Bob Goodlatte

If it is in fact a small business, their employee's base pay includes compensation for finding their own health care coverage because it takes less off of the small company's bottom line to do so than to pay for a plan to cover them. A public option will allow them to cut the base pay and yet be much more attactive to the quality employees that ... Read Morethey seek. So decision (2) above, is the correct choice, but Congress has to pass the public option bill first .The business owner will then have an insurance marketplace to direct their prospective employee toward to find quality, affordable coverage. Anne, this is not a "simple" problem, with a simple solution, otherwise, the Republican majority during the Bush years would have passed it already.

Thanks, Vicki. I couldn't have said it better myself - except for the Republican part =)

Does your face hurt from smiling to much lately??

Allowing the massive control that big insurance companies have over our life and death healthcare decisions is not only misguided but if allowed to remain unfettered by competition, will cause us to not be able to find decent healthcare when we need it, whether we are covered by a policy or not. I have witnessed first- hand what healthcare has ... Read Morecome to in our area and have been told by an administrator that "This is the healthcare crisis that you are hearing about." They explained that it is about insurance reimbursement. The Republican plan to wait another year, or two, or ten, to talk about reform will place our healthcare systems into collapse, just like the economy was allowed to do during the Bush administration. Vote for healthcare reform with a public option. Your constituents elected you to serve. Get busy.

Great! There has GOT to be a better way!

Gayle, tort reform will help, some. But only if harm has been done. And it may help lower malpractice insurance rates, which, indirectly, MAY lower health costs. My cynical self believes that it will only go toward boosting profits, however, rather than making health care more affordable for the 4.9 million people now uninsured.

Insurance portability will make it easier to leave a bad job for a better one, but again, it's not going to help those 4.9 million who have no insurance at all.

And tax breaks (the GOP Shibboleth - is that your answer to everything?) will only help those who make enough to be subject to being taxed. It will do little or nothing for the working poor who are just barely getting by.... Read More

These things merely nibble around the edges of the problem. They don't get to the heart of it.

I am amazed at the lack of reading comprehension skills of "Sorry Voter" . Hello, a child got left behind!!!!

Insurance rates will go up? H*ll, there doing that NOW! At three times the rate of inflation! And all we get for our money is a bunch of obscenely rich insurance executives.

Premiums will only go up if there is no public option. Vote For the public option so there will be competition.
Voter at 22980

You go Duane !

Tell you what, Duane, when you learn how to use the English language to convey well thought out ideas instead of txtsp33k, maybe someone will pay attention to what you have to say.

Meanwhile, the GOP continues to live in their own little delusional world. The enormous debt run up by the GOP during the last (mis)administration was well under way by... Read More their first week in office. Running up huge debts is what the GOP does best. It was one of their own who described them as acting like drunken sailors on shore leave.

keep speaking the truth!!

I'd like to think that The Roanoke Times deliberately maligns and abuses those with which it disagrees, but judging from their overall journalistic and editorial competence, we should "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence and/or stupidity."

Until we find a way to temper the federal judiciary the notion of checks and balances is just so much wishful thinking. Perhaps an override from the Congress via a 3/4 super majority vote

Point of information, what percentage of Supreme Court judges and other Federal judges have been appointed by each party?

What are the flaws? I think we are too quick to agree that the system is flawed. Let's start by investigating what if anything is flawed and as such requires "fixing". Then focus on “fixing” only those things. The only problems I see are caused by government “fixes” that are already in place. These are not inherent to the Health Care System. They are inherent to government.

Ken wrote, "He said I have to have it or die. I have a gut feeling his two prescs. never actually cost more than $10.00 if that to produce and market."
That could have been me. I have paid as much as $250 co-pay for a single prescription, without which i would die. And at the time, there was no generic available. The full cost being charged the insurance company? $3,600.00/mo. for a maintenance drug. (Not short term, until the symptoms go away.)
I crunched some numbers and found that this particular drug costs, per oz., about six times the same weight in gold.
And this is not the only drug I have to take in order to stay alive. (It IS the most expensive)
And, oddly, now that there IS a generic, the price miraculously dropped to $20.00/mo.... Read More
I'm just sayin'

Rep. Goodlatte, sorry I missed you. //// First of all, I'm pretty much a down the middle person when it comes to Politics. Only regestered Rep. because most independants arn't heard, and I do tend to agree more often with the Republician party. PUBLIC OPTION - Ok, let's think outside the box. We already have a public option when it comes to ... Read Morehealth care. It's called Medicaid. Why doesn't anyone see that if Medicaid was restructured to allow more of the American Public to pay into this program with guidelines that are simular to existing Health care Ins. companies, but at a lower or discounted premium monthly maybe more Americans wouldn't be left without Ins. I'M NOT SAYING FREE, I'm saying PAY. Why would anyone want the Government to try to manage another program. when I read parts of the Public Option H.R. 3200, I really don't see where any Gov. Rep. would even consider a vote for it. Fix Medicaid so it can become a Public Option.

good looking car Bill,

Thank you, Mr. Neff. I was relying on my faulty memory.

Yes, it is in reference to the bailout, not the stimulus packages. And as you said, it's too early to say that the bailouts have been a success. That also means it's too early to declare them a failure.

Facts are such inconvenient things, don't you agree?

Who has the Bailout helped? He is talking about the Stimulus package

What we need is for you guys and gals to clear the people out a metropolitan area that's old, grimy, crime-ridden, dirty....some place like Detroit. Then unleash a nuclear explosion and level the place. Then have the people "go back in" and rebuild.

Yes, Lynn, we always know where Bob stands on the issues. He is generally wronger than a wrong thing that is mistaken, but we know where he stands.

The only reason we are here now is because Chief Powhatan had lax immigration laws.

Oh Charlie, that is the best comment I have heard on the subject. May I borrow it?