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

To: RetiredNow who wrote (14888)	3/20/2010 8:47:59 AM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

I live in a relatively large city, and yet, the only broadband choice I have is TWC. You can't get DSL where you are...or Hughesnet or Wildblue? Hell, I have all of these options and I live in rural Alabama. Al

To: RetiredNow who wrote (14888)	3/20/2010 9:24:05 AM
From: skinowski	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

the government puts so many intra and interstate regulations down on telecoms that Verizon is having a really hard time expanding their service everywhere. My access to broadband was also delayed for a few years because of a similar situation. Government people end up overregulating, and then it takes them forever to untangle their own maze of rules. These days satellite companies like Hughes can bypass many of the restrictions, and offer broadband in places where no one dreamed about it before. Government people are only human. They measure their success not by how well they serve their constituencies, but how high they are in the pecking order, how much power they have, how many subordinates work under them. There is a thin (and fuzzy) line between proper regulation and governance - and overdoing it. What helps maintain the balance are the famous checks and balances - and the Constitution. Regrettably, the latter nowadays is seen more as a fertile field, where people keep discovering whatever they... would like to discover. About healthcare -- I can see, at some point in the future, a couple of Congressmen sitting and making deals, like: "If you vote for my Bridge to WhoKnowsWhere, I will vote for your new Oversize Medical Center. This will happen, because that's how they do business. There will be more waste and inefficiencies than we are willing to imagine. The main problems with our otherwise superb (relative to others) healthcare are cost and access. Both can be addressed and improved -- but our political classes see this as an opportunity to take charge. And so they will.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (14888)	3/20/2010 10:37:31 AM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

I guess we could leave those underserved areas to wallow in poverty and eventually everyone would move away...probably all of them to the big cities. That's the other option. That certainly would be the free market option. We all make choices in life. One of them is where we live. There are always trade-offs. Where I live there's not enough parking. Maybe we need a national program to provide it... Seems to me that we need to have some vital national interest before we jump in to compensate people for the downsides of their choices of where to live. I don't see a vital national interest here.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (14888)	3/20/2010 11:52:10 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

MM, people who want fibre cyberspace had better buy a residence in the right place next time they move. Or, they could buy a mobile cyberspace device and use wireless service which is getting better and cheaper. The so-called digital divide is really a brain divide rather than an economic one. Chimpanzees have no need for cyberspace and neither do many people = especially those who are functionally illiterate. Think of Al Bundy of Married With Children fame, buying a computer and not having a clue what it was good for, so they put a vase with flowers on top of it. 10 years ago when we moved house, my first requirement was fast internet. Now, I will require fibre. Those farmers you mention who want internet, should get their money out and install it themselves if they think it's such a good idea. People spending OPM will of course say they need fibre. Spending their own money, they'll think a bit more carefully about how much they really need their high speed pornography. I don't want to give my money to dumb government employees to waste on fibre to people who have no idea what to do with it other than watch porn, movies or what have you. If they want to buy medical treatment, fibre, a car, Big Macs, Manolo Blahniks , gasoline, overseas holidays, that's up to them. They can get out their own money to buy them instead of mine. Mqurice