I hadn't thought about the software. Good point!

Dave Schuler,

The examples I listed are only a FEW out of hundreds. Adding up the total settlements in those few cases doesn't indicate much.

Also (as with the Columbia HCA case), we aren't sure whether the companies paid as much as they'd taken from us taxpayers over the years (or decades). Usually, defendants settle cases for less than they truly owe.

My point is that it's an ice-berg's-tip situation. I view it in terms of opportunity cost: every dollar that goes to contractor waste or fraud is one less dollar for health care.

First, the word 'universal' throws them. That strikes me as extremely peculiar, since our problems with health care affect everyone, and this is decidedly a universal problem.

Many energetic fact finders don't recognize cost unless it's a number on a bill labeled plainly enough for a grade schooler to identify. Many of the current costs to each and everyone of us, though obvious, are not clearly labeled, however.

Consider the savings if the cost of a visit to a GP's office were affordable via insurance, jmaking a visit to the extravagantly expensive ER unneccesary. . That's a cost the most individualistic citizen pays today,.

Consider the cost to business when an employee can't show up for work because his originally minor health problem escalates to being a debilitating one because of lack of access to health care.

Consider the cost to our economy when, due to a lack of proper health care, people drop out of the ranks of contributing taxpayers to become dependent on government sustenance programs.

The most recent example of general economic cost is being played out in the recession death watch. Consumer confidence, is cited by every economist as a major factor. Yet, people's lack of confidence is partially based on their insecutiry about the effects of the next illness in their family.

Medical bills are a major factor causing bankrupcies
And do on and so forth.

I see the repetition of the same arguments on different issues.
Do something about global warming? 'The cost, the cost! ' we hear.
Meanwhile some communiteis are forging ahead with energy saving programs that prove to be quite cost effective over the course of some years. They reduce polution and improve health while doing their thing.

The trouble is, I think, that the demand for immediate profit, with the resultant aversion to undertaking any risk whatsoever has replaced long term investment strtegies in current economic culture. That, more than anything else, stifles innovation, creative thinking and progress.

Just as we pay to eat. Pay to drive our cars. Pay taxes. Pay for rent.

However I believe that in this country there is still a sincere lack of will to provide adequate health care coverage for the average American. The kind of health care coverage that exists in Canada or England or in other countries is not feasible in the United States.

Instead we should concentrate on providing preventative medicine, prescription drug coverage as well as Catastrophic coverage of say anything over 25,000 dollars with modest premiums of say 1 percent of your income based upon last years taxes. To pay for this we should institute a national one penny sales tax which is added to the states already current sales tax and then the proceeds are forwarded on to Washington.

In addition taxes should be raised for everyone on the order of about 3 percent which would pay for this type of coverage.

NO…….its not perfect. But until you actually get something on the books their will be 100 years of think tanks, books written, government studies, debates and when we finally come to a logical conclusion then we will have more debates, filabusters and on and on it goes.

Get it on the books, see how to pay for it then move on. Add to it, tweak it, change it but get it done.

Once we have it in place then we can address how to pay for the coverage gap. In the meantime people will get the health care they need because we have covered 3 of the 4 legs of the health care chair.

Should we pursue cases of waste, fraud, and abuse aggressively? Of course we should if only to deter future instances. But we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that we can pay for the plan by eliminating waste. We can't.

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