Let's see, the government threw themselves into a war in Iraq. They have failed in far too many ways to take care of the men and women coming home with injuries as we have never seen before.

The government is unable to come up with a plan to even guide the Governors to handle the illegal immigrants or to work on problems increasing the reading scores or keeping the kids in school.

The government has also increased our debt and have used China as a mortgage holder for our ever growing inability to handle our finances.

The last thing I want is for this same government to throw a blanket over our medical procedures and our hospitals. Americans are at a point where we have slipped back into a helpless mess. Once we get into socialized medicine we will never get out.

There is no authority found in our Constitution but the individual states could combine a system but only if approved by the voters.

Good morning Sandra: You hit the nail, State legislatures are the rightful governing bodies as directed by the voters of said states. We've got to kick the federalies out of our everyday lives and prevent them from erecting another monopoly thats controlled by Big Pharma. Why is that so difficult for these boobs (Congress) to comprehend? One would think a state legislator would relish the opportunity to tell the boys in the big house to keep their nose out of his/her states business and then actually do something for the greater good of those they represent. HACK!

One could make the same argument for socialism. All of these other systems are living from our medical research and drug companies.

Our scientists are quite capable of inventing and discovering techniques and treatments that are more costly than we can afford. Like it or not, it is the marketplace that controls and drives down costs. This then provides healthcare for the masses. If we leave this to government we will get less and less for more and more.

If I have to pay for something, I will decide what I can afford. If someone else pays for it, they decide.

Healthcare is important to me; so is my family. I don't want this left to someone else.

I also don't want someone else paying for their important project out of my wallet.

It is just economics. And socialism didn't work.

Jeffers

Peace without freedom is still slavery.

I remember when I owned my own bookstore in a building I owned outright (no mortgage). I was a member of the Chamber of Commerce and they began to put together a health insurance plan that would be available to all small businesses owners, employees and family members. I never saw it happen. When I was the sole supporter of my kids who did have accidents and necessary surgury procedures, I had always had the opportunity to borrow on my home. I did pay off the loan and then it became my insurance safetynet. When I moved north, I bought the commercial building with the money I got from my home and financed my new home. I could not afford any health care insurance and tried them all to see what my costs would be. I did not make enough profit in the store from selling books but I did have a class A credit rating. I never abused my credit line and was able to pay back any amount in 5 years. The equity in our homes is a perfect insurance policy but this means staying away from welfare or any federal handouts as they take first chance at the equity. Playing with the federal government is the best way to get thoroughly screwed. It doesn't matter which party is in power, the system is set up against our personal choices.

I am now in an HMO supplement over my medicare and my choices of doctors is very limited. It is one of the reasons I moved to Sun City as the ratings of the hospitals are wonderful which means good doctors time tested here for many years. The problem here is that many doctors hate the paperwork and retire as soon as they can.

I remember suffering with guilt when one of my kids got hurt and I had to scrounge up money for their doctors and even hospital stay. I casually mentioned it to a teller at my local bank and she led me into the manager's office who started a loan procedure using the equity in my home.

This whole thing sits on individual plans to cover the possibility of having huge debts after a sickness. Believe me when I say, we all took the best possible care of our health and we borrowed only for accidents.

With today's children's diets I would have to imagine that few are concerned and the spread of diabetes and this will end up being the disease of the future for our kids.

Common sense, proper diet, exercise and supplements tend to work well for many families. But today that is not cool.....

In order to have true universal health care we must get rid of the greedy drug and insurance corporations along with their doctors and government officials.
Then and only then will we have a shot at real health care for everyone as proposed by Kucinich, this and a few other good ideas was the reason he (DK) was pushed to the sidelines by those corporations.
There is no other reason why we can not have the best doctors and state of the art equipment and hospitals for far less than what we spend for profit driven HMO’s etc.
The life expectancy of Americans is less than all other developed countries with universal health care and the only ones against true one payer health care are those profit driven drug and insurance corporations.
To better understand today’s corporations, how we got here and why everything including our health as a nation is so screwed up please take the time to watch, “The Corporation.” a documentary by film makers Mark Archbar and Jennifer Abbott’

Our government and our wonderful constitution will work just fine once we get off our ass and take the power back from these mega corporations and the nation building military…

It's like Phil says "one step at a time is how it's done, but we need to take that first step and not be dissuaded by those corporations.

