A Healthcare Reform Rant

Well he has a point albeit one that has flaws as well as yours.
The car insurance comparison is apples and oranges. You carry (or are forced to carry) car insurance in case you injure another person or damage another car/propery, not your own. That would be like carrying health insurance in case you ever shot someone accidentally.

Now his point that the govt shouldn't be able to force you to do anything sounds great, and I wish it were true, but thats not the case. Just the simple task of getting a drivers license is basically saying 'I am going to do what the govt wants so I can get a drivers license' which include following laws, carrying insurance etc etc.

Now forcing someone to carry health insurance is a slippery slope. Now I understand your position, that someone without insurance puts a strain on the system if that person should fall ill, but how do you force a person who cant afford insurance to pay for it? The idea of fines have been brought up but that is counterproductive as well. I mean there are literally millions of adults and families that live below the poverty line, how do you force them to buy insurance when they can barely feed their family?
Now the flip side is, poor people end up using the system more without a means to pay, so how do you deal with that? That I can't answer. I have ideas but I even see the flaws in my ideas. I had the idea that anyone under 18 in this country gets free health care, but I could see the fraud run rampant with that idea. Or peopel who make under a certain amount of moneyt get discounted or free health care, but again the fraud.
Its not an easy fix. UHC demands a raise in taxes, and frankly, we are taxed to death. I would like to see competition opened up across state lines, groups being legally able to form co-ops to buy group health care, drug costs lowered through large purchasing etc.
They also need to kick out all the lobbyists, they are the root of the problem.
I also dont have a whole lot of faith in the US govt to run a health care system. They have run Medicare and Social Security into the ground. Our politician would rather spend time having hearing on what athlete used drugs instead of fixing real problems.
Also on a side note, the whole tort reform argument is junk, medical malpractice lawsuits only account for roughly one percent in the overall cost of health care. Its something the GOP has latched onto even though the numbers prove its not worth it.
I can talk all day about this as I work on the lowest level of this issue, the street. I see how this all works from the start, and it does need to be fixed. We do absolutely need health reform, Im just not convinced our government has the right answer.

I was going to talk about Menzies Campbell's latest attack on rich people under Labour's policy over the last 10 years (he says they've done 'too well' under labour) but that story doesn't really have much information for me to talk & analyse it for ten minutes.

Obama is practically trying to ban lobbyists. But the news didn't get to much attention.
http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2009/11/27/obama-bans-lobbyists-...

Why can't gov issued insurance be a part of options among private ones?

we are all going to die.

I think you were thinking this is pointless announcements.

Ross, I definitely see what you're saying, to a point. But I guess I would like to see a realistic statistical cost analysis. I mean, the difference between the strain those who have no insurance put on the system versus trying to come up with a way to offer them insurance.

I wonder, if the finances in the system that the uninsured are already taking advantage of could be used, re-purposed to help them have insurance in some way. Or is that totally unrealistic?

(From our govt, probably unrealistic, huh?)

There are all kinds of things that government can and does tell a private citizen to do, and most of those things we never bat an eye at

I take exception to this comment- I resent everything the government makes me do.

This debate should not be about what is the best health care system, but how much power we want the government to have over our lives. You may agree with what the government is making you do now, but what about next time, when you don't agree, and you've already given your freedom away? As another post said, it's a slippery slope. I urge everyone not to think so much about the minutia of these issues and think about the big picture: what do you want your government to be, and how much more power do you want to give away? I also urge anyone who comes to the conclusion that he would like to give more power away, to please move to a communist nation that agrees with you instead of trying to take my freedom.

I realize this will seem far fetched, but think about the 13th amendment banning slavery and involuntary servitude. If the government is going to make everyone pay for something, whether they want it or need it, that is involuntary servitude. Think of someone who lives a simple life, grows his own food, builds his own house, is off the grid, etc. : completely independent. This person makes no money, so how will he pay? He will be forced to work (involuntary servitude) to pay the government. The same goes for property taxes, as there is not a single place in this entire country where you can live without paying them, unless you want to be homeless, I suppose.

