So, you have a problem with doctors and nurses making a good living? Are they supposed to work for free?

Of course, your continued health is a money making venture. They aren’t making money off the dead.

This right here is the epitome of the problem I see when I look at the current healthcare system. The people providing me with health coverage are worried about profits? My continued health has become a money-making venture for them?

And ultimately, I find it strange that people who worry about government bureaucrats deciding what’s right for someone’s health care have no problems with executives concerned about profits making those decisions instead.

But then, that’s exactly what I think is wrong about the current health care system. It’s not about health. It’s about money. And changing how it gets funded won’t change the inherent problems caused by such a focus.

A friend of mine recently laid off just he and his spouse is paying $2,500.00 dollars a month for his COBRA. Health insurance costs more than his mortgage. Anyone taking up the insurance industry’s cause doesn’t know what they are talking about.

If you think the insurance companies are going to voluntarily lower their cost while having a monopoly over the process – you are being disingenuous …Over 60% of all US bankruptcies are attributable to medical problems. Most victims are middle class, well educated and have health insurance – (The American Journal of Medicine)

The insurance companies and their representatives in Congress would love to perpetuate a business model that is crippling our overall economy – a bunch of great Americans aren’t they?

90% of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the population is no way to run a country but a heck of a way to establish a royalty ruling class. Yacht sales can not sustain 350 million people. I’m for the public option, competition and a level playing field or break up the big insurers like we did AT&T.

A slavish focus on profit margin might be good for the individual or a business, but it is one helluva lousy way to “govern” a Country. The GOP being a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America has a hard time with that concept.

Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home

Quite simply, I do not trust the government to be concerned with the gay community in any way. When you hitch your wagon to a group (gay, black, Jew, whatever) and look to the government to benefit that group, you will always be subjected to the whims of the majority in regards to that group.

Here is where I’m coming from: I’ve been self-employed for nearly sixteen years, and thus have been purchasing my own health insurance. It has increasingly become a nightmare over that time, even though I had the benefit of purchasing via the Chamber of Commerce. (My partner is covered via his employer.)

Then something wonderful happened this year – I went onto Medicare (traditional Medicare coupled with a Medigap policy), and I now have far better coverage than I ever had in a private plan, and at half the cost! I researched the Medicare “Advantage” plans and concluded they are a bad deal – mainly because they involve Medicare paying private insurance companies a flat fee for each person’s coverage. Then these private companies can engage in their usual crap: marketing slight of hand, obfuscation, denial of services, and the creation of deliberate frustration that I experienced for sixteen years. Naming these plans “Advantage Plans” was a disgrace.

So, with the concerns Timothy raised for our community notwithstanding, I have favored the government’s reform plan, including the public option, and would have favored it more if it were a single payer system (basically, Medicare for everyone). I think the “public option” is a good compromise, though. But I’m very disappointed about abortion coverage being explicitly removed from the public option (this ties in with what Timothy was talking about).

The private insurance companies have had many years to figure out how to create a system that is equitable for everyone, and they have not done that. Instead they have perfected a system that maximizes their profits by excluding people that may be more likely to get sick, and by other strategies. People are not only excluded directly, but also indirectly by making the cost prohibitive and by creating roadblocks and frustration. Now it is time to force the private sector to do the right thing, or let them go out of business. I am a purist about the concept of insurance – we all share the risks and we all share the benefits. it’s really not all that difficult.

While Timothy’s concerns do give me pause, I am reluctant at this point to favor holding the plan hostage until those concerns are addressed – because they won’t be addressed any time soon. But maybe my opinion on all of this will evolve.