Unions once had the best coverage of any workers, health, vision, dental, drug – you name it they had it. They traded raises and job security for those benefits and many of them lost those bene’s when their companies went under and their pension and benefit plans had to be picked up by the PBGC (pension benefit guarantee corp.). The steel industry is probably the poster child for this, but there are plenty of others. However it’s worth pointing out that the largest purchaser of Viagra is GM.

More likely the resistance comes from the employees of large corporations. They want private plans that improve in terms as they climb the corporate ladder. Small biz has already struggled mightily with insurance costs as we have discussed. Howls of government takeover and keep your hands off my healthcare are really other ways of saying ‘I’ve got mine, fuck the rest of you, fend for yourself like I did’.

Most un-Christian of all those folks. I’m an atheist myself and have more compassion than a lot of those people. But Republicans legislators love the screaming b/c they can pretend to be responding to concerns of their constituents while getting bribed by lobbyists is really why they vote the way they do. Nice, huh?

Probably the transition to that will take a some time and people that completely lack coverage now will have to go first. People that have great group coverage like it and are already yelling they don’t want their employer incentived to cut that off.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Seems like expanding Medicare to all would allow unions or employers to negotiate more favorable group rates. Do that many existing employees have cadillac policies, or is this a “bird in the hand” decision? It seems more attractive to me to pay for health insurance the same way I pay my taxes in April.

Small businesses have suffered quite a lot with healthcare costs over the last decade and they’ve passed a lot of those costs to employees. Worse, the cost of providing healthcare benefits has almost certainly stifled hiring by these small firms and other firms have simply dropped coverage for any employees.

Historically employers have paid for healthcare in this country. They have found ways around that in the last decade as costs have mounted – part-timers, independent contractors, employee coverage only leaving out the family, etc. People are better covered under group plans generally, you don’t see rescission and other abuses as often as that fate befalls people with individual plans.

It could be we will get to every citizen having free access to the exchange and making their pick. Probably the transition to that will take a some time and people that completely lack coverage now will have to go first. People that have great group coverage like it and are already yelling they don’t want their employer incentived to cut that off.

I believe you are taking the right approach to wait and see what the bills look like and who conferences. Let’s hope it’s not Lieberman for either side.

Also I would like small businesses to be able to access the exchange with a public option right away as well.

I can’t wait to hear details of the actual senate bill presented. I’ve yet to understand why businesses would need access at all if each citizen is choosing their own plan. Does the current discussion still connect insurance with the workplace for tax collection purposes? Why would a business entity need to contribute at all? Wouldn’t it be more revenue friendly if businesses were required to pay a living wage?

And am I on the wrong track? I thought Congress was coming up with plans for the President to review. We haven’t heard a plan from the President at this point because it’s too early in the process, correct?

He’s trying to get the government to function again. You know, Congress actually representing people, the AG acting independently, the economy back on it’s feet, the unemployed having a safety net stretched under them. Decent foreign relations with other countries. It’s a lot to do and will take a long time.

Now, honestly, it’s smelling more and more like this is going to be a giveaway, a horrorshow in which the insurance companies are handed obscene piles of taxpayer cash, just so they can keep screwing the sick. Proving once again, power and money trumps everything.

I’d like to be optimistic, but since January it’s felt like one disappointment and betrayal after another.

And his bio of FDR is really fine, too.

Paul B. Farrell in MarketWatch:

Yes, folks, democracy is dead. Oh, the illusion will be kept alive in our history books, in the rhetoric of politicians, in the manipulated minds of America’s 95 million Main Street investors. The propaganda machine works. Like a child’s fairy tale, democracy has been deeply imbedded in our brains for decades; we prefer believing old, familiar stories. They comfort us, even when no longer true. The real democracy, what so many fought and died for since 1776, is dead.

Lobbyists now run America, own America, rule America. Forget the 537 politicians you thought we elected to the White House, Senate and Congress to run America for us. No, they’re mere puppets, pawns for the “Happy Conspiracy,” an oligopoly, plutocracy, cabal, monopoly all-in-one — a private club of America’s richest few on Wall Street, in Washington and in Corporate America.

Voters and elections are irrelevant. Lobbyists decide what’s in the best interests of this elite club. The usual suspects? Try the Forbes 400.

Democracy is dead … lobbyists rule America: 16-point manifesto for the new ‘Lobbyist Nation of America’

So we know the problem, what’s the solution? I fear the 60’s are coming back, and I don’t mean just tie-dye. We could be headed to a lot of civil unrest.