where will the government get the money to pay for the public option?

With the rate of job loses, there won't be any money for it, Because no one will have a job hence no taxes coming into FEDZILLA !

No we just add it to the deficit. And bankrupt the country.

FDR did a great job by leaving us to burden social-security, medicare, medicaid. Many craptastic programs that fail. Fail, fail and fail.

Don't count on social-security existing by 2040.

Taxes from all the hard working people who help to cover peopel who don't work or contribute.

The only way to pay for the public option is to strip out the money from medicare which will reduce the care given to the elderly and to tax those that employ others which will reduce the number of people they can employ thereby adding to the 3,700,000 that have already lost their jobs while Obama has been in office.

Progressive and liberals believe that enslaving people with entitlements is the way to buy their votes and to keep them happy...the restructuring of assets by politicians is never a good idea for the public.

THIS JUST IN!: All our congressmen/women are going to leave Washington and get real jobs and they are going to pay for everyone's health care and even give up their current health care so they live like us peons.


Not

The Premiums will pay for it, that's funny. I listened to the debates all day today. Maxine Waters spoke to the millions that will not be able to afford it and be subsidized by the Government (taxpayers). Business with have to pay an additional 8 percent tax which means job losses. The JTC even states it will cost millions of jobs. In the debates today everytime the Democrats claimed something that wasn't true the Republicans went to their Bill and read the section that proved they were lying. There is even a section that states the lawyers are not limited to the amount they can sue for. That will raise the cost even for the Government plan. The Democrats plan has $750,000,000 just in bureaucracy and has panels that will say if a treatment is justifiable. These items were read today from the Bill in the debates.

You mean besides stealing 500 million from medicare.

Oh oh wait, they said they are going to cut 500 million in waste from medicare, so no one will notice the budget cut.

Except how come, no one can point to any program in the past, where they said they were gonna find millions of waste to cut

Where they actually did.

Or is it because they know, after not being able to cut waste, Congress will restore that 500 million to medicare.

So its like hiding 500 million of the cost of their Bill.

From the public, if you don't think you're gonna have to open your wallet for this you're not paying attention.

Yeah you Dem's are on the right track...NOT......MASSACHUSETTS HAS been lauded for its healthcare reform, but the program is a failure. Created solely to achieve universal insurance coverage, the plan does not even begin to address the other essential components of a successful healthcare system.

What would such a system provide? The prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, has defined five criteria for healthcare reform. Coverage should be: universal, not tied to a job, affordable for individuals and families, affordable for society, and it should provide access to high-quality care for everyone.

The state's plan flunks on all counts.

First, it has not achieved universal healthcare, although the reform has been a boon to the private insurance industry. The state has more than 200,000 without coverage, and the count can only go up with rising unemployment.

Second, the reform does not address the problem of insurance being connected to jobs. For individuals, this means their insurance is not continuous if they change or lose jobs. For employers, especially small businesses, health insurance is an expense they can ill afford.

Third, the program is not affordable for many individuals and families. For middle-income people not qualifying for state-subsidized health insurance, costs are too high for even skimpy coverage. For an individual earning $31,213, the cheapest plan can cost $9,872 in premiums and out-of-pocket payments. Low-income residents, previously eligible for free care, have insurance policies requiring unaffordable copayments for office visits and medications.

Fourth, the costs of the reform for the state have been formidable. Spending for the Commonwealth Care subsidized program has doubled, from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion for 2009, which is not sustainable.

Fifth, reform does not assure access to care. High-deductible plans that have additional out-of-pocket expenses can result in many people not using their insurance when they are sick. In my practice of child and adolescent psychiatry, a parent told me last week that she had a decrease in her job hours, could not afford the $30 copayment for treatment sessions for her adolescent, and decided to meet much less frequently.

In another case, a divorced mother stopped treatment for her son because the father had changed insurance, leaving them with an unaffordable deductible. And at Cambridge Health Alliance, doctors and nurses have cared for patients who, unable to afford the new copayments, were forced to interrupt care for HIV and even cancers that could be treated with chemotherapy.

Access to care is also affected by the uneven distribution of healthcare dollars between primary and specialty care, and between community hospitals and tertiary care hospitals. Partners HealthCare, which includes two major tertiary care hospitals in Boston, was able to negotiate a secret agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to be paid 30 percent more for their services than other providers in the state, contributing to an increase in healthcare costs for Massachusetts, which are already the highest per person in the world. Agreements that tilt spending toward tertiary care threaten the viability of community hospitals and health centers that provide a safety net for the uninsured and underinsured.

There is, though, one US model of healthcare that meets the Institute of Medicine criteria: Medicare. Insuring everyone over 65, Medicare achieves universal coverage and access to care, is not tied to a job, and is affordable for individuals and the country. Medicare simplifies the administration of healthcare dollars, thereby saving money. We need to improve Medicare, and expand this program to include everyone.

A bill before Congress, the United States National Health Insurance Act, would provide more comprehensive coverage for all. The bill includes doctor, hospital, long-term, mental health, dental, and vision care, prescription drugs, and medical supplies, with no premiums, copayments, or deductibles.

People would be free to choose doctors and hospitals, and insurance would not be tied to a job. Costs would be controlled because health planning in a national health program can reestablish needed balance between primary/preventive care and high-tech tertiary care. A modest, progressive tax would replace what people currently pay out of pocket. This program would pay for itself by eliminating the wasteful administrative costs and profits of private insurance companies, and save $8 billion to $10 billion in Massachusetts alone.

We must let Congress know we want improved access to affordable healthcare for all, not more expensive private health insurance we can't afford to use when we are sick. Massachusetts healthcare reform fails on all five Institute of Medicine criteria. Congress should not make it a model for the nation.

Susanne L. King, M.D., pract

don't listen to the garbage who want to make this a political issue, because it's not, this issue is about the well being of americans, and how the government is going to fix, granted it is new and not what we're use to, but the things we have tried before have failed the public, let us try something new, maybe it'll work. now as for how the govt. will get the money its simple, taxes on businesses and indviduals, and premiums...no one said this was easy, but than again what is in american politics and the democratic system. :)