Excellent questions, Sulli. If you can do this, add one more:
Why the urgency? Yes, many ininsured Americans may suffer, but won't a rushed plan cause more problems than it solves? Once you pass legislation, it's difficult if not impossible to undo.

This 2003 video reveals Mr Obama’s true intent regarding healthcare. Contrast his words with his current rhetoric and you’ll see that in 2009 the President is playing the American people like a bunch of suckers. We’re being lied to. The most powerful man in the world is engaging in a purposeful campaign of deception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE

Saw this in The Heritage Foundation this morning.

Here are just five questions Americans should be pressing their elected leaders on over the coming month: Just gotta love #2 (@#$%?&*%!)

1) Can you promise me that I will not lose my current plan and doctor?....... President Obama says it is “not legitimate” to claim the “public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system.” But Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman have all admitted that the public option will inevitably lead to government-run health care. The independent and non-partisan Lewin Group estimates that about 83.4 million people would lose their private insurance if Obamacare became law.

2) Can you promise that you and your family will enroll in the public plan?......Members of Congress and their families currently receive health care through the popular, and completely public-option-free, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) which allows members of Congress to choose between 283 private health insurance plans. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposed an amendment that would require all members of Congress and their staffs to enroll in the newly-created public health insurance plan. His amendment passed by just one vote in the Senate Health Committee. In the House, Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) offered a similar amendment and all 21 Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee voted it down. If the public plan is so great, then Members of Congress should by willing to forfeit their private coverage and join the millions of Americans who would be moved into the public plan.

3) Can you promise that Obamacare will not lead to higher deficits in the long-term?..... President Obama said that he would not support health care legislation that would add to the national deficit. But Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf has stated that the House health care legislation would “generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.” To help Obama keep his promise, Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-OH) offered an amendment that would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to submit an annual report to the President and Congress, comparing the expected revenue and spending under the bill’s provisions for the upcoming 10-year period. In the event that projected spending under the bill outpaced revenue, the Secretary would have to reduce spending so that it would not exceed revenue. Democrats defeated Tiberi’s amendment.

4) Can you promise that government bureaucrats will not ration health care for patients on the public plan?..... President Obama promised on July 22 that health care reform would keep the government out of health care decisions, but both the House and Senate bills call for an increased role of comparative effectiveness research (CER). More information on health care effectiveness is good as long as doctor’s and patients are the ones empowered to use that information. Conservatives in both the House and Senate offered amendments prohibiting the use of CER by government to mandate, deny, or ration care. These anti-rationing amendments were defeated in both the House and Senate.

5) Can you promise me that my tax dollars will not fund abortions?....The House bill, as currently drafted, allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to outline the minimum benefits that must be included in any health plan. There is no specific provision in the bill that would require insurance coverage of abortion. However, since the decisions over benefits are left to the Secretary of HHS, with recommendations from a newly created Health Care Benefits Advisory Committee, there is nothing to prevent the current or future Secretary from including abortion coverage in Americans’ health insurance. Conservatives in both the House and Senate offered amendments that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. The tax payer funded abortion bans were defeated in both the House and Senate.

Here are our last 2 posts.... and again... I do not see what you see Steve.

I would seriously look at the public plan - rather than the flawed plan I have now. I have had the same insurer - via my past 2 employers and a privately underwritten policy. That's 3 policies with varying levels of coverage.

My shoulder surgery was not covered - my shoulder injury was excluded by the privately underwritten policy as "pre-existing". So when my entire left arm stopped functioning - I had a choice. I could become classified as disabled - or get my shoulder operated on. 2 years later, I am still paying for it and still waiting for a decision from the insurance commission.

Another example. I need a dental implant for the last molar. I pay extra $$$ for special coverage for dental implants. But it's not covered.... because the fine print states that I need a tooth on each side of it. The insurance will cover a denture or extracting the tooth above it, though. .

Insurance companies are already making decisions about what coverage is "worth it". That's why so many life saving and cost efficient tests are classified as "experimental".

The public plan gives people who have options - another option to consider. It is also insures the people who don't have insurance - like the lady I described in my blog yesterday:

My take on the 5 questions, Steve... we're far apart on one of them, but pretty much agree on 2 of 5.

