There is more to come, too. Here is an interesting article article based on the same report, where the author claims that it's inevitable that the insurance companies will eventually price themselves out of business:

http://trueslant.com/rickungar/2009/09/20/the-inevitability-of-an-american-single-payer-health-system/

It takes two to tango.

The unexplainably stratosphereic prices for of even the simplest medical services and procedures (expecially if an insurance company isn't paying for them) is as much the fault of the unregulated hospital monopolys as the insurance companies.

It may very well be that nothing less than a British style NHS will be needed to solve the problem.

Here is the question we all need to ask;
Why does the GOP want over 45,000,000 Americans to die with no health care insurance?

Public option? Naw, no thanks.

Obama himself has repeatedly stressed that the public option isn't going to be much of anything. He has said this time after time and I believe him. During his address to the joint session of Congress he described his plans for heath insurance reform thusly:

1. Everyone will be cheated by the insurance corporations by force of law and required to purchase one of the deceptive insurance "products" they presently offer or face stiff fines levied by the IRS.

2. Those who cannot afford even the minimum economy model insurance "product" that covers almost nothing will get a tax credit to help him buy one and avoid penalties and IRS enforcement.

3. Maybe, only maybe, there may be a public option. The public option won't be open to the public. Obama said he can't see any more than 5% of the public ever being allowed in. Public option members will be comprised of mainly of insurance company rejects, people so sick and so broke that insurance companies want nothing to do with them.

But that's not the end of things. Obama heavily emphasized that any public option must be self-sustaining, i.e. it must be paid for by the premiums it charges the members in the plan. Restricting public option membership to insurance industry rejects guarantees that these self-sustaining premiums will be as costly or more costly than insurance company premiums.

So there we have it. A health plan that solves the problem of the uninsured in America by the simple act of making it illegal to be uninsured in America and forces the population to purchase insurance industry products.

The plan may or may not include a public option that will not be publicly funded nor will it be open to the public. This public option is guaranteed by law never to be able to compete with insurance industry products by restricting its membership to insurance industry rejects and by further insisting the public option fund itself out of whatever cash it can pull out of the rejects.

So, public option? No thanks. Not only does the public option suck, but it is purposely designed to suck and likely designed to fail outright. Obama time and time again has been trying to tell us this all along.

The problem we are facing is the rising cost of healthcare not how those costs are spread around or even insured against. The only real chance of solving this problem is Medicare-for-all or a similar single payer plan that allows for tough price negotiations to push down the cost of healthcare not just spread it around differently. Making it a law that citizens must pony up more cash for the private insurance industry or face the IRS doesn't solve the problem of increasing healthcare costs. It doesn't even really solve the problem of the uninsured as the Massachusetts experience with exactly these health insurance mandates demonstrated.

The hell with the public option and the Obama health plan altogether. We shouldn't accept such a monstrosity where even the compromises are compromised then compromised again. A single payer plan or something very much like it is the only realistic plan that can solve the problem. Other plans including Obama's are just pie-in-the-sky dreaming. They are not realistic in any sense. Some may counter that Obama's plan is better than nothing. Not exactly a sterling rousing slogan, but I think even that is debatable, very debatable. It isn't likely to be true.

"a jump of 5% even as inflation fell .7%"

I see. More cognitive dissonance.

Bear with me a moment. If the reality is that inflation FELL .7%, then it is generally assumed that prices of consumer items went down. Now if, in addition, the cost of health insurance went UP 5%, then it is generally assumed that, since health insurance is a consumer item, the other items on the "consumer items" list must have dropped radically in price OR the weighting of health insurance is incorrect in the consumer items basket.
Since these clever rascals in government plan these things out, I'm willing to wager that they purposely under weighted health insurance in the inflation calculations in regard to cost of living for the express purpose of allowing tthe insurance corporations to jack up premiums without he US Government being forced to admit rampant infaltion and consequent COLA increases on indexed wages and pensions. Of course that would mean a conspiracy to defraud Americans of their rightful compensation.
DUH.
A physician with 30 plus years experience wrote just yesterday in CounterPunch about the blatant fact that while only 8% of banckruptcies were due to medical expenses 30 years ago, at present a whopping 62% are. And the most blatant part of this 62% is that only 3% of that 62% were NOT INSURED when their illnesses began. This crap about the 45 million uninsured is a straw man. The painful truth is that a middle class person or poorer in the USA CANNOT avoid bankruptcy in a serious illness because of insurance corporation policies that have been aided and abetted by a corrupt government. The insurance corporations have quite literally priced sick people out of the market. These businesses are treating us like a share in the stock market. I.e. as long as we pay dividends, everything is fine. The moment our stock value dives, they "sell" the stock.