Does Godwin's Law also have a section about references to communism?

In fairness, the freedom to go into bankruptcy if you get sick is important. Without it we might as well be living in the USSR.

This reminds me, every time I eat chicken I get furious thinking about how we gave away our freedom to die from salmonella poisoning to the USDA. I don't want government thugs sticking their noses into my dinner, I'll inspect my own poultry thank you very much!

Mr. Angell, you may wish to try the state directly to your North. You'd be happier there.

You are going to make me get Health Care? For being alive.

Listen Car Insurance is different, if I don't want to pay it, I don't need to drive. A choice I made a long time ago for like six years.

But NOW, if I am ALIVE, I must pay them. Pay them every month without fail. FUCK THAT. Any of you come near me to make me pay a Corporation, because I am alive, that is total slavery and subjegation and I will shoot someone in the face! One less douche bag insured.

I don't know where that came from but I think it had something to do with this
video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OzxNM8Nlscmbed>

In fairness, the freedom to go into bankruptcy if you get sick is important. Without it we might as well be living in the USSR.

Are you saying that if I get sick and can't afford my bills you would like to step in pay for it? I thank you. Or are you one of the people that expects other people to pay for your care?

This reminds me, every time I eat chicken I get furious thinking about how we gave away our freedom to die from salmonella poisoning to the USDA. I don't want government thugs sticking their noses into my dinner, I'll inspect my own poultry thank you very much!

You obviously missed the point- if you choose to eat mass produced chicken at KFC, then you probably want the USDA to inspect it. Note the word CHOOSE. You don't have to do it, and the ones who do pay for it. Also, public safety, I think everyone would agree except for anarchists, is one of the few roles the government should have.

Mr. Angell, you may wish to try the state directly to your North. You'd be happier there.

If you mean New Hampshire, it's too late- too many Massholes have moved up there in the last 20 years. Thanks for the thought, though.

No not unrealistic at all. What I find funny (funny -sad ,not funny haha) is that with the amount of waste in govt, if that were, well unwasted, we could probably insure everyone.
How much money have we and do we spend on needless war? I know thats another conversation all together, but we spend billions and billions for what amounts to being the world police.
We spend a lot of money in taxes already, but waste is huge. I really think they could fund insurance for those that are unisured and not have to raise any taxes whatsoever if they said " well lets stop spending our money on stupid shit like thousand dollar toilet seats" I think it could get done.

Well played sir. While I think we are all for a more limited government, there are things that need to be regulated if you will. Gig and I got into a discussion a while back about fire codes and how they save lives. He didnt think it should be forced, I told him that when I go into an establishment, I expect a reasonable degree of safety provided by that owner and that with out fire codes being laws, no business owner would ever comply with life safety devices. I see this all the time on inspections, where business owners try and get away with blocking exits, cluttering their egress with boxes and having out of date extinguishers. They try and get away with it because they are usually too cheap to spend the money to do things right.
All one has to see is the unedited video of the Rhode Island Nightclub fire tragedy (the one where Whitesnake played) and you will know exactly why we have fire codes.

As well intentioned and effective as those regulations may be, once you go down that path, where do you draw the line? How about no smoking on the continent? How about we cut down all the trees so that they can't burn? Next thing you know, you'll be put in jail for having a heated discussion lest it start a fire.

History repeats itself, no matter how hard you try to stop it.

There is an obvious need for people not to be stupid and cause people to get trapped in burning buildings, and if the government didn't force people to do it, private companies would pop up to offer certifications, and you could choose to go to places that had the cert. or not. I would trust a company that actually has some accountability over big government that has none, like when there's a fuck-up in Rhode Island and 100 people die and no state or local officials were held liable (to my knowledge).

mass produced chicken at KFC, then you probably want the USDA to inspect it. Note the word CHOOSE. You don't have to do it, and the ones who do pay for it.