I think the basis for much of this is that "healthcare is working". However, I question that premise - because it is not working for many Americans, including me and I have very good health insurance now. I can understand the fear of senior citizens and aging baby boomers (being one myself). We wonder where the money will come from if we lose our insurance or it covers less.

In my opinion, we lost control of healthcare more than 20 years ago - as we evolved into managed care. Managed care means that we submit to what governs the majority - and we have to appeal when we need special treatment for our individual needs.

1) Can you promise me that I will not lose my current plan and doctor?....... President Obama says it is “not legitimate” to claim the “public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system.” But Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman have all admitted that the public option will inevitably lead to government-run health care. The independent and non-partisan Lewin Group estimates that about 83.4 million people would lose their private insurance if Obamacare became law.

Kat> Most people's access to their doctor of choice is already gated by their insurance company. Here in CT, the health insurance capital of the country - Doctors are dropping out of some of the health co-ops which the insurers have set up. It costs too much time and the payment is slow. For the most part, people switch doctors when they have to pay the full bill up front and submit for reimbursement.

It is the illusion of selecting your doctor - because as our favorite doctors retire... we select based upon insurance company enrollment - not skills or technique.

We already have government run healthcare - at the VA hospitals.

If people "lose" their insurance in a specific state or market, it is because the insurer won't make the profit in that market. It pretty much is an agreeable monopoly - some insurers are just not challenged in a market by other insurers.


2) Can you promise that you and your family will enroll in the public plan?......Members of Congress and their families currently receive health care through the popular, and completely public-option-free, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) which allows members of Congress to choose between 283 private health insurance plans. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposed an amendment that would require all members of Congress and their staffs to enroll in the newly-created public health insurance plan. His amendment passed by just one vote in the Senate Health Committee. In the House, Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV) offered a similar amendment and all 21 Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee voted it down. If the public plan is so great, then Members of Congress should by willing to forfeit their private coverage and join the millions of Americans who would be moved into the public plan.

Kat> Congress has so many plans because the insurers are not national. Individual state law governs where a policy can be offered - for example CIGNA, Aetna, United Healthcare, BCBS and Kaiser do not operate in all 50 states.

Insurers have started pulling out of states which dictate "too much" governance, such as VT when Howard Dean was governor. That market opening allowed the remaining insurers to charge more for the same services and the quality of healthcare declined.

We already have a single payer system in Medicare and the VA. It's here and has never been considered as "socialized medicine".

The people should have the same healthcare and choices as Congress.

3) Can you promise that Obamacare will not lead to higher deficits in the long-term?..... President Obama said that he would not support health care legislation that would add to the national deficit. But Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf has stated that the House health care legislation would “generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.” To help Obama keep his promise, Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-OH) offered an amendment that would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to submit an annual report to the President and Congress, comparing the expected revenue and spending under the bill’s provisions for the upcoming 10-year period. In the event that projected spending under the bill outpaced revenue, the Secretary would have to reduce spending so that it would not exceed revenue. Democrats defeated Tiberi’s amendment.

Kat> You would be astounded in how much money is wasted just on HIPAA. I'm not saying that the regulation about privacy is wrong - but the enforcement of it. Each insurer has spent billions of their Information Technology budget on systems which don't work with each other but do enforce HIPAA. Do you know the cost of electronically storing a single patient's records? Well, multiply that times 100 or 150 - because that's the average number of re-creations for the record to be duplicated from one insurer to another.

Your health records -by HIPAA - have to be available for at least 12 years after your death. Everytime you switch insurers, that's more multiple copies. It's a waste of money.

More money is wasted in maintaining vaults of electronic tapes and paper files scanned to optical. I know this very well - because I sell storage into this industry.

What is saved once and protected with a few geographically placed electronic copies - will save the trillion dollars. It is not Orwellian and a death panel - it fixes what we broke with vague implementation of HIPAA requirements.

