patrick.net

The Original Bankster says

bob2356 says

When it comes to healthcare, there are two Indias: the country with that provides high-quality medical care to middle-class Indians and medical tourists, and the India in which the majority of the population lives—a country whose residents have limited or no access to quality care.

thats true for more than just healthcare. For instance, the technology companies operate in what is called a SEZ ( Special Economic Zone ). They have a completely different tax schedule, basically a country within a country. Those who are not involved with the SEZ basically live in an entirely different political body, a much poorer, much more poverty stricken political body.

Again all lies...SEZ are there to give favorable tax treatment to some industries to promote them. It is not free market, but then India is a mixed economy. Some aspects are free market, while others are socialist. They did not have a banking system collapse that US just went through. There are 2 sides to every story. So yeah when you go to a typical nationalized bank in India you see the employees don't give much shit to the customer...that is wrong...In a private system you get at least fake smiles when the person behind the counter sees a customer with cash...Try arguing this lack of a good customer service to a bank employee in India, he or she will immediately point to bank failures in US...So what is better: losing your money entirely or just dealing with few rude bank employees ? :-) Go figure and then post your answer here. Regarding your comment regarding SEZs having a separate political structure ..it is so full of crap ...that it is not even worth commenting.... Also do not assume that every software company in India is in SEZ (special economic zone), some are outside of it too...Even china has SEZ....and they also have some red communist willing to shoot anyone who does not agree with their point of view...At least India has a functioning democracy...

Comparing Indian health care and US health care is a waste of time....India has a long way to go before it can catch up to the west in terms of per capita income etc..In India rich and the middle class just like USA can get the best care health care by going to private doctors, except that there is is no concept of health insurance. You pay from your pocket. And when your pocket is empty you go to the nearest govt hospital. For a rural patient that govt hospital may be very far away sometimes...In US that "govt hospital" does not exist....if you are a poor inner city ghetto patient you probably have to go to emergency room ...and ignore the bill when it is sent to you ? Is there any other way ? Also In India when people die in Hospitals and even when it may be because of some malpractice, people usually do not sue etc...Hindu society has been in general quite fatalistic...If you happened to die in a hospital it is probably because of your bad Karma...Hope for better luck in the next life rather that trying to find a medical malpractice lawyer :-) Bottom line India and USA are very different societies and cultures. Only commonality is democratic system. So don't waste your time here pointing India's bad health care. Better focus on fixing US health care.

I gave india just to illustrate one thing : efficiency in private health care system. If you just look at the private health care system in india, its much more "efficient" than US...period. Don't compare a poor developing country to a developed rich country in absolute terms. BTW, is this the same price water coopers which was involved in the biggest ponzi scheme in india ( satyam scandal) ?. I have stopped reading a while back, these fake reports that these yuppies write to impress thier bosses. Just because its in fine print in glossy paper from price water cooper does not make it true. These are the same guys who wrote reports for the derivative trading.anyway..i am from india and i know that health care is better than US for a common man. If US was as poor as india , with the current health care system, 90% of people would die outside the emergency rooms waiting.

interpretame says

“More Good News….” I think we’re quickly approaching the point where the only ‘Good News’ left would be to read that Air Force One went down in flames with the President, ViceP & Treasury Secretary aboard. Of course if it crashed & burned right onto Goldman Sach’s main corporate offices, then it would be GREAT NEWS!!

What is all with the presidential bashing. This problem started way before him. Although I do not agree with some of his plans, I am happy we actually have a person who is trying to fix things instead of pretending that nothing is wrong. I am against universal healthcare, but I like the fact that for once we have someone who has the guts to take on the problem.

wrong forum>?

Some Guy >Because there are die-hard republicans who are so bent on blaming the democrats for EVERYTHING, that >they completely ignore reality. They have already forgotten that the republicans had control of the White >House AND Congress, and far from solving any problems, they in fact CREATED the problems we are >currently stuck with. Their myopia is so complete that they can’t even remember that we had a housing >market crash and a failing economy before Obama even got into office. They forget that Goldman Sachs >was bailed out under Bush’s watch. So what exactly are you saying here? It is ok for Obama to make bigger mistakes than the previous guy? Our illegal president is pawned off to us like he is a genus. I can't make up my mind on who to laugh at, him or us? BTW, I can't find any die hard repulicans anymore. Here is reality some guy... BOTH republicans and democraps made this entire mess. The democraps happen to be the ones running the show right now. So hell yes, they get the blame.