You don't have to choose KFC, but if you are middle class or lower, you most likely are going to end up eating something containing some chemical that will give you cancer of the entire body. A chemical allowed in by the FDA because some Corporation, probably one that owns Health Insurance Companies, fudges the facts and lubes the politicians and bam, the food is required to have the chemical in it, and you are poisoned. So the sickly, fat ass, Americans will constantly be in need of pills, drugs and hospital beds.

Of course, in a second. I'd gladly pay whatever my 1/200000000 share in taxes would be for your treatment. Did you think I'd say no?
That's outrageous, vegetarians and people who hate chicken shouldn't have their money stolen by the government for something that they don't benefit from.
Go back to Russia, Ivan!

This is why the third word that goes after 'slippery slope' is 'fallacy'. Google it up.
And those certification companies wouldn't all adhere to the same standards. And some of them would issue certifications for money without actually doing inspections. And some of them would do inspections and offer recommendations for improved safety that the owner of the bar or nightclub wouldn't actually comply with and it would be an old certification sticker on the window that a big lineup of 22-year-old kids are not reading anyway, as they wait in line to show their IDs.
No lapse in government accountability or effectiveness makes an argument that we would be better off without the mechanisms of governance in the first place. It might point to the need for reform or for greater accountability, or it might point out the simple and obvious fact that human institutions are not perfect. Yet it remains that we do things through the mechanisms of state that aren't reasonably accomplished in any other way.

Doesn't anyone find a problem with how this whole thing started out as
"Universal Health Care" Reigning in the Insurance Companies? It gets all this momentum and hype and then and then WHAM here we are
NO Universal Health Care and the Insurance Companies get paaaaiiiiiddd.

We all just got, screwed, and they have just shifted the debate. Just shifted it like it's no big deal.

I just got an email from Obama's political organization, still pushing it, like it has anything to do with the common man anymore.

i am totally disillusioned now

sorry, this got fu'd

My comments are in blockquotes, please forgive my lack of html capabilities

government will always be in need of reform and always be incapable of achieving it (have you noticed Obama's failure to do anything he promised? How's that troop withdrawal going, or the promise that Americans could buy cheaper drugs from abroad?) In my view, the government is there to allow "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" even though that's not part of the constitution, I think it is the philosophy this country was built upon. I have no problem with people making things safer, more accessible, better in any way, but I do have a problem with people using the government to force me to do it their way. So I wish you all the luck in the world in pursuing your utopia, but I just don't want you to shackle me to your vision. Government should be used to keep the peace so that people can live freely.

Does anyone think the philosophy of this country should be "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as long as someone else pays for it and it's approved by a bunch of pigheaded, arrogant bastards"?

See they have convinced you guys you need to pay more now.
The point is, we pay enough taxes all of us, to pay for health care,
if we could keep the Insurance Companies from embezzling our TAX DOLLARS.

Now are taxes will still go to the companies, and, we now have to pay the out of pocket tooo.

As it's been pointed out, the government spends enough money on other things, like the military, to insure every American. This makes me suspect that some priorities have been mixed up. I'm actually against the law which requires every American to have health insurance, but not for the same reasons as the others here. I'm against it because everyone wants health insurance. I want insurance, but I can't afford it. Fining me won't make me get insurance, fining me doesn't matter, because I can't afford to pay the fine either. I just think the government should provide health insurance, whether they really can afford it or not (they buy many other things they can't afford, why not something which makes me feel good about paying taxes?).

