No, no, don't give me that victim stuff. You did not get bashed. You put your own self on a pedestal and told us you had more expertise/knowledge about the industry, and therefore knew better than us why it couldn't change.
I'm telling you, fine. For you, it pays your bills, because its your job, and I can understand you liking the status quo, or fearing major change, or whatever.
But I've lived my life without being able to afford a dentist or a visit to the doctor's, for more than three years now. Is that fair? Was I lazy? No, I needed food, and my boss gives me less and less shifts. Last time I went to the doctors, I had to pay 450 dollars just for blood tests.
The system is broken because tens of millions of people live in daily fear of becoming ill, or injured, and becoming a financial burden on their entire family.

So while I might not know how your employers work, administration-wise, I can tell you I've lived in France, where I had a family doctor. Who my parents had known for more than 15 years. Who knew all of my family's conditions, and knew how to treat them, and who would be able to prevent a lot of things from happening to us, just because we had one doctor we could trust with our health, and it was covered. And had we decided he wasn't good enough, we could have gone somewhere else.

Don't tell me it can't work. I've seen it work, and I'm sure there's more than just France who has gov't healthcare. The reason you think so is because you've only lived in a shitty for-profit system, where the MO is "make money."
The main objective should be to keep the people healthy, for the least amount of money possible. It's not something anyone should gamble and profit from.

Like any good business both are providing a service in which they are entitled to make a profit. I can't speak to what Insurance executives or hospital administrators are primarily about, but as an insurance agent I am about consulting with clients and making recommendations as to what would best benefit them and their families. Alot of my clients get into an "insurance poor" situation in which case I will try to disuade them from having their entire paycheck go towards insurance. I advise them to cover the basics: Health dental vision insurance first, Income protection in the form of short term Disability Ins, Life Insurance. If they feel they need additional protection I offer a variety of products from cancer to long term care(nursing home) ins. My number one concern is the clients well being, my second concern is commission. Admittedly not all insurance agents have this mindset but most do.

---------- Post added at 02:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:27 PM ----------


I never once stated that it couldn't change, only that I don't know how to change it. Nor did I say if you don't have health insurance you are lazy. I agree things can't stay the way they are, I agree things need to change. I'm just hoping they change in a way that won't leave me unemployed that's all. And your right I've never lived anywhere else the here, and I have no idea what any other countries system of healthcare is like.

I'm just stating my opinion that I don't think that we could switch to a single-payer system, totally abolishing insurance companies and all their employees, and have the government tell doctors and hospitals what they are allowed to charge for the services they provide without having serious drawbacks and consequences

story time, so you can maybe envision a system with fewer overhead costs.

My brother lived in France for a while. One night, he was out with his girlfriend, and a drunk guy started hitting on her. He told the drunk guy to cut it out as she had company. The drunk guy sucker punched him and ran away. It was a friday night. He went to the ER. The triage nurse talked to him and sent him to the appropriate doctor in the hospital, where he had an xray done, was diagnosed with a fractured nose, and the doctor tended to him and gave him pain killers. The fact that he didn't have to pay a cent is beside the point, the point is that in his entire visit to the ER he talked only to 1- a nurse, 2- the doctor.

I live in the US. I have good health insurance provided by my university, which gets good rates since they operate what is generally considered a top 10 hospital in the US.
Playing basketball at a private gym once, I rolled my ankle and severely sprained it. I went to the ER, where after talking to the admissions person I was sent to the person in charge of insurance. After giving them my insurance information, I saw the doctor and was taken care of. At the time I didn't have to pay anything as they sent the info to my insurance. A few days later my insurance called to ask me where I got hurt, and i told them. They decided to go after the gym's insurance company to get the money for my treatment. Long story short, to deal with my ankle sprain, the billing depts. of the hospital and 2 different insurance companies had to get involved, and legal action was threatened by all parts, so we are also talking about lawyer costs. From the point of view of my insurance company, it made sense, as it cost less to them to go after the other insurance company (especially given follow up appointments and etc) than it did simply paying for everything. From a societal point of view, we are talking about severe overhead costs that drive prices up very fast.

Most people have several opportunities to make things right during the right time of their lives. The difference is whether they see it or not. Likewise, many people try to push them in the right direction, but many are too hard-headed or scatterbrained to listen. That was me growing up. I was too hung up on my abused past to deal with the present, until I found motivation through that sense of needing to provide for the one I love. Plus, I knew I had to grow up sometime anyways. I dreaded the responsibilities I would be taking on. I feared losing the battle. I was in the process of going to trial and feared I would be in prison for a while. I got lucky because others saw my struggle and used their pull to keep me out of the worst, and I ended up with probation and a lenient fine and community service period. It helped that the judge was retiring as well.

I saw the opportunity and brought myself from failing every class but the sciences (I always enjoyed biology and the like) to passing every class. Others saw my attempts at reviving my education and helped, too.

See, it's not that the world is against you. The world is against you as long as you are against the world. When you actually try, people around you see that and help. If some illiterate boy tried to read and wanted to learn, people would help him. If he sits back and ignores english class and gets passed anyways, then people are failing him and he is failing himself. If a kid has a disability like I did, then he should be put in classes that handle his issue. In Houston I was put in special ed classes. In beaumont, the entire ISD was special ed. I was years ahead of my peers when I moved. That is a failure of the system, and IMO that should be fixed above healthcare.

Speaking of, back to healthcare. You do make an interesting point on the fact that they need it as much as anyone else. Ironic, because I had NO insurance at all until I started working in IT. I barely knew health insurance existed until I was out of college.

Maybe we could set tax bracket standards. If you're a professional bagger, you get gov't healthcare. If you're a banker, you get your own. I don't know what's best, this is not my area of expertise. I do know that I don't want my current system to change though. I don't want to be forced to go to the doctor that everybody else goes to. I want to choose my doctor. I don't want the gov't to give me a list to choose from, either. I don't want to pay for some else's healthcare, or their food, or their housing, or their medication for their addiction. I would gladly pay for AIDS education though, or sex education in general, or research into controlling tuberculosis. That is definitely a worthy cause for me. Feeding and treating a family of 5 because the mom's ultimate fantasy was to do every boy on her block is not what I wish to pay for.

---------- Post added at 01:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:44 PM ----------

Now I'm not going to lie, that is disturbing to me.

Bear in mind I have very little information to go on concerning what is planned in the upcoming proposals.

