Gov't programs........ ?

[Elsbet]

real healthcare reform will not exist untill they take the gambling out of the equation.

As long as there are people gambling that you wont get sick and those that chose who does and does not receive help, America will never get the healthcare it already pays for.

Then first step is the elimination of insurance. Let the insurance companies die...they killed enough people already.

Second step is everyone is eligible. Yes everyone. You have the right to get care like everyone else.

Third step is the Responsible regulation of healthcare facilities. No more $7 dollar band-aids.

Fourth step is binding arbitration with Doctors, Nurses organizations.

Fifth step is the drug plan.... Fair prices... availability, and development plans

Sixth step. Billing. These steps arent free. We pay for them. Have paid for them. Over-paid them.

By having 1 system.... it would take medicare and medicaid and make them obsolete.

we would need to pay with taxes. But that is all. No more are workers required to pay more out of their weekly checks a portion more than a year before.... one tax and DONE.

it should be cheaper than what we got and far less deaths due to insurance and managed healthcare denials.

IF people really wanted to whine about paying for others... fine.. then treat the people... then bill their country for the care. America should cover our bills as we pay the taxes for it... and foreigners can get care paid by their gov't.


This isnt a bad thing tis a nesscessary thing.. no more communist than your social police force, social school, social mail system. It works and works well. The only people it doesnt help is those who benefit on the deaths and paycheck of the american worker..(the healthcare industry and insurance industry)

It isn't communist, it is unsustainable. There is no way that a country of any shape or size can sustain a free healthcare system for its citizens. European countries are having to CUT benefits to thei citizens because they cannot impose taxes high enough to cover the costs without putting all their citizens out on the street. My step-mom is Canadian and she brings her parents to the US to get health care (and pays for it) because it is impossible to get a bed in a hospital for them. Her mother was told she'd have to wait 18 months to get a hip replacement and she't have to go to Toronto to get it. They're from Vancouver. She was in constant pain and confined to a wheel chair. Tt took 15 days in the US to get all they pre-op exams done and get the surgery. In less than 10 days, she was up and walking again.

Insurance companies don't kill people, they save them. Health care insurance is no more evil than car insurance. You pay the premium as an investment knowing that the return only happens if you require care and knowing that the return on your investment will be exponential to your investment. My uncle blew out his knee last month. He's had two surgeries, a hospital stay and numerous follow ups and will require physical therapy. Grand total to date (w/o the therapy because it hasn't started yet): $60k. What he paid out of pocket: 20% with a cap on out of pocket expenses of $5k. His 20% was $12k, but he only pays $5k. His premiums paid to his employer over the years he worked there: roughly $15 for him and his wife and they've used their benefits the whole time as well.

Without insurance, medical costs would actually go up because more people would be unable to afford their expenses. Do you have $50k lying around doing nothing in case you blow out your knee?

HMOs are evil because they allow non-medical personnel to determine what medical is necessary for a patient. That is my one concession to your argument.

My biggest problem is your assumption that a) medical care itself is a right and b) rights are free. Technically, if it isn't in the Constitution, it isn't a right (see "right" to privacy). Allowing a looser interpretation of "rights," the right is to access to medical care. You don't have the right to pick my pocket for your medical care anymore than I have the right to pick yours. No one should be denied medically necessary health care because they can't afford it (and they aren't); however, should someone be able to pay either because they can or because of insurance, they should.

Billing: The reason you pay $7 for a bandaid is because 15 other people went to the hospital and DID NOT pay for their band aids. Hospital prices are high because people who pay their bills (like me) have to make up for the losses hospitals incur when they treat the indigent, as they are required by law to do, and the idiots who just don't pay their bills. Tell people who can to pay their effing bills and ours will go down. Preventative care is available at little or no cost at county and state health departments and using medicare/medicaid. You can walk into any health department and say "I can't afford my baby's immunizations" and they will provide them. They treat AIDS patients for their preventative care. If it is something they can't treat, they HELP you get the medicare/medicaid coverage or state coverage to pay for it.