Most politicians are crooks! Prostitution is illegal everywhere in Illinois, but for some reason every Chicago suburb has brothels running legally. The reason why is politicians & police officials are stuffing their pockets with cash from the Outfit while they look the other way. Same thing is happening with gambling when local bookies use the same local phone number for 10 years for giving odds & placing bets without any worry at all. It's one big corrupt clusterfuck & elitist morons like Nomo want to give these crooks even more power & control over us...

zetabeos1 says

” We don’t call it socialized Postal Service” Because there isnt one. What is DHL, UPS doing ? There will be no socialized postal service in the future, its obsolete. In socialist nations, progress at the price of job loss for workers would not be permitted.

The postal service is a pretty efficient enterprise. If you discount the pillaging of their retirement and benefit accounts (pretty much the same thing done to every other company unlucky enough not to go bankrupt) you start to see that their a pretty tight ship.

Funny how 'community organizers' hate it when communities organize against them.

justme says

When TPB says he is not a Republican and not a liberal, I think his heart is more or less in the right place and he is just confused because he just “knows” he is not liberal or progressive. When the Wanker says he despises W Bush, I do not believe him for a second. Wanker is full-blown neocon shill.

What a total moron and unrepentant idiot you are, justmoi. Just because someone is not in favor or in support of one thing they must, in your shit~for~brains world, be in favor and/or support of the other. WRONG. Yours is the logic of the simple~minded~baboon. But thanks for playing, retard.

Police and firemen and elementary school teachers are all "socialized" but they also all work reasonably well. And you still have the private option if you want extra. Even the military is "socialist" isn't it? Involuntary taxes pay for it. I like free markets in general, but you have to admit some socialized things work well enough via involuntary taxes, and would be only for the rich in a totally market-oriented system.

Here we go false left vs right paradigm again. Obama is simply a continuation of the previous administration's agenda - with a few tweaks to keep those on the D branch entertained. How pathetic. Neoturds and Libtards - you're being used wake the fuck up before it's too late. If the secret were to get out that 45 million ILLEGAL ALIENS were going to be covered by this I think it would fail instantly.

9 out of 10 of the protesters don't even know what they're protesting. Other than "whatever Obama wants, we disagree with", I haven't seen a single unified message. Do you people really think that the current status quo is good? Polling indicates that more than 85% of people think the current system is in need of reform. If not single payer, if not a public option, if not swiss or denmark-style insurance requirements, what do you propose to keep costs down? Be honest. Instead of yelling and looking like a bunch of raving idiots, have a plan and present it. Negative ideologies don't win arguments, well-reasoned opposition does. If the plan is to keep the status quo, then you're going to lose the debate no matter how loudly you yell. So what's the plan?

zetabeos1 says

You can say the same when Asian nations took much of the highly paid manufacturing jobs from Silicon Valley back in the 80-90s. For the past 5 years, highly paid R&D and tomorrow Doctors. The bottom line is global competition.

Well, no, not really. Talented skilled positions will always be in demand locally, particularly jobs that simply can not be done remotely, like physicians. "R&D" hasn't and won't "go" anywhere. Competent companies learned long ago that you hire the best designers, most brilliant researchers, and smartest engineers that you can afford to if you want to compete, and you hire them wherever you can find them. Of course, there aren't nearly as many of these skilled positions as the unskilled ones, which is why the apples and googles of the world have revenue per employee numbers in the millions while manufacturing industries are lucky if they can make $50k per employee. What we're seeing now is the end of the industrial era. Much like tractors, combines, and other farming equipment put an end to the agricultural era over 100 years ago, automation and robotics are putting an end to the factories. As margins were squeezed in agriculture, farmers were increasingly turning to practices like indentured servitude and slavery at the end. Today, industrialists are turning to cheap labor in china and the like. Manufacturing jobs will never return to the west. Manufacturing itself will, but the jobs will not, because factories are increasingly automated. The only human labor required for many products is machine maintenance. As soon as shipping costs exceed the labor cost of maintenance technicians, all those factories will relocate to the country where the products will be sold. As a society, we must accept another decrease in standard work weeks. When agriculture declined, we went from a standard 72-hour work week (12 hours a day, 6 days a week) to a 40-hour work week (8 hours a day, 5 days a week). It is inevitable that we move to a 20 to 30 hour week (5 or 6 hours a day, 4 days a week) to maintain employment levels as they are. This is not a bad thing. The primary benefit of human progress is to make our lives more enjoyable. Less working and more living is the entire reason why we have "growth" in the first place. This is what prosperity means.

