(AP pix)
No matter what happens it is Trump’s fault.
Freshman Nevada Congresswoman and soon-to-be-announced candidate for the Senate Jacky Rosen put out the most mind boggling press release in recent memory after Anthem announced it was pulling out of the ObamaCare health insurance business in 14 Nevada counties, leaving about 8,000 residents in those counties with no ObamaCare option.
Her statement reads:
“These health insurers pulling out of Nevada is a direct result of President Trump and Republicans in Congress creating partisan chaos over health care. The rush to pass this reckless legislation has already caused so much instability on the exchange that thousands of rural families in Nevada will now have zero options. This exodus from Nevada’s health exchange creates a crisis for patients in rural communities who were already struggling with access to affordable health care as it is. All signs point to President Trump and Republicans in Congress continuing to sabotage the Affordable Care Act for political reasons, which means we can only expect to see additional health insurers exit the Silver State Health Exchange. It’s time for Republicans to give up on this obsession with tax breaks for the wealthy and instead work across the aisle to work on finding real, bipartisan solutions to improve our health care system.”
Of course, as The Wall Street Journal reported online Wednesday afternoon, the company is pulling out due not to something that might happen in the future, but due to the nature of ObamaCare.
The paper said Anthem’s decision was due to the volatile individual market, which is due to the ObamaCare rules and restrictions. The company said that “planning and pricing for ACA-compliant health plans has become increasingly difficult due to a shrinking and deteriorating individual market, as well as continual changes and uncertainty in federal operations, rules and guidance, including cost-sharing reduction subsidies.”
As Forbes points out, the Senate health care bill keeps cost-sharing subsidies through 2020, and if they are reduced insurers could increase rates by 15 to 20 percent, shifting the cost the consumer instead of the taxpayers.
Congressman Mark Amodei, who represents six of the counties affected, said:
“Sadly, this news isn’t shocking. It represents another symptom of the sickness that is killing America’s health care system. While there are plenty of arguments on how to fix this, regardless of your political views, it’s clear the status quo isn’t working and is in need of serious repair. Once again, I’m left wondering, when is Congress going to put the issue ahead of the politics? I will continue to focus on the facts and the policy options to be applied in Nevada. As always, my goal is to ensure that any reform package increases Americans’ access to quality and affordable care, while paying respect to rural communities like ours that are being hit the hardest.”
4TH ST8 
Well, at least George W. Bush is off the hook!
Sent from my iPhone
>
“it’s clear the status quo isn’t working and is in need of serious repair.” ” my goal is to ensure that any reform package ”
If the Congressman is serious about “my goal is to increases Americans’ access to quality and affordable care, while paying respect to rural communities like ours that are being hit the hardest”, I would ask him why he now is advocating repairing and reforming the ACA.
The ACA is based on economic Marxist principle and is therefore antithetical to increasing access and quality and affordability of health care. It must be fully repealed if these are the Congressman’s true goals.
Obama and the Democrats knew that getting as many people as possible to sign up for Medicaid would make it very difficult for the States who accepted Federal money to ever repeal it. And the “reform” plans proposed allow this to continue to 2020 which means it will never be changed. But, just like Medicare, Medicaid is not economically sustainable. Neither the Federal government nor the State of Nevada can pay for this expansion. Not if we want to continue to fund schools, police, fire, roads, etc. What happens then?
Unlike most other Republican governors, Sandoval started us down this path. He took the easy money knowing that he would be long gone when it came time to pay the piper. We need Senator Heller and Congressman Amodei explaining to Nevadans why this program in reality is heartless, why free market legislation is needed, how to truly lower the cost of health care.
Do we not have any champion of economic freedom through limited government?
How about passing legislation outlawing the American Medical Associations monopoly on doctor licensing which has been used to limit the supply of doctors and those qualified to render medical care? How about ending the onerous regulations on opening hospitals and clinics instead of restricting supply which enriches only those who sit on the so-called “not for profit” organizations. How about tort reform and getting rid of the cumbersome HIPPA regulations? How about decoupling health insurance from the work place which punishes those in the individual market and small businesses?
In 1960, 90 percent of health care was paid directly from the consumer to the doctor. Today, only 10 to 15 percent. When those consuming a product do not see the cost of that product, there is no mechanism to drive down the cost. Enact legislation designed to let doctors be doctors and consumers be consumers.
