The arguments are starting to get convoluted in regards to health care reform.

[mmonk]

We must cut benefits on the most effective plan called medicare why? Why not do away with the donut hole and the pharmaceutical give away and negotiate drug prices? Why not restore a progressive income tax instead of raising all the regressive taxes? Why not simply extend medicare down to say 40 or 45 years old? Wouldn't having or expanding a healthier population pool addition to Medicare drive the cost down? Why must we collect taxes for private enterprises such as private health insurers? We have Medicare and Medicaid.

That is why I have been for single payer. To make the most expensive least effective players the center model to reform makes the arguments convoluted and the cost speculations a guess at best. I'm getting more frustrated as the lies pile up and the rhetoric of the ignorant heats up and the confusion escalates. What ever happened to moral courage? It can't be bought by a health insurance lobbyist. Is everyone in Washington a prostitute? What in hell happened to real representative government?

[Captain Hilts]

1. The pharmaceutical give-away was the worst of both liberal and conservative 'solutions'. nt

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Doing away with the donut-hole, negotiating drug prices, cutting Medicare costs are parts of the

proposals I've read. We already collect Medicare taxes that go, in part, to private insurers(Part C). Have no idea what 'regressive taxes' you're talking about.

[mmonk]

4. Regressive taxes are those which local and state departments

of revenue and legislatures have to keep raising as we cut income taxes on the federal level. Therefore, subsidizing your county hospitals for uninsured care would be an example.

[Autumn]

5. Now they call them fees

I was at the DMV yesterday to renew my plates on my car, and while I was waiting two people in front of me left without their plates because they were fifty and seventy five dollars short due to a twenty five dollar a month late fee. My youngest daughter got caught in a hail storm and got six cracks in her windshield, she was driving the care home from Pueblo so her Dad could replace the windshield and got a ticket from a sheriff. The fine for a broken windshield was thirty five dollars and added fees of thirty four dollars for a total of sixty nine dollars.

[el_bryanto]

3. That's what happened last times

Everybody talked about health care, everybody agreed there was a lot of problems, then things got really confusing, the proposal failed and the White House looked like chumps.

It's all just a little bit of history repeating.

Bryant