What a SURPRISE!

[Excaliber]

He's not the first to try to reform it, won't be the last, heck if I know how to get it done.

[purespeed]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

He's not the first to try to reform it, won't be the last, heck if I know how to get it done.

How to get it done?

You know how to eat an elephant.....one bite at a time.

I would think that the first bite to take would be the one that saves the most lives. I don't know the answer to that, but if I were the President, I would make it my business to find that out.

Guess what my second bite would be? Yes, give that man a cigar! You know it be the the one that saves the second most amount of lives.

You jumped ahead to number three on the list didn't you?

But you what I wouldn't do....I wouldn't rile up the whole country.

[Ronbo]

Well the blame seems to be solely born on the insurance industry, but lets look at this...

The claim is the ins. co's profits are too high at 20% which means 80% of your premimums are going to cost, right? (look at the profit margins of a software company sometime) Figure in 10~15% overhead which I doubt the government will eliminate (if not increase). I doubt it's this low, since almost any doctor will tell you they need at least two people to just file paperwork.

Even at say 25% less, the uninsured won't pay it, they can barely feed the kids they shouldn't have had. (God forbid we ask the mothers to keep their legs shut) I'd love for some news outlet to actually go down to the getto to highlite the majority of these "underprivlaged".

Medical Insurance is expensive because medical care has advanced and is much more costly than in the past. Not to mention the booming malpractice business. (something government hospitals can't be sued for) The hospitals rape the insurance co's as well to make up for indiginent care they have to provide by law. (hmm, government involvement? say it ain't so!)

Improving your lot in life is pretty much your resposibility, this is just another hand-out to kill incentive to improve yourself. Reality is the "born out of poverty" crowd usually just cranks out the next batch of useless humanity. Sucks, but there's no way around the truth.

Sink or swim has an undisputable success rate, these "social experiments" don't.

[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.