California Assembly Passes Universal Health Care Bill

[Royd 0]

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How about a bullet in the back of the head if the sick are too weak or chickenshit to do it themselves? Bullets are cheap. Reloads are the generics that can keep the cost of pulling a trigger down if the concern is soley the cost! A great saving for the insurance compnies that will write the bullet-head policy. Besides, how dare the ill desire to live! The threat of rising health cost for the healthy is clearly the fault of the sick.
Let the sick die? Better than the alternative? Bet you will not be saying that if it were your mother, spouse, child or even yourself lying in a hospital.
Wishing to live when facing a terminal illness will make you see it in a far different light. Something that those such as Lawrocket cannot understand.

I think that we should give free lungs and livers to cigarette smoking, alcoholic, homeless people. Everyone deserves a second chance. But then, again, I'm feeling the Christmas Spirit right now.

[jm951 0]

To set some background here- the wife and I are just short of 50, her job doesn't provide any health benefits. I got downsized out, COBRA is ruinously expensive. The industry I was in is downsizing due to manufacturing moving offshore. To stay solvent, I have to take some other job, competing with younger, potentially less expensive employees, or start my own business. I've chosen to start my own to avoid potentially being downsized again in a couple years, but health care ins is outrageously expensive. I'm still in my first year, so profit isn't in the cards for some time.

My wife had some health issues that required CAT scans, blood work, doc visits, etc. While in the waiting rooms of these places, I've noticed a number of people who didn't speak english so well or at all. A number of things lead me to believe they aren't insured (like me) and also, they aren't legal residents.

Bear with me here, why should my tax dollars go to support free care for illegals, when I now have a huge medical bill expense that will drag on my slim cash flow for the foreseeable future? Not to divert the issue to illegals, but rather to highlight where some of the costs in the system are. Fully half of the people in these waiting rooms fit the "profile" of an illegal. I'd like to know if they have the same financial obligations on their future income that I do.

Next on the cost front, how about reforming the malpractice lawsuit situation? There is a reason many hospitals no longer have emergency rooms and in my state, no OB services outside of major population centers. (thank you John Edwards et al). Let's face it, the medical center does have to be run like a business, if you don't have cash flow, you can't pay employees, pay for facilities, pay for supplies, etc. If a substantial number of your "customers" don't pay, won't pay, and/or sue you, what do you think the costs of the paying customer will be?

I really don't like the idea of gvt taking over the system. Maybe we should look at some of the factors influencing the actual cost of services before letting fed god get involved.