"Romney Care" Last Week It Was Terrible and The Same as Obama Care. This Week It's Glorious and Obama Care W/O the Public Option

Classic Swiss Farm Valley

Soon to be overtaken by a world wide sweep of creeping "Public Option"!

Switzerland is one of few European nations w/o a single payer  health insurance plan or a nationalized health service.  Currently the "centrist" view is to tout the "Swiss plan", but wait a week and it will shift even further to the right.

Picture allowed via Creative Commons license. No support of nor further contribution to this blog by photographer/artist implied. Thanks to "Fr Antunes" at flickr.com. Click on picture to go to original site and for link to options on different sizes. Rollover picture for further attribution.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/franciscoantunes/ / CC BY 2.0

Just last week I was hearing and reading that Massachusetts' mandatory health plan was the same as the one being pitched by Democrats in Congress with a public plan  and the Republicans pushing that view said it was on a trajectory to bankrupt the state.

Now the plan is the same as the Democrats plan without a public plan (and no co-ops or 'utilities' mentioned in this centrist aka pro  health industry plan) and isn't about to bankrupt the Bay State.  And look it's tagged with the name of a likely 2012 Republican presidential candidate.

I've also heard elsewhere that a lot of the younger people just  don't get the insurance and pay the fine each year, which is less than their premiums would cost, unless they get seriously ill, and then they go on the insurance plan until they get better and then drop again.  With restrictions on using pre-existing conditions that is all possible, but this week that is ignored while CNN touts "Romney Care"as a plan w/o a public option

About a decade ago, I read a report, one of the most actually informative pieces put out on the news business itself, that  said most political reporting is spurred and fed by some special interest or another.  

Political parties, lobbyists, industry groups.  

St. Prex on Lake Lemans (Geneva)

Not the Castle from Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon'. Better surrounding scenery.

Most pictures of Chillon are too intent on getting the details of the castle.  Also, blue umbrellas cover the courtyards at Chillon, probably for diners use in noshing where such terrible history transpired.  That's just weird.  (Click on"chillon" to go to Flickr pic of that one showing first millennium portions of castle and third millennium cafe umbrellas.  Short history of the castle included at link.)

Picture allowed via Creative Commons license. No support of nor further contribution to this blog by photographer/artist implied. Thanks to "~mcclaire~" at flickr.com. Click on picture to go to original site and for link to options on different sizes. Rollover picture for further attribution.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pat1921/ / CC BY 2.0

Think of Tom Ridges's publisher releasing papers to help push his new book, mentioning that Ridge squelched an orange alert just before the 2004 election, and leaving out the never substantiated orange alert during the Democratic convention that year.  Well, when pushed, the Bush administration cited a laptop that they had seized and deposed nearly 3 years earlier  showing pictures of Wall Street buildings.   The Bush administration also exposed the one mole that allies had in al Qaeda completely destroying another CIA asset (c. 1 year after Valerie Plame) and leading to a hurried and botched round up of terrorists in the UK from which a man escaped to lead the next year's bombings of the London Tube system.

The rest of the CNN report shows it's definite Republican-Health Insurance leanings as  it warns Democrats not to pass a bill on their own, you know one that Americans, whatever their feelings right now would love once they get it.  

The Republican wet dream on health care reform has remained pretty consistent for the last decade as pushed by President George W. Bush, candidate John McCain and others:

1) Tax Cuts (better than tax credits first touted by Bush because it gives the wealthier more money than the rest).

Interlaken Region of Swizterland

Looks like high summer, about the time of year I visited the area in 1974

Nice to see all the Bern Oberland hasn't be completely taken over by urban sprawl or Disneylandish resorts.

Picture allowed via Creative Commons license. No support of nor further contribution to this blog by photographer/artist implied. Thanks to "fr antunes" at flickr.com. Click on picture to go to original site and for link to options on different sizes. Rollover picture for further attribution.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/franciscoantunes/ / CC BY 2.0

2) Taking away state controls of health insurance.  Some health insurance companies in some states actually only pay for the room your stay in at the hospital, not actual care, while pretending they are actual health insurance policies.   Some states allow that.  Republicans say that taking away the restrictions from states that  don't allow such a scam would mean health insurance would be cheaper for all.  Yeah it might tame user end costs a tiny bit, but it would be the same as taking $300-500 a month and flushing it down the toilet.

Help for the poor?  See the tax cuts benefit above.  Don't pay taxes? That's okay. With the flat tax the Republicans want you could be paying the same taxes as Steve Forbes and then, see, you would be getting something back.

Other news on this, coming from  the right, which considers this piece a liberal job, LOL. 

"Business and Media Institute" in "CNN Pushes Massachusetts 'Model' for Health Reform But Admits 'Rising Costs' "; thinks the article is a liberal plot, but mentions that the price of health insurance under the mandatory program is rising at "nearly double" the national level.

So without the Public Option health insurance is raising at double what the premiums that are constantly going up now?  Does that sound like a good plan?  I don't think so.

tags: romney care  massachusetts  health care reform  health insurance  

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