Poco a pocito (little bit by little bit)

The healthcare problem is just another symptom of the incurable disease we call Government. Universal Healthcare will mean that everyone will be forced into the same pitifully corrupt and hopelessly inept system that some of us have the "privelege" of spending our hard-earned, worthless currency for.

http://www.naturalnews.com/Index.html

I disagree with many of the points made above, starting with what Sandra Price says about being self-insured, and "borrowing only for accidents."

There's lucky and there's damned lucky, and Sandra fits right in in the middle there somewhere. The biggest fear of any parent or other support person is not having to pay for an accidental injury. It's having the doctor sit down and tell you that your child has leukemia, spina bifida, or any other of literally thousands of things which can bankrupt an individual before the end of the current year if there is no insurance.

And then there's tropicaltaco's statement:

"In order to have true universal health care we must get rid of the greedy drug and insurance corporations along with their doctors and government officials."

Excuse me, but if it ain't private enterprise and if it ain't government, what the hell is it that is going to provide you with "universal health care"? Self-insurance is simply not a viable option, Sandra's apparent good luck with that approach notwithstanding.

Everyone is down on the insurance companies, calling them bloodsuckers, thieves, etc., etc. But all an insurance company does is provide a means for spreading the risk among all of the participants in the insurance pool. Yes, they make a profit, but I submit to you it is not an outrageous profit, particularly in a situation where there is extreme competition.

As I have pointed out before, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan is a good place to look for a relatively inexpensive (in terms of overhead) highly competitive marketplace in which to buy medical services. The Office of Personnel Management runs the service by providing a marketplace for practitioners of all kinds to in effect advertise their services. They have a really big pool of insured people, running into a couple of million people, so they can attract offers from a wide spectrum of medical providers, who typically organize themselves into a group to offer a competitive package of services.

OPM functions mainly to require certain coverages from these groups so that the employees can compare apples with apples and bananas to bananas. (Note, both of these fruits are pretty good for you.) They also serve to collect the premiums and pass them on the the provider organizations and they they do some monitoring to make sure that the providers actually provide the services they advertise.

In the major employment areas particularly the competition for enrollees is nothing short of fierce. In the areas without a lot of employees there is admittedly less choice, but the competition among the national providers is still pretty intense.

I have advocated and continue to advocate expanding the pool of enrollees by opening up the marketplace to other governmental levels, state, local, community, to businesses big and small, and to individuals who cannot otherwise qualify for coverage.

The paramount thing to remember is that OPM does not pay one penny in premiums, and every person who enrolls would have to foot the bill either directly or with employer contributions as is now the normal course of business throughout the United States. Eventually, every penny in premiums comes directly or indirectly from the enrollee, though that might include a governmental supplement at the state and local level for the neediest part of our economy.

One of the advantages to this is that there would arise more and more competitors anxious to provide medical treatment at reasonable costs, and it would almost undoubtedly mean that most if not all people in the US could be covered under an existing structure without huge goverment expenditures and with minimal government interference. Most of the interference would actually be the government's making the insurers toe the line.

Remember, there is no suth thing as a free lunch. And the same applies to medical care. It is not free and never will be free. When someone ends up paying for it, it is going to be the citizen, either directly through premium payments, indirectly through employers who cover all or part of the premium, or through additional taxes to pay the cost of those who cannot pay for their own coverage. And that's the way it should be!

Ted

Care for some history by which to compare just how stupid this country really is? So, how did the great Bismarck, who used the America economic system created by Friedrich List, treat the German worker?