I really don't understand how freedom is used as an attack on government health care. Like Vigorous Puppy pointed out, the slippery slope argument is fallacious 90% of the time (you have to demonstrate why universal health care would lead to the limitation of other freedoms for your argument to work, you can't just say it's a slippery slope). The way I see it, I would have more freedoms if the government ran health care (unless I owned an insurance company). I spent the last couple years of my life putting off school and working full time because it provided health insurance. There were a lot of things I wanted to do, a lot of places I wanted to go, but quitting and losing my health care was extremely daunting. Now I'm going to school full time (thanks to government assistance) and I have no health care. If I get severely hurt or sick it will put me in debt for years. That's not what I call freedom. Freedom is a funny thing. Just because you're free in the sense that you're not under another's control, or not forced to do something, doesn't mean that you're free to take any action you choose. So with health care, if it were universal, we would all be more free. We're all slaves to poor health.

Tossed aside? Really? I don't think so. I think on a typical day it's the club with the best location and the best music and the best recent memories for an established clientele that will draw people in, regardless of safety standards. Nobody is thinking in terms of something that basic when they evaluate how much they like a club. Therefore, it would not be a priority for most owners, either, unless mandated.

The only "tossed aside" would be the burned down. And already too late for the people inside. I'm willing to inconvenience and put to expense the owners of clubs by force of legal mandate, yes.

You know, that's funny. I'm pretty sure I already acknowledged that our mechanisms of governance are human institutions and forever imperfect. It seems to me that the real utopianists these days are way over on the far right. The idea that we'd all be better off with less and less government--dismantle it entirely if you can--and that nothing whatsoever should be mandatory. Just a free market of options. That is utopian. It shows an extreme optimism about human nature to suggest that our world would be better if it were all carrot and no stick. All marketing reps and no cops. I'm pretty sure it would be a high-tech wild west that way, only worse.

I remain a proponent of public schools, public libraries, and a fire department that comes to your house when it's on fire, even if you can't afford to pay them a large flat fee for their one-time service. And all of those things mean getting dinged for taxes on a regular basis, whether you need the services in the moment or not. And all of those things entail people who own property and have more in life also paying a larger share and people who can't pay at all sometimes benefiting from public services.

That isn't a perfect world, but I'm okay with it.

This.

That isn't a perfect world, but I'm okay with it.

This is exactly my point- it's not perfect, far from it. So, admitting that, how do you justify your position of forcing your will over everyone else? It's a matter of different opinions, why does yours matter more? Because you're smarter than the rest of us? You can take care of us? Will you take responsibility if it doesn't go well?
I thought not.

At what point was I forcing my will over everyone else? I'm arguing that there is such a thing as a public good and it isn't unjust when competing private interests are sometimes curtailed for the sake of it. And I'm arguing for the rule of law. My willingness to endorse the process does not make me the sole legislator. And the output of the process is far from perfect. Certain things come about that I don't like, personally, for sure, but I'm still subject to it.

I just think the government should provide health insurance, whether they really can afford it or not

Who do you think the government is? And who do you think funds it? The government is not a they, it is a "we", meaning we all pay for it. You apparently benefit from someone else's work (money=work), and should thank them for it, not some vague "they the government". The government makes no money, it only takes away and gives an extremely small portion of that back.

btw, you're welcome for helping you with your tuition.

That's right. It's a "we." And the only thanks he owes us for the help with his tuition is a thanks he can pay forward when he has a degree and a high-paying job. In the meantime, I think "we" could do better making sure that a person doesn't go without health insurance during the time he is enrolled in a public university.

Everything is a casino!

Yay!! Thanks for brightening my mood.

I think it's probably accurate to say that we're not going to agree on these issues. Allow me to summarize:
your view: give away as much of someone else's money as you can to people that someone judges as worthy, knowing that it will never come out of your pocket, that you will always be on the take.
my view: live and let live

Don't put words in my mouth. Also, while you review 'slippery slope fallacy,' also look up 'hasty generalization.' Or, you know, don't. But your thinking looks sloppy and lazy as hell.

Don't put words in my mouth. Also, while you review 'slippery slope fallacy,' also look up 'hasty generalization.' Or, you know, don't. But your thinking looks sloppy and lazy as hell.

