The claim of fighting for good outcomes does not negate the fundamental claim that the proposer is after personal glory.

While I am delighted that Obama et al have apparently considered fighting fraud in their health care proposal, it is hardly the centerpiece of their proposal. In fact this is the first that I have heard about curtailing fraud. (There has been a lot of talk about cutting waste such as duplicate testing, but fighting fraud has been very low key if it has been mentioned at all.)

In no way can it be said that Obama's proposal is a direct response to any FBI report. At best some minor part of the proposal could be a response to the FBI report. More likely is that after the proposal was designed the FBI report was noticed and identified as a source of support for the democratic plan.

If fighting fraud were a major factor we wouldn't be discussing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions or coverage for the poor--we would be discussing a plan to fight fraud. (I have to wonder why we would need anything beyond additional investigators to fight fraud. It is already against the law, detecting and prosecuting are apparently the problem.)

I'm not even a little bit wrong in my sense that Obama is looking for personal glory. If he were really, truly interested in the welfare of the American people he wouldn't be stubbornly clinging to a "my way or the highway" attitude on health care. He'd look at Massachusetts, see that his proposal is doomed, then he would look at Indiana, and recognize that a completely different sort of plan is needed.

If the current Obamacare plan actually reduces fraud that will be a happy accident in pursuit of glory.

More than a happy accident--prove that God exists, a bona fide Divine intervention. Obamacare creates 80 to 100 new bureaucracies. What the FBI report shows is that we cannot police the bureaucracies that exist; we surely won't be able to police tens of thousands of new bureaucrats.

Unless they are saints and do not need policing.

That is their self-image, yeah.

If this package gets everyone in the US insured so they don't have to make a decision between feeding the family and deciding upon medical tests or treatments, then adopt it. People shouldn't have to bankrupt themselves or decline treatment because they can't afford it. Work out the lesser evils after you've addressed this greater evil. Nothing will be perfect, and if you keep waiting for that then those who can't afford coverage will continue to suffer financial-wise and health-wise. That such a thing happens in a developed country is a crying (literally) shame.

I don't see that it does that. If anything, it should result in fewer people insured. There's little motivation to buy insurance before you need it if you can't be turned away for pre-existing conditions.

There's also the fact to consider that a dozen or so state attorney generals are champing at the bit generals are champing at the bit to have it declared unconstitutional as soon as it passes, which it probably is.

On (attorney) general principle, it makes little sense to try to get more people into a system we all admit is broken first, and then worry about fixing it later. We should fix it first, and then try to get more people in.



Again, I don't see how this plan fixes that. You still have to buy your own insurance, and the rates will skyrocket since they're doing nothing to get costs under control. The insurance companies will either make a profit or go out of business, which means people will still be paying for their own health care when all is said and done. So getting costs under control should be top priority.

There are 45 million uninsured. The Obama plan will cover 31 million. That leaves 14 million good reasons not to adopt this plan.

Ken, this is how Obamacare will work. People will be required to buy health insurance. Without any pressure to persuade people to buy health insurance because the law requires people to buy, the health insurance companies will have no reason to keep premiums down and every reason to raise them; indeed, since the law requires them to accept everyone, the companies now have a perfect excuse to raise rates. Millions are unable to buy insurance now, and millions more will be unable after the rates are raised. The law provides for subsidies for these people--which gives the insurance companies even more motive to raise rates, since the subsidized people are virtually conduits into the U.S. Treasury. As rates go up, more and more people will need subsidies--which will require ever higher taxes. The taxpayers will then have even less money to buy insurance, so more people will need subsidies. Clearly this is a death spiral.

The whole idea is insane.

gah! What a mess! This wasn't the original plan Obama had. Everyone would have been insured. How did it go from that to this? (aside from opposition hollering about socialists and death squads for grannies). I need to do some backtracking on this issue and see how it has evolved. Thanks guys.

Ken, you are seriously misinformed. Obama never really had a plan; he let Congress write it. It never covered more than 31 million people. Only now is Obama proposing yet another bureaucracy to regulate insurance premiums.

Obama: modern English for "Jimmy Carter."

I was going on that first speech he gave back in the fall. I listened to the whole thing as I really wanted to see my neighbours to the south taken care of properly. He did have a plan, but not the ways to make that plan come to life.

I'm relying on memory here so a good chance to catch me in an error. Obama's plan was that the U.S. should provide universal coverage like Canada and Europe. That's it. Basically a policy goal statement.

He also made statements about getting everyone around a big table, put all the ideas on the table and craft the best possible plan.

The reality was that he kicked the whole plan development process to congress. No broad discussion or solicitation of ideas. No bipartisanship/post-partisanship. Just a plan developed by some democratic party leaders that was poorly conceived and regularly amended to increase the vote count, as opposed to improving the plan.

If that is not what happened I would be delighted to be corrected.