Is this how it’s really going to play out? After the campaign to kick off the 2009 health care battle began with a blustery fire and brimstone burst of high-minded rhetoric, we’re going to fold up the tents and retreat from the battlefield claiming victory, waving a white flag at half mast as we dash toward our home districts for the August break ?
And are you really going to try to pin the blame on the Republicans? Yes, I know they are a bunch of obstructionist pricks, and yes, they more often behave like a group of extras from a D.W. Griffith movie than elected officials entrusted with representing ALL their constituents, but you have to admire the way they don’t form a circular firing squad when they pick a fight.
I am so fucking sick of Blue Dog Elephant Democrats, and I am so sick of trying not to get sick until we get a decent health care plan, and now I have come to the conclusion that the only way I’ll be able to obtain health care is to go on Arizona’s public program. My family actually brings home about 50k a year, and that still isn’t enough to afford health insurance.
I don’t know if Barry Crimmins was the first one to say it, but he sure said it eloquently: “Whoever introduced the profit motive to health care is an evil, evil man.” Even in a capitalist system, some things are off limits. Health care is one of them.
A national socialized health care plan is a bad idea. I DO think that managed health care should be provided… but at the state level. The federal government needs to be stripped down to bare necessities, and severely limited in what they have control over. More federal programs are not what this country needs. Let the states give their citizens the vote, and if it’s decided that they want a healthcare program, then let them pay for it. If someone is living in a state that does not have a system, then they can move to where it is available.
I do understand the benefits of health care for those who need it, but it’s not something I should have to share the burden of paying for.
Alternatively, put a system in place that takes control of the health care system and puts Dr’s, Insurance Companies, and the Pharmaceutical industry in line, instead of raping their customers, but don’t make it a federal mandate that will add more financial responsibility to those who don’t want it.
Close, but no cigar. First- we have the 38th best health care system in the world- right ahead of Slovenia! Yay! We are the ONLY western country in the world without a single payer system- what you call socialized health care. What makes you think health care will get more expensive if the government takes over? Medicare operates on a 3 % administrative cost. The most efficient private health care company is around 30%. Add in the cost of advertising, denying claims, profit, etc. and it climbs to about 58%. And don’t get me started on pharmaceutical companies. Congress needs to roll it back to a simpler time when they weren’t allowed to advertise- that would cut their costs by about 1/3 (and their profit by half, but who really cares?) And don’t try to tell me that eliminating the profit motive in health care or in pharmaceuticals will stifle innovation. That’s a bullshit argument presented by cynics who don’t have faith in the human race. The simple fact is that fee for service doesn’t work, pharmaceutical price-fixing doesn’t work, and for profit health care doesn’t work.
Do you really want to subsidize all those Cialis bathtubs in the middle of the forest? And by the way- patients aren’t “customers.”
Patients : Customer | Tomatos : Tomatoes