Comments about ‘15 senators write health care letter’

Amen! I see huge possibility coming. It looks like everybody is rolling up the shirtsleeves and beginning to work together! Yes! Yes! Yes!

These are about as high up as you can go. They would describe the programs like the Medicare drug plan, of which the main beneficiary was the drug companies and the insurers that got into the game. These are all platitudes. It would have been a better exercise if they would have given enough detail to show what they see as the meaning of these principals. The tax reform spoken about, could just be a rehash of the attempt to move health care responsibility from employer based to individual plans. That was presented as part of McCain's platform and that was not received successfully.

BRAVO!

It reminds of the search for a rare metal called unobtainium. Like most politicians who are wont to hand things out, they would like to have unfettered access, (no limits on demands), the highest quality,(no limits on cost) and of course create a system where many do not have to pay for such lofty ideals. Ain't going to work. When will dumb people figure out that the federal government is us...we are the ones that have to pay for it.

What story? There's nothing here.

Just provide health care like Matyo Clinic does. Accept the recommendations of their Health Care Initiative

These seven points are well taken, but are of little help in solving the over-all problem of how do you accomplish these goals. Do we rely on government socialism, private enterprise, open market competition or some conglomeration of all of these? Getting a concensus on how to attain the objective is the real problem.

Great job boys.......just add motherhood and apple pie and I think you've got it covered.

These 7 tenets are not the issue. The issue is how to do it. Useless letter

General principle are easy. The devil is in the details. Reform would mean Washington would have to take on the insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical lobbies. They have shown no willingness to do that in the past.

I live in Tennessee. We had "universal" healthcare for several years. It gave the uninsured the chance to buy insurance at a reduced rate based on income. It didn't work. They still waited until they had a finacially catastrophic illness before buying insurance. The savings hoped for by having no unisureds was never realized.

Many of the working poor were fully covered. The ER's were filled with people who's real ambition was to buy pain killers to sell on the street. In short order we were the number one users of pain killers in the country. People without cars were calling ambulances to go to routine doctors visits because they didn't have to pay the bill.

When the program was finally killed it was on track to consume the states ENTIRE budget within a few years.

Good luck taking on Big Pharma.

The devil is in the details, but that's a good set of principles.

I hope the senators have an answer for the hardest question: "in what otherwise similar circumstances should a rich person live, but a poor person die?"

If the answer is "never" we have infinitely expensive health care system, but if the answer is anything else we have an uncrossable divide.

No senators. Give the public the same health care program that you have. NOTHING MORE> NOTHING LESS>

I suppose the newsworthy bit of this is that 7 Republican Senators, including Bennett, seem to want anything to do with healthcare reform. However, the points made by the letter, as reported, are so vague that they do nothing to reassure us that a new direction is being taken by these guys. The 3rd line, about private insurance reform, leads one to believe that this letter signals that these senators will come to the table only if the ascendancy of private HMOs is preserved.

This letter says next to nothing. Not surprising from the senator who voted AGAINST CHIP in August because "it would cover too many people." This letter is not what real, powerful reform looks like. And that's what we need. Not some dogmatic posturing that upholds callous free-market principles while more and more people slip from free-market health insurance plans and are forced into free-market bankruptcy (actually many of these same "free-market" demagogues people want to reduce bankruptcy protections, too), and end up on the short end of the free-market stick - meaning earlier death and very substantially reduced quality of life.

I'll consider their proposals when Wall Street & the Senate takes the Hypocratic Oath.

I am pickimg my self off the floor, Bennett said something I can agree with!

after they wrote the letter..the plethora of health care lobbyist asked the senators how they would get re-elected without their "contributions"...and so it goes..

Sounds great BUT........

I am a healthy 58 year old early retiree. I have never been in the hospital except to have our two daughters -- more than 24 years ago.

I am paying more than $1900 each month for health insurance from Blue-Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. The high prices may push people from homes and cause bankruptcies.

Other points..
1. Tort reform.
2. Send ambulance chasing attorneys to jail for frivilous lawsuits.
3. Tell people to have reasonable expectations. You don't need an MRI for a hangnail.

Not a very informative article. I agree that those sound like nice goals...but I was hoping this would be an article showing that politicians had a plan instead of just advertising ideals.

that don't take a rocket scientist! and we pay these clowns how much! why don't they ask the everyday person on the street? they could give better answers than that!