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Ron Chapin March 10, I believe health care reform should focus on increasing competition in the health insurance industry.

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It should also make it possible for lawsuits to be brought against insurance companies that deny needed care which could be defined and also bring lawsuits against doctors who prescribe treatments that are not needed. Instead of putting bigger and bigger government in place, let the existing bodies work as they were originally intended. Let new firms open their doors to compete.

Let injured parties get proper compensation through the courts. Remove the laws protecting insurance companies from monopoly prosecution. Perry Smith March 10, The only way for the Congress to enact health legislation that's truly in the public interest is to require federal funding for all elections--no exceptions. The following piece, which supports federal funding, I just sent to the editors of the Seattle Times. If you lived in Seattle in the s, this may sound familiar because business in the Seattle area was so bad that many were saying "will the last one to leave Seattle turn out the lights?

Now business is bad not only in Seattle, but around the country--and even the world. That's because for decades corporate America, through its massive campaign contributions, has been pressuring the Congress to strengthen laws favoring business, weaken or eliminate laws regulating business practices, and remove protections afforded workers and consumers.

Because of the corporate stranglehold on Congress, the United States is dying--slowly yet inexorably--from the influence of money. And, if we don't do something about it now, by the end of the next Congressional election--or sooner--the United States may cease to exist as our founding fathers envisioned it. Our only hope for rescuing this country from certain disaster is to establish federal funding for all elections--no exceptions.

No longer can personal private money be used, no longer can contributions from special interest groups be allowed, and no longer can contributions from business and corporations be permitted--despite the recent Supreme Court decision. Do you hear a chorus of angry voices--a chorus shrieking about losing our freedoms. If so, listen carefully.

Though some in the chorus may be individuals like you and me, the majority of the chorus comes from Wall street and corporate America. Because if such reforms come about, big business will lose its grip on Congress and its legislative agenda--allowing your voices and mine to be heard again. From federal funding for all elections, not only will the people benefit, but their legislators will benefit as well. That's because they will no longer feel encumbered by the burden of raising money for campaigns, and will no longer feel obligated to follow the wishes of campaign contributors.

And, we can make a system of federal funding more attractive by guaranteeing a multi-year severance package to those who lose elections. Once federal funding is in place, we must pressure the Congress to enact other equally important reforms. Among these are revoking the corporation's legal status as a person, revoking a corporation's right to donate unlimited amounts of money to campaigns, and revoking a business's right to claim your family home--if the business is willing to pay more in taxes to your local government.

We have no time to lose. As soon as you can, go to your phone, call your elected representatives, and demand federal funding for all elections. And, continue to call so that their phones right off the hook. Do it every day: RC March 10, Both very interesting interviews. I'd like to see single payer legislation passed. However, I would also benefit from the legislation presently before Congress. I think we're kind of between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Most people want single payer, but maybe in my position, know this legislation could save their lives, and there's no telling how soon single payer could be achieved.

We're just not in a position with our present "coverage" or lack thereof to take that kind of gamble. Our Congress is so completely, however, so sold out to the insurance industry, I am not seeing "the light at the end of the tunnel" if the legislation doesn't go through. They'll never pass single payer, and we won't get campaign finance reform for the same reasons. Not to be a complete party pooper, but it seems to me we should plug ahead with the bill even it entrenches us more in this disaster of a system, and then keeping working towards single payer or a better version, closer to the "Swiss" model.

Again, though, I would most like to see a Canadian-like or U. For the companies to go out of business? How many people would have to dump their insurance policies? The numbers are so high, it just seems impossible. And these health insurance companies must be masters at the "numbers game. Another Anonymous March 10, 7: This represented a 4 or 5 percent margin on average. Even if these insurance company profits were returned it would hardly make a dent in the overall cost of insurance premiums which continue to rise.

The crux of the problem is the actual cost of the health services being provided and the typical American's belief that he or she is entitled to every manner of health care procedure from birth up to and even after the point of clinical death regardless of cost. Yes, a single payer system would result in administrativce efficiencies and I support that.

Jack Kanodo March 10, 7: Although I feel very strongly that single-payer is the only real solution, I believe that Dr. Angell is very naive to think that if this bill doesn't get passed, "Medicare for all" will be instituted in the near future. The fact is that if we don't get some health care legislation now, the Republicans will be emboldened by a great victory, and if they regain power the only thing they'll do is pass legislation that makes the insurance companies even stronger.