The majority of idiots who voted for Hussein Osama didn't know what or whom they were voting for either. Most of them saw a mulatto and thought it would be 'cool' to vote for someone who was such an unlikely candidate: paper thin resume and with a checkered past ('Reverend Doctor' Jeremiah Wright Junior the Third, anyone?). It didn't matter to these nimrods, as long as he was not a republican. I despise what 'W' did to the country and I hate the morons who voted for him, but the asswipes who put Hussein in power are no better than the one's who gave 'W' his victory. The politics may be polar opposites, but the mentality of both groups is not very different: get someone into the White House you'd be comfortable sharing a beer with.

blah says

If the secret were to get out that 45 million ILLEGAL ALIENS were going to be covered by this I think it would fail instantly.

Well, there are only 11 million illegal immigrants in this country, so who are the other 34 million that we're going to cover? Are you really trying to claim that every uninsured person in this country is an illegal alien?

When does health care legislation really depend on town hall meetings? This is a total red herring made into a political-media football. Appealing to some high notion of civil discourse is laughable, especially by those who will eventually blame the failure of health care reform on some right wing conspiracy despite having control of both Congress and the Presidency. Sure, there is misinformation, but the problem and potential solution are complex and difficult--a rare, but more objective headline.

What is your explanation of Obama's behavior when it comes to hiding documents from his past: original birth certificate, school records, passport information (travelled to Pakistan while in college when it was not hospitable place for US passport holders)?
What is so special about his birth certifiacte that he would rather pay large sum of money to lawyers fighting for the dismissal of eligibility lawsuits rather than submit the evidence of being a natural-born citizen to the court?

It does not make any sense.
It should be a trivial issue, yet we still do not have a proof that Obama was indeed born in the USA.
There are rewards out there for anyone who can prove Obama's birthplace. Yet nobody is claiming them.

What happened to the transparency promise? Was it just another election campaign lie?

I think that he is not a natural-born citizen, and that is the reason he does not want courts to examine the evidence.

An interesting article on media coverage of recent presidential candidates:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106051

"You’re RIGHT of course. This problem started way before Obama. However Obankster has managed to do MORE DAMAGE to the U.S. economy in a mere 200 days of office than the moronic GW Bush was able to inflict in 2920 days. Obama’s promises of change and reform were all BS and he’s proven to be an even GREATER lackey of Wall St than his mentally-impaired predecessor." I would like to know specifically "how" he has caused more damage to the ecomomy? I would probably not have made all of the same choices he has, but I also do not have all of the information he has to make choices with. I personally think it is WAY too early to fully predict the impact of his politics on the nations long term economy. It is much easier to judge someones choices from a far then it is to be that person who has to make the choices.

Well, you can bet giraffe something's wrong.

As you can see from the above birth certificate, not only is Nomograph born in Kenya but he is also related to our president. And the most egregious: His mother's name is Stanley Ann. Why no "e" on the end of her name, Nomo? What was she hiding?

zetabeos1 says

we find realtors still silent on allowing transparency in the bidding process.

Was there any serious proposal for transparency in real estate bidding? Maybe I should try to push for it if no one else is really doing it. How about these as basic rules: 1. Sellers must accept their asking price. 2. Bids must be public: amount of bid, name of bidder, date and time of bid. 3. Actual sale price must be recorded and made easily searchable online. Currently none of that is true.

The Democrates don't need the Republican votes to pass any HealthCare bill. The Dems have the majority, this is a fruitless effort on there part to have townhalls. They can do it all, without much of a legislative battle. Call it what it is, a powergrab. Plain and simple.

Police and firemen and elementary school teachers are all “socialized” but they also all work reasonably well. And you still have the private option if you want extra. Even the military is “socialist” isn’t it? Involuntary taxes pay for it. I like free markets in general, but you have to admit some socialized things work well enough via involuntary taxes, and would be only for the rich in a totally market-oriented system.