What I wonder is why we should somehow restructure our health care when the insurance is to blame. What if insurance companies were forced to work with people, or be sanctioned or dissolved? Just a thought.

Well, we're telling you that some of these systems in other countries work better, have less costs, and have more people covered. How about instead of only using what your personal experience tells you, you hear about how people in other countries do it, and why it might benefit many more people here.

I am listening, and I do know that other countries have different systems than we do. And their system may work for them, I don't know that it can in ours any time soon.

So, if it were up to you, what would you do?
Would you try and reform the system, or would you keep it as it is? From your perspective, what do you think is feasible? What do you think is impossible in the short term?

I took this from another site I post on.
 

10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted

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Posted on February 13, 2008
10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted
By Sara Robinson
TomPaine.com
February 5, 2008

2008 is shaping up to be the election year that we finally get to have the Great American Healthcare Debate again. Harry and Louise are back with a vengeance. Conservatives are rumbling around the talk show circuit bellowing about the socialist threat to the (literal) American body politic. And, as usual, Canada is once again getting dragged into the fracas, shoved around by both sides as either an exemplar or a warning — and, along the way, getting coated with the obfuscating dust of so many willful misconceptions that the actual facts about How Canada Does It are completely lost in the melee.

I’m both a health-care-card-carrying Canadian resident and an uninsured American citizen who regularly sees doctors on both sides of the border. As such, I’m in a unique position to address the pros and cons of both systems first-hand. If we’re going to have this conversation, it would be great if we could start out (for once) with actual facts, instead of ideological posturing, wishful thinking, hearsay, and random guessing about how things get done up here.

To that end, here’s the first of a two-part series aimed at busting the common myths Americans routinely tell each other about Canadian health care. When the right-wing hysterics drag out these hoary old bogeymen, this time, we need to be armed and ready to blast them into straw. Because, mostly, straw is all they’re made of.

1. Canada’s health care system is “socialized medicine.”
False. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 150. And that insurer is the provincial government, which is accountable to the legislature and the voters if the quality of coverage is allowed to slide.

The proper term for this is “single-payer insurance.” In talking to Americans about it, the better phrase is “Medicare for all.”

2. Doctors are hurt financially by single-payer health care.
True and False. Doctors in Canada do make less than their US counterparts. But they also have lower overhead, and usually much better working conditions. A few reasons for this:

First, as noted, they don’t have to charge higher fees to cover the salary of a full-time staffer to deal with over a hundred different insurers, all of whom are bent on denying care whenever possible. In fact, most Canadian doctors get by quite nicely with just one assistant, who cheerfully handles the phones, mail, scheduling, patient reception, stocking, filing, and billing all by herself in the course of a standard workday.

Second, they don’t have to spend several hours every day on the phone cajoling insurance company bean counters into doing the right thing by their patients. My doctor in California worked a 70-hour week: 35 hours seeing patients, and another 35 hours on the phone arguing with insurance companies. My Canadian doctor, on the other hand, works a 35-hour week, period. She files her invoices online, and the vast majority are simply paid — quietly, quickly, and without hassle. There is no runaround. There are no fights. Appointments aren’t interrupted by vexing phone calls. Care is seldom denied (because everybody knows the rules). She gets her checks on time, sees her patients on schedule, takes Thursdays off, and gets home in time for dinner.

One unsurprising side effect of all this is that the doctors I see here are, to a person, more focused, more relaxed, more generous with their time, more up-to-date in their specialties, and overall much less distracted from the real work of doctoring. You don’t realize how much stress the American doctor-insurer fights put on the day-to-day quality of care until you see doctors who don’t operate under that stress, because they never have to fight those battles at all. Amazingly: they seem to enjoy their jobs.

Third: The average American medical student graduates $140,000 in hock. The average Canadian doctor’s debt is roughly half that.

Finally, Canadian doctors pay lower malpractice insurance fees. When paying for health care constitutes a one of a family’s major expenses, expectations tend to run very high. A doctor’s mistake not only damages the body; it may very well throw a middle-class family permanently into the ranks of the working poor, and render the victim uninsurable for life. With so much at stake, it’s no wonder people are quick to rush to court for redress.

Canadians are far less likely to sue in the first place, since they’re not having to absorb devastating financial losses in addition to any physical losses when something goes awry. The cost of the damaging treatment will be covered. So will the cost of fixing it. And, no matter what happens, the victim will remain insured for life. When lawsuits do occur, the awards don’t have to include coverage for future medical costs, which reduces the insurance company’s liability.

3. Wait times in Canada are horrendous.
True and False again — it depends on which province you live in, and what’s wrong with you. Canada’s health care system runs on federal guidelines that ensure uniform standards of care, but each territory and province administers its own program. Some provinces don’t plan their facilities well enough; in those, you can have waits. Some do better. As a general rule, the farther north you live, the harder it is to get to care, simply because the doctors and hospitals are concentrated in the south. But that’s just as true in any rural county in the U.S.

You can hear the bitching about it no matter where you live, though. The percentage of Canadians who’d consider giving up their beloved system consistently languishes in the single digits. A few years ago, a TV show asked Canadians to name the Greatest Canadian in history; and in a broad national consensus, they gave the honor to Tommy Douglas, the Saskatchewan premier who is considered the father of the country’s health care system. (And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that he was also Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather.). In spite of that, though, grousing about health care is still unofficially Canada’s third national sport after curling and hockey.

And for the country’s newspapers, it’s a prime watchdogging opportunity. Any little thing goes sideways at the local hospital, and it’s on the front pages the next day. Those kinds of stories sell papers, because everyone is invested in that system and has a personal stake in how well it functions. The American system might benefit from this kind of constant scrutiny, because it’s certainly one of the things that keeps the quality high. But it also makes people think it’s far worse than it is.

Critics should be reminded that the American system is not exactly instant-on, either. When I lived in California, I had excellent insurance, and got my care through one of the best university-based systems in the nation. Yet I routinely had to wait anywhere from six to twelve weeks to get in to see a specialist. Non-emergency surgical waits could be anywhere from four weeks to four months. After two years in the BC system, I’m finding the experience to be pretty much comparable, and often better. The notable exception is MRIs, which were easy in California, but can take many months to get here. (It’s the number one thing people go over the border for.) Other than that, urban Canadians get care about as fast as urban Americans do.