We MUST get this bill passed, despite its many flaws, and then the issue will remain in the public eye and can be improved once it goes into effect. The insurance companies are going to continue their horrible practices with or without this bill. At least if we pass this one, we've got our foot in the door. Ellen Rosenzweig March 10, 7: When I lived in japan, I had health care.

Here, I pay the same amount or somewhat more every month in case I end up in the hospital, but that leaves me with no money to actually visit doctors. I have not seen one now for five years. As a statistic, I am among the insured. In reality, I might as well be living in the Stone Age. And, let me add that the idea that we should waste all our time shipping around for this or that deal with health care, or, for that matter credit cards, only makes sense to people who have no creative work to do.

I look forward to the day I can return to a civilized nation where the market does not force me to waste my time. The President needs to lead not follow. He needs to convince not compromise. Had he tried and failed a Health Bill such as what he has now might make sense, but, damn it, he never did. Some leaders may choose to fight an enemy bigger than themselves, but it may be more common to choose an opponent that is more manageable and isolated relatively speaking.

It's easy to complain about insurance companies along with the post office, etc. Some may be for-profit, other non-profit. Some may be well managed, others not. The core functions are price negotiation and hedging i. An individual who is bleeding doesn't have much negotiating power. Because medicine along with insurance, education, corporations, etc. Insurance companies in an ideal world serve a socially beneficial purpose as a consumer association advocating for better prices and better quality. Unions and other associations also advocate for their members, but may not always have consumer interests foremost.

Some insurance companies may have excessive overhead and be mismanaged, but these are separate and valid issues. Ideal hedging or insurance companies don't create any new value or savings, but simply lower volatility; an individual trades paying out X dollars over an uncertain schedule in exchange for a predictable series of premium payments also totaling the same X dollars.

People used to rely on neighbors for the proverbial barn raising or savings which were usually redeployed by banks -- so it wasn't "dead capital". In a modern, mobile society where people "bowl alone," insurance fills the gap. Such hedging can also be arbitrarily divided into routine and catastophic care. As with any human interactions, there are always "prisoner dilemma" type of situations. Co-payements and other devices try to prevent individuals from gaming things, and regulatory bodies try to prevent insurance companies from doing so as well.

It's sort of a philosphical question as to whether at a given point in time under particular circumstances one should rely on more government regulation there being many compromises under this heading or more free market competition across state lines for insurance and the licensing of medical practioners, etc. This is a question as old as the hills; if governning was less an art than a deterministic science, legislatures and councils could all be replaced with a personal computer. Here in California, the state hasn't really demonstrated any broad fiscal responsibility.

There are reasonable arguments on both sides as to whether or not taking away profits will benefit consumers. While some malpractice lawsuits may be frivolous, many presumably happen because of actual quality problems. It would be helpful if there were better measurements of quality and value delivered by all aspects of the health system insurance companies, individual consumers, doctors, etc.

Most medical costs are driven by labor prices not insurance overhead. This may be justified if these costs are determined by supply and demand and meet some quality standard. They may not be justified if these labor markets are highly inefficient with resulting harm to consumers. Most people accept having an individual pay more for insurance if they smoke, drink, ride a motorcyle, and juggle chainsaws -- a cautious person should not be expected to subsidize the riskier person's behavior. Unless one gives up the idea of free will, many health outcomes are under the control of the individual, and some discrimination in pricing is justified.

Most but not all also accept discriminatory pricing with regard to age at a time when most assets are held by older demographics , family size, and geography. Because the etiology of many disease is uncertain along with liability for various accidents, etc. Some subjects are controversial e. There will always be gray areas, but some discrimination on a merit basis may not be a bad thing. Dan Cooper March 10, 7: Angell about the horrors of this bill. Wendell Potter is just a shill for the insurance companies he used to work for.

The Democrats and Republicans are just playing their usual good cop, bad cop game to trick liberals into supporting a bill that would shovel vast sums of money into the insurance companies pockets. The Democrats and Republicans are merely two branches of the same party that is wholly owned by the capitalists. The power of capital in this country will grow by leaps and bounds if this bill is passed, and the power of labor will shrivel up and die.

