Universal/social medicine

Opens the door for more and more and more Government control. Limits choice of physician. Free? Just like medical cards are free huh? Medical cards are free to the bums who do not work. While I work to pay their way! Ever been into the BMV? Was it a pleasant experience? I work for the post office, I know what happens when the government runs something and it is not a good thing. Bad, bad idea! "You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care." ---A Congressman from Georgia whose name escapes me.

Government has no business forcing me to pay for health care for you and your lazy shiftless relatives. Only insurance companies have the expertise to decide who lives and who dies in a free society.

One of the most powerful countries in the first world cannot afford a good health service to make it accessible to all? Disgraceful. I live in the UK and I'm so proud of the NHS. People like myself may have moaned and grumbled in the past, but in contrast to what some citizens in the US go through I'd say we have it really good over here. The NHS is accessible to all people no matter what their income may be, where they live or their social background. Having Universal/Social medicine or health care is simply not a "priviledge" people IT'S A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT. If you want better then you pay and that seems more fair to me. I'm trying to get my head round how so many folks in the US are in so much debt due to them trying to pay for extortionate health care fees. Some people don't even have medical insurance and that to me just seems insane. My cousin lives in the US and when she told me the price of malaria tablets I could have fainted. In the UK it's the same medicine being ... Read more

I live in Canada where socialized medicine is the norm. My daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer on day one. Operated on on day nine. Dealing with it and waiting for final test tomorrow. Costs, to me or her, none. I have a hard time seeing the problem with this. Compare that to average costs in the U.S. Don't like it? Well, go fuck yourselves....

I've been on the receiving end of free health care and found what military service provided me... lacking. This makes me a certified skeptic on what socialized medicine could end up being. UPDATE: Now its certainly within the rights of people to disagree without me flying off the handle and calling their evolutionary status into question, but I'm pretty comfortable with my position here. I do of course recognize that such a program could succeed as well and if it does, count me the hell in, especially when you consider that I um... don't have health insurance. I just don't want it to be the cut rate garbage I endured with the Marines.

The problem with Free-Market Healthcare is why it's an issue now....It's a free market goods and service that not everyone can afford. There are millions who do not have health insurance because they cant afford it or just dont want to pay for it. When they get sick or injured, their misfortune is our misery as Govt. inevitably picks up the tab or pays the price for their illness or injury. Allowing Free Market Capitalism to assume responsibility for Healthcare is asinine as well. The bottom line in Capitalsim is money. There's no incentive to have people healthy when they wont be paying for Healthcare products and services. There's nothing particularly positive about Free Market Healthcare providers who have a monopoly on Healthcare goods and services that can maintain and save lives. It's admirable that Liberals are trying to address this by first getting some sort of health insurance to as many people as they can. Competition among Healthcare providers for goods and services to tho... Read more

A Marxist fantasy. There are no free lunches ... basic Economics 101. Remove substantial government involvement/interference with health care and the free market will undoubtedly provide supply to meet the demand. There is nothing special about medical-related services that exempts them from this basic capitalist equation. And the great thing about providers created by the free market, they're going to charge what people can afford. Why? Pay close attention Clintonites, because if they charge more they won't be getting the consumers' money. There is absolutely no reason to look with envy at what the Canadians and some of our Western European friends have. It ain't that great (especially the disintegrating medical system north of our border) and it is costing them out the gazoo. We are the Americans and we don't need to settle for the mediocrity offered by those who are economically chasing our heels.

We are the only industrialized country without universal healthcare. It's time to enter the 20th century, and maybe in another 50 years we can talk about the 21st century. Medicare is much more efficient than the best of the insurance companies with 97 cents on the dollar going to medical care itself. It's about 70 cents to the dollar for the average private insurance company.

Genghis makes an excellent point, as usual. But, the argument that the US is the only industrialized nation without universal health care is very weak. We're also the only industrialized nation with an unemployment rate in single digits. With a GDP shown without brackets. France reduced its workweek to 32 hours/week for the sole purpose of LOWERING THEIR UNEMPLOYMENT RATE!! More hours aren't being worked, the work is being spread over more workers, to the detriment of those working previously. Now, that's smoke and mirrors. (Go ahead, look it up) The vast majority of Americans enjoy excellent health care and enough options to ask for an umbrella when our screechy friends assure us that the sky is falling. I can assure you this: Americans will not be frightened or "guilted" into supporting this proposal because not enough people are being failed by the present system, in spite of the gargantuan efforts of our liberal media and left-leaning mouthpieces (as if there were a differ... Read more

I know it's a bad idea, but the war is lost. Medicare and Medicaid drove a stake into the heart of private medicine. We will have national health within ten years. The mistake that was made was to allow the recipient to chose his own doctor. The sky was the limit and it was incredibly costly. Free medical care demands rationing, and that means the provider choses the supplier. We did just the opposite. This has driven the cost of medicine trough the roof. I am old enough that I don't have to live with the consequences. I will enjoy the old system until I croak. It is you, my young members of the RIA, who shall have to pay the consequences! I feel for you.

. . .it only terrifies the drug companies that are squeezing you dry. And so many of you have swallowed the bait hook-line-and-sinker: "Waah! We can't have socialized medicine. Waah!" Like it's not already here. . .Medicare, anyone? HMO, anyone? One more time- it's already here and it could work if this gov't wasn't so hell-bent on making it tough for middle-class Americans to afford health-care. If working people can't go to the doctor, the plan isn't working. . .