I still have to respectfully disagree. Yes, the insurance companies do decline coverage and that is a problem that needs to be addressed. But the solution is not to put the government in charge of those decisions. And it is ominous if you take the time to look. I watched a documentary produced by a young man who grew up in Canada with their health care system. There are long waiting lines to see doctors. You can not be seen for serious problems like diabetes or cancer often for years. By then it's too late. One woman lost both her legs to diabetes because the government run system did not allow her access to a doctor for 2 years. A woman in the UK almost lost her life to cervical cancer because the UK did not cover screenings until age 21 rather than 18. Take a look at news this week in the UK. To be more "cost efficient", the government has told doctors NOT to see patients with swine flu symptoms and patients are to call a hotline. A teenager was prescribed Tamiflu over the phone by this hotline, but continued to get worse. She was taken to the hospital days later and DIED because she had tonsilitis and no doctors had seen her. Tonsilitis!! Since when should that be deadly with today's medical options? The infection spread into her lungs, causing them to collapse and she died. A 4 year old girl was misdiagnosed over the swine flu hotline and by a paramedic and she died of meningitis. This is not a made up story, it's actual news from this week. Here's the link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206908/Swine-flu-diagnosis-phone-scrapped-says-father-daughter-died-tonsillitis.html. Just because the government tells us the health care plan doesn't set up a health care hotline like Europe doesn't mean that they don't plan to do it eventually because it's more cost effective.
I happened to catch a "truth check" segment on CNN that also was annoying. A woman had written a letter "claiming" that the health care plan would mean that people with macular degeneration would be forced to go blind in one eye before treatment would be given for the other eye. The CNN correspondent, in a misleading manner, dismissed this argument saying the health care plan does not call for that. She missed the whole point. True, the health care plan does not spell out specifics. The problem is that it leaves treatment decisions in the hands of the government, allowing them to determine what gets treated. Because this particular topic is one I researched myself months ago, I know exactly what the woman was referring to. In Britain, the government did in FACT refuse treatment for macular degeration until one eye had been lost to blindness. The woman's letter to CNN was simply pointing out that the same thing could happen here when our decisions are left to the government. The correspondent claimed it was a myth because it wasn't in the bill, but it's not a myth that this happens in Britain. Here are just two of many links to see for yourself. By the way, several of the articles I read from Britain specifically referred to their system as "socialized medicine" http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/2007/01/healthcare-and-humiliation-going-blind.html. http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_pr130808.hcsp
If I didn't have three kids to take care of, I would gladly look up a million more links to truthful articles to point out the potential problems of letting the government have more say over our medical care. I must encourage everyone again not to just listen to the talking points. Just because CNN, MSNBC, ABC and CBS are referring to "scare tactics" and "uneducated mobs" doesn't mean you should believe them any more than you should believe a rich celebrity who thinks we should have national health care when he has a billion dollars to pay for private doctors. You can not trust anyone to report to you the facts of what is going on. Research, research. And for those who say you can't believe everything you read online (such as the CNN lady referred to above), no you can't just believe online opinions. But aren't they shooting themselves in the foot because the AP puts articles on line and they put their own views and articles online? What you can believe is the facts of how this works in other countries. And you can believe what is written in the bill they will vote on in Congress. If they have a clause in that bill that allows even the tiniest of footholds into health care decisions, you can bet they will expand that every year until we get to the single payer system that they want.
Again, there are problems with the healthcare of 45 million people (if that is truly an accurate figure). But why create even larger problems for the remaining 250 million people left in the United States who do have healthcare? Don't change it for everyone. I've lived in three states and I have to agree that one of the simplist solutions that would solve several problems is opening the state lines to allow you to purchase coverage offered by insurance companies in different states. More competition always leads to lower prices (Ebay has walloped the collectible card and antique industries because people now see how many choices there are when they aren't limited to local shops!). It's frustrating when you live in a state like NY (been there) and have to pay three times as much as what someone in Kentucky is paying. Crossing state lines alone will offer benefits to not just the uninsured and underinsured, but will allow cost savings to all of us!
My kids are tearing the house apart so I'll stop my lecture now, but please don't just listen to the news and judge based on that. You will not get an accurate picture.