The Sickness Insurance Law of 1883, the Accident Insurance Laws of 1884 and 1885, and the Old Age Insurance Law of 1889 are based upon the principle of compulsion which was introduced into the sick insurance legislation of Prussia in 1854. — Bismarck and State Socialism by William Harbutt Dawson

Bear in mind that at this time both the U.S. and Germany had surpassed Great Britain, economically, owning to the American System (Henry Clay). Germany, under Bismarck, was the perhaps the greatest nation on earth. No greater leader was there than Prince Bismarck--and he owed it all to the U.S., the real land of geniuses (but no more--the idiots have taken over).

Americans pay in more than $2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS annually into Medicare/Medicaid. Unfortunately, "FOR-PROFIT" corporations i.e., insurance companies, HMOs and pharmaceutical companies suck down approximately two-thirds of our nation's $2.3t healthcare budget. Their board of directors have a duty by law to maximize profits for their shareholders; unfortunately, at the expense of America's health. Only about one-third of our Medicare/Medicaid budget goes to the actual cost of healthcare provided. The obvious solution is to ELIMINATE THE "FOR-PROFIT" corporations eating the majority of our healthcare budget and redirect those funds toward the cost of actual healthcare provided ALL Americans. This would be more than enough money to cover all the healthcare needs your family would ever need. There is no need to create a new revenue stream or to raise taxes. In other words, we're already paying for universal healthcare - we're just not getting it. Hillary, Obama and McCain do NOTHING to convert our current "FOR-PROFIT" healthcare system to a "NON-PROFIT" healthcare system. Hillary, Obama and McCain do NOT offer single-payer universal healthcare, period. Hillary Clinton wants to require you to buy healthcare insurance. Obama asks, "What's the penalty for NOT buying such a mandated insurance?" The truth is, every politician in Washington, including Obama and Hillary, want you to make insurance payments. They all promise to make healthcare "affordable." Such a promise is disingenious at best, downright criminal at worst. In fact, such promises are indicative of the intent of the politician. The true intent of the politician is to keep using our tax dollars to subsidize these outrageous profits enjoyed by the insurance companies, HMOs and pharmaceuticals. Whether by direct payment or by government subsidy, these politicians REFUSE to eliminate these greedy "FOR-PROFIT" corporations from our nation's $2.3 trillion dollar trough. Obama is promising to implement universal healthcare by the end of his (first) term as President - nonsense! First of all, Obama nor Hillary offer single-payer universal healthcare; nor can a President pass universal healthcare by themself. Such a claim is an insult to the informed American. To the uninformed, it must seem like Kennedyesque rhetoric. Obama, like Hillary, both keep "FOR-PROFIT" corporations maximizing their profits at the expense of all Americans' healthcare. The fact is, Americans are already paying for all the healthcare their family would ever need - they're just not getting it. Why would a politician want you to keep making payments to insurance companies if our nation's healthcare budget is enough money to cover all the healthcare one would ever need? The answer is to keep corporate lobbyists and their fellow crooked Congressmen and women happy, that's why. The drug lobby literally writes our nation's healthcare bills, and Hillary and Obama know it. They know the drug lobby will NEVER allow single-payer universal healthcare to be passed, period - no matter WHO is President. The Democratic Party and Hillary have been taunting the American public with their empty promises of universal healthcare for a long, long time now. I can only wonder how much longer will Americans keep believing that one day, if we get the right President, then we'll all have universal healthcare. It's NOT going to happen with the Democratic and Republican Party monopolizing Congress. John McCain asks, "Do you want government running our nation's healthcare system, or do you want families making decisions on how to run our nation's healthcare system?" This is slick, ole Washington doubletalk which is actually French for, "I, John McCain, hereby promise Corporate America to keep "FOR-PROFIT" corporations maximizing profits for their stockholders, to keep corporations siphoning 2/3 of our nation's Medicare/Medicaid budget to the exclusion and expense of the American people." Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney passed a healthcare bill in Massachusetts requiring all citizens to buy health insurance, whether they can afford it or not. Even more disgusting is the fact Romney and Sen. Kennedy called this their "universal healthcare bill." It's anything BUT universal healthcare. Today almost half of Massachusetts' citizens are criminals - designated such by Mitt Romney and his so-called, "universal healthcare bill," for failing to purchase healthcare insurance. The sad fact is, many Americans who can afford to make insurance payments DO NOT WANT other Americans enjoying free healthcare without paying for it. This is the ugly truth about how many Americans feel about fully-paid universal healthcare. How did these Americans become so indifferent to their fellow citizens? Mostly from decades of non-stop brainwashing, courtesy of the healthcare profiteers. Some are just plain hateful and snarky. The truth is NO AMERICAN should be making ANY PAYMENTS to ANY insurance companies, HMOs or pharms, since Americans pay enough money to Medicare/Medicaid to cover ALL Americans' healthcare needs. Virtually no one addresses the real issue, which is should private corporations operate our nation's healthcare system? Should private corporations continue to be allowed to maximize corporate profits at the expense of Americans' health? Some Americans believe private corporations should be allowed to maximize profits at the expense of Americans' health. Some people think that if we didn't allow "FOR-PROFIT" corporations to maximize profits and run our healthcare system, "NON-PROFITS" would fail miserably. There is not a shred of evidence to support such a contention; in fact, evidence exists to the contrary. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain are three of these Americans who prefer to continue to allow private corporations to maximize corporate profits at the expense of Americans' health, sucking down almost two-thirds of the $2.3 trillion Medicare/Medicaid budget. The fact remains: We The People are ALREADY PAYING FOR FULLY-PAID UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE - WE'RE JUST NOT GETTING IT! We don't need to raise taxes or find a new revenue stream to pay for fully-paid universal healthcare! NO! Our nation's $2.3 trillion dollar healthcare budget is MORE THAN ENOUGH to pay for ALL the healthcare you and your family will EVER NEED! Problem is, the majority of those funds go to the fatcat profiteers at the insurance companies, HMOs and pharmaceuticals. Their Board of Directos have a DUTY BY LAW TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS FOR THEIR SHAREHOLDERS! I say we need to redirect those funds AWAY FROM those profieering corporations and use those funds to pay for all the healthcare your family will ever need! ELIMINATE THE HEALTHCARE PROFITEERS! I believe an American's right to fully-paid universal healthcare supercedes the corporation's right to maximize profits in the dispensation of that healthcare. Unfortunately, Hillary, Obama and McCain believe otherwise. These three politicians fight for corporations' right to maximize profits instead of fighting for Americans' right to fully-paid universal healthcare. Instead of converting our current greedy "FOR-PROFIT" healthcare system to a "NON-PROFIT" system, Hillary, Obama and McCain prefer corporate welfare - using tax dollars to fund corporate profits! This is worth repeating and highlighting: Hillary, Obama and McCain prefer to use billions and billions of our tax dollars to pay for the profits these greedy insurance companies, HMOs and pharms enjoy. The politician's job is to CON Americans into believing the best they can do is to make healthcare premiums, "affordable." What a crock! It's bad enough that two-thirds of Medicare/Medicaid goes directly to the profit pockets of these corporations; yet Hillary, Obama and McCain want you to keep making ADDITIONAL PAYMENTS to the greedy corporate profiteers. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world who does NOT enjoy fully-paid universal healthcare! The anti-universal healthcare propaganda is staggering. The drug lobby writes our nation's healthcare bills - Congress doesn't. Over 100,000 Americans die each year in America's hospitals from medical negligence. Another 100,000 Americans die annually from LACK OF healthcare, due to corporate exclusionary policies. In other words, the technology was there to prevent death; but was not used, due to corporate decisonmaking regarding "profit-protection." Yet there is Hillary, smiling and talking about how she cares so much about the plight of Americans' healthcare and how she has devoted her life to implementing "universal healthcare." The woman has done NOTHING AT ALL OVER THE YEARS to convert our current "FOR-PROFIT" healthcare system to a "NON-PROFIT" healthcare system; Hillary, Obama and McCain's job is to convince Americans that paying insurance premiums is the best we can do, so criminalize the act of NOT purchasing healthcare insurance. Unfortunately, I don't see this situation changing anytime soon. Certainly not by the end of the next Presidential term or even the next. Implementing fully-paid universal healthcare is going to require the American public to become fully informed of the facts of the situation, to the point of voting for partyless candidates, since NO PARTY CANDIDATE WILL EVER IMPLEMENT FULLY-PAID UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE! The world will continue to enjoy fully-paid healthcare while poor Americans will continue to go without healthcare - healthcare already being paid for, but not received. http://www.roncorvus.com/healthcare.htm

