More than likely, it is none of the above. It is not that he wants to go beyond Obamacare; it is not that he is deliberately lying per se, any more than usual anyway (He just doesn't understand what the truth is.); it is not a clever ploy to keep things as they are.

What is likely spewing forth from his junk-food hole is just more nonsensical mishmash. It's a safe Irish bet that he doesn't realize the full import of universal healthcare, single payer, or the simplest and cheapest solution, which would be to use the bureaucracy already in place, ban insurance companies from operating in the primary healthcare market, and expand Medicare to include all ages.

Don't give this blowhard too much credit for making any sense or, especially, for being anything close to clever.

Lets just hope he is going to be as much a disaster to the fascist tea party republicans as he appears to be to our progressive agenda. In some respects he can hurt them more than us as far as the economy and greed are concerned. Is he really broke? If so, he has an agenda more to our liking and would really reign in the hedge fund/eletist wall street types on the economic front. I have thought he was toast many times, as most have, but somehow he pulls through. The Supreme Court nominee and his "health care for all" statement will be the litmus test. If he as as smart as he says he is, he will nominate a progressive to the court just to watch them squirm, and say the balance was necessary and dare them not to confirm he or she, and, begin the process toward single payer and call them ungodly for opposing! And..... then call them robberbarons and bandits if they start on Social Security and Medicare! Come on Mr. President "elect"; do it! You campaigned as such!

The thing that haunts me now much more than anything is his wife's (first Lady after Friday) birthplace is Europe (Romania or somewhere close) and his recent diatraubs regarding NATO. Additionally; Putin coming to his defense about the "Golden Shower crap". Are we really looking at the possibility of collusion betwixt the US and Russia attempting to take over the world? That scares the hell out of me. We are treading within the "unimajinable" now every day! May God have mercy and give some direction.......

Stay completely away from all "advantage" plans! For all the reasons you have laid out, they are nothing but insurance company rip-offs that don't give any advantage whatsoever over straight Medicare, but end up costing much more than just purchasing regular supplemental policies. You pay a lot extra for their so-called "streamlined" convenience.

Unfortunately, Republicans and their insurance industry-dirty Democratic Bobbsey twins have deliberately punched so many holes in the basic program that we victims are forced to buy private industry products. Shop around and get a good stand-alone supplemental policy. Generally, the stand-alone supplementals are all about the same, with only small differences here and there on this or that, depending on prices, which really don't vary that much either. Ditto for a stand-alone Part D policy.

It would behoove you, though, to seek outside advice somewhere else besides self-serving insurance agents and from someone you trust to help you and not themselves. A good source of honest, straight forward information is on Wendell Potter's website. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by his depth of knowledge and experience, and his hard-won integrity.

I happen to be a lifetime union member, so they go to bat for us at retirement age to come up with the best combination of basic Medicare, a separate supplemental, and a separate Part D.

In a perfect world (without the cons), we wouldn't have to buy any supplementals, because basic Medicare would cover it all. Private insurance industry greed-heads wouldn't be wheeling and dealing in primary healthcare at all.

Remember the wall Trump said he will build?.....if you undersatnd that, then you know what he means about "insurance for everybody".

Only two more days to declare the election invalid and proceed with the treason trial. If not, and Pence becomes president, has it occurred to anyone that when the banks too big to fail go under this time around, there is no room to drop rates, and there won't be a bailout either???? House Teapublicans will block it.... No emergency economic stabilization act this time around. ...and that's just the beginning of the end, as climate change goes on anabolic steroids. Wall Street is looking at 1929 all over again.

Remember the Iraq war that should have never happened because of JEB, and Floriduh?...unlike that election fraud.....what doesn't need to happen this time around will make the Iraq war look like a simple matter.

ONLY TWO MORE DAYS TO AVIOD A GLOBAL LIVING HELL!

So far I consider my Kaiser Permanente Advantage plan to be better than any gap plan. If you are reasonbly healthy and fit it will save you money. After 1.8 years I would have paid a lot more for a lot less with a gap plan. Kaiser is only in a few states.

He doesn't put enough thought into what he says

Tom wonders:

Does Trump actually want to go beyond Obamacare?

Is he lying?

Or was this just a clever ploy to get Republicans to keep things as they are and scrap their politically disastrous plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act?

The answers are no, of course and I doubt it, respectively. Assuming there is any cogent thought behind anything Trump says, co-opting the frame of "insurance for everybody" to describe whatever atrocity the Republicans come up with, very effectively takes the term away from us -and sows confusion. If we don't use our own frames the GOP will just take them away.

This is a perfect example of why we need to get our act together on framing.

Your guest who thinks health care is a privledge was loudly dominating the conversation, leaving you no space to rebut his elitist positions. I'm thinking Tea Party tactics and the kind of bullying we'll be seeing much more of in the coming months. It's not worth listening to, Thom. I think you should treat obnoxious guests the same as you do obnoxious callers.

