Former Senate leaders offer compromise on healthcare

We will not see health care reform during Obama's tenure. There are too many vested interests against it.

If they really want to reform health insurance, they should ban the employers from offering it. That would curtail all the Group policies which the insurers prefer, and force the insurers to offer a variety of individual policies with varying degrees of benefits. For example, a person who has no mental illness in the family could opt out of having mental coverage, an elderly woman could opt out of obstetrics coverage, and a person who has sufficient assets can opt for a hefty $5000 or $10,000 deductible in exchange for a lowered premium.
Also, the insurers should be able to offer discounts to people who don't use medical services often, much like we get a safe-driver discount on our auto insurer if we don't have any claims for so many years.
And the insurers should be able to offer the people a discount for once a year billing, like we get in our homeowners', auto, or life insurance policies, rather than this foolish "monthly" billing which the Massachusetts insurers try to say is required by the legislature! Anyone knows that if you just send out bills once a year, your postage costs are less, and you need far fewer employees to process all the paperwork. With fewer employees, insurers can save thousands of dollars each month and pass the savings on to the insureds in the form of reuced premiums.

Hurray!

Democracy in its finest flower!

My heartfelt congrats & appreciation to those in Congress, who are willing to put the needs of the Nation ahead of their egos...

Let's do the math. The "leaders" came up with a plan that's $.3 trillion less than the plan being floated by Senate Democrats. What a deal.

No plan is better than either of the plans discussed in the article.

This plan is intriguing. It could be a nice compromise. Massachusetts could be more of a model than any of us ever thought.

This is a flattering article for this new proposal missing critique. I know so little about this new proposal that it's hard to get any perspective based on what's said here. It would be great if we could get a more balanced view of this. Maybe we could even know more about the faults of this new plan.

"...deciding to let a more heavily regulated private market try to work first..."-- Hunh?? What kind of double-talk is that? The private market has had its chance and look where we are now. And since when will Repubs agree on any type of regulation?? They can't even mention the word without strangling. As for "letting" states choose their own public insurance plans -- we used to call that game "Kick the Can."

This article is misleading and inaccurate in its views of the health care debate. Where is the single-payer plan? If the Globe really cared of its readership, it would bother to mention that 60% of U.S. doctors and over 50% of U.S. citizens favor a single-payer system that cuts out the doubling costs we get with these scheming health insurance companies. Dems and GOPs invested in the issue are being ignored while those selected to committee, like 'centrist' Max Baucus have received HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in campaign contributions from the health care industry.
Newspapers are supposed to act as a fourth branch of government, protecting citizens from the often incongruous interests of our government and industry. The Globe has failed at this basic requirement. Please, quit serving the interests of Big Business and start caring about your readership.

True health reform won't take place until the real cost is realized by everyone. If employer provided healthcare contributions were treated as income and taxed, the public would be demanding reform. My healthcare plan has gone from $700 per month in 2005 to $1700 per month this year. Unlike employer provided health benefits, this is paid with after tax money. I cannot continue to bear these kinds of increases. Level the playing field and tax employer provided healthcare benefits so everyone will realize the true cost of healthcare and you will have the public screaming for reform. While I'm at it, another HUGE inequity is the way health plans are constructed. Please explain to me why a family of 8 would pay the same amount as a family of 3? Family plan premiums should be based upon the size of the family.

What is not considered by the political right is there is a cost to no economic plan in that it is a formula for run away health care inflation costs. That problem is in fact the Medicare problem of the future. No plan is not an option. If Republicans accepted that premise they would be part of a discussion. Instead they prattle on about how this and that is bad. We have a problem. Were it easy to solve it would have been done. I favor a public plan but would gladly give it up for some plan.

Talking about what it will cost is meaningless since no one speaks of what it will cost to not act.

If insuring the 50 million that are uninsured, there is yet a simpler way to take care of that and then just place price limits on care at hospitals and clinics and other health care facilities. Procedural limits would keep costs down and allow these entities to make a profit still.

Those without health insurance could be given a $2 million dollar health allowance for life. That amounts to $100 million dollars set aside and probably never depleted because of interest received and management.

Single payer will work about as well as Medicare has, so yes, by all means, entrust your healthcare into the hands of the same set of boobs in DC, on both sides of the aisles, that have successfully run, oh, nothing, anywhere except into the ground.

Any health care plan that keeps the blood-sucking insurance companies and pharmaceuitical companies in charge of any part of the system, will not succeed to deliver the amount or the quality that a one payer system can deliver. As long as the Republicans and a significant number of Democrats can block the only system that can cover all and manage costs, it will never happen, which is what those industies have been paying them to do all along. There can be no compromise that will fix the system and they know it.

I am praying for your freedom.Keep it up!!American people are with you.