Ron:

Please try to put your thoughts into paragraph format. Makes it more likely that people will read it.

I have one question and one question only. You say up towards the top of your post that 2/3ds of the money spent on health care in the US is "sucked down" by for-profit corporations. That is, at best, a specious argument unless you are saying that the money is not going to health care. If so, it is your duty to provide support for that statement.

What percentage of your food dollars go to for-profit corporations? Do you complain that every dollar goes into the hands of a for-profit corporation? Didn't think so.

I point out to you that pretty much every dollar you pay directly to a doctor or dentist goes directly to a for-profit corporation, since almost all such medical care providers have incorporated themselves for various tax and legal liability purposes. If they were non-profit do you think they would continue to provide you with medical treatment?

What I suggested in my post above was providing medical care at the most competitive rates by creating an environment where health care providers were encouraged to compete with one another. Certainly if you want to put together a non-profit organization and compete with for-profit corporations there would be nothing to stop you, but non-profits are normally incapable of competing for one single reason: they cannot sell shares of stock, so they have no way of putting together the kind of money needed for doing such things as building a hospital. And hospitals tend to be on the extensive side.

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Non-profit_o... and the sources cited therein for further enlightenment on this subject.

Ted

I've seen so-called "Unviersal health care" at work up close and personal-like in Canada. And it's an absolute mess!

It's so much of a mess that fully one quarter of my USA doctor's patients are now Canadians coming across the border and paying confiscatory CASH rates his far more timely and responsive services.

For the REAL story of how NOT to implement such so-called "universal" care (and rather than repeating it here), I invite you all to have another look at my previous Blue Blog postings on the subject (Some Thoughts On Universal Health Care) here on Capitol Hill Blue, along with the resulting discussions.

I believe all of it will, once again, prove enlightening:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/4234

All that a universal coverage system will do is change who rations medical care. Currently, the insurance carriers are the gate-keepers - and that is the "customer" that the hospitals and doctors have to satisfy. If you replace the insurance companies with a government agency, then it becomes the gate-keeper to whom the medical service providers are beholden. Under either system, the patient is not the customer who must be satisfied.

We have no idea what medical care really costs because the system has been distorted through regulation. For example, why should the "courtesy kit" - barf pan, insulated drinking cup, toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, body wash, mouthwash, comb, razor, etc. - issued a hospital patient be billed to the insurance carrier for $45.00 when the indinvidual components can be bought at a "dollar" store for about $7.50?

Most sincerely,

T. J. Flapsaddle

T.J. wrote:

We have no idea what medical care really costs because the system has been distorted through regulation. For example, why should the "courtesy kit" - barf pan, insulated drinking cup, toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, body wash, mouthwash, comb, razor, etc. - issued a hospital patient be billed to the insurance carrier for $45.00 when the indinvidual (sic) components can be bought at a "dollar" store for about $7.50?

At least part of the answer is that this is how the health care provider recovers the costs associated with giving those items to people who cannot (or will not) pay for their care in our country.

