In article , HeyBub wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:

It very strongly appears to me that healthcare and related issues are
much better in Germany and Canada and even better in the
much-maligned UK than in USA. And I personally know many Canadians
over a range of income levels, with 100% of them preferring what they
have in Canada over what they would get if they moved to USA.

Remember, those who were killed by the Canadian system can't tell you their
side of the story.

Most of the many Canadians that I know who commented at all in this area
are of ages from upper-30's to about-60, with exception for a few
16-25-or-so-year-old "rug rats". As in at least 50% "old farts" of age
mid-40's to about-60.

Absolutely 100% of the "Canuck Old Farts" that I know, sense negative
effect of moving "south of the border". This includes owner of a business
having dozens of employees, a hired CEO thereof, all adult and adolescent
family members of these, everyone I met at this business, and a
recently-retired detective of the Toronto Police Force and his wife and
his college-age children. Along with spouses and adult/adolescent
children of everyone else I met in this area - 100%.

This is very high rate of Canadians sensing that they are better off
with their "healthcare system" than with what they would have if they
"moved south of the border".

I suspect that the "Canucks" that I know are knowing well enough what
is "The Truth" - since their gubmint *Does Not* spend higher percentage of
GDP on healthcare coverage than USA does, where the USA version of % of
GDP spent by gubmint on healthcare *excludes* "private sector",
supplemental Medicare plans, and furthermore even employer contributions
to healthcare coverage premiums of government employees outside healthcare
agencies - such as public school teachers, court employees, and most
police officers.

- Don Klipstein )

In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:

(Not that I know whether many human-infecting bacteria survive being
soaked in beer in beer bottles. I do know that germs have a high rate of
survival of the typically-fractional-percent alcohol content of
bloodstream and serum of humans that survive "tanking up" even to extent
of "tipsy" or "stumbling / slurring-speech".)

Beer bottle HAVE to be sterilized anyway before use. I don't
remember the exact reason although IIRC it was related to making the
beer go sour. It has been about 5 years since I last home brewed.

--
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought
of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
Jimmy Buffett

In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:



This is very high rate of Canadians sensing that they are better off
with their "healthcare system" than with what they would have if they
"moved south of the border".

But the rate of people in the US sensing they are better off than
Canadians is roughly the same. I think these show more of a familiarity
and comfort with the known than anything interesting.
I would also like to point out that polls of this sort generally are
overwhelmingly made up of people who don't use either system more than
sporadically. I have often wondered how the 20% who use around 80% of
the resources of either system would poll out differently.

--
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought
of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
Jimmy Buffett

Don Klipstein wrote:

In article , HeyBub wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In article , HeyBub
wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In , HeyBub wrote in
part:

The following active duty military personnel do not have insurance:

Army - 543,000
Marines - 158,000
Navy - 335,000
Air Force - 330,000
Total: 1,366,000

We're up to about 25 million already without even considering those
who decline to enroll in an available insurance program.

Is that not 1,366,000 covered by the gubmint, no more inunsured
than those on Medicare and Medicaid?

I guess it depends on how you define "insurance."

In the military, if you get slightly injured (anything less than the
bone sticking out), the medic or the corpsman fixes you up. This is
not much different than the role of the company nurse.

And if they get an illness requiring treatment, they get treated.
These people have medics and corpsmen and do get transported to
hospitals when it is necessary and possible to do so. They are not
among the uncovered roughly 13% of USA's population that are citizens
or legal residents.


They ARE among the 45 million who do not have health insurance.

Once again, absence of health insurance is not the same as absence of health
care. The scare-mongering politicians have NEVER said we have 45 million
people who do not have access to health care.

Maybe I need to clarify: About 12-13% of USA's population is citizens
and legal residents not covered by even so much as what soldiers have.

Roughly 38 million USA citizens and legal residents are "self pay",
with hospital bills roughly quadruple of allowable hospital billing
to Americans (and "coverers" thereof) who obtain "coverage".

