The Frosts Demonstrate Why We Need Single Payer Health Care

For economic commentary and market analysis, go to the Bonddad Blog:

From Time:

It turns out, however, that not everything about the Frosts' life pops up on a Google search. While Graeme does attend a private school, he does so on scholarship. Halsey Frost is a self-employed woodworker; he and his wife say they earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year to provide for their family of six. Their 1936 rowhouse was purchased in 1990 for $55,000. It was vacant and in a run-down neighborhood that has improved since then, in part because of people like themselves who took a chance. It is now assessed at $263,140, though under state law the value of that asset is not taken into account in determining their eligibility for SCHIP. And while they are still uninsured, they claim it is most certainly not by choice. Bonnie Frost says the last time she priced health coverage, she learned it would cost them $1,200 a month.

The above snippet from Time perfectly illustrate why single-payer health care is really the answer to the health care problem in the US.

1.) Notice the Frost's already priced insurance. At $1200/month, the Frosts would be looking at $14,000/year in payments. That's 32% of their income. That assumes those are all the medical costs the Frosts would pay which simply isn't true. My guess is the $1200/month policy would have some type of deductible, co-pay structure etc.... Considering the Frosts overall situation of two children needing expensive medical care, medical costs could easily become 40%-50% of their annual expenses.

2.) Malkin has argued that assets should be included in the eligibility computation for SCHIP. This is a really stupid idea. According to the article, the Frost's home is $263,000. According to Malkini's argument, the Frosts should either take out a home loan (home equity loan) or sell their home. If the Frost's sell their home, they will take out their equity (assuming they have some). But they'll eventually spend that. In addition, this assumes the Frosts can sell their home right now -- in the worst housing market in the last 20 years. In other words, this argument makes a lot of assumptions that probably won't play out in reality. When they're done spending the loan proceeds, they'll be poorer. In taking out a home equity loan, the Frost's are simply delaying he inevitable -- bankruptcy. The Frosts would then have a note which would provide a drain on their finances until the loan proceeds ran out. At that time, the Frosts would have an additional payment in their monthly nut in addition to medical costs. I'm not sure if Malkin realizes the debt issue in America, but it is pretty severe. For example, foreclosures doubled this month.

Here's the basic problem. The Frosts aren't rich and they have children. That means medical expenses are their biggest problem. Under the Malkin theory, either poor people shouldn't have children because insurance is too expensive, or the poor should go into debt to pay for insurance which under the new bankruptcy laws is tantamount to indentured servitude.

Anyway -- now that I've weighed in on the Frost debate, I want to bring back the central arguments I have always made (and will continue to make) about single-payer health care.

While I will almost always advocate for a market based economic approach to allocating resources, health care is not an area where the profit motive should dominate decision making. Simply put, the end product is a patient's health. Private health insurance has a conflict of interest between the insurance company and the insured which will be resolved in favor of the insurance company a majority of the time.

Let me paint a hypothetical picture to illustrate this point. Insured makes a claim with the insurance company, which is a publicly traded company. Because the insurance company is publicly traded they must turn a profit and increase their profits to maintain their share price. In order to make a profit they have every incentive to either

1. Deny the insured's claim, or
2. Delay payment to increase the possibility the insured will drop his claim

There are numerous stories about an insured making a routine claim only to be inundated with paperwork, or being told the policy doesn't cover that procedure, or being told the insurance company has to look into the claim to see if the insurance company can make a payment. In any of these situations the central idea of insurance -- to provide some safety for the insured at a specific cost -- is compromised.

In addition, insurance companies will seek to minimize the amount of money they would have to pay to the insured. Again, remember the product here is the patient's health. Supposed the insured has a disease where the cure is expensive but a cheaper alternative exists. However, the cheaper alternative would moderately or seriously compromise the insured's quality of life. Because the insurance company is profit-driven, it will probably opt for the cheaper treatment that compromises the insured's quality of life.