I say go beyond single payer and make the entire medical establishment a branch of the federal government. Completely eliminate all profit and place all branches of health care directly under the control of the people. There should be no such thing as a doctor bill, a hospital bill, or a pharmacy bill.

Magil March 10, 5: Dimes2Vines March 10, 4: First let me say how much I enjoyed this show. As is so often the case, more can be learned in 20 minutes of watching Bill Moyers and his guests than in spending 6 months ingesting the garbage fed to us by CBS, NBC, and all the rest. Second let me say that Dr.

Angell stands nearly alone as a beacon of intergrity and intellegence in the swampy ground of the health care debate. Three cheers for her honest, well informed, and carefully substantiated comments on this show and others. It's always good to see a member of America's medical establishment clearly concerned with the important issues currently besetting all aspects of health care in this country.

As I told my personal physician when he voiced a similar opinion, "If you think that the current opposition of the insurance industry is something just you wait until after we deliver another million rate payers into their clutches! With that much money behind them they won't just own the members of Congress, they will probably buy the whole city of Washington lock, stock, and barrel! In short, once insurance becomes manditory there will be no looking back as the die will have been cast and all that will remain is for unprecedented greed and short sightedness to run its inevitable course.

Last, but perhaps not least, while I did enjoy and benefit from the show I would have to say that in many respects it still missed the mark by a bit. For just as Obama's ridiculous notion that all that's at stake here is finding a way to Pay For Health Care takes us down a dead end street to nowhere, the show's notion that what's at issue is of a purely financial and political nature is pure nonsense. Simply put the health care fiasco is above all else a Moral Issue.

Seldom in all of history has more suffering and death been caused by shortsighted greed and out and out dishonnesty! For while I suspect that the 45, deaths each year attributed to a lack of access to health care grossly underestimates the real impact 45, dead is more than enough to cause all Americans to hang their heads in shame. Add to that the millions and millions of "underserved" Americans and you have a situation nearly unprecidented in American history. The richest country in the history of the world is letting 45, people a year suffer and die because of a lack of access to decent health care?

While at the same time dumping millions into Hollywood nonsense and additional billions on country clubs, health spas, and lavish homes for people who do little more than cash in stock benefits earned for them by millions of hard working and often underpaid workers. W Shaw March 9, 8: I am astonished that Dr. Angell would make the claim that single payer is the only way to achieve the three goals of universal, effective, and affordable healthcare. While a public-payer private-provider system like Canada or US Medicare is one way to do it, a look around the developed world shows that most nations use one of two other approaches.

The other is the Bismarck systems with regulated private-payer private-provider like Germany. The current senate HRC bill is of this type. What is necessary to make them work is a strong government commitment to necessary regulation. Faith-based reasoning like Dr. Thain Marston March 9, 7: Public leaders initially using this number claimed to have based it on a Families USA report easily found for free through the internet, along with related reports such as 's "Who Pays and How Much?

The Families USA report while not exactly "advocacy research" then multiplied this figure by a multiple to account for family size, even though children usually don't work and not all spouses are employed. This is sort of an 8th grade complaint, but the Families USA report probably should have used something like a per capita and not per taxpayer figure before adjusting for family size: While everyone myself included is fallible, it does not appear that there has been much verification of numbers and statements used in these debates.

Small-business medical practices, unions, etc. People who are paying the newsstand price may utilize fewer magazines, but, in a sense, they're subsidizing subscription readers. If a public option is seen as encouraging consumers of private plans to dump patients, it's unclear why supposedly free emergency care hasn't already done so, if there really are all these vast numbers of people lining up for treatment the way many did a year ago for free lunches at Denny's. Government MEPS data are probably the most reliable around given current health information systems , but it's not entirely clear if the process fully accounts for possibly inflated prices paid by the uninsured with little negotiating power i.

The MEPS is contracted out, and dependent on patients being familiar with their insurance information or have an insurance booklet to provide to the survey worker so that patients can detect overcharges relative to prevailing average rates negotiated by insurance companies after-the-fact and then willingly admit their mistakes to the survey taker. The idea of "uncompensated care" also rests on Pareto efficiency, which, as one observer a Brit who grew up in the aftermath of WWII notes, is like not putting anyone in a worse off position -- even Hitler.