We have precious little chance to get this right. If the ACA is “reformed” we will continue down the economic Marxist road to higher costs, lower supply, and lower quality health care. I would ask Senator Heller and Congressman Amodei if they believe in liberty, if they believe in freedom, if they believe in the principles of the American founding, do not condemn Nevadans to this path.
This seems pretty straightforward. If the insurance industry wants to maximize profits, all they have to do is partition the states among themselves and enjoy markets with only 1, 2 or 3 insurers (or 0 in some areas), leaving plenty of room for informal agreements among the players regarding price. Obama should have seen this coming. The answer is to either create a capitalistic system with proper controls, if that’s possible, or to just go socialized medicine, which works better than our system in more than a dozen other countries.
As for those counties temporarily without insurance, some company will come along – for the right price. After all, supply will always meet an unmet demand if the money’s there.
Not when government through regulation controls supply and sets the price that can be charged. This is the system we have now and have had for many years. As for Obama, he did see this coming. The ACA was never designed to succeed. The goal from the start in Obama’s own words as well as other architects of the ACA (Gruber) has been to get to full government control
Barbara, while I agree with much of what you say, I fear that the train is too far down the track to reverse the engine of public opinion and expectation to bring the train back to the principles of a limited federal government envisioned by the Founders of our Nation.
Instead of castigating Heller and Amodei I prefer to deal with the political posturing and outright deception of Representative Rosen as evidenced by her press release.
Obama Care is failing. As Democrats so often successfully do, they are attempting to shift the focus and the debate and place the blame on Republicans.
We are in this situation because of Obama Care. It was passed without the support of Heller and Amodei and was sold to the American Public by a lie that would have seen a CEO of a company charged with fraud. “You can keep your doctor…your plan…”.
It the Republicans do nothing, Obama Care will collapse. It collapses, the Democrats will sell the idea to the public that it is the Republicans fault because (a) they (Trump) sabotaged it and (b) the Republicans y had an opportunity to fix it and did not do so.
So, I’m not going to play their game and I am not going to blame Amodei and Heller for not being politically pure enough. To do so, reminds me of the movie, “Paths of Glory” where the French General caused French soldiers to be executed for not being brave enough when an attack failed.
Obama Care was enacted because of representatives like Rosen. I’m not going to shoot our own soldiers.
Its amusing to listen to people from the right talk about “their guy” here, doing all the things that the bemoaned “the other guys” doing; operating in secret, not discussing this ginormous issue in public with “the other guys”, trying to enact legislation that “would make the founding fathers roll over in the graves”, and other such nonsense.
And all of it, knowing that the country doesn’t support anything they are trying to “cram down the throats of the American public”.
Oh, and guys like “Nevada’s” republican representative, and the representatives of other red states angling for the same “special treatment” for their home states, that the right castigated the former Senator from Nebraska for getting when the ACA was originally passed, but getting the silent treatment about, from those same people on the right.
Anyone know where all those “grass roots” “Tea Party” folks are lately? You remember them, the ones that said that the “gov’ment” ought to keep their hands out of their Medicare? (snicker) I mean, was Senator Reid “right” all along when he said once the Koch Brothers gave the word (or stopped giving them money) that they and their “principles” would disappear like water on the Las Vegas pavement?
“I fear for our republic”
Again, Bill, no one is asking for political purity or perfection. Conservatives have agreed to many concessions demanded by the moderates within the party to extend provisions of the ACA if only a tidbit of freedom and actual individual choice can be introduced. If anything, it is the moderates who are demanding purity and perfection to their left leaning desires., i e. – must continue funding for Planned Parenthood, must pour billions more down the whole of medicaid, must continue the mandates, etc.
Senator Cruz has offered to agree to all these Marxist demands if only insurance companies be allowed to write an insurance policy that the consumer actually wants. Under his proposal, the ACA mandates could exist if companies were also allowed the freedom to craft a policy for the consumer with the coverage the consumer chooses to include or exclude. Is this demanding purity? Is this perfection getting in the way of the good? No. It is the moderates and progressives demanding purity with their Marxist ideology.
