[fastd]

Given that the vast majority of Americans (I've seen 85-90%) are covered and satisfied with their healthcare insurance is an amazing statistic. How often can that be said of any kind of service received by the American public.

Does the American public have that kind of satisfaction level with the Post Office, Social Security, VA Hospitals, any other Government service? You know that Medicare and Medicaid is broke, don't you? That Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been a disaster? Why do you think Government healthcare is going to be run more efficiently? Why aren't the examples of Canada, UK, Cuba enough to those who think they support this?

This is an obvious play for the government to take over roughly 20% of the economy. If there were an sincere desire to increase coverage for the 10%-15% of the population that doesn't have adequate health insurance and keep costs down for the rest of those who do have insurance, we would be talking about a whole range of other alternatives to a government takeover: portability, catastophic coverage, tax incentives, other ways to change incentives, etc. But that is not happening. Why? Because the real goal for this administration is to redistribute wealth, have a government takeover of 20% of our GDP. Why is the this administation so opposed to be calling "socialist" (they actually do not want to take over the means of production, they just want to control it, tell them how much money they can make, how to manage their business, etc.); they are definitely not "capitalist"...are they something else?

What they will wind up doing is encouraging fraud, waste, mismanagement, contribute to the government monopolization of a critical industry, disincent R&D, encourage the rationing of health services in ways that the American public will absolutely hate.

One of the true embarrassments of this whole debate is the willingness of a large portion of the American public willing to give up many of the rights that American's have fought and died for for the last 200 years...

Constitutionally, if the court wasn't half full with activist jurists, HR 3200 or a similar public option health care would not pass the smell test.