4. You have to wait forever to get a family doctor.
False for the vast majority of Canadians, but True for a few. Again, it all depends on where you live. I live in suburban Vancouver, and there are any number of first-rate GPs in my neighborhood who are taking new patients. If you don’t have a working relationship with one, but need to see a doctor now, there are 24-hour urgent care clinics in most neighborhoods that will usually get you in and out on the minor stuff in under an hour.

It is, absolutely, harder to get to a doctor if you live out in a small town, or up in the territories. But that’s just as true in the U.S. — and in America, the government won’t cover the airfare for rural folk to come down to the city for needed treatment, which all the provincial plans do.

5. You don’t get to choose your own doctor.
Scurrilously False. Somebody, somewhere, is getting paid a lot of money to make this kind of stuff up. The cons love to scare the kids with stories about the government picking your doctor for you, and you don’t get a choice. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

For the record: Canadians pick their own doctors, just like Americans do. And not only that: since it all pays the same, poor Canadians have exactly the same access to the country’s top specialists that rich ones do.

6. Canada’s care plan only covers the basics. You’re still on your own for any extras, including prescription drugs. And you still have to pay for it.
True — but not as big an issue as you might think. The province does charge a small monthly premium (ours is $108/month for a family of four) for the basic coverage. However, most people never even have to write that check: almost all employers pick up the tab for their employees’ premiums as part of the standard benefits package; and the province covers it for people on public assistance or disability.

“The basics” covered by this plan include 100% of all doctor’s fees, ambulance fares, tests, and everything that happens in a hospital — in other words, the really big-ticket items that routinely drive American families into bankruptcy. In BC, it doesn’t include “extras” like medical equipment, prescriptions, physical therapy or chiropractic care, dental, vision, and so on; and if you want a private or semi-private room with TV and phone, that costs extra (about what you’d pay for a room in a middling hotel). That other stuff does add up; but it’s far easier to afford if you’re not having to cover the big expenses, too. Furthermore: you can deduct any out-of-pocket health expenses you do have to pay off your income taxes. And, as every American knows by now, drugs aren’t nearly as expensive here, either.

Filling the gap between the basics and the extras is the job of the country’s remaining private health insurers. Since they’re off the hook for the ruinously expensive big-ticket items that can put their own profits at risk, the insurance companies make a tidy business out of offering inexpensive policies that cover all those smaller, more predictable expenses. Top-quality add-on policies typically run in the ballpark of $75 per person in a family per month — about $300 for a family of four — if you’re stuck buying an individual plan. Group plans are cheap enough that even small employers can afford to offer them as a routine benefit. An average working Canadian with employer-paid basic care and supplemental insurance gets free coverage equal to the best policies now only offered at a few of America’s largest corporations. And that employer is probably only paying a couple hundred dollars a month to provide that benefit.

7. Canadian drugs are not the same.
More preposterious bogosity. They are exactly the same drugs, made by the same pharmaceutical companies, often in the same factories. The Canadian drug distribution system, however, has much tighter oversight; and pharmacies and pharmacists are more closely regulated. If there is a difference in Canadian drugs at all, they’re actually likely to be safer.

Also: pharmacists here dispense what the doctors tell them to dispense, the first time, without moralizing. I know. It’s amazing.

8. Publicly-funded programs will inevitably lead to rationed health care, particularly for the elderly.
False. And bogglingly so. The papers would have a field day if there was the barest hint that this might be true.

One of the things that constantly amazes me here is how well-cared-for the elderly and disabled you see on the streets here are. No, these people are not being thrown out on the curb. In fact, they live longer, healthier, and more productive lives because they’re getting a constant level of care that ensures small things get treated before they become big problems.

The health care system also makes it easier on their caregiving adult children, who have more time to look in on Mom and take her on outings because they aren’t working 60-hour weeks trying to hold onto a job that gives them insurance.

9. People won’t be responsible for their own health if they’re not being forced to pay for the consequences.
False. The philosophical basis of America’s privatized health care system might best be characterized as medical Calvinism. It’s fascinating to watch well-educated secularists who recoil at the Protestant obsession with personal virtue, prosperity as a cardinal sign of election by God, and total responsibility for one’s own salvation turn into fire-eyed, moralizing True Believers when it comes to the subject of Taking Responsibility For One’s Own Health.

They’ll insist that health, like salvation, is entirely in our own hands. If you just have the character and self-discipline to stick to an abstemious regime of careful diet, clean living, and frequent sweat offerings to the Great Treadmill God, you’ll never get sick. (Like all good theologies, there’s even an unspoken promise of immortality: f you do it really really right, they imply, you might even live forever.) The virtuous Elect can be discerned by their svelte figures and low cholesterol numbers. From here, it’s a short leap to the conviction that those who suffer from chronic conditions are victims of their own weaknesses, and simply getting what they deserve. Part of their punishment is being forced to pay for the expensive, heavily marketed pharmaceuticals needed to alleviate these avoidable illnesses. They can’t complain. It was their own damned fault; and it’s not our responsibility to pay for their sins. In fact, it’s recently been suggested that they be shunned, lest they lead the virtuous into sin.

Of course, this is bad theology whether you’re applying it to the state of one’s soul or one’s arteries. The fact is that bad genes, bad luck, and the ravages of age eventually take their toll on all of us — even the most careful of us. The economics of the Canadian system reflect this very different philosophy: it’s built on the belief that maintaining health is not an individual responsibility, but a collective one. Since none of us controls fate, the least we can do is be there for each other as our numbers come up.

This difference is expressed in a few different ways. First: Canadians tend to think of tending to one’s health as one of your duties as a citizen. You do what’s right because you don’t want to take up space in the system, or put that burden on your fellow taxpayers. Second, “taking care of yourself” has a slightly expanded definition here, which includes a greater emphasis on public health. Canadians are serious about not coming to work if you’re contagious, and seeing a doctor ASAP if you need to. Staying healthy includes not only diet and exercise; but also taking care to keep your germs to yourself, avoiding stress, and getting things treated while they’re still small and cheap to fix.

Third, there’s a somewhat larger awareness that stress leads to big-ticket illnesses — and a somewhat lower cultural tolerance for employers who put people in high-stress situations. Nobody wants to pick up the tab for their greed. And finally, there’s a generally greater acceptance on the part of both the elderly and their families that end-of-life heroics may be drawing resources away from people who might put them to better use. You can have them if you want them; but reasonable and compassionate people should be able to take the larger view.