There is more at stake here than health care. It is the continued existence of the Republican party. The Republicans promised us repeatedly that they would fix the insurance market. This promise makes them responsible now that they hold all the reins of power. When they do not deliver, they will be held to account – not for causing the problem in the first place, but for not keeping a solemn, oft repeated promise. The American public doesn’t care who caused the problem. They do care and remember that for 8 years we were told it would be fixed by Republicans.
The proposals coming out so far will not fix the problem. Doing nothing will not fix the problem. The American public wants one thing – lower premiums. Republicans set this expectation for the last 8 years and now they need to deliver. Democrats do not need to “sell” the public on any of this – Republicans have accomplished that all on their own.
Someone put it like this: We have the truly evil Party and the completely stupid Party. Pick your poison.
ACA was designed to fail as a stepping stone to single payer. RINO’s go along with it, knowing that once the public begins to consider health care a “right”, there will be no way to get rid of it.
Meanwhile…
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/fbi-agent-indicted-in-lavoy-finicum-shooting/452621597
Yes, Often, lying gets you more in trouble than the actual deed. The Stupid Party would do well to remember this… Interesting bumper sticker out …To Heck with Heller
I suppose herein lies the crux of the matter. Stoner apparently doesn’t think reasonable health care is a right, which means that if someone cannot afford to be treated with insulin for their diabetes, we just have to let ’em go. This kind of thinking is what keeps us as a borderline 3rd world nation. Advocating letting our sick and poor die in the streets is pretty dystopian. Conservatives also advocate our extremely high incarceration rates and our 3rd worldly income inequality along with our 3rd world life spans and infant mortality – and our 3rd world access to firearms. They sound very much like a despotic regime that cares not for the good of its people, but just wants the rich and powerful to prevail.
Can’t we go back to the days when every problem this nation faced could simply be blamed on Harry Reid? Climate change, hair lice, waxy yellow build-up? They were all simply Harry’s fault. Now we have the conserbitarians pleading for us to go back to the good old days when millions more Americans were without health insurance, and thus, without health care. The job-creaters in our society had their doctors and the rest has pauper’s graves. What was the problem with that? Now that we finally have Donald Trump, a supreme intellectual, in the White HOuse and Harry Reid out of power, everything should be rosy. Our last step should be working toward eliminating the intellectual diseases of compassion, empathy and altruism from America (Republicans and most Libertarians have already achieved such Nirvana). Only then can we follow Donald Trump to greatness.
Rincon are you suggesting that republicans are actually in FAVOR of death panels?
I’m so confused, I mean, I thought they said that was what health care was.
Just more evidence that those dang “socialist” countries have it better than…whatever it is that we have here in the good ole U S of A.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/america-continues-its-long-slide-on-the-world-happiness-report-2017-03-20
So conservatives are heartless and the Marxist single payer systems produce better results than a capitalist system?
Tell that to the parents of Charlie Gard. Charlie is a 10 month old baby in the UK who is terminally ill. We have an experimental treatment for Charlie, and his parents have raised the money needed to bring him to America for the operation. But the European courts have ruled he cannot go – he must be killed or as they called it “die with dignity”.
If you have the stomach for it, below is a link to pictures of this sweet baby and his parents.
https://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F05%2Fnintchdbpict000327922618.jpg%3Fstrip%3Dall%26w%3D960%26quality%3D100&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fnews%2F3689147%2Fcharlie-gard-life-support-reprieve-supreme-court%2F&docid=sDD_k83XOaS60M&tbnid=8XgBgo8LXc8jPM%3A&vet=1&w=960&h=886&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim
Anyone who can look at these pictures and then say this is what they want for America is not human.
Dear God, a Reagan; “all welfare queens drive Cadillacs”?
Seriously Barbara?
Shall I now post anecdotal stories about how men and women and babies with diabetes are, without republican “healthcare” in this country being forced to pay more than $1,500 a month for their insulin or face dying a gruesome death?
Geez.
