9b0"And right now - he's trying to create a law that will actually force everyone to buy health insurance...
The healthcare lobby pays Max Baucus - so he forces you to buy their product?"
I'm not familiar with what this guy is promoting, but I do believe it should be like car insurance and everyone should be required to have health care insurance or be penalized or else the public plan won't work.
You just can't accept those with medical problems and let those that are healthy not enter the public plan. Too many unhealthy people would load the plan down and even the government couldn't afford it. mo. .. nic
...bluedogs represent, collectively, six states which contain about 2.74 percent of the population, less than New Jersey, or about one fifth the population
The Powers That Be
Not to just keep flogging a dead horse endlessly, but it does strike me as worth noting that when you read a puff piece in The New York Times about the Gang of Six bipartisan dealmakers in the Senate that vast power is being wielded by people who, in a democratic system of government, would have almost no power. We’re talking, after all, about Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Collectively those six states contain about 2.74 percent of the population, less than New Jersey, or about one fifth the population of California. The six largest states, by contrast, contain about 40 percent of Americans.
The largest metropolitan area contained in whole or in part within any of those six states is the Albuquerque MSA, population 846,000, the 59th largest in the United States—smaller than New Haven or Fresno or Richmond. And of course if you got together a group of Senators from large states that contain big cities—California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois—those senators would still represent plenty of farmers and rural communities. Indeed, California is the most important farm state in America. But when you get the inverse group together you wind up completely excluding the interests of residents of large metropolitan areas—not just city dwellers, but the vast number of Americans who live in the suburbs of large cities—even though such places contain a majority of the country’s population and economic activity.
This is a crucial article–who are they to rule for the rest of us???
Three Republican Senators Are Worth More Than 76% of the Country
...........Already, the group of six has tossed aside the idea of a government-run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, which the president supports but Republicans said was a deal-breaker.
Instead, they are proposing a network of private, nonprofit cooperatives............
The three Republicans are Snowe, Enzi and Grassley. The Democrats are Baucus, Bingaman and Kent "co-ops" Conrad.
The Finance Committee was supposed to deal with -- wait for it -- finance. Instead, President Baucus and President Snowe decided that they'd just write the whole damn bill themselves and have included a competing co-op plan that would replace the public plan offered by the HELP committee.
Because three Republican Senators are worth more than 76% of the country to members of the most exclusive club in the world.
They certainly have a mighty high opinion of themselves.
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