Education, police, roads, fire services, Parks, councils, etc... None of these are a "right" per se, but something that is integral to a community, often provided by the government (be it local or national); elsewhere in the western world healthcare also falls into this category.

Healthcare is simply beyond the means of many American communities, universal healthcare is primary concern in the USA (as it is one of the last countries to provide this kind of national service). The only real issue I see is whether a national healthcare system can be implemented in an efficient manner that makes it worthwhile.

How were the Republicans supposed to negotiate with the senate Dems? Every quote I've read is that they requested to meet with Pelosi and Obama concerning HC reform, and were never allowed into the discussion.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52896

That links to 3 of the Republican bills - What were wrong with them to where they should not have been considered over the monstrosity that was just passed in the senate?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/CBO-Prepublican-health-plan-would-reduce-premiums--69270747.html

What is wrong with this bill, which would cut costs, and not require an egregious amount of money to fund?

I understand the desire of insuring another ~36 million people, but when government healthcare is 80% more expensive than private insurance, I have serious doubts. I think that, regardless of party, we need HC reform, but by proposing a ~$800 billion dollar bill (like the dems did) is not going to fix the problem - it is only paying for the difference between those not insured, rather than tackling the root causes of the need for HC reform which costs nothing.

It can, it just requires a different solution than what we find in other nations. Due to the size and scope of America, you can't have one fix-all solution for every state, and demographic. A major sticking point is that due to state laws & regulations, insurance companies are very uncompetitive, as they cannot offer plans across state lines - this means that a company out of California can't offer a CA plan in Ohio, which may be better. Because of this, there is less incentive for companies to offer better plans.

If they would just do that - force insurance companies to compete against eachother nationwide - some of the costs would drop. Once that was done, other reforms could be enacted, lowering the cost of the system.

Having federal healthcare in America does not fix the problem - our cost of HC is far higher than the rest of the world due not to privatization, but excessive regulations which can cost more money for simple things. Our doctors require ~10-12 years of schooling to treat a common cold. At the cost of re-paying a doctor for that many years causes our doctors to be overpaid because its simply too expensive to get in the field (also, we have less doctors per capita in America than other countries - if we had more, or others could be allowed to do some of the basic tasks a doctor does, it would be cheaper due to more wage competition).

*once* those things were tackled - regulation, competitiveness, and the number of doctors - I think our HC system would be much cheaper than it is now. At that point in time, we could then look into nationalization. As I've said before, I think that it could be feasible in the way of a voucher program allowing citizens to choose their own doctors at an affordable price.

What I don't understand....

If there is no Public Option....

what the hell is costing so much?

I mean what needs 700+ Million dollars?  Creating an organization to find people who don't buy health insurance? 

It's a silly, silly bill, both worse then the status quo and an actual full out universal healthcare.

Espiecally when you look at who that 36 million is.  Not to many of them are actually people who can't afford healthcare, a lot are just people who don't want it.

Well, approaching Pelosi or Obama would not pertain to the Senate. Regardless, the Republicans had chances to negotiate with the Democrats in the Senate. However, they were unwilling to compromise on key provisions. The Dems cut the public option, medicare buy-in, and other provisions and the Republicans were still unwilling to negotiate-even a moderate such as Snowe (R-ME). Honestly, the Dems were elected to majorities in both chambers of Congress. They do not have to remove every significant provision to placate the Republicans.

Why should the Republican bills have been derided and laughed at? First, the Republican bills not only fail to increase coverage (coverage does not even remain equal with population growth), they also reduce the deficit less than the Democrats' bills. Second, the central provision in the Republican bills is reducing costs by utilizing state insurance exchanges-essentially applying the Massachusetts exchange to other states. However, the Democratic bills already include that provision, and the House bill creates a national insurance exchange; incidentally, this is better than the state exchanges and is likely to emerge from the conference committee in the final bill. As I said, the only worthwhile Republican provision was malpractice reform.  

What is costing so much? Well, there is the expansion of medicaid. There is also expanded coverage for children. There are the subsidies that help people obtain insurance through the health exchange(s).

Actually, that is not true. Many of the people who will obtain health care under either plan (House or Senate's) will be those who do not receive it from employers and cannot afford it individually. This includes the expansion of Medicaid and those who will purchase insurance from the exchange.

Since they scraped the PO this has basically become a stealth bailout bill for the insurance industry. Even big supporters of nationalized health care like howard dean are against this abomination. I have no idea what to think about this.

Something like 10 million people who qualify for Medicaid are currently not on Medicaid.

When you actually do the numbers on who the uninsured are... you could accomplish just as much for the people who want insurance by a medicaid information campaign, a slight medicaid expansion and a few minor laws.

Without forcing a large number of people who don't have insurance via personal choice.

If you actually go over that ~35 million number(since they are removing the illegal aliens) by looking at the actual report you'll be surprised how many of those people actually need help getting insurance.  Not that many.

A LOT of it is medcaid under report,  a lot of it is people in the 3rd and 4th quartiles, a lot of it is people who qualify for medicaid but don't take it... etc.

The numbers are very easy to breakdown, it doesn't take more then 15 minutes or so.  I've already done it on these boards once before.  You should check it out.

It will be interesting to see what happens to this legislation over the next couple of months ...

Last I heard, opinion polling had a healthy majority of people who believed that it would be better to start from scratch than to pass this bill; and, because the Democrats don’t want to be trying to pass healthcare reform in an election year, this bill was passed anyways. This bill is still not a law yet, and I wouldn't be surprised if in the new year moderate Democrats were looking for a way to scale back and streamline the bill to make it more pleasing to their electorate while more progressive Democrats were looking for a way to expand the bill to make it more pleasing to their electorate; which could drag out this battle for another several months, possibly resulting in lower polling numbers and a defeat in the mid-term elections.

While I wouldn't put money on it at this point in time, I could still see this bill failing to become a law if half the Democrats facing re-election will lose their seat if it is passed while the other half will lose their seat if it doesn't pass.

Yes, that is a major reason why ~4% of legal residents will not have health coverage after the bill takes effect. ~60% of those eligible for Medicaid currently do not sign up and some will not sign up after the bill. However, that is accounted for in the estimated ~18-24 million Americans who will remain w/out health care after the bill takes effect. The number who gain insurance does not include those who are currently eligible for Medicaid but do not sign up for it thereby "cooking" the numbers. Depending on the version of the bill, a large number of those who will gain coverage do so from the expansion of Medicaid. Another significant portion will gain coverage from receiving subsidies through the exchange(s)-up to 400% of the poverty level. Granted, not every person who gains coverage will be someone who needed help. Yes, I know the numbers are easy to break down. You are not the only person to do so. Frankly, I am surprised to hear some state that not many of the people receiving coverage under the bill actually require help. I have heard/read many statements about the bill, but I have never heard/read that.