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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (134541)	3/24/2010 11:13:31 AM
From: Katelew	Respond to of 543079

According to a study from researchers at Harvard Medical School, they say the lack of health care coverage can be tied to about 45,000 deaths a year in the United States. Many of those lives could be saved. I can't say with any certainty the circumstances surrounding those deaths. I'm not ignorant of or cavalier toward the ramifications of being without health insurance in this country. I'm not content with the status quo.....changes needed to be made. My criticism has always been directed toward this particular proposal. A smaller approach could have been designed to take care those who are too poor to take care of their own medical needs. Too poor to either buy a policy or pay out of pocket. A narrowly targeted approach could have been taken. This plan, though, will send taxpayer money to millions of people who don't need it. It doesn't really push down health care costs. It just makes it easier for people to pay for them because govt. will take a good sized share of the costs. There are benefits in the package that various members of my own family can get, even though none of us is anywhere close to needing government assistance. On top of this, it appears to only take care of 70% of the currently uninsured. Perhaps Ed is right and the plan will evolve into something better down the road. As it stands right now, I view it as fiscally insane. We have two entitlement programs that won't be self-supporting pretty soon (actually three, the prescription drug program is subsidized by the government). So the country adds a fourth program? That's crazy. But lets just wait and see what some politically neutral experts have to say about it. The examination should start as soon as all the 'fixes' are done and it's passed into law.