The article you reference states only:

'.....providing a detailed look at a legislative proposal that meets many of the requirements that President Obama laid out in his address to Congress last week.'

There is no proffer that Obama's mandate is in tandem with any of your assertions. Do you have valid cites that provide a credible foundation that President Obama is indeed touting and endorsing these issues be included in the HCR legislation?

Thanks.

I live in a town of 8500 people. We have one hospital. Recently they were being "investigated" for overbilling Medicare by about 27 mil. I don't know the time period involved. But it's obvious that there are a lot of "mistakes" in the system. How much could be saved in a year's time is anybody's guess.

I've been told that patients can reap a reward for spotting overcharges on their Medicare bills. Can anyone verify?

Hey Dog. I just listened to the interview with Dennis Kucinich that's posted on the board and he had some really good comments to make that I think relate to your post. To wit:

This is either government of the people, for the people, and by the people, or it’s government of the corporations. This is one of those moments when we’re going to have to make that decision. We may not make the appropriate decision this time. I believe there will come a day when healthcare will be viewed as a civil right. When it is there will be a mass movement that will force Washington to respond to the will of the people in much the way that it did in the civil rights, and women’s rights movements.

If the plan at best is just a subsidy for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. I think all of us have to take a long and careful look at that to decide if that is appropriate and whether we’re just further locking in those entrenched interests. This goes beyond who the president is. This really relates to what kind of life people are having , what kind of quality of life what kind of economic existence do people have if they’re paying more money for healthcare or if they can’t afford healthcare, or they can’t afford their doctor bills. There are some deeper questions here than just the politics. And frankly even though I’m in politics I refuse to look at this in strictly political terms. This about a life and death matter for tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, or can’t afford to take care of their families, and we’re finding out Insurance companies have them over a barrel every step of the way.

We have to decide whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. If it’s a right, then everybody should be covered, and the government should push for it. If it’s a privilege, then hold your hats because if you don’t have enough money you’re going to be out of luck.

We’ve seen the debate in America run by insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. Our choices have to be larger than the one’s we’re getting. Our options have to be bigger than the one’s we’re getting. This is not a time for minimalism and saying this is the best the system can do. This just really tells us what America is about. Whether we really have a democracy or whether we have a corporate oligarchy that dictates decisions under the guise that it’s doing the best it can.

We’re at a moment of a litmus test for our nation and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. We need to move to a broader reform of a single payer system and whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. When democrats were given this broad mandate by the people in 2008, if the best we can do is some warmed over version of a public option, or no public option, or a public option with a trigger, or cooperatives then if that’s the best we can do the American people have ever right to ask whether their confidence was misplaced.