[pickledpepperRN]

We are sending more than $80 million to Pakistan every month. Paying Blackwater and other contractors with money allocated for our troops, and cannot even keep the books on suitcases full of cash WE paid to get lost in Iraq.
Then too many veterans have no healthcare.

Nope. They don't know how to be frugal. No sense of priorities.
This administration has borrowed more than all the previous administrations combined.

WHY? Because too many people are more concerned with whether a celebrity wears underwear or does hard time for a crime than whether our elected leaders are doing their job or just lying to us.

[CRNA2007]

Perfect example. While I realy like President Bush I believe this was the worst policy 2nd to his policies on illegal immigration that will really be hard to undo.

Originally Posted by Jolie

One need look no further than the recently implemented Medicare Part D as an example of government run healthcare with costs far in excess of estimates and limited (if any) benefit to those it was intended to serve.

[HM2Viking]

Originally Posted by Jolie

One need look no further than the recently implemented Medicare Part D as an example of government run healthcare with costs far in excess of estimates and limited (if any) benefit to those it was intended to serve.

The bill was passed by a Republican congress that accepted PHRMA language that forbade Medicare from bargaining for bulk discounts. The scandal is when we let business buy our congressmans votes......

[CRNA2007]

Hmmmmm, looking at my 2nd grade civics textbook It says congress provides the checkbook for the country and not the President. Here is Nancy Pelosi's phone number so you can call and vent your frustatrions to her 202-225-4965202-225-4188sf.nancy@mail.house.gov


Let us know what she says

Originally Posted by spacenurse

We are sending more than $80 million to Pakistan every month. Paying Blackwater and other contractors with money allocated for our troops, and cannot even keep the books on suitcases full of cash WE paid to get lost in Iraq.
Then too many veterans have no healthcare.

Nope. They don't know how to be frugal. No sense of priorities.
This administration has borrowed more than all the previous administrations combined.

WHY? Because too many people are more concerned with whether a celebrity wears underwear or does hard time for a crime than whether our elected leaders are doing their job or just lying to us.

[CRNA2007]

And this won't happen under a single payor system?

Originally Posted by HM2Viking

The bill was passed by a Republican congress that accepted PHRMA language that forbade Medicare from bargaining for bulk discounts. The scandal is when we let business buy our congressmans votes......

[HM2Viking]

The links that you posted point out that the political process will work. Coverage decisions were made by elected officials on behalf of their constituents. The San Francisco link is almost 7 years old. The arguments about Medicare when compared to private health insurance inflation are essentially meaningless. Ultimately these article point out that coverage plans will be designed according to local values. There is absolutely no evidence to support the idea that this kind of medical coverage would ever pass as part of the enabling legislation from Congress.

The proposals from PNHP discuss:
In a public system the public has a say in how it’s run. Cost containment measures are publicly managed at the state level by an elected and appointed body that represents the people of that state. This body decides on the benefit package, negotiates doctor fees and hospital budgets. It also is responsible for health planning and the distribution of expensive technology.
The benefit package people will receive will not be decided upon by the legislature, but by the appointed body that represents all state residents in consultation with medical experts in all fields of medicine.
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepaye...lthcare_system

See:
A San Francisco city employee describes how the city's groundbreaking sex-change benefit policy will help her and many others
When the San Francisco board of supervisors approved a proposal on April 30 to cover some of the costs of sex-change operations
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...25/ai_54775070

Few things make better political hay than a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation.
....
In a response letter, Gregoire suggested the auditor's report was misleading.
For one, she pointed out, the report didn't mention that the sex-change procedures were the result of a legal settlement. And she noted that the state no longer authorizes surgery for gender dysphoria.
The state's Medicaid agency pays for more than 500,000 surgical procedures of all types a year. But Medicaid officials say the state has covered sex-change operations for just five people in the past 15 years.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...change10m.html

Sex-change operations are covered by medicare in Ontario, although the procedure is not performed in the province.
In the past six years, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan has paid for 46 sex-change operations at a cost of about $120,000 a year.

