You appear to support Obama’s plan just because of your political position. You clearly have not even looked at, let alone read up on socialized medicine and how it is not working in other countries! The queues for tests and procedures are so onerous in Canada, that only a month ago, the equivalent of thier Chief Justice of the Supreme Court chastised the system while noting that people are just sitting waiting to die because the system cannot get to them in time. There apparently is no “triage” built into the system: i.e. determining care by most urgent need. It’s wait your turn in line!

Further, it is inevitable that there wil be rationing, that the formularies of permissable medications will be stripped down to the less costly generic forms of medicines — even when, in reality, not all generics are equal, and frequently do not work exactly as the original drugs. I happen to require several medicines that I cannot use in generic form as they are ineffective. But the enormous bureacracy that will result from federally funded one-payer system will determine the viability of medicines, tests, treatments, even equipment!

As I said above, and as someone else also noted, driving costs down on drugs because of the clout of being the only option will just cause the pharmaceutical companies to discontinue, or at best, severely limit research and development, as will happen in all areas of medical technology. And as a number of others have noted, there will be less incentive for the best and the brightest to go into medicine when they are essentially forced to treat people as per federal govt. edicts.

Back to the enormous bureacracy that will be required to run such a system — those who make decisions will be so far remove from patients and doctors that it will REDUCE effective medical care.

Finally, one must realize, when defending this policy as driving down costs, no one has taken into account the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of civil servants it will require to administrate a federal system, and the costs of salaries, offices, equipment and supplies, etc. This will considerably offset a great deal of the “savings” proponents of national healthcare use to sell the idea.

And Mitsu, if we are the “the only system in the industrialized world without some sort of government universal health care plan,” that is NOT a reason to change over — especially when we see that it does NOT work effectively in other countries, and those who can afford to, escape to receive medical care here! That says a great deal about the level and availability of healthcare that now exists here.

And you might want to take a look at what Tom says above (10:38 PM) regarding the administrations use of nos. of uninsured as another reason to get their way. It is a fact that many of those are illegal aliens; many are young people first getting out into the world, and thinking health insurance is not a priority right now when iPods and iPhones, hip cars and plasma TVs are much more attractive.

What we need is to maintain free choice w/ a better informed population re: insurance and the various alternative kinds that are available. Better we should have medical educational reform to enlighten people re: their choices and the alternatives and consequences of not having some kind of insurance. And Dan is exactly right when he says labels the notion of preventive care as a means to a successful end of rising costs. People need to take personal responsibility for their health, and if they don’t, it is not the role of the govt. to come in and punish them! Is the “nanny state” going to begin telling us what we can eat and not eat under the premise of preventive care? And the fact is, that preventive care can help to some extent, it cannot prevent many severe illnesses and diseases that are passed genetically (would the “nanny state” then stipulate who can, and who cannot have children?), or via unknown sources such as most cancers, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, among many others I know nothing about.

Socialized medicine is about power and control and bigger government. It will not result in improved and less expensive health care — quite the opposite results will be achieved.

Instead of parroting your political leaders, you might want to consider the merits and disadvantages of the alternatives, and why this country has not implemented socialized medicine to date. There is very good reason!

Read what some of the other posters have written here, such as Dan, Jamie Irons, and Tom — people who work within our medical system and actually understand how it works. Think about what they’ve written. Explain with supporting evidence why they are wrong. THEN you will be making an argument worth reading. Until then, as a preventative health care measure, I’m going to have to skip your posts on this topic.

Terrifying. My boss has no idea and lives under the delusion that the cash only/private payer option would still be available for the ‘rich’. Nothing I say explaining the creeping control socialism would create can convince people like her. I imagine an entire country full of such unthinking sheep and it’s too tragic to consider.

No, I think your boss may have a point. The super-rich and the politically-connected have no intention of living under the same rules they establish for the “masses”.

Unless you think we Americans are fundamentally unable to match the French or Japanese models without continuing to spend gargantuan amounts on health care, I think these are proofs of concept that some government intervention in health care neither destroys freedom of choice nor reduces the quality of care by any significant amount.

In terms of private insurance, as I noted before, Canada’s system allows private insurance to supplement the government program (unlike in some countries), and so if you want more access you can get it if you pay for it. The same is true of Obama’s plan.

So do the math: the US healthcare system will be convulsively dismembered to “help” maybe 10 million US citizens truly without insurance and too well off for Medicaid. That is 3% of the population, for Pete’s sake. “Reform” is either insanity or a Marxist powergrab .

I’ve studied this problem ad nauseam. I have had so many discussions with physicians and investors that I’ve lost count. All think this is going to be a disaster.

And I agree that this is about the Marxists grabbing for more power and control over the economy and society. If it really was about just covering the uninsured, which the Democrats/Marxists say are about 40 million people, then the answer is to expand and more robustly fund Medicaid. But these people lie, and lie, and lie, and lie… But I guess only former Leftists like me can understand just how profligately the Marxist lie. They asked me to be a liar, and I refused.