Two slight weaknesses in the arguments here:

1. Every year my employer, now the one paying my retirement benefits, has published "financials" for the employee benefit plans. EVERY REPORT for the past 40 or so years has claimed "increasing costs of the health care insurance," with the recent annual increases being nearly always greater than 10% per year, and up to 17% or so in several years.

     7.5 per cent IS MORE AFFORDABLE than the rate that extrapolates based on the decades prior to this plan.

2. EVERY DAY we receive AT LEAST TWO advertisements from health care insurers wanting us to switch to their "more affordable" policies. At least once per week we get FIVE OR MORE in the same day's mail. Obviously the new system is a "GOLD MINE" for the insurers, completely contrary to what they claim. (Even at "advertising bulk rates" the postage for all the ads is more than our insurer pays us in claim benefits over any given period - and it's very good insurance and we're old enough to be in a "not really cheap" category.)

Some minor quibbles might be made over the ignorance of anyone who claims that "Everything is the Democrats' fault" but knowing that ANY SINGLE SENATOR under Senate Rules can single-handedly block ANYTHING INTRODUCED in the Senate means that "since the Democrats controlled both houses" is a rather STUPID ill-informed joke.

John