It also reflects the failure of health care providers to fully recover the true costs of providing care to those people who do happen to have insurance, but whose insurance companies refuse to fully reimburse those costs.

So, in that sense, it isn't just "regulation" that has "distorted" these costs, T.J., it's ALSO the result of insurance providers not fully reimbursing health care providers for the true costs of the services they provide, as well as covering the costs of the tens of millions of people using the health care system in our country who aren't (for various and sundry reasons) paying for it.

It's just like a food merchant who must cover the costs of theft, breakage and/or spoilage of a portion of the items they offer for sale by passing those costs along to those who actually buy their wares with real money.

And, I'll also bet the actual reimbursement the medical provider got from the insurance company for those items you mention was a lot closer to $7.50 than it was to $45.00.

Roncorvus: Unless you post in paragraph format with some white space I will not read your posts. Also, like Ted said, if you make allegations you must supply facts or reasonable, logical argument to support them.

It was a very good posting, just very difficult to read.

The plain fact is that if you are going to create universal health care for all americans, you automatically eliminate insurance companies. If everyone is automatically provided healthcare there is no need for a middle man to take a cut off the top inflating the cost of the care. Universal health care is paid directly into a health care fund through automatic payroll deduction based on a percentage of income.

Universal health care would be non-profit. Universal health care would create an autonomous agency to oversee and control it. It would no longer be called 'insurance.' There would be no such thing as exclusons for any reason.

As the only provider it would have the power to regulate the cost of prescription drugs, hospital costs, lab and specialized diagnostic fees (such as MRIs). I have no way of knowing but I suspect the cost to the individual taxpayer would be less than they are currently paying for medicare. Lobbyists would be eliminated. There would be nothing to lobby for.

Under universal health care the individual could choose any doctor or hospital they wanted. All fee schedules would be mandated and any required co-pays should be established the same for all, however, any doctor or pharmacy could charge a higher or lower co-pay fee. Essentially it would be very much like the medicare for seniors we presently have. There would be no middle man (insurance company) being paid to do little more than punch up our file on a dumbputer and tell us what is covered and what is not.

Such a system would dramatically reduce the cost of health care in this country. No middleman raking a cut off the top - preventive medicine would reduce major medical conditions [like a +baby's cold becoming pneumonia] - reduced staffing of Emergency Rooms that would handle only true emergencies. There are many other minor cost saving features that would add up to a great deal of savings.

I see universal health care as being so simple to establish, efficient to operate, and such an obvious cost saving program I can't understand why Ron Paul or Kucunich or some other "radical" candidate hasn't proposed it. Surely I'm not the only one who has thought of this.

Let me remind you that seniors are covered by medicare. When an office procedure or hospital procedure is sent to the government (Medicare) they take up to 4 years to pay the hospital and doctors.

I'm watching CSPAN at this time and the lack of doctors is increasing drastically. The cost of medical coverage for them is so high and the delay in being paid by Medicare is sending them into a private practice and many will not take a Medicare patient.

I have had a couple of procedures done without the use of my insurance or medicare and this is becoming more popular with my seniors here in the development. Some of the best doctors will not take medicare and who can blame them?

If the federal government takes over universal health care, every single one of us will regret it. Will our doctors who refuse to accept Medicare have to leave the country to practice?

SEAL:

You said: "The plain fact is that if you are going to create universal health care for all americans (sic), you automatically eliminate insurance companies."

Why is this a plain fact? Everyone is down on insurance companies, but I have yet to see anyone provide specifics about what the companies do that is so antithetical to the interests of the world.

You said in part: "All fee schedules would be mandated and any required co-pays should be established the same for all, however, any doctor or pharmacy could charge a higher or lower co-pay fee."

Who would establish these fee schedules? Under what authority? Yet another massive bureaucracy?

