And if they did ask the question Todd they'd be looked at like they had 2 heads. This is America and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING including life and death, must have a price tag attached to it.

I think that was said on the 8th day...

Remind everyone, again and again, that insurance companies are for the generation of investment capital, not for the provision of "coverage" of premium-payers. Coverage is a cost of doing business, and a drain on that investment capital.

When an insured's "worth" is less than another investment, that claim will be creatively denied.

"Get Mary Landrieu's language on ABC's This Week yesterday: "those of us that are against public option [sic] are against it because we think it will undermine the private sector."

It's interesting that you focus on this meme. I think it's largely false unless we are catapulted into a single payer system after I click my heels 3 times.
Big Insurance will have to adjust. And they WILL, even if we were to get single payer. I guarantee they will have a product to vend for a tidy price. They will simply be unable to garner windfall profits at whim or to cast their subscribers onto deathbeds with heartless abandon.
I'm going to go weep and sob for United Health and it's impending doom...(not)

I can see one role for private insurance -- obviously a single payer model would have to set some standards for effectiveness and that means known and measured treatments. What if I bought insurance that would give me access to experimental treatments not covered by the public plan? It'd be a back-up. As I understand it, if I wanted some special treatment that the public plan wouldn't pay for, I'd be free to go pay for it on my own. Why not, in the case of more expensive experimental treatments, I buy insurance for that?

Wouldn't it be a hallelujah day if an interviewer asked a politician why we need private health insurance companies in the first place?"

How about ANY interviewer asking ANY politician to discuss the policy merits of the public option, rather than focus solely on the politics?

"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of HMO's....."

That's in there, right?

We have already had what we need, a real mutual insurance company. These were deconstructed when Wall Street decided they wanted to get into the massive funds mutual insuacne companies had created, and to this day not one organic [for lack of a better word, suggeting no herbicides or pesiticides or shareholder profit] mutal insurance company exists in this country, although they had and were very successful.

The truth is, we have a history that, if a mutual insurance company made a profit at the end of the year, it was rolled into the next year, not some shareholders's profits, and when the disaster fund became so massive there was no longer any reason to keep that much money in reserve and demand premiums, the premiums were reduced, or the policy holders received rebates. These are historical facts.

Let the execs make a crazy salary, but any bonus would be a percentage of rebates, no some flat bazillion dollar annuity or stock options. Bonuses only based on performance, not merely surviving at the position.

Get Mary Landrieu's language on ABC's This Week yesterday: "those of us that are against public option [sic] are against it because we think it will undermine the private sector."


And the reason why that's a bad idea is--?

... is perfectly plain: how many campaign contributions come to Neocomradess Senator M. Landrieu from the Evil Public Sector, after all?

Happy days.