Since that seems to be the name of the game here, let us begin:
“Shane Patrick Boyle died on March 18th, 2017, from Type I Diabetes. Not from late-in-life complications from the disease, or from some unexpected situation—Boyle died because he was $50 short of reaching his $750 GoFundMe goal to pay for a month’s supply of insulin, the drug necessary to keep diabetics alive. After presumably stretching the meds he had as long as they could possibly go, he developed diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), a fatal complication that results from the body being unable to move glucose out of the blood and into cells, where it’s needed.”
https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/ezwwze/the-high-price-of-insulin-is-literally-killing-people
“Pre-Obamacare, every insurer she applied to for coverage asked about her family’s medical histories. When she told them about her son’s diabetes, as she tweeted earlier this month: “That was the end of the conversation, every. single. time.”
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-voices-20170109-story.html
These examples are not born of a free market health care system. Most Americans have never lived under a truly free market system and so can’t envision what that would mean.
As we approach the anniversary of the birth of our nation, we would do well to remember what the American Revolution was all about. America was born on the idea that all people have the inherent right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights come not from man and are not instituted by government. These rights come from Nature and Nature’s God. Since they are from the Creator, no man or government can take them away.
The Founders proclaimed this political philosophy to the world in our Declaration of Independence. The Constitution was written to be the structure in which these rights would be upheld an protected.
The Founders did not invent this philosophy. It’s roots can be traced back thousands of years to Cicero (106-43 BC), Aristotle (384-322 BC), John Locke (1632 – 1704) and others. As Jefferson explained in a letter written to Henry Lee in 1825 concerning the source of the ideas and language of the Declaration, “Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right…”
The Progressives do not believe in these time tested sentiments. As explained by Mark Levin in his new book, Rediscovering Americanism and the Tyranny of Progressivism, “Progressives believe in historical progress and the perfectibility of man -and his self-realization-through the national community or collective.” “For Progressives what was true and good in 1776 and before is not necessarily true and good today. Consequently, the very purpose of America’s founding is debased.”
Centralized government health care (as evidenced in Europe today) means you give up your birthright as an American. You no longer have the right to life or liberty. Charlie Gard’s life will be taken from him and his parents even though the parents raised the money necessary to bring him to America. They no longer control what happens to their 10 month old baby even though it will not cost any European a dime. The collective has decided. Charlie has no individual right to live.
This is the future of America. The ACA is not sustainable and was never the end goal of the Progressives. The Progressives want America to turn its back on our heritage, our birthright to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They believe not in Nature, or Nature’s God and the eternal values that flow from the Creator. They believe in the collective, elite material egalitarianism and societal engineering decreed from a centralized, administrative rule. They believe the government can take Charlie’s life against the wishes of his parents because Charlie belongs to the collective and not the Creator.
Stillness to compound silliness.
“Americans have never lived under a true free market system”
A “true free market system”? How in the name of God can that system ever exist for the good of man, when man is, as the good book says, born with original sin?
Which came first; man committing aggression against man, or a “regulation/law” against that aggression? Because people are inherently sinful, believing, as conservatives pretend to when arguing for free markets, that man is surely capable of “governing themselves” and thus committing no aggression agqinst his neighbor, is fallacy. A fiction made up by “conservatives” so as to allow the rich to do what they will hidden behind this idealist philosophy about men and what they do.
People learned long ago that man, or at least some men, the ones that cause the most damage to others, will indeed commit those acts of aggression against others unless their are rules with consequences for breaking those rules, against such conduct.
At no time, amongst men living in any society has there been, or will there ever be, a “true” free market economy because man is incapable of doing good toward his fellow man.
Since there has never been, and will never be such an economic system, what that means is that pretending that it ever existed, and resulting in some fairy tale “good” is silly.
Teach a man to fish and he will fish until there are no more fish, unless men tell that man, you can’t kill all our fish, you can’t poison all our water, and you can’t pollute all our air, just so you can throw another billion on your pile.
Oh, and Jefferson again Barbara? You realize that Jefferson said that each new generation needed to tear up the constitution that had guided the previous generation had written because it wasn’t going to be applicable to their needs right?
Silliness indeed to believe that there are universal truths which do not change! Does the American mind of 1776 which gave us our birthright to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness still exist today?
Silliness again Barbara to call something a universal truth, then to say that anyone “gave us” anything.
So the question is, which came first do you think Barbara; men committing aggression against other men, or law prohibiting man from committing aggression against other men?
Irrelevant if you believe in the inherent rights given man by Natural Law. Do you believe all men possess these rights? Or are they subordinate to the will of the collective?
