in a related story ....100% of prison inmates prefer shorter prison sentences.

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I think at this point there needs to be a focus on an immediate increase in spending and I think this is a time when deficit fear has to take a second seat . . . I believe later on there should be tax increases. Speaking personally, I think there are a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax at a point down the road and recover some of the money."
-- Barney Frank, October 20, 2008

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

No, because it doesn't really add to the conversation. It's not really relevant, nor is it a likely scenario.

Unless you want to argue like Slon, of course.

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

It may not be a likely scenario, I'll agree, but it's most defintely relevant.

If the government has a repsonsibility that everyone has health care, then it also has a responsibility to ensure there are those who are capable of providing that health care...

Slon goes off on silly tangents.

My point is pertinent. If there are no doctors, then the government is unable to do the very thing you say they have a responsibility to do: provide health care...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

I don't know if this fits exactly into this particular discussion, but is what is proposed in the OP really insurance at all? I've read through this thread and see that some people think "national health insurance" should cover yearly check ups and other regularly scheduled preventative health measures. How is that insurance? I know those things are generally covered in private insurance plans, but it's a general issue I have with the common notion of what health insurance should be. Is it wrong to think that people should pay out of pocket for known future expenses? There's no way to "insure" anyone from known expenses that I know of. It would be like buying auto insurance that pays for oil changes, tire rotations, etc. It really doesn't make sense to me, and to call it insurance seems to muddle the issue.

I'll address other parts of the thread later, but I first wanted to comment on the broadest part of this topic that makes the least sense to me.

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"Some years ago I had a sobering realization about women, which was that there are just too many nice ones. One simply can't fall in love with, sleep with, or marry all the nice women...One of the saddening facts of life is that there is always going to be a delightful woman somewhere who, for whatever accident of timing or attraction, simply slips by and recedes to return only in a dream."
-Larry McMurtry in Roads

Of course doctors would support socialized medicine.It would be no different than gun manufactures supporting a law forcing citizens to buy a gun or medicine companies supporting a law forcing children to have certain vaccines in order to go to school or a company that makes energy saving lights bulbs supporting a law that bans traditional light bulbs.They stand to profit from such things

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"There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”—Theodore Roosevelt

uhm, as I said, there’s a reason folks in some states can cover themselves with pretty good coverage for less than 300.00, but the same costs over twice that in more heavily regulated states, that’s not a coincidence........before we throw what would be the second largest bureaucracy to the feds to manage, I think we owe it to ourselves to explore every avenue of free market mechanics. It can work, IF the state governments will get out of the way.

If you really want to explore a microcosm of the what fed. managed health coverage would look like, live in or study up on how its done in New York state. That’s not the way folks.

Oh and remember there’s a while other fight out there be had before this would go forward that no one in DC wants any part of- what would be eligible for coverage.

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

First of all, a lot of these preventative measures are hugelt expensive. Not everyone can afford two thousand bucks a year for a colonoscopy that an insurance company BTW, gets billed maybe five hundred bucks for. And that's just one procedure. Add up the cost for all the necessary annual screenings a person needs, especially after fifty y/o, & I can see a clear need for it to have it covered by insurance.

Secondly, preventative measures are exactly what the term implies... preventative. Get screened on a regular basis & you are much more likely to catch a serious illness in it's early stages when it is much more curable & much less costly to treat.

agreed-prenatal care for instance is hugely affective in reducing after birth ill effects due to lack of such before hand.
That’s one reason why pre natal care must be offered wholesale to illegal aliens.

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

The Democrats are just as guilty. Both parties are servile to corporate interests. If the Republican party didn't exist, we'd still have the healthcare scam we have now.

Only movements facilitate change. Relying on a party vanguard to look out for the peoples' interests is fool-hardy. The party itself only happens to try and keep in tune with the popular opinion and co-opt the goals so as to take credit for "giving" the people what they rightly deserve in the first place. The only problem is, both parties, the Democrats to a lessor degree, have to balance their popular sensitivities with the powers that hand them their seats. Make no mistake, Big Pharam and Insurance will not go down without a massive fight (this is their profits we're talking about; screw sick people). Some Democrats will fold and cater to their interests. Others, will happen to take a stand - but they will be a minority. That's just the Democrats I'm talking about. The Republicans have it a little easier; they make no pretense about caring for the people. They are regarded as the party of the elite and wealthy so they don't have to do as fine a balancing act.

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And $300.00 (per month) is not cheap, either. As amtter of fact, it's downright expensive, especially given the rising prices of everything else thanks to the rising price of gas. How much do you think your grocery bill is going to go up once gas & diesel fuel starts hitting the $6/7 per gallon mark? That "affordable" 300 a month is going to become quite dear.

Sure... let's spend another 40 or 50 years debating & redebating & examining every possible aspect of it under a microscope while poor & middle class working people continue to die or lose everything they've spent their lives working for from diseases that could've been cured relatively cheaply & easily had they been caught in time but weren't because these people couldn't afford to pay high insurance premiums or the outrageous fees charged by doctors & hospitals.

That sounds like an excellent plan.

Or better yet, why don't we take action, get a plan in place then adjust & refine it as we go?

How about federally subsidized insurance similar to the state subsidized plans in Massachusetts & California in which the government would do nothing but provide a subsidy for private health insurance?

Well, that's just a question of morality, not economics. It always amazes me that the people who champion "moral values" & "saving babies" are always the first ones to cry foul when it comes to spending that precious, precious money on saving babies & putting moral values into practice for the sake of dark skinned, non-English speaking foreigners.

WWJD? I guess as far as some are concerned he'd sneer at them & say "Go back home & get a job you foreign parasite."

Good ol Jesus.

I'd like to see citations for this please. The "6 months just to get a physical" meme is pure unadulterated myth.

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Agreed both sides take corporate campaign money including the health & pharmaceutical industries. I honestly believe that Democrats do so more out of necessity just to stay on the playing field than out of a desire to push those industries' agenda like the Republicans.

The Republicans as you implied, truly believe these companies ought to be legally allowed to gouge consumers for all they can squeeze out of us, & hence they get the lion's share of campaign contributions form corporations across the board.

But because a practically equal number of voters elect Democrats to public office as Republicans, corporate lobbyists are forced to play the other side of the field as well if they want to have any hope of getting their interests even considered by Democrats in Congress.

I do. Moral questions and how society exists aside, without preventative care which would be accessible to everyone, should somone develop a fatal illness - the costs are astronomical, and if that person can't pay, the costs are unloaded to the rest of us anyway.

Paying into a system regardless if one remains healthy, moral issues aside, is cost beneficial to everyone in terms of productivity and minimizing losses.

I'll dig up some information to back up my points. I hope you take the time to read the information I will present because it really does make sense to have a single-payer not-for-profit system.

Bear in mind, that people with insurance have trouble with the system as it exists now - not just the uninsured. People have gone bankrupt trying to pay for escalating medical costs - while having insurance. A "Healthcare" system that treats health as a commodity and puts profit before health is no "healthcare" system at all. It's a money making racket.

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