TIME Features Wendell Potter, Obama Quotes Him

Greetings from Canada. Regardless of whether an effective bill is passed this time around the debate is moot. This is because if nothing changes more and more people will lose their health insurance and more and more people will die for lack of it, and the outdoor free clinics will have longer and longer queues. Eventually it will be such a scandal, such an embarrassment for the United States, that universal health care will have to be imposed by government edict. Bismark started the 'welfare state' in the mid 19th century. Most advanced democracies, victors and vanquished, adopted universal health care after WW2. Some are very conservative, like Canada and Sweden. It has nothing to do with socialism, it is mutual insurance with the government holding the money. Up here in BC we pay per month:
$54 for one person
$96 for a family of two
$108 for a family of three or more
I'm physically staggered by the amount you pay for so little.
If our prescription expenses are very high there is Medicare which takes over the cost of drugs.

The corporate elite has for decades brainwashed Americans into thinking government is bad, and the less of it the better. This is of course a complete fraud. As Noam Chomsky says...it's public subsidy for private profit. The biggest beneficiaries of government are the corporations. The people need the government to stand between them and the corporations. And all this talk about communism is just plain silly. The vast majority haven't a clue what it is, and don't know they practice pure communism at every level of government every minute of their lives. At the municipal level you pay for your police, parks, and public services through local taxes assessed on the value of you property. If you want a policeman, or street lighting, you don't pay for it individually , but collectively, as you need them. i.e. contributing according to ability, and drawing according to need. The simplest pure communism. Federally you don't individually pay for a soldier, you pay through progressive taxation on your income and collectively call for them when you need them.
Maoism and Stalinism had nothing to do with communism. Nor does the present Chinese government. You are being mercilessly and systematically propogandized by the mainstream media. You will get your universal health care when you defy the corporations. Become informed and motivated.
Good Luck

My Health Insurance is really expensive. It costs me and my family over $15,000 per year, including dental and vision. My bills are probably only a couple of thousand per year since we are all in good health. It's a good plan and I like it, except the cost. I really want some reform that will help me save some money and from what I understand I may.

I see that I would be required to have health insurance or pay a couple of thousand dollar penalty. Am I wrong to think that I can drop my insurance and then just get it if I need it, like if I got cancer? Am I missing something?

Wendell, God bless him, won't matter. He could go into every home in America and give a hour-long presentation to each family on how the insurers are screwing us, and it wouldn't matter. There is too much money at stake for the industry to ever let their well-paid lackeys in Congress pass a bill to the detriment of the monopoly. Even if they did pass something called a "public option" or "universal coverage," it would be a toothless dragon for which no one in their right minds would sign up.

Money, that's what matters to politicians. Not polls, not protests, nothing but money.