I hope you do find a flaw in my thinking- I've been looking for years. I love a debate. Don't cop out and just say that I'm sloppy and lazy, as if saying "as hell" makes it more so.
I'm not just running off at the mouth, I truly believe these things, so I welcome a challenge (though you may not hear from me tonight if I get to work on the revision of my story as I'm trying to)

Oh, I see. A moment ago you were willing to put our argument to rest with a quick summary that mischaracterizes my position utterly into a convenient strawman. But I offer an economical retort against those tactics and you're suddenly the maven of precision and the person who's wanting substantial debate.

I must have missed the economical retort. Was it google?

How did I mischaracterize your position?

You don't have to scroll up that far to see the retort I'm talking about. And do you really have to ask how you've mischaracterized my position? How about this:

In one swing here you've asserted that my own position is to take redistribution of wealth just as far as it can go (which I would never argue for - I'm not a communist) and you've maligned my character, suggesting I adopt this position (much farther left than my own real position) because I'm some kind of parasite who's "always on the take" and therefore someone who will never do any of the work that generates the wealth in the first place.

This kind of wild swinging and character assassination doesn't make you someone I want to have a debate with. It just makes you sound like an asshole.

It should definitely be changed to something else since you don't have the right to life in this country. If you get a serious illness and you can't afford health insurance you simply die.

I'd keep looking.

Why Health Insurance Can't Be Left to the Private Sector

1. Equitable Access
Simply - we don't have it.  If three out of four people you ask are perfectly happy with their current health care and health coverage--as suggested recently by a television pundit--then you're surveying rich folks on a golf course, perhaps, or you're catching those same people in their monogrammed PJ's when they take the time to answer your survey.  The system, to the extent we have one, often fails the people who need it most.

The system fails working people, not just unemployable people looking for a handout.  How does it fail working people?  Imagine you have a child with an expensive and life-threatening chronic health condition.  The only way you can afford the medicine that keeps her alive is because your employer-provided health insurance shoulders 80% of the cost.  This locks you into your job.  You might be forced to pass up changing to a higher-paying job with another employer because you would lose your insurance.  You might even pass up a new job that contributes more to society or to your own happiness, because you need to keep your insurance.  And if you get fired, well, you lose your insurance.  If you quit to start your own business and expand the economy by hiring employees of your own, well, you lose your insurance.  And with your daughter's condition, you just can't do that.  Thank God you had your job before her condition was discovered.  Because under the current, largely unregulated modus operandi of the private health insurance industry, you will not get picked up when you need to change providers where there is a chronic preexisting condition.

Sometimes people even get dropped by a provider after a disease condition develops or comes to light, because the largely unregulated private health insurance industry will exploit every possible loophole to void a contract and avoid a large or ongoing payout.

2. Perverse Incentives
For insurance to be a viable business, there has to be a fairly large risk pool for the collection of premiums to offset the payment of claims.  This is why individuals shopping for health insurance as individuals and heads of families--as well as small business owners shopping for fewer than 100 employees--have almost no negotiating leverage for getting good coverage for reasonable premiums.  When treated as an individual or a small collection of individuals, the risk pool is too small to offset the payout if even one person develops an expensive chronic condition.

With a government-administered robust public option (largely off the table now in the current debate, but something we should still be fighting for), society at large can become the total risk pool, thus driving down the cost of premiums for the individual.  And government regulation and public scrutiny can insure that you don't get dropped for a "preexisting condition" and that you don't lose your insurance just because you change jobs or start your own business.

