Will Obama's healthcare plan work?

[RSS News]

President Barack Obama has defended his plans for health reform. Do you support them?

(Feed provided by BBC News | Have your Say (http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm))

[jake williams]

No. Obvs. Oh, Newsbot.

Seriously though, American debates on healthcare are totally surreal.

[n0thing]

Depends on what you mean by "work". If you mean provide healthcare to all Americans in an economically viable way; no. If you mean take financial pressure off of big companies that are footing their employees' medical costs at the moment; yes. So yeah, in that respect it's probably going to do everything Obama wanted it to do.

[h9socialist]

I would like to see something more akin to the National Health Service in Great Britain. However, if Obama can get a public option it will be a step in the right direction. My gut-feeling says that the Canadian style single-payer system is the bare minimum we should find acceptable. But after 60 years of this battle, I'm beginning to think any movement will be welcome. Short of having the revolution start tomorrow, it seems that something incremental is better than nothing. Will it work? I seriously doubt it. But it depends on what you compare it to. Compared to the NHS, it looks like a disaster. Compared to what's happened in the U.S. the last 60 years, it will at least seem like a small modicum of improvement.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I would like to see something more akin to the National Health Service in Great Britain. However, if Obama can get a public option it will be a step in the right direction. My gut-feeling says that the Canadian style single-payer system is the bare minimum we should find acceptable. But after 60 years of this battle, I'm beginning to think any movement will be welcome. Short of having the revolution start tomorrow, it seems that something incremental is better than nothing. Will it work? I seriously doubt it. But it depends on what you compare it to. Compared to the NHS, it looks like a disaster. Compared to what's happened in the U.S. the last 60 years, it will at least seem like a small modicum of improvement.

If people were agitating for healthcare and mobilizing and forced Geroge W. Bush to pass the equivalent of Obama's plan, then I would say it is a small step in the right direction. However, with "socialist" Obama's "socalist health plan" actually being a giveaway to the healthcare industry specifically, I think this will be a terrible set-back for political consiousness in the US.

It's such an awful plan: I mean it's car-insurance for health! If there were arguments for socialized health care in the "official debate" and we ended up with Obama's "compromise" I think people would see that Obama's plan is a disaster and think: ok, no more half-stepping, we need full universal health care. If there was a visable movement demanding universal healthcare and Obama gave them this, it would probably radicalize people and make them more agressive in their demands on Obama - in the lack of any movements, I think this plan will just demoralize people.

Since the official "debate" around health care is so terrible and narrow, I fear that if this plan is passed, and people see that it is a failure, they will think: well the only opposing argument was from conservatives claiming that universal health care was a bad idea, I guess the private system is better like they said it was.

[h9socialist]

You will get no argument from me regarding the inadequacy of the plan. The tragedy is that it's probably the best that this government can do -- which is a prima facie argument for radical change right there. Still I'd love to have the public plan so I could get rid of the Blue Cross-Blue Shield rip-off that I'm saddled with.

[cb9's_unity]

It does indeed show the weakness of the political situation. Even if Obama came out as a full blown Marxist tomorrow this is probably the best deal he could pull through. It really is pathetic.

[More Fire for the People]

It will work in the sense that it will provide health care to the uninsured and underinsured. However, it won't cut costs because it is not a single payer system.

[h9socialist]

It is quite pathetic that this is the best this system is capable of. Considering the status quo, however, it would take a truly malevolent genius to figure out how to make things any worse!