Fire, police, and the military don't make money. Health care makes money. If the police department had $30,000,000 CEOs and stock prices and you could raise your "coverage" rates to the breaking point to whatever the market would bear, then we'd have people in town halls worried about the horrible hoards of "evil doers" who would rush in to rape my dog if we were to consider eliminating 25% of profit taking. The fire department is a relic of independent PROPERTY PROTECTION companies, a sterling example of how the rich get us ALL to pay for services that doesn't pay to privatize. The military protects industry's access to resources, sadly that access is being whored out to other countries. Iraq oil for Europe. The police will keep order if the serfs get uppity, and that would be a lot easier if we all voted to get rid of each other's guns. Look at how the push to privatize revenue streams (Jersey Turnpike anyone?) and socialize burdens (employer health care) has the two-fold benefit of taking the chains off corporations/very rich and squishing the remaining jelly out of the middle class.

I'm old enough to remember my parents fussing about "socialized medicine" during the 1965 Medicare debates. Turns out the system served my mother quite well for almost 20 years. The old folks on Medicare (and I am soon to be one) should realize that they are on a single payer system now, and that most of them have paid nowhere near enough throughout their lives to provide the kind of services and proceedures that are available today, and that some degree of "rationing" as distasteful as it sounds is inevitable. Too many people believe that they can spend thier lives eating & drinking to excess, avoiding any form of exercise and smoking and still have society spend unlimited amounts of money prolonging the inevitable in the last few years of thier lives. It is a model that just cannot continue.

Gee, this is all so Sudan.
Is Nomo a giraffe dodger? A paper tiger? A horn dog? Did he earn his stripes in Tarzana? And why does he visit Chad rooms?
Rhino these are tough questions but I guess it's irrelevant and irrelevant never forgets. Tusk tusk.
But does he still work for Stanley Tools to make a Livingston? Or is he feeding us a lion? Well, what's good for your goose is good for Uganda.
Mercy, I Congo any more since I feel endangered so I don't Rwanda continue. Actually. I just want to gorilla steak, then monkey around for a while. Maybe even have a Reese's.
Let's face it. It's a jungle out there and things aren't exactly divine. Or maybe I'm out of my tree acting like a sap.

Okay, while I agree with your arguement, please don't use such language as 'You pricks!'. It makes those who do use it appear ignorant. Leave that to the opposition. As for the concern about poor lifestyles, it's a valid issue, but the Obama plan works on it, by keeping health insurance private, yet creating a public option to prevent health insurance companies from colluding in the market place as an 'industry'. If these companies know that they can't discriminate anymore against the unhealthy, they will look for every way possible to cut expenses. The public option will prevent those methods from including watering down policies, and will steer the insurance companies towards preventative care. Imagine if each major health insurance provider had its own little league team in nearly every American community, to encourage children to exercise and play team sports, as those that do are less likely to become obese both as kids and adults and have the expensive health problems that go with obesity and lack of physical activity. They could set up the teams as non-profits, and schedule games against other healthcare companies teams, so they might even write off the expenses as charitable donations, and kids across the country, including the inner cities, would finally get to play outdoors again. Anti-smoking, anti-drinking, and drug prevention groups would likely get assistance from health insurance companies, in the short term for the tax write offs, but the end result would be less health care used by smokers, alcoholics, and drug addicts. This would also pit the health insurance lobby against the agribusiness and food manufacturing lobbies, so that healthier foods get the subsidies, not processed garbage, as it stands now. When healthy foods get cheaper than fattening foods, the poor and middle class will choose them over the unhealthy products, and eat better, saving insurance companies money. This could also extend to any lobby whose product or service causes significant levels of ill health in the peope the health insurance industry would be covering in a nondisciminatory system. Obama's plan uses the strenths of the capitolist system to tackle the health ills of our country. This plan is very free market. Republicans are just mad a Democrat is the one proposing it, and has a shot at getting it implimented, winning the glory for his party. Demint said it best, if Obama's plan fails, it will be his Waterloo. If Obama wins, it's the Rebublican party that will be sent off into obscurity for 30-40 years. That is why they are so desperate and pulling out all the stops. Tenpoundbass says

To hear you guys tell it, everyone in the hospital are Booze swigging, pot toking, junk shooting, bacon eating gluttons. What about people that are health conscious but they have defective organs, no matter what they eat, they need major medical care. Where does the Emperors thumb fall for those folks. Do you guys give a thumbs up or down. … You Pricks!

>>So by nature I will be all over the map, I lean one way or another depending on where the issue pendulum swings, not the party axe. But the problem is that your leanings often are mutually inconsistent, in the sense that you want to have it both ways, although that just is not possible. What I'm trying to tell you is that you need to look into the logic and consistency of your statements. If there is a lot of inconsistency, how do you write laws to cover all the special inconsistent cases that you want? If the law is not or cannot be made detailed enough, then which of the two mutually exclusive principles should apply? There just does not appear to be any logic to many of your positions. I'm not saying this as a put-down, I just wonder how this is supposed to work and how you reconcile it all.

