Healthcare reform: do you know the proposed policy?

Can every American answer that question? 

Anthony Wright (ED of Health Access California), Crystal Hayling (ED of Blue Shield of California Foundation) and Roger Hickey (Co-director of Campaign for America's Future) bravely started Tuesday off at 8am by explaining the heathcare policy on the table and being debated in Congress today.

Anthony made a great point that 'confusion is the enemy' for Healthcare reform.  The opposition doesn't need to argue against the current proposal to stop reform. The easiest path to stopping reform is to making it confusing for people to understand what they're voting for.   The inherent problem is that most Americans don't understand what the bill is.  Do you?  If you care about reform they make a great point that you should start by getting good at communicating quickly and clearly what the plan is, not just what it stands for i.e. 'affordable healthcare for all', 'universal low cost healthcare', etc.    Here is my attempt to summarize Anthony's summary for you all:

Healthcare is provided by three basic ways:
(1) employer given, (2) medicare/medicaid, (3) individual.

The reform proposes that all employers (1) cover their workers - with subsidies for small businesses. (2) The gaps in medicare/medicaid get filled.  (3) All individuals must get a plan, but now a public option exists (just like public universities exist).  Furthermore you don't pay based on how the insurance companies interpret your 'health risk' but instead as a percentage of income - what they can afford.  The public option is important to healthcare reform because it doesn't let people fall through the cracks and it puts competitive pressure on private insurance companies to bring down their costs.

by Lloyd Nimetz