Master Betty wrote:
I don't know the particular of the bill(s) in congress now but:

The US is the only industrialized country with "for profit" health
insurance companies.

Not so. Both the UK and Canada have (small) private health care. Even if
your assertion was accurate, so what? And 60% of "private" insurance in the
U.S. IS non-profit (think Blue Cross).


http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html (kind of speaks for
itself)




When Switzerland reached 6% uninsured they instituted healthcare
reform. The US has 17%. That's just too many people w/o coverage no
matter how you look at it.

No it's not. Lack of health insurance is not the same as lack of health
care.

The administration quotes ~45 million uninsured. The next day they say that
15 million illegal aliens will NOT be covered by the "public" plan. Now
we're down to 30 million. Of these, about 15 million are between the ages of
18 and 27 who choose to not spend their beginning wages for health
insurance. Of the remainder, about 2.5 million are incarcerated, 4 million
are between jobs where they will be covered, a significant number are
eligible for Medicaid or S-CHIP which they'll automatically get as soon as
they apply, and lesser groups.

After all the arithmetic is done, there are exactly EIGHT people in the
entire United States that need health insurance and can't get it! For these
eight, the administration would **** up the system that serves 265 million
quite well.


It's time to stop with the bickering and fix the problem.

What do you think needs fixing?

It doesn't
necessarily need to be a "public" option. Fundamental changes to
health insurance, Rx pricing, and tort reform would be a good start
IMHO.

I strongly agree with that last. Lets nibble at the margins (tort reform,
portability, nationwide availability, etc.), before we throw out the baby,
the bath water, AND granny.