Doctors fees: You want them to go down, kill all the lawyers. Okay, don't kill them but make it really hard to sue for malpractice and put a cap on damage awards at actual medical costs. No punitive damages. The single largest expense a doctor has is malpractice insurance. Unlike any other business, where HR/personnel are the largest expense, malpractice insurance consumes the bulk of a medical practice's income. Maryland, which requires obscenely high levels of malpractice insurance particularly for obstetricians and gynecologists (the most commonly sued doctors), is now suffering a shortage of OB/GYNs. Most of my friends who live in Maryland have to come to DC or Virginia for for obstetric or gynecological care.

Drugs: Do some research. The cost of developing new drugs runs into the billions. Those are costs not underwritten by any income being generated by the work performed. There is no guarantee that the pharmeceutical research done will produce useable results andin fact, most don't. That's why it is research and not development. The only way to recoup expenses is to charge for the drugs after the fact. Even this wouldn't be that expensive if other countries *cough*Candada*cough* abided by international trade agreements and did not encourage and even fund the reverse engineering of US-developed pharemeceuticals. Then these companies who incurred NONE of the expenses required to discover, develop and test the medications sell it for a profit.

Bill other nations for their citizens's care? That is a huge laugh. Mexico's government has a known policy of telling its citizens point blank to illegally enter the US and use our medical and welfare services because they can't afford it (they could if they'd develop the oil resources they are sitting on top of). Entire hosptials in El Paso have gone out of business treating illegal immigrants and getting NO payment for those services. Those hospitals closing equaled the loss of a thousand beds and a severe strain on the remaining hospitals to provide coverage to US citizens and those illegal immigrants you so blithely advise treating and futilely sending a bill to a government that doesn't repay the debts it already has.

We already pay taxes. We already pay a far to large a percentage of our income in taxes, so much so many people in many areas can't afford their own homes or topay their bills. My family is clearly in the middle middle class income range. Between my boyfriend and I, 46% of our income goes to pay federal (including SS and medicare/medicaid taxes), state and local taxes. You can't just look at what is withheld from a person's paycheck. There are property taxes, which in many areas far exceed the amount someone pays ontheir mortgage in several months. Ours on a townhouse--not even a house with a real yard--is equal to four mortgage payments, about $8000 a year. There are retired and elderly homeowners in this area who've been forced to sell their already paid for homes because the tax rate is a financial burden on them. Essentially, the government forced them into foreclosure. Sales taxes are 5% of everything we buy at the store. On big ticket items like vehicles, it is much more. On average, that sales tax can come to 5% or more of your annual income.

Just how exactly do you propose I keep a roof over my family's head, food on the table and the utilities on if I have to pay still more taxes to cover the expenses of people who refuse to take responsibility for their own wellbeing? would you like me to bleed out a few thousand more dollars. I'm pretty sure I can tap a vein somewhere.

The answer to the US's health care problem does NOT involve screwing up the health care people already have. Obama's plan would force my company to charge me far more than I am already paying for my insurance and the amount of care I receive would go down. I would also have to wait far longer to get it. Medicare and medicaid are so badly run that they are not sufficient; however, no governement run program will. We can do better, but not much. I dare anyone to come up with a federally run welfare program that is cost efficent, works as intended and actually does a good job.

Allow small businesses to form coalitions to purchase health care insurance. Most states prevent this. Insurance is like anything else--if you buy in bulk, it is cheaper. Allow people who can afford their own health care without insurance to forego purchasing it (Massachusetts requires all individuals to buy insurance, whether they want or need it).

Reform the punitive legal system that puts an unfair financial burden on those who practice medicine. Cap lawsuit awards, require that lawsuits actually have merit. Sometimes people die, even if you do everything right. Stop allowing peope to sue over every damned thing. Cap the cost of malpractice insurance. It should still be required because sometimes people do screw up, but it should never force doctors to leave their state to practice elsewhere because it is too costly to stay.

Some insurance reforms are needed. It should be easier to change insurance companies and maintain continuous coverage. it should be easier to purchase. The laws regarding it should be clearer. The example about the two insurance comapnies pointing the responsibility at the other for careis aperfect example. Both parents should not have had coverage on their children. One or the other should have because you can only have one primary carrier. Multiple primary carriers results in no one being responsible for coverage because technically the company is right. As long as some other company is also designated as primary, one company can deny coverage. Unfortunatley, it takes an army of lawyers to figure that out. How on earth can the average person figure it out. Two policies, twice as much coverage, right? I got lucky and many years ago had an employer who told me that and helped its employees wade through that kind of quagmire. Not all employers have those kind of resources.

