Thanks for taking the time to expand on the issue. So it is as I suspected, this is a backdoor route to single payer based on possible future laws, not current ones.
They did kick around expanding Medicare to age 55 just a few months ago but that didn’t last more than two days. Which kind of begs the question. If we have the most liberal house, senate and president that we have seen, IMO, in probably 70 years and they can’t pass a public option, how can government run insurance be expanded after this current group inevitably loses power in possibly 2010 and most definitely by 2012? Is your argument that the public will be so decimated by this that they will force even a Republican administration to expand government insurance? I’m not ruling that out, Johnson did the same with Medicare and Medicaid and it has become one of the third rails even with even conservative politicians, evidenced by Gingrinch’s results in 1995.
My hunch is that we will end up like Germany who has a system quite similar to the current proposals, a mix of a government subsidized private market and a public pool (roughly 50% of the market) which is similar to our 50% public that consists of medicare, medicaid, VA, SCHIP, etc. It hasn’t crashed their system yet and doctors aren’t fleeing Germany but I will grant you they have the highest health care costs as a percentage of GDP in Europe and some of the lowest health outcomes in Europe comparatively (though they still beat us in outcomes and cost as a % of GDP).
But we are a larger and more diverse country with a totally different social and societal dynamic so perhaps it will all come crashing down and force a UK or Canadian style system of actual socialized medicine. Or at least like most Eoropean countries with actual 100% socialized insurance. Once that occurs, then I agree, the United States as we know it will have been lost.
Oh, and I'll be sure to tell my son & nephews that they should go back down to the health and human services dept. and tell them that you said they should sign them up for Medicaid, even though they already told them sorry about your luck. That unless you have a major health problem, or are married with a child your on your own.