Dan Cooper March 9, 7: Angell is wrong, ignorant of the medical reform history in this country and living in a political fantasy land. The President didn't campaign on single-payer, he may have liked it at one point he campaigned on the reforms we have in the present bills passed by Congress O'Reilly show played what Obama had said Obama was for universal healthcare and he would not seek to pass healthcare by a vote of Both which Obama has long since abandoned. Obama would have put single-payer on the table can you imagine the outcry from the right or from stakeholders like doctors, hospitals and insurers?

Yes, I agree with this. I can't help that it takes guts, ethics and virtue to not be corrupted in this day and age. This is why the prez needs to put such plan to a national vote to the citizens. Let the citizens say yes or no for socialized healthcare apple and take it out of the hands of the corrupt politicians. After all, it would be a plan for citizens and not pelicans they already have a gold plated healthcare plan so no need for them to grovel for healthcare crumbs. Trace "And for everyone who is complaining about the reforms you need to ask yourself am I insured?

If yes then shut-up, because there are 31 million who are not and up to 40, a year who die because they don't have it. No, just because people have health insurance today means nothing. It can disappear or change dramatically in coverage overnight. People should not shut up If anything they should be much more vocal Then again, we are over populated. Angell logic is to get all or nothing. As I posted earlier, the ObamaCare glass is half full The good you refer to is good for the insurance companies and bad for the citizens.

Read the comments here to get schooled on the subject Trace. Armstrong "As we now know, the Democrats also never really supported a vague "public option" that would in theory ensure some level of competition with the private insurance industry and help to drive down the cost of premiums. Reason no politician will support a public option is It would take the profits out of health insurance and somewhat lower the cost of premiums.

As such, people would transfer their biz out of the high priced insurance companies into the lower priced public option. This may put the health insurance companies out of biz, or at least cut way back on their profits. Their CEO's wont go for that. But as I posted earlier, the cost of health insurance, even without profit, is unaffordable for most of us as well. So, in order to keep the bribe money coming from the lobbyists, the public option is a no-no for politicians Probably the same issue with socialized healthcare.

Anything that takes a dime from health insurance companies profit is taboo.

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I couldn't agree more with Dr. The windfall that will come to the insurance companies' profits from the mandatory insurance purchase if President Obama's bill is passed, is intolerable. We have absolutely no need for insurance companies. What we do need is single payer and we need it now. Thank you, Bill Moyers, for your insightful and informative program as always , but you should know it was the most depressing event of my week. Jean Berlowitz Corvallis, Oregon. Jean Berlowitz March 9, 3: Like other boomer age folks, I am very concerned about the costs and, especially who will ultimately bear those costs.

I am extremely concerned that the ultimate costs of the current health reform plan will be placed upon our children That is an unfair burden that NONE of us want to wish upon our children and grandchildren. I completely agree with Marcia Angell that the President should scrap the current effort and start over. You and I are old enough to remember the concept of regulated monopolies and the benefits that were extracted for the public at large.

For example, the cost of doing business for the Phone Company was that they HAD to provide cheap or affordable local phone service. On the flip side, they could charge as much as they wanted to for all other services such as long distance calling. I'm sure that you can remember and cite other examples. I propose that all insurance companies health and life be placed under the regulated monopoly umbrella.

The type and level of basic or minimum coverage will be determined by the government. The amount of profit or no profit margin would be determined by the government. In this manner there would be no need for government funded public option coverage plan. The insurance companies would be free to charge market rates on all other plans that provide coverage above and beyond this basic or minimum standard.

In this manner, the American public will be given reasonable affordable choices. Insurance companies can meet their social responsibilities in a regulated and fair manner and continue to make reasonable profits. This concept is already used in Europe. Switzerland switched to a system that separates insurance from employment. Each individual or family is required to buy coverage, and insurers must offer a basic package of benefits to all applicants.

The insurance companies cannot profit from selling basic coverage, but they can from supplemental plans. Premiums are deducted from paychecks; the unemployed and poor are subsidized. Despite opposition from insurers, drugmakers, and business, the plan passed and went into effect in But everyone is covered, insurers are more profitable than ever, and its high-quality health care has been maintained. The Healing of America: Val March 9, 3: They took single-payer off the table from the very beginning despite the fact that polls have consistently shown that the vast majority of Americans support it: The Democrats have almost entirely excluded single-payer advocates from the phony debate over health care reform.