Many of these Americans are ones taking their chances at betting on
"which is the least evil" of evils that include at least one
certainly-unaffordable and another only-possibly-bankrupting.

Please keep in kind others saying in this thread how their family costs
$13K annually for private sector healthcare coverage, while professing to
desire "keep gubmint out of it", while USA gubmint spends as high a
percentage of GDP on gubmint spending on healthcare as Canada and most
other industrialized democracies do.

Who wants to maintain American gubmint spending as high a percentage of
GDP on healthcare as Canada has while in addition having private sector
spending $13K for coverage of 1 family that inflates at roughly 10%
annually, in the "name of" "Keep Gubmint out of this"? I do concede that
some and many-influential Americans want such ...

Makes me want to find a way to move to Canada, though someone I would be
married to (under law of all of Canada and a few USA "states") is
unwilling to be uprooted from a metropolitan area where he has family
ties.

- Don Klipstein )

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct
contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you
honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my
costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a
substantial loss of coverage?

Pete C. wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In article , HeyBub wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In article , HeyBub
wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In , HeyBub wrote in
part:

The following active duty military personnel do not have insurance:

Army - 543,000
Marines - 158,000
Navy - 335,000
Air Force - 330,000
Total: 1,366,000

We're up to about 25 million already without even considering those
who decline to enroll in an available insurance program.
Is that not 1,366,000 covered by the gubmint, no more inunsured
than those on Medicare and Medicaid?
I guess it depends on how you define "insurance."

In the military, if you get slightly injured (anything less than the
bone sticking out), the medic or the corpsman fixes you up. This is
not much different than the role of the company nurse.
And if they get an illness requiring treatment, they get treated.
These people have medics and corpsmen and do get transported to
hospitals when it is necessary and possible to do so. They are not
among the uncovered roughly 13% of USA's population that are citizens
or legal residents.

They ARE among the 45 million who do not have health insurance.

Once again, absence of health insurance is not the same as absence of health
care. The scare-mongering politicians have NEVER said we have 45 million
people who do not have access to health care.
Maybe I need to clarify: About 12-13% of USA's population is citizens
and legal residents not covered by even so much as what soldiers have.

Roughly 38 million USA citizens and legal residents are "self pay",
with hospital bills roughly quadruple of allowable hospital billing
to Americans (and "coverers" thereof) who obtain "coverage".

Many of these Americans are ones taking their chances at betting on
"which is the least evil" of evils that include at least one
certainly-unaffordable and another only-possibly-bankrupting.

Please keep in kind others saying in this thread how their family costs
$13K annually for private sector healthcare coverage, while professing to
desire "keep gubmint out of it", while USA gubmint spends as high a
percentage of GDP on gubmint spending on healthcare as Canada and most
other industrialized democracies do.

Who wants to maintain American gubmint spending as high a percentage of
GDP on healthcare as Canada has while in addition having private sector
spending $13K for coverage of 1 family that inflates at roughly 10%
annually, in the "name of" "Keep Gubmint out of this"? I do concede that
some and many-influential Americans want such ...

Makes me want to find a way to move to Canada, though someone I would be
married to (under law of all of Canada and a few USA "states") is
unwilling to be uprooted from a metropolitan area where he has family
ties.

- Don Klipstein )

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct
contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you
honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my
costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a
substantial loss of coverage?

How much is your employer contributing? It's got to be a lot more than
that.

I have decent health insurance, but I suspect that may be a big part of
the reason I didn't get a raise this year.

I'm not saying that socialized health care is the answer, but costs are
increasing at an alarming rate.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

"Pete C." wrote in message
ster.com...

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct
contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you
honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my
costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a
substantial loss of coverage?

You are either very wealthy or you have very cheap premiums. The cheapest I
could find was 35% of my gross income with a $3k deductible. Completely out
of my reach.

In , Kurt
Ullman wrote:

In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:

This is very high rate of Canadians sensing that they are better off
with their "healthcare system" than with what they would have if they
"moved south of the border".

