I think your idea that only “have a soul” if you support a national system is ludicrous. People without health insurance can and do receive healthcare. Hospitals cannot turn them away just because they cannot pay. As for the fiscal side of things, that is deathly important. Extreme case here: Government never “rights the ship” so to speak. The USA falls deeper and deeper into debt. Someday the liability on our loans will exceed the GDP to such an extent we will NOT BE ABLE to pay them back. In your situation you can just say oh well and file bankruptcy and start over. Unfortunately the bank gets your house and maybe your car. What of value does our government have to give? Alaska? Hawaii? Missouri? I mean scoff if you want, but seriously, someday we will be faced with some very tough choices. Me, I would rather pay a little higher taxes now, and have a lot fewer government programs now, and start making some headway on our loans. In small terms a $1,000 loan is alot easier to pay back than a $10,000 one. Not the least of which due to the interest difference between the two. Put that into the trillions and you get an idea about how much interest we are talking here.

National Debt clock: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Now I love and care about my fellow man/woman, but at some point you have to think about the unit as a whole. Sure we can cover all these people for the next 100 years, take care of their food and housing while we are at it, but at some point everyone could loose all.

(To get an idea about where my opinions come from, I am a fiscally conservative independent.)

Jazz: Greendreams' tired screeds against anything and everything that anyone who isn't a died in the wool liberal has ever proposed have already been taken to task. Failures in some instances of insufficient tort reform are not a basis to throw the baby out with the bath water. Most of his tirade is nothing more than a poor man's screed complaining about people who make more money than he does. He doesn't think there is a place for insurance companies in America. He probably doesn' think there's a place for banks who charge interest on loans, either. Everything should be free. ..snip..

Jazz, I don't think you've ever been directly insulting to me and I know I have not been to you. You don't know me at all, and your “screed” is just plain wrong about both me and the points I've raised. For instance

Failures in some instances of insufficient tort reform are not a basis to throw the baby out with the bath water.

“Tort reform” is a darling of the right, but with corporate control / excessive influence of both legislative and administrative branches, the right to sue for damages is our only recourse when inadequate laws or regulations allow incompetent or crooked people to hurt us or our families. The right uses outright lies, such as that in both the famous McDonalds coffee case and the famous Sears mower incidents, to mischaracterize 'outrageous' rulings. Our justice system establishes our right to have a jury of our peers to decide if we've been wronged and how much the wrongdoers should pay for their negligence, corruption or incompetence. Don't like that? Well you can easily move to someplace without jury-granted awards. Do you really want BIG GOVERNMENT to limit what our peers can decide, crippling a constitutional right for the benefit not of the people, but of the wrongdoers?

In any case, it is true that malpractice is a trivial part of health care cost. You think not, prove it! Here's what the CBO says:

“In short, the evidence available to date does not make a strong case that restricting malpractice liability would have a significant effect, either positive or negative, on economic efficiency, ” the CBO said.

And a 1999 study in the Journal of Health Economics found only tiny savings – less than three-tenths of one percent – when studying the cost of Caesarian sections in states with limits on lawsuits, compared to states without limits.

CBO: When CBO applied the methods used in the study of Medicare patients hospitalized for two types of heart disease to a broader set of ailments, it found no evidence that restrictions on tort liability reduce medical spending. Moreover, using a different set of data, CBO found no statistically significant difference in per capita health care spending between states with and without limits on malpractice torts.

BTW, CBO is headed by the former chief economist for Bush's Council of Economic Advisors

Most of his tirade is nothing more than a poor man's screed complaining about people who make more money than he does. He doesn't think there is a place for insurance companies in America. He probably doesn' think there's a place for banks who charge interest on loans, either.

Jazz, I'd bet you money that I have both made more and currently have more money than you. WAY more. I care about people who have not started half a dozen companies, managed dozens of people, made a ton working, made a ton more investing and are comfortably retired.

As I've pointed out many times, and you just admitted, insurance companies exist and thrive under single payer systems. And I've offered the proven facts that Medicare represents a 31-37% savings over insurance mediated costs, even in the toughest cases — old people, documented both by the government and by the insurance company trade association. Nothing you have suggested is even 5%, IS IT? As for banks and interest, I think by not supporting the bank bailouts you reveal the incosistency of your own argument here. I have no problem with, and have relied upon, loans both loans I've made with interest (to fund a friend's startup) and loans I've taken out and paid back with interest, including 8 mortgages.

