Here's a better site for the extremist viewpoint.

http://www.pnhp.org/

I think a line should be drawn in the sand that enrollment mandates cannot be instituted if what is available is still based on a for-profit system.

If people don't want the public option (which they do in the majority) or a single-payer insurance (which is the most efficient and would mean our reps are in the same system we are), then we should at least draw the line at for-profit insurance companies.

Look at Minnesota. They ban for-profit insurance companies there, as does ALL of the industrialized world. As a result, their overhead is only 9 cents of every healthcare dollar – which is still nearly double Medicare's 5 cents and ten times of Canada's 1.5 but a huge improvement over the 20-30+ cents you see in other states using for-profit models.

People cannot afford to buy into the system as it exists at this time. And, there is just not one good reason to create policy which mandates a broken, for-profit status quo.

People talking about tort reform as healthcare reform are missing the lessons learned from it. Texas did it. Malpractice costs decreased a meager 1.5% (PA got something like 10.5% due to higher competition). There was no 'trickle down' to the patients. In fact, healthcare costs rose. Quality 'decreased precipitiously'.

There are other, safer ways to go after the nebulous 'defensive medicine' claims. It should start with finding out definitively what if any role it is playing here, but a complete, accessible medical record, physician time to consult and collaborate with other medical providers and standards of care are far more effective and reasonable. In addition, the single most important factor in whether a patient sues in the face of medical errors is their relationship with their MD. If the MD takes time to get to know them and develop a positive relationship and apologizes when mistakes are made, malpractice drops preciptiously instead of quality of care.

What is needed is change which creates a patient-centered system of care, not a corporate, shareholder, profit centered approach.

And let's not forget the role of unions in fixing the problems with labor in the 20's and 30's – though your point, JeffersonDavis is noteworthy in that it indicates that government intervention is not a dive into some socialistic hell.

Even today, healthcare costs are rising and insurance companies are defending their 'rescissions'. 12,600,000 people have been denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Others pay far more for policies. In the past 18 months alone, California's 5 largest insurers paid almost $19 million in fines for marooning policyholders who had fallen ill. That includes a $1 million fine against Health Net, which admitted offering bonuses to employees for finding reasons to cancel policies, according to company documents released in court. Insurance companies pay 1.2 million daily for lobbiests on Capital Hill. Their numbers are four times the number of our Congress. This money is apparently nothing to them compared to their profits.

Bottom line? This system is not a little broken and in need of a little tweaking. The problems are deeply rooted – and deeply embedded into our country, apparently. It requires fundamental reform.

If there is not the will for that in the US, that's a tragic thing for all of us. Good, responsible, hard-working people are in a world of hurt. All but the very rich are one lay-off or medical issue away from catastrophy. Others, like myself, sacrifise our health to preserve our healthcare while insurance companies profit. My career is my calling and yet…everything else in my life suffers because I have to keep my job to keep my insurance. Private practice is out of the question. So is relocation. So is taking a period off from employment to focus on long-neglected areas of my life. I can't imagine doing this for 20-30 more years. And I am one of the 'lucky' ones, so far…

As I've told my liberal brother, Father_Time, after he stated (correctly) that the healthcare system is set up to “rape the public for all you can get under the guise of free enterprise”:

we had the same situation with labor in the 1920's and 1930's (coal miners, steelworkers, sweatshops), where corporations raped the worker to maximize profits.

We fixed that problem, not through nationalizing the industries and adopting socialism; but through legislation and oversight through a newly created Department of Labor. Capitalism is still alive and well in those industries.

Similarly, socialism is not needed here. We could fix the problem through regulation and actually using the Department of Health and Human Resources for it's original purpose: overseeing and regulating the healthcare, health insurance, and pharmaceutical industries.