4) Can you promise that government bureaucrats will not ration health care for patients on the public plan?..... President Obama promised on July 22 that health care reform would keep the government out of health care decisions, but both the House and Senate bills call for an increased role of comparative effectiveness research (CER). More information on health care effectiveness is good as long as doctor’s and patients are the ones empowered to use that information. Conservatives in both the House and Senate offered amendments prohibiting the use of CER by government to mandate, deny, or ration care. These anti-rationing amendments were defeated in both the House and Senate.

Kat> As I said, the insurance gatekeepers are already doing it. Medical decisions are being made based upon cost and actuarial risk, but we don't seem to notice until it hits our family.

What about the teen age girl who died at UCLA while waiting for a liver transplant? CIGNA denied it, over and over - and didn't reconsider until the day she died. The actuarial tables declared her as high risk. The question I asked was why UCLA didn't just go ahead with the transplant and worry about the billing later? They played both sides... but could have waived the fees to save her life.

It takes from 5 - 7 years after a more efficient test is released for the insurers to consider it to be "non-experimental" and necessary. Again... I'll use my own experience.

I had a biopsy last year a for lump in my left breast. It started as a fuzzy area in a mammogram in 2006, and followed by 2 years of very expensive ultra-sounds. The ultra-sounds were needed because mammograms have been reduced to 2 views of each breast to save cost. However, the mammogram was about $750 vs $2,500 for each ultra-sound, which had to be done very 6 months.

10 years ago, it was 4 views of each breast and that fuzzy area was acknowledged. After the biopsy was done at about $5,000, the radiology center apologized because I didn't need it. At that point, I was already freaked out and wanted a 2nd opinion. Everything was mishandled, including the request to come in for a biopsy.

I found a thermography practice. The heat generated by the body is picked up on the scan and tumors are known to glow bright red because of the amount of blood drawn to the tumor.

I had a peace of mind because my lump turned out to be a calcified mass. But the thermography wasn't covered and that cost me about $2,000 out of pocket. I had been paying for an FSA, and I drained my flexible spending account. In about 5 more years, thermography will be common practice in cancer diagnosis - just as surgical biopsies are today.

Many cost efficient and better treatments are not covered by insurance or medicare.... and the public for the most part does not know about these treatments. Our aging baby boomers and seniors do not "question" the doctor or recommended treatment, no matter what we think about the quality of healthcare in this country.

I understand the fear about money being taken away from medicare - but quite honestly, there is a lot of inefficiency in which the money can be recovered. It does not have to be recovered at the cost of medical treatment which is what worries our seniors - and I understand the fear of not being able to afford medical treatment.

5) Can you promise me that my tax dollars will not fund abortions?.... The House bill, as currently drafted, allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to outline the minimum benefits that must be included in any health plan. There is no specific provision in the bill that would require insurance coverage of abortion. However, since the decisions over benefits are left to the Secretary of HHS, with recommendations from a newly created Health Care Benefits Advisory Committee, there is nothing to prevent the current or future Secretary from including abortion coverage in Americans’ health insurance. Conservatives in both the House and Senate offered amendments that would prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. The tax payer funded abortion bans were defeated in both the House and Senate.

Kat> This is where we disagree. I think abortion is a religious and faith issue. If one's religion says "no", then don't consider it. But it is an option for others, and the Government should not limit medical treatment such as abortion. This position is the flip side of rationing health care - by insisting on a provision - it is in essence rationing health care.

I don't want to go into an abortion debate, but abortion has been around since the beginning of tribes. It's a thorny issue, fueled by religion and personal belief - and that's why it should not be legislated. Women will just revert to what they did before Roe v Wade and that's worse.

However, for the record - I do not consider abortion to be justified as a birth control means because a woman does not want to use other contraception. I brought a close friend to a clinic recently for the morning after pill - and after being confronted by anti-abortionists 100 feet from the entrance - we entered the waiting room and saw the teen-age girls who were there for their 4th or 5th time (as described by them). That's just plain sad, because there are other options for them, they just don't want to use them.

What's next? a limitation on what prescriptions can be prescribed? Let's get the FDA & Congress to stop subsidizing pharmaceutical development. The resulting patents for the first 10 years of a drug's release ensure that Americans pay much more for the same drug to be manufactured and offered to us than in other countries. There is NOTHING wrong with the quality of the drugs in Canada. That's a myth to keep us all quiet and stupid about pharmaceutical price gouging.