In conclusion, Jazz, screw you, a55ho1e

” You don't expect me to repeat answers I've given to questions you've asked in another thread just because you ask the question again in a different thread, do you?”

Yes I expect an intelligent and in one piece commentary if I'm to bother to reply to it. If your too lazy to do that, why should I bother?

It looks like you were saying basically what I was around the patriot act so I apologize for misreading you. One of the things that also makes it a difficult debate is that first its hard to tell who are anti-gov about everything or anti-corp about everything or anti-free market about everything apart from those that just have a problem with this issue in one of those areas. The second problem is that then you have two different sets of pro-business people those that want to leave it to the free market to help business and those that want to take it off of business to make our country more attractive to employers. It makes it difficult because any of the two pro-business schools will go for one another's throats and I think you and me are a descent example. I want to make our citizens as healthy and educated as possible to attract employers but from a business point of view anything that takes the costs off their back is affordable but then you have to find a way to not have people bleeding in the streets but then you get another split between handing the poor money and handing the poor care or refusing to hand the poor anything. Repubs are discussing handing the poor money which makes it confusing and democrats are discussing keeping it free market which is confusing. I am anti-corp but not on one issue on all issues, it offends the libertarian in me but I really dont care if we have a mixture of the three, business, corps and gov all working to fix the problem or just one(I would prefer as many actors as possible actually) I only care that the costs come down or at least slow down and that we look hard at ways to ensure it ceases to bankrupt people.

Yes, I do, actually. You don't expect me to repeat answers I've given to questions you've asked in another thread just because you ask the question again in a different thread, do you?

” Leonidas-Why is it we always find that Franklin line when a handful of peoples profits are at stake and forget it when we are actually handing over our rights like with the patriot act?”

Suffice it to say, you don't know me at all. I was a vocal critic of the Patriot Act.

A couple of things I posted at the main forum I frequent to give you an idea

From March 20, 2007

” This just goes to show the value of an opposition party in Congress, the Republicans allowed this type of stuff to go on with little oversite and now that we have it all kinds of things are turning up. Maybe one day rule of the WhiteHouse and Capital Hill can still keep watch over itself, but judging from recent history we are better off with a division of power, at least until we put enough people in Congress who are willing to cross party lines when good governance requires it, or a President who can reach out to the opposition even when he has the majority.”

From July 9, 2006

” It is right and proper to be concerned about the attacks on 9/11 but we shouldn't let al-Queda dictate who we are as a people by their cowardly attacks. We are better than that. Paying back the motherf***ers who did this is a correct response, lashing out blindly is not. Taking precautions to secure our nation from future attacks and changing legislation to achieve this is proper, violating and side-stepping around legislation is not. Standing up for American ideals knowing that our freedoms and way of life is the ultimate weapon in “The War on Terror” which our foes cannot defend against is right, disarming ourselves of this weapon to fight on their level is not.”

April 11, 2007

“I think the job of the FISA courts is to make such determinations, not the intelligence agencies. Letting them be the ones who decide if a cout order is eeded, is like giving a crack addict the keys to the room where drug bust evidence is stored.”

December 22, 2005

” I think that the Patriot act should be scapped and more appropriate laws and specific laws be written to replace what is necessary with the proper safeguards included. This likely can't be done immediately so an extension is not a bad idea giving lawmakers time to iron out what exactly needs to be done. However, I'd like to see a very temporay checks on abuses included with any extentions at this time as the Patriot act has definately been used for purposes other than its origional intent.”

and finally August 6, 2007

” Refresh my memory.

Perhaps I did call the Patriot Act unConstitutional, I don't recall doing so, but its entirely possible. If I did it is not really unConstitutional and I was in error, it is only unPatriotic.”

As you can see I don't carry the double standard you suggest.

None of the Democratic and Republican proposals will get us remotely close to such a system.

