Just one of the reasons I wouldn't choose either party to support. They are both corrupt. It's just that in general, Democratic officials tend to be "the lesser of two evils."

I'm not a Michael Moore fan by any means (in fact, he's pretty douche-tastic too), but I didn't doubt his reporting of Democrats who were so opposed to privatized plans crippling the nation's ability to afford coverage and fighting the "good fight" only to end up taking bribes/contributions/whatever from the health care and pharmaceutical conglomerates and no longer pushing for socialized medicine/health care back in the '90s.

Good article.

The argument private healthcare providers always roll out is that they will deliver healthcare more cheaply and more efficiently. The truth is the US spends far more GDP on healthcare than countries like France and Switzerland with their public health schemes (I don't know the comparison with us in the UK).

Yet this addiction to private suppliers, and wariness of public services means the US is the only industrialised nation not to provide its citizens with public healthcare free at the point of need.

The major issue of healthcare delivery within a publicly funded system is (surprise) one that is created by private companies - the drug suppliers - and complex cost-benefit analyses are done to weigh up the high price of the drugs against their efficacy and the lives they might save.

Not sure about the paedophile reference though. Seems rather unnecessary.

well we saw this coming didn't we?

Making it at the state level is a steaming pile of crap as well. Look at the auto insurance industry. NJ's insurance laws are a fucking joke and allow companies to create a "separate company" for their NJ business. The NJ based companies then complain about how the regulations make it difficult to make money, threaten bankruptcy and pulling out of the NJ market, unless they're allowed to raise rates or dump high risk clients. Meanwhile, the parent companies are making record profits outside of NJ. NJ currently ranks 3rd in the nation with the highest rates in the nation and requires mandatory minimum insurance levels (although mandatory minimums should be a national requirement IMHO).

The dems are still working under the assumption that bipartisanship would get things done in ways that everyone can be proud of, but the repubs are actively working to block everything the dems do even if they write the exact legislature that the repubs want.

its a game that the dems have been playing for a long time and its left them without a spine.

God forbid we just do away with middlemen all together! Who needs the government or an insurance company interfering with me and my doctor? In "ye olde days" people dealt directly with doctors, face to face. No insurance companies. They negotiated a price that was fair and feasible for both parties, and if they couldn't they went elsewhere. It's a true "free market" approach to the health care industry. If a doctor wants to be a dick and say, "Ya know, I'm not going to fix your heart for any less than $25,000" to a person on welfare, well that doctor will quickly find him or herself out of work because no one is going to be willing to spend that kind of money if they can get the same job done elsewhere for cheaper.

We would still need the state to regulate who can or can't practice medicine to avoid any back-alley, bargain basement surgeons, but that, to me sounds like a far more reasonable plan than public health care or giant insurance conglomerates.

Most doctors today became doctors to help people, but they're in a fucked up system that is controlled by the insurance giants. Get rid of the middlemen all together, and people will be able to get the care they need at a price that they can afford.

Simple.

It seems they used a smart ploy in talking about Health Care reform so that the media will focus on it while they sneaked in a vote for Cap and Trade in the house (which passed).

They gave up one piece of milquetoast legislation to pass another?

I didn't say they gave up Health Care Reform, they just used the distraction it caused to pass a unpopular bill (it already failed once less than a year ago).

How is that Tort reform is off the table?

Trial lawyers (biggest Dem donors) want to tell sad tales of wrongful actions. Ok fine, don't cap damages, but at what level of risk can the doctor be off the hook. IF that is not defined, then the doctor is better off ordering tons of very low yield tests that cost the doctor nothing, then getting sued.

Hence skyrocketing health care costs.

No public option is going to save any money if more people can pile into doctor's offices and have insurance to cover every 1 in 10,000 chance of disease that can be tested for!

Just some points I'd like to make:

1) I'm not sure how it's a monopoly if like there are ten different "Big Insurers" according to FTR's link.

2) I'm now sure how that report from FTR's link could be considered unbiased in anyway since it was released by those who are "Pro-reform".

3)I agree with drdetox. There seems to be a lot of money spent towards migigating minor risks. This goes for other things too, like Pharmecuticals and human trials. I think there's an over abundance of litigousness for an industry whose practice is far from an exact science.

4)Look at the startlingly bad conditions in the VA Hospital that came to light a while back. Do we really want "the poor" to be treated in those conditions? I volunteered one summer as a file clerk for a VA Hospital and the first day I walked in there was a stench so bad that I thought I was going to be sick. And more over the fact they were using massive paper files in this day and age (it was 2003, but close enough), should tell you something.

5) How in god's name are we going to pay for "Public Option"? We're a gazillion dollars in the hole.

I could go on, but I'll leave it here.

Libertarians are hardly "not living in the real world utopians". It's beyond ironic to be called that by the people who brought us communism, and believe that the government can be your friend. The left is just mad because we sided with them for 8 years to oppose Bush, but won't side with Obama just to oppose the Republicans. They can't ask us where we were when Bush took our civil liberties, as they do Republicans who complain about Obama's power grab, because they know exactly where we were, fighting it tooth-in-nail, so they resort to calling us racist, or crazy if they won't to be different. I'll admit that, while I was never a True Believer, at one point, after Obama got elected, I was hopeful. He seemed to be surrounding himself with intelligent people of diverse ideologies. However, after his $1.7 trillion dollar budget, destroying the unarguably successful D.C. vouchers program (because the NEA is clearly more important than the education of poor black children), and refusal to consider tort reform it disappeared. The latter shows that he is only willing to reform health care on terms that are beneficial to him. I don't really have a problem with a public option, but I don't want government health care, because government health care will suck. And have no doubt, it will be shitty. If you don't believe me, go to an inner city school, or a school in the impoverished rural South, the DMV, the Post office, or anything else our government runs. So I will keep my private insurance, but unless private health insurance costs are lowered through tort reform, they will be lowered through cutting quality, or will be driven out of business, and we will all be stuck with shitty government health care, run by incompetent goons instead of doctors.

Don't worry guys obama will make everything trendy and awsome!