The bottom line: When it comes to getting people to make healthy choices, appealing to their sense of the common good seems to work at least as well as Calvinist moralizing.

10. This all sounds great — but the taxes to cover it are just unaffordable. And besides, isn’t the system in bad financial shape?
False. On one hand, our annual Canadian tax bite runs about 10% higher than our U.S. taxes did. On the other, we’re not paying out the equivalent of two new car payments every month to keep the family insured here. When you balance out the difference, we’re actually money ahead. When you factor in the greatly increased social stability that follows when everybody’s getting their necessary health care, the impact on our quality of life becomes even more signficant.

And True — but only because this is a universal truth that we need to make our peace with. Yes, the provincial plans are always struggling. So is every single publicly-funded health care system in the world, including the VA and Medicare. There’s always tension between what the users of the system want, and what the taxpayers are willing to pay. The balance of power ebbs and flows between them; but no matter where it lies at any given moment, at least one of the pair is always going to be at least somewhat unhappy.

But, as many of us know all too well, there’s also constant tension between what patients want and what private insurers are willing to pay. At least when it’s in government hands, we can demand some accountability. And my experience in Canada has convinced me that this accountability is what makes all the difference between the two systems.

It is true that Canada’s system is not the same as the U.S. system. It’s designed to deliver a somewhat different product, to a population that has somewhat different expectations. But the end result is that the vast majority of Canadians get the vast majority of what they need the vast majority of the time. It’ll be a good day when when Americans can hold their heads high and proudly make that same declaration.

Depending on what state you live in, because it varies from state to state, insurance companies have the "right of subrogation" meaning that if you file a claim that your insurance pays, if another persons insurance was actually liable then your insurance company has the right to recoop moneys paid out on your behalf. Some states have whats called "no fault" insurance, meaning everyones insurance pays for their own insureds. Think of car accidents, in most states when you have an accident you need a police report to document who was at fault, and an exchange of insurance info so damages are paid accordingly. In no fault states, your insurance pays for damages to your car only so there's no need to find out who was actually liable

You are probably right. I talked with a dental office manager recently about price competition and she pulled out a price booklet and said the last 4 offices she worked at used the same prices for procedures. Of course she was trying to sell their services and was answering my complaint that the three bids I had for dental work were all within a few percent of each other. I think she said something about insurance agreements and industry standard pricing and they all use the same dental labs, etc...

After careful consideration I have come up with the perfect reform for heath care. You guys pay for my health care, and I spend my money on things that make me feel good.

Medicine doesn't make you feel good?

Snark aside, ace, would you reform our current health system? Or do you think it works well the way it is?

No. I have never taken any medication that made me feel good. I have taken medicine that has alleviated pain after an injury, but generally I prefer gas guzzling fast cars, good food, travel, romantic walks on the beach, and puppies.:thumbsup:

I remember this time my little brother was playing in the front yard. He was jumping over a fence when his pants go caught and he snapped his wrist. It hurt. In order to feel better, we took him to the ER and the bone was set and a cast put on. A few short months later, and he felt good.

That's what I meant.

I would make some modifications.

1) Make insurance manditory.
2) Change from state regulation to national regulation, so if I buy a policy in California I can keep the same policy in North Carolina.
3) No preexisting condition. Since everyone has insurance, I would randomly assign difficult risks to existing insurers based on market share.
4) With national regulation, I would standardize risk classifications for premium purposes, leveling the playing field.
5) Tort reform
6) Streamline FDA drug approval process to lower drug development costs.
7) Lower the length of time a drug maker has exclusive rights to a drug, making generics more availabe
8) Pay for the insurance of every child under 18 and disabled person who can not work.
9) Do away with employer plans.
10) Develop a waiver of premium plan for those temporarily disabled or unemployed.
11) Make me the health insurance Czar with a 7 figure salary.

---------- Post added at 07:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:16 PM ----------

Oh.

I prefer to avoid pain to begin with, or at least the type of pain the requires medicine. Occasionally, I test the limits with some habanero pepper in my chili.

Isn't that heavily regulating the health care industry, though? In other words, isn't this a violation of your basic political principles? I do agree with some of those things, but it seems that if you're willing to set ideology aside for the sake of pragmatism, you should get the most pragmatic system available.

How I would reform health care:

1. Make third-party payments for routine, non-catastrophic medical treatment illegal. Watch prices come down when (a) people pay for their treatment with their own money and (b) the reimbuarsement paperwork for every routine medical visit is eliminated. This also gets the middleman (whether it's an insurance company or a govt agency) out from between patients and doctors.

2. Enable pretax financing of medical expenses in segregated accounts. (For poor people this stuff would get financed through Medicaid or food-stamp-like vouchers). These accounts would pay for doctor visits and medicines, and also will be used to pay for.........

3. Catastrophic coverage, i.e. real insurance -- if you have an unforeseen medical disaster like a car accident, heart attack, stroke, broken bones, you have insurance to cover it. Just like if your house burns down or your car gets totalled.

This setup will, at minimal cost, give us universal coverage and maximum freedom. No big govt bureaucracy and no grasping insurance companies other than for catastrophic. People can choose how much medical care they want, and the minimum annual checkup and other stuff would be financed out of the special account.

I'm sure there are details that this doesn't pick up but it's a pretty good template as a starting point. Yes, there will be transitional issues to be managed; that can be done.

Yes. Health care is currently heavily regulated and will be.

Yes and no. I am a free market capitalist, but I do believe there are certain legitimate roles for government and regulation. I think national defense is one and regulating health care is another.

Personally I think it is immoral that children are born in this country without health care available to them. Health care for children should not be a function of who the parents are. Children have no control over the circumstances of their birth. Every child born in this country should have equal access to the best medical care this nation has to offer, no questions asked. And I would love to see that apply internationally.

The basic ideology driving my "pragmatic" approach is that people able to pay for health insurance should pay their fair share. Secondly, people should be actively involved in their health care, not delegating this personal decision to a third party like an employer. I think with national competition and a regulated classification system, standard premiums would be fair, companies could compete on tings like deductables/copays/service/wellness programs/etc.

Interesting. Just out of curiosity, do you think the military would be better if it were privately run but publicly regulated? If no, what separates the health care industry from the defense industry?

okay, did Will hack ace's account or something?

I think your plan's a damnsite better than the status quo, ace. I'd go farther, myself, toward providing a basic level of care for every citizen regardless of their age, but if we're not going to do that, at LEAST we should break down the walls to real competition among insurance providers.