Here is what the Frost's ran into in the private health care market:

In a telephone interview, the Frosts said they had recently been rejected by three private insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions. "We stood up in the first place because S-chip really helped our family and we wanted to help other families," Mrs. Frost said.

The profit motive worked to the Frost's extreme disadvantage. Because covering the Frost's was expensive, the insurance companies simply denied them coverage.

Secondly, private health care is more expensive the public health care. Here are three charts compiled from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The figures are from 2004.

First, the US spends the least amount of public money on health care.

However, the US spends the most on health care as a percentage of GDP

and on a per capita basis.

Notice the partially inverse relationship between public expenditures and total amount spent on health care. In short, publicly available health care is cheaper.

Finally there is the issue of competitiveness. I'll let General Motors of Canada make the argument for me.

"The Canadian plan has been a significant advantage for investing in Canada," says GM Canada spokesman David Patterson, noting that in the United States, GM spends $1,400 per car on health benefits. Indeed, with the provinces sharing 75 percent of the cost of Canadian healthcare, it's no surprise that GM, Ford and Chrysler have all been shifting car production across the border at such a rate that the name "Motor City" should belong to Windsor, not Detroit.

Just two years ago, GM Canada's CEO Michael Grimaldi sent a letter co-signed by Canadian Autoworkers Union president Buzz Hargrave to a Crown Commission considering reforms of Canada's 35-year-old national health program that said, "The public healthcare system significantly reduces total labour costs for automobile manufacturing firms, compared to their cost of equivalent private insurance services purchased by U.S.-based automakers." That letter also said it was "vitally important that the publicly funded healthcare system be preserved and renewed, on the existing principles of universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and public administration," and went on to call not just for preservation but for an "updated range of services." CEOs of the Canadian units of Ford and DaimlerChrysler wrote similar encomiums endorsing the national health system.

Health care costs are killing American business. Our international competitors don't have to deal with these costs. As a result, private health care is making US business less competitive.

So, public health eliminates a conflict of interest that compromises individual health, is cheaper and makes the US more competitive. And we don't have a public health system because?

Digby makes the point far more eloquently than I:

Setting aside the total dishonesty of that --- surely Steyn has been informed by now that the Frost kids go to private school on scholarship and the house was bought for 55,000 in 1990 --- what has become crystal clear in this debate is one that I think needs to be discussed. The Republicans believe that people should be completely destitute, living in a one room shack and working two jobs before they "deserve" subsidized health insurance. The middle class who are one car accident or one cancer diagnosis away from losing their jobs, being unable to afford either the cadillac COBRA plans from their employers (my last one here in California was $1700.00 a month and I'm healthy) must not be allowed to keep ANY assets.They must be, as Steyn's pal wrote, "dying on the streets with sores on their bodies" before they qualify for aid.

.....

If the free-wheeling capitalists of the right wing believe that you can keep an economy dynamic, growing and flexible in a twisted system like this, they are even more blindly ideological than I thought. This is not just a moral crisis, it's an economic crisis and if these people are determined to continue down this path then I suggest the rest of us start buying land in Costa Rica because this country is going to fail. Hugely. The numbers do not add up.

Comments

[wfour]

As a primary care physician, I agree with the idea that a single party payor system would do the most good for the most people. The reason we do not have one is that the large insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment companies and the hospital industry do not want it. These groups have a lobby that is far more effective in influencing our elected officials than the voters who elect them.
In an attempt to make a proposal that would not entirely cut out the existing stake holders I suggest we consider the following:
A single party payor (US Govt) for catastrophic health problems, (to be defined by expert panels and administered by centers of excellence around the country)
A medical savings account with means testing (based on family income; not assets) for non catastrophic health issues.
This allows the insurance companies to stay in the game. They will have lower risk and hence be able to provide a product at a lower cost. The purchaser should be the individual/or family and not the employer. The insurance company will not be allowed to make exclusions a part of any offering.
Every stake holder gets something of what they want.