The solution is not socialized health care. France and Canada are proving that every day.

[Mithran]

More "lies" from the "right"

/via Instapundit

The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States.

-- Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts
completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg
amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and
$1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the
evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient
follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation.
Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for
this service.

-- Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon's decision to
remove a child's tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of
money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were
dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons
make decisions about recommending operations based on what's right for
the patient.

We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009...ff_a_leg_1.php

I wonder if I could find any misunderestimates from the Right.

Like:

Iraq being behind 9/11 or their WMD.

The question regarding the amputation has more to do with it making more sense to have the test than to lose the leg. Surely the American College of Surgeons doesn't disagree with this premise.

[baddax]

Spot on. 25% of costs are from tests doctors order merely to protect themselves from greedy lawyers. But you won't see tort reform, as the Trial Lawyers Association is in cahoots witht the Democrat Party. Just look at what John Edwards did to medical practice in his home state.

So this idea of "tort reform" is new to the last 6 mos????

[baddax]

Why is it no one will address the "Working Poor?". specifically those who can not afford the health care provided Or there Is no health care provided???
what do we for this class of people?

[baddax]

Government run health care leads to rationing.

/via Instapundit

A MUM suffering chest pains died in front of her young son hours after being sent home from hospital and told to take painkillers.

Debra Beavers, 39, phoned NHS 24 twice in two days before getting a hospital appointment. But a doctor gave what her family described as a cursory examination lasting 11 minutes, before advising her to buy over-the-counter medicine Ibuprofen.

Seven hours later, the mum-of-two collapsed and died from a heart attack in front of her 13-year-old boy.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/sc...6908-21567473/

Sidebar: I'm still laughing that anyone would put Public Schools up as an example in favor of government control of health care. Even the politicians who support public schools won't send their kids to one. You can be sure the same stadard will apply to the health care model - if you're connected, you get the best treatment available. If not, you get sent home with Advil and die.

/Sidebard
So now all govenment programs Shoud be Discontinued???
what no milityary? no police force? no Boardered patrol? No regulatory agencies of any kind? yes that is very funny!!
Yes and while we are at it Eliminate public schools.

[Fenrisulven6]

I wonder if I could find any misunderestimates from the Right. Like. Iraq being behind 9/11 or their WMD.

Well, you're not very informed. No one said Iraq was behind 9/11. Even Bush said that Iraq was not an imminent threat, only that we could not afford to wait for it to become one. As for WMDs, be sure to include the intelligence agencies of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Israel, China... as well as every ranking Democrat in the House and Senate. And Bill Clinton.

But as for more "lies" from the "right", here's another:

I'm not a Doctor, but I play one at Obama townhalls

http://patterico.com/2009/08/12/roxa...hall-meetings/

It doesn't bother you that these events are staged and scripted, with softball questions from "citizens" who are not only Obama supporters, but actual delegates of the Democrat party?
Or that the media decides for you that you don't need to know that information? While you complain about FOX, no less.

Here's a clue: try to discuss the merits of Health Care reform without making it partisan.

[Mithran]

Well, you're not very informed. No one said Iraq was behind 9/11.

It was actually **** Cheney (formerly known as Vice President).

Meanwhile, it's not the intelligent discussion that bothers me as much as the shouting down of people that I'd previously seen.

[Mithran]

It isn't communist, it is unsustainable. There is no way that a country of any shape or size can sustain a free healthcare system for its citizens. European countries are having to CUT benefits to thei citizens because they cannot impose taxes high enough to cover the costs without putting all their citizens out on the street. My step-mom is Canadian and she brings her parents to the US to get health care (and pays for it) because it is impossible to get a bed in a hospital for them. Her mother was told she'd have to wait 18 months to get a hip replacement and she't have to go to Toronto to get it. They're from Vancouver. She was in constant pain and confined to a wheel chair. Tt took 15 days in the US to get all they pre-op exams done and get the surgery. In less than 10 days, she was up and walking again.

