P.S. What do you think of Feingold’s censure resolution? Do you support it!

Call your Senators and urge them to sign on to Feingold’s censure resolution! 1-888-355-3588

Dan- It’s always nice to have a well constructed opposing opinion to really make one think things through a little deeper. While similar in outward structure, my plan is not consciously based on another specific model or purposely created as an amalgam of other systems. My plan does offer chioce for the patients, but includes some personal responsibility for determining the level of care actually necessary. Ideally this could decrease waiting lists, not increase them. Underpaid or overworked? There is a difference, even though one can cause the other. A better management of human assets is definitely inorder, again to which I have tried to supply some ideas. Private health care does work, obviously, but so does public care. If the only determining factor is whether something works, we’d never bother to fix a leaky faucet.
I don’t hold your esteem for the insurance, but maybe yours is a bit different over there. Here, insurance is mandatory for many things, and expensive, and usually has many exclusions to its coverage. Further, if you make a claim, they increase your rates, fight paying out, and sometimes cancel you and blackball you or your property. A public tax offers the same benefits as an insurance policy, but with the possible benefits of being controlled by public hands who would be less likely to set precedents that could one day harm themselves. Thanks for your comments. And maybe someday, you’ll find something to agree with me on.

Ottman- The rules that the politicians play by are the rules we let them play by by our own sheer apathy. WE are responsible. They can be really good at collecting money, but our own lack of attentiveness allows their greedier nature to take over and trouble begins to brew.
Politicians are not elected to protect their own, but to protect and serve the citizenry. It is up to us to make sure it is so, either through term limits or more involvement or other ideas. Eventually I’ll make some comments on these things too, but our conversation has, in part, led to my next post.

Trusting elected officials is a risk we take. Some are good and others bad, but most play by the same set of rules to keep themselves in power.

It is those who grab for power who get corrupt and are usually found out, but after the fact. I think we need term limits on congressmen and women that will help to lessen the corruption by making it easier to replace them.

Windspike- I think the fund created by the medical industry profits could also help pay the costs of care for the indigent population and provide them the same access to the neighborhood clinics, which would have no “cover charge” so to speak.
The veterans issue is another post altogether, which I will address.

David- Well, sometimes ones health is more important than ones kids, at least to a selfish parent. So maybe the results would be better with health care as the pay-off. Besides, many people without healt insurance aren’t simply lazy or shiftless or unemployed, but are self-employed, or artisans, or home-makers, all with time to do a little work and all needing good health.

As for the office visit, yes, that is a classic example of greed. Courtesy demands a call for cancellation, but to penalize rudeness? A classic example of the needlessly rising costs of health care. They would probably bill your insurance for a whole visit if you didn’t cancel too!

Angel- Your ephemeral comment leaves me as confused as you appear to be. But thanks for dropping by.

Overseas Will- Which is what prompted me to try and come up with alternative solutions. I think opposition to any kind of universal care stems not from a desire to keep people from doctors and good health so much as a growing fear of government ineptitude. But why do we seem to forget that WE are the government, if only we’d resume control of the wheel. Thanks for the comment.

Jet- Welcome back. I mentioned the need to figure in costs for children and seniors from the employee tax. Sure, this is akin to today’s retirement plan and screams for attacks of “wealth redistribution” but so what? All taxes are wealth distribution so the measure shouldn’t be who’s paying more but rather is the money spent wisely? If it is efficient, the taxes needed would probably be lower than today.

So seniors would be covered in that sense, as well as with the neighborhood clinics and hospital care. As for the costs of frequent treatment due to old age and bodily deterioration, we could institute both a yearly and lifetime out-of-pocket expense cap that could work off of a sliding scale, with the industrial fund covering the remainder.

Ottman- I don’t give government any power of choice of your personal doctor, only provide you with more options at lower costs, at least ideally.

As I mentioned in an earlier response, we can’t keep denying that the government is US and WE have the responsibility and the power to make sure its actions are accountable. If we only exercise them with reason and demand honesty from our elected leaders.
Minimal management would be optimal when coupled with the reforms presented in the first two essays of this series, so inflated government isn’t really the goal. More effective and efficient government, controlled by US according to our common good, is the goal.

If the system is as bad as it is, would it hurt to try something new?

Some of your ideas here are interesting, but a national health tax was attempted with “Hillary care” that was laughed out of congress. It is also already a disaster happening in Canada where people wait sometimes for months before seeing a doctor that will treat them. Many end up coming into the U.S. to get the required medical attention they don’t get up there.

Even in Europe now, their tax structured socialism is falling apart as unemployment soars and healthcare rises, all of which is now in crises mode now due to the rejection of the over regulated Constitution.

The lessons of the recent EU debacle tells us that the very LAST thing we need in the U.S. are more government sponsored programs paid for by increased taxes! Social Security is another lesson we are learning from because of the harm done by overtaxation that does not deliver on its promises due to government’s overblown pig barrel spending in taking from pocket to put into another to cover their asses.

Also, I don’t want the government telling me who to see, or if I can live or die, as would be the eventual outcome of this type of (yet another) bureaucratic nightmare.

God Bless America, God Save The Republic.