[AcitizenNJ]

GREAT POST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the same people you hear screaming from their acclaimed moral mountain about how we as a nation have lost our moral compass we get a story such as this. it just makes me wonder what compass the michelle malkin and her kind use to make there way.

why do they find it so easy without any compassion only to imply that these individuals that fall under hard times should be treated as worthless and useless as humans beings.

sounds like the emotional reaction of a corportion, but then again isn't that what we've become.

[Dantheman99]

Excellent points here.

If you want single-payer health care, then vote Green Party for Congress and State Legislature, the only party willing to stand up to the health insurance corporations becaues they do not accept corporate money.

That being said, if you must vote for Hillary for Pres, her modest plan at least moves towards universality in principle. What conservative want to fight most of all, even more than any government involvement at all, is the establishment of the principle of universal access to health care.

Conservatives prefer health care being a privilege determined by wealth and status, rather than a basic right to be ensured to all citizens regardless of class.

The Clinton and Edwards plans both bring the concept of universality into establishment, however weakly. However, I'm voting Green Party for Congress. The corporate-financed Democrats and Republicans won't even let the limited plans of Clinton and Edwards come into law.

Until we have publicly financed elections, both free and fair elections, we will not see the kind of public policies this country desperately needs.

[realpolitic]

Conservatives believe in a true Darwinian system of work and provide your own health care or live under a bridge. This system breaks down when a provider can deny your application for care for pre-existing conditions or can simply deny your claim. An employer may not cover you and your family. There should be more choices for people than access to health care or life long impoverishment. Only Scrooge could appreciate such a Dickensonian society of have and have nots.

[nuQlerOstrich]

One Democratic candidate for President is a co-sponsor of HR676 Medicare for all.

Dennis Kucinich.

He was advocating for Single-Payer in 2004 and the Democratic Platform Committee shot it down because it offended many campaign donors.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dennis_Kucinich_Health_Care.htm

Kucinich's plan, HR 676, is supported by 78 Members of Congress , more than 260 Union Locals , and 14,000 physicians and is endorsed by the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
http://www2.kucinich.us/issues/universalhealth.php

[JusticiaParaTodos]

I support Kucinich all the way and I am active in Texas pushing for 676! The number of members of Congress backing 676 has risen to 82 and there are now 325+ labor unions backing 676! 676 also has the endorsement of Latinos For A National Health Insurance (Latino M.D.s), Board of Church & Society of the United Methodist Church, Progressive Democrats of America, Physicians For A National Health Program and film maker Michael Moore!

[Janskats]

Insurance is a legalized protection racket..same as what the boys with the broken noses "offer". You pay, or you suffer..or even die. Flash..insurance coverage is already forced by a need for accessible care. Doctors are strongarmed into lowering prices for insurance plans, requiring jacked-up prices for those who pay as they go. My husband (engineer) and I (secretary) were "outsourced", weeks apart (can't be..the economy is in GRRReat shape). There went the benefits! The jobs we finally found offer next to none..latest trend. Flyers from Blue Cross advertise "private" insurance at exorbitant rates, hiked up even more, should you have high blood pressure or any other condition they can think of!
I've lost all patience with these chimps-chained-to-stools, parroting phrases like "socialized medicine", tossed to them by fear-mongering trainers, shilling for Insurance. (What's in YOUR portfolio?) Ignorant, hooting chimps, terrified of words! The pilgrims lived in a "socialized" society, those first years here. They'd have died, if not! Single-pay care can be customized to fit American needs, without the dreary, baboushka-scarved, peasants-in-line images the right conjures! Efficiency? Get real! Checked your doctor bills against the insurance statement? Better start..hundreds of errors and omissions cost you thousands. Wait long on the Insura-mafia phoneline, for "Candice" from Calcutta to rudely respond in unintelligible English? Your procedure was partially or fully denied? How much does it REALLY cost per year..and THIS is the better way? It's obscene!
Love those politicians..government employees enjoy taxpayer-paid health care, but tell the rest of us to get screwed! Tony Snow (AKA Twilight Zone large-headed alien at podium, holding book entitled "To Serve Man") said he left Bush because he needed more money to pay for his healthcare! How in hell do they expect the rest of us to make it? Forced insurance benefits INSURANCE COMPANIES! If a doctor could practice without interference from Insurance..the needless Middleman..we would soon see a more EFFICIENT and far less expensive version of medical care than we have now!

