I have nothing against healthcare itself being for profit - within reason. It's health insurance that really shouldn't be. That's where all the money is wasted.

I don't begrudge a nurse who works 14-hour shifts overnight getting paid well, for example, or a specialist who doesn't start making money until he or she is 35 making an upper middle class living.

and Government involvement doesnt invite corruption?

thats the impetus (AP - the meaning of the word is driving force) of the difference here. One side doesn't trust government and the other side doesnt trust the private sector.

EWF wrote ...

Rather than waste our time debating the merits of government-run organizations as they currently exist, we should be figuring out how to make them run better.

agreed, but would add that its not just the governments issue.

Medical health insurance has not always been as it is - I think we have to see it in its historical context as well and why its needed.

SO then who???

WHo IS really making the money??


my nurse friends arnt.. and my doctor friends certainly arnt.. Its not as it used to be.

EWF,
In the wild west there wasn't an AMA yet, colonial America, we were under British control.????????????? How do those apply?

Now if your going to say Soverin or common law and 1913 income tax and social security, federal reserve - weasel the money away from us, by 'saying' they will take care of us if we give them trustieship over us, that would be way closer to the truth.

If anyone wants cheap med insurance, ya can't use the policy, just like car insurance, the more it is used the more it will be. Same with docters, the more we use them, the more they want to upgrade their pleasure boat or get a new BMW. Just like the building trade, no new houses, the prices for labor drop.

Actually, this one I have to correct you on.

As you know, one of my clients is in this business - the reason the junk mailers get reduced rates is because THEY must deliver the junk mail to the destinations distribution center. So, if a California (pisshole back at you) company wants to send junk mail to minneapolis, they must deliver the trays of mail, presorted by post office, to the distribution center in Minneapolis. They are paying that cost of transportation, therefore their reduced postage the USPS just has to cover the local delivery.

In reality, the junk mail actually subsidises OUR mail delivery (as cost reduction comes in quantity). The main reason their costs are going up so much is that the quantities are being drastically reduced - electronic billing / email / etc are killing the amount of mail they handle.

Of course, we disagree on just about every other issue, but this is the only one where I think it's a factual error as opposed to just a difference of opinions (even though yours, of course, is wrong

"WHo IS really making the money??"

Once again: THE MEDICAL INSURANCE COMPANIES! And it's the way they make money, which is the same as all insurance: by taking in more money than they pay out.

That's why a public health insurance program - Medicare for everyone - is so important. It doesn't make a profit, so it doesn't spend the money it takes to figure out how to deny care to people.

I hate YouTube links and I don't watch The Ed Show (even though I'm sure I agree with him, I resent it that our side puts on someone who looks like that ), but someone posted this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBi2hMK1G8Y

Joe,

Seen the junk mailer biz up close and personal. They do pre sort, not the post office. Usually done with a barcode reader, a 386 PC running some 1985 software that any first year programmer could write while wiping his ass.

You know local junk mailers use the airport facility.

In a time where government should aim toward cutting cost while offering a service, the Post Office is a dinosauer. Yet no one has the guts to demand modernization. This is a classic example of a good government program turning into rotten cottage cheese. Although Nick gets his mail every day at the appointed time, I do not. I get to meet my St Paul Neighbors and more often, my neighbors several blocks away in Minneapolis.

Delivery 3 day a week and everyone pays the same rate (even Congress).

How can I be wrong about the health care bill? It doesn't exist. How can my opinion be wrong? When I ask a question such as:

How much will I have to pay and what coverage do I get?

I get guys like Nick and the other putz with roadkill for brains, screaming venom.

Come on over with olguitar, we can hash it out like men over a cup of coffee then go throw eggs at the govenors mansion.

wow.. its a liberal Glenn Beck.. CAGE MATCH!! Let em go at it.

But seriously, they are doing the same thing as the other side in the same ways.
They start out by going after one guy because he makes huge bucks - just makes them look petty like all the rest of the talking heads

Ok Medicare for every one... which happens sooner or later anyway now.. but who pays for it?? Individuals?

My wife is on Medicare at 47 because of kidney failure. between that and Blue cross we eek by. We pay for it all. The difference in the bill is outrageous. The Money trading hands is a joke. The over all bill per month is over $30,000. The settled cost is $2000 and then Blue S pays $800 or so. But IF it wasnt the insurance company paying our part it would kill us.

The deregulation and loop holes are amazingly complicated.

SO who actually deregulated it?

Actually not anymore .. they have to get it all the way to the proper delivery distribution site now (BMC st paul, SCF Minneapolis, SCF minneapolis, sef waite park, etc.) They can't just dump it at the airports anymore. That's one of the things that keeps my client in business ... the junkers have to pay for pallets to each destination (of course, we can lift the pallets by hand, but the still pay the same rate as if it was 1 ton)

I don't really care if they cut saturdays, although I'm guessing that will put more people out of work.

Health care bill .. of course it exists - after all Palin say's it has death squads in it (that must have some real potent crack in Alaska - no wonder todd wants to suceed from the US)

The louder the health insurance industry screams about it, the more I know we need it. How absolutely corrupt they are, there can be no doubt. Of course they're screaming - look at the money they're taking in.

Joe,

I stand corrected.

I don't get my government bill information from Palin. From what I can see, everyone is screaming, no one is listening, details are non existent and you are an idiot unless you fall into lock step with one side or another.