Why We Need Universal, Consumer-Driven Health Care

I havent had insurance in over ten years..... I eat healthy and take natural medicines and teas when I do get sick.
Personally I like to go with things that have a few thousand years of track record rather than 3-10 yrs...

The facts are the facts ma'am, whether you want to believe them is your own perogative......

Well, I'm not against it....

You are full of macaroni. Have you ever got an accounting from your insurance company showing what was charged and what they paid? Big difference in their favor. It would be a good idea if you knew what you are talking about before insulting people.

I find it hard to believe that the doctor refused to see your mother over ten dollars, then turned around and charged you a street person fee.

usually less??!! thats a good one..... i live in NJ, is it beyond you to understand that contracts change after so many years?? or a doctor can just drop an insurance company that wont pay them what they want because the next one will pay and will bring more patients....

The amount paid by insurance companies is agreed in advance and is usually less than the general public is charged. Where do you find a doctor that will see you for forty dollars?

Did I say that?? No, do not put words in my mouth.....

I guess you have never heard of a clinic before......or you havent realized the overall raise in costs in the past few years.....and of course you ignore that they voluntarily give such discounts to uninsured people meaning that they do not "have" to charge the insurance companies the amount they do. They just charge it because they will get it.....giving a discount opens the door for a quicker payment from the uninsured, but there is no need to worry about that from the insurance comapnies..... While I pay $40 to see my local Dr, my mother loses his care because he wants to charge the insurance company $110 instead of $100.......

Are you suggesting that doctors shouldn't charge people that can't afford it? I guess then the doctor can go to The super market and walk out without paying, and tell the power company that He can't afford to pay. Let's be real, most doctors treat more than their share of people that can't pay. We the people need to tell our legislators that we want universal healthcare.

If doctors held to their hippocratic oath, noone would "need" insurance.....

I was just working in a doctors office doing construction. During the finish portion of it I heard tham talking about how they can charge people without insurance 45% less than what they charge the insurance..... why dont they just do this for everyone, it would reduce the costs substantially.....

One must always consider that a federal program in the US is bound to fail because it has to encompass too many different factors. Within any beurocracy, this will cause a lot more to fall through the cracks then as if it were a smaller country like France Germany and UK... Not to mention their incomes are much less because of 40%+ taxes just for healthcare. How are we expected to live with half of what we have when we are barely scraping by as it is at the current tazation rates??

The UK, German,and French systems are all national too and are working very well.

but first america needs to go on a diet. quit doing fda approved poison. stop smoking cigaretts , start exerciseing and stop drinking. gee if we want to get healthy we can without the governments help.

I don't agree. The cost of administering a program that requires people buy insurance is more cost we don't need. The problem I see is collecting the premiums and paying subsidies. We should have a plan that is paid for out of the general fun. The amount withheld for Social Security and Medicare should be raised a little. The cap should be removed. People earning a million or however much should pay on all their earnings just like the person earning 50,000. does. Then we could have true universal healthcare.

This is another possibility. I would like to say I've seen many, many polls indicating Americans favor a public option, ranging between 55-77%.