Liberal free for all coming to an end

[GRH]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Life/health and a busted car are hardly equal.

Originally Posted by TheAngryPostman

The principle is still the same though.

Yes, these are essentially the same thing. Because in America, there is no more a fundamental right to transportation than there is a fundamental right to health care. If your car breaks down and you don't have the money to fix it...You're up shits creek without a paddle. If you have a life-threatening illness and don't have the money/insurance to pay for treatment...You are also out of luck.

And since health care reform is SOOOO expensive, need I remind everyone that America has the highest per capita cost of healthcare of ANY nation in the world, and for far worse outcomes. The statistics would suggest that a single-payer system would actually be far cheaper than the "for profit" model of insurance that we currently have. By removing administrative overlap of multiple insurers, not to mention the egregious CEO salaries, and the billions of dollars of dividends that are paid to shareholders...And you take BILLIONS of dollars out of health care cost. Yes, you "pay" a wage to a doctor for his services. And yes, the doctor must "profit" enough from his procedures to pay his secretary, his staff, and his overhead. But a doctor need not "profit" so much as to make millions of dollars of salary (like a corporate CEO) nor to pay dividends (as corporations do).

I find it funny to hear people say that we can't afford health care reform. Personally, I think we can't afford NOT to reform health care. The current bill was far from perfect, and lacked a lot of cost-containment measures. But according to the only record keeper that really matters (the non-partisan CBO), the current effort at health care reform actually shaves roughly $138 billion from the deficit over ten years.

It's also highly disingenous to suggest that "85% of people are happy with their insurance." It's more appropriate to say that a large percentage of people don't want to have to sacrifice their quality of care for a substandard type of care. Nevermind that many people with insurance are underinsured. MANY people who called for health care reform believe that the legislation did not go far enough...Far more than 15% that Tracy would suggest. Because the fact of the matter is, not EVERYONE in this country believes that a broken down car and life-threatening illness should be the same thing. Some of us believe that health care should be a right.