Its TRUE. The GOP is announcing that every GOP candidate in 2010 and 2102 will be running on their new platform of repealing the Dems anemic health reform bill, scheduled to take effect FIVE YEARS in the future! They will certainly win if Dems don't DELIVER by November 2010, less than a year from now. That will result in some Senate Dems getting their wish not to be involved in health reform or politics ever again but where does it leave Americans? At least a HALF MILLION more will die by 2014 of utterly preventable causes related to their not being able to afford health care. Most of those people have low-quality "affordable" "insurance". Thanks Dems- NOT.
Some of those Senate and House Dems must certainly be worrying about this:
"I suspect every Republican running in '10 and again in '12 will run on an absolute pledge to repeal this bill. The bill--most of the bill does not go into effect until '13 or '14, except on the tax increase side; and therefore, I think there won't be any great constituency for it. And I think it'll be a major campaign theme."
-Newt Gingrich
What are the possible outcomes?
1.) Democrats ignore the needs of the nation, and the inevitability of a predictable taking advantage of their doing so by the GOP, and lose big in 2010 and 2012, in essence throwing away their 2008 victory voluntarily by refusing to meet the challenge posed by unmitigated greed of the powerful corporations who control the nation.
OR
2.) Democrats realize that they have to change their plan and instead, adopt single payer, because it is a sure bet to work. (The plan being cooked up to keep us enslaved to insurance companies is a sure bet NOT to. Their model is one that guaranteed to fail us on affordability. Otherwise, the Senate wouldn't have to keep sneaking changes into it and then removing them (only) when they get caught.)
To do this RIGHT, American patriots bring in seasoned experts like William Hsiao, distinguished professor of economics at the Harvard School of Public Health, an American who has Asian roots, who managed the rapid adoption of single payer for the government Taiwan, a nation of 70 million people, a quarter of the size of the US, population wise. Taiwan started out with 45% of their population uninsured, and in a year, they had 95% coverage. Now their system is world class, with almost full coverage (Taiwanese living outside of the country comprise most of the still uncovered 1%)
The new panel would be composed of experts in public health and medicine with experience implementing national healthcare plans that have worked to make affordable healthcare available to everybody in at least one other successful nation, who have no financial ties to healthcare related industries.
Laws are passed making the new healthcare system independent of political winds and assuring it an independent source of financing.
Upfront, since this is what Americans overwhelmingly want, the new system will be paid for wholly by taxes, and everybody in the nation is enrolled in it automatically. All doctors become part of the network. Extra fees are prohibited, and funding is set at a level that assures that doctors are satisfied. The system becomes much simpler because the needs for billing complexity is dramatically reduced. All of the government run healthcare systems are merged into the new national system, and immediately, the costs to doctors and other providers for billing falls dramatically. Patients are suddenly notified of health options that they didn't know existed, because of physician gag clauses. Hundreds of thousands of people find that they were misdiagnosed during the "six minute years" as the past begins to be known as (six minutes being the average length allotted to a doctor visit by the now exposed HMOs)
Americans agree, IT HAD TO BE DONE. Experts are invited from around the world to the United States to help us, and they gladly agree to. The entire world rejoices that the United States' long national nightmare is finally over.
By November 2010, the new system is in its early phase of adoption and already, everyone in the US has access to basic healthcare and things are running smoothly. The overall health of Americans improves rapidly, like it did in the UK and Canada. Laws are passed requiring medical research to focus more on cures, not simply expensive treatments. Drug companies are put on notice that they must serve the public interest. Scores of scientists come forward with news of cures that were discovered in research but suppressed by their employers. The information is placed in the public domain and a Federally funded corporation is begun to make them widely available at low cost. Hiding or attempting to suppress cures to diseases is made a Federal crime. Centers of excellence to eliminate chronic diseases, not merely treat them, are set up. A Renaissance occurs in the sciences.
Suddenly, an entire generation of young people forsake majors like law and investment banking and decide to become scientists, mathematicians and engineers, seeing that there is a future in expanding the sphere of knowledge that makes a difference to humanity. The manned space program is revived with money suddenly flowing into the Federal Treasury from increased tax revenue due to the revitalized economy. Unemployment drops below 5% for the first time in over a decade.
Both Democrats and Republicans are happy, with satisfaction at the new changes running at well over 90%, a first in the history of poll-taking.
Even the neocons are happy because the high rate of expenditures on the military can continue, unabated.
Even the one sixth of one percent of the workforce who worked for health insurance companies are happy because they have all found great jobs in the resultant boom, the sudden expansion of the economy post nightmare, and of course, while changing jobs, they didn't have to worry about health insurance, as nobody does any more. Disaster is averted and faith in the system is restored. Calamity, an implosion of the economy, and civil unrest is averted. The chances for world peace are greatly improved and the Union of Concerned Scientists sets back their Doomsday Clock by half an hour.
Americans purchasing power is restored to 1990s levels. Obama is hailed as a great President for recognizing and doing the right thing, despite a huge amount of pressure on him to sell Americans out.
As people gradually realize how close America came to the abysss, they thank God that the Democrats saw the importance of common sense and abandoned their embrace of an industry that was singlehandedly sucking the nation dry.
It was simply time to move on.