[QUOTE=Villages Kahuna;219592]Oh, the criticisms of the proposed healthcare reform. I'd guess there's someone or some group against every single section. The problem is that no one has a better idea. If we're lucky, the traction being built against the proposed plan will result in it's defeat. But we'd be left with the same problem of too expensive and underfunded healthcare. No one seems to have a comprehensive better idea.


got me thinking of a possible help in the health care problem. A neighboring community's electric utility provider has applied for the state commission to allow them to adjust their rates DOWN (imagine that if you will). MA already has utility commissions in place to set rates, an auto insurance commission to set rates, why not a state run health insurance commission to set insurance rates. Having it work on the state level will compensate for the differences in cost of care from state to state.

All the states would have to have such commissions or the health insurance companies s would jump state if they didn't like the rates determined. (it happened here in MA with auto insurance companies.) Competition for gross $$ should keep companies interested.

No federal government involvement, state only. Total involvement to provide maximum efficiency of scale to costs. Means testing for cost coverage (verifiable under oath or loss of benefits). Multiple plan offerings over a base plan. And anything else that passes the quack test.

In spite of my conservative bent in this issue I do believe health care is a social necessity, if not a right. The argument is for me what roll government has in the process and the rush to provide anything in a fixed time frame.