Originally Posted by djplong

Stop and think a moment. Not all of what you say can possibly happen all at once.

First, we already pay more than ANY OTHER COUNTRY for health care. It's going to be hard to pay more as a percentage of GDP. But let's take your points in order.

- Taxes going up. QUite possible. In fact, I'd call it likely. If the government is going to be paying for more health care (let's assume the 40M 'uninsured') then it's going to have to get the money from somewhere. I'll give you that point.

- Current services will be reduced. How? How will my insurance company (I'm on a BC Anthem plan) be reducing what it covers? And why? So far, premiums have gone up to cover the uninsured along with lawsuits, over-defensive medicine (ordering unecessary tests just to CYA), etc. Sorry. Not buying that one.

- Premiums will go up to cover what used to be covered. If I don't buy the previous point, I can't buy this one. Taxes and premiums can't rteally go up if the taxes are going up to cover what HAD been the reason for the premiums going up.

- providers will hike costs. I disagree. If the government starts paying for 'indigent care' more than it already does, prices won't have to be hiked for covering previously unpaid bills.

Once again, I ask... How can we defend the 'current system' when we pay more and get less than anyone else? Ok, we get less than 36 other industrialized countries. Why is it that France - which has public and private insurance - can pull it off and we can't?

[As a side note, why is it so many people say "France" like it's a 4-letter word when they have cheaper electricity, aren't as indebted to terrorist nations, make the trains run on time and 5 times faster than ours, have health care and haven't gone bankrupt?]

BTK - I can understand that you're against what's coming out of D.C. - I'm not a fan of it either.. But is that a knee-jerk reaction to everything coming out of there or do you have some other ideas to solve the problem?

And by "the problem", I'll make it more specific...

- like when an insurance company cancels a subscribers plan becuase they get sick and are no longer profitable (after all, insurance is supposed to spread the risk, not eliminate it)

- like how the supply of doctors is regulated by the government.

- and other matters of cost, such as preventative versus emergency care, etc.