Quote Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Perhaps. But is private industry doing it better?
Decent healthcare coverage is becoming so expensive in the US that many can't afford it. It was like that before Obama got elected. In fact, it is so bad that it GOT him elected. And that is if you don't lose your job, because if you do, then you get dumped. One person here on this forum cut his fingers to the bone and didn't want to go to the ER because of what it would cost him. Over here, that would not be a consideration.

I've argued this before: our healthcare system does not have fat insurance company and expensive lawyers. It only has the clients and the providers. And a government sponsored administration. As a result, our healthcare is much cheaper than yours. And not only do I get covered, but so do people who are in between jobs or disabled.

Perhaps Americans are unable to make it work, but for other countries it is working just fine.
There is nothing wrong with the principle of socialized healthcare. And personally, I think it is more important that the general population gets affordable healthcare than that insurance companies and medical lawyer can make increasing profits quarter over quarter.
You don't have to be able to afford healthcare. It has always been and is still free for the needy. You just have to put up with the long lines at the designated Emergency Room.

What will fix our healthcare will take a long time but you can see the results of the proper direction in a few areas. Right now healthcare costs so much because people on insurance don't know or care what it costs. They only care about their deductible.

What needs to happen is healthcare needs to be forced into the open market.

Lasik surgery, back treatments, lap bands, body scanning, and others are affordable and wide spread because they are in competition with each other with advertised prices. I think if all medicine was exposed to the free market like this prices would come down dramatically and quality would improve at the same time. The same is true of insurance. If companies were free to compete across state lines insurance rates would improve as well.

We need less regulation, not more.