Insurance companies don't kill people, they save them. Health care insurance is no more evil than car insurance. You pay the premium as an investment knowing that the return only happens if you require care and knowing that the return on your investment will be exponential to your investment. My uncle blew out his knee last month. He's had two surgeries, a hospital stay and numerous follow ups and will require physical therapy. Grand total to date (w/o the therapy because it hasn't started yet): $60k. What he paid out of pocket: 20% with a cap on out of pocket expenses of $5k. His 20% was $12k, but he only pays $5k. His premiums paid to his employer over the years he worked there: roughly $15 for him and his wife and they've used their benefits the whole time as well.

Without insurance, medical costs would actually go up because more people would be unable to afford their expenses. Do you have $50k lying around doing nothing in case you blow out your knee?

HMOs are evil because they allow non-medical personnel to determine what medical is necessary for a patient. That is my one concession to your argument.

My biggest problem is your assumption that a) medical care itself is a right and b) rights are free. Technically, if it isn't in the Constitution, it isn't a right (see "right" to privacy). Allowing a looser interpretation of "rights," the right is to access to medical care. You don't have the right to pick my pocket for your medical care anymore than I have the right to pick yours. No one should be denied medically necessary health care because they can't afford it (and they aren't); however, should someone be able to pay either because they can or because of insurance, they should.

Billing: The reason you pay $7 for a bandaid is because 15 other people went to the hospital and DID NOT pay for their band aids. Hospital prices are high because people who pay their bills (like me) have to make up for the losses hospitals incur when they treat the indigent, as they are required by law to do, and the idiots who just don't pay their bills. Tell people who can to pay their effing bills and ours will go down. Preventative care is available at little or no cost at county and state health departments and using medicare/medicaid. You can walk into any health department and say "I can't afford my baby's immunizations" and they will provide them. They treat AIDS patients for their preventative care. If it is something they can't treat, they HELP you get the medicare/medicaid coverage or state coverage to pay for it.

Doctors fees: You want them to go down, kill all the lawyers. Okay, don't kill them but make it really hard to sue for malpractice and put a cap on damage awards at actual medical costs. No punitive damages. The single largest expense a doctor has is malpractice insurance. Unlike any other business, where HR/personnel are the largest expense, malpractice insurance consumes the bulk of a medical practice's income. Maryland, which requires obscenely high levels of malpractice insurance particularly for obstetricians and gynecologists (the most commonly sued doctors), is now suffering a shortage of OB/GYNs. Most of my friends who live in Maryland have to come to DC or Virginia for for obstetric or gynecological care.

Drugs: Do some research. The cost of developing new drugs runs into the billions. Those are costs not underwritten by any income being generated by the work performed. There is no guarantee that the pharmeceutical research done will produce useable results andin fact, most don't. That's why it is research and not development. The only way to recoup expenses is to charge for the drugs after the fact. Even this wouldn't be that expensive if other countries *cough*Candada*cough* abided by international trade agreements and did not encourage and even fund the reverse engineering of US-developed pharemeceuticals. Then these companies who incurred NONE of the expenses required to discover, develop and test the medications sell it for a profit.

Bill other nations for their citizens's care? That is a huge laugh. Mexico's government has a known policy of telling its citizens point blank to illegally enter the US and use our medical and welfare services because they can't afford it (they could if they'd develop the oil resources they are sitting on top of). Entire hosptials in El Paso have gone out of business treating illegal immigrants and getting NO payment for those services. Those hospitals closing equaled the loss of a thousand beds and a severe strain on the remaining hospitals to provide coverage to US citizens and those illegal immigrants you so blithely advise treating and futilely sending a bill to a government that doesn't repay the debts it already has.

