Replying to a message of Janis Kracht to Bob Ackley:

 >>> I read the American posts and I not only get a headache but
 >>> get nausea to boot.

 >> Why?  If you assume - usually correctly - that the media and
 >> the politicians are lying out their collective *sses
 >> whatever they say shouldn't bother you at all.  In point of
 >> fact, people in this country are not dying in the streets fo
 >> lack of health care - drive-by shootings, hypothermia,
 >> starvation, yes, but no for lack of health care.

 JK> You obviously don't know how some people live in this
 JK> country, Bob.. My daughter has no insurance for herself,
 JK> her 3 sons or her husband. If something hits them beyond
 JK> their 'day-to-day' expenses, they are SUNK.

Uh, yes I do Janis.  My mother contracted polio in the 1948 epidemic
and spent three *years* in a hospital, six months of that in an iron
lung.  Another couple of years in physical rehab (she never did recover
the use of her legs).  My dad had major medical coverage (at the time
and up until about the 1970s most folks didn't have comprehensive health
insurance, now folks expect insurance to pay for hangnails and sniffles)
but it still took them until 1960 to pay off the hospital and doctor bills.

My point was simply that people are *not* dying in the streets of this
country for want of health care.

Note also that air, water and food are all far more necessary for survival
than health care is.  Air is free only because governments haven't figured
out a way to control its distribution and tax it.  Water - at least potable
water - isn't free, if you think it is try not paying your water bill; and
note in most areas the government is supplying the water, and they'll cut
it off in a New York second if you don't pay that bill.

 JK>  My son has
 JK> Cobra coverage right now but that's only be we are paying
 JK> for it.. (the company he worked for just had no work for
 JK> him so they had to let him go). How long we'll be able to
 JK> do that is unknown.. we're hoping even though Ron was just
 JK> diagnosed with a good one, that he'll be able to work
 JK> (looks like he will now, but who knows).

I've been unemployed since Nevember of 2008.  Of course, my situation is
different because (a) I'm retired military and get a monthly check for that and
(b) I'm old enough to get Socialist Security and Medicare (not by choice, BTW,
but if I didn't sign up for Medicare Part B then Tricare would cut me off - and
my health care should be free anyway because that's what the government was
promising from long before I enlisted until after I retired, it was only after I 
retired that they changed the rules).

 JK> Be real.. this country needs an overhaul.. Our own coverage
 JK> is 80%.. but that meant for instance that I had to pay over
 JK> $2000.00 for a week long hospital stay 2 years ago.. and
 JK> that f'n hurt.

No doubt it did.  Health care is expensive.  But if folks - and their
insurors don't pay those bills then the providers go bankrupt and shut
down.  Then nobody gets any care, it's not available at any price.

The fact that the government can and will dictate what prices providers
may charge does not control the costs that provider incurs.  If the costs
exceed revenues for very long the provider goes away.  That's why providers
are dropping out of Medicare, it no longer covers their costs of providing care;
note that Medicare announced last month that it was reducing the reimbursement
rate it pays to providers.

Another little known factoid you might ponder:  For at least two decades
physicians have been advising their children to *not* go into the health care
profession.  You might also note the numbers of foreign-born physicians who
are practicing in this country (one of my recent primary care physicians is
Vietnamese, one of my cardiologists is from India and the other cardiologist 
is from the Middle East, Syria, I think).

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