Irrelevant as long as man commits aggression against other men.
Do you believe in the rights of men to protect themselves and others against the acts of aggression men commit?
Or are all people helpless to act in the face of auch aggression?
An effective free market health care system might be possible, but I see little advocacy of that in this space. Primarily, I see the defense of a system that denies effective insurance to those with preexisting conditions, costs almost double what the systems of other countries cost, and allows Americans and their babies to die at greater rates than almost any other OECD country. Can anyone propose an effective capitalistic system that can reduce both costs and deaths? The socialist model is tried and true and has done both repeatedly.
The anecdote about Charlie is touching, but I have to wonder if perhaps it isn’t even true. If Charlie was a normal English boy, would he be denied the right to go on a vacation to the U.S.? Why then, the denial for a sick boy? Even if true, if the tire on a bicycle goes flat, it’s far better to fix the tire than to replace the bicycle. The problem appears not to be with the whole U.K. health care system, but with a single, strange regulation that seems to restrict sick British children to U.K. soil.
I also have to present some anecdotes of my own, about 250,000 of them in the past year. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us
Worrying about a single child is worthwhile. Doing so while ignoring the unnecessary deaths of 250,000 others is a grave mistake.
Rincon you are woefully ignorant of the facts of this case. I’m sure even your venerated NY Times has reported on Charlie’s case (although probably not on the front page). Please google Charlie Gard and get up to date. Equating his denial of the right to live by the British Courts and the so called European Court of Human Rights in France with deaths from doctors making errors is just beyond the pale. I assure you Charlie Gard is a very real baby. Perhaps you can be excused from your comments colored as they are by the belief this can’t possibly be true, but Charlie Gard is not an “anecodote” and his parents very much want to bring him to America where we in your words clearly have an inferior medical system.
As of 2009, 45000 Americans per year died due to not having health insurance.
Odd that a “conservative” would seem to care more about a foreigner dying, than 45,000 of her fellow Americans. Unless there’s some other explanation for the “concern”.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/dying-from-lack-of-insurance/
Fine, I went and got up to date. From what I can understand, a large amount of the brain damage is structural and therefore, not amenable to drug therapy, even of the experimental kind. I also see no way of ascertaining whether this experimental therapy could multiply the suffering, since valid feedback mechanisms appear to be absent in this case. There also appears to be no way of knowing whether this infant is or is not suffering greatly at present for the same reason. Spending huge amounts of money on the off chance that this child will live a little longer with only minimal improvement in brain and body function is also socially irresponsible. The money would save many more lives if invested in say, drug rehab for pregnant mothers, etc.
That being said, whether this child should be allowed to undergo experimental therapy requires more information than I am likely to obtain from the news media. Small details are often crucial in situations like this and are often not available from news sources. I do know that it’s ridiculous to get all bent out of shape about a case which is likely highly questionable no matter how it is decided while sanguinely advocating the cutting of many government functions that either save thousands of lives or improve the lives of millions. Citing my example, it’s hard to believe there’s no way to reduce the 250,000 deaths per year from medical mistakes such that we should turn a blind eye to it, as we have for the past several decades. This appears to be one of those times that so called private enterprise is failing to perform in an ethical manner. What else is new? That is how most of our government programs have started in the past.
I do know one other thing. If this was a pet dog and I was on a board to decide whether experimental therapy should be allowed, with what little knowledge I have at this time, I would dismiss it in a heartbeat due to the potential suffering of the dog and the miniscule chance of meaningful recovery.
One of those crucial details, which may be available, but that I cannot find: Who’s offering this experimental therapy and what is their argument for allowing it to proceed?
Well said. Since they have not taught history in the U.S. public schools for years, few people today realize that the American Revolution was fought because the Colonists were rebelling against a repressive central government that was far,far away and in the view of the Colonists, was denying them any say in their God given rights. Today, a whole lot of Americans feel the same way about our Central Government in Washington.
Rincon, whether or not you meant to do so, you have made the case to fear single payer governmental health care. You talk about allocating resources. That is what is done in many countries with socialized medicine. Like your example of a dog, the old and the infirm are often denied coverage because they fall too far down the priority list accoding to the bureaucrats who decide who lives or dies. And, if you want to see the efficacy of government run health programs, look no farther than the Veterans Administration.