It's that #1 I have the most questions about: "Make insurance mandatory". Can you expand on that a little? What about the guy who lives under the bridge?

Check my posts on SCHIP. I was clear in my position then as I am now. With SCHIP I think it was a bad bill for a number of reasons, one being its failure to insure every child and the complexities involved in 50 different state programs all with different qulification standards. They need to write a simple law: Every child born in this country is covered, period. Every child in this country gets treated and we will sort everything out later (i.e. sending a bill to the country the child came from).

just busting your balls, ace

The best way to keep premiums low is to make the pool as large as possible. Currently a young healthy person has an incentive not to purchase insurance and the people most likely to purchase it are those who need it. Also, just like every auto on the road needs to be insured, every human should be insured. I think people need to understand that the cost of health insurance is one of their first priorities, then buy the fun stuff - no free rides when it comes to health insurance. But then just like Medicare we could require some type of basic plan and allow for supplemental plans that allow for more/better coverage. A fair classification system could be something like all males born in 1985 be put in a class together and charged a premium based on the experience of the entire class, so everyone pays the same basic premium for the required plan.

...and that number is going to decrease when the federal government gets involved?

The belief is that if you don't have insurance companies involved anymore there won't be a need for a billing department, or atleast a smaller staffed one.

Just look at Medicare (and every other country in the world to use public health care). They're all substantially cheaper and a lot of it has to do with a significantly lower administrative cost.

despite the fact that Republicans have been ringing the "government is expensive and inefficient" bell for years, there are many very effective govt. agencies.

To quote Bill Maher: "I can send a letter from L.A. on Monday and it's in my sister's hand in New Jersey on Wednesday, and it cost me 42 cents. I can only hope government health care is that inefficient"

Ok, now that we have discussed some of the problems what are the solutions? How can we increase coverage and lower costs of health care?

Medicare? You mean the program that is bankrupt in less than 5 years? That is the model we should use? I have a lot of life left and I won't see one benefit from medicare (although I pay 7.5% on my pay into it.)

The only people saying it's going to be bankrupt in 5 years are conservative think tanks. The same ones, undoubtedly, that said the same thing in the 1980s.

2% administrative cost. Compare that to the 25% administrative costs of the private sector.

Will, you really don't see the diff btw national defense and health care without having someone explain it? or are you asking just for devil's advocate reasons?

---------- Post added at 09:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 PM ----------

Actually, let me flip this around on you, Will: if the govt runs health care, why not go all in and have it handle food, clothing and shelter, too? Those are absolute necessities, right?

You're assuming my argument was based on "absolute necessities". It wasn't.

What happens when the military is private? One, it's a hell of a lot more expensive (like health care). The individuals employed are paid substantially higher than their public counterparts would be (like health care) despite not having any better training, but also have to worry about legal problems (like health care) because they like to screw people over in order to make a quick buck (like health care) or because some employees are allowed to act unethically (like health care). They often are vertically integrated in the political structure (like health care), and have powerful lobbyists (like health care) that can help to shield the private industry from the regulation it needs (like health care). They use media outlets to trumpet the benefits of their private services (like health care), but actively prevent dissent from reaching the public (like health care).

I could go on and on and on.

Tort reform:

1) Trial lawyers do not get a cent out of punitive damages. They are compensated a set rate for hours worked. Time records will be audited against their entire office to ensure they aren't double-dipping the rates.
2) The plantiff does not receive one cent of punitive damages. Punitive damages should go to a comparable charity. ie - McDonald's who paid $20M to Stella for the coffee burn should have paid the $20M to St. Judes Children's hospital burn unit.
3) If a plantiff brings suit and loses then the trial is reviewed by a legal panel of judges. If the suit is determined to be a "frivilous suit", the plantiff must pay the legal fees of the defendant. Obviously, this standard for "frivilous" needs to be vetted, but I think you understand the intent.

Graduated rates:

1) 70% of healthcare bills are related to heart disease, cancer, and obesity related issues. A vast majorities of these cases are preventable through the person just taking care of themselves. In short, if you are 200 lbs overweight, you are high risk and your rates should reflect that. The same as auto insurance - if you have 4 tickets, 2 at-fault accidents, and a DUI, you pay a lot for insurance. If you are a good driver, the rates are dirt cheap. Don't like your rate? Quit smoking and lose 200 lbs. If you are 22, in good shape, and a non-smoker: your rate should be about $30/mo.
2) Open the industry to allow the consumer to shop across the country. It's all electronic anyway. Who cares if my insurance company is in Montana, as long as it is the most competitive rate.
3) Take colds/flu out of health insurance. If the diagnosis is something like that - the customer pays for the entire visit. Auto insurance doesn't cover oil changes.
4) Build cold/flu centers in adjacent buildings in hospitals with reduced rates to keep these people out of the ER.

The tough pill to swallow:

Illegal aliens who show up in the healthcare system will be given care and then placed on a plane and placed in a tent jail to serve a 6-month sentence. After which, they will be deported. All illegal aliens who are caught anywhere are taken to the tent jail to serve their 6-month time. The risk of losing 6 months of income will serve as a deterent. I know this will offend many, but we are denying care to U.S. citizens so that we can give it to illegal aliens.

Psst. PUB DISCUSSION. :thumbsup:

What about people who have chronic conditions (and in particular conditions that prevent them from making money)? Will we raise their rates even though they can't afford the increased rates?

Wouldn't this lead to people not seeing a doctor because they think it might be a cold or flu even though it is something much more serious?

If we are going to jail them we better give them a trial first (our constitution requires it). Also if we are going to deport them we are also constitutionally required to give them due process. In the end that would likely cost more money than just helping them in the first place.

have I mentioned I hate Pub Discussions?

Yeah, they tend to die off because people can't post articles to back up their claims.

You've just described virtually every single private business in the counrty. Is the answer to have government take it all over?

I kinda doubt that the massive tentacles of the lemonade industry are slithering their ways through the halls of congress, or that ultra-powerful lobbyists working on behalf of the dog food industrial complex are intimidating the media into silence about the horrifying truth behind snausages.

Well yeah, there's no getting around that the term "health care reform" needs to be a code-word for radical re-structuring and regulation of the insurance industry.

