HK wrote:
On 3/19/10 7:14 AM, Eisboch wrote:
wrote in message
m...

If you are indigent, and turn up at a for-profit hospital with a
serious
condition, the best you can hope for is short-term stabilization, the
cheapest course of treatment, and a short supply of the cheapest drugs.
You are not going to see the high-dollar docs, either.

Conservatives have been perpetuating this myth of "they have to take
you"
for decades, as if that means the indigent will get good care. Well,
they
don't...they get the band-aid level of care for their chronic
conditions.



I think the concern is that with a government regulated and mandated
health
care system, the quality of *all* care will trend to that which you have
described.

Before you jump, understand this: Universal health care is something I
support.
It's one of the few liberal leanings that I have. But, here's one
problem
as I see it:

Regardless of how fair and standardized health care becomes, there will
always be
more expensive doctors and optional treatments/services for those who
can
afford to pay for them.

When it comes to life or death, how can anyone rationalize that those
who
can afford
non-standardized treatments deserve to benefit from them while others
can
not?

The debate will start all over again.

Eisboch




If we cannot extend full Medicare to everyone, then I favor the Swiss
system...a number of insurance companies offering a basic plan. All
Swiss must have a basic plan. If you can't afford it, it is
subsidized. All the basic plans provide the same coverage at the same
price. Each basic plan also offers a number of options for those who
want them and can afford them. Thus, and this is a made up example, if
you need cancer surgery, you get it under the basic plan. If you want
bigger teats, and the "want" is only for cosmetic reasons, you have to
have one of the supplemental plans if you want insurance coverage for it.

Frankly, I think the "free market system" is dead. These days, it only
works for the wealthiest. It used to work for everyone willing to
work. Those days are gone.



The plan they are voting on is nothing like either of these. It really
isn't a plan at all. The fact that Obama wants it passed, with the
admission that they will tweak it later, ****es me off. This is
unprecedented. He's on some personal time frame and doesn't seem to
really care what the meat of the plan is.