Nelson and Reid Reach a Deal: Game Over

[Torie]

If a significant number of docs stop taking medicare patients, I would think the end game is to increase the payments but ration, since the money just isn't there to increase the payments and not ration, no matter how much one might want to do that.

If marginal employers have to provide health insurance, they will cut wages or hire fewer people, which means really that the employees are paying the premiums, which is as it should be. No one thought that subsidizing the premiums of the uninsured poors and the sick with pre-existing conditions would be free, but  maybe over time there will be some offsetting savings derived from less use of the emergency rooms, and less cost associated with delayed health care (with the attendant exacerbating the medical condition to be treated).

So, my initial impression, Sam Spade, is that if your bullet points are the "worst" that is in the Bill, it may well have merit.

[Torie]

Sam Spade, premiums for individuals at the moment are substantially less than the premiums in a group plan (in my case about half as much), if the individual got individual coverage while healthy. Will that change?