Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin

[G. Keenan]

Is not doing that a better option than milking the system, it is for alot of people. That's what I don't think is fair.

So presumably, according to your version of human behavior, countries with national healthcare systems are full of people lounging around milking the system?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I don't really know what the best solution is for this situation, but I think that Brokaw's question last night about sacrifice touches on it. As a culture, we're going to have to make sacrifices and live more frugally, while also pushing for reform of the system.

How about the insurance companies themselves sacrifice a bit? My guess is that they're remarkably profitable.

It's similar to "the high cost of college education" when colleges have multi-billion dollar endowments that only grow every year, while tuition rates skyrocket.

I hate all insurance companies.....would like to kick them all in the nuts.

[cardinalkarp]

Is not doing that a better option than milking the system, it is for alot of people. That's what I don't think is fair.

So presumably, according to your version of human behavior, countries with national healthcare systems are full of people lounging around milking the system?

I'm not sure where you get that?

[docellis]

I have had only one job that offered health insurance. Lots and lots of businesses simply don't offer it or offer it only to management or workers on salary.

it really isn't that expensive to get it on your own (if you are healthy, no kids, etc). it is just as cheap for me to get it myself as it ever was to get it thru any employer.

[jim]

I think we need to get over this national obsession with some getting more than their fair share in life.

[Fat Strat]

I don't really know what the best solution is for this situation, but I think that Brokaw's question last night about sacrifice touches on it. As a culture, we're going to have to make sacrifices and live more frugally, while also pushing for reform of the system.

How about the insurance companies themselves sacrifice a bit? My guess is that they're remarkably profitable.

It's similar to "the high cost of college education" when colleges have multi-billion dollar endowments that only grow every year, while tuition rates skyrocket.

Hey, I'm all for that! We absolutely need reform and the insurance companies taking home less would be just fine with me. How do you do that, though? Government regulations? You know, that's the one thing I haven't heard in the debates. Sure, tax refunds and government-sponsored entitlements are well and good, but have either of the candidates talked about regulation?

[Arthur Dent]

I think it's inevitable that we'll have to socialize that cost.

We already socialize the cost. That's the function of health insurance -- the healthy pay for the sick. It's just done in a really inefficient (expensive) and unfair way.

Yeah, technically, but the inefficiencies are becoming so great that it's a joke.

Right. I only bring it up beacause people act like national health insurance would be some kind of radical change by socializing (sounds like scary socialism!) the cost. We're already doing that through private health insurance. It's just done in a way that makes no sense. That's why were spending about twice as much money per person on health care as other developed countries and yet have no better (or worse) health. This is by far the biggest long term financial problem facing the United States. We can either fix it or face economic difficulties much worse that will likely be caused by this financial crisis.

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I find all this talk about how we have to make absolutely certain not to spend a single penny giving health care to somebody who doesn't "deserve" it rather mean spirited and vindictive. What was it that jim said earlier about sinking ships?

[G. Keenan]

I think we need to get over this national obsession with some getting more than their fair share in life.

We're clearly not obsessed with that. On the contrary, we're obsessed with people getting as big a piece of the pie as they possibly can and then saying F U to everyone else.

I find it a disturbing notion that in our country a human being's freedom from unnecessarily dying is tied to their economic usefulness (such as it is). I'm sure all the wall street tycoons who put us in this current mess had great health insurance.

[thrill]

I think we need to get over this national obsession with some getting more than their fair share in life.

That's the problem. A lot of people in my generation don't realize that fair share doesn't mean equal share.

[Popeye_Card]

I don't really know what the best solution is for this situation, but I think that Brokaw's question last night about sacrifice touches on it. As a culture, we're going to have to make sacrifices and live more frugally, while also pushing for reform of the system.

How about the insurance companies themselves sacrifice a bit? My guess is that they're remarkably profitable.

It's similar to "the high cost of college education" when colleges have multi-billion dollar endowments that only grow every year, while tuition rates skyrocket.

Hey, I'm all for that! We absolutely need reform and the insurance companies taking home less would be just fine with me. How do you do that, though? Government regulations? You know, that's the one thing I haven't heard in the debates. Sure, tax refunds and government-sponsored entitlements are well and good, but have either of the candidates talked about regulation?

It gets really tricky though when you start tinkering with profit margins, etc. The profit margin is there as a motive for companies to take the risk of entering the insurance world (the basis of capitalism). If you take the huge profit margin away as an enticement, the government might as well take over, because nobody would enter the business.

What the government might be able to control is the overall system. i.e. the patient-doctor-hospital-insurance interaction. Cut out all the BS that's currently there.