The problem with having a civil discussion is that people who understand the problem realize that government intervention in markets and mandates on employers starting in the 1960s, legislative failures to allow more free market based solutions, over reliance on insurance, inflationary pressures, an explosion in technological advancement, failures in the judicial system that hand out ridiculous tort claim rewards and other factors have led to the massive increases in health care costs.

Insurance premiums go up as the cost of things they cover go up.

One side wants more free market reforms and options that reduce the actual cost of the underlying products and services that insurance covers thereby resulting in lower rates, more competition, more personal accountability and maintenance of choice and control in health care.

The other side does not care about the root causes of the problem and doesn't want the underlying cost and regulatory structure fixed – they just want government to sweep the problem under the rug by just redistributing the high cost (that government action has largely created) to tax payers and taking over that part of the economy. The facts don't matter to this group, you might as well just go “blah blah blah” while taking to this group.

One side wants to preserve their right to make choices for themselves, the other side wants to have their opinion forced on everyone else. Neither side is really talking about the solutions to the problem though because they are not PC (or PV [politically viable]).

This an ongoing problem partially involving disconnect. While understandable that people prefer market based but that has a few concerns–expect government to protect (that involves regulations), expect assistance when they need it (disaster, old age, unemployment, education, medical care, infrastructure, etc.) but want a free market that may or may not provide at costs they are happy with if provided at all (lack of medical facilities in many communities, affordable insurance, care of elderly or disabled, high speed internet, arts, walking trails, parks, etc.). Does the government always allow for free market action? No, and while many regulations would be supported by many some bring questions such as alcohol sales and distribution????? restrictions on insurance across state lines???? and on and on.
Whether the insurance debate is on target or not –has unfortunately become another disconnect matter. Virtually everybody including the tea party variety knows there are problems that the market system has not addressed in a manner that handles the concerns of many. This debate is not about access to cable tv it is about affordability of quality of life (and sometime life itself). Should it be the proper role of government to assist in providing????? Many collect SS well beyond their personal payment into the fund; many will use the emergency room for treatment without paying anything or nearly the cost; many use the variety of services provided by “the many” sometimes for the “benefit of the few” (subsidized bus service, welfare, food stamps, SS, etc.) Some of the takers are likely yelling loudly against this “socialist idea”—just have to wonder sometimes.

Abdul, what planet are you living on? There is no debate, much less a thoughful civil conversation. No less than the President of the United States has declared that “the time for talk is over.” This monstrosity is going to be rahmed through, public be damned. We need a lot more shouting.

Sean, generally I'd agree. Unfortunately, my family has been an aggressive consumer of the health care system over the last 5-7 years.

The real hidden problem here is not just the uninsured–it's the under-insured.

And I have a banker's box full of forms, denials, partial denials, and side-stepping that is typicla of insurance companies. I'm not makign a generalization here–my family has dealt with four of the seven largest insurers, in a variety of states, and the pattern is very clear:

deny, deny, deny, avoid avoid avoid.

I paid insurance premiums for almost 40 years before I needed the service, beyond normal flu, broken arm, etc. When I really needed it it becma ealmost unattainable.

So how's that workin for ya, Sean?

In such a mess, unfortunately, the one entity that can clean it up, police it, or make it moore understandable is something bigger than the companies themselves. In this environment, the only alternative is government. I'm hoping they get it better than they have in some case sin the past…some things they do well, or accaptable.

Nothing done by insurers is OK in my mind. They have screwed up a two-car parade, and the first car is aimed at confusing consumers, having us run between docs, hospitals and insurers…losing a third or more of their arguments in the scuffle.

This is an imperfect fix. But it is the ebst fix available because I am no longer willing to let under- or non-regulated insurers run rampant over my premiums, my helath files and my life.

Period.

The insurance system for health care is not amenable to market forces. They get their money up front. The most opportune time for them to walk away is when you are at your sickest and least able to go shopping for alternatives and least able to walk away from their product. Market information is opaque. (Quick: what's the fair market value of a hip replacement? What's the list price for hip replacements at your three nearest hospital? And that's a reasonably straight forward ailment, good luck with ailments for which treatment is more art than science.)

If you have a car and can't afford or obtain insurance, it's difficult but possible to do without a car. You simply can't go without a body.

Abdul- What does an independently wealthy person look like? Would they better signify their status at the next protest if they brought trays of Brie?

“Nothing done by insurers is OK in my mind.”

