It looks like the health care sausage coming out of Washington is finally starting to take shape. From CNN:
[…] As with other reform proposals, the bill would bar insurance companies from dropping a policyholder in the event of illness as long as that person had paid the premium in full. It would add new protections for people with pre-existing conditions and establish tax credits to help low- and middle-income families purchase insurance coverage.
Insurance companies also would be barred from imposing annual caps or lifetime limits on coverage. Individuals, however, would be fined up to $950 annually for failing to obtain coverage; families could be fined as much as $3,800.
Insurers providing expensive “Cadillac” plans would be hit with a tax for 35 percent of the amount that a plan’s cost exceeds thresholds set at $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families.
Kmareka.com 
I don’t think the Max Baucus version is going to last too long. It’s too weak to attract anyone who wants health care reform, and without a strong public option to offer some competition it would be a huge tax handout to the insurance companies.
The health care system is complicated and it won’t be easy to expand coverage while keeping costs down. But other countries have better health outcomes than the US– it takes political courage and willingness to invest now for a better future.
I do not understand the supporting evidence that “other countries have better health outcomes.” The list of delayed treatment, non-treatment, two-tiered treatment where nationalized medicing scores vastly more poorly than the private options in many countries, and the cost increases, seem to provide data indicating the contrary. The observation that the nationalized medical systems of New Zealand, Canada, or Britain, yoelds nothing much innovative in treatment methodologies, few if any new drug patents, docotprs who leave if they can for those places without nationalized medical care, etc. The cost savings in tort reform are certainly one avenue more logically prusued. A report that a very skilled ob/gyn docotor has a $168,000 annual malpractice insurance premium certainly seems like a good place to begin cost savings for treatment. Why anyone believes that government is logical, orderly or efficient remains a mystery to me.
Note how the individual below has to point out the superiority of Cuba to the US in infant mortality.
He really ought to talk to one of my wife’s cousins whose husband dragged her and their kids to Cuba,his country of origin in ,1960 and they returned to the US some years ago.
They had some nice stories to tell about life in Cuba.
I guess Klaus doesn’t mind conducting the Hunt for Red October to find such luxuries as soap,toilet paper,and toothpaste.
Oh,yeah,no political dissent either.
Just remember,the trains ran on time in the Third Reich.Was it a selling point?
I’m sure Cuba’s problems are just the fault of the evil US embargo.
Health care and insurance companies are a good discussion-the “good”aspects of dictatorships aren’t.
Oh, please. Not the horror-stories of long waiting lines.
The last time I went to a specialist, I had to wait a good six months for an appointment.
And if the health care in Canada or the UK is so awful, where is the clamor for change?
There isn’t any, because people in the UK and Canada LIKE their health care. The Tories in neither country are even suggesting that they scrap their systems, because to do so would be political suicide.
So, Mr Wolberg, your argument about How Awful It Would Be is based on a lot of right-wing lies.
That leaves us with results. We spend twice as much as anyone, and get no better results. Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than we do. How’s that for a good outcome.
Our expected lifespan is in the bottom quartile for advanced countries. We do better in survival rates for breast cancer, worse for prostate cancer.
IOW, not much to show for all that extra $$$.
Why not? Because the other half is being sucked up by insurance companies.
Google Wendell Potter. He’s a former Cygna exec who’s crusading for h/c reform. We don’t hear much about him on the MSM. I wonder why.
But one day, as he was flying across the country on the corp jet, he realized that his jet ride was being financed by denying people’s claims. He also realized that was not moral.
So that’s what we’ve got. Our waiting times are comparable, our results aren’t noticeably better, but we spend a helluva lot more money.
And, BTW, who has Medicare? Or is covered by the VA? The first is single-payer, the second is socialized medicine. Our gov’t can run a very fine program, thank you. Think about all those Protesters of August who shouted about not letting the gov’t touch Medicare.
How’s that for a sad state of affairs? Why is it? Because the Republicans are lying to them.