Despite his rhetoric about supposedly being open to ideas from everyone, Obama refused to allow single-payer advocates to participate in the seven-hour long televised health care summit on February 25th. As we now know, the Democrats also never really supported a vague "public option" that would in theory ensure some level of competition with the private insurance industry and help to drive down the cost of premiums.

This idea of a public plan was also overwhelmingly popular. The public plan would have been available only to a relatively small number of uninsured poor people. Other low-income people deemed eligible for subsidies in the new health insurance marketplace would have been excluded. Not surprisingly, Obama and the Democrats now say the "public option" is no longer an option because it lacks "political support" i.

In other words, we must stop treating health care as a commodity and eliminate profit from the equation altogether. Health care is a human right and ought to be guaranteed to all via a single-payer national health service. The Democratic Party is well to the right of where the vast majority of the people stand on practically every major issue of public concern, from the highly unpopular escalation of the U. It's no wonder that the Democrats lost their Senate seat in Massachusetts formerly held by Ted Kennedy—their base didn't feel inspired to turn out to vote for another lame conservative corporate Democrat: This is an ominous sign of things to come.

The inability of the Democrats to address the needs of the middle class and working majority is feeding into a successful Republican-led counter-offensive and a growing right-wing populist movement e. The abysmal failure of the Democrats to bring about any substantive progressive change will most likely lead to a sweeping victory for the Republicans in the Congressional elections this year not unlike the Gingrich-Republican victory in Unfortunately, it seems this pattern of failure by the Democrats has now become institutionalized: Armstrong March 9, 3: I too was enlightened by Dr.

Angel making the crucial point that health insurance is NOT health care. What we need is insurance reform, not health care reform. As an individual policy holder I was charged as much as 3x more than group plan members for for a mamogram. My individual policy rate increased so much over the last years that I finally took a position as an employee - to obtain group coverage - with the same provider. Ryan March 9, 1: The President didn't campaign on single-payer, he may have liked it at one point he campaigned on the reforms we have in the present bills passed by Congress.

Single-payer is even more radical than the Clinton's health care plan and it went down in flames, bringing us to this point nearly seventeen years later and causing the Democrats to lose control of Congress; in effect ushering in the Conservative movement. This is the same mindset that sunk Sen. Does she really think the stakeholders would have supported a government takeover single-payer health care?

This bill is moderate and it's being slammed for being too liberal and socialism. He did what was politically possible in our country at this time. And for everyone who is complaining about the reforms you need to ask yourself am I insured? This bill is a progressive bill; it stops the worst practices of insurers and helps to bring down costs over the long run. If single-payer is what the left wants then it should have mobilized like the Tea Party and made their voices heard. The election is not the end of the road, if you volunteered for Obama you need to keep pushing.

If voices are silent then they don't get heard. Trace March 9, 1: While corporate profits in the health care industry are actually increasing as more and more Americans are losing their health coverage or becoming underinsured, focusing on profits directs people away from the much bigger problem. Each health insurance company has its own actuaries, own people who negotiate with doctors and hospitals, own advertising budgets, own claims review staff, and own administration. Every doctor and hospital has to negotiate with these companies and bill them.

In other words, the profits and obscene compensation packages going to CEOs and others is a pittance compared to the overall excessive administrative costs created in order to make the profits. When I was a kid, my family physician worked with one or two specialists in each discipline. Nowadays, your family physician has to check which specialist is approved by which plan. No way can they have the same level of cooperation and continuity of care. Doctors waste hours per week dealing with the various insurance companies. Yet, there is no credible evidence these private health insurance companies add any value to our health care system.

Though, to some extent, they have different provider networks, depending on whether one chooses their HMO, PPO, or Point of Service Plan, on the whole, most doctors and hospitals are covered, regardless of which plan one has. Or if covered by one plan rather than another the risk of a hospital-based infection is less at the same hospital? In a single-payer plan, an expanded improved version of Medicare no separate drug coverage and no need for supplemental policies , administrative costs savings will return the over 25 cents on the dollar wasted to paying for actual medical coverage.

Do you know why America needs healthcare for all? Think inequity of care, among others.