Under this logic, will you hold the government to _same_ level as insurers, or will the government get a pass for breaking out the Deny stamp just because they are the government. The government is going to have to deny, deny, deny eventually. Unless they plan on taxing people $500-$1,000 a month, more for “rich” folks. Just because government takes over healthcare doesn't mean there isn't magically unlimited funds.

If we get a government take over, I want a 100% government ran system. I want doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc. all owned, operated, and ran by the US Government Department of Healthcare. I want everyone involved in healthcare to make _less_ than their head CEO, the president of the United States. But we don't get this, no, this will just be a money grab by the government. We will have private-public partnerships that will “manage” the care. These companies will likely be the current insurance companies. They will slash 50-75% of their employees, and still pay their upper administrators seven figure wages. There will be no savings, just a massive step-backwards because eventually there will be wage controls. Some people will refuse to practice certain medical specialties because the financial reward just won't be there.

The other thing about government healthcare, more reason for the government to control human behavior. Watch for more laws on the consumption of sugar, salt, ethanol, and tobacco.

It was sad, but gratifying, to see Americans divided in resolution yet united in animated protest. I think we're taking the very long way around to crafting something down the middle of our demographics. At least people were off the couch!

I agree health care is a subset of many things needing reform in America. The funny thing is if you blended yesterday's crowds, you'd roughly have the demographics of America: 40% moderate, 40% conservative, & 20% liberal.

Do you think that is the tilt of the proposed legislation?

America doesn't seem to think so.

John, please don't do what folks on both radical sides of this debate do–don't make assumptions about what standard to which I'll hold government or insurers. You really have no clue. And I promise I won't make ridiculous assumptions about your views.

I do know this: it cannot be worse than it is. I calculated last week that I'd spent about $88,000 on family health premiums over my life. And hardly ever used the service, until the last few years…kinda typical I bet. The kids are gone, working on their own (thank the Lord), so it's just two of us on the policy again. As long as the money flowed to the insurers, the hospitals/docs/insurers were just fine. As soon as I needed more from them, the walls went up. The three-headed monster shuffled responsibility. As soon as I'd supposedly get close to the answer for a payment/treatment question, I'd get a refusal to talk any more. And be referred to one of the other of the three-headed monsters. It's a grand masquerade and they are skilled at it.

Now, keep in mind: I'm relatively smart (easy, Rico), younger than most folks needing severe health care, and I have my wits about me. I'm not easily swayed. But if you're older, or downtrodden, or less-able to make sense out of this system, you're screwed. Roll over and take it.

I laugh out loud when i see this ridiculous “buy across state lines” nonsense. Yeah, right. Then we'll have 50 different sets of laws governing this crap. I'm sure I want to spend a lot of time on the phone appealing my insurer's refusal to pay for a procedure, via the Connecticut Department of Insurance. What the hell allegiance does that state's DOI have to me, or my policy? Almost none. Hell in too many states, DOI commissioenrs are elected. As in, campaign contributions, influence…you get the drift.

One single stautory regulatory agency is the answer. Yeah, it'll be a bigger bureacracy than we'd like. But left to their own devices, the insurers, and the hospitals, who've skated from blame, will do whatever suits them the best.

Got any doubts about that? Again, I say: drive around 465 and look at the 35%-occupied health palaces. The moment those doors opened, the entire cost of the facility went into the hospital's rate base. We didn't even need half those rooms or facilities. But the regs favor building.

Hmmmm….I wonder if hospital administrators took any school administrator finance training?

Abdul, this is the result of MSM who control the message that keeps left vs. right as the paradigm people see. They feel they have to pick a side, when in reality they don't. They are engaged in a false paradigm of left vs. right.

We saw more tea party activists because, right now, more people watch Fox than the other networks.

The reality is the left and right are two sides of the same filthy coin and both should be rejected by the American public.

The right are war mongering NEOCONS and the left want to advance a brand of socialism that would put the brakes on individual hard work and ingenuity. (we see how well socialism is working out for a very broke Europe).

Until people realize that they are not being served by either the Republicans or the Democrats, we'll stay here in this rut, a rut largely created by the controlled MSM.

The answers don't lie with either camp. I do wish more folks would wake up to the ways they are controlled.

And Abdul? Government is dysfunctional because it is not protecting the Constitution and most of the elected members are not out to serve the people, but to serve themselves first.