I was listening to the last This American Life episode on podcast this evening, and they did a piece on the recent house committee hearing on insurance recision. You know, where a person's expensive medical need triggers a review of their policy for any little reason the company can find to revoke their policy? Including their own clerical errors, their own agents' errors on the application, in some cases. It happened to over a hundred thousand Americans in 2008. Can you imagine dealing with a diagnosis of a serious illness, plus suddenly being uninsured? The three insurance companies whose CEOs were at the hearing made over $100 million on revoked policies.

This is just exactly the thinking that has made the insurance industry so powerful. I've made the analogy elsewhere on this thread, but... An insurance company CEO would be completely at home running a casino. Breaking the knees of anybody who wins big, running them out of town. Hope they have insurance for those knees, too...

"Chronic conditions" are wiggle words. If you are Type 2 diabetic because you are 200 lbs overweight, your rates are high. If you were born with MS, then your rates would be comparable to the average demographic you fit in(age,weight,smoking) excluding your condition. I won't "punish" anyone for a condition they could not avoid.

The point is that the rates would be lower due to tort reform. It's a $60 doctor visit, sorry it costs money to treat you.

Yes, they get a trial: "Show me your H1B. What? You don't have one? Guilty." It doesn't require Perry Mason.

---------- Post added at 12:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 AM ----------

You know, let me go back to this. Why do we have to help them in lieu of helping our own citizens? This notion that we owe illegal aliens something is absurd.

I have a serious question to ask.

In the state of Ohio Workers Compensation is mandatory for all businesses to provide for employees. The same for West Virginia. Ohio is Single Payer by the state. Wv is private. Both are very efficient. If someone is hurt at work and files a comp claim they immediatly must take a drug test to be eligible. In other words if you are doing somethng detrimental to your health and get hurt at work your claim will be denied. This is for both single payer and private. Would something like this be acceptable in whatever form the healthcare reforms will take? Should drug related health problems or obesity related problems be punished?

Please don't bash me on this, I'm genuinely curious. Especially since this is the case already with Workers comp in both sectors.

EDIT: OOPS, I forgot this was a pub discussion and put an awesome quote by James Madison (one of your precious Founding Fathers, Cimaron) who scorned the notion that Constitutional rights should be withheld from aliens inside the US. He said that by the same logic our laws don't apply to them either, which is obviously even more absurd than extending them Constitutional protections. But since this is a Pub Discussion, I can't cite that quote. So the closest I can come is to say "neener neener".

---------- Post added at 07:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:46 AM ----------

I don't know about "punished" exactly, but I think it should inform the range of treatment that person is given. If somebody's messed up on drugs at work and drops something on themself and breaks their leg, I'm not going to just let them limp around. Gotta fix the leg. But at some point, drug rehab needs to be part of their treatment plan.

You get into some weird privacy stuff when you start doing tox-screens and Chem-7 tests as part of general trauma intake. But if you made it policy to do that to everyone, you can't be accused of prejudice. Especially if what comes next is treatment (versus punishment).

Punished was a bad choice of word, what I meant was charge very high premiums for these people until they are off drugs, or living a healthier lifestyle. This is already the case with life insurance for example. Smokers pay a higher premium than non smokers for the same amount of coverage. Depending on the amount of health insurance you have to take a complete physical before hand. I'm not suggesting we go that far with health insurance but the government likes to tax bad behavior as a deterent I assume, so why not do the same with healthcare.

1) aliens <> illegal aliens - and I didn't say "don't treat them". I said "treat them, then arrest them."
2) the Constitution does not provide healthcare. (Go ahead and quote the liberals' favorite comeback to this, "General Welfare".)

If you want to remove the general welfare clause then we better remove fire departments, police departments, schools, highways, national parks, student loans, research grants, medicare, medicare, social security, welfare, food stamps, income tax, etc.

Let's face it some of these programs have been challenged on constitutional grounds all the way to the supreme court and in every case the supreme court came back and said that the programs are constitutional. There is nothing in the constitution that prevents the government from providing health care and the general welfare clause would seem to allow it (especially given the precedence set by other programs). The unconstitutional argument is a non-starter.

Wow, I would eliminate virtually every thing on your list. I would keep highways and income tax (flat tax). fire/police/schools/parks/healthcare/retirement/welfare/food stamps would all go to state (as the state chose to vote it in). Loans and grants would be private.

It would be for the general welfare of the people that we all have a pony. Ponies are cute and cut your grass while you work. I think the federal government should give everyone a pony.

I still don't get why States would/could run things better than the feds. This is the great Libertarian fallacy.

At one point it was only 13, but now I get 50 different ways to pick and choose how to live my life. Don't like the government policies of California? Move to another state... I can tell you I've lived in 3 different states and own property in one I don't live in, but pay attention to all the rights and differences. There's lots of differences, but those differences get narrower and narrower over the past 10 years.

oh don't like the policies that the US Government is forcing upon all 50 states? you don't get much choice.

i don't see the distinction in this debate between saying "i like state-level control" and "i like peanut butter"

it's an aesthetic preference that has fuck all to do with the topic at hand.
if you are a libertarian and oppose the present debate because in some magical other universe you'd imagine that the same problems would thereby devolve onto the states--as if the states had the resources to cope with it---then it seems to me that what you're opting for really is the present system. because this in-between "idea" isn't an idea at all. it's a fantasy.

so all this stuff about how great the states are and how nice it is to shop around for your favorite flavor of state, being it smooth or chunky, salted or not, amounts to a non-sequitor. an evasion. nothing else.

You don't get it because you don't want to. You prefer a large central government. We prefer a smaller, decentralized government. It isn't a matter of that the states would or could run it better - it's the fact that some states will have the common sense to know that the government should not be involved in social programs. Those states would have low taxation, and the citizens would be free to enjoy the fruits of their own labor, and to manage their own affairs. Those states would be attractive to us. States that would control all areas of your life would be attactive to you. At least there would be a choice. What are YOU afraid of if you turn it over to the states?

you may think that rb, but I enjoy the idea and belief from the history and understanding that I have of the US Constitution that the Federal government's duties are specifically enumerated, those that weren't were left for the states.

For example, people didn't flock to MA once they got universal health care.... there's other cons to that choice, mainly having to move and live in MA.

i don't find anything about strict construction arguments to be relevant here.
seriously--for them to have any meaning except as (again) an aesthetic matter (peanut butter again)--there would have to have already been a basic change in how the existing constitutional system actually operates. and there hasn't been.

but it's nice that you have some nostalgic take on the constitution as you imagine it was written and functioned in some 18th century world that's long disappeared, and it's your privelege to indulge that nostalgia, just as it's mine to listen to the sons of the pioneers to hear that manly man cowpoke roy rogers yodel. yippee yi kai yay.