http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/928

The political Process worked in Oregon to prevent this payment:
In February the state of Oregon decided against adding sex-change procedures to the list of approved health services covered under the state's health plan for the poor. Transgender advocates had urged the Oregon health services commission to extend coverage to include the procedure, but the state panel ruled that there was no good evidence showing that sex-reassignment surgery improves patients' mental and emotional well-being or socioeconomic status or that it reduces the incidence of suicide attempts among transsexuals.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m..._5/ai_75248586

The source from Oregon shows that a state board can and will function to design benefit packages based on EBP guidelines.

Some of the comments in your post do seem provocative and have a flavor of prejudice towards sexual minorities.

[pickledpepperRN]

The money for contractors was snuck into the Department of Defense budget and the Iraq supplemental bills.

Congress passes bills that become law only after being signed by the President.

I know the addresses, e-dresses, and local phone numbers of my Senators, House Member, state and local elected officials and have working relationships with many of their staffs.
Thousands of us California nurses have done so for many years. WE got our whistleblower law, safe staffing ratio legislation, and restrictions on unlicensed assistive personnel.

With few exeptions I am as disgusted with Congress as I am with the executive branch.
If they don't know it they don't get their messages.
They scheme to win the next election, take dirty money, and sell out their morals and ethics.

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by spacenurse

Because too many people are more concerned with whether a celebrity wears underwear or does hard time for a crime than whether our elected leaders are doing their job or just lying to us.

And yet, these very elected leaders are whom you want to entrust with MY healthcare. I think YOUR healthcare would be much better off left in the hands of someone with a vested interest to protect it: you.

Gov't financing scheme ARE the current problem with healthcare. More of the same will be just that: more of the same.

Brought to you by: elected leaders, whether they are doing their jobs, or just lying to us.

~faith,
Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA]

http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?i...3-0f260b25edd4

This, in an article generally favorable of gov't restricted healthcare:

"In a universal coverage system, the government would seek to limit spending by forcing down payments to doctors and pharmaceutical companies, while scrutinizing treatments for cost-effectiveness. This, in turn, would lead to both less innovation and less access to the innovation that already exists. And the public would end up losing out, because, as Tyler Cowen wrote last year in The New York Times, "the American health care system, high expenditures and all, is driving innovation for the entire world."

Cowen, a George Mason University economist, is a self-described libertarian. But it's not just libertarians, or even just conservatives, who say such things. Liberals have been known to voice similar concerns, albeit more carefully. Notable among them is David Cutler, a highly respected Harvard economist, whose book Your Money or Your Life makes a powerful argument that spending a lot of money on health care is frequently worth it--specifically, that investments in areas like neonatal and cardiovascular care have produced longer and healthier lives, more than justifying their exorbitant price tags. And, while Cutler's work on this subject remains somewhat iconoclastic, most economists would concede that it's possible a universal system could stifle innovation by pushing too hard on prices or applying the wrong kind of scrutiny to medical treatments."

~faith,
Timothy.

[pickledpepperRN]

Thank you. It is a thoughtful and informative article. Here's the final paragraph:

So what, then, would have happened to my friend Mike Kinsley if such a system had been in place here? From the looks of things, exactly what has happened already: He would have gotten the DBS treatment. Nearly every country in Europe covers DBS under its national health insurance system, even England with its famously low spending and scrutiny of new treatments. People over 70 can't always get the treatment in those countries, but, in part, that's because many physicians believe it's not usually worth the risks at that age. (And they may be right, depending on which studies you believe.) Medicare, meanwhile, also covers it, making it available to all of this country's elderly. Working-age Americans, on the other hand, may face some obstacles: According to Medtronic, private insurers occasionally deny coverage-- to say nothing of those people who don't have insurance at all. DBS is just one example, to be sure, but it seems to be emblematic of the truth about universal health insurance: You don't have to choose between universal access and innovation. It's possible to have both-- as long as you do it right.

http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?i...3-0f260b25edd4