Villagegolfer: The biggest albatrosses that we have around our financial necks are SOcial Security, Medicare/Medicaid and the military.

Social Security is paid for through a regressive tax. The first 6.5 cents of every dollar you make goes to FICA and is matched by your employer. Somehow the liberals haven't gained much traction in screaming about THAT regressive tax, though the FAR left sometimes tries.

The military is paid for through 'regular' taxes. Everything from income taxes to import duties and off shore oil leases.

This leaves Medicare/Medicaid. Sure, there's a line on your paycheck saying how much is taken out for that, but that's a fairly recent development.

I've said this before - there may be only one way to to solve the Medicare/Medicaid elephant and that's how other countries do it. A National Sales Tax. They have VATs in other countries. Our health care system is broken for more reasons than I can count. Everything from legal problems to the simple fact of capitalism that says companies are beholden to their SHAREHOLDERS. ...and forcing Americans to buy something for simply "existing" just doesn't seem right to me.

Now, I'm no fan of socialized medicine - not by a long shot. But when you see that the United States has the equivalent aaverage life span as CUBA. When you see that we aren't even in the top THREE DOZEN industrialized nations for the quality and effectiveness of our health care system. When countries like the UK and their well-publicized difficulties beat the pants off of us. When you find out that "medical tourism" didn't exist a few years ago and is an established industry now - and what's worse is that ten times as many people go overseas for treatment as compared to coming here from other countries (we have 300M potential customers to leave while the rest of the world has over 6 billion potential customers to come here - making those numbers even more stark)... When, most of all, you discover that we pay, per capita MORE THAN TWICE AS MUCH MONEY AS ANY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET for this sub-standard service... Well, then you have to start wondering what the real story is.

To me, the only Constitutional way to fund this is through a Sales Tax. Now, for one, that'll get EVERYone paying. For two, it's more cost efficient to collect - harder to "go underground". Of course we would have the usual problem of the existing health insurance companies screaming bloody murder about being put out of business. But let me ask you the following...

I'm sure nobody has a problem with doctors and nurses making a fair wage. Likewise the other people who actually *deliver the goods*. It's just that, when you get to 'sick people', I'm not sure they should be treated the same way that a used car salesman treats HIS customers - as marks to extract every possible dollar.