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

To: Road Walker who wrote (8181)	8/12/2009 11:44:13 AM
From: skinowski	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Our governments do the best job of any governments in the world... and that's why we prosper. The reason it works better than others is that it is still - in relative terms - more limited than most other governments on the planet. People still have room to exercise private initiative. We prosper because we are still a - relatively - free people. "hate government movement" is a straw man. It is not a matter of hating it, but rather of keeping it from expanding into areas which are beyond it's core competencies. Of keeping it from usurping more powers than it is allowed by our Constitution. A good number of the functions you mentioned could be performed by a smaller government using private contractors who would do the work on a competitive basis. The way things stand, our government is drowning in its own regulations. How long has it been going on that Congressmen don't read the bills? This is a big and fundamental subject, and we could expand on it forever, which would not be... practical. I can see now that with views like yours it must indeed seem absurd that we still do not have a fully centralized healthcare system.

To: Road Walker who wrote (8181)	8/12/2009 12:49:32 PM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Respond to of 42652

This stuff doesn't limit your freedom... it expands your freedom to do what you want and not have to worry if your next meal will kill you. Do we really need the government to tell us whether our next meal will kill us? Of course not. Sure, some basic regulation on the subject is fine. But there comes a time when it is counterproductive. To suggest that more regulation somehow ENHANCES freedom is just insane. Absolutely insane.

To: Road Walker who wrote (8181)	8/13/2009 7:18:01 AM
From: Lane3	2 Recommendations Respond to of 42652

The 'hate government' movement is great at generalities... You misunderstand the "hate government" movement, methinks. Public utilities are not the same thing as federal command and control or nannyism. The former is local, generally works well, and is accepted. As you move from local or state control to federal control you start getting resistance because flexibility and freedom are lost. As you move from utilities, which are universally accepted as necessities to meddling into things that used to be private matters you get even more resistance. And as you take huge chunks of money from people to pay for them, well, that's the last straw. Your examples of what works are largely local and in the nature of utilities. A command and control health car system is something else again.