Medicare is actually a great model of a govt-run program that works.

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Actually, in canada we have a government-funded body called the Canadian Institute of Health Research whose sole purpose is to fund medical innovation. So we have a socialized research system AND a socialized medical care system.

So in conclusion, suck it America. Suck it good.

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But hey, let's try this... let's put the senators and congressmen on the plan FIRST. See how they like it. Work out the kinks and then roll it out to the GP (general public). If they are willing to full embrace this plan, I'd be willing to give it a shot.

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The problem is that once you invite the government to take care of your health, you invite them to dictate your health habits. Why should my tax liability for healthcare be based on my income? If I exercise, maintain my weight and eat right, then should I be taxed more than someone who is overweight and abuses drugs, alcohol and tobacco? The health insurance companies have a way to deal with that. They either don't insure that person or raise their premiums. How will the government incentivize good health habits?

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It would be easy to argue that, by pricing coverage beyond the means of so many people, the private sector is doing this job so inefficiently that the government couldn't possibly do it any worse and is overwhelmingly likely to do it much better.

All you have to do is incorporate a premise like "Access to a certain level of healthcare is a right of citizenship" into your definition of "efficiency" -- and boom, government would trounce the private sector on the efficiency question.

So I don't think "efficiency" is the word worth battling over here. I think it's probably something more like "right of citizenship." I think what people are arguing over here is whether health care, like equal marriage, should be a right of U.S. citizenship. I can imagine good arguments on both sides. And in this way, people don't have to obstruct and baffle each other with untenably narrow definitions of key terms.

That's my contribution. There's no practical reason why we as Americans can't make this work, once we decide that it's a right of citizenship: Other countries with fewer resources than we have manage it well enough, and I'm not prepared to say that our powers of ingenuity are so much weaker than theirs. (But feel free to argue that, if that's your view.)

To me the key question is, Do we really want access to a certain level of health care to be a basic right of citizenship? It's a good question. Worth arguing over.

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To choose one of hundreds of examples: infant mortality rate. According to the WHO we currently rank 19th worldwide. We are the wealthiest nation on earth. There is no excuse for this.

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Do you think the goofballs like Octomom don't have anything to do with our infant mortality rate? We have a tremendous amount of reproductive technology than most of the world cannot access because they cannot afford it. That leads to an increase in infant mortality. It is much like penalizing a high risk ob who has the highest c-section rate because of all the high risk pregnancies.

Plus you are forgetting this statement: The research also found that poorer mothers with less education were at a significantly higher risk of early delivery. The study added that in general lower educational attainment was associated with higher newborn mortality. Blame the teachers' unions! (I am being sarcastic, just in case people get their undies in a bunch)

Listen, as a human being and a mother, I don't want any infant to die. I am all for safety nets for the uninsured and am open to expanding programs like Medicaid, HUSKY, CHIP, etc.. to increase access to health insurance/care to those who cannot afford it or have pre-exisiting conditions.

BTW, we aren't the richest country.. [en.wikipedia.org])_per_capita

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@power_stroke: It is in my best interest to rehabilitate addicts. It's also in my best financial interest to intrude into all health related aspects of their lives to protect my investment. Kind of like when the government "bails out" a business and ends up taking it over.

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If this statement can be interpreted as "I'm willing to see the system fixed in any way that doesn't bankrupt the Republic," I'd say that's a reasonable position that creates a lot of room to work with.

At that point you're left to define the terms "fixed" and maybe "bankrupt," which is a positive step toward framing the debate (I think properly) as one of priorities rather than "efficiency."

Again, there's no doubt that we can choose to guarantee our citizens some level of healthcare that will be compatible with current financial constraints -- even if it means taking a few beans from the "defense" priority and reallocating them to the "public health" priority. The question isn't completely controlled by practical limits, which we as a nation have often managed to transcend anyway. The question is to what extent such rejiggered priorities will reflect the interests of the population as a whole. Again, it's a good question whose time has come.

I note that an incremental solution as pioneered by Mitt Romney's Massachusetts seems like a good fit for an extended and complex debate like this one.

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But the good states. The crispy edge states. Not the soggy middle ones.

