Ron Wyden objects that the costs it imposes on people aren’t affordable (no kidding), and moreover that everyone (including those with employer coverage) should be allowed to opt in to the “exchanges”;

…Maria Cantwell has joined Rockefeller in saying flatly that she won’t vote for a bill without a public option;

…and Rockefeller has added to that criticism by pointing out that the improved regulations (about preexisting conditions, rescission, etc., that everybody supposedly agrees about) don’t even apply to large companies that self-insure, which happen to provide the coverage to (wait for it…) 46% of Americans.

And yet, much of the mainstream punditocracy is still trying to push the meme that this bill will somehow be the basis for the final reform… apparently on the premise that if a proposal’s so bad that everybody hates it (except, umm, industry lobbyists, but don’t look at the man behind the curtain), why that must mean that it’s just the kind of “compromise” that’s bound to pass!

Even people I know who have “good” employer-provided coverage will talk about how they routinely (routinely!) put off doctor visits as long as possible because of the onerous out-of-pocket “cost sharing.” (Not to mention the long waits, uneven customer service, and general bureaucratic hassles.) Nor does anything in the private coverage this “reform” would force everyone into do the slightest thing to change any of that.

So—to just pay my taxes (I do that anyway), and have my health care covered automatically? ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. It absolutely boggles my mind that a significant number of Americans polled claim to be “happy” with their current private coverage. “The devil you know”?…

(Of course, the very first commenter on Schroeder’s post repeats the shibboleth that the problem is regulatory “interference” in “the market,” rather than the business model propagated by private insurers. A later one sets things straight, though, pointing out insightfully that “every piece of data I’ve ever seen about attempting to create market pressure by passing cost onto the consumer indicates that we humans are terrible risk assessors and make profoundly bad choices when asked to do those cost-benefit trade-offs ourselves. … A free marketeer who values the informational power of markets… should understand that betting on the future of your health is a gamble where we all get the best odds if we all go in together.”)

http://www.kschroeder.com/weblog/archive/2009/09/17/what-canadian-health-care-is-really-like-1.-my

Letting companies charge people over 55 as much as five times the premiums of younger people? Seriously?

…is enough to make me question the political and ethical wisdom of anyone who’d seriously propose this as part of any legislative package on health care on either side of the Border.

“…pass health care reform, but only for Democrats. If it’s so bad and evil then it’ll only be Democrats that suffer, only old Democrats that get snuffed out, not Republicans or supposed Independents.

I dare conservatives to put their money where their ass is – since that’s what they talk out of most of the time anyway – and support health care reform for Democrats only.

While we’re at it, we can ban Republicans from Medicare and Social Security, since they hate those socialist programs as well. Costs for all three programs will immediately drop by half, something conservatives can hang their hat on, and they won’t have to be a part of evil socialism or suffer at the hands of their cruel, democratically elected oppressors who want to kill all the old people.

We’ll all see how how that works out for the GOP over the next couple of decades…”

(Not that I’m a huge fan of Rockefeller, especially after he sold everyone out on the FISA “reform” bill last year, but he has made health care one of his big career issues, and I think he takes it seriously.)

Honestly, at this point I’m skeptical that Baucus ever intended the actual bill to be taken seriously. (Letting companies charge people over 55 as much as five times the premiums of younger people? Seriously?) I’m thinking perhaps the real deliverable to his donors was the delay itself, giving opponents time to try to shift the debate. Whether that strategy worked or backfired, I suppose, remains to be seen (and that’s why we should all contact our own Senators)… but the widespread response today does seem to bode well.