They you say that co-pays would be established the same for all but any doctor or pharmacy could charge a higher or lower co-pay fee. In the first part of your sentence you say the co-pay fees would be the same for all, but then you say doctors didn't have to accept the co-pay schedule. This reminds me of the cartoon of Charles Dickens sitting across from his editor, who sneers, "Well, Mr. Dickens, was it the best of times or the worst of times? You can scarcely have it both ways."

What happens when the doctors emulate John Galt, shrug the world's shoulders, and tell you they are not going to work for slave wages?

What you are proposing is a strict socialized medicine setup which is completely antithetical to the way Americans do business in the real world. Instead of having the marketplace decide priorities you would have bureaucrats doing it. That way lies chaos.

Back in the 1970s I worked in an agency which tried to collect the overpayments made to nursing home service providers under the Medicare program. The setup of was extremely complex, but boiled down to a situation where the Medicare program bore a portion of the overhead costs of the facility that were proportionate to the number and type of Medicare patients in the facility. The case files on these debts were as big as the debts: HUGE. Almost impossible to comprehend.

But one day I was leafing through a file and a name caught my eye. Annie Something. I thought to myself, I remember seeing that name. She was listed as the head nurse of a nursing home, and her salary was included in the overhead. And over here, in a seemingly unrelated case file, Annie Something appeared again, with her head nurse salary as part of the overhead of another facility.

So I and the other adjudicators put together a card file with the names of the employees. Lo and behold, Annie Something was being paid a head nurse salary in some 50 or 55 facilities, all at the same time! Even more interesting, Something was her maiden name, and she was married one of the owners of the facilities.

This is the sort of stuff that happens when you put a bureaucracy in charge of big money like this. Crooks come out of the woodwork and steal us blind. We succeeded eventually in putting several of these people in jail, but we couldn't begin to collect the money because these people had spent it or gotten it to a place where the Justice Department couldn't get to it.

The lesson: Let HMOs and PPOs and Blue Cross/Blue Shield all compete and let the market determine where payment goes. Once you inject a bureaucracy into the equation you end up with massive theft and other inefficiencies.

We have an existing medical marketplace which, while not broken, is admittedly pretty bent up at the moment, but which could work well with some tweaking to get rid of some of the inequities. Don't throw the baby out. Help him grow up.

Ted

I think the term Universal Healthcare is misunderstood.
The proposal that makes the most sense is a Single Payer system much like Medicare.
Medicare has about 3% administrative costs while our current private plans shell out between 25-30% overhead enriching a very few.
Meanwhile we are not even in the top ten in categories like infant mortality, and many others.
Plain and simple we are the only industrialized nation that hasn't figured out how to get this done.
I believe we owe it to our citizens to get this done one way or another.
It won't be a walk in the park but we need to do it.

Thank you stauchdem for helping to make my point. If you establish universal health care, you have no need for insurance companies. They are only expensive overhead dedicated to denying as many claims as possible. That's why the insurance and drug companies have poured so much money into the campaign funds of certain candidates.

Who do think it was that derailed Hillary's plans for a "universal" system back in '92? She learned a lesson from that and, now, she proposes a system that would leave the insurance and drug companies in control. Not only that, she has made it mandatory, forcing all those insurance 'deadbeats' that fill the ERs every day for free medical treatment to become cutomers. That's more than a million new premium payers.

Ted: you are correct that what I describe is socialized medicine wherein the agency would establish standard fees and co-pays that the doctor or pharmacy could follow or not. But the patient would know what the standard fee was and decide whether to use them or go next door.

The massive burocracy you fear already exists - Medicare. It would simply be expanded. And no matter what kind of system you create, some will figure out a way to enrich themselves from it. That's why we must have oversite and investigators for it just like any other program.

Insurance companies have no place in a true medical care program that serves the needs of all americans. As long as they are involved we will be told which doctors ond hospitals we can use and there will be higher premiums and exclusions that cause needless sufering.

True, that it would be mandatory, but based upon a percetage of income I believe we would find the cost affordable for all. And all the money would go towards medical care instead of large expensive homes and Hummers for insurance executives.