Here, let me reword what comes through loud and clear to the majority of people in this country when they hear the "final solution" proposed by fringe wing-nuts:

What they are advocating are two healthcare systems: one for the rich; one for the poor -- just like our justice system, just like our colleges. For Republicans, extreme capitalists, and other fascist types, it's always all about the money first, not the lives. Those who have it, are the privileged few who enjoy all the rights of our Constitution, proper education, proper healthcare.

The poor and uneducated are expected to fight the rich-man resource wars, and when they return home, work the physically demanding, menial service jobs that can't be off-shored to low-wage countries with lax pollution regulations. Then, hopefully, when they inevitably become a burden to the oligarchical system, they will just fade away and die. That way the luckier, the healthier, the more educated, the more wealthy will pay less taxes and have more power.

Right-wingers constantly push the meme that we are not a democracy, but rather a republic. Actually, we are neither; what our Founders suffered and died for -- a constitutionally limited, representative, democratic republic, whereby ALL power resides with the People ... ALL the people -- has been supplanted with a bastardized, militarized, corporate-controlled plutocracy ruled by the filthy few, the worst predators imaginable, which is also called a kakistocracy. Or, just call it fascism; that has less syllables for smaller minds.

If we had single-payer, Medicare for all, universal healthcare -- the same for everyone! -- and eliminated greedy insurance companies from primary (not secondary) healthcare, we could easily afford it, just like every other modern society in the world can. We could afford it even more, with plenty left over, if we also quit diverting public funds to the United States' ridiculous military empire sprawled all over planet Earth! Just the injuries alone that our soldiers sustain literally suck trillions of dollars out of our healthcare system over the course of their lives.

Perhaps, Paul Ryan's guiding saint, Ayn Rand, in her crude, poorly written fiction, "Atlas Shrugged," was right when she concluded that all the wealthy elitist assholes should just move to some island somewhere and create their "paradise" oligarchical kakistocracy, where they can pout all they want and do their own gawddamn laundry. Then they won't be sucking off the labor and the wealth of the rest of us.

Please, just go away and leave us alone. We'll manage just fine without supporting your fat asses!

Well then, the people of Ontario should rally to reform their system too. After all, they are supposed to be a democracy; the people are supposed to have all the power to effect the changes that work for their best interests rather than only the wealthy few.

The reason people don't have a supplemental is because they can't afford private insurance. If private insurance companies couldn't operate in the primary healthcare market, the providers, hospitals, medical equipment suppliers, pharmaceutical companies, etc. would only have to deal with just one entity, the government, in order to get paid. That would vastly simplify the system and naturally even out the costs, while still allowing them all to profit handsomely enough.

Reining in costs doesn't have to come out of the hides of healthcare professionals either. Commonly, nearly one third of their overhead are just clerical forces that only exist to fight the insurance industry clerical forces, who purposely deny more and more claims in order for their companies and shareholders to profit more and more. Such out-of-control profit-taking accounts for most of their overhead, which, in America, used to be up to forty percent of the premiums, until they were restricted to only twenty percent, which is still too much.

The government runs Medicare payouts very efficiently at only about three percent overhead, since it doesn't profit. Thus, more resources are available for paying all the legitimate claims. Plus, with Medicare-for-all, the extra tax people pay for a more stable single-payer system would be less than the premiums they now pay for private policies, which would no longer have to be paid.

In other words, why should anyone profit off sickness and death? One of the biggest drains on healthcare resources is wasted on the money changers (insurance companies and their investors) who provide no actual healthcare. Relegate them to the realm of secondary healthcare, such as elective procedures, tummy tucks, face lifts, five-star private rooms, catered meals, or whatever turns their crank. The insurance industry could still generate a profit, and their policy holders could still enjoy privileged treatment for the extra money they can afford to spend. More importantly, their added benefits would not detract from anyone else who needs primary healthcare, such as for heart attacks, cancers, diseases, broken bones, or anything that is needed to maintain health and life.

Also, higher education should be subsidized more substantially, so that more doctors, nurses, PA's, nurse practitioners, and whoever else, can be deployed to cover everyone in need. There are many, many intelligent people who would love to enter the profession but are discouraged to do so for lack of funding.

It really comes down to a false ideological battle, where pure capitalism is pitted against pure socialism, where one can only exist without the other. Our founders called it "free enterprise" and "the commons," but they understood the dynamic as complementing rather than conflicting. Some aspects of a healthy society are better owned and operated collectively, and other aspects are better owned and operated privately.

You don't want the government making TV's, cars, and shoes, for example. Neither, do you want private industry controlling public education, healthcare, police, prisons, wars, etc., or fouling the air, water, land, food, or anything else that we all equally depend on for life, liberty, and happiness.

It also comes down to what the primary purpose of government is in the first place. Does it exist to benefit all or just the few?

America became great by striving for the right balance. Of course, it was never perfect, and it never will be. However, it's the People's duty to make it a more perfect union.

What is more important than people's health? The cost is money well spent with a return many times over.