With the Obama plan, the private insurance companies would HAVE to give the over 50-something access to screening colonoscopies in accord w/ Medicare

HEY! Before someone decides to rescue BCBSNC from its $50 million bottomless pit, you might consider that they will surely go under if they are not able to offer major components of the Medicare plan which are already in place-----like the access to a screening colonoscopy for NC citizens----because citizens will CHOOSE a public plan, like Medicare, over BCBSNC.

*************

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1/72/27785/
public-health-insurance-plan-option-quot-non-negotiable-quot.html

Public Health Insurance Plan Option "Non-Negotiable"

"......Advocates of a government alternative to private health insurance fired the first shot of the new battle to reform the nation’s health-care system on Wednesday, saying that efforts to water down this key component of Barack Obama’s health-care plan should be rejected by members of Congress.

“In the absence of a public plan you would have to so strictly regulate [private] health plans that they would all have to become public plans,” said Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., chairman of the House Ways and Means Health sub-committee.

"Stark spoke out on Wednesday because he is concerned that any effort to reform the private health-insurance market will prove ineffective if Americans are not offered the kind of Medicare-style government option contained in Obama’s 2008 campaign proposal.

"Stark’s concerns were echoed by Health Care Now, a liberal advocacy group.

“We agree with Congressman Stark that a health care solution that does not include a public plan would be a non-starter,” said Richard Kirsch, the national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now. “President-elect Obama ran on the promise of giving consumers a choice of keeping the private insurance they have or opting in to a newly-created public insurance plan, and it is the second part of this hybrid reform that ensures we are no longer at the mercy of the private insurance industry which keeps charging us more, giving us less, and lining its own pockets with profits.”

That red line is being drawn for a reason. Insisting upon a public plan option is not ideology for ideology's sake. It's critical to achieve quality, affordable health care for all.