We already pay taxes. We already pay a far to large a percentage of our income in taxes, so much so many people in many areas can't afford their own homes or topay their bills. My family is clearly in the middle middle class income range. Between my boyfriend and I, 46% of our income goes to pay federal (including SS and medicare/medicaid taxes), state and local taxes. You can't just look at what is withheld from a person's paycheck. There are property taxes, which in many areas far exceed the amount someone pays ontheir mortgage in several months. Ours on a townhouse--not even a house with a real yard--is equal to four mortgage payments, about $8000 a year. There are retired and elderly homeowners in this area who've been forced to sell their already paid for homes because the tax rate is a financial burden on them. Essentially, the government forced them into foreclosure. Sales taxes are 5% of everything we buy at the store. On big ticket items like vehicles, it is much more. On average, that sales tax can come to 5% or more of your annual income.

Just how exactly do you propose I keep a roof over my family's head, food on the table and the utilities on if I have to pay still more taxes to cover the expenses of people who refuse to take responsibility for their own wellbeing? would you like me to bleed out a few thousand more dollars. I'm pretty sure I can tap a vein somewhere.

The answer to the US's health care problem does NOT involve screwing up the health care people already have. Obama's plan would force my company to charge me far more than I am already paying for my insurance and the amount of care I receive would go down. I would also have to wait far longer to get it. Medicare and medicaid are so badly run that they are not sufficient; however, no governement run program will. We can do better, but not much. I dare anyone to come up with a federally run welfare program that is cost efficent, works as intended and actually does a good job.

Allow small businesses to form coalitions to purchase health care insurance. Most states prevent this. Insurance is like anything else--if you buy in bulk, it is cheaper. Allow people who can afford their own health care without insurance to forego purchasing it (Massachusetts requires all individuals to buy insurance, whether they want or need it).

Reform the punitive legal system that puts an unfair financial burden on those who practice medicine. Cap lawsuit awards, require that lawsuits actually have merit. Sometimes people die, even if you do everything right. Stop allowing peope to sue over every damned thing. Cap the cost of malpractice insurance. It should still be required because sometimes people do screw up, but it should never force doctors to leave their state to practice elsewhere because it is too costly to stay.

Some insurance reforms are needed. It should be easier to change insurance companies and maintain continuous coverage. it should be easier to purchase. The laws regarding it should be clearer. The example about the two insurance comapnies pointing the responsibility at the other for careis aperfect example. Both parents should not have had coverage on their children. One or the other should have because you can only have one primary carrier. Multiple primary carriers results in no one being responsible for coverage because technically the company is right. As long as some other company is also designated as primary, one company can deny coverage. Unfortunatley, it takes an army of lawyers to figure that out. How on earth can the average person figure it out. Two policies, twice as much coverage, right? I got lucky and many years ago had an employer who told me that and helped its employees wade through that kind of quagmire. Not all employers have those kind of resources.

The solution is not socialized health care. France and Canada are proving that every day.

You roll to save against Wall of Text. You roll a 20 (+32). You fail!

[Fenrisulven6]

So now all govenment programs Shoud be Discontinued???
what no milityary? no police force? no Boardered patrol? No regulatory agencies of any kind? yes that is very funny!!

Only whats provided for in the Constitution, baddax.

Yes and while we are at it Eliminate public schools.

Well, considering how easily you jumped to the conclusion that anti-gov healthcare = anti-gov everything, maybe thats not such a bad idea. Do you feel you are served well by the education you got from public schools?

[Fenrisulven6]

It was actually **** Cheney (formerly known as Vice President).

Wrong again.

[...]


RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.

RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

CHENEY: We don't know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn't have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we've learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW [biological weapons] and CW [chemical weapons], that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in '93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of '93. And we've learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in '93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we've had the story that's been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we've never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know.

[...]

Mithran, You're quickly losing crediblity as anything but a kneejerk partisan.

[Snorificus]

It costs far more to treat individuals in the emergency rooms in hospitals for both life threatening and non-life threatening ailments when they DO NOT have insurance, as opposed to having some kind of basic coverage that would allow an individual to receive treatment from a local physician. Under the current system, county and state hospitals, by law, cannot refuse a patient treatment based on their inability to pay.

This program should not be designed to reward "people who choose not to work" with healthcare, rather, to provide basic coverage to those who could not afford it otherwise.

[Mithran]

Only whats provided for in the Constitution, baddax.

Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

[Mithran]

Mithran, You're quickly losing crediblity as anything but a kneejerk partisan.

