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1. 

   pirate227 said, 7 months ago

   “…if it’s the last thing I do.”
2. 

   Kylop said, 7 months ago

   It brings to mind…..
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STeVTzWelns
3. 

   braindead08 said, 7 months ago

   I still don’t understand why Republicans/Fox “news” viewers don’t want health care to be improved in this country.
4. 

   ARodney said, 7 months ago

   Because Obama is the first black president. There is simply no rational argument — small business hiring is up, premium increases are down, health care costs are going down, health coverage for the middle class and poor will be vastly improved, and a new freedom to quit your job if you’ve ever been sick. But this is what we have to destroy the American economy over? Please, if you can’t govern, at least get out of the way.
5. 

   Rockngolfer said, 7 months ago

   Ten myths, note number 5 especially.
   .
   http://people.howstuffworks.com/10-myths-about-health-care-reform.htm
6. 

   dtroutma said, 7 months ago

   If the “healthy folks” sign up, as the should for ANY insurance company/organization to succeed, even as flawed as the GOP insisted on making it, as with having to buy private insurance instead of “single payer”, the program isn’t a wreck, but high speed rail compared to our current system.

   
   Looking at my mom’s over-priced drugs purchased without competition in Medicare, the error of Republican “thought” regarding health care is obvious, well, blatantly a ripoff of the taxpayers!
7. 

   Rockngolfer said, 7 months ago

   I paid for health insurance out of my savings account for over 4 years until it went up to $350 a month.
   Back then if I went to the doctor, I paid a $35 copay and the insurance company paid about $145.
   When I told the doctor I just needed my prescription refilled last week, I was told he would charge $50 or $60 since I don’t have insurance anymore.
   We have been ripped off for many years.
8. 

   motivemagus said, 7 months ago

   @Rockngolfer

   Nice summary article, Rock.
   And it is particularly ironic in that this is a Republican plan from first to last, operated by private insurance companies at a profit. If we went to something more sensible, we could wipe out HUGE administrative costs above and beyond of cost-savings from cutting out the middleman.
9. 

   Jim Guess said, 7 months ago

   @motivemagus

   “It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication, and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”
   —Thomas Sowell
10. 

    Mr. Ngn33r said, 7 months ago

    Sowell is a self-declared Libertarian…so this opinion is not surprising.
11. 

    Rockngolfer said, 7 months ago

    @motivemagus

    Now administration costs can’t be more than 20%. But when you consider we are overcharged anyway they still make huge profits.
12. 

    braindead08 said, 7 months ago

    Does that mean that you don’t want health care to be improved, or you don’t think it’s possible?
    -
    Is it like Mitch McConnell said, the greatest health care system in the world and needs no improvement?
13. 

    Hawthorne said, 7 months ago

    @Rockngolfer

    “When I told the doctor I just needed my prescription refilled last week, I was told he would charge $50 or $60 since I don’t have insurance anymore.”

    I’d say you did pretty well, on the whole. When I was uninsured, and paid for my doctor’s visit OOP, it was closer to $150. Plus the prescription. The co-pay, when I was insured, was $20, if memory serves.

    I qualify for Medicare this year, but the program is basically extortional (if you don’t sign up now, you WILL pay penalties later), and wlll strip us. Not sure what we’ll be eating, but my various health conditions might be dealt with.

    Yeah, that was a vote of less than perfect confidence, because my system is hostile to chemical drugs. It will be interesting, but all we can really say about it is that I at least, have had some experience living in destitution in this culture We may survive.
14. 

    I Play One On TV said, 7 months ago

    @Jim Guess

    As noted in another thread, Mr. Sowell conveniently leaves out the cost of an insurance bureaucracy to administer the former. When you compare apples to apples, his argument falls to the ground.
15. 

    I Play One On TV said, 7 months ago

    @Uncle Joe, Hawthorne, and Rockngolfer (and anyone else who might care:

    Allow me to help you understand.

    Back in the good ol’ days, let’s say I wanted $100 for a particular service. I would bill, say, Blue Cross $100. They said they’d give me $50. So I asked for $125, and they gave me $70. So I asked for $150, and they said $85, and not a penny more.

    So, if I wanted to earn $85, I had to bill $150. And this is a large part of the reason fees became so high.

    Now, it is against the law to charge a person more simply because that patient has insurance. Fair enough. But, the flipside of that law is that it is against the law for me to charge you less because you DON’T have insurance.

    For the same service, even though we all knew I was only going to get $85 from the insurance company, I was not allowed to charge $85 to a non-insured person. I had to charge $150, the same price as insurance companies were billed. THIS is where the penalties started for simply not having health insurance.

    I have lee-way. I can always adjust my fees to help someone in need, but it has to be on an individual basis. As soon as someone can determine a pattern of behavior—that is, that I have separate fees for the uninsured—I am guilty of insurance fraud. I may serve jail time, and I might lose my license to practice.

    Does this help you understand how we got to this incredibly convoluted place? There will never be a system where uninsured people will pay less as a result, no matter how humane it seems on paper. And it is not up to doctors to make that call, unless, as was postulated to Rockn’, he was provided a discount for being a long-term patient.

    I would be just as happy to bill the same $85 I get from insurance, but I don’t want to have to get a new profession.
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