medicine is going to go back to giving care, rather than huge returns on investments for the HMO or funding for lavish and extravagant building and equipment that rich people can then put their name on because they paid half. Or, as mentioned, we might be concerned that in the US we have a higher infant mortality rate than Cuba or Hungary, the worst in the developed world.

Let's require that whatever bill they propose, that all of the US government, especially congress & house, have to operate under that bill for one year before it can be forced on the rest of us. Whatever plan they currently have is gone. They are not allowed to work outside of their proposed system. They have to use only what their bill contains, and the funding has to come as a deduction (tax) out of their salaries. The money used to provide their health care services must come from whatever they paid in, and if (when) it runs out, nobody gets any more services until more funding is available. Also, any government employee who goes outside the system must declare it on some specified national forum, so we can know about its deficiencies before it takes effect on the rest of us.

This will show us if it is a viable plan, and that it is has enough money coming in so that extra funding is not hidden in additional taxes. Let's see how they like their own plan before we're forced into another stupid plan.

Here are the real differences between a single payer public health care provider plan and the hodgepodge private health care/insurance system we have now:

1) under a public plan, your health care is decided by a government bureaucrat sitting in a government office. While in a private system, you health care is decided by corporate bureaucrat sitting in a corporate office.

2) under a government plan you, or your employer would send hundreds of dollars in tax money each month to the health a agency to cover care. Under private plans, you or your employer must send hundreds of dollars each month to insurance companies each month to get coverage.

3) Under a government plan you a guaranteed coverage. You are not under private plans.

4) Under a government plans you are essentially covered for life. Under private plans you are limited in the number of claims you can make.

5) From what I have seen, government plans overseas control costs by focusing on preventative care and reward doctors who get patients to quit smoking and lose weight for example. Insurance companies in the us drop patients and increase deductibles.

6) Under a government plan, you and your doctor would have to fill out government paperwork to get benefits paid. Under the private system, each insurance company has it's own form to fill out which requires staff, meaning non-medical overhead, to proper fill out and file the forms in the proper manner.

There, those are are the real differences.

Basically, there are some problems the private sector is poorly equipped to solve. Medical care is one of them. Medical care is less of a free market choice and should be thought of more as an essential public utility. Market forces do not work very well do to the complexity of medical care and the urgency of catastrophic cases making comparison shopping impossible.

My COBRA coverage got pulled at about the 1/2 point because my old company was small and both of the spouses had coverage, so at the annual renew time, they just stopped offering health.

After talking with an Insurance rep that I have used for company insurance at a few places, it became clear that my family and I would NEVER get personal health insurance. Currently, I suffer from chronic foot pain (for the past 6 years), my oldest son suffers from depression and bi-polar disorder (for the past 4 years), and my wife gets migraines (from childhood). You can see why an insurance company would not want to touch us, but we still need insurance.

As my COBRA ran out my agent tried to get us on a temporary plan. We know that if we claim the meds that my son and I require, $2,000 to $3000 a month, we will also not be allowed to re-up the temp plan. We decided that we would not claim any of the chronic things that we have to deal with so that we have the plan if we have a major issue, but once we do, we no for sure that we will not be allowed to re-up.

For the temp plan we went with a carrier that haven't been covered by for over 12 years. But we were denied coverage by this carrier because they had on record that...

    1) My wife had been treated for headaches.
    2) One of my 2 sons had been treated for a sore throat.

OVER10 YEARS AGO!!

Those 2 reasons were all that it took to deny even temporary coverage.

We had to find a carrier that had never insured me and my family before just to get temp insurance.

We are still looking for a permanent option, but as we do our savings are being drained rapidly as we try and cover our ongoing issues. We need to minimize claims to preserve our temp insurance in case of a major issue. Because of that none of us are getting any ongoing treatment, so no one is getting any better. Were stuck with little chance at improving medically, and at this point we have not found an insurer who will offer us insurance at any price.

If you have now, or have ever had anything more that a minor medical issue, your chance of getting coverage as an individual are effectively 0%

I have been looking for work for 2 years, sending out, and following up on at least a dozen job openings ever month (12 is my self imposed min). While the economy is bad I have no idea if I will be able to get a job, and while I am in this catch 22 I am spending more and more of my time trying to find coverage.

In the mean time, I have one of my cars for sale, family jewelry is listed, and while our house is not under water, real estate is not exactly booming either.

I dunno. Does my government really want me to be broke, unemployed, and perhaps homeless, before I can get health care for my family?

Or can they come up with some way for people to purchase coverage, to allow them to get healthy, before they loose everything?