I agree you, however you do realize that most insurance companies have these plans, the “Bare Bones” plan as low as $30 – $40 a month,

I agree with the above statement The Insurers absolutely are not innocent here.

However for the people that are not eligible for a Gov’t plan, i.e. Medicaid or Medicare, there are plenty of “bare bones” options, many of them are even guarenteed issue.

One “bare bones” plan I just looked at a major carrier for a 18 year old, 34 year old, and 50 year old male or female in our area is only $18.00, $27.00 and $43.00 a month and that is a guarenteed issue plan that gives them a $50.00 credit towards Dr’s visits and pays 100% on diagnostic services at their specified lab and includes preventive dental and thats with a just one of the major carrier’s.

So it is a myth that there are not affordable plans out there. There are now more affordable plans than ever before in the market.

Rassmussen Polls and Gallup Polls both say the same thing about the people happy with their health insurance, remember these are the same polls that everyone trusted just fine back before the recent election, so they are not going to trust them now?

Also, we’re not talking about YOUR taxes being 54%…the discussion was the “wealthy” bearing the burden of the cost of this huge health insurance program. You’re very fortunate that you’re able to sock money away in a Roth IRA…smart move…but, eventually, there will be taxes on that too, which is now pre-tax. You’re lucky…I don’t know of ANY employed American paying only a 5.36% Federal tax rate. How about property taxes, cable bill taxes, telephone bill taxes, internet taxes, gasoline taxes, FPA or JEA taxes, ad infinitum?

This is a good place for health discussions though and I look forward to reading more of your articles. It’s amazing there are so few people who are willing to blog about it.

What about the 72% that are happy with their current Healthcare? To them we say “oh well”, sorry about your luck, its time to redistribute your Healthcare to everyone; I mean after all “we have to be fair”.

You really have to ask yourself, why is President Obama acting so obsessively in driving the Congress like a team of mules to enact this Healthcare bill before they or us as Americans can read it? Why not give us the opportunity to examine and analyze what is being proposed? At least with “Hillary Care we were allowed to do that,….oh that’s right and it DIED, didn’t it? They don’t want to let us read it, because then the truth will be revealed. According to the most recent Rasmussen poll, more people now oppose this Healthcare Bill than are for it. Even many Democrats are having severe second thoughts about this bill. Yet, the President, once again, isn’t listening. Our President is NOT acting very presidential by STIFLING THE DEBATE on the most important piece of legislation to be considered by our Congress in the past century!!!

When somebody hands you a contract that is over 1000 pages long do you just sign it? Do you just believe that because they “said so” that it is in “your best interest” to sign it? Do you not say, “let me read this first”?….or do you just let them say B.O.H.I.C.A. and think to yourself “wow, this ones going to leave a mark”.

This legislation is going to leave an irreparable mark on America, and a mark that can never be erased, removed, or deleted. Like I said in the past, give me one, just one, instance wherever Government took control of something and “put it back on track” and then gave it back us, the people, it has never ever ever happened.

AMA is only 20%

AMA was actually, briefly a progressive organization favoring universal health insurance, along the German model… during Progressive period, roughly 1906 to early 1920s when post-World War I red scares led to takeover by reactionary forces. In addition, to Ronald Numbers’ 1978 book, Almost Persuaded: American Physicians and Compulsory Health Insurance, 1912-1920, there is an online slideshow (with great documents and cartoons) about America’s 100 year fight for universal health coverage available by clicking here. online slideshow (with great documents and cartoons) about America’s 100 year fight for universal health coverage, as pointed here by Theodore Brown Professor of History.

I hate to give the AMA website any traffic, but they do have the handiest and most complete listing of the specialty medical societies that most physicians do belong to and identify with, so to give the “devil his due” here it is.

For the record AMA on the average makes up only 20% of the Medical Associations and they too can be “bought and paid for”.