[Lane]

Insurance is a legalized protection racket..same as what the boys with the broken noses "offer".
Yes, and you can thank Nixon for the HMO's that rule our hell nowadays!

[deminmo]

The talk radio spin machine was at it again, and brought up the fact the children attend private school. If a child has physical disabilities or learning problems then private schools offer more one on one with the child. In most public schools a teacher is lucky if they have less than 45 students in the class. Keeping up with that many is time consuming.

And what all of us have been saying is we have to be able to afford health care to get it. And that our employers are either dropping coverage or not offering it in the first place because of the expense. There are no alternatives sometimes other than government programs.

[wilty]

Leave it to the Bushy Gang to witness how they, oh, so cleverly cherry pick words to scare the BeJesus out of people, to keep them ignorant of the situation, to wit:

Socialized medicine = communism and the Terror
Reign of Josef Stalin - "oh, gosh, we can't allow that to happen; those Good Sheperds - Bushy and his boys, will kick their ass - so forget SOCIALIZED (BOOH!!) medicine.

Or, they get the "Windbag" Limbaugh to stress the words, "Private School", and conveniently leave out the fact, that the Frost kids are scholarship students.

Lie, lie and more lying.. Obfuscators of the truth. The fact that more and more people still seem unaware (or simply no longer care) of this
prevaricating nonsense coming from these slimy, greedy, criminals, surely saddens me.

Not until more and more people get mugged by the Bushy gang, and have the threat of an ongoing draft hanging either over their heads, or those of their children, will there be even a remote chance of killing off this truly, viscious cancer.

[nuQlerOstrich]

You want to see socialized medicine?

Go to any city General Hospital Emergency Room and you will see plenty of illegals waiting for their free socialized medicine. Where a $100 cut will cost $5,000. Or a sore throat, $8,000.

Then look on your property tax bill and see the "Hospital District Taxing Authorty" assessment to see how much you are paying for it.

[janmB]

MEDICAID helps the poorest in our country. Its the ones JUST above the poverty line and in essense the middle class that needs help.
I believe there is an average out there that says a family of four needs $12,000 a year to put towards health insurance and yet it won't pay 100% of everything.
Today--with the cost of energy and food prices going up not keeping up with income---we have a huge problem in this country

[splashy]

Actually, in many states Medicaid ONLY helps the poorest children and elderly. The WORKING ADULTS are left completely out - the parents of those children that NEED their parents to continue working so they can eat and have a roof over their heads.

Strange that in our country the people that are actually doing some of the PHYSICALLY HARDEST work get the least amount of health care. They NEED it the most, but are left out in the cold. It absolutely doesn't make any sense.

[Archie1955]

Kudabux I think you missed the point of Totalliberal's story. All she was pointing out was that Canadian healthcare is not the socialized healthcare of say, the old Soviet Russia. In Canada the healthcare providers are professional, warm, caring people who do not treat you like a number or a dollar sign. You get to pick your own doctor. You get specialists where necessary and you get timely help. If for any reason you can't get the timely help in Canada they will send you to the under utilized U.S. health system and pay for it. Don't forget you personally are paying an annual premium for your coverage even if it is less than 10% of annual premiums in the
U.S. for the same coverage, and you are paying taxes which are slightly higher than in the U.S. so that everyone is covered. I for one am happy to pay such taxes to be assured that children like the Frosts are covered and will get satisfactory care. It's a matter of public policy. A country's greatest asset is its children, why not protect them?

[howdouno]

Great post and solid debunking of rightwing gibberish.

Here's another contrast between European style single payer and AMerican private insurance companies - THE AMOUNT OF PAPERWORK!