Did you see any 'mouthbreathers' or 'emotionally unbalanced' folks?

i think Abdul meant that they were not monied people since they were not smoking $100 cigars and drinking martinis.

There are definitely some bad actors on the insurance side of the equation, no doubt about it; but, again there is an over reliance on what is really “prepaid healthcare” and a lack of emphasis on “catastrophic coverage”.

There is a whole mess of problems that have layered on top one another to create the problem we have today. But, a lot of those roots lay in government regulation, mandates and market intervention. Not all, but a whole awful lot.

The whole healthcare delivery system needs to be reformed as well; but, that's impossible in the current environment and just changing the way insurance works isn't going to fix that either.

I've had similar thoughts on the 'buy across state lines' as well. I think we may have some agreement on that issue.

Yep TA, there's undue influence within states & their legislatures; protection racquets for home team insurers.

However, it's unreasonable to doubt free market imagination; to navigate the various rules within states. Insurers could develop health embassies or reservations (treatment facilities) in other states or countries, wherein the laws of their state prevail within those facilities, to the benefit of the consumer. There are as many ways to deliver on market demand as there are markets.

Free market folks get paid to solve / trouble shoot / eliminate complexities; where bureaucrats are sponsored by the market, in their adult day care adventures, to manufacture complexities, in value subtracted fashion. Why not undo an undue burden?

People shouldn't take that personally. Abdul sees 'mouthbreathers' and 'emotionally unbalanced' folks almost everywhere he goes. He does cover politics after all. ;-)

“Free market imagination” ? I'm supposed to be content with that solution?

As much as I like free-market solutions, we've tried in this arena, for years. It has failed miserably. The entire system banks on inertia. It cannot sustain itself–the cost alone is breaking our backs, and it's not leading to healthier Americans.

The cost of health care, let alone its inefficiency, makes all American-manufactured products weak stepsisters to almost every foreign competitor.

How much more evidence do we need?

Dave is also making the fallacious assumption that because someone is paid to do something, it means:

1) they actually do that something they are paid for

2) that they might be any good at what they are getting paid for

Plenty of people in the private sector who can't deliver what they promise to their market, Dave. Plenty.

Free health care, free college, free housing, free free free, when is it our responsibility to pay our own way?……Creating a whole new class of hand outs…….

Varan, you're right. Fortunately, all the health care my family has received in the past few years has been competent to excellent. It's especially good at the primary care level–nurses, aides, clerks. I kepe hearing the far right trumpet “the ebst medical system in the world/” That's true–IF you've got access, either by economics and/or location.

I keep searching for an answer to this mess that doesn't involve government. But the kids need adult supervision and government is the only adult with a big enough stick to make them play fairly.

Fifty state insurance commissioners have done such an excellent job, haven't they? And that's just the health insurance component of this problem. Who's in charge of the massive displacement and allocation of health care resources? Suburbs have overcapacity, most cities have too little…it's a sickening mix that's profit-geared instead of needs-based.

I've said it here before: the massive overbuilding around 465 is duplicated all over America. It's as if someone told the hospital folks 15 years ago: “abandon any area that doesn't meet or exceed the per-capita income goals. Nobody's regulating, so build, build build in suburbia. Yeah, they'll eventually catch on and stop us, but you can't knock down what'a already built.”

A very cruel lesson in top-down eocnomics. Except it affects all of us as we seek and get medical treatment. I mean, how many Cat-scanners do we need within eyeshot of the North 465 loop?

“Deem and Pass”. I'd like to solicit opinions on that one.

On a karmic level, maybe this is to be the return on Bush's disputed election win? But, if, IF, one believes in the spirit of the constitutional role of Congress (versus a strictly legal one including parlimentary chicanery), is the legislative manuver defendable? Apparently, it's been done a few times by both parties since the 30's or 40's. But, my understanding is it's intent is or was for things that are largely “taken for granted” or “conceded”- kind of like a voice vote.

To the best of my knowledge, this was not intended (by prior convention), to be used to pass major legislation, acts, etc., whether it be raising debt ceilings we can't afford (Republican example), or goverment annexation of an entire industry (Democratic health care bill).

My point is, is this or is it not a time for both parties to reaffirm having a Democratic Republic which includes a Congress? If this manuver is to be used because one side can't get what they want by votes, it could well then be used again for subsequent divisive issues. Current examples would be immigration, cap and trade, etc.

