Looks like the Senate Finance Committee has released an outline of their healthcare reform plan. Single-Payer? Yeah, right. No, it seems they plan on requiring insurance companies to offer plans covering between 65 and 90 percent of your medical expenses (depending on whether you go for the bronze, silver, gold or platinum plan). Supposedly, they’ll be forced to cover anybody, with no pre-existing conditions provisions and no “status rating” (I’m sure those parts of the bill will be quietly stricken in conference – if they even make it that far). There will be penalties for large companies not offering insurance, and “tax credits” as incentives to individuals and small businesses for purchasing insurance. Sounds like a good deal for the insurance companies, doesn’t it?

For the really poor people, there’s medicaid. If you’re a childless adult living at the poverty level, you’ll be able to opt in. Pregnant women and children get to be living at 133% of the poverty level. So, let’s see. Looking at the HHS site, the poverty income level for a single adult is $10,830. That’s about $200 a week – less that $1,000 a month. $5.20 an hour, if you’re working 40 hours a week. And that’s not even minimum wage.

There’s no mention of how much this is gonna cost, but their last plan (basically the same as this plan, except this one is reduced) was estimated by the CBO to cost $1.6 trillion, so I’d venture to guess that this one will be at least $1 trillion. That’s a trillion dollar gift to the insurance industry (no to mention the co-pays and whatnot) from us to continue the shitty system we have now, and to encourage them to keep denying claims and making sick people (and their families) even more miserable than they need to be. All so they can keep raking in huge profits.

Sounds like a great plan. Right up there with Medicare Part D. I agree with Bernie Sanders. If you’re not gonna do it right, then don’t fucking do it at all.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Walter Cronkite is “gravely ill.” They don’t give any details, but he’s 92, so, well, it doesn’t sound too good. People around my age grew up getting the news from Walter.

He also did a Saturday show called “You Are There” – which started as a radio show – where they’d recreate historical events. Except they had CBS news reporters covering it. Always liked that show.

Anyway, I remember seeing Cronkite in an interview years ago, talking about his first “broadcasting” job , working for a bookie at a horse racing parlor (this being way before “Off Track Betting”). They’d get the wire reports from horse races around the country, and then he’d hang out in the back and “report” them “live” over a loudspeaker.

If you’re old enough, you probably got the news of JFK’s assassination from Walter Cronkite. You stayed up late one night in July, 1969, and watched humans walk on moon for the first time. And you heard “the most trusted man in America” tell you that the war in Vietnam was lost (effectively ending LBJ’s presidency).

Good luck to you Walter. If you can, try and stick around for a few more years. If not, may you pass easily. And do a remote report from the other side.