[pickledpepperRN]

Government acts at the behest of corporations.
Not the other way around.

[Jolie]

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......

I agree that this legislation is scandalous. But the bill did not pass on Republican votes alone. Representatives from all over the country and from both parties voted it into law. Why do you think that the next piece of healthcare legislation will be any different?

[nicurn001]

"Onerous premiums like COBRA will eventually be the norm under a government run system. Are you willing to pay for sex change operations? Penile implants, and God knows what else."(CRNA2007).
There are a number of procedures that one could question , but in Universal Healthcare systems , care is directed by medical need , limited by available funding . Whilst in the Private Insurance system , care is directed as above but also limited by the need to produce profits .So yes if ,and only if a treatment is in the medical interest of the individual patient , then it should be provided within the limits of the provider .
On the opinion that you can't trust those that are elected , if you believe in the political process , once a government is voted into power , although you may not like it , you should follow the laws it legally passes , whilst being able to freely express whatever opinion you have of them.If enough people agree with you ,they will be voted out of office in the next election ( but there's the rub , whilst many people say we should vote the bums out , all to many put loyalty in their own representative or partiasinship to continue to vote the same bums back into office!).When an educated electorate demands that those seeking office inform the electorate , the details of there policies .Then the electors evaluate ,who represents the majority ( you will never get all) of what they want , you will gain a government most likely to represent the will of the people . What is happening at present is people are vested in their own political dogma , complaining the other party is not doing what they want , but then not bothering to vote in elections .

[CRNA2007]

Golly Gee you mean the gubment never spends more than it has? I knew the 8 trillion dollar deficit was a figment of my over active imagination. You think insurance premiums are high now? You ain't seen nothing yet, wait till universal coverage. ER wait will be twice as long as they are now with more people utilizing the ER as primary care.

Originally Posted by nicurn001

"Onerous premiums like COBRA will eventually be the norm under a government run system. Are you willing to pay for sex change operations? Penile implants, and God knows what else."(CRNA2007).
There are a number of procedures that one could question , but in Universal Healthcare systems , care is directed by medical need , limited by available funding . Whilst in the Private Insurance system , care is directed as above but also limited by the need to produce profits .So yes if ,and only if a treatment is in the medical interest of the individual patient , then it should be provided within the limits of the provider .
On the opinion that you can't trust those that are elected , if you believe in the political process , once a government is voted into power , although you may not like it , you should follow the laws it legally passes , whilst being able to freely express whatever opinion you have of them.If enough people agree with you ,they will be voted out of office in the next election ( but there's the rub , whilst many people say we should vote the bums out , all to many put loyalty in their own representative or partiasinship to continue to vote the same bums back into office!).When an educated electorate demands that those seeking office inform the electorate , the details of there policies .Then the electors evaluate ,who represents the majority ( you will never get all) of what they want , you will gain a government most likely to represent the will of the people . What is happening at present is people are vested in their own political dogma , complaining the other party is not doing what they want , but then not bothering to vote in elections .

[pickledpepperRN]

Originally Posted by CRNA2007

Golly Gee you mean the gubment never spends more than it has? I knew the 8 trillion dollar deficit was a figment of my over active imagination. You think insurance premiums are high now? You ain't seen nothing yet, wait till universal coverage. ER wait will be twice as long as they are now with more people utilizing the ER as primary care.

Prophet, soothsayer, oracle, or augur?

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by spacenurse

Government acts at the behest of corporations.
Not the other way around.

It works both ways, they are in bed together, friends with mutual benefits.

Either way, they don't have YOUR best interests, first.

THAT ought to scare the heck out of anybody wanting to place faith in the king and his courtisans to provide you with healthcare. . .

The gov't will NEVER be as invested in your care as you are. There is no 'beneficial patrician'. Pull back the curtain. That benefactor is nothing more than a tyrant.

~faith,
Timothy.

[pickledpepperRN]

WE are the government. Of, by and for the people and all that.

In addition to getting corporate money out of campaigns I think people need to stop re electing incumbants.
So many of my elected representatives local to federal and both parties start out committed to doing their best.
Then they sell out or just get lazy.

