I'm amused by the discussion of "freedom" in health care

[Mr. Shaman]

AND-- AMERICANS KNOW RUSH LIMBAUGH is CORRECT 99.3% of the TIME!!!

Yeah....he's quite the reservoir (some would say septic-tank) of knowledge.

"President Obama and Rush Limbaugh do not agree on much, but they share at least one thing: Both wish to see Rush anointed as the leader of the Republican party."

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Riiiiiiiiight he's about as sharp as a bag of hammers.

....ONLY overshadowed by his INability to go one-on-one (with anyone), without his screener!!!!!!

RUN, PORKY, RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!​

 

[Mr. Shaman]

It's not really about just healthcare. That's just a start and smart way to total control.

Can you connect the dots?

Can't YOU connect with THE FACTS??????

Porky Limbaugh's been lyin'-to-you......

​

 

[Dr.Who]

You need to expand your thinking here and note how every policy
Obama pushes reduces freedom somehow!

The regularity with which the democratic party fails to promote any policy at all that does not reduce freedom should be a wake up call to all!!

 

[Hanno]

Well I'll grant you it's not just me sticking my head in the sand saying problem... what problem... I don't see any problem. And denying that this healthcare issue has been a problem that Presidents have tried to address ever since FDR (Democrats and Republicans alike). Simple truth is nothing got done so the problem just continued to worsen.

And that list includes even Nixon & Reagan. And let's see (in text version)what former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole said...

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kans.) told reporters on Wednesday that opposition to the president's health care package was driven, in part, by knee-jerk partisanship and he urged Congressional Republicans to consider backing a version of reform.

The 1996 Republican presidential candidate also predicted, following a speech at a health care reform summit in Kansas, that "there will be a signing ceremony" for a reform bill sometime this year or early in 2010.

But the comments that seem likely to create the most ripples were those that dealt with Congressional opposition to the White House. Dole, according to reports, framed the pushback to Barack Obama's reform agenda as almost perfunctory in nature.

"Sometimes people fight you just to fight you," he said, according to The Kansas City Star. "They don't want Reagan to get it, they don't want Obama to get it, so we've got to kill it..."

"Health care is one of those things," he added. "Now we've got to do something."

As far as the use of youtubes it's just not as dry nor as page consuming as sending you the many analysis's in text.

As far as health insurance being a form of a monopolized racket... let's look... by text and youtube.

Most American Iinsurance Markets Limited To Few Companies

It is clear that health insurance markets are broken. A tsunami of health insurance mergers has led to such high levels of concentration in insurance markets that there are now only one or two dominant insurers in many states. And these local monopolies go unchallenged because there are substantial barriers to entry and expansion for other insurers.

Lack of competition has led to growing insurer profits, increased costs and reduced coverage for enrollees, an epidemic of deceptive and fraudulent conduct, and rapidly escalating costs. More than 46 million Americans are now uninsured, and premiums have grown 130 percent over the last 10 years. Health insurers engage in an endless list of deceptive, fraudulent, and unfair practices that deny millions of consumers adequate coverage. Meanwhile, 10 of the largest health insurers saw their profits balloon from $2.4billion in 2000 to $13 billion in 2007.

The accompanying data shows that one or two carriers dominate many state insurance markets. One carrier controls more than half the market in at least 17 states. Two carriers control at least half the market in at least 22 more. And the American Medical Association found in 2008 that insurance markets are highly concentrated in 94 percent of metropolitan statistical areas, and that a single carrier controlled at least 30 percent of the insurance market in 89 percent of these areas.

As a result, health insurance interests come before Americans’ health care needs. Health insurers in markets that are dominated by only a few firms can maximize the rates they charge employers and families. Employers are then unable to afford meaningful health insurance options for their employees or, in the case of many small businesses, are unable to offer their employees coverage at all. And most Americans seeking health insurance in the individual market never purchase coverage.

At the same time, state insurance commissioners lack the resources and capacity to protect consumers’ interests and police this anticompetitive and deceptive conduct. Researchers in a recent review of 33 states found that in states with the most highly concentrated insurance markets, state regulators had taken no significant consumer protection actions against health insurers in the last five years. These insurers are able to offer poor coverage and deny care to inflate profits, as well as maintain effective monopolies, without fear of intervention.

Real health care reform must encourage real competition among health insurers—competition that benefits patients, employers, and health care providers. A health insurance exchange with a public health insurance option and real health insurance market reforms will force insurers to compete on price, value, and service. At the same time, reform must also include comprehensive consumer protections and meaningful enforcement so that the promises of reform are fully realized.

I shouldn't have boned about the youtubes - they get my hackles up by pawing for emotion, but visual media are within the common grasp, no putting the genie back in the bottle.

That FDR tried meddling with healthcare doesn't surprise me - he meddled with plenty of things that didn't need it, and medical concerns were probably never far from his mind. After WWII, when we finally had a chicken in every garage, sure the government thought it heard the call to duty - they got to be Robin-Hood for the destitute in 1965. Healthcare wasn't beating the GDP dramatically yet so even though cardiac bypass surgery had been invented and not everyone could comfortably afford it at the going rate, we couldn't treat the industry entirely like dirt, couldn't say things like 'medical costs are unjustly forcing me out of my house'.

Like I said, an imprecise use of the term 'monopoly', such as to paint a darker, and painfully chiche picture of the industry. When barriers to entry reduce competition, but more than one company is left, its oligopoly - if it's an inside initiative it's cartelism, if it's due to tooling costs, god bless whoever rises to the occasion, if it's due to government intervention, it's fascism. The state-specific-market thing falls into the latter category, which is nightmarish, but makes the industry at worst punks in the matter, and it only goes to counterindicate further meddling.