This is already a heavily regulated industry. All that Obama’s trying to do is bring the same sane regulation to the individual market that’s already present in the group market. That would make the labor market more efficient, since people who, for example, have diabetes, would now be free to work as freelancers, instead of being stuck in worse jobs in order to get decent insurance.

BTW, if health insurance in Canada is so bad, and the American free market in health insurance is so efficient, then why aren’t any US companies selling supplementary policies to our poor brothers up north?

Specifically we want to reduce the two biggest deadweight costs (litigation & free-loaders) as follows:

1. Eliminate rediculous lawsuit payouts be putting an end to venue-shopping and like abuses.

2. Aggressively pursue deadbeats who HAVE the means to pay their medical bills and choose not to. (ie: wage garnishment, etc.)

It is the Bill of Rights that has protected us all these years and given the US its wealth and prosperity by ensuring that those in power, no matter how well intended they may be, are limited in their ability to interfere with the course of our lives.

The health care reform bill (HR 3200) needs to be modified to include a Patients’ Bill of Rights. It should be remembered that the country was founded on the principles of its citizenry being protected FROM the government, and in the area of health care these protections should never be relaxed any more than in any other aspect of our lives.

If specific ‘rights’ (e.g right to life, right to privacy, right to choice, right against discrimination – i.e. negative rights prohibiting the government from trespassing in these areas) are not spelled out and defined, clearly and simply, they will in the course of affairs be over-ridden by the government that views this document as a set of ‘positive rights’ enabling the government to effect social justice.

1) If healthcare is a right then surly all of the other essentials of life are too, you know food, water, heat, power and a roof over ones head, as Deroy Murdock asks “why not create a government option for grocery stores and clothing shops, lest famine and nudity erupt across the land?”

2) Given Dr Ezekiel Emmanuel ‘complete lives system’ (see graph here)with his accersion that

“This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity — those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberation — are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

How can it be that some should be entitled and some should not, if its a right. It either is or it isn’t, black or white, or am I not seeing some gray area in between.

Democrats and their liberal activists spent 8 years demonizing President Bush and blocking every sagacious piece of legislation Republican’s tried to author. The public bought it hook, line and sinker. Heck, some in our party even took the ride. In retrospect, it was easy to see the people were lied to. It is also easy to see why- because Democrats wanted the ubiquitous control and quasi anarchy they now hold over our government.

To say that Republicans have anything to do with this current agenda or have an ability to stop it on their own defies both logic and the tenets of our constitutional republic. This is pure and simple liberal Democrat ideology which the push at the point of a proverbial gun and sell on the backs of lying, dishonest party acolytes. Disgraceful; and anyone that can’t see this as the blatant attempt at ideological anarchy without pause or concern for our personal liberties is truly blind.

Ask Terry Shiavo’s family about whether someone can be ‘shut off’ t……. there is already a move towards such behavior in this country. Obama just ‘saves money’ by cutting Medicare by $500,000. What better way than to disregard the health of senior citizens. this is to be done under the guise of ‘usefulness to society’. I find this absolutey amazing. I’m pretty sure the most productive and useful are older…… certainly the criminals, drug addicts and people of welfare are not considered ‘productive’ by Obama, are they. Maybe we should restrict full healthcare to those people. After all they are costing the country billions and aren’t of much use.

Obama smokes – - a lot I hear. Healthcare for him should be drastically restricted.

Here is a typical debate, I say…

The proposed health care bill is total control of your health by the national government and control of your rights. From both sides we have had government encroaching in to our lives for too long, why continue the failed Bush policies? You were against the Bush wiretaps? Do you really want the government to know that much about you, your financial information from what drugs you are on to your weight?

Do you trust giving the government the chance of forever experimenting with your children’s healthcare to deciding when to die? Look at how the government controls quality now, there has to be an official death toll before they act. For too long we have relied on this quality standard on our roads to the food we eat and we must not allow this to overtake our health care. Why do you want to keep the status quo?

This is not affordable health care with the cost possibly over two trillion. Social Security is broken, Medicare is broke, Heck it is so broken they make payments to dead people. Look at the cost of the “Big Dig”, over ten time what it was supposed to cost. Why do you suddenly now trust the government to control cost?

This proposed health care bill is not health care for everyone. It is waiting in line for your socialist allotment, a government boondoggle waiting to see if you first qualify, then determine what you qualify for, 1,018 pages and growing. Look at other government programs, a simple transaction at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and you have to wait in line. Why do you want that?

What we need to reform is the government involvement in the current system and not a total takeover. We need TORT reform; remove the wasteful regulations that have doubled the cost; private insurance should not include payments to welfare; remove interstate restrictions to increase competition; allow small business co-ops; restore personal responsibility; PAC restrictions; enforce non profit laws; no free health care for Illegals and more.

Did you read the Bill, do you see any real reform in it?

Typical reply;

“If my Obama says it is good then it is good”