People will be able to choose their doctors and hospitals without the intermediary of a health insurance company. If seriously ill or injured, each person should be able to decide if they want to risk extreme pain and disability for, say, a one percent chance of living a few more months or, would prefer hospice care, or any level of care in between. But what happens if we are incapacitated or unconscious? That is what advanced directives and living wills are all about.

In addition, we designate someone we trust to ensure that our wishes as expressed in them are carried out. The Republican Medicare Modernization Act of included calling for living wills. Anyone who read it clearly would see that it did not limit what level of care one could choose.

However, it did allow for physician payment at least once every five years for discussing living wills. Nowadays doctors are being squeezed for time and insurance companies are paying less and less. Should we really expect our family physician to sit down with us for a half hour just to discuss living will options without being paid?

Medicine is making advances almost daily, so newer treatments might lead to our changing our choices, so reviewing our living wills every five years seems reasonable. The Bill did call for physicians to encourage their patients to have living wills. What is wrong with that? I certainly would want my doctor to remind me to have one so that in the event I am incapacitated it will be my decisions that will control the care I get.

Opponents also criticized panels of government bureaucrats who will decide what is and what is not covered. Briefly, in the s, 42, women with disseminated breast cancer had bone marrow transplants. If we paid for every medical intervention that is either experimental or shown not to confer benefit not only would we contribute to additional suffering; but would bankrupt the system.

The Bill called for more funding of clinical trials. Clinical trials are expensive and take years to carry out. In the meantime, panels of experts often review the research currently available leading to evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. These panels are usually composed of medical specialists, nurses, epidemiologists like myself , and members from the public. Using comprehensive search strategies they try to find every published study and conference presentation on a particular topic, evaluate the methodological strengths of each respective study, and summarize the results.

In some cases, the results are so overwhelming that nothing more is needed. In other cases, the results give impetus to funding one or more clinical trials. These evidence-based reviews are published in their entirety on the web including all members of the panel, search strategies, reference list, extensive tables, etc. Most can be found at www. In other words, they are public and transparent. On the other hand, private insurance companies also use clinical guidelines to decide what to and what not to cover; but their guidelines are proprietary.

There is absolutely no way to know how they were developed. I prefer public, transparent guidelines to private for-profit proprietary ones. All are designed to keep our current health insurance industry in business. In fact, most will actually increase their profits, evident from their stocks going up when the individual mandate was included. Some of the provisions are good and will benefit some people; but as Dr. Many will still be underinsured and our fragmented system will continue. It reminds me of someone standing by a river bank jumping in to save someone; but while saving the one, many more float by.

Nobody focuses on why so many people are falling into the river. The current bills will help some; but keeping our private for-profit system will hurt far more. Every other advanced modern industrialized democracy has some form of universal non-profit health care and despite the propaganda, many have actually better access and equal to superior outcomes.

Our health care system not only delays and denies care to many, gives substandard care to others; but its excessive cost reduces are international competitiveness and takes monies out of our own system that could go into research, infrastructure, schools, etc.


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In other words, not only do we often get substandard care; but the cost of our healthcare system also impinges on other aspects of our economy reducing our overall quality of life. He said that we have fallen short in past reform efforts because we have tried to get the perfect. But this industry has never been an honest player. You can deny insurance simply by jacking rates up so high that they are unaffordable. People are desperate, desperate for secure and comprehensive health care.

This is an enormous American crisis on every level-- economic, social, and political. The failure of this bill could actually lead to true success. He could easily show, by means of straightforward figures, that Single Payer would rapidly save money both for individuals and for the nation, while providing high quality health care for everyone. But a tremendous armyof advocates would rise up to help him.

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Barbara LaMorticella March 9, 6: I believe it is time for some radical action. We should federalize the largest health insurance company probably the Blues and run it as our public option. Force the other companies to compete. If the new public option does not work the company could be returned to a private company. We need the public option some way or other. My wish is that something worthwhile gets done. James Dana March 9, 5: I worked for the healthcare companies for more than 10 years. Single Payer health care is the only Real Solution.

I worked for President Obama's election campaign. But I do not support President's current healt care bill.

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Levent Celik March 9, 5: I was thrilled to hear Dr. Angel make the crucial point that I always raise when I discuss this issue with friends and family: They are two different, often antithetical things. Michael Moore showed, in his film "Sicko" that those with health insurance do not necessarily get the care they need, and they can die as a result.

