lots of questions here. why doesn't she have coverage? did she decline the coverage offered by her employer? If she works for a hospital, I am sure she was offered health insurance. Did the husband have coverage through his employer? If so, was he offered COBRA? As part of the stimulous package COBRA is being subsidized by 60%.

Jinny apparently you didn't listen to what the mother had to say or you would know that she couldn't afford $300 out of each paycheck with her husband being out of a job for insurance.  Only certain people who were unemployed got the 60% subsidy.

This family is a plant by the Obama administration and msnbc.  I want to be able to drop health care if I should so want to and not be taxed and fined by this government for doing so.  Its my life and not the US Governments life.  They say that should I get involved in a traffic accident and am sent to the hospital then tax payers have to pay my share....not true...thats why we are forced to get car insurance to cover any mishap like that.....all this is about is total government control and socialism/marxism.  This is not for me and not for the people of the United States of America where I was borneda nd where I grew up.

Is every one been blinded, or what? Do you really think that this health care plan is going to work?

Lets get back to th real problem. It is NOT the rising health care costs! It is NOT the physicians out there demanding more money. It is THE INSURANCE COMPANIES, people! Think about it, Health care premiums have gone up, up, up, and the reimbursement has gone down. Therefore, whom do you suppose is making the money, and a LOT OF IT? The insurance companies, of course. One starts to wonder why our legislature is not blowing the whistle on them? Because our elected officials are getting rich, too. The insurance companies are greasing the wallets of every one in congress. Why do you think that AIG got bailed out. A lot of that money went right back into our congress' pockets.

If I had my druthers, I'd rather pay my neurosurgeon, orthopedic surgeon, general surgeon, gynocologist, obstetrician, pediatrician more money to save my life than to pay our congressmen more money. Taken a step further, I'd rather pay the doctors more money than sports figures that cannot maintain without steroids. At least these guys/women finished college and are actually doing something about us, instead of getting out of college early, or not at all, and making multimillion dollar salaries. i digress...

>This family is a plant by the Obama administration and msnbc.>

Yeah, there's about 47 million "plants" out there. 

All of this nonsense would go away if any of our politicians had any courage to do the right thing and set up a single payer system like Medicare. All of this silliness about socialism and rationing and government interference is nothing but propaganda put out by conservatives and by the industry giants in the profit making health care system. Single payer, with certain variations, works in every other industrialized nation and the people are happier by far with their health care than we are, and they don't go bankrupt over medical debt and they don't worry that somehow they will lose their coverage, and they don't mind paying their taxes because they know full well that they are getting somethinf for their money. We will be playing around with our broken system and patching it around the edges for another generation because we have a cynical political party that doesn't believe the government should be about helping people and they are doing all they can to undermine any effort in that direction no matter what the majority of the people want.

I think your right demo scout, Can you imagine our police departments or fire departments being a for profit organizations?? Then why the heck is health care? Just got back from a long vacation and I ran into several Canadian families in the northwest who love their health care system. Two of the parents had cancer and were treated imediately and both are doing fine. Didn't lose their home paying for their treatments either like here in the good old USA.. They told me its a great big lie that the majority of Canadians don't like their health care system and it made them mad to see how the right wing in America is portraying them.

America needs health care for her people and I hope Obama gets it done....

Demo scout.....Medicare?  Medicare is going to bankrupt this country on it's own because of fraud and underestimating the cost.  Whatever the government tells you something is going to cost...triple it.  This healthcare proposal that they are trying to "ram" through without reading will cost enormous amounts of money and send us into a tailspin that would take years to overcome.  

So you are going to lay the cost of this on the backs of some rich millionaires?  These people are wealthy and smart for a reason. They will find a way to stay wealthy and not pay additional taxes. I talked to one doctor who earns $500K annually....he said that he would stop working at the point that he would hit the tax increase point or he would cut his hours in half and keep his earnings down. He wasn't going to work just to pay more taxes.  Another married couple who are both successful doctors said they are done the day the bill passes.  So now where is Obama going to get the money....YOU AND ME!!  Fewer doctors, fewer jobs because business will be hurt and the little guy gets it in the shorts again. This time it will be major hits....like nothing you have ever seen before!

I keep hearing that healthcare is out of control. In 1960 our percent (%) of earnings for food, housing, transportation and healthcare was 53% of every dollar earned. Today, for all four it is 55% ....a 2% difference - is that spiraling out of control?  the New York times said this week that this is the WORST legislation that has EVER been written!

Overseas?  They come here for service to the BEST healthcare in the world because theirs stinks so bad!  If you have eldely parents...they will not get the heathcare in Obama's plan that they do now. Many will die because they are not deemed to be as clinically viable as the younger, more healthier Americans.

You want chaos and depression....pass a bill like this!

Health Care is like the oil business we cannot live with out it so they (insurance Czars) can name their price just like the oil Shieks and if we can afford it we pay it or like so many we go with out. I am just a regular man trying to make sense out of this didnt we just give BILLIONS of dollars to wallstreet with out much oppostion from washington? I just want to be able to afford good quality health care for my family, maybe we need average everyday people to take charge of this and not the guys on capital hill that have a job and health care and make over $100,000 year.

