Thanks for turning an interminable discussion at Talk-Polywell into a post. I do the same thing from time to time (turn comments into posts).

They were born in Alaska, not usually considered to be the center of prenatal care. As far as their doctors knew, there were no surviving twins born that early. And yet they survived, and with not nearly as many problems as you normally expect from preemies. A little eye trouble, pretty good lung function, and a little developmentally delayed (though that seems to be mending.)

They survived because they were born in a place that wanted to save them. And believe me, they’re loved by their mother, their grandmother, their great-grandmother, and their double-great-grandmother. And aunts and uncles and cousins and all.

Outliers matter.

Funny how things change, isn’t it?

Let me count the reasons.

1) Medicare / Medicaid is not the only game in town and politicians, ever wary of making any kind of hard choice, are perfectly happy to let its insolvency grow unabated while a single payer public option that is the ultimate goal of the Democrats will have no such option. There won’t be any other major insurance or health care provider, so there will not be any opportunity to kick the can down the road and pretend Obamacare isn’t already bankrupt from day one.

2) As previously stated by CC there are supplemental insurance options that help to cover up the problems with Medicare while simultaneously deflecting the attention on its insolvency. You see if Medicare doesn’t pay for it, well that helps the bottom line. That extra money coming out of the elderly’s pocket is apparently irrelevant.

Generally speaking because Medicare is not the only game in town, the cost of care can just grow and grow and grow and nobody seems to care. And so no real rationing is required. But once Obamacare takes over and starts running a $500B annual deficit, then someone will start to care and the rationing will have to get more and more strict every year.

Frankly it is almost unbelievable that we are considering completely tearing down our current health care system and rebuilding it from the ground up with the government – THE GOV’T – in charge based on the fact that 10 million people can’t afford health care insurance. Yeah, thats right, 10 million. That doesn’t include the 10+ million that are either already on or eligible for gov’t insurance, the 10+ million that are not citizens, and the 15+ million that make enough money to afford insurance but choose not to carry it.

The funny thing is you never really hear about those 10 M non citizens. Forget that designation, where else do they fit ? Are they making a living that could support insurance, but they are also young and healthy enough that they choose not to carry it ? Seems to me that even if you include all those categories that we are likely double dipping in some areas. The fact of the matter is the whole point of this 1000 page debacle is to cover about 10 million people who want insurance, but can’t afford it.

They’re not death panels, they’re Life Panels!

We’ll get to decide who gets to LIVE!

It’s a happy, positive thing!

Like most people, I’m assuming a ten trillion dollar expansion of Medicare is out of the question.

Besides, I have it on good authority Medicare is riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse.

Citing Medicaid as an example of a public option that works is interesting considering your ideological leader has publicly said that it is so riven with rampant abuse, inefficiency and corruption that he can peel half a trillion dollars off of it without impacting its effectiveness.

However, I’m glad to see that you can actually recognize a death panel in a medical plan when you care to acknowledge it. That’s quite a bit better than calling other people who see the same thing “whackos”. Interesting that.

However, your point has enough validity that it deserves a response.

Here is that response.

If we use Medicaid as an example of where a full-blown “public option” is going to take us, then the current projected deficits measured in the trillions of dollars have to be acknowledged to be woefully lowball estimates. Also we would have to acknowledge that the limitations of the public option will create a cottage industry of “supplemental insurance” plans to cover the necessary things that the “public option” won’t cover.

Then we have to acknowledge that the public option will have its own “death panels” and rationing provisions.

And that’s completely ignoring Obama’s assertion that the public option will end up being so infested with corruption, inefficiency and fraud that it will lead to even higher deficits.

Is this really the argument you want to make?

If you say that you’re going to let everyone at the pipe, then something has to give…

Indeed, most of the elderly opponents to health reform at the town hall meetings liked their public option and want to keep it like it is.

Something doesn’t compute.