But the rate of people in the US sensing they are better off than
Canadians is roughly the same.

Except that is not my experience. Unlike all of the Canadians that
I know, many of my fellow Americans that I know would rather have their
healthcare system substantially different and like that of a country other
than their own.

I think these show more of a familiarity
and comfort with the known than anything interesting.
I would also like to point out that polls of this sort generally are
overwhelmingly made up of people who don't use either system more than
sporadically. I have often wondered how the 20% who use around 80% of
the resources of either system would poll out differently.

- Don Klipstein )

In .com, Pete C. wrote:

Don Klipstein wrote:

SNIP material otherwise getting more than 2 quote symbols

Maybe I need to clarify: About 12-13% of USA's population is citizens
and legal residents not covered by even so much as what soldiers have.

Roughly 38 million USA citizens and legal residents are "self pay",
with hospital bills roughly quadruple of allowable hospital billing
to Americans (and "coverers" thereof) who obtain "coverage".

Many of these Americans are ones taking their chances at betting on
"which is the least evil" of evils that include at least one
certainly-unaffordable and another only-possibly-bankrupting.

Please keep in kind others saying in this thread how their family costs
$13K annually for private sector healthcare coverage, while professing to
desire "keep gubmint out of it", while USA gubmint spends as high a
percentage of GDP on gubmint spending on healthcare as Canada and most
other industrialized democracies do.

Who wants to maintain American gubmint spending as high a percentage of
GDP on healthcare as Canada has while in addition having private sector
spending $13K for coverage of 1 family that inflates at roughly 10%
annually, in the "name of" "Keep Gubmint out of this"? I do concede that
some and many-influential Americans want such ...

Makes me want to find a way to move to Canada, though someone I would be
married to (under law of all of Canada and a few USA "states") is
unwilling to be uprooted from a metropolitan area where he has family
ties.

- Don Klipstein )

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct
contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you
honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my
costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a
substantial loss of coverage?

How much are you paying? If it's the $12-13 K annually that is USA
average cost for private health insurance coverage for a family, then it
is 1.5% of an income level that very few Americans have.

- Don Klipstein )

Nate Nagel wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In article , HeyBub wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In article , HeyBub
wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:
In , HeyBub wrote in
part:

The following active duty military personnel do not have insurance:

Army - 543,000
Marines - 158,000
Navy - 335,000
Air Force - 330,000
Total: 1,366,000

We're up to about 25 million already without even considering those
who decline to enroll in an available insurance program.
Is that not 1,366,000 covered by the gubmint, no more inunsured
than those on Medicare and Medicaid?
I guess it depends on how you define "insurance."

In the military, if you get slightly injured (anything less than the
bone sticking out), the medic or the corpsman fixes you up. This is
not much different than the role of the company nurse.
And if they get an illness requiring treatment, they get treated.
These people have medics and corpsmen and do get transported to
hospitals when it is necessary and possible to do so. They are not
among the uncovered roughly 13% of USA's population that are citizens
or legal residents.

They ARE among the 45 million who do not have health insurance.

Once again, absence of health insurance is not the same as absence of health
care. The scare-mongering politicians have NEVER said we have 45 million
people who do not have access to health care.
Maybe I need to clarify: About 12-13% of USA's population is citizens
and legal residents not covered by even so much as what soldiers have.

Roughly 38 million USA citizens and legal residents are "self pay",
with hospital bills roughly quadruple of allowable hospital billing
to Americans (and "coverers" thereof) who obtain "coverage".

Many of these Americans are ones taking their chances at betting on
"which is the least evil" of evils that include at least one
certainly-unaffordable and another only-possibly-bankrupting.

Please keep in kind others saying in this thread how their family costs
$13K annually for private sector healthcare coverage, while professing to
desire "keep gubmint out of it", while USA gubmint spends as high a
percentage of GDP on gubmint spending on healthcare as Canada and most
other industrialized democracies do.