But lets talk about perverse incentives.  Imagine corporate white guy George X.  George is the president and CEO of a private health insurance company.  George is ostensibly part of an industry that saves lives and helps people, but George is not directly answerable to policy holders; his first loyalty is to a board of directors and to private share holders.  When George serves the shareholders well, he retains his job and also earns large bonuses in addition to his base salary.  Last year, George earned $10,000,000.  Yes, Ten Million Dollars.  He lives in a house that you can barely see from the mailbox, even though the house is huge.  You have to drive a winding path through $100,000 worth of well-manicured garden space to even get to George's front door.  And what are his bonuses based on?  How well he maximizes profits.  How does George maximize profits?  By holding down costs.  How does he hold down costs?  Largely, By making sure that his company exploits every possible loophole when its possible to deny a claim and/or drop a claimant outright.  It's just another stack of paper to get through for George, but out in the world, real people die.  Out in the world, you lose your job and you don't even take another one.  Instead, you divorce your spouse and reduce your personal income as much as possible, just to make sure your sick daughter can qualify for Medicaid.

So ask yourself, should there be a profit-incentive in health care?  Is it moral or permissible at all?  And what does George do to earn that $10 million?  Does he deserve it?  Is he over 100 times more valuable than an inner-city high school principal working for less than $100k?  Does George experience 100 times the school principal's stress level?  Does George put in 100 times the school principal's hours?  Not likely.     
 
3. Drew's Story
My friend Drew works in the service industry.  The restaurant where he serves offers little in the way of benefits.  He works primarily for tips.  However, he did have health insurance with them.  Until recently.  Drew's employer dropped his health insurance without telling him.  And this is so even though he is a diabetic, requiring insulin to stay alive.  His monthly insulin supply would cost 30 or 40 dollars in Germany.  Here, because of a largely unregulated system and uncontrolled costs, Drew's monthly insulin supply costs well over $300.  Drew has rent to pay and child support for one child.  He can't suddenly take on the full cost for his insulin supply, as well.  A former Young Republican and strong proponent of a completely laissez-faire system, Drew now realizes that he would be better off in frigging Cuba.  It breaks his heart that his country has let him down.  He's seriously looking at the prospects of moving in with a friend of his in Canada, and fighting for citizenship in an advanced society that understands the importance of health care and makes it available to everyone, without exception, as a basic human right.  It's a tough choice though, because he'd be leaving his child behind with the custodial parent, the mother.  He'd still find a way to pay his child support, of course.  But visits would be infrequent and expensive, since we live in the south, far from the Canadian border.  This shouldn't be the choice my friend has to make. 

I put forth my opinions on why government should not be involved in this stuff, and instead of telling why I am wrong, I hear that I'm sloppy, lazy, an asshole and that I should keep looking for flaws in my views?

Well, I know you are but what am I?

We accept your surrender.

I think you accidently conceded to my point here. The government is a "we," and there is a social contract which binds the people and the government. That's why it's okay for the government to tax our private sector success, because the give and take is reciprocal. The fact that the government is not a business with a profit motive is the precise reason I trust it more than a private corporation.

And even though, in the abstract "we the people" sense, the government is a "we," I'm also not a government employee, so I think it maintains both a "we" and "they" status for most. Ya dig?

this whole ordeal makes me sad. i think i'm gonna go live off the grid, this healthcare thing sealed it.

I was thinking of posting here, but I'd end up spending too much of my winter break writing responses, so I'll just put this out there:

Does what plan you support force me to join you in supporting it? If I say no thank you, does my choice become between a cold cell or hot lead? If so, you guys may wanna question whether or not your ideas are morally consistent.

I wanna speak on this, but I'd end up going way off topic. I'm starting another thread on social contract theory. Anyone who's interested in a seriose philasaphie discussion, click here:

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000041/social-contract-theory

Dude, I wrote a 1,064 word argument with supporting examples that shows why your view is naive, simplistic, and out-of-touch with the real demands of the situation we find ourselves in as a nation, and instead of taking up even one substantive point for debate, you've proceeded like my argument isn't even posted there, and you've reverted to the pre-argument squabbling that you contributed to with loose generalizations and an ad hominem attack. Or possibly you've forgotten trying to drive the whole debate into the ditch by asserting that anyone to the left of your own position like me is a lazy parasite who will forever be "on the take." I don't think it was out of line to say that kind of mudslinging makes you sound like a asshole. But it's even cheaper that you return us to that level and pretend my substantial analysis of the real debate never hit the thread. Stop pretending that you've made a real argument and that no one else is being charitable.

