While HCR will hopefully insure many uninsured, reduce premiums and enhance coverage for policy holders, and reduce the deficit, many of the diaries and comments seem to be confused as to which goal is most important to us.
As bargaining begins on a compromise HCR bill, this will be important to know so that we can bargain for the most important aspect while perhaps giving in on some other items.
There will be bargains made and there is a certain amount of money to deal with. Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders this week on MSNBC said that maybe HCR is so poor now that we should concentrate on expanding Medicaid to as many as possible and spreading risk as much as possible:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
In dealing with the funds available, it seems that each person added to Medicaid costs a total of $3,000, while each person put on the subsidy costs $6,000.
http://content.nejm.org/...
In getting insurance to the people who need it most, European governments have found that Risk Adjustment is most important (ie: no higher premiums based on age, etc) But this often entails the government having to subsidize risk differences for all premiums to be equal (Vermont has a 20% rule, as Sanders mentions at minute 4 in the above msnbc video).
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
So- what is the goal we should be bargaining for hardest?
(Please only choose "all 3 equally" if you think no one is most important)