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And speaking from the POV of a citizen of canada, which has socialized medicine. Sure, the government had to make certain decisions about treatments. But every health system has to do this at one point or another. Even families. So again, your argument is pointless. You're basically attributing to socialized medicine a problem with the world.

To be frank, what socialized medicine provides is really just a baseline guarantee of being provided with "necessary" medical care. As long as you can show that what you're asking for is necessary to your quality of life, you can be assured of eventually getting that service here in Canada. Let's be honest, it's the only course of action for a truly civilized people who doesn't like watching people suffer from lack of medical care.

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Abortion is an issue of individual will and privacy. It's not a medical issue. Removing someone from life support is totally different.

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What chaps my ass is when people choose not to get health care when they can. Long ago before I had 3 wild kids, I worked for a health insurance brokerage in Il. I cannot tell you how many people who went without insurance but had a very nice apartment, went out to nice dinners, had a great car etc.... But a couple hundred bucks a month was too expensive for health insurance?

I am all for safety nets but not for assholes that choose to opt out of the health insurance system.

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Anyone who'd make such a ghastly inapt comparison has obvious pre-existing issues, and an undeniable slant to their thinking.

40 million Americans without access to health care will become "fetuses"? Of government? What a nauseating weird bit of imagery.

How about we think of them-the uninsured- as actual people, adults, who are being royally screwed by the stranglehold insurance companies have on Americans's health, denying treatment left and right, exploiting the flaws in the system for cash money by denying people access to the health care they need. That every human being needs.

Oh, that's "socialist". Because you believe in "small government", that weird fetish.

It's never explained why this is a good thing, these "small government" sorts, except by people who listen to a lot of right-wing drivel.

The Roman Empire thrived for centuries on a rather vast government- the British Empire thrived as well because of their extremely well-organized civil service, aka "government , for 300 years. It's never ever explained by the sorts who expound on this as to why smaller means better. Because there is no reason, no it isn't some empiric good. In the American sense, "small government", drownable in the bathtub, almost always exclusively means, -"get the government off corporations' money-making backs and let them do what they will."

Which is a pretty good description of the current US health care system. And it's why we're where we are today. Private interests have disrupted the common good, disastrously, and we all have to look at what a viciously mercenary spectacle as it is, a pitiless scene of Darwinian exploitation, the strong exploiting the weak for every last dollar.

Oh, and fuck Facebook.

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Yes, and then people are sent to the poorhouse when they get bills for $90,000, $110,000, $150,000 dollars. What fucking planet are you living on that you think trips to the ER are free? Do you really think an uninsured person having a heart attack gets their emergency bypass FREE?

You worked for a health insurance "brokerage". Which is probably part of the problem we're talking about. Was it there you got such callous disinformation? Anyone who's been to an ER knows it isn't free by any means, and this weird lie keeps bubbling up, as if from GW Bush's speech that one time. It's a disengenuous lie.

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What you are failing to understand is that gov't paid health care isn't free either. Someone, everyone, will be paying. Plus, I think the quality will go down as well.

I'm just trying to stop the lie that people have an appendicitis and die outside the steps of a hospital because they were kicked to the curb and their appendix burst. That does not happen, Baroness.

You are either not reading my post thoroughly or trying to spread the kool-aid that 'health care should be free.' It will NEVER be free.

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Saying this, though "In the US, an emergency room cannot refuse to treat you because of no insurance if it is necessary. Not a great way to get health care, but is a safety net that is built into the system " implies it, though.

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These governments controlled many of the basic services that we let private industry handle. I'm not sure if I would have wanted to live in any of the big government nations that you mentioned. By the way, we revolted to leave British rule. Are you proposing that we were better off staying loyal subjects? Watch V for Vendetta. That doesn't look that fun.

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Also, assuming you're married, on what planet are you spending "a couple hundred bucks a month" on health insurance for a family of five?

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Kool-Aid? If anyone's drinking it, it's middle-class people like yourself who've taken it as their mission to defend the rights of HMO's and for-profit corporations. At the expense of a real change in how we treat our citizens. If anyone's drunk the Kool-Aid, I'd say it's people like yourself buying into trash from Fox News and talk radio, voting against your own self-interest like cattle.

You don't know the first thing about the European health-care systems you decry, just the scary stories that people with vested corporate interests tell you. Sad. And you do it for free, as those same people make millions.

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