I like the idea in theory, but I'm not sure about the details of this particular plan. And it doesn't loko like there's anything to stop companies from simply hiring contractors instead of employees, thus negating the plan. Or maybe I missed something.

Krugman and Wells have well documented how the gov. pays directly or indirectly for more than half of the nation's health care, but the actual delivery both of insurance and of care is tackled by a "crazy quilt of private insurers, for-profit hospitals, and other players who add cost without adding value."

According to these two: "A Canadian-style single-payer system in which the gov. provides insurance, would almost surely be both cheaper and more effective than what we now have. And we could be even better off if we learned from "integrated" systems, like the Veterans Administration, that directly provide some health care as well as medical insurance.

I have to agree with them, and disagree with Mr. Haase about his concerns with single-payer coverage: That new technologies are less likely to be incorporated, that private insurers won't get on-board, and that costs will escalate.

Certainly new technologies would be introduced and embraced--unless stymied by a corrupt, disgruntled bureaucracy..., private insurers are exactly what we need to do away with, and costs would be cut, where currently they're escalating bigtime...

Pertinent here is how, "The military is now venturing into joining the problems the rest of our health care system is experiencing," or so says David Blumenthal, director of the Institute for Health policy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "You're in for a long struggle."

Like private employers, the Pentagon is facing an aging "population," skyrocketing prescription bills and a technological explosion that has spawned an offspring of pricey new tests and treatments.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) says the problem is not the military but the entire health system, "It's broken for our military; it's broken for everyone else."

My point here is that we should do away with a separate Veterans Admin., and instead have all "participate" in a Nationalized Health program.

As for the Massachusetts universal health coverage plan, well I can't help but think it would exacerbate the problem of soaring prices by catering to the current "status quo," where, on the one hand, much money is wasted through an "inefficient" system, while, on the other hand, insurance companies make out like bandits...

As a resident of Mass I can tell you this is a scam! This is an Insurance company bill. It is designed to create windfall profits for the industry. The bill victimizes low income residents who can't afford healthcare by taxing them if they don't pay insurance companies for coverage. A universal, single payer, nation wide plan is the only way to solve our healthcare coast problems. Mark my words: In two years this "plan" will implode. As usual the people get screwed!