Who wants to maintain American gubmint spending as high a percentage of
GDP on healthcare as Canada has while in addition having private sector
spending $13K for coverage of 1 family that inflates at roughly 10%
annually, in the "name of" "Keep Gubmint out of this"? I do concede that
some and many-influential Americans want such ...

Makes me want to find a way to move to Canada, though someone I would be
married to (under law of all of Canada and a few USA "states") is
unwilling to be uprooted from a metropolitan area where he has family
ties.

- Don Klipstein )

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct
contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you
honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my
costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a
substantial loss of coverage?

How much is your employer contributing? It's got to be a lot more than
that.

I expect so, however that number is rather difficult to locate, I'd
guess 60-70% of the total cost. It doesn't really matter much however
since in the event of socialized health care, it is extremely unlikely
that many people will see their gross pay increase be the amount of
their employers former health insurance contributions, i.e. if my
employer is currently paying $4k/yr towards my health insurance, I'm
unlikely to receive that $4k in my pay when my employer provided health
insurance is replaced by the government and my taxes go up to fund it.


I have decent health insurance, but I suspect that may be a big part of
the reason I didn't get a raise this year.

That could be. Raises were delayed several months this year vs. previous
years, but somehow I still managed to get a decent raise (4.73%).


I'm not saying that socialized health care is the answer, but costs are
increasing at an alarming rate.

Yes, they are, and many of the underlying causes for this will not be
addressed at all with socialized health care. Indeed I expect the law of
unintended consequences will go into full swing and there will be
tremendous fallout when the forced contributions to various "community
reinvestment" from insurance companies dry up along with their health
insurance business. These forced contributions have long been a way to
sidestep direct taxation of the populace to fund pet projects, so there
are a lot of those pet projects that will suddenly be unfunded.

h wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
ster.com...

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct
contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you
honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my
costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a
substantial loss of coverage?

You are either very wealthy or you have very cheap premiums.

The later. I expect my income puts me solidly in the nebulas
"upper-middle-class" category, but I'm certainly not at all wealthy. No
yachts, private jets, summer homes, etc. here.

The cheapest I
could find was 35% of my gross income with a $3k deductible. Completely out
of my reach.

Well, since I work for a very large company, I expect that they get some
of the best group rates available, in addition to covering the largest
percentage of the costs. Regulation of the insurance companies to set a
maximum differential between individual rates and the best group rates
would fix this issue without resorting to socialized health care. I
expect my costs would go up some in this case, but probably still far
less than with the government running things.

Don Klipstein wrote:

In .com, Pete C. wrote:

Don Klipstein wrote:

SNIP material otherwise getting more than 2 quote symbols

Maybe I need to clarify: About 12-13% of USA's population is citizens
and legal residents not covered by even so much as what soldiers have.

Roughly 38 million USA citizens and legal residents are "self pay",
with hospital bills roughly quadruple of allowable hospital billing
to Americans (and "coverers" thereof) who obtain "coverage".

Many of these Americans are ones taking their chances at betting on
"which is the least evil" of evils that include at least one
certainly-unaffordable and another only-possibly-bankrupting.

Please keep in kind others saying in this thread how their family costs
$13K annually for private sector healthcare coverage, while professing to
desire "keep gubmint out of it", while USA gubmint spends as high a
percentage of GDP on gubmint spending on healthcare as Canada and most
other industrialized democracies do.

Who wants to maintain American gubmint spending as high a percentage of
GDP on healthcare as Canada has while in addition having private sector
spending $13K for coverage of 1 family that inflates at roughly 10%
annually, in the "name of" "Keep Gubmint out of this"? I do concede that
some and many-influential Americans want such ...

Makes me want to find a way to move to Canada, though someone I would be
married to (under law of all of Canada and a few USA "states") is
unwilling to be uprooted from a metropolitan area where he has family
ties.

- Don Klipstein )

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct
contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you
honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my
costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a
substantial loss of coverage?