Do we keep Congress, or dispense with “deem and pass” and just move on to “elect and anoint”? If we aren't going to bother to have votes, but yet pay the enormous salaries and benefit packages for our elected representatives (suppossedly representing us), if we're to devote our time and money to free speech and political pursuits, only to see democratic vote circumvented, wouldn't it make more sense to save time and money and move on to Emperor? How do we explain our suppossed system of Democratic Republic to our children if EITHER party continues to abuse this?

I suggest for the sake of our form of goverment (presuming we want to retain it), “deem and pass” (more like “deem and decree”), has to go. Otherwise, let's move on to spending months of debate and furor over who will be the next supreme ruler. At least it wouldn't be wasted time and money.

“Unfortunately, my family has been an aggressive consumer of the health care system over the last 5-7 years'. In this field the healthy subsidize the unhealthy. What is fair about that? The illusion TA is becoming aware of it that his previous insurance contributions were NOT for him or his family but to subsidize other unhealthy people. Like the Ponzi schemes of Social Security, “health insurance” really isn't insurance. Young people subsidize old people. What is fair about that? The Ponzi works until it runs out of suckers.
Social Darwinists aka liberal dumbocraps don't mind this until they are in need. Survival of the fittest THEN isn't so important to them and they want others to pay for the extension of their survival. What others? Well, aborting 50,000,000 persons who would have been paying Social Security taxes doesn't look so smart now since most of them would have been suckered into the health care Ponzi as well.
Dental insurance, fire and casualty, auto insurance, life insurance and a few others seem to be differently managed. They are more like classical insurance. The fable of the ant and the grasshopper comes to mind. The ants were on the South steps. The grasshoppers were over there demanding that the ants continue to subsidize them.
Economists, pussies, call this rent seeking behavior. Bastiat calls the grasshoppers “plunderers”. Of course, he also thought that government was the “great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else”. His main point, to be directed at TA and other grasshoppers has to do with the use of “governement” to “legally” plunder other people.
He says that any use of government to enrich one group of people at the expense of another and which would be illegal if private citizens tried to carry it out themselves was “legal plunder”. So, the smaller group at the Statehouse wishes to plunder the larger group but they lack the guns to do it and so wish the government, by proxy, to do their stealing for them.
Have a nice day discussing your next car jacking incident as there is so much to talk about between you and the car jacker.

We haven't had “free market” health care since the 1960s and to a large extent we have not a free market economy since the creation of the Federal Reserve when Wilson was in office.

The free market in health care has been locked down and stifled because of government intervention. Even the 1970s mandates linking your health care to your employment is a major contributor to today's woes.

Ask yourself why 'Big Pharma' isn't being attacked by this administration like 'Big Insurance' is? The insurance companies aren't the ones making obscene profits (as libs like to call them). The answer: insurance companies will be in direct competition with the government. So it stands to reason that the government (the Obama admininstration) gains at the expense of insurers. Their goal will be to put companies like Wellpoint out of business. As anyone asked themselves why Toyota never seemed to have these problems until Obama motors was directly competing with them?

Are the hospitals you speak of, TA, the same ones whose emergency rooms are filled with uninsured, undocumented immigrants using the facilities for primary care? Who foots the bill for that?

The false paradigm is 'Republican vs Democrat'. The 'Left vs. Right' paradigm is very real, now more than any other time in my life. The independents are abandoning this administration because they've had a taste what the real agenda is of the left, and it's scares the hell out of them.

Varan: In the free market, non-performers can be fired, pursued or hiney wiped with familial welfare at limited, company expense (albeit subjected to market forces); unlike coddled bureaucrats in the fee market of adult day care.

Yep, big companies like GM assume those attributes as they're unionized into onshore obsolescence, and ultimate insolvency. The socially injured, red shirted, 150 “Obama Supporters,” broke union rules; holding signs while doing “another person's job” of unison cheering.

At the speed of “progressivism,” velocity is converted into decelerating mass. Quarky eh?

Five phone numbers I've tried in attempting to leave a message for Representative Ellsworth, who apparently has an interest in replacing Senator Bayh. Probably just coincidence, that since his announced intent to vote for health “reform”, ALL these mailboxes are full.

Must be from happy supporters of the legislators, right?

The Hippocratic Oath offers some protection for those in need if this “reform” doesn't pass. There is no Oath to protect us from worthless currency.

Oh!…that’s great helpful, it’s so right to me! Million thanks for the article,