Generics are not always an option, but the healthcare companies force us to generics by increasing the co-pay for brands. If a generic is not offered, your only choice to save money is to buy from the pharmacy service which is conveniently offered by the insurer.

Generics have to be plus or minus 10% of the name brand formulation. Many Americans don't realize that they are not actually getting their required medication dosage, but rather something that is "close enough".

The claim that you are putting out there is not true. Your claim that citizens will not be able to choose their own physician is FALSE! Medicare (government-run healthcare) has always allowed the patient to use the physician of their choosing.

"Your mother is gravely ill"! With the private providers, she can ONLY choose from a list of providers who have a prearranged business relationship with the doctor. "Your mother is gravely ill"! The private insurer may not even accept her claim. The actuarial professionals have calculated the odds of her living with or dying from her illness. They will choose the option that improves their profits. There are stories about providers who will drop you if it is determined that you are a risk to their profit margins.

The insurance companies have no problem taking your bloated monthly payments and refusing care! They don't care if your mother dies or lives because it's about profits and not health care. The opponents to Obama are arguing maintaining the status quo which is about business and not health care.

my comments from the other thread....

I would rather engage in debate about how to pay for healthcare and what reforms will help Americans. I don't think the scare tactics of euthanasia and death panels is helping Congress figure out how to get it done.

People really don't understand the policies that they have and the regulations which govern their insurance. They don't understand where the costs are in healthcare - and I haven't found a statistic yet which shows how much of every dollar is actually spent on patient care vs profits to shareholders of hospitals and insurance companies.

This is the closest that I've found... tex-med

Insurance goals are to spend at least 85% of every dollar on patient care. In various parts of the country, this is dropping to 55% - 70%. Obviously something is eating up costs.... or being paid out to investors. Healthcare premiums have doubled since 2000 and the average family's insurance hovers around $15,000 per year - until the parents age and enter the bracket which requires more preventative care or specialized treatments.

As Americans, we deserve to know how our healthcare premiums are calculated - and yet not many states are willing to pass a law so we can know and make informed decisions about purchasing healthcare. It is a virtual monopoly - and we would all be shocked to read the actuarial tables and risk factors which enter into a premium.

It's quoted much like auto insurance - but with auto insurance - you know what makes up the premium. You don't really know with health insurance - and yet there we are, every year during "open enrollment"... trying to figure out which plan will cover the most with the least amount of co-pays from us.

Also.... for those who do not have employers who pay for insurance or provide partial cost relief (most of us pay something per month which is deducted from our salary), buying an individual plan is extremely difficult - unless you can purchase thru an organization like the BBB or AARP. In many states, individual healthcare approval is decided by an underwriter, and an insurer can legally refuse to even give you a quote - based upon the underwriter's review of the actuarial and risk tables.

Switching gears to cost savings now....
Here's an article written for geeks like me who sell high tech.
Computerworld

It was written in January of this year.... and it estimates that EHR (electronic health records) will save the US approximately $300 billion a year. Perhaps some of those medicare reductions are accounted for with EHR ... and are not being diverted to insure the uninsured.

EHR creates new ways of tracking patient history and care - without paper. Eliminating paper can be a $3 million savings for a hospital or provider with 300 staff doctors. The transcription of notes into text contained in databases can cost a hospital at least $10,000 per doctor per year - at overseas rates, not US labor rates. A hospital can do a lot of good with $3 million dollars... yet today, sends work like this overseas to cut expenses.

I have worked for the Fortune 500 companies and the federal government. The federal health care insurance plans are superior to the coverage I had through the top money makers.

Good discussion, but as we can see, there is no easy answer. It's good that many of the views expressed here are based on experience and observation, and not rhetoric. But as you all can see, the "truth" varies according to those personal experiences.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, who represents my district, is supposed to be in the area this week. Hopefully, we can get a sit-down with him and talk about this.
I urge ALL of you to do the same. Congress is in August recess, so a lot of them will be in their districts at some point over the next few weeks.