The health care "public option" backed by our current president is a gift to the health insurance industry blood sucking leeches for throwing piles of money at him, and it will ultimately make things worse. We need a single payer such as Canada's or Spain's or multi payer such as that of Germany and France where those who sell basic health care coverage must be non profits, be strictly regulated by the central government, and can't refuse coverage to people based on any health condition. That kind of public option and private option is decent, ethical, and would work, but the BS passes itself off as public option in the congress is not worth a damn. It's crumbs. We're not talking about half loaf being better than nothing at all. We're talking about lousy damn crumbs thrown to us the people like we're stray dogs by these power elite dogs who are where they are, because they are the slimiest low lifes almost anywhere who would sell their own mothers were it for a profit and then turn around to talk about they are such devout members of the Judeo/Christian tradition, which actually teaches against such completely unethical behavior. "Thou shall not make other gods (money) . . . and bow down before them" from the Torah for the Jewish religion. "For the love of money is the root of all evil" in the New Testament of the Bible for the Christian part of that tradition. Furthermore, all major religions teach against greed, and what Thomas Jefferson once said that "Greed degrades."

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Chuck says:
"Good people are hoping there will no longer be insurance company rejects."
---------------------------------

Well, Obama won the Hope and Change campaign so I guess that means we now get to hope all we want.

There are people who are so sick and/or so broke the insurance companies know they cannot make any money off them. If the company thinks it may lose money on a person it is more likely to call security on that person than sell him a policy. That's true now and it will be true then.

Under the Obama plan insurance companies will no longer be able to deny insurance for a pre-existing condition or cancel coverage. That's good. However, that doesn't mean that they cannot deny coverage for any number of a long list of other reasons. How about non-payment? Don't pay the entire monthly premium and you are canceled. It is the insurance company that gets to set the amount of those monthly premiums. Set them high enough to where you can't afford to pay and presto you're gone, Or set them high enough so you could never afford to become customer to begin with. There is nothing in the Obama plan that says companies can't set the prices for their "products."

Sure, the insurance companies won't be able to use the pre-existing condition gimmick to cancel your policy, but they still have a whole bagful of tricks. Actually insurance companies make more money, not by canceling your policy altogether, but by keeping you as a paying customer and denying coverage treatment by treatment. By far this is their main device for getting out of paying for your healthcare. They require that your doctor get approval from them prior to treatments or tests and they just refuse to give it. They don't cancel your policy. They simply refuse to pay. If you are told anything you'll just be told by your doctor that he'd like to do this or that, but your insurance doesn't cover it. Or your insurance company won't approve this or that common test or procedure for someone with this or that illness. Or---whatever. Anyway they aren't paying and you are left holding the bag. There is nothing in the Obama plan that says insurance companies can't continue this common everyday practice.

As a matter of large fact the centerpiece of the Obama plan isn't any of this stuff. The centerpiece is that it delivers by force of law millions of new rubes and billions of dollars to the insurance industry. This is big! Everything else like pre-existing conditions, or the crippled public option that excludes 95% of the public, is window dressing and a distraction from the elephant in the room. The insurances corporations know it. The mandates represent an enormous transfer of wealth to them.

The insurance corporations are besides themselves with joy. They have acquired the power of taxation in all but name. A law that uses the power of the state to force you to pay money or else be punished is a tax. There is no other name for it. A tax is a tax.

Insurance corporations couldn't be more pleased at what they've won. And they still get to set prices and refuse payment treatment by treatment, test by test. It's exactly the sort of change the insurance industry hoped for. Baucus and Obama are making it unlawful for us not to pay them. The powerful IRS is to be the industry's collection agency to harass and punish us, even jail us. All this is a gift from heaven for the industry. Oh happy day! Thank you Senator Baucus! Thank you President Obama! This is the sort of "hope" and "change" insurance industry lobbyists can believe in.

I just finished reading the new Paul Craig Roberts article on counterpunch.org -- The Economy Is a Lie, Too.

In the article, Mr. Roberts addresses inflation, amongst several other "juked" stats.

I heard about a guy who knows a guy that's getting up in years and is carefully surveying folks in his age group to recruit those who would like to perform a service to their nation before they pass on.

It's called operation silver bullet. The plan is: "Don't just die - make it count! Take some evil bastards with you!"

Rumor has it this is stiring up interest beyond the ranks of the elderly. Anyone who has been denied treatment by an insurance company is a candidate.

If true, it's a quirky development. It's as if the target-rich environment (evil bastards) is suggesting its own solution.