REH:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not a big job. In fact, I would imagine it would take longer for some government committe to decide on what kind of system to have and pick something to 'scale up' than it would to actually get the back-end stuff up and running.

Of course you have the costs associated with administration - but to hit both sides of the coin here, fears of the scope of the task didn't stop the government from creating the Department of Homeland Security and trying to "monolith" it into one organization. (The other side of the coin being - just look at how effective THAT turned out to be).

Face it - we already HAVE "Medicare" being administered to cover a SIGNIFICANT portion of our population and it happens to be the portion that needs the most (on average) care!

You could solve a lot of tech unemployment problems with 2 conditions. 1) Any company working on the system must have citizens or green-card aliens on the project. 2) No increase in H1B visas. Conditions 1 and 2 are in effect until the unemployment rate goes below 5%.

Why is it that several foreign countries, like Switzerland, France and Germany, can do this so much better than we can. And for all the complaints about 'rationing' in the UK and wait times in Canada, those single-payer systems are ranked far higher and far more efficient than our 'system'. Again, I'm reminded of how we're *37th* in the industrialized world in health care, YET PAY THE MOST. Canada and the UK are 7th and 11th, if memory serves.

There IS one area where we're apparently VERY competitive with the rest of the world in health care. Evidently, once (if) you reach 65, your life expectancy in the US gets longer and we start beating the statistics of other countries. Is it a coincidence that it's at that point where the wretched Medicare system comes into play?

Mind you - I've had some AWFUL experiences with Medicare when it comes to my relatives. But, like the Post Office, apparently, it's an envy-of-the-rest-of-the-world system - which makes me wonder how bad off THEY are.