Public option is vital

People are missing the point. What will covering everybody do for the costs of the actual service performed? When you pay your 20 dollar co-pay, do you care what the remainder of the service costs? There's no incentive to shop around, so what do you care? So the real problem is, why is health care, not health insurance, so expensive. The government, that's why. I work with aircraft parts, and an aircraft toilet, the same that goes in your pop up camper, costs $15000 dollars. Why? Because the government makes you test the living crap (no pun intended) out of it and bogs it down in years of paper work. Now can you say FDA? Believe me folks, I work in the private sector regulated by the government. And you want to talk about insurance, how about that malpractice insurance...looking it up I see some doctors paying large premiums (some above 100,000 dollars a year). Are they greedy insurance companies too? Nope, they can't be, because the dems have the trial lawyers in their back pockets so it must be all good.

jalbrecht1, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Republican and I don't have any rich friends. If you have some you can spare, send me their contact info.

But I can read a balance sheet. The public option will destroy health care nationally by killing competition and then sucking up all those new taxes into the general fund, where our invertebrate Congresscritters will steal it for other programs. It will be another cash cow, just like Social Security. That's why those jerks, on both sides of the aisle, are rubbing their sweaty hands in gleeful anticipation.

The next time your doctor tells you to turn your head and cough, don't be surprised when a federal bureaucrat appears to demand that you fill out an environmental impact report.

People who use terms like Obamacare and socialized medicine have agendas that have nothing to do with reformed medical care. Those people were perfectly happy telling the government what telephone calls they were making and what books they were taking out at the library. That, of course, isn't socialism, it's communism. I don't want the government to monitor my phone calls or library books. I want my individual rights returned. I want my country to be a good guy in the world again, not the hated entity it became under Bush and his Texas hang-em-high, the hell with everyone else in the world we'll do what the hell we want mentality. The United Nations needs to be united again, not us verses them. Other countries need to step up and not hide behind false issues. We're headed that way. Live with it and stop hiding behind those false issues.

If the Democrats get their socialized medicine through, we are all doomed. It will end up costing more, and it will worse. The government screws up everything it gets involved in.I hope a stake is driven into this 2000 page monster. We need a strong bipartisan bill that will make health insurance more affordable and better.

Don't be amazed that those who preach the glories of the free market and competition are now like Lowry preaching monpoly. They desire only whatever will benefit the rich and if today that is competition and tomorrow that is monopoly so be it. Its not hypocrisy. Its a hidden agenda.
Premiums and profits have increased as the percentage of the premium dollar that goes for paying for health care has decreased from 95% to 80% this century. Shows that Frostproof's explanation is just another of many Republican distractions - a plausible but false explanation to protect their rich friends.
The public option is absolutely necessary and without it there is no health care reform.
Jon Albrecht Dixfield

Maine had a thriving private health insurance market until the early 1990's when our state government, in its infinite wisdom, mandated a few little changes: guaranteed issue, no exclusion of pre-existing conditions, coverage of everything under the sun, and one price fits all. Sound familiar? Those are the major points of Obamacare, only it needs 2000 pages to say it.

When the smaller companies saw they would all have to offer the same thing at the same price, they packed their bags and left, leaving just those evil, blood-sucking giants. Government interference terminated nearly all competition. The giants ask the government for rate increases every year and the legislature rubber-stamps it.

Maine saw this wonderful (sarcasm alert) new system and decided to make it even better with a "public option" - Dirigo Health. In case you haven't heard about it recently, it's a complete and utter failure, but very expensive. So today we have even less competition with just about the highest prices in the country. But don't worry about those details.

Doshie says we all want the system politicians have, and he's right - we just want somebody else to pay for it. Prepare for a new medical procedure: a wallet-ectomy.