I say we just let gubmint give us all free health care.

Great catch, Wes! I was about to post this up myself when I noticed you'd spotted it already.

"Denial doesn't create a new reality, despite the best efforts of folks like this."

Ever since Suskind's now-rightly-notorious "reality-based community" quote I think we're coming to understand how central to neocon and rightwing extremist thinking is the belief that there isn't a reality on earth that won't eventually yield to a clever enough and sustained enough public relations campaign. It leads directly to Orwell's Newspeak.

I do notice redbeard's sarcasm just completely avoids addressing the subject. No, there is no free lunch. But we could afford better health care for all, for less than we now spend. The healthcare we're currently buying is among the most expensive on earth because it includes tens of billions annually for marketing, advertising, cost-shifting and -avoidance, bloated executive salaries, stock dividends, a crushing bureaucracy and staggering levels of paperwork. Those billions could be spent on committing actual medical care that actually makes people healthier.

No, government is not a particularly efficient way to coordinate resources, goods and services--the market does so far better--but the mission of insurance companies, to collect the maximum and pay out the minimum, is just inconsistent with the goal of achieving a healthy population at affordable cost.

By overwhelming majorities Americans have wanted universal HC since the Truman Administration. Pretending they already have it is straightforward Wingnuttery.

Redbeard wrote:

I say we just let gubmint give us all free health care.

That is precisely what Goodman is saying above!!! He's arguing that, since ERs are not allowed to turn away those in need of immediate care, everyone can just wait until it gets bad enough to necessitate a trip to the ER and--voila!--the government pays for it.

Don't you think it more cost-effective, and better for the health of the patient, if there's SOME means by which such people might get some wee bit of, oh, PREVENTIVE care before it gets "bad enough for the ER?"

I say make it free. That will surely keep the cost down.

This is the basic Republican idea of solving Americas healthcare problems. In the right wing Republican mind the problem isn't a lack of healthcare options for Americans, the problem is that Americans, including those who have private insurance through their employer, demand too much healthcare. Thus the soluction isn't to provide more healthcare it is to get people to accept less.

KwAwk;

Ration healthcare or make it like a piggybank that you think twice about spending? I like the way your going here.

Republicans have been very clear: they think there's too damn much insurance as it is.

I think that there's a place for government in the 'health insurance' business. A full-blown, cover-everything position probably wouldn't work, but one would think that a basic-care, physicals-shots-and-preventive-care subsidy might work well. I've seen research which suggests that close to 45% of ER visits are the result of conditions that could have been managed with preventive care; that seems a good place to start the discussion.

Winston, we never tire of your wit, your falsifications, and your misrepresentations. Don't ever change.

Winston is half right. Republicans don't think there is too much insurance, they think there is too much healthcare. Republicans advocate a free market approach to healthcare which says if the free market doesn't feel you deserve healthcare then you don't get it.

People on the left and in the middle like Wes feel that everybody should have a basic package of health care regardless of their economic circumstances. As Wes notes it makes good economic sense and it makes good moral sense.

The Republican plan for healthcare doesn't really address people without health insurance. It is simply a plan that says healthcare costs will go down for people, even if they have health insurance if we can convince them to accept less healthcare. The McCain plan is three steps, limit damage awards against physicians to take away their incentive to order 'just in case' testing. The second step is to pay doctors on outcomes, which gives them an incentive to minimize treatment, and third to force everybody into healthcare savings accounts so that they will conciously make decisions not to seek medical care.

There is also the quasi-fourth step which is to allow health insurance companies to operate on an interstate basis, which ofcourse would take away a lot of the rights of states to regulate health insurance.

The Republican plan by all means is not a plan to expand the type of healthcare John McCain enjoys to everybody, it is inarguably a plan to get the American people to accept less healthcare.

It is guaranteed to lead nowhere except to shorter life expectancies for the middle class and below.

Ummm.... Zoy can we fix that to take my real name off?

Much better.

We shouldn't "get" healthcare any more than we "get" groceries or clothes. We buy health insurance, just like we buy groceries or clothes.

Now if we're talking about people who are truly destitute, that's another subject. But the Dems aren't. They're talking about Big Brother universal health insurance for everyone, paid for by a massive wealth transfer scheme.

Just say it Redbeard. If you are sick and can't afford to see a doctor you don't deserve to get well. If you are hungry and can't afford food, you don't deserve to eat. If you are cold and you don't have clothes, you don't derserve warmth.

It is the typical Republican sociopathic dream society. No empathy for those less fortunate. No forgiveness for people who have made bad choices in life. No understanding of the struggles of others less fortunate than him.

This from the party which claims to be the party that upholds the values of Christ.