How much are you paying? If it's the $12-13 K annually that is USA
average cost for private health insurance coverage for a family, then it
is 1.5% of an income level that very few Americans have.

- Don Klipstein )

Try ~$1,500 annual pre-tax contribution for medical and dental combined.

In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:


But the rate of people in the US sensing they are better off than
Canadians is roughly the same.

Except that is not my experience. Unlike all of the Canadians that
I know, many of my fellow Americans that I know would rather have their
healthcare system substantially different and like that of a country other
than their own.

Well if they are your friends and neighbors then it must be REAL
truth and the rest of the polls are all wrong. That ends the
discussion. Nothing here to see. Just move along.

--
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought
of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
Jimmy Buffett

"Pete C." wrote in message
ster.com...

CSquared wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
ster.com...

CSquared wrote:

"Clot" wrote in message
...
Pete C. wrote:
Clot wrote:

CSquared wrote:
"Clot" wrote in message
...
Pete C. wrote:
Clot wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
Clot wrote:

wrote:
"Clot" wrote:


But....... if there are 400 million people in the USA
and say 100 million homes.... and if we save just ONE
watt in the fridge bulb.... that is 100 million watts
saved!!

I thought it was below 300m, so a few less watts saved!

~350M I believe.

Interestingly, this came out today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8224520.stm

I've always used the rule of thumb that the US population is
five
times the UK and don't see a reason to change it!

The UK is less that 1/3 the size of TX, so think of what that
means for population density and why just about nothing can be
compared across the two countries.

Quite. It's one of the reasons we tend to have smaller vehicles!
We each have an eighth of the space over here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tion_d ensity

Yeah, but we tend to bunch up pretty badly, so having all that
space
doesn't really help a whole lot of us too much.

I was thinking the same way when reading Pete's view, but I think
there are more communities of say ballpark 5, 000 to 10,000 people
that are at a further distance to larger communities than here in
the UK which would result in more local facilities being required
in
smaller communities than here in the UK.

Yes, and there are plenty of areas in the US where you can drive
for
many miles passing through town after town with triple digit
populations. Providing services to people in these areas is
substantially more expensive than people in a large city.
Transportation issues are a big issue for the poorer folks, you
could
give universal coverage to them (which already exists anyway in
emergency rooms), but they still need to somehow get to the medical
center that might be 50 miles away.

Precisely so.

One of my friends from the rural area where I grew up about 70 miles
NE
of
Dallas suggested recently that maybe I'd like to move back some day.
I
told
her I really would love to in many ways, but that it would make the
trip
to
all our various doctors an awfully long drive! As a result, I think
we
had
best just stay put. It is only about 8 or 9 miles from our house to
either
of 2 very fine teaching hospitals here. I will grant you that there
are
likely some fine doctors less than 20 miles from my old home, but I'm
not
sure all the specialties we currently require at our "advanced age"
are
available there. Just as one example, my parents lived in that
general
area
pretty much to the end of their lives but my Mom's oncologist was
based
in
Dallas though ISTR he saw patients in Greenville at least one day a
week.
Later,
Charlie Carothers
--
My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com

TMC and the new medical center under construction in Denison would
probably be adequate.

I'm sure it will be, and I'm happy for them. The population of Denison
is
about 24,000 though, and I was thinking more of places like Commerce with
population less than 8,000. I'm sure there are better examples as you
progress to even smaller towns.

My comment in this thread started out as a
weak attempt at humor, but I really do feel for all the people in rural
or
semi-rural areas who are not well served medically.

Yes, however they greatly benefit by not being stuck in some miserable
big city

Big sigh. Couldn't agree more.

Don Klipstein wrote:

Except that is not my experience. Unlike all of the Canadians that
I know, many of my fellow Americans that I know would rather have
their healthcare system substantially different and like that of a
country other than their own.


I'm reminded of the CBS correspondent who said at a cocktail party: "I can't
belive Nixon won! I don't know anybody who voted for him."

You need to enlarge your circle of acquaintances.

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:


But the rate of people in the US sensing they are better off than
Canadians is roughly the same.

