>>Yes, I pay healthcare premiums, and taxes and they are both going to be going up soon.
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>>Say you currently pay $10K for healthcare premiums. Say your tax goes up $7K to pay for universal coverage. Yes you pay $7K more tax but you also save $10K premium. Why are you worse off? Seems to me that a saving is a saving and if it also means that 45M fellow citizens can now receive care as well, where is the victim?
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>If you get the quality and availability of care as under the private insurance, it saves you money. However, if it does not, then keeping the private insurance will in the end cost you $17K/yr because paying for the government plan is not an option, only using it is.
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>>There is very good evidence that translating the Canadian system to the US would yield $1T savings. Yes, a trillion. Covers the deficit nicely. you may not want to go that far especially since you're at the other extreme today with your existing system. Presumably the solution will be somewhere in between. What you do NOT want is a wasteful duplication where you pay for universal care and still pay full price insurance because people are opposed to universal coverage. That's the worst possible result and I don't believe Obama is proposing that.
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>Actually, from what I have read, paying for the government plan is not an option. Using it is. Unless that changes, it is the worst possible result.

Keep reading Tracy. The only way to not use the government option is to not lose your present coverage. Once lost your options are limited to one. The poison pill is written right into the bill.