Comments on: Mediocrity in all things

By: Don Cox

Don Cox — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:07:46 +0000

In Britain, we have a health service funded from taxes, so that nobody needs to pay for health insurance. On the whole, it works well. The standards of treatment are good, and expensive operations such as multiple heart bypasses are available for people who could not afford to pay insurance.

Bu there is no control on how an individual wants to spend his money. If you want to take out insurance, or save up your cash, and pay for private treatment, there is nothing to stop you.

I would guess, though, that most private treatment is for non-essentials such as cosmetic surgery.

The part of the health service that is not working well is dental treatment.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:22:18 +0000

Dale,

I won’t argue the 46 million number, since I don’t know. By demanding that we, as a nation, collectively provide catastrophic or any other type of coverage for our citizens, residents, denizens, or whatever you want to call them, you are traveling down a slippery slope.

I would welcome community programs to provide collective health care, but not on a federal level because anything on a federal level will ultimately limit my freedom of choice unless I move out of the country. I will campaign against any new federal program to solve our collective problems unless it involves common defense, interstate commerce or one of the other constitutionally limited functions of the federal government.

You suggest health education be taught to our citizens. I agree. Health education is great. However, once you began sucking the teat of the taxpayer (me) to provide “universal” health care, then here is my list of health related demands for everyone on the program:

1) Mandatory weight guidelines for all recipients. If you become fail to maintain a health weight due to lifestyle choices, you lose coverage.
2) If you are found taking any controlled substance other than one prescribed for you by the universal health care system, you lose coverage.
3) Dangerous activities which you voluntarily participate in will eliminate your coverage. Once the program begins, I will provide you with the full list of these activities.

I did a quick search, and according to Forbes.com, about half of bankruptcies in the U.S. are caused by illness not “almost all.” I’m not saying it isn’t a serious issue, but that is where the idea of saving for a rainy day comes from.

And here is where we, as Americans are stupendously irresponsible. Instead of taking ownership of our own lives, many of us want someone else to do so. “Not my fault” beats “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” so often these days. It’s disappointing.

By: Dale

Dale — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 03:03:48 +0000

Baloney.
46 million Americans have no healthcare insurance. The other 250 million Americans have some type of insurance. I myself have a Health Savings Account with employer contributions of $200 per month for me and my wife. ANY serious medical problem for my wife and I will be disastrous. We will be economically ruined for the rest of our lives if either of us has a debilitating illness that prevents us from working at our normal jobs but we can still work at fast food places and discount stores. Unqualified for Medicare because we can earn money, but unable to afford health insurance payments of $1,000 per month for ourselves.
Who cares about the quality of treatment when you cannot afford it? (Do you care how nice a Rolls Royce is if you cannot afford it?)
I support ‘federal catastrophic health insurance’ for every American for any catastrophic health problem. I support HSAs with contributions by government (state), employers, and individuals for common illnesses. I support health education for all Americans that describes the health problems with smoking, poor diet, poor exercise,stress, and drinking. These are responsible for 90% of healthcare costs.
Only three groups can pay for healthcare costs: employers, government, or you. When we talk about spreading financial risks across the largest pool of insured people, who can create the largest pool? Government.
And if we can spend trillions on industry subsidies and foreign governments and if we can employ 14% of the non-farm workers in the freakin’ government itself , maybe , just maybe, we can afford catastrophic health care coverage for all Americans who need it when things go wrong.
You probably already know that almost all bankruptcies in the US can be attributed to health problems that result in loss of income or expenses greater than the persons ability to pay.
One should not assume that Universal Healthcare means socialized medicine. The two are quite different.
If the role of government is to promote the general welfare of its people how do we achieve this without promoting the health of the citizens?

By: kitanis

kitanis — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:14:39 +0000

Ha!

Universal Health care is the lefts panacea to appeal to the masses who never pay attention on how things actually work.

Boortz is correct.. but too many people will never investigate what will be involved deeply enough understand how much of a boondoggle the plans would be.

By: alisa

alisa — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:22:21 +0000

I really wish that instead of socializing our medical care, they instead spent energies on 1) placing caps on law suit damages awarded 2) legislation to reduce the amount of frivolous lawsuits there are against those in the medical profession and 3) find a way that insurance companies aren’t dictating to doctors how to do their job.