Except that is not my experience. Unlike all of the Canadians that
I know, many of my fellow Americans that I know would rather have
their healthcare system substantially different and like that of a
country other than their own.

Well if they are your friends and neighbors then it must be
REAL truth and the rest of the polls are all wrong. That ends the
discussion. Nothing here to see. Just move along.

If you Google "health+care+poll" the top entries support socialized
medicine. These top entries were polls taken by the New York Times, ABC, and
NBC. Then you get to the honest pollsters:

Rasmussen:
"...just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That's down five points from
two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago."
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...s _to_new_low

On Aug 28, 10:18*am, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:12:42 -0700, Smitty Two

wrote:

[snip]



When I was a kid, we took our coke bottles back to the store to get our
2 cent deposit back. They washed 'em out and refilled 'em. Makes sense
to me.

And I liked drinking Coke much better when it came in those bottles
(that's not JUST because of sugar instead of HFCS).
--
Mark Lloydhttp://notstupid.us

"How could you ask me to believe in God when there's
absolutely no evidence that I can see?" -- Jodie Foster

Now I realize we've wandered off topic.

But my employer (US Army) recently sent me to Germany for a few years.

During that time I drank a good bit of German beer, all of it in
recyclable containers.

There was a Getraenkemarkt near my house, and I did some
experimenting, eventually settling on Kulmbacher Edelherb Premium
Pils. Of course at the Getraenkemarkt all you can buy is glass
bottles, with a deposit of 7 Euro cents on each.

In the Esso station you can actually buy aluminum cans, with a deposit
of 25 Euro cents. Europe is set up to encourage recycling with
financial incentives. They discourage aluminum cans for obvious
reasons - much harder to recycle, and Germans recycle 75% of their
waste stream.

In my opinion. Ahem. The best tasting beer in Germany is Jever. But
ONLY if you are allowed to buy it in an aluminum can, which you can
only do at a gas station (Tankstelle) with the usual high markup.
Jever does not survive the damage from light, and I never found a
drinkable glass bottle anywhere in Germany. Brown doesn't matter,
enough light gets through to destroy beer.

In article , HeyBub wrote:
Don Klipstein wrote:

Except that is not my experience. Unlike all of the Canadians that
I know, many of my fellow Americans that I know would rather have
their healthcare system substantially different and like that of a
country other than their own.


I'm reminded of the CBS correspondent who said at a cocktail party: "I can't
belive Nixon won! I don't know anybody who voted for him."

You need to enlarge your circle of acquaintances.

I know dozens of Canadians with 100% rate of being at-least-highly
unwilling to trade their healthcare coverage for what they would get if
they moved to USA.

I know more USA citizens than I know Canadians, and my experience of
such larger number of USA citizens is that a "large and substantial
minority" of my family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors would
prefer to have USA copy what Canada has over what USA has.

In fact, this "minority" of my USA-citizen family members, friends,
neighbors and co-workers that are very dis-satisfied by what USA has is
big enough to be barely a minority. I hope that my fellow USA citizens
would have high rate of being dis-satisfied with what USA has, due to
gubmint spending %-of-GDP by gubmint on healthcare coverage being about
the same as is the case for Canada, while the average USA working family
(and employer thereof) spend in addition $12K, maybe $13K annually for
private healthcare coverage.

- Don Klipstein )

In article , HeyBub wrote:
Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:


But the rate of people in the US sensing they are better off than
Canadians is roughly the same.

Except that is not my experience. Unlike all of the Canadians that
I know, many of my fellow Americans that I know would rather have
their healthcare system substantially different and like that of a
country other than their own.

Well if they are your friends and neighbors then it must be
REAL truth and the rest of the polls are all wrong. That ends the
discussion. Nothing here to see. Just move along.

