>> ^dag:
^with these kinds of comments I fear the US will once again get the healthcare it deserves. Now is not the time for quoting Locke. And if you disparage the elderly getting quality healthcare- I'd say your heart is two sizes too small. There should be a "common good" and care for the elderly falls into it.


They don't call me 'frosty' for nothing. But yes, thank you for nursing such a bleeding heart and proposing to stop it with someone else's means. If you care so much for the elderly, here's what I suggest you do. Get through the grueling pre-medical curriculum. Get all A's. Get through four years of medical school and go well into six figures in debt. Maybe if you score high enough on your STEP 1 and are at the top of your class you can place into a geriatric subspecialty residency. Work 80-100 hour weeks at minimum wage for five years. Then and only then will I respect your 'generosity' and give you credit if you choose to devote your mind and effort to probono or reduced wage public sector work. In the mean time I suggest you leave the geriatricians to dispose of what is rightfully theirs as they goddamn well please.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Why stop with "free" health care? Doesn't everyone deserves a free home, food and automobile (plus for kicks a high-paying job that pays the same whether you're a brain surgeon or sweep floors)?
This communism sh t has been tried. Doesn't work. People want private property and individual rights, and the profit motive is what makes the system work for saint and sinner alike.
Medicare fraud already costs the US 60 billion a year and no one's doing a goddamned thing about it.
Government has no interest or incentive to keep costs down. It can't be fired in a timely manner and the bureaucrats can't ever be fired, they're not going to give a rat's ass when they're the only game in town (the Govopoly).
Maybe someone should crack a history book instead of heeding the "wisdom" of Leibowitz's jerkoff joke-writing team when it comes to mattes of literal life and death.


Thank god. One voice of reason in the midst of this big happy socialist circle-jerk. Maybe it's just me, but I thought Locke was on to something when he declared no one is entitled to the labor and effort of another. Selfish concept? You bet. You socialists rail against selfishness. It's immoral to hoard what you earn for yourself, you say. What is it, then, when you extort the unearned from another to provide for yourself or pay for the luxury of your own pity?

You want lower health care costs while preserving rights to private property? Create a more consumer driven market by allowing insurance companies to operate inter-state. Detach coverage from employers and force insurance companies to compete for business on an individual basis. Consider switching the paradigm of physician compensation from 'fee-for-service' to 'fee-for-care' to check queer incentives to over-prescribe and chase wild geese with the patient or insurer's money. Or maybe steer away from the insurer model and encourage people to allocate funds into personal tax-exempt health savings accounts and only insure against catastrophic events. Lack of disincentive to over-use is one of the primary pitfalls of the insurance model, and the problem stands to be exacerbated ten-fold when the government starts providing all this 'free' health-care without requiring a copay.

And for god's sake crack down on frivolous malpractice litigation.