Unfortunately, a close relative recently died of cancer. While visiting her a few months ago, I was stunned at the amount of paperwork that this fully-insured, middle-class professional had to fill out in her weakened condition. Here, at her weakest point, the bureaucratic culture placed more demands on her than ever before.

In contrast, a friend from Norway and I were talking about her father's battle with cancer. In Norway, under a single payer national health care system called Socialism in the mainstream media, her father has not seen a single bill. His medical condition remains uncurable, but his last months won't be filled with battling insurance companies to pay bills. He will be allowed to die without surplus stress and pressure being placed on him.

We all have expiration dates, and all have a right to modern medical care. Why should we have to spend so much energy, time, and strength on paperwork when we are physically weakest?

[BoulderSue]

howdouno: Wow! Have you got it right about the paperwork! I am barred from treatment by any doctor from one medical center in town after major surgery by one of their doctors. Most of my providers submit claims directly to my insurance. This center did not. I assumed they would because, like everyone else, they asked to see and make copies of my insurance cards. I am on Medicare as well as a private plan, so each procedure, even something relatively minor like an X-ray, is followed by a blizzard or EOB's (Explanation of benefits) plus statements from everyone who looked, touched or talked to you. Most statements are explanations of what the procedure cost and what would be billed to Medicare and private insurance, not bills. I found out to my sorrow that what I got from this particular center WAS a bill that I was expected to pay and then submit request for reimbursement from Medicare and insurance. You are absolutely right: when you are in pain and recovering from major surgery, you don't notice the fine print, and these people were in an unusual hurry for their money. I grant: people must take responsibility for themselves, and I try to. I have occasionally overpaid providers who had already been paid by Medicare, and everyone is slow to inform you sometimes. I've gotten more than one refund. But this group was playing by a different set of rules, were in a huge hurry, and I hadn't even had the stitches out. We finally paid them out of pocket, which really stretched our resources, and after several months and lots of paperwork and phone calls, were reimbursed. But I got a letter from this medical center informing me that I could not use their providers anymore. An appeal in writing and by phone did no good. Fortunately this town attracts lots of good docs... Just be sure to read the fine print on everything you get from an insurer, even if you are still groggy from the painkillers (or in this case, practically the anesthetic).

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

And while certain commenters are on their pay-your-own way theme, how about we apply that to OTHER insurance topics?

e.g. NO MORE FREE FIRE DEPARTMENT COVERAGE.

You can't afford to pay the fireman? Tough. Your house burns down.

We'll have a free market competition -- bust up that baaaad state monopoly -- for who's going to douse the flames.

Three companies will respond. You hire the low bidder.

Who could POSSIBLY object?

[juangault]

Being a 30 year employee of the health care industry, I've seen it all. Believe it or not, I know most of it all too. The reason universal health insurance is so difficult and be so expensive is all the different ways it can be fudged. Here are a few major ones.

A surgery doesn't go right, a lawsuit ensues. The lawyers clean up, some even goes to the patient.

Millions of people, a lot who don't even speak our language, show up expecting some kind of treatment, that medical care providers are required to give it to them, and they turn around and add it to cost of the people who do have legitimate insurance.

Old grandma is going to live maybe another year, but she insists on getting a new knee. What the heck, it's only a hundred grand.

Once people do get insurance, they take advantage of it. "Son, how's those 360's on your dirt bike coming along?" "I try and try, but I just can't lose any weight", she said, through the spaghetti hanging from her face.

We all know the drug kingpins live lavish lives on the beachfront in the finest neighborhoods. But that flamboyance rubs off on the doctors, administrators and Mormons (check out the Oakland Kaiser gang) who all want to live like them pill pushers. If the govt pays, it's like having an IV in the main vein.

Folks, it will take much more discipline than people in general have to make it work. Frost just needs to bite the bullet and get a job with health insurance, like a Union security guard, even if it only pays minimum wage.