A problem with the “public option” is that it provides employers with an incentive to scrap their current insurance coverage and assume a “tax” for that action. I am reasonably confident that my previous employer) will take that option as it was paying in excess of 20% of my salary towards my coverage (self and dependent) and will only incur an 8% “tax”. I expect that will be the case for many employers. If that transpires, I will also lose my coverage as I participate in a pool with the active employees, albeit I pay the full premium. In which case, I will end up in the public option. If, as expected, many or most employers opt out of providing health insurance to their employees, many health insurance providers will disappear. Health insurance companies play a vital role in the French system because they are available to fill the gaps in their system. This is an important safety valve. Canada, for example does not permit private health care in competition with the government owned and operated system, so the US health care system currently is their de facto safety valve.

One of the reasons health insurance is so expensive is that health care providers look to health insurance to pay for all of the slackers in the system. This includes people that use health care services but lack any coverage, people who use bankruptcy court to discharge large medical bills, the medicare program (which only currently reimburses a small portion of the charges in my state) and that portion of the medicaid program expenses which are covered through fee-for-services rather than ongoing HMO coverage.

In my state, the bulk of health insurance coverage is provided by HMOs which must be non-profit per statute. By the way, this statute is not a silver bullet. Our state health insurance costs are larger than many states that permit for-profit health insurance coverage. Not surprisingly, non-profit HMOs operate very much like a cooperative for health care providers. The non-profit requirement has significantly reduced the number of health insurance providers in this state as has been the experience of other states that have imposed well-intentioned requirements on health insurance companies.

Assuming, (a) the “public option” elbows out much or all of private health insurance down the road and (b) reimbursement rates are equivalent or comparable to Medicare, many or most health care provider networks will become insolvent. If that develops, we will have a health care crisis that makes the current one look like a tempest in a teapot. .

“Hmmm . . . don't most states now require car insurance of some kind? “

Nope not a one does. The only requirement for car insurance if if you wish to drive. You can wlak, ride the bus, catch a train, catch a plane, ride with someone else, etc., all without car insurance. You only pay for car insurance if you use the driving priviledge.

A public option is asking you to pay for car insurance even though you don't have a car for anyone who would not use such an option. We already have examples of this however, one's I'm opposed to. The easiest to cite is Public education. Why should people who send their kids to private schools be forced to pay for educating someone else's children? Why should people without children be forced to take on a share of a parent's responsibility to provide and education for their children.

Wannabe_Centrist wrote:
“Millions of us have seen first hand the stubbornness of big insurance in helping out people who have paid for insurance and are sick to death of it.

Millions of us have also seen first hand seen the stubbornness of big government in helping out people who have paid for Social Security and are sick to death of it. Example, I have neighbors who are losing their house. Why, you might ask? This is an older couple who have worked their whole lives, paid into the system, raised their children and were working toward their retirement. Today, their reality is that the husband was recently diagnosed with cancer and can no longer work. Since he earned the lions share of their income they are trying to sell their house before foreclosure. This man has been given less than 6 months to live and is fighting the cancer with chemo and radiation. I personally would define someone with less than 6 months to live and unable to work as “Disabled.” Yet, big government disagrees and has denied him Social Security Disability benefits. This is just one example, I personally know of others. So when you point your fingers toward Big Insurance, you must know that Big Government is performing just as badly or do you conveniently ignore this fact. This is why I am not in favor for a public option. The Left's assertion in all of this debate is that Big Government can do it better than Big Insurance. Yet in all of the Big Government programs I am aware of there is absolutely no evidence of this being the case. Big Government has not proven to me that it is capable of doing it better than Big Insurance!! I do not oppose the public option out of hand because I am morally inept as some would suggest. I have as much concern for people as anyone and want to see health care affordable for all people regardless of their income.

Wannabe_Centrist then wrote:
“Health insurance's number one goal should be to help every person who is suffering that is under there plan, which they are not.”

As pointed out in the example of my neighbor, the same goal should also be number one for Big Government yet we all know that Big Government has also miserably failed. I would argue that Big Government and Big Insurance are figuratively speaking one and the same thing. Big ineffective Bureaucracies!!

I personally do not see any of the proposals that I have heard or read about fixing anything. They are simply politicians beating their chests saying “Look at me, look at what I am trying to do for you!” If they were truly concerned about us then they would put forth legislation that would actually fix something. The truth is that both D and R are all in the back pockets of the Lobbyists (Insurance in this case) and all of the plans IMO retains the status quo for the Insurance Companies.

Seems like every study suggests the opposite, costs will go up dramatically with a public option, the difference is you wont be paying them, your children will as the deficit grows larger.