re: #73 flyovercountry

Take these little victories where we can get them. With precious few Republicans in office, there is no way these guys are not going to get something passed. When these congress folk go home for the break, they will face an angry electorate. Their constituents don’t want this rubbish. The Democrats were able to take the house by running a bunch of guys as conservative Democrats. If they pass this bill, they will most certainly lose their seats, and to a man, they know this. In its present form, this bill is dead. What will ultimately pass, will look like an expanded Medicare and nothing more.

Hi flyover! I tend to agree with ya. But even an expanded Medicare could be catastrophic, as the latest estimates are that it will be bankrupt by 2019 - eleven years earlier that previously estimated. Here’s kind of an interesting article:

Managing without Medicare: with experts projecting bankruptcy by 2019, how will you handle future medical expenses?

From the article:

Antos expects Congress to keep Medicare solvent by taking actions such as raising payroll taxes, reducing benefits, and increasing co-payments for premium services. But these measures are mostly seen as temporary fixes, not long-term solutions…