We need Universal Health Care not Health Insurance

glad to have a view like this. health problem today is already increasing and the health budget is decreasing. well to make this nice view and hopefully concern turn into a national government program to realized it.

The world laughs at the current medical policies in the U.S. Hopefully this situation will change soon.

One way to lower medical cost is to use a local doctor that you trust and

1)Purchase you medication in Canada. It will be at least 60% off. You will pay the same price as if you buy in the USA with prescription coverage (if you have coverage on your own).
2) Have surgery overseas (see google)

Insurance companies have global strategy. Do the same. Do not let them and the government trap you in their scheme

A national single payer system was a good idea 25 years ago. It is now behind th times in many ways

Single payer is the only way. We can not afford not to do it. Toyota recently placed a plant in Canada because the workers are covered by CDN health care, making business less expensive for them.

The economic system is breaking down, businesses are closing people are being laid off, poverty programs are being cut. This is looking more like the 1st Great Republican Depression all the time.

We must demand single payer health care, nothing less is acceptable or adequate. It would be the quickest way to boost the economy if individuals and businesses no longer had to spend the big bucks on health insurance and on the results of not having it.

And to be clear, single payer health care is not socialized health care, it is a socialized payment system. Socialized medicine looks like the VA where all the providers work for the government.

If we have billions to give to financial organizations, fund wars and now bail out the auto industry, then they can do something good for the people! It's up to the people to force the government to change because they won't on their own.

We should not wast money on insurance when a single payer plan will provide better care and be munch cheaper than the current system.

My extended family is from Croatia and even they have universal healthcare. My grandparents have had everything from lung cancer to osteoarthritis and they have received the care they needed without charge.

Now I'm not saying its without problems, but are you serious in saying that Croatia has been able to put this as a priority .... but the US just can't?????

Have any of you ever read the horror stories from many people who can't get the medical care they need in countries with socialized health care? I'm certainly not saying that the system in the US is free of problems either. But why would we want to move to a system that has been proven in many countries to be even worse?

The only people in this country who can't afford universal health care are the insurance companies. And when it happens, there will be no bailout for them. But I am certain our universal health system will be happy to pay for their euthanasia meds.

you bring up a good point with the fire and police service - if you call the fire department cause youre house is on fire, they dont ask you for your fire insurance information...so why would they in healthcare?

Yes we can. We can afford universal health care. If we can socialize the financial industry we can certainly socialize the medical system. The time is long overdue. Obama and the democratic majority can make it happen. The time is now. Yes we can.

And we are HAVING a financial meltdown so that we WON'T be able to demand universal healthcare.

It concerns me why we feel we must declare that healthcare is a right as a human being. This is a capitalist democracy (sort of) and we have a market place that decides who gets healthcare and who doesn't. Even in universal healthcare we would still have a mechanism set up to determine need.

What we DO need, is to establish that a capitalist democracy has to have a free open market place character. And, a system that has established a monopoly healthcare system, where communities have healthcare systems with CEO's that strut around and congratulate themselves because they were so clever as to be able to CREATE a monopoly, and are therefore able to make the highest return for their investors, only because they were so clever as to be able to esteblish a monopoly, we do not have a capitalist democracy. What we have is the scene of the crime!

Since when is it alright for us to ignore the capitalist democracy rules of promoting compitition? Promoting competition is what caused us to BE the leader of the free world. Leaders of other countries sign their children up on list to come to our country to go to school to learn how to BE the leader of the free world. And we have been electing governments for decades that will promise to ignore the rules of our capitalist democracy that have made us the leader of the world. Does anyone still wonder why we are no longer the leader of the world any more?

The author is right, but there is absolutely no way that our country can afford something like that right now.

Even before the bailouts, we couldn't afford it.

Obama's plan, while entirely inadequate to the 46 million who don't have health insurance, is a decent band-aid to alleviate the problem while we recover from this Republican regime.

Because of the financial problems we are having, it will take a very long time to get started with a plan to have universal heath care..its the bailout that is stalling and bringing down many financial plans and bussinesses..

Wall Street bailouts are pretty pricey too.

yeesh. Thats too bad. I guess invasions may be kind of expen$ive.

Unfortunately we can't afford either one at the moment.

Obama's universal health care plan would still maintain health insurance companies.

We need SINGLE-PAYER health care, and completely eliminate health insurance companies and the for-profit nature of the health industry.

I have a 12yr old daughter who has had medical problems from the time she was born. I had to put her on medicaid because no insurance company would take her because of pre-existing conditions. So now the state of Texas wants her dad to get insurance on her. As soon as they check her medical records they denied her. So what are you suppose to do? Recently I got lifeinsurance on me and my oldest daughter with no problem, but my youngest daughter was denied. I hope that Obama will fix this while he is in Office. Because I know there are other people out there with the same problem that I am having. I am a single mom with no place to turn except for medicaid. What makes it even worse if I make any more money the she will be denied. In the last 6-8months she has had to have MRI, CAT Scans, Hearing tests. So tell me what insurance will pick up the bill on that.

In Canada, you pay $60 per month per person if you are making over $25 000 year. Excep[t Alberta where we pay nothing because oil royalties pay for all premiums for all Albertans.