[voice1]

This very line of "reasoning" (so deplorably common throughout Corporate America, including our Medical Industry) is that the abusers are everybody, and everybody is an abuser. Smarmy generalizations do not fix the problem.
Indeed, the only generalization that is true is that most generalizations are overbroad, and therefore, inaccurate & untrue.
And let's keep in mind the original point in the article that generated this thread.....Michelle and Rusty's assertion that the Frosts were frauds. They are not. Rush & Michelle may applaud themselves every time the Right Wing faithful cheer them on, but the reality is that their power base is beginning to fragment, because there are real thinkers in the American Right who are questioning the party line, and cannot any longer, in all good conscience, say "ditto" every time Rusty opens up a microphone.

[RogerHWerner]

I have to say that I'm sick to death of hearing about individual corruption, and, personal greed and laziness. If we uncovered every single act of personal corruption since this country began: Insurance fraud, check kiting, income tax cheating, cheating on bills, everything.... If we added these items together, I'd be surprised if the total would exceed the amount of money lost to individuals or taxpayers during the Savings and Loan debacle of the late 1980s, the Enron/WorldCom/Tyco meltdowns of a few years ago, or the present crony capitalistic scam in the Iraq. Corporate America is and always will be the single largest purveyor of fraud and ill-begotten gains in American history. If its possible for a corporation to cheat and get away with it that is what will occur because they know that if they are caught, the price will always be less than the gain. This "rule of thumb" applies to the healthcare industry (deny a claim even if its valid, deny care even if its justified).

The fact is single payer insurance works in Canada, Australia, and Europe. It works wherever it has been implemented. Do people request unnecessary services? I'm sure they do but the amount this costs pales in comparison to the waste that occurs annually in our present system. Even if single payer insurance costs a little more, having 45 million Americans without healthcare is patently obscene.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

To all the socialism-phobes, trolls, and quasi-serious commenters (e.g. M-Dude), a simple conundrum:

If we pay the most (total per capita) and are not the most healthy for it, why won't you all acknowledge the system IS the problem, and needs fixing?

Why hasn't free market efficiency driven down costs, and driven up "health?"

Operators are standing by.

[wrabbitt]

they all know what the problem is but, until the greedy sob's find a way to make money off it we are all SOL. maybe if they didn't have health care it would change.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Hmmm... a game so rigged it can't be rigged any more crooked. We ARE screwed.

[Mormondude]

"If we pay the most (total per capita) and are not the most healthy for it, why won't you all acknowledge the system IS the problem, and needs fixing?"

Part of our additional costs go toward making our patients the most satisfied on the planet. And I already mentioned the demographic issues we face. They aren't going away anytime soon, unless Jesse Jackson and Al Sharton are successful in their efforts to ignite an all-out race war. A chart doesn't tell the whole story.

[splashy]

Only a very small percentage are satisfied, like the ones getting the socialized health care as politicians, the rest are PO'd.

Especially the ones dying from a lack of basic health care because they have been denied it by insurance companies and/or they can't pay.

[littleblackcat]

You have spoken the truth here and given me a laugh in the bargain. Neat post, concise, tongue-in-cheek, great.

[InsaneDisabled]

The only way health care can be paid for in the free market is if we abandon one of our most sacred precepts -- that all human life is valuable.
Heroic measures to save a life are extremely expensive. And they are most likely to be used on people who have the least value to the overall economy -- the aged and disabled. Lifesaving is a huge expense with no corresponding benefit.
A small economic unit -- a family -- simply can't handle that kind of expense. Yet they are morally required to take it on.
Insurance spreads the expense over a larger economic unit, but profit-taking adds to the expense with no corresponding health benefit. And those who need medical care the most are least eligible because taking care of them is least profitable.
So that's what we have now -- the mostly healthy paying extortionate rates to ensure the profits of a small number of people, while the people most in need of health care either get it through a government program or go without and get sicker and die younger.
It's cold to describe human life in terms of profitability -- but nothing is more frozen than a corporation's heart.