The 54% (quoted by Bree) in taxes is a correct number…why should people who are productive members of society and employ many people be punished b/c of their success? You can access Obama’s tax filing this year and figure his taxes on his huge income; most of it from sale of his books. They are only a couple percentage points behind other socialist countries in the amount of taxes they pay. I’m guessing that staug2 does not have a hard number on his/her taxes paid out. Add up your deductions for FICA, SSA (just your portion, not considering the matching number by your employeer), property taxes, the taxes on your utilities, phone service, all items you purchase, including gas, and you may be surprised at the percentage in taxes you are paying. If this healthcare plan is passed, and you’re able to keep your possible employer-paid insurance, you will be taxed on that next year. Right now, the 401(k) and medical and dental insurance are pre-tax but will not be for long. Do the math…numbers don’t lie. Maybe if more Americans did this, class envy would not be so prevalent. Guess I don’t get what this generation is considering okay in government. You people are the ones who will be hurt most by this. ..and your children. Think outside the box of Obamaism, work hard and you can be and do anything you want in America…right now.

Again, let’s tweak the system, rework Medicare and cut out the fraud, eliminate LOTS of Medicaid, and talk about “real” numbers of uninsured. Cut out the 11 million illegals, the 9 million who just don’t wish to have it, the millions of children who don’t have it b/c their parents have been irresponsible in signing up for it, and the cost will be minimal to insure the rest. In the meantime, let the 80% of Americans who are happy with their current program, keep it.

Not wealthy envy at all… All I’m saying is your 54% tax level is not correct. I would challenge you to find someone earning 1,000,000 that is paying 540,000 in Federal taxes. It just doesn’t work that way. Most likely they have a number of generous deductions that their accountant found that would get their actual tax percentage at a MUCH lower percentage rate than that. In regards to your comment about not doing something sooner, I’m not a basher at all, but come on, don’t you find it kind of suspicious that all these healthcare proposals are coming out of republicans now? Just this morning Obama has said that the current proposals coming out of congress need some work so it seems like he is coming around to holding off on this for a bit and making sure it is correct. You have to give him some credit for at least working with insurance companies and pham. companies to get them to agree to cost savings already. Also I would point out that the AMA has endorsed this effort as well.

http://unitedamericanteaparty.ning.com/profiles/blogs/real-numbers-of-the-real-cost

114 million-Number of individuals who could lose their current coverage
under the bill, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group

4.7 million-Number of jobs that could be lost as a result of taxes on
businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage,
according to a model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair
Christina Romer

$818 billion-Total new taxes on individuals who cannot afford health
coverage, and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage that meet
federal bureaucrats’ standards

$1.28 trillion-New federal spending in the next ten years, according to a
Congressional Budget Office score of selected elements of the bill

.6%-Percentage of all that new spending occurring in the bill’s first three
years-representing a debt and tax “time bomb” in the program’s later years
that will explode for future generations

$88,200-Definition of “low-income” family of four for purposes of health
insurance subsidies

33-Entitlement programs the bill creates, expands, or extends-an increase
from an earlier draft

53-Additional offices, bureaus, commissions, programs, and bureaucracies the
bill creates over and above the entitlement expansions-also an increase from
the discussion draft N THE HISTORY OF GOV’T EXPANSION, IT HAS NEVER EVER GOTTEN SMALLER, ONCE THEY HAVE THIS POWER, THATS IT!!

1,683-Uses of the word “shall,” representing new duties for bureaucrats and
mandates on individuals, businesses, and States-and an increase of 306
mandates from the discussion draft

$10 billion-Minimum loss sustained by taxpayers every year due to Medicare
fraud; the government-run health plan does not reform the ineffective
anti-fraud statutes and procedures that have kept Medicare on the Government
Accountability Office’s list of high-risk programs for two decades

Zero-Prohibitions on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid from
using cost-effectiveness research to impose delays to or denials for access
to life-saving treatments In other words, they decide if you get treatment or not

2017-Year Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted-a date
unchanged by the bill, which re-directs savings from Medicare to fund new
entitlements for younger Americans

$2,500-Promised savings for each American family from health reform,
according to then-Senator Obama’s campaign pledge-savings which the
Congressional Budget Office has confirmed will not materialize,as the bill will not slow the growth of health care costs

Once again the system is not broken, what small part of the population that does not have health insurance, still has care, like I said lack of insurance does not mean lack of care.

your wrote
“Most wealthy Americans pay very low actual tax rates due to the amount of deductions their high priced accountants find. This is something that ever Warren Buffet has admitted.”

THAT’S OUTRAGEOUS!! COME ON D.C. ,…. READ THE BILL, WHY DO WE HAVE TO READ IT FOR YOU, THATS WHY WE PUT YOU IN OFFICE, DO YOUR JOB !!!!!!!!!