Day: June 16, 2009

How To Pay For Health Care?

The newest battle raging on Capitol Hill is the one for qualkity health care of ALL Americans.  Dems are moving in a public option direction and the best the Repubs can do is to try and rein in frivilous lawsuits.

But there are other ideas on the board.  One idea is:

A first-ever tax on employer-provided health benefits also figures prominently among options under consideration in Congress, but Obama campaigned against that last year and its inclusion in the bill would require him to reverse course.

Rep. Pete Stark, a leading congressional author of health reform legislation, called Thursday for a 2 percent income tax surcharge to pay for the health insurance program he predicted Congress and President Obama would enact later this year.

“If you wanted me to bet how would I pay for this, I would tell you not to bet against a surtax,” the Fremont Democrat said. “None of us like to talk about that.”

Stark predicted that when it comes down to paying for health care reform, “it’ll be, ‘Swallow hard, take the tough vote.’ ”

Most Dems say that health care will become a reality…but like the Repubs…NO ONE knows how we will pay for it.  The debate will be fascinating to see who comes up with what….it will be paid for…but how is the best question to ask.

Sorry guys…but all the schemes I have heard are nothing more than leaving the insurance companies in control of health care.  In other words it would be similar to bailing out Wall Street….they remain in control of the financial system and nothing is changing….they keep playing the same game with the lives and cash of ordinary people.  Insurance companies will be doing the same things they are allowed to do now.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., in an interview on CSPAN spoke of his single-payer bill S-703. The private health care system in the U.S., he charged, “is geared to making money for the private insurance companies,” not providing quality health care for the people. He decried the $2.3 trillion spent on health care each year, 18 percent of gross domestic product, or more than $8,000 for each man, woman and child.

The main sticking point for the health care bill is where will the money come from to pay for the program.  Many ideas….many arguments….but so far nothing that either side is offering adds up to a payment for the program.  So…the question remains….how will we pay for the health care improvements?

Did Hell Freeze Over?

I awoke yesterday to a report that Israel’s hard line prime minister, Netanyahu has stated that he is open to the idea of a separate Palestinian state.  My first reaction was, “did hell freeze over?”

After I did some research I found that he had said he would accept a Palestinian state but wioth a few conditions.  These were:

1–No military

2-Must accept Israel’s right to exist

3–An undivided Jerusalem as capital of Israel

4–Israel’s right to build settlements in Occupied territory

Those were the main points of his speech, but after reading I as where is anything new?  These are the same conditions that have been thrown around for decades.  So any reporting on this as somehow a new path to a Middle East peace is just stretching things a bit far.

Now where is the incentive for Palestinians to come to the table with Netanyahu?  There is nothing new.  Israel will have all the benefits and the Pals will be left out in t he cold, yet again.

Basically, it is just a ploy to keep the US off their collective butts….for now….this is NOT a realistic offer.