I don't like socialism either. In fact I hate it. But this is the only way possible to truly provide affordable, efficient, universal health care for all. We must remove the profit motive, ie., the insurance company.

I would prefer a choice of either having emergency coverage only in the private sector or government control of their procedures. If we go on a mandated government coverage it will destroy our medical system.

Americas do not want to pay for their health insurance and too many feel it is the function of the government to do it. I wish you could show me where this function and authority comes from.

If you can afford cable television and a new car you can afford to pay your own way. Don't expect me to pay your bills if you drink and smoke too much and eat like a pig. This is America not Cuba where everything is free except the citizens.

Sandra:

You said: If we go on a mandated government coverage it will destroy our medical system.

Can you explain why this would result?

You also made the statement:

Americas (sic) do not want to pay for their health insurance and too many feel it is the function of the government to do it.

Can you provide documentation for that viewpoint?

Lastly, you said:

If you can afford cable television and a new car you can afford to pay your own way.

Do you mean that such people can afford to pay for your own health insurance or do you mean that they can afford to go bare, i.e. self-insure?

Ted

There may be people in this country who can afford health insurance but choose not to carry a health insurance policy. There are for sure working people in this country who cannot afford health care insurance. These people do not drive new cars and have cable television. They are lucky to know where the next meal is coming from and often have to decide whether to pay the rent or buy medicine for the kids. And there are jobless and homeless people. How are they going to afford Hillary Clinton's mandatory health care insurance? And what happens to them when they do not purchase health care insurance? Do we jail them? Refuse them food stamps? What?

-- Kent Shaw

I live near Canada and, despite what the propoganda machine says the vast majority of Canadians I talk to love their health care system and think we are nuts.
The only exception is elective procedures, which do involve a long wait.
The Medical system has not been destroyed, rather they rate higher in most categories than we do.
What is different is that people like Bill Frists father haven't become billionaires by sucking 20-30% off the top.
Socialism is when the government owns the buildings and pays the workers salaries.
If you have a problem with socialism you must eliminate the military, the police, the fire department, the courts, all federal, state and local governments which is a Conservative wet dream.
The only problem is the Cons have never produced anything but massive debt and poverty.
We can and should provide for our citizenry and it's time to stop talking about it and do something about it.

staunch. You have made this discussion of health insurance into a political partisan issue. We have many Canadians who come to America for the more sophisticated surgeries. If you would pick up a copy of the U.S. Constitution, you will see that our federal government is limited in their authority over the American citizens.

To protect the American people, means having a military defense. The States have the authority to build police and fire departments. There is no mention of medical coverage in any part of the U.S. Constitution. It is up to the states to handle their own residents.

This is not a partisan argument but a Constitutional problem.

Sandra:

You have apparently not understood what I am saying;

I am proposing that a tried, tested, and working well nation-wide system be expanded to include other people not included in the original scope of the program.

The FEHBP does not set criteria for length of stay in hospitals; never has. The insurance companies which operate under that umbrella set guidelines, but they do not refuse to pay if an individual patient exceeds their guidelines due to medical necessity.

The very best doctor I have ever met participates in the HMO which I chose as my insurer when I was in Colorado. He is NOT an employee of the HMO. He is in private practice. He also takes other kinds of insurance, but he contracts with Pacificare of Colorado to participate as a preferred provider. He would not have it any other way. He likes doing business this way. He is not going to run screaming from the practice of medicine because of the existence of HMOs, PPOs, and the like.

I am not saying that the Federal Government can or should be a provider of health services; what I am saying is that they have a vehicle that we can, if we choose, make larger to carry more people, thus achieving more competition while spreading the costs over a wider client base.

You say that I am nitpicking your statements; not true. I am asking you to support them. You make sweeping statements and provide as basis such things as "The documentation for this information comes from listening to the American people day and night through television and radio talk shows." That certainly is not documentation, but only your personal view.

Ted