[fastd]

Ex,

It is not that the other 15% don't have healthcare; they just may not have "adequate" healthcare. No one gets turned away from emergency rooms.

In addition, it is not clear that the number of uninsured is even close to the president's number of 47 million; depending on who you talk to it is closer to 15 million when you remove illegal aliens, people who can afford it but chose not to get it, etc.

Another reality is that, if/when the government lowers the quality of healthcare for everyone, more people on balance will be denied quality healthcare, and more people are likely to "die" (earlier) than before.

You blame the system for not giving health insurance to everybody now; what you are missing is that the healthcare system got so good over the last 50 years, that is saving so many more people now than it would have if a public option was instituted 50 years ago. People are surviving cancer, AIDS/HIV, luekemia, because of technical innovations and the high quality of care provided in the US. That's another reason why people come here from Canada, UK, France, etc. - they have to wait for their healthcare and when they get it, it is not as good as in the USA. You think that adding everyone to the health care pool is going to automatically increase or maintain the quality healthcare for everyone? By definition, it will not. The Government plan will definitely ration services; Obama is spending money at an unprecedented rate; Medicare/Caid is in the whole trillions of dollars; the CBO said there is very little cost savings likely to come out of this. If you take away incentives (which the Government option definitely does) for R&D to create cures for cancer, etc. you will be killing more people on balance over time. You will look back 20-30 years from now, at your kids and grandkids and have to apologize for not seeing the future clearly enough for them. Just because you felt sorry for the inadequately insured now...

The liberal argument that America is so rich that it can afford to give healthcare is bogus; we are trillions of dollars in debt. Sure it would be greater is everyone were rich, everyone had free healthcare, free rent, free food, free entertainment. The problem with the "free for everyone" arguments is that they do not work; it is not practical, we cannot afford it even if you take every last penny from every "rich" person out there. Please focus on ideas that can work.