zrocks, the point is not to add red tape bureaucracy but to provide a non-profit alternative. As I wrote above:

"depending on what reports you read (the reference I have is two Harvard medical economists) we waste about $350 billion a year - about 2% of GDP - that we wouldn't spend if we had universal health insurance. Insurance company risk evaluation is a huge waste and a drain on the system.

It's not that I have anything against anyone making a profit, it's that it serves no public good in this case. Not everything should be for profit."



Now, ideally I'd be in favor of a single payer system - meaning the insurance companies are gone - because I don't believe that medical insurance needs to make a profit. But that's not possible politically, so the next best thing is a public option to force the price down and change the game.

Note that this is not socialized medicine - as they have in the UK for example - because the doctors don't get paid by the government. It's a national health insurance program.

So changing the way healthcare is financed is the central part of it. There's a lot more to the proposal, of course, including preventative medicine. Given that something like 16% (if I remember right) of our healthcare expenses are related to what and how much we eat - obesity, diabetes, congestive heart disease - that seems like a great move.

Obviously we all make choices about our health. Some are not good, over-eating, smoking, drinking, taking risks (e.g. Evel Knievel). But to suggest that health care is the problem of the individual and a private matter is to ignore reality. I don't have any children, yet I pay taxes so other people's children can get an education. I've never had a serious car accident, yet I pay into an insurance system that pays salaries and cover's other people that do - it's the law that I have insurance. I don't personally use the public library much (my wife does), yet I pay taxes to support it. I've never had a fire in my house, yet I pay the firemen who put out other people's fires. Is this socialism? Tell me how health care is any different? We need to cover everybody. We need a national health care system and we need it now.

Of course it's socialism! But one dare not call it that or the crazies will shriek.

What do you think - men with knives are going to come snatch your plate?

fair enough

[/quote]

brilliant and perfectly put

Justin, I will not join up and I do not get sick - why would any sane person want to wish for that???? Or even more insane, plan for it????? I wonder if you'll get what you wish for???

30 years ago I was told by docters that in five years I'd be dead, terminal they said, I did not believe them and I'm still here. The last time I gave my Corvette flying lessons I was 40 feet over a service road as the vett went threw the guard rail. As I acknoledged that turning point in my life, I thought how great life was, my life and how I was excited to see the next, the car pulled itself back on to the road and finished the 360. That pointed out to me that being conscious and in the moment has some advantages.

You guys can look for the free hand out, but there is not one from the fed, only hooks that bind you to them filled with empty promisses. Just like our new prez. did to us before the election and everyone else that got there before him, that I can think of.

So you guys go ahead and think that if you do this expariment one more time, it will have a good reaction. I say your insane thinking that it will be differant, you have seen it fail to many times and NOTHING is differant.

I was just sick in bed last week with the stomach flu. I am definately sane but didn't want it. Just got it. No insurance and definately no pay that week...Sucks....

Where has it failed, yng?

And I'd hate to see your teeth if you never go to a dentist.

Why are private insurance companies needed at all?