"Asshole republicans don’t even know what they’re protesting against" I'd say the Democrats don't even know what they're rallying FOR. Obama does even seem to know whats in the plan. I know this: the goverment makes an inefficient mess out of everything it touches. While our heath care system may need some reform, it doesn't need to be run by the government.

Take a break and listen to Obama's Town Hall meeting on Health Care Reform.

Police and firemen and elementary school teachers are all “socialized” but they also all work reasonably well. And you still have the private option if you want extra. Even the military is “socialist” isn’t it? Involuntary taxes pay for it. I like free markets in general, but you have to admit some socialized things work well enough via involuntary taxes, and would be only for the rich in a totally market-oriented system.

Those are all public goods though. They can't be provided by markets. Health care can be provided by markets as long as it's not distorted by certain regulations and tax advantages. http://www.reason.com/news/show/132018.html

I was just trying to show the potential societal benefits of the Obama healthcare plan that might come from incentivizing health insurance companies to do things that will make Americans healthier, not personally attack you or your family. However, since you brought it up, I have a serious caffine addiction, and do like sweets and fast food on occasion. I still believe in taxing vices that have economic costs for society, even if it means I'll be paying a dollar or two extra for an order of Dominos pizza or a can of Chock Full of Nuts at the supermarket. I believe in freedom to put whatever you enjoy into your body, so long as nobody else gets hurt, but nothing comes for free. Too often, the producers of unhealthy products reap the financial rewards while the government picks up the cost in the emergency room. That's socialism for the corporation. Tenpoundbass says

futuresmc says

Imagine if each major health insurance provider had its own little league team in nearly every American community, to encourage children to exercise and play team sports, as those that do are less likely to become obese both as kids and adults and have the expensive health problems that go with obesity and lack of physical activity. They could set up the teams as non-profits, and schedule games against other healthcare companies teams, so they might even write off the expenses as charitable donations, and kids across the country, including the inner cities, would finally get to play outdoors again. Anti-smoking, anti-drinking, and drug prevention groups would likely get assistance from health insurance companies, in the short term for the tax write offs, but the end result would be less health care used by smokers, alcoholics, and drug addicts.

Sounds like I hit home. Where’s the list of shit’s that’s bad for you. Do you itemize, I bet you scratch off the items you enjoy. What about folks that over do it when they exercise, do you have a mechanism to tell those folks how their overly active life style is a detriment to the economy. Or do they get a pass be cause at least rolls of fat doesn’t protrude from the back of their Hospital gown and they aren’t coughing and hacking up chunks of Lungs? My dad drank a bottle of V.O. daily, on top of the Schlitz malt liquor he kept in the fridge smoked 2 packs of cigs a day. And died of Alzheimer at the ripe age of 72. Alzheimer he probably got from years of my mom cooking in cheap aluminum pots. Other than that he was fit as a fiddle up to the very end. My Grandmom died at 62 of cancer and heart disease and didn’t drink a drop or smoke a puff in her life. She was T-Totaller. To anyone proposing a “HAPPYNESS” tax I say unleash a Tampa Rally rabble mob down on you like a rat running from an angry nest of African Honey bees. That or… There’s not a lot to be happy about these days, and I suspect it will get worse, despite what the Media would have you believe. Vices will always be in greater demand when times are the hardest. Tax those items and you’ll just hurt the economy worse, because we’ll just black market those goods and cut business and the taxation of it. Black Market bacon, smokes and cookies and soda, it’s not that hard to imagine. But none the less we don’t need some Snot nosed Liberal prick Permission to consumer vices. Even if that Prick thinks he knows what’s best.

It is amusing to watch this debate as someone with actual experience of different systems. I have had the best health insurance possible in the US and also experienced both the private and public options in New Zealand and Australia. The public systems in New Zealand and Australia are excellent. The only complete breakdown in medical care I have ever received was at one of the best hospitals in the US with great insurance. The doctors were pleasant and the hospital was nice but the medical staff didn't have the very basic knowledge required to fix a simple problem. People screaming against public health care tend to be poor and uneducated - in other words the same people who will pay almost nothing into a public option and receive all the benefits. The evidence for this is the semi-literate rants on this and many other sites. I am aggressively pro free market but I'm sorry to tell you health care in the US is not good. The poor in the rest of the first world are healthier than the richest Americans. That should be some kind of clue that not everything is OK.