I don't think a single state would dump social programs in favor of lower taxes. Not a one.

Question for rahl or whoever:

If health insurance through one's employer is cheaper because you're "spreading the risk around", why can't I, as a healthy, non-smoking male with no family history of diabetes, etc. negotiate a cheaper rate on my own? Among all the workers at the company, I would fall on the lowest risk end of the spectrum, so aren't the unhealthy people in the pool actually pulling my rate up?

Yes. Did you read my solution above? (Post #136)

---------- Post added at 03:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:40 PM ----------

What are you talking about? They do it right now! If you think, for example, North Carolina has the same social programs as, for example, California - you are delusional. Why do you think California has a $126B deficit this year? Because of their out of control social programs!

I didn't say NC and CA were the same. I thought you were implying that in your Utopian Libertarian world, certain states would drop social programs completely

You could try to on your own outside of work. But with group coverage, because the risk is spread around, you end up with a median rate for the whole company. EEonly is $100 per pay, EE+Spouse is $130, Family is $200 etc. Some companies I do business with have "healthy living incentives" If you are a non smoker you pay a lowe premium for health insurance than smoker do. I think this is a step in the right direction regarding insurance.

If there were a single payor system in the U.S. and we had to spread the risk of everyone in the country the premiums(taxes) wouldn't be fair or reflective of the individuals risk level, just like group coverage at work

...and why couldn't they? If an individual found that "low taxes, but you are on your own" was objectionable, they would move to a different state.

Again, why are you afraid of this model?

the "model" is a fantasy. i don't think anyone's afraid of it--i'm certainly not. but it's irrelevant to the present debate. it is not a viable counter-model. what it amounts to is acquiescing to the present system while pretending to yourself you're doing something else.
advocating this position is self-exclusion. it's as if a debate is happening inside a building and you're in an adjacent park talking about how nice the park is.
all it's doing in this context is getting in the way of a coherent conversation about actual problems and plausible ways to address them.

Really? REALLY? So if a poor person in State X suddenly has all of their government assistance yanked out from under them, you think they'd have the means to just up and relocate somewhere else? Dude, come on....

cause all those mexicans coming over the border have oodles and oodles of cash, freakin' big old suitcases and backpacks full. not everyone pays off a coyote, many walk across the deserts... I know many who have done both, and I met them in New York City. Hmmmm... gee. They made it.

Actually, illegal immigrants contribute quite a bit to the economy. They work for such low wages that their contributions to the work force are more efficient. Would you pick grapes for $4 a day? I wouldn't. Yet you and I both purchase cheap grapes picked by illegal workers and are happy with the low cost. I suspect that if grapes went for $11 per pound, neither of us would have as many.

/threadjack

If it would shut these absurd protesters up, then fine. Let 'em have Texas. Well, maybe not Austin. But the rest of the state. Hell, I'll even throw in New Mexico. Let the insurance business become 60%, 80% of the economy of those states, God bless. If it means the protestors will shut the fuck up and the rest of us can enjoy a single-payer health care system like most other civilized nations in the world? By all means.

I know this is going to blow your mind, but you should google "NGO". You might learn how "society" helps the poor when the government fails.

---------- Post added at 09:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 AM ----------

Well there you have it. Only thing is, and the last I checked, we still have a democracy. Therefore, it might just be (as in this case) that you are in the minority. More Americans DON'T want a single payer than do. In which case, your only recourse would be to go to some more civilized nation. And don't expect us to "shut the fuck up" any time soon. Sorry. I still have a first amendment (for now) and I will keep using it. I know you and Obama find that inconvenient.

Yep there's lots fo non-government agencies that are the saviors of the third world countries, especially when there are very corrupt governments.

ratbastid, why does it get to be states of your choosing? why can't the states themselves decide? again, that's what I believe much of the crux of the issue is.

Because socialists deny freedom of choice.

I just dont get the libertarian mindset.....dreaming about a governmental/economic system that has never existed anytime and anyplace in the world.

Yet you want to apply it to the US?

No government regulation? No government social safety net? No government role in R&D?

Just leave us the hell alone and the country and the world will be a better place?

There is a reason why libertarians have such a (relatively) small following.

actually DC, that's not what I'm implying at all. I'm implying a matter of choice.

California has plenty of government R&D in in the computers and aircraft when I was growing up. There are government social safety nets in place, want to expand them and grow them, great! Do so. Regulation? There should have been left in place for banking...

As a person who's parents emigrated from another country and similarly I left my birthstate for similar reasons, to gain more opportunity and a better quality of life... it's all about choices and consequences of those choices for me.

actually Cynth, my remarks were directed more to Cimarron, who has consistently used libertarian-speak to misrepresent the health reform bills in question.

Despite the conservative/libertarian rhetoric and fear mongering, there is no single-payer, government-controlled, socialist type system under consideration. There is choice in every proposed bill, including a government-administered option (to complete with a private option) in the House bill, that is not likely to even be considered in one Senate proposal.

Oh lighten up.

and so here we are again in another little performance of how it is that the debate about health care gets derailed then stalled by the Officially Sanctioned Collective ADD brought to you by your pals in the insurance industry and their media shills on the right.

way to be reflexive, comrades, and not just enact what the op is asking about.

sheesh.

you forgot the Francis.

the quote is:

Sergeant Hulka: Lighten up, Francis.

This where I say "Liar, liar - pants on fire!" Obama, Frank, Schakowsky have all stated that the public option is the first step towards single-payer and that is what they want to see happen. Were it not pub dis, I would send you the link. I have never misrepresented the health reform bill. I challenge you to find one post where I have.

As to choice, it's a matter of arithmetic. If a company pays 15% for private insurance, yet their "penalty" for not providing insurance will be 8% (it's in the bill) - they will drop the private, force their employees to public, and enjoy a 7% gain in income. Enough companies do this and private doesn't have enough base to survive. That puts 10s of millions more people on the public option and less and less competition (choice). Immediately the public system is strained and taxes must be raised. Immediately, the doctors make less money for the same service because medicare (the current system) and the public option (the future system) pays significantly less to the doctor than private insurance. So, the doctors are willing to see less and less new patients on public in leiu of their private customers. This naturally rations care, reduces choice (of doctors), delays diagnosis, and causes more expensive treatment due to decreased early detection and prevention. This is a perfectly rational argument against the private option.