Little less projection please, there.

[Fenrisulven6]

Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Heh. Do you even comprehend what that means? There is no "right" to free health care.

[Fenrisulven6]

Mithran, You're quickly losing crediblity as anything but a kneejerk partisan.

Little less projection please, there.

Hey, you're the one who's making up stuff about Cheney, while complaining about "lies" from the right. Not me.

[baddax]

Insurance companies don't kill people, they save them. Health care insurance is no more evil than car insurance. You pay the premium as an investment knowing that the return only happens if you require care and knowing that the return on your investment will be exponential to your investment. My uncle blew out his knee last month. He's had two surgeries, a hospital stay and numerous follow ups and will require physical therapy. Grand total to date (w/o the therapy because it hasn't started yet): $60k. What he paid out of pocket: 20% with a cap on out of pocket expenses of $5k. His 20% was $12k, but he only pays $5k. His premiums paid to his employer over the years he worked there: roughly $15 for him and his wife and they've used their benefits the whole time as well.
.

And 5k is a good thing???

Without insurance, medical costs would actually go up because more people would be unable to afford their expenses. Do you have $50k lying around doing nothing in case you blow out your knee?

.

This is very true AND one of many reasons Why Health care Costs are sky rocketing!
Specifically the Uninsured And the Working Poor!

HMOs are evil because they allow non-medical personnel to determine what medical is necessary for a patient. That is my one concession to your argument.
.

And HMO's Are a specific Kind of Insurance company.

My biggest problem is your assumption that a) medical care itself is a right and b) rights are free. Technically, if it isn't in the Constitution, it isn't a right (see "right" to privacy). Allowing a looser interpretation of "rights," the right is to access to medical care. You don't have the right to pick my pocket for your medical care anymore than I have the right to pick yours. No one should be denied medically necessary health care because they can't afford it (and they aren't); however, should someone be able to pay either because they can or because of insurance, they should.
.

This is WHAT govenrments do, This is ALL that governments DO.... They do no generate income like a buisness. They are Money Transfers. Without the shared wealth of Government taxes The United States of America Would cease to exist!!

Billing: The reason you pay $7 for a bandaid is because 15 other people went to the hospital and DID NOT pay for their band aids. Hospital prices are high because people who pay their bills (like me) have to make up for the losses hospitals incur when they treat the indigent, as they are required by law to do, and the idiots who just don't pay their bills. Tell people who can to pay their effing bills and ours will go down. Preventative care is available at little or no cost at county and state health departments and using medicare/medicaid. You can walk into any health department and say "I can't afford my baby's immunizations" and they will provide them. They treat AIDS patients for their preventative care. If it is something they can't treat, they HELP you get the medicare/medicaid coverage or state coverage to pay for it.
.

So a homeless person who gets hit by a truck should just lay there and DIE?? So the paramedics shoudl run his insurance Before they pick anyone up and take them to the hospital?

Drugs: Do some research. The cost of developing new drugs runs into the billions. Those are costs not underwritten by any income being generated by the work performed. There is no guarantee that the pharmeceutical research done will produce useable results andin fact, most don't. That's why it is research and not development. The only way to recoup expenses is to charge for the drugs after the fact. Even this wouldn't be that expensive if other countries *cough*Candada*cough* abided by international trade agreements and did not encourage and even fund the reverse engineering of US-developed pharemeceuticals. Then these companies who incurred NONE of the expenses required to discover, develop and test the medications sell it for a profit.
.

So now its Canadas fault also. Lets see Indigent, Lawyers and Canada are to fault for our health care.got it.

Just how exactly do you propose I keep a roof over my family's head, food on the table and the utilities on if I have to pay still more taxes to cover the expenses of people who refuse to take responsibility for their own wellbeing? would you like me to bleed out a few thousand more dollars. I'm pretty sure I can tap a vein somewhere.
.

How much do you currently pay for your medical insurance? I pay 6% of my income to my employers health care plan. not including deductables, copays and prescriptions drug premiums. When i started where i worked (8 years ago) i paid nothing! and had better insurance. If you do not pay for your insurance trust me your employer will be knocking crying "Our Premiums are to high!!"

The answer to the US's health care problem does NOT involve screwing up the health care people already have. Obama's plan would force my company to charge me far more than I am already paying for my insurance and the amount of care I receive would go down. I would also have to wait far longer to get it. Medicare and medicaid are so badly run that they are not sufficient; however, no governement run program will. We can do better, but not much. I dare anyone to come up with a federally run welfare program that is cost efficent, works as intended and actually does a good job.
.

Here i can agree with what you are saying. Governments are notoriously slow and inefficient. But i still believe they would be better than what we currently have.

[Fenrisulven6]

Obama Death Panels

THE PRESIDENT: ... I don't know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she's my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn't have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life - that would be pretty upsetting.

LEONHARDT: And it's going to be hard for people who don't have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

LEONHARDT: So how do you - how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

KAUS: He's talking about a panel of independent experts making end-of-life recommendations in order to save costs that have an effect at an individual level.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kau...ath-panel.aspx

If your grandparents are still alive and you haven't spent much time with them, better start now.

[baddax]

Only whats provided for in the Constitution, baddax.



Well, considering how easily you jumped to the conclusion that anti-gov healthcare = anti-gov everything, maybe thats not such a bad idea. Do you feel you are served well by the education you got from public schools?

So you are in favor of eliminating 90% of the federal government? including the military?!?!?
I missed anywhere in my posts that I said I went to Public schools???? Or maybe in your Arrogance you assumed that i must have since I have a Heart. Yes i can see how you could make that mistake.

In truth (as i am sure you can tell from my grammer and spelling) i spent little time in schools public or otherwise.One thing i did learn in my formal education was how to Spot an A!# Ho!@.....

[Mithran]

Mithran, You're quickly losing crediblity as anything but a kneejerk partisan.



Hey, you're the one who's making up stuff about Cheney, while complaining about "lies" from the right. Not me.

I'm not making stuff up. The tide of public opinion was flowing as Russert cited. What was Cheney's response? ". . .We don't know." Not: "Hussein wasn't involved," but as you quoted: "I think it's not surprising that people make that connection."

The underlying problem with American Health Care is that insurance companies (being the profit-motivated entities that they are) spend a lot of resources trying to deny claims and to avoid covering people who are likely to need care.

I could also get into the per capita expenses we are already spending, compared to those scary countries who already have a public option. We have public transportation that hasn't put the car companies out of business. I don't know why people think some accountability for American insurance companies is such a bad idea.

[baddax]

Obama Death Panels

THE PRESIDENT: ... I don't know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she's my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn't have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life - that would be pretty upsetting.

LEONHARDT: And it's going to be hard for people who don't have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

LEONHARDT: So how do you - how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

KAUS: He's talking about a panel of independent experts making end-of-life recommendations in order to save costs that have an effect at an individual level.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kau...ath-panel.aspx

If your grandparents are still alive and you haven't spent much time with them, better start now.

Ummm last i checked independent meant.....

1. Not governed by a foreign power; self-governing.
2. Free from the influence, guidance, or control of another or others; self-reliant: an independent mind.
3. Not determined or influenced by someone or something else; not contingent: a decision independent of the outcome of the study.
4. often [SIZE=2]Independent[/SIZE] Affiliated with or loyal to no one political party or organization.
5. Not dependent on or affiliated with a larger or controlling entity: an independent food store; an independent film.
6. 1. Not relying on others for support, care, or funds; self-supporting.
   2. Providing or being sufficient income to enable one to live without working: a person of independent means.
7. Mathematics.
   1. Not dependent on other variables.
   2. Of or relating to a system of equations no one of which can be derived from another equation in the system.
8. [SIZE=2]Independent[/SIZE] Of or relating to the 17th-century English Independents.

n.

1. often [SIZE=2]Independent[/SIZE] One that is independent, especially a voter, officeholder, or political candidate who is not committed to a political party.
2. [SIZE=2]Independent[/SIZE] A member of a movement in England in the 17th century advocating the political and religious independence of individual congregations.
3. [SIZE=2]Independent[/SIZE] Chiefly British. A Congregationalist.

[SIZE=2]independently[/SIZE] in'de·pen'dent·ly adv.