Angel for many reasons, not least that I think she is right about both the politics and the policy of this bill. As it stands, the bill will disappoint most citizens, and raise premiums for those of us over If the Senate would pass a public option, as 37 senators now want to do, that would be a real improvement. They are to prevent harm, to protect rights, and to enforce contracts. But not help the needy. That is the unique and exclusive responsibility of the church. Is a direct benefit better than an indirect benefit? I am against regulation and oversight because I am against the existence of a pagan institution holding the authority to oversee or regulate, and I see no reason to believe why such a regulatory institution would have incentives more correctly aligned with consumers than insurers Insurance companies face more immediate feedback from consumers than regulatory agencies do, and have incentives to lower costs and make processes more efficient, while regulatory agencies have incentive for spending and expanding their budgets.

Unfortunately, Bono is wrong, because only a very small percentage of the poor remain poor for a significant length of time in relatively free economies. Everywhere we find poverty we will also find privileged individuals protecting their privilege. In my opinion, the two ideologies are irreconcilable in practice. Also, about your premises: Yet, for some reason abuse is already pre-determined to be a reality of the health care system and therefore criteria for the debate on how to reform health care.

Or, if going to the doctor when you are sick is abuse, then I question whether or not this is an accurate definition of abuse. You might find the American Medical Association helpful for that http: And I really, really fear giving them total control over any thing. Once government does that they rarely give it back. I was just sort of contemplating how government would operate it. On the one hand they could treat anyone and get paid. On the other they would be forced to treat anyone and everyone. Doctors would gain some freedoms at the expense of others.

It seems hard to see medical care as a business. We are talking lives here, not shoes or hats or Pop-Tarts. But behind that industry are people working to develop drugs and technology that is better. And those people deserve a return on their investment. I will however answer some of your questions. There are plenty of people who tie up the medical system. I have a cousin who is a hpyocondriac sp and runs to the doctor constantly.

Anytime the government gives money to a citizen or an organization it is a handout. In Maryland Walmart was going to construct a regional distribution center. Sam Walton and his company are not faultless. But they do provide cheap and inexpensive drugs, inexpensive clinics, jobs for seniors who often have a hard time finding jobs, health benefits for part-time employees, and advancement in their ranks. With that said, how many people did you employ today?

How many millions of dollars have you provided in healthcare this year?


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  • An Anarchist and Healthcare – Young Anabaptist Radicals.

First of all, I resent the claim that I am trolling for an argument. I have been a serious, long-time contributor to this blog. Instead, I was trying to deconstruct some of the assumptions behind the argument you were making. Your anecdotal argument for abuse carries little merit. You are right that Wal-Mart provides health benefits for part-time employees; however, the benefits are not affordable and many Wal-Mart employees access state-funded medical insurance.

Read more at http: Telling me that you worked at a job that pays less than Wal-Mart only tells me that you worked at a crappy job, not that Wal-Mart is a quality employer. Many folks need to access medical services, some folks have chronic care needs, and often times are cut off from that care or denied care. Opening the free market I highly doubt will fix this, since a free, open market in every other sector has led to monopoly and higher costs. It has already led to a slew of problems. No government interference is causing the massive amount of denials for acute care that are happening around the country — as Michael Corleone would say: I work among homeless folks.

About one tenth of all people in the US are under the poverty line. And about one tenth of those folks will spend time on the street each year. Many of them spend all of there time there. I have personally seen two people die because they were given serious hospital care and then released to go back and live on the street or in a shelter. The way of the world is that if someone is to have success and health then someone else must do without.

No one starves to death in America. But when people are treated as less than human because of the economic disparity, is that not poverty? A homeless man I was aquainted with was constantly being stopped by the police and harrased. He hated these stops to such a degree that he often reponded dramatically to them and so the stops increased. A few folks on the street knew that his body was in his old camp, but were afraid to contact the police, so they let the body stay. By the time I found the body and called about it, the man had been in his camp for six months, through the summer heat and his arm looked like an overripe banana and the flesh of his face had been chewed off by animals.

This and so much more is what my friends on the street face. I could go on. And probably will somewhere else. But the point I am making is that this is what the people under the poverty line are in danger of— one paycheck, one firing away of. And this is what the homeless face everyday.