I Just want to hear the truth! Tell me how it is I do not want hear what a republican or demacrat has to say I want to hear what an American has to say

My health insurance is $4,000 per year, not counting the 3 grand my employer puts in. I had over $10,000 in out-of-pocket expenses which Congress made non-deductible on my income tax.

I have heard nothing in the discussions that will impact me, other than the prospects of increased taxes. No wonder the "reform" is a hard sell. They sure aren't selling it to me!

Well we just added a little girl to the family 4months ago! and let me tell you about my bill i recieved from the hospital (pennsylvania hosp) when everything was said and done the total bill was close to 33 thousand dollars- to have a baby! gee the c-section cost 3700 and the spinal was about 1500-and the hospital stay was a whoppin 27000 for what for my wife to sit in a room she  shared with another patient o and baby care was another 6700 yeah and when i asked the hospital to itemize my bill i got the cold shoulder!!! And the to top it off my insurance only covered 85% of the bill- and i pay through my employer 700 a month!!! the system is broken!!!!! people are cryin they dont want socialism -but the banking system is socialized -corporate companies are socialized with tax payer money!!!!! the best health care in the world are all socialized systems to protect the people it serves-the US isnt even in the top 20 countries in the world-why because of greedy banks-drug companies -hospitals-and insurance companies period-lets get this done! but this has to be done right -the government needs to regulate what were paying we can have a free market-but it has to be fare for everyone !!!!!! 

The debate is over. It has been over for years. Now, it is simply interest groups throwing money at Congress to try and obscure the fact. The fact is the cost is not sustainable. Eight to ten percent inflation per year is now at the breaking point. Breaking the economy to deflate any hope of quick recovery. I can't for the life of me figure out what these damn conservitives want, other than campaign contributions. This is a moral issue. How this issue lands speaks to the moral compass of the USA. Is the almighty dollar our almighty God? For you Christians, what would Jesus do? This country is a paradox. The old business is over. We are in this together, or we go down together. It boils down to simple math. And an 18 billion dollar profit 2nd quarter for United Health is obscene. They are not allowing for coverage, they exclude the sick, and they pay their shareholders for immorality involved. This is simple folks. If this is killed, you money worship folks have your win. If the democrats have the balls to pass this thing, we make it work with modification and dedication. Simply, my grandchildren will not have access because of the greed of this generation of baby boomers, who avoided the sacrafice of the WWII and has lived the greatest prospertity in our history. Come on folks, look outside the money. And by the way, properly managed health care will be a wash, at least. And, it should require a buy in by all Americans. Lets get this done and fix the problems as they go along. Thank you for reading.

Unfortunately, only a very small portion of what was discussed during the interview was featured in this article. I don't support this bill. The pre-existing condition thing was the only part that interested me.

My feeling is that nurses aren't paid nearly what we're worth. I would gladly take the insurance that is offered to me if I were paid enough...If my husband hadn't been laid off and both of us were working (which was our plan all along) we could pay for that insurance without any difficulty. You must remember though, only one of us is working now. I can't even afford to make my student loan payments on time. If I made more money, I could afford to be insured. But, as long as medicare and medicaid refuse to cover needed services, all the while paying for unnecessary and redundant items in health care, I will continue to make far less money than I am worth. This government-provided-healthcare that we already have is terrible enough. I don't want to allow them an even tighter leash than they already have...

And just what does a nurse's job entail? The carrying out of physician's orders. If they pass this bill without first looking at it from all angles, they could set off a catastrophic shortage of physicians throuout the US. The money for this "healthcare fix" won't just come from higher taxes, it will come from the wages and salaries that doctors and nurses should be making. What do you think they mean by "lowering the cost of healthcare"? How much money do you think YOU should be paid for your services after 8-12 years of college? How about the fact that you have to work toward that goal even in high school -they don't let just ANYBODY in to med school. How much do you think you would need to make to afford the payments on $1-2 million in student loans? If this bill passes, and the government comes into control of how much doctors can be paid, people will stop going to med school. Nobody going to med school = no doctors, eventually + no doctors to write orders for the nurse to carry out = no nurses...(which = no more job for me). This attempt at repairing a bad system may just backfire and have the opposite of the intended reaction.

As far as being a plant for Osama and MSNBC, that's just wrong on so many levels. I voted for the one with many, many years of experience in public office and sacrificed immensely for the freedom and safety of all Americans. I did not, however, vote for the one who was elected by voters who were named Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck, or the voters who were 5 and 6 year-olds, or the voters who had been dead since 1997. I voted for the best man for the job, and he didn't win. Apparently the the voices of Disney characters, first graders, and dead people were enough to sway the vote. I think my conservative view was easy to see if our whole interview was featured. But hey, what can you expect from the type of people who would like nothing more than to squash conservative talk radio because it doesn't promote thier agenda...

Please don't judge...I think I got "Michael Moored" here

Monica Cummings

We are on Social Security, therefore our insurance is the one Obama wants to save money on, our cost for 2009 shall be Part B Medicare $2313.60, Part D $852.00 and AARP to cover the 20 % tha Medicare does not pay is $4884.00, for a Total of $8049.62 or $670.80 a month.. I am 73 years old, Obama wants to do what  to us??? 

I think a VA - Veterans Administration Health Care would be best as it has the highest patient satisfaction with reducing costs. Just thought I would suggest a great system that works. Veteran from Florida.