All I know is Teddy Kennedy fought pretty hard and probably spent more money than any of us will ever have... for what ? You fill in the blank why shouldn't every American have the same opportunity ?..... will this health care bill let us do it ?

In Oz, we have universal Medical Insurance. This does not cover all, and if you want full cover you pay for extra cover.

The devil in the detail is, like the UK, the queues for the services if you haven't insurance to grab the procedure privately.

Where basic medical treatment stops and elective treatment starts is a toughie.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

dicksbro & Oldfart have asked the right questions.

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Eudaimonia

This is the most infuriating argument of all! Some lady bozo on a call-in talk show says, "Well, who says Social Security & Medicare are well-run govt programs?"...well, for one, I do...I know, it took an infuriatingly long time to get accepted, during which time I came very close to bankruptcy, but once I was in, it's saved my life...yes, Medicaid plan B has its drawbacks, some due to extensive red tape, but when push comes to shove, I get most of my medical necessities paid for...& I get no worse of a runaround from Medicaid than I ever got from private insurance companies! So you like your present medical insurance just fine, great...you do realize it's gonna go up, & up, & up, don't you? And why? Because the medical professionals & hospitals have to raise their rates because of the 45,000,000 or so folks here that don't have any insurance at all...what we have now is a broken non-system that's going to bankrupt us all soon, & I'd like to see the govt. at least TRY to wade in & fix this coalcart to Hell before it destroys us...

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Plug me into somethin'

If the theory does not conform to the facts, then the facts must be discarded.

No good deed ever goes unpunished

Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level, & beat you with experience.

That's one argument I haven't heard expressed yet, that we already are paying for everyone else through higher premiums, and higher medical costs in general. My daughter spent five weeks in neonatal intensive care and we stopped counting the bill at $250,000. I had good insurance at the time which paid 80%. Still 80% of a quarter of a million dollars is $50,000. So even with insurance we were bankrupted. There were a lot of young people with babies in the NICU while our daughter was there and I'd be willing to wager that the majority of them had little to no insurance which the hospital ended up having to eat.

Obviously you don't live in NE.One of the newspapers in Rochester NH run a
weekly contest,in which the winner sends in where the biggest pothole is!
PF---That was John Kerry that taught navigation to the swift boat captains!
That was a joke! Irish
P.S. Medical Care is like the law.It's who you know & how much you can spend!This comes from a State Policemans(deceased) son!

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Irish---Better to be dead & cool,then alive & uncool!
(Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man)

I live in Kansas which has some of the best roads in the country. It's also one of the states with the worst annual temperature swings, which is really bad for roads. You know how we do it? Taxes, and government inspectors, two things which any libertarian finds to be a basic evil. I used to work as one of those state inspectors and now I do the same job in the private sector, if you honestly believe that the private sector is more efficient than the state, then boy do I have some news for you.

So I guess the alternative to all of this,is to just keep letting the insurance companies gouge us for coverage. I guess we can expect to keep being dropped for pre existing conditions,or when we loose our jobs like I did in March of 09. I know,I could have gotten COBRA coverage,but thats to damn expensive,and I just lost my job. What is the answer? Well if Europa and Canada can do single payer with very little problem, why can't we?

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Sex is one of nine reasons for reincarnation.The other eight are unimportant...Henry Miller

Which is all I had to hear . What are you 912 people protesting anyway ?


Lying us into war torturing people and spying on us all is fine with you in the name of 9/11 but healthcare reform is some form socailism ?
Get a brain Morans !!
Is it me ? Why do you people vote for politicans that preach that governement is the wrong solution to everything only to elect then into office and prove it to be true ?

Because they vote for people who say "Let me represent you in the Capital" then go on to vote at the Party's call, totally disregarding the wishes and welfare of their electorate. "It's for the Greater Good" is the usual excuse.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

"I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all." I am sure that I have heard that before somewhere ...

But seriously, if we take as given that the insurance companies are "gouging" (Assuming Facts Not in Evidence), then we must assume that this is happening with the collusion of Federal & State insurance regulators. Health insurers have been regulated since the late 1800s.

As for the notion that "Europa and Canada can do single payer with very little problem", wouldn't that depend upon what one considers to be "very little"? Further, it is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many other people believe it.

While this or that example may help the U.S. towards a better, more inclusive health care system, should we not seek out an American solution?

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Eudaimonia

"should we not seek out an American solution?"

Lovely if you can get one, but I suspect that most couldn't give a damn so long as an effective and affordable solution was implemented.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

Determining what is "an effective and affordable solution" depends upon who is asked, does it not? The English solution is not the French solution which is not the Canadian solution. If no one gave a damn, then this thread would be empty.

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Eudaimonia

That is right.The English,French,German,and Canadian health coverage is not all the same. But the did respond to the people's need for health coverage, while this country is waiting around for a change from the "free market" plan of health care,largly paid for by employers as a benifit. While some people are afraid of what it might mean to be covered by a gov't health plan,they should realize that loosing your coverage when you loose your job,and being dropped for an illness,having a pre existing claus in your policy or telling you what the insurance companies wil or willnot pay for is a product of the way they are run today. As far as the undocumented issue goes,is red meat for the conservatives,and as far as paying for abortions go,why not? They are legal aren't they? If anybody want to bring "death panels" into the issue,forget about it.They have been listening to the wrong: Beckpalinlimbaughoreilydobbsrepublicannaysaingastr oturfingfoxnewsbullshit. It isn't that the conservatives don't have any ideas at all,they do.But the legitiment concerns will be found listening to people like David Frum and Michael Medved.

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Sex is one of nine reasons for reincarnation.The other eight are unimportant...Henry Miller

If "regulators" of any industries were doing their jobs, we wouldn't be in the financial crisis we're in now...but I digress...

Since you say the facts are not in evidence, how about we just follow the money? "Someone" obviously is happy enough with the status quo to defend it with everything they've got, using scare tactics about "death panels" & "socialized medicine" to frighten already insecure people with lies, nonsense, & the occasional truckload of bullshit, & this campaign is financed by...who? Hard to say, for sure, but one of the fiercest arguments I hear is that a govt. funded system would put private companies out of business. AIG notwithstanding, whenever an insurance co. goes under, usually one finds rampant fraud, greed, and/or mismanagement pushed it under the bus. Otherwise healthy insurance companies seldom suffer that fate.

And just for the record, private insurers work hand-in-hand with the biggest Govt. medical programs of all, Medicare/Medicaid...I know this first hand, BTW...& I repeat my earlier statement that that works as well as any system, private or public...

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Plug me into somethin'

If the theory does not conform to the facts, then the facts must be discarded.

No good deed ever goes unpunished

Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level, & beat you with experience.