On the surface, sure, health care for all. However, I'm seeing the middlemen insurance companies still right there, in the middle between the clients and providers. Get rid of them. There is no need for this layer of profit-makers. The reason that we have the completely dysfunctional "system" (if it could even be termed a system) that we have now is because we worship the almighty profit. No one should profit unduly from providing health care.

A bill providing for a sole "national health insurance policy" written by the DHHS would obviously require (mandate) that ALL companies offering health insurance, for example, at a point in time two years prior to the passage of the act, continue to do so.  There would need to be this provision to prevent "investor strike."  Many companies now offering health insurance would rapidly reach a point of insolvency of their health insurance divisions.  So such a law would have to provide for the DHHS to oversee and approve "consolidations" of health insurance companies, or the health insurance divisions of more broadly based companies/corporations.The result would be that the health insurance industry would "resolve" into a small number, likely three or four, large firms.  Those firms could then compete, as stated, only on the basis of the premiums they charge and the efficiency of their operations, again, not by denial of care, cherry-picking, et.al.  There would be a natural evolution toward not-for-profit health insurance, as those firms wouldn't need to manage their operations with the objective of profit distributions to owners or shareholders.The idea of a federally mandated uniform health insurance policy would initiate a process toward conditions markedly similar to a single-payer system, but without the market disruptions, and without the political liability of being subject to the charge by the political right-wingnuts of "socialized" medicine. 

Note that in this plan, as with the current broken system, the insurance companies add no value.  So nothing justifies the gross margins they would take.

Also, like the plan currently proposed by Obama, this plan will require MANDATES, SUBSIDIES, HIGHER TAXES. HIGHER PREMIUM COSTS, HIGHER TOTAL NATIONAL HEALTHCARE COSTS, MORE GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY, and MORE GOVERNMENT INTRUSION INTO OUR PERSONAL LIVES (to police mandates and eligibility for subsidies).

Is it worth all this just to "keep a place at the table" for the insurance companies, who currently impose $1 billion per day of wasted administrative costs?

Time for Congress to give the voters and the physicians what they want: single payer, HR 676, "Medicare for All", and put and end to the very wasteful intrusion of insurance companies into the healthcare system.

The increased payroll taxes needed to fund HR 676 would equal insurance premium and treatment costs now paid by employers and individuals; the national healthcare bill would not increase. The only opponents to single payer are the insurance companies and the politicians they have bought, and a minority of voters who have bought into the false notion that single payer is "socialized medicine."

For more on this, see http://whatsnotso.blogs.com

My own experience with health care insurance is pertinent at this point. In 1993, I broke my ankle while on vacation. I had to have extensive reconstructive surgery to repair the damage. According to the doctor performing the surgery, the steel plate and screws he installed in my ankle were intended to be removed after six months to a year. The insurance company bean counters thought differently.

I seriously doubt that the jerk that decided that I could wear the temporary hardware for the rest of my life, had any form of medical training. However, he/she was allowed to second guess the doctor, without a medical license and condemn me to many years of howling pain, every time the weather changed. My wife and I got divorced. I no longer had her insurance. Eventually, the temporary screws began to come loose and had to come out. A very expensive surgery, dodged by an uncaring, unfeeling, for profit driven, insurance company.

Let's not forget the history of insurance, shall we. The first insurance companies were founded to protect cargoes from pirates on the high seas. Many of those pirates were employed by the insurance companies, themselves. Insurance companies ARE the reason our health care system is in the state its in. Insurance companies should be legally barred from making any form of medical decision. The pain of the loss of profit is the only thing they feel. They have no care for the lives or suffering of anyone but themselves and their shareholders pockets.

If  citizens of the U.S. were fully informed as to the health benefits that that are realized from a National Health Care system as is the case in almost every industrialized Nation in the World they would demand that we follow suit.The only entities that make out from the American sytem are the HMO'S, insurance companies and drug cartels. The people be damned. Our system is outdated,cumbersome and in a humanitarin sense,criminal.

As someone who has only had medical insurance once in my life in the 80s for 2 years I can assure you I've done my best to keep myself healthy. I am 56 and have not been to a medical doctor in 35 years and only maybe 3 times in my entire life. Another reason I'm healthy I'm sure. I also don't run to the medicine cabinet for every ache and pain. If I had the money my relatives have spent on prescriptions I could retire. People take pills to wake up and pills to go to sleep. Pills to have sex and pills to not. Wake up America your pills are killing you. The drug companies don't care about you. They are the largest drug cartels there are.

Why not educate people in staying fit and healthy so more people can afford to just live.

I've always felt insurance companies are a scam provided for some to make alot of money off the backs of the working people. Then from what I'm reading refuse them help when they need it. Isn't that the definition of crook.

Also I'm not sure about a national health care system only for the abuses that will happen in that too.

not for personal experiences....

The trick is to start a process toward health-care for all, with a cost affordable to all.  A mandantory national health insurance plan starts things toward that process, and then market forces would take over and resolve the industry to a small number of large firms competing solely on the basis of their premiums (a single annual price any person applying to that firm) and the efficiency of their operations - NOT by denying care....

That was the whole point.  Nothing I see above substantively presents problems with the effectiveness of this approach toward health-care reform.

Sounds like a good start. Only because you asked... it would read
better if you spelled preventative, enforcement and pharmaceutical
correctly.