The one issue that Obama has repeated over and over is that he would see that we get "affordable" health care, that all children will be covered, and that we can keep the insurance we have.
None of that says "universal" or "single payer" which is what I and many others want. We don't want our new healthcare plans to be cluttered with 500 different insurance plans.
If you will go to this web site and click on "Lawrence Livermore retirees lose choice of keeping their health plan" you will see a very lucid argument for SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE.
http://www.pnhp.org/...
Before posting this diary, I searched DailyKos to see if the subject has been addressed. It has....several times....but none as clearly stated as the article at the PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Plan) site.
Following are a few excerpts. I encourage ALL to go read the entire article and commentary. Obama and his advisors need to know this before they make a decision about our health care.
This year, nearly 4,200 lab retirees and their spouses lose the group health coverage plan they have had. It was first provided by the University of California, which formerly managed Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. They then joined a group plan with virtually identical benefits offered by Lawrence Livermore National Security, or LLNS, a partnership including UC and Bechtel Corporation, which took over lab management in 2007.
. . . .
"People are not going to go on having what they had in the past," Enthoven continued. "It’s just not a sustainable model."
Commentary by Don McCanne, M.D.
The current Democratic proposals for health care reform promise that you can keep the health insurance you have, if that’s what you prefer. This policy was included in the reform models to avoid losing the support of those who have been promised life-long coverage with very generous plans. Career scientists and engineers at the prestigious Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, managed by the University of California, were secure in knowing that nothing could happen to their excellent, life-long coverage offered as a perk to attract the best.
Enter Bechtel Corporation. After one year, their life-long retirement coverage is dropped, and they are given an annual defined contribution of $2400 to supplement the basic Medicare program. Just wait until the Medicare Advantage subsidies are cut back, and then see what they can purchase with that. None of them were given the option of keeping the plan they had.
. . . .
The important message here is that this is only one of thousands of examples where individuals who wanted to keep the insurance they had were not allowed to do so. It was not their choice. Some of the many reasons that individuals involuntarily lose their coverage were discussed in a previous Quote of the Day. Since our politicians are about to provide us with reform that allows us to keep the coverage we have, it would be of value to review that message now to see why keeping the coverage you have is only a fantasy for most of us.
http://www.pnhp.org/...
We MUST convince Obama that keeping insurance as a part of the new healthcare plan is wrong. We do NOT need a "for profit" middleman in our healthcare.