Either greedy power hungry corporate types or greedy power hungry government types will be dictating my medical treatment? This isn`t a choice, it is a shitty ad campaign.  But I do side with getting government OUT of the healthcare business to a great degree.

By the time this gets passed it will be so castrated that it won't actually be any kind of improvement over the current situation.

I've been uninsured for almost 4 years since I graduated college.  I am one month away from becoming insured under a really good plan in a good job and because I'm well-educated and should be for the foreseeable future able to launch myself into decent work I probably won't ever have the problem of being uninsured again, barring catastrophe.

A lot of people don't have that luxury though.  And my 4 years without insurance would have been completely fucked if my dad hadn't worked at a VA Center and been able to get my prescriptions for me.  When I got a lung infection last summer and had to have x-rays and get hardcore antibiotics, without insurance, it cost me like $650, and luckily at the time I was working for a church and they chipped in on the cost, because it was not a bill I could afford to pay.

What this country needs is universal health care coverage like what they have in Europe and in virtually every modern Western democracy.  Give all people access to a doctor for basic services.  Give all women pregnancy, child care, and contraception coverage.  Give all people prescription coverage.  

UHCC would be a boon for business because they would no longer have to bother with medical liabilities insuring their employees, and it would eliminate the problem of the poor being bankrupt by catastrophic unforeseen emergencies, and it would solve the problem of people selectively opting in and out causing unnatural dispersions of risk.  The Businesses would benefit, the Poor would benefit, the Insurance Industry would benefit (their profits might be down slightly, but they would obtain a ton of new work), and the Average Insured person would remain about the same, but they would have the assurance that if they ever fell on hard times they would not be completely fucked paying $1200/mo. COBRA deductibles to get any kind of medical care.

We could pay for it by ending both foreign wars we are currently participating in, and taking that $100 Billion per year and putting it into this fund and perhaps raising a few taxes by 1% here and there to cover the difference.  This would universally benefit all people and all greedy special interests at the same time.

Fuck our politicians and their stupid bullshit.  The example of how Health Care reform can be done successfully has been illustrated dozens of times in countless countries.  They are unwilling to even consider a policy like this though because they are all pocketing MILLIONS from the insurance lobby to spout off about how a "public option" (not even a guarentee!  just an OPTION) is a cumbersome burden on a country that spends billions every month occupying rocky desert wastelands for no discernible purpose.

The government ALREADY insures some of the highest risk populations through Medicare & Medicaid.  If the government insured everyone, the cost per person should go down for a universal program as compared to the existing programs. 

It seems that is part of what the insurance industry is after now in the debate, anyway - young, uninsured people who will pay premiums and use very little of the coverage for which they are paying, thereby increasing profit margins.

I'd pay for it by going back to a more heavily progressive tax structure, like the rest of the western world, and cutting military spending.

By the time this gets passed it will be so castrated that it won't actually be any kind of improvement over the current situation.

pay for it by going back to a more heavily progressive tax structure, like the rest of the western world, and cutting military spending.

Just thought I'd highlight the important shit that most people are totally missing.

By the time this gets passed it will be so castrated that it won't actually be any kind of improvement over the current situation.

pay for it by going back to a more heavily progressive tax structure, like the rest of the western world, and cutting military spending.

Just thought I'd highlight the important shit that most people are totally missing.

I don't think anyone misses the point as much as gets lost in the subject itself and how other matters relate to it. Part of my wishlist is to close down at least 95% of our overseas bases, and relocate the service personnel back stateside stationed at former bases and new ones along our continental borders. It cuts the cost of sustaining the Empire as well as putting the troops on our borders. Put the 82nd Airborne on aggressive patrols. The Marines will have Hawaii and Puerto Rico.

A lot of foreign aid would be stopped immediately. We are bleeding internally and we have to solve our own problems first before we push ourselves into someone else's business that wasn't our concern in the first place.

Point being, a lot of waste must be cut. Let's get some sharp edges and get to cutting. However, a military and the Courts are a Constitutional mandate to be maintained by the Federal Government. I believe in having a superior defense force for a variety of applications from conventional to guerrilla to cyber warfare. But my total figure would be a few hundred billion at the high end.

I'm all for a safety net for those who can't provide for themselves from the mentally challenged to those who are physically unable. And if you talk sexy into my ear, perhaps, I can lend conditional support to a universal health care system. Maybe.

I like this guy. Too bad your radio show is two states away. I'd listen.

I like this guy. Too bad your radio show is two states away. I'd listen.

We mainly stick to metal and all that springs from metal, but we are known to wax political and philosophical every now and then. I am trying to talk my cohort into doing a podcast of the show. He's hesitant to doing it.

If you do it and link it I'll check it out.

If you do it and link it I'll likely get evicted from home for listening to it

Martyred. I'll be martyred for my beliefs... and taste in radio shows.

I like my universal health cover.

If you do it and link it I'll likely get evicted from home for listening to it

Really, now...