OBSERVATIONS ON HEALTH CARE

While I do not support a public option in any government health care "reform", I must admit objectively that it would be more attractive if there was a cap limiting the amount of time a person could remain in a public plan. That was, after all the crux of Welfare Reform.

Welfare, without a cap led to intergenerational,endemic poverty. A public option without similiar caps would have risked citizens becoming permanently fixed in a government run plan. Placing a cap on the duration in a public plan would have provided the incentive to pursue private insurance for the individual. More importantly, it would provide a disincentive for businesses to dump their employees onto a new federal plan.

Welfare Reform was signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton after being passed by a REpublican Congress led by Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. They found a way to legislate real reform in spite of tremendous political and personal disagreements. It resulted in millions of Americans off the welfare rolls and into the workforce, which in some measure resulted in the economic boom of the mid to late 1990's.

It seems to me that the supporters of health care reform (presently) deprived themselves of the requisite objectivity to overcome larger objections. In short, tunnel vision. They thought they had the votes and discarded as unnecessary the need to placate those opponents who distrust such legislation as incrementally steering the nation towards a single payer, government run universal health care System.

I may be opposed to a public option, but I must admit it would be difficult to oppose such a plan if caps had been proposed on tenure in such a plan. 535 Representatives and Senators, a President and Bureacracy never considered this as a means to reach a compromise?