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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (6131)	2/15/2009 12:26:42 AM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Respond to of 42652

>> I respect your opinion. As do I, yours. >> On the other hand as I've said many times before, leaving it in the hands of the 'free market' hasn't worked that well either. I actually think it has worked very well. America today has the best health care system in the world. Not only do we take excellent care of Americans, we effectively subsidize health care in every corner of the world. It is our technology and our drug R&D that leads to treatments that are applied world wide. The big argument against American health care is that not every person has insurance. Of course, what they don't tell is that out of ~41 Million who don't have, most are either aliens or individuals who COULD afford insurance but elect not to. All of these people end up being cared for nevertheless. Yes, a few slip through the cracks. But that's true everywhere. Socialized medicine doesn't work. Just check Canada out (only a few years ago Canada was cited as the model). In America, the biggest problems with health care stem from government invention. While I would favor extending health care insurance to those who are too poor to afford it yet make too much to have Medicaid, and a few other exceptions, for the most part the system functions fairly well. We should try to improve it in the areas that need improving but it is far too big and too critical to make any radical changes to it as are being planned in the so-called "stimulus" legislation.

To: John Koligman who wrote (6131)	2/15/2009 11:32:05 AM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Respond to of 42652

leaving it in the hands of the 'free market' hasn't worked that well either. Part of the problem is that it hasn't been entirely in the hands of the free market. It's hard to isolate the free market effects from the intervention effects. For example, the state issue we discussed earlier, the one where states won't allow non-comprehensive policies to be sold, drives up the cost of insurance. We have a mixed system, in some ways we have the worst of each. If we could find a way to get the best of each...