Silliness.
Correct me if I’m mistake here but is the end result of every fantasy version of a “free market” the “allocation of resources”?
Course the difference between the allocation of resources in. Free market and a single Pryor system is that in a free market the Koch Brothers live, and the kid from Britain dies along with anyone without the Koch Brothers money.
Death panels? That’s what free markets are all about.
The Progressive’s argue that they want a single payer system because it has a better outcome for people; it is more humane, it is more universal, it protects those who are most vulnerable such as the sick, the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions.
Their arguments here have revealed this is not their true desire. Their belief is in the power of the collective to decide who lives and who dies. Those who receive health care under single payer have to be deemed worthy of it by the collective – otherwise scarce resources may be wasted. The battle over health care is in reality a battle for historical progression – America must repudiate it’s heritage.
Americans must forget our forefathers sacrifice to bring forth a nation founded on a belief that all people are given the inherent rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – that these rights are conferred by a Creator and not dependent on government and the whims of those who would rule over us.
The reality of a single payer system is the reality of Charlie Gard. His life has been deemed not worthy of saving by the collective. In fact, the collective will not even allow his parents to take him home to die – to cuddle him, to comfort him in his own home. In the world of the Progressives, the individual has no right to life. Forget that thousands of people gave their money so Charlie Gard could come to America and receive medical care. In the Progressive world, their money is not their own. This money must not go to Charlie Gard. It must be spent as the collective deems worthy
The Progressives couch their arguments in the language of hope, but do not be deceived. What they really want is to steal your birthright as an American to your inherent right to your own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
A lack of health insurance is not necessarily a cause of a higher death rate, but shows those irrresponsible in one area of life may be so in others, too.
So Thomas you didn’t read the study from Harvard about the 45,000 Americans who die each year because they don’t have health insurance?
Or is it just that you don’t believe it?
It doesn’t say “because,” it just says those without insurance have a higher death rate.
Actually the very first line from the article says that the deaths are “attributable” to the lack of health insurance Thomas.
“A new study from researchers with the Harvard Medical School found that 45,000 deaths a year can be attributed to the lack of health insurance. ”
The other studies cited within the article are in accord.
Conservatives, and most particularly libertarians believe that people ought to have the liberty to die quietly so as not to bother them.
This is evidenced by what the say about healthcare and the free market.
The feigned concern about Charlie Gard would never have been expressed but for the fact that he was given free care and treatment by a society that said, through the provision if such care, that life was important and ought to be protected.
If instead of the socialized care he was given, a “free market” existed in England, Charlie would have been just another poor child that died without their notice or concern but rather some uncaring mantra about how much “liberty” the poor be grieved family had.
Where, I wonder, is their “concern” for the men women and children who die each day in this country for a lack of health insurance and resulting care like the diabetes patient I cited who died because he didn’t have the money to but a monthly dose of insulin?
I guess they’d say he had the liberty to die and leave it at that.
Writer’s assumption.
Nope.
““The Institute of Medicine, using older studies, estimated that one American dies every 30 minutes from lack of health insurance,” remarked David Himmelstein, study co-author, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a primary care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance.“Even this grim figure is an underestimate — now one dies every 12 minutes.”
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/
Are you guys for real? It should be self evident that people without insurance are more likely to die younger because of delayed diagnoses and treatment. This contention is also supported by our life expectancy and infant mortality rates, which are disturbingly close to that of third world countries. At the very least, it tells us that something in our system is killing us off. Those of many other countries live longer and pay substantially less, but somehow, the Conservatives in this group deny that these other countries are doing something better than we are.
The supply of doctors is artificially depressed, so the competitive pressure on our health care industry is near zero. Capitalism doesn’t work if supply and demand are not flexible. It also doesn’t work if a cartel is allowed to conceal prices. Quit defending a system that doesn’t reflect Conservative principles in the least. If Conservatives had campaigned for a real capitalistic medical system instead of defending the poorly functioning old one, then I might have supported it, but just as Conservatives have no faith in the competence of government, I now have no faith in the competence of Conservatives, partly because of our conversations here; therefore, I no longer advocate any kind of Conservative solution for health care. Socialized medicine is the only system that has stood the test of time.