Absolutely. One example: if small business and the self-employed could pool into one large group across state lines, millions of uninsured Americans would be able to afford health insurance. The cost of providing essential emergency services for this group often falls to the taxpayers of each state. The idea of robbing the healthy to pay for the less healthy is specious because everyone is paying now for a poor system which provides more expensive care and no preventative medicine.

Boy, do I know this one! Insurance rates drop by nearly half when one goes from 10 to 11 employees in my state. Looking at one group of 5000 vs 500 groups of 10 makes for an even bigger difference.

If you think that's a good business model, then you have the right to go into it.

Insurance is and has always been about a gamble with the deck loaded in favor of the Insurance company. The company sells insurance because they hope to make money doing so. People buy it because they hope to beat the odds by getting sick before they pay too much into the insurance.

A standard insurance company calculates how much your lifetime (or in these days, job time) health costs are and charges you that much divided by the length of the term. In group insurance it's the same, but you find the estimated health costs for the group. If you want to make money you charge risky people more than healthy people.

But government has already jumped into the mix by requiring companies to take unwarranted risks and accept uncatalogued groups. So they have to charge healthy people more than they otherwise would. This is called "theft" if you are healthy, "my right" if you are sick (or just like to go to the doctor a lot).

Just a personal story here.

In November 2007, I was in an automobile accident. I wasn't at fault and it injured my lower back. I could hardly stand without excruciating pain. I went to the clinic, they said physical therapy. The physical therapy didn't work because I couldn't do any of the exercises without massive amounts of pain. I was paying $15/visit to the clinic doc because of low income (I'm a full time student). The PT was billing me more than $100/visit for 3 visits a week.

Other guy's insurance co said that they wouldn't give me a penny until I was completely recovered.

The clinic doc said I needed to see a spine doc. I called 4 spine docs. They said they wouldn't even let me walk through the door unless I paid $250 for the office visit, which I could not afford. The procedures, which ranged from $2000 to $8000 or more would not be done unless I paid for them in advance.

I couldn't walk without massive pain, couldn't lay down, couldn't sit down. Couldn't get any relief at all. No insurance money. I decided to hire a lawyer.

Lawyer fronted me $250 to go to spine doc. Spine doc said I would have to do spine injections before I did surgery. Spine injections are also very expensive and I couldn't find a doctor who would do them without money up front.

Finally, 2 months later, I found a doc who was willing to do it. One doc. As long as I paid him $100/month until the settlement comes in. I couldn't work. If it wasn't for my partner I'd be on the street.

I'm better now. The injections worked, mostly. I'm now trying to lose weight to take the pressure off the nerve.

So, explain to me again why the government shouldn't step in and take care of its citizens? Why people should suffer because our government allows some individuals (like doctors for instance) to make millions or billions of dollars a year and ignores the needs of those who don't?

This whole bullcrap about Canadians hating their healthcare system is complete crap. Stop quoting Rush Limbaugh and talk to some real Canadians. I have. They say "We pay a bit more in taxes, but its worth it." Pretty much every one that I've asked. None has said that they hated it. That's not a scientific survey, but it was done online, chatting with several different canadians.

Universal health care alleviates suffering. That's pretty much all I need to know.

That's because the taxpayers were picking up the bill in the form of higher taxes to cover the riskier people. People who made the most were paying the most for uninsured health care. I don't think it is so fair to pay a lot of taxes and have them wasted because we want to protect the insurance industry. Perhaps you don't pay a lot of taxes, but I do. I want my taxes to be spent to provide the most cost-effective health care possible while maintaining a standard of care.

Because it's not the job of the government to protect it's citizens from every accident. We have a Constitution that limits the power of the government by making it keep out of things like private business and medicine. Besides, it looks to me that you got your treatment by appealing to private charity and by working with your doctors. If more people tried that first and didn't just send the bill to the insurance company, insurance rates would be much lower and everyone could afford it for those big things like car accidents. Plus more doctors would be comfortable with doing it.

Because it is not the government's job to protect you from suffering. It's job is to protect you from national enemies, sustain an infrastructure that allows a profitable business climate for it's citizens and avoid being destroyed by stupid ideas like Socialism.

The rest is up to you. I have faith in you, you can do it. I hope you get to the point where you too can make millions or billions of dollars. As long as you don't count on someone else to take care of you, you have as good a chance as anyone.

So true.

Sorry you've had such a rough time of it.

And just for the record - 'single payer, universal health care' = publicly funded, and privately delivered.

I'm not saying that's the answer - the term 'universal health care' could mean all kinds of different scenarios. A mix of public/private, or an improvement in the current system (ie. more accessible and affordable, portable too would be nice).

Hear, hear. I don't know ANYONE here (and I do know a few people) who want to get rid of our healthcare system.

I'm not saying the same, or a similar model would work in the States. It's a different country with different laws and a different political structure. But we are quite happy with our system, thank you. And while there are always a few people, in any country, who will abuse any system just because they can, it is NOT the case that we all rush out to the doctor at the first sign of a sniffle just because it's free.

Rachel

Americans pay as high a percentage of their incomes as tax as the rest of the world. They get much less for it -- likely because the US plays World Cop.

More likely because we have drifted into Socialism. Entitlments are the largest portion of our taxes and there is no Constitutional provision for any of them.

I agree we are heading down that path.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness;
From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependency;
From dependency back into bondage. "
-- The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic,
Alexander Fraser Tyler (1748 - 1813)

Alexander Tyler (Lord Woodhouselee) wrote that when the United States was recently a colony of the British Empire, and he was writing about our Constitutional Convention.

We have a huge entitlement program already in Social Security/Medicare and those folks are producing nothing for society. Why should people get medical care simply because of age? Is that fair?

People who get social security and medicare have generally paid into the system.

Far, far less than they will receive. Don't you think everyone should pay into the health care system too? Don't you think people who are actually contributing to the GNP should get something out of their tax dollars?

I think that everyone should contribute (unless they are REALLY unable to do so). I am no fan of giving people benefits they don't work for, especially on a unlimited basis, as is the case in many parts of this country. My husband's sister has been on welfare for 20 YEARS. No one in that family is disabled, and they get full health care (yes, they go to the emergency room), and have to pay for almost nothing. There seems to be no encouragement for them to leave the welfare system & it appears that the flow of benefits is endless from the state. We are trying to work with their kids to show them opportunities outside the 'system.' Breaking the welfare mentality is a serious challenge.

My husband and I just started having to pay for insurance that is not employer-sponsored. We pay A LOT, as he was rejected for having hypertension & his weight is outside of their 'normal range' (he is not really overweight, maybe 10-15 lbs). I very rarely go to the doctor, so they are getting their money's worth out of us. My husband is the same, other than paying for 1 bp prescription (which isn't covered by the new insurance).