Don't have a birth certificate? no problem!
http://kenyanbirthcertificategenerator.com/

I can see it now 911: what's your emergency? me: my house is on fire 911: we take VISA and MC only -- and what kind of insurance do you have? me: @@##$$%^&*

m1ckey6, Right on. I also have extensive personal exposure to national healthcare, and it is nothing like what the US wingnuts describe it to be.

I'd rather be raped by Insurance companies than gang banged by the government! I can choose which company to get raped by, but with the government I get raped by tenpoundbass, some guy, futuremc, and joe taxpayer. I even will have to get in line if I end up having to fork out my hard earned money to pay for your health care; we will all be raping each other over and over. I'll be taking from you, you'll be taking from me, think about it. Also, We (those of us who work or are not a part of the welfare program) will be paying for all the wellfare health care, plus the illigals (if Pelosi has her way) To be frank, I don't want to be compelled to be responsible for ingrates. With insurance companies I have the freedom to choose, with the government that right is taken away. By the pictures and the names of the bloggers here I would judge they are less then professional, but can afford a computer. They probably are writing from a coffee shop in Portland because they can't afford their own internet. I'm sorry, am I being judgemental? Get a job!

iownitnow says

With insurance companies I have the freedom to choose, with the government that right is taken away.

You're wrong about that. Insurance companies already tell you what care you are going to get. And the more you need it, the more likely they are to cancel your policy. You may not even apply to more than one at a time, and if one rejects you, you have to report it to the next one. If you don't report your rejection, they retroactively cancel your policy when they find out, and you are bankrupted, and you die.

I'm not wrong, Patrick, but neither are you. Yes their are hassles with the insurance companies and people get kicked off, but I have governnent health care through the military and you would not believe the wait sometimes to get the treatment I need. I could be dead... they wouldn't care just like the insurance companies. I don't want to bore you with the VA, check it out for yourself... youtube "david crowder," very interesting.

This is out of hand. Government is not the answer. Please open your eyes and see the truth. Break the monopolies of big corps, but do not give it to the most corrupt monopoly of all. Big Government. Concentration of power and decision making IS THE problem, not the lack of. This will only make things worse, at least the corrupt health insurance giants have to compete with each other. The government doesn't have that inconvenience and will forever raise taxes and steal from the general health care fund to pay for other "needs" LOL that they have in their head at the time. I can't believe that anyone could look at the government and their behavior and say hey, we can trust them! Let's give them the power. What a joke!

So, IMO, the elephant in the room is: where does this presumed right to health care come from? Last I checked, "health care" is merely a phrase describing the services provided by one segment of trained professionals ...just like nearly every other service offered in (the remaining shreds of) our free market economy. Yet we aren't having town halls to discuss free "automobile care". It seems that because "health care" services deal with, you know, health, there is a widespread assumption that those who provide those services are under some sort of special obligation to make said services available to everyone, everywhere, regardless of cost, because everyone everywhere is entitled to the same health care services. I find this point of view to be repugnant, despicable, and breathtakingly short-sighted. Having said that: if the goal of the whole "health insurance reform" (as team Obama has shrewdly rebranded it) discussion is to try and make health care services more affordable, then I'm all for it. What most disturbs me about virtually every single instance of the "health care" reform discussion that I've come across, either in person or in the news/blogs/etc, is that an analysis of the root problems seems to have been glossed completely over. If prices are high, why? If eeeevil insurance companies are keeping prices high (good heavens, a private company trying to maximize profit!), how are they doing it? Etc. To that end, one of the most straightforward proposals I've yet seen has been made by Karl Denninger; you can read his post on the matter here: Fixing Health Care: A Real Solution A summary of his five points; see his post for further exposition of each item: (1) If you sell "insurance" to anyone in a given state, you must accept all persons in that state on the same terms and at the same price. (2) All "insurance" companies must offer a true insurance policy covering only unlikely-but-catastrophic events on the same terms as their "full service" policies. (3) All health providers must publish a price list and may not bill or accept payment at anything other than that price; doing so becomes a violation of Robinson-Patman and exposes the provider to civil suit for treble damages. (4) No event caused by the provision of your treatment may be billed to you. (5) If you show up without insurance or ability to pay with a life-threatening condition, you will be treated, but the hospital cannot cost-shift the bill - it instead bills The Federal Government.