Public opinion polls suggest that many consumers would like to have the choice of a public plan. But insurance companies and Republican lawmakers say a public plan could drive private insurers out of business and lead eventually to a single-payer system run by the government.

makes it sound like single-payer would be the worst outcome, when in fact, it should be the goal.

There is no reason why Baucus - and even Obama - should be denying single-payer proponents a seat at the table - if we're going to fix this thing, we should be considering everything, not making sure that the health insurance companies get to keep running things their way.

I keep hearing about how the cost of health care is draining the life out of the economy, so why wouldn't we want a single-payer plan that could save some $350 million right out of the gate?

  Even with the huge deductible, health insurance is costing me about 2400 a month (over $28,000 a year). I gave my employees  raises to cover their increased out of pocket expenses but still come out better under the new plan, but the premiums are going to be raised on this plan by 15% in August and the costs will keep rising in the future almost certainly

   I've  always provided my employees with health insurance and my employees both being single mothers with young children prefer complete coverage to higher salaries and both have worked for me for many years now so I bite the bullet. For a solo, however,  such as myself whose revenues fluctuate rather significantly from quarter to quarter and year to year, making payroll and trust taxes and insurance at times leaves me with sometimes  rather lengthy periods where my expenses exceed my revenues even though I keep my other fixed overhead quite low.

  I've been practicing long enough to be able to weather such periods with reserves but in light of the layoffs and reduced hiring by law firms I imagine many displaced or unhired attorneys who might otherwise hang out a shingle and work for themselves will either decide they simply can't do it or will be unable to provide health coverage for employees.

You can often get the better prices by buying your insurance through membership groups, i.e., Chamber of Commerce, industry associations you belong to (if they have a group policy for membership), etc.

I think that reasoning sounds like Anthem is twisting reality...most of their plans are paid for by corporations, and it's highly unlikely the corporations are being charged differently for those who use more of their benefits.

Well, say it costs $X/year to pay for everyone's health care.

And say 10% of that is excess "fat" (corporate profit that would be "saved" if the corps were no longer involved, ie, single payer).

So we go single payer and save, what, exactly?

Well, we save 0.1X. HC would still cost 0.9X.

Sorry, but in the grand scheme of things, 10% is chump change. HC would still be prohibitively expensive. J's ins premium would only go up $225/month instead of $250. That should make you sleep better at night.

Where's the beef?

Also, HC is the one growth industry in our economy right now, the one bright spot, and has been basically the only consistent growth industry our nation's had for a long time (very broad strokes).

Estimated number of jobs that would be created under U.S. single-payer healthcare system: 2,6000,000.

About all I know for sure is insurance companies don't have the power to regulate your diet or consumption of substances considered dangerous, or behavior considered dangerous, and the state does.  That's what worries me most about about a state-run system...when they're paying (with our money, or funny fresh off the printer money), the state will regulate our lives even more, either through criminal code or oppressive taxation, in the name of cost-efficiency. Maybe I'm just paranoid...but if that's the deal I don't want it, I'll roll the dice and keep what freedom we have left.

I mean look at social security...what started as a noble goal of a safety net turned into a federal id number/tracking system, and god help ya if you don't have a card/number.  If they knew that then, I think the people would have balked.  What kind of hidden misery will state-run health care bring?

Now if people were being turned away from emergency rooms and left to bleed to death on the sidewalk, then yeah, something must be done.  But that is not the case...at least not yet.