Have others experienced this?

Medicare still provides more care than private insurance with less waste. Because it is not for profit.
If there is curruption we need to be able to hold hearings, question witnesses under oath, and stop them from stealing the peoples money.
It has been done. "Medicare Mills" have been shut down and at least some of the guilty were prosecuted, paid fines, and did prison time.

Yet William W. McGuire, CEO of UnitedHealth Group ( the nations largest health insurer) received compensation of $124.8 million in 2005. That is money people paid for healthcare if they need it.
http://healthcare-economist.com/2006...llion-in-2005/

WE taxpayer can work to STOP such waste when WE are informed, on the ball, and working together.

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by spacenurse

WE are the government. Of, by and for the people and all that.

In addition to getting corporate money out of campaigns I think people need to stop re electing incumbants. So many of my elected representatives local to federal and both parties start out committed to doing their best. Then they sell out or just get lazy.

There is so much money floating around Washington, combined with the personality that would seek election, it is a practical impossibility that anybody you could elect WOULDN'T sell out.

Combine that with the fact that they've all learned to bribe the citizenry and poof - 90% re-election rates.

You are bribed.

THEY are free to consort with those that swell their coffers while ignoring everybody else.

This is an unchanging dynamic.

The cure is not how to change the character of gov't - they, I'm sure, are loop-hole proof from change seeing how they can write any law to sidestep any motivation to change them. They are, as they say, the foxes in the henhouse.

No.

The only cure for gov't is less of it. The less, the better. Our framers fully understood this concept. 230 yrs later, we are not better able than they to constrain the DIRECTION of an active tyrant/government. The best solution was designed by the brightest minds in the history of our nation: rather than direct the flow of tyrants, the best solution is to reduce the power of tyrants.

WE are the people. That doesn't mean that the elected class puts us first. That's downright delusional. Our framers didn't understand this to mean that the gov't would always act to do our bidding. No. They understood that big gov't undermines the autonomy you refer to. So. Our framers combined this concept of 'we the people' with a very healthy dose of limiting the gov'ts power to be something different. Amen, and Thank God for our forebears.

Putting faith in gov't is dangerous. Always has been. Gov'ts only excel at tyranny.

~faith,
Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA]

Originally Posted by spacenurse

Medicare still provides more care than private insurance with less waste. Because it is not for profit. If there is curruption we need to be able to hold hearings, question witnesses under oath, and stop them from stealing the peoples money. It has been done. "Medicare Mills" have been shut down and at least some of the guilty were prosecuted, paid fines, and did prison time.

I cry foul.

Medicare is bloated, and wasteful. Or, would you like a powerchair, at no cost to you?

In addition, even if it was the panacea you claim, it's unsustainable. It does no good to look, as a model for the future, to a bankrupt model. The sooner we ditch Medicare to the curb, the sooner we can come up with a workable, LONG-RANGE model for healthcare for our seniors.

Medicare is bankrupt. Financially, and, morally. So very uncompassionate.

~faith,
Timothy.

[ZASHAGALKA]

Our framers declared that 'WE the People' are our own gov't because they were secure in the limitations they had placed upon that gov't to be anything otherwise.

You propose removing those limitations BY THE ASSERTION that what those limitations protects, holds true, regardless of the protection.

It doesn't work that way. Give gov't the power you wish to give to gov't, and gov't will not be 'of the people'. It scarcely is now.

We the People no longer hold power over the gov't as we once did. That is because this gov't has sought, by selling out its checks and balances to each other, to break free from the harness and halter we placed it in.

Those limitations allowed gov't to do our bidding, at our will. Without them, gov't is nothing more than a wild animal, trampling all in its path.

'We the people' is nothing more than an empty platitude WITHOUT the limitations on the power of gov't that made it so. We the people are in control BECAUSE we CHOOSE not to let gov't be in control.

You can't take down the protections of 'we the people' in the name of 'we the people'. it doesn't work that way. The process you describe is the process that removes 'we the people' from power.

~faith,
Timothy.