If you Google "health+care+poll" the top entries support socialized
medicine. These top entries were polls taken by the New York Times, ABC, and
NBC. Then you get to the honest pollsters:

Rasmussen:
"...just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That's down five points from
two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago."
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...tent/politics/
current_events/healthcare/august_2009/
support_for_congressional_health_care_reform_fall s_to_new_low

Is the drop in support due to weakening of the "Public Option"?

Why should something that is optional be lobbied against? My answer is
that the "Public Option" cause "toes to be stepped on" by competition by a
competitor - please remember that the "Public Option" is an "option"
and not mandatory.

With USA's Congresscritters weakening support for the "Public Option" in
response to efforts by lobbyists, I am not surprised by Congress getting
low approval ratings.

I merely wish that my fellow Americans would not state in the voting
booth that their Congresscritter is worthy of re-election while "most
others are not".

I also wish for more Americans to vote in "primary elections" - to vote
to replace their "congresscritter" (or more-local politician) with someone
else of same-"party", as opposed to being unwilling/lazy until chance
comes later in the year to vote for replacement with the
low-vote-count-towards replacement being likely of dfifferent party

- Don Klipstein )

In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:


Is the drop in support due to weakening of the "Public Option"?

Why should something that is optional be lobbied against? My answer is
that the "Public Option" cause "toes to be stepped on" by competition by a
competitor - please remember that the "Public Option" is an "option"
and not mandatory.

I'd settle for a public option that is merely a competitor. The
Public Option would be, under the rules of the proposals, expressly
forbidden from negotiating with Hospitals and Healthcare providers.
Rather, they will use the MCare pay scales which are mandated by MCare
on a take it or leave it basis (and more and more are leaving it by
refusing to take more than a certain number of government patients).
That alone will make it impossible for the privates to compete. Then
there is another provision that states the Feds will have the ability to
decide what is an acceptable loss ratio (and thus a big part of the
profits) and demand refunds should they go over it one year. However,
there is no mechanism for the private insurers to recoup those years
that they are under the loss ratio.
These are just two very anticompetitive advantages that the
public option would have. If I was cynical, I would suggest that these
(and a couple other things in the proposed law) were put in to hobble
private insurance and get to single payor through the back door. But
since I am not, I won't.

--
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought
of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
Jimmy Buffett

Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:

Is the drop in support due to weakening of the "Public Option"?

Why should something that is optional be lobbied against? My answer is
that the "Public Option" cause "toes to be stepped on" by competition by a
competitor - please remember that the "Public Option" is an "option"
and not mandatory.

I'd settle for a public option that is merely a competitor. The
Public Option would be, under the rules of the proposals, expressly
forbidden from negotiating with Hospitals and Healthcare providers.
Rather, they will use the MCare pay scales which are mandated by MCare
on a take it or leave it basis (and more and more are leaving it by
refusing to take more than a certain number of government patients).
That alone will make it impossible for the privates to compete. Then
there is another provision that states the Feds will have the ability to
decide what is an acceptable loss ratio (and thus a big part of the
profits) and demand refunds should they go over it one year. However,
there is no mechanism for the private insurers to recoup those years
that they are under the loss ratio.
These are just two very anticompetitive advantages that the
public option would have. If I was cynical, I would suggest that these
(and a couple other things in the proposed law) were put in to hobble
private insurance and get to single payor through the back door. But
since I am not, I won't.


whatever they do they should test it out on ALL govt employees first
before unleashing it on the public. that includes congressmen, senators
and the POTUS. if it survives the govt employee test run then unleash it
on the public. our employees should not get better health care than we get.

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:58:34 -0400, Kurt Ullman
wrote:

In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:


Is the drop in support due to weakening of the "Public Option"?

Why should something that is optional be lobbied against? My answer is
that the "Public Option" cause "toes to be stepped on" by competition by a
competitor - please remember that the "Public Option" is an "option"
and not mandatory.

I'd settle for a public option that is merely a competitor. The
Public Option would be, under the rules of the proposals, expressly


Are CFLs public option or are they LEDs

In article ,
wrote:


Are CFLs public option or are they LEDs

Yes.

--
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought
of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
Jimmy Buffett