[bknott]

To be blunt, Michelle Malkin is an insane bitch. Assuming she has the ability to be rational or empathetic is kind of like thinking you can talk a crocodile into taking care of your baby.

[THERIGHTWING]

I think you forgot the $160k rental property they have and the fact he only works part time. Sounds to me like he might be getting some under the table work. I think if you are going to have 6 kids or is it 4? Either way you need to be working full time. If you can't afford the kids you have you surely should not be having more. Why is it that I must work harder to afford your kids? Why? Someone please put forward an honest answer to personal responsibility.

[wrabbitt]

we all need to have health care. if it causes the insurance companys that CONTROL health care now to go bankrupt so be it if senators and congresspeople have stock in or ties to big health care or big drugs they should be impeached for conflict of interest free enterprise is one thing ain't we been ripped off by these crooks long enough?

[Tennwoman]

Unless you know this family personally, you have no idea under what circumstances their children were conceived. Are you suggesting those children should not have been born? And, who are you to question whether or not they can "afford" their kids? The kids they can afford, the ridiculous cost of healthcare is what is out of their reach, just as it is for millions of middle class families. You seem to forget that your taxes don't just pay for social programs. Taxes pay for schools, roads, police and fire protection, teachers, public utilities, and the salaries and perks of every elected official.
If you have to "work harder", you are doing so only for yourself. I suspect the minimal dent that taxes put in your paycheck is depriving you of a bigger car, a fancier house or a flat screen tv. You work harder because you want nonessential stuff, not to pay for other peoples' kids. And, I sure hope you are pro-choice, if you really believe you have the right to say who should or should not have children.
The Frosts have been denied health coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Even if they did without basic needs to afford coverage, they cannot get it. If the government can't help people in that kind of situation, it is a sad, sad day for all of us.

[splashy]

Wow, what a BUNCH of assumptions! You might want to check into it a bit more before making these kinds of statements.

[areacode631]

Canadians come here because their medical system sucks. I come from Europe and socialized medicine is horrible. I am also a veteran and utilize the VA. The VA is a microcosm of what government run healthcare is like and I can say, first hand, that it is the worst of the worst. I don't think that people should be forced to pay for others healthcare and nobody talks about the huge taxation this will entail. Europeans pay more than 65% of their income to the government for their "free healthcare"

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Well, if you have the VA you have "free" socialized state paid medical care.

This saves you about $1,000 per month.

[wrabbitt]

i'm a vet but, i don't want to go to the VA i risked my life once thats enough

[malcolm37b]

Where do you get your information? I have a vast circle of friends and co-workers and I have never heard of anybody going to the States for medical care. I can can speak from personal experience that our system doesn't suck, as at age 70 I have had to avail myself of it's services.

[kentfx]

I don't know who this "areacode631" clown is, but as one who lives in Europe (Belgium and Italy), I can assure you that health care doesn't cost 65% of anyone's income here. That's just a lie -- it's not true anywhere on the continent, or even remotely close to the truth. You pay your taxes, you get all kinds of humane benefits in this society. The most right-wing people I know around here (and there are some real ravers) will never, ever claim that the health system is anything but exemplary. This guy claims he's from Europe, but I'm really skeptical.

[testerwebbdemocrat]

Dis-information troll.

[splashy]

No, they don't. Did you LOOK at the graphs?

ALL other countries pay less, when you take into account co-pays, deductibles, premiums, Medicaid, Medicare, Workman's Comp, and the other health care taxes WE pay. Put it all together, which the graphs do, and they pay far less than we do. It just isn't called "health care costs" here. It's been broken up into all kinds of things, probably so people won't notice just how much we are paying, all of us.

[hellinabucket]

This all makes me wonder how many Americans choose to DIE rather than face astronomical medical bills? Calling Dr. Kevorkian! How sad that we can't provide for our most precious resource-our people.

[splashy]

At least 18,000 a year die from easily treatable causes, many from waiting too long, so that would be the smallest number.