On Sunday, Health Insurance Reform passed the House and got signed by the President on Tuesday. What is going to follow is the Reconciliation bill.

Or should I better say a reconciliation bill? Because we still have a long way to go until we have a health care system that serves the people, a system in which you can put your life into the hands of the government and not private enterprise who will sell it on the Stock market, a system in which you won't have to worry about which doctor or hospital will cover you because you are free to go to any hospital and doctor without any fees.

This system could be a multi payer health-care system (Public and Private plans), a single payer health-care system (One single fund) or a publicly-funded health-care system (Completely government-run). No matter which one the United States will choose, it will save trillions over decades.

California once again is a pioneer in this field. With two single payer health-care bills vetoed by Schwarzenegger in 2006 and 2008, California Legislature is taking its thrid run on a Single Payer Health-Care system that could be signed by the new Democratic Governor (Jerry Brown) or passed after the state elections through a healthy majority that can override the veto. All my hope is in this bill. If it passes, other blue states will follow suit in a matter of months followed by red states in a matter of years.


Links:
California Universal Health-Care. A story of struggle.

I still hope that they can rescue the Federal Health Exchange. It would change a lot compared to State Exchanges.

• State Health Exchanges like the Massachusetts Health Connector above would handicap new health insurance companies. New health insurance companies usually are unkown. They would be chained to a State Exchange with little chance to break out to other state exchanges while established insurance companies would have the money and possibility
• In contrast, a new health insurance company who is listed in a single Federal Health Exchange could get attention from potential customers across the whole country. This also means that we would have a much greater choice through a Federal exchange than through 50 state exchanges, not to mention that it would cost millions to run 50 state exchanges compared to a single Federal Exchange.

We would benefit from new, more honest and more efficient competitors. I also think that this would get rid off this feeling that we are forced to buy insurance from the ones that used to abuse us.

We have to thank the House and private Health insurance companies.

• The House because they pushed for a petition to revive the public option. They really are our Representatives.
• Private health insurance companies for raising the rates. That makes even the last one realize that they are exploiting people.

Using the President's proposal as a base, decided to pass Health Care Reform within a week, Nancy Pelosi decided to ignore Stupak's Abortion compromise and to move forward. Obama set the deadline on March 18, 2010, however Hosue Democrats decided to vote on the bill before that date.

What would follow would be a comprehensive amendment that includes the public option and revives many other progressive proposals that have passed the House.

41 Senators have signed the petition to revive the public option. It also is certain that two more Senators (Rockefeller and Harkin) will vote for a public option. Including Vice President Biden, that makes 44 votes which means we need 6 more votes to introduce the Public Option through reconciliation! Let's hope they can make it.

Links:
Who signed the Petition for a Public Option:
http://whipcongress.com/
Public Option revived (Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/11/the-public-options-last-s_n_495383.html?page=2&show_comment_id=42042752#postComment
Pelosi proceeds without Abortion compromise:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/11/house-dems-will-forge-ahe_n_495720.html

The White House Health Care proposal is up (click on the image). It is very similar to the Senate health care bill, except for some little changes.
For example:

• The federal government will pay 100% (2014-2019) and then 90% of the tab for expanded Medicaid, relieving state governments from the financial burden.
• Senator Nelson's special exempt has been stripped off.
• The ridiculous excise tax on high cost health insurance has been postponed (hopefully infinitely).
• Some people also speculate that the White House proposal could mean the end of Obama's special deal with PhRMA that forbids Americans to buy cheaper drugs from Canada.

The public option is not mentioned because it "would not have the votes." But there are Senators and Representatives who try to revive a government health insurance option through reconciliation. Without the public option, many people also have concerns whether it can pass the House which strongly endorsed the public option and does not want to give up on their historic piece of legislation.

President Obama will be at the summit for six of his valuable hours. I doubt that Republicans will give in. They are too irresponsible to care about the country and too blinded by the money from the private health insurance lobby.