I seldom agree with Ozy, but if you love liberty, NH is the place to go. The voluntary society will be established here, its just a matter of time.

http://www.freestateproject.org

I'm an NH native, and saw the FSP grow up around me. It made me see the light. If you want a sample of NH first, come to PorcFest, it's the FSP's annual party week, camping, shooting, beverages, other stuff that doesn't officially go on, etc. It's also always the most fun week of the year. Last week of June, in Lancaster, NH.

http://www.porcfest.com

Certain things have to carry the force of law to be effective. That doesn't mean anyone who disagrees or finds a way to opt out should be imprisoned for that choice or shot in the back of the head. But thanks for consistently suggesting that anyone who can't buy "voluntary-ism" as a working principle for a society has violence in their teeth. It's like a splash of Aqua-Velva in the morning of any good debate.

Personally, I'm very opposed to the government mandating the purchase of health insurance from private providers. If my government is going to require me to be insured, it should not be for the enrichment of an industry I don't trust. At minimum, we should have a robust public option that allows one to choose a legitimate non-profit alternative. Not just a non-profit government orchestrated middleman exchange that ultimately buys on the private market--but at least that would lead toward group purchasing power and a few other advantages.

Principally, it's important that the government will be able to put some regulations on the industry. Compel them toward transparency in their practices. Compel them to use 90% of the money for patient care (currently only about 67% of money spent on health insurance actually gets used for patient care.) And compel them to eliminate discriminatory practices, such as lifetime caps on the benefits you can receive or refusing to cover someone with a pre-existing condition.

If it's necessary to mandate health insurance as a legal requirement, to make the whole system work, that has to be done in a sensitive and intelligent way. There is no benefit in jailing people for noncompliance. Even fining is problematic. And the government will have to offer vouchers and subsidies for people who simply can't afford the coverage. Plus, there should be some opt-out mechanisms for conscientious objectors of whatever sort. I can't see penalizing subsistence farmers or people living on religious communes in remote communities for failing to comply with a national system. Especially where you're talking about people who don't earn enough cash to even file taxes.

But you know, if you're not off the grid, you just might have to play. The benefits to everyone in putting some force of mandate to the initiative could far outstrip the burdens. People, after all, can't just decide they'll never need Health Care. And we live in a society where that care is increasingly and disproportionately expensive and hard to obtain. In the current set-up, the heads of big private health insurance companies are like casino owners, except the stakes are life and death. And you can't choose to simply stay out of Vegas. Sickness can call your name, forcing you to play in a system that is broken and loaded against you. Health Care Reform is about making it work for the people, instead of leaving it to the corporations.

Dude, I wrote a 1,064 word argument with supporting examples that shows why your view is naive, simplistic, and out-of-touch with the real demands of the situation we find ourselves in as a nation, and instead of taking up even one substantive point for debate, you've proceeded like my argument isn't even posted there, and you've reverted to the pre-argument squabbling that you contributed to with loose generalizations and an ad hominem attack. Or possibly you've forgotten trying to drive the whole debate into the ditch by asserting that anyone to the left of your own position like me is a lazy parasite who will forever be "on the take." I don't think it was out of line to say that kind of mudslinging makes you sound like a asshole. But it's even cheaper that you return us to that level and pretend my substantial analysis of the real debate never hit the thread. Stop pretending that you've made a real argument and that no one else is being charitable.

I read your argument, and you've got a lot of good points, although none of them pertain to what I'm trying to say, which is: I'll mind my business if you mind yours (as far as government is concerned).
Additionally- I accept that their are great flaws in the health care system, but am not willing to give up my liberty AND money for an iffy fix at best (not that I'd give up my liberty willingly for anything else for that matter, which is where I think you and I depart).