The fact is, there is not one word about tort reform in these bills. Wonder why that is? (53% of congress are lawyers, and the president...)

---------- Post added at 11:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:01 AM ----------

I already put up my proposal (#136). No one has responded to it. I suppose the rest of you are fine with the system proposed in the 5 bills before congress. Don't talk to me about avoiding the OP.

if you read the post you quoted, cimarron, you'd have understood that i didn't say *avoid* i said *enact the problem*--and by *enacting the problem* i meant grinding a coherent debate to a halt with a series of "plans" based entirely in some libertarian fantasy world and insisting that they be understood as actual plans, when the fact is they aren't.

this is now officially tiresome.

In fact, what Obama had said was that if he were to start from scratch, he would support a single payer system...but he also said repeatedly that the employer-based system works for the most part and the intent is to build on that foundation to make universal care more affordable and accesible.

Citing a handful of legislators who want a single payer system doesnt change the fact that the general proposal that Obama offered to Congress and the current bills under consideration are nowhere close to a single payer system.

There is no socialist type plan in the works.

Scare tactics.

This is simply not true. I hate to break the rules, but here's the link.


He clearly states that the goal is to create a public option that will eliminate the private option in 10,15,20 years.

---------- Post added at 11:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:44 AM ----------

My God, I wish I was as smart as you.

Taken in full context, what he said, in fact, is that he supports universal coverage based on the current employer-based system and that MAYBE in 15-20 years, a single payer option might be viable.

Nothing in the current House bill resembles a "socialist" type single payer system.....the Senate is likely to not even include a public option.

Scare tactics.

What he said was that he can't do it all at once, but that is the intent - to get rid of private insurance.

Guess what, 15-20 years from now, Obama will have little say in the direction of health care reform...and today, the proposals on the table in no way resemble "socialism gone wild" or a single payer system.

BTW.. he is planning to take away your guns as well.

Why does one HAVE to have health insurance though? Why will it be illegal not to have it? Could it be the extra money taken out of one's paycheck going to the government? Is it a trick disguised to avoid "raising taxes" yet extracting more money from the citizenry under alternative pretenses? Is it a trap?

Rome wasn't built in a day. As to the gun thing: troll

I'm done. You guys have it all figured out.

That is such a copout. The concept of health care didn't exist when the Constitution was created. Words like "General Welfare" are there so that the Constitution can be interpreted per the standards of current times. Otherwise we'll be using standards and practices developed over 200 years ago that aren't equipped to deal with modern times.

---------- Post added at 10:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 AM ----------

For the same reason that we all have to carry auto insurance.

Really? There weren't doctors in the 1780s?...and you didn't have to pay for them? Damn! Now I'm even more impressed with Washington! The man whittled his own TEETH out of ivory! Was there anything that man couldn't do?!?

You're talking out of you fucking ass and you know it. In today's world you can be perfectly healthy and some freak occurrence can occur that will result in injuries that cost more than an average person will make over the course of a lifetime. Don't even fucking act like things are the same as they used to be.

I cant see how the 2 are related. One is active, one is passive. One is the underwriting of user error (avoidable), the other is underwriting the laws of nature (unavoidable).

You know exactly what he means. I doubt they had health insurance back then.

Absolutely they are related. It doesn't matter how you got there, the hospital still treats you and sends a bill. If you don't pay it, the costs are absorbed by everyone else. The effect isn't as direct but they still hit everyone else in the wallet.

---------- Post added at 10:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:44 AM ----------

It's amusing to hear people complain about the fear of rationing. We are rationing right now when insurance companies deny coverage and they don't seem to mind.

Okay, here's the difference. Get cancer in 1778 - die. Get cancer in 2009, probably gonna live. So, yes. The bill in 1778 wasn't as big, but you were dead so it didn't matter. In 2009, the worst thing that can happen to you if you have a "freak occurrence" is NOT huge medical bills. The worst thing that can happen is that you DIE. I prefer the free market system that funds the innovation that allows more and more people to live longer and more productive lives, as opposed to the "pain pill" option that government healthcare will ultimately become.

Since modern health insurance didn't come in to existence until the late 20th century, how on earth did we get so far in medical science for those first 150 years without the "constitutionally-mandated", government-involved healthcare? By your rationale, we should have had the same medical standards and practices as Washington and Franklin until health insurance came into existence. The facts don't seem to jive with your assertion. The question is not "what was it like before health insurance?" The question is "what was it like before the government got involved in health care?" The first question above maintains the spirit of the constitution, the second is where the constitution gets squashed.

Oh, and I didn't say "fuck" so, well, now I have. Just trying to maintain the spirit of the dialog.

I thought you were done

really? last time I heard, pedestrians, bicycle riders, and people without driver's licenses aren't required to have auto insurance. In fact, the years I didn't own a car I saved much more than Geico touts, since I saved 100% of my insurance costs by not having a car.

Wow. That's constructive. Thanks for sharing.

Is it really that important that I qualified the statement with an * saying it only applies to those with cars or are you just looking to add some pointless bullshit?

You think it's normal and OK that a person can get injured or sick and spend the rest of his life slaving to pay for it, or making his family pay for it?

yes, I think it is normal. It's called life. That's why you be careful when you drive, be concerned that there are more assholes out there driving like fucktards.

There's nothing about life where it's supposed to be "and they lived happily ever after."

Life is hard, unequal, and unfair.

Maybe we should make sure that those Africans that Mrs. Clinton is visiting have healthcare in the next 20 years too. Because you know, it's a human right by the statements said here.

more to add to the auto insurance analogy, driving is a privilege, not a right.

so what is it about the cultures of nearly every other industrialized nation that makes them support universal health care while ours doesn't?

I doubt people are going to take the time to fact check some of the statements coming from the President regarding health insurance companies.

Talk about scare tactics, for example today the President is going on about how insurance companies will scour your application to find a reason to deny coverage when you get sick. Legally an insurance company has two years to cancel a policy for a material misrepresentation on the original application. After that two year period they are bound to provide coverage. Also, the misrepresentation has to be "material".

Another example, the President is saying insurance companies are not regulated and that no one is overseeing their actions. Every insurance company is regulated and bound by requirements of each state's laws regarding insurance companies.