OK, So gimme some Healthcare!

[fencesitter]

Will it happen? My insurance just went up about 45% upon renewal. I've shopped around but I'm resigned to the fact I have no choice but a high deductable policy that may keep me out of bankruptcy if I get sick, but will absolutely put me in deep debt. All I can afford, but I can't afford to get sick.

[ComerPerro]

1. it isn't gonna happen. We only have a slim majority

and Bush has veto power.

And even though the chickenshit has barely used it, you better believe he will veto anything that might actually help Americans.

[flamin lib]

2. I'm beginning to feel optimistic that the tide is turning on universal

health care.

I've had a couple of CEO types declare that it might be time for the Fed to take over. Costs are too high and making it hard to keep the bottom line up.

GM executives have said that every car has a $3-6,000 health care cost associated with it.

I spoke to a newly interned Doctor and he tells me it is almost impossible to pay off student loans. He has $150,000 in loans and the business model has changed. Once a new doc would work for HMO to build a practice and then take his patients with him. Not happening anymore as HMOs and insurance force patients to stay with their providers. HMOs and insurance setting cost of service and he can't make his loan payments! That means that the AMA will soon join the argument on our side.

That leaves the drug companies and insurance lobbies. When the pressure from business, medicine and grass roots reaches a tipping point things will happen.

[jpwhite]

3. possible state run health care?

I don't think a federally run plan would work. I think we could get a plan that is run by each individual state. Most people don't want to feel that their tax dollars are going to take care of someone else. If the plans were ran and funded by the states then we may someday be able to cover everyone. I am talking about a health care system that only covers the non-insured.

I am not sure how to handle the high deductibles or how to control certain costs, but it is a step in the right direction.

James
[e-mail]

[jwirr]

5. That is what we were hoping to do in MN but I don't know if it will

happen with plenty as a Governor.

[Greyhound]

6. The best proposals are not for a federally run health-care system,

but rather a federal payment system. Another suggestion, that comes from Dennis Kucinich, is to simply expand Medicare to include everyone. It is a well run and very efficient system that has the additional benefit of being administered by the "inefficient" government at a cost of 3% - 4% as opposed to the prevailing corporate model that suck 20% - 40% of our health care dollars out to support their bloated salaries and especially their bloated bureaucracy.

Any plan that excludes the insurance industry will prove to be a vast improvement over the negligent, shameful system we have now.

[mentalsolstice]

7. I've often wondered

...why Medicare isn't more open, because it's big problem (besides *'s prescription debacle) is future funding. It seems to me opening it up to younger, healthier uninsured would boost its coffers.

[BonnieJW]

8. And do you really think

this will happen with the blessing of Blue Cross, Kaiser Permanente, etc.? The health insurance/HMO industry is HUGE!!! It will never happen.

[Kber]

4. Private healthcare hurts american business

1. Big companies like GM or AT&T can barely stay competitive.
2. Small companies can't expand.
3. Startups become increasingly difficult because prospective business owners have trouble walking away from their own company subsudized healthcare
4. We have not always been the best at making widgets for the cheapest price or with the highest quality, but we've been pretty good at inovation and invention. Expensive healthcare puts a perminant speed control on it. Have the gov't provide healthcare / insurance and watch American business explode.

I don't really expect the gov't to put the needs of american people before business, but I don't understand why one industry, health insurance, gets special protection at the expense of the rest of the entire Americn economy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Join the club!

I had to up my deductible so high to be able to afford the monthly premiums that the insurance is useless for all but the most catastrophic conditions.

[a kennedy]

10. All I've ever wanted to know.......WHY HEALTH CARE IS FOR SALE??

:mad: :grr: :shrug: :cry: