@Don Bly
I’ve been thinking since I wrote that, about what could be done. The insurance model roots go everywhere. To really change that would be a huge upheaval, and it’s hard to know where to start with incremental changes.
I’d be all right with the idea if we had any money for govt. guarantees, which we don’t now. However, when we get into credit we get into all the banking regulations over credit. And there would still be the problem of unlimited costs.

One of the reasons it’s such a hard problem is that insurance has created the illusion that all you need is the right insurance policy and everything is magically fixed. But, medical advances have made some fixes really, really expensive. When Medicare started it was for the elderly and people with endstage renal failure on dialysis. There were very few of them at the time and it was obviously a catastrophe for those people so it was an easy feel-good measure. Now there are a lot of them, because people are living longer, and not only do they have ESRF but have developed other problems. The cost hasn’t decreased with time and practice, it increased. For one thing, now we have HIV to worry about. This increases cost for disposables to avoid cross-contamination. We have the pharm companies coming up with wonderful expensive drugs to treat the side effects of dialysis. If it weren’t for Medicare, these people would reach their lifetime insurance caps. Then what? They would need added money for the rest of their lives, or they could die. If that happened to me, I wouldn’t prolong the agony while holding out hope for a transplant (and the huge cost of that, and the huge ongoing cost of immune suppressants, and the ongoing cost of infection care because of the immune suppressants). I’d eat well and die. It isn’t such a bad way to go, only about 3-4 days.

This is only one example of an intractable health problem that will drain costs and lower the pool fund of any insurance scheme, but since it is now an entitlement, it is draining the country. Hard though it is to accept, there is a limit to resources. Every insurance model comes with resource limits, which is why Palin was very safe to say there were “death panels,” because when the resources dry up, you die. (I wouldn’t have put it that way, though) I think the first part of any reform has to address the issue of where the money is coming from and where it is going. And if you think our govt. has confused accounting, the whole medical industrial complex is just as hard to figure out.

I personally would favor entitlement only to preventative services with a public component, like food inspection. This doesn’t have to be nanny statism like listening to Michelle harangue about obesity and the government putting info labels on food. It would keep the govt. busy enough just to do a better job monitoring food and water quality. I would also favor special credit or loans for catastrophic illnesses. (What do you do if your medical credit rating is shot, though?) Chronic illnesses, I don’t know. That could get to be a big can of worms.

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Pat… I’ve cajoled a few people into commenting on my idea of a credit line for health care costs with gov guarantees. Do you have an opinion?

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@IluvBee’s

Patvann already stated what I would have. The common element in the oath’s of the military, congress and the president is:

support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic

It is my opinion that congress and the president have failed that oath many times over the course of the it’s existence, but most notably during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This latest attempt at intrusion into our daily lives carries with it a veiled, but strong governmental control of our lives. The dems have said and continue to say that it isn’t a governmental takeover of healthcare, yet I challenge that lie based on the controls that would exist under this healthcare plan. Much of it is in violation of the Constitution, and as such, is why I consider any who vote yes for it to be a “domestic” enemy of the Constitution and to have failed in their oath.

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@IluvBee’s

A little information for you…

We do not make an “oath to the president”, we make an oath “to protect the constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic”.

-It’s getting close to the time where we might have to actively support that oath, because I see my president and the Neofascists (AKA Democrats) as the enemy to that constitution.

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@Don Bly–
I feel for you, this story plays out daily and is why the “healthcare reform” idea is so seductive. It is way too hard for the average individual to make sense of even their own insurance plan, and that’s the easy part.

Historically, health insurance is relatively new on the scene. Back when it started the demographics for a risk pool based coverage were more favorable and the high priced drugs and treatment we have now didn’t exist and the whole premise was reasonable.

However, as we have both experienced, the insurance companies had leverage with hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies because they could offer assurance that there would be some reimbursement guaranteed. Of course they all jumped on it because before that time, the system was that rich people paid their way, and the excess that could be charged to the rich was used to support the poor or ruined-through-expenses group, and with the insurance model they could plan their income better and make more.

Thus the doctors were cast as insurance supporters. I think now they tend to hate the present system of preapprovals, but in the public eye docs are still driving healthcare costs.

Then pharmaceuticals took off and figured out how to cover their R&D costs, same as hospitals, gouge the uninsured and cut a deal with the insurance costs. IMO this is what’s driving increases, the cost of drugs, which is also more complex than it appears, because insurance cos. and drug companies are at the heart of many mutual funds, and we built a lot of the economy on “savings” by investment.

Then trial lawyers and commerce regulators and the FDA got into it.

This is why I’m always saying, it isn’t healthcare reform (that 0 is pushing). It’s a different insurance plan trying to cover not only a power grab but all the other things that have grown dependent on an insurance model. In my opinion the classical insurance model can’t work in the current climate any better than it is now. The whole mess needs to be torn down to basic wants and assumptions and rebuilt.

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JOHNgalt it must be problem if you have made the OATH to obey also the President and you do not want to or it is against what he does against the Constitution,also does the soldier muslim who killed did he made the OATH? i would thik he did as a military.

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@Tim

That letter is good. Hopefully the kid shows some sense and takes your advice on reading material. As for considering both sides of an issue, that is a common cop-out by the independents who don’t want to stick their neck out too far either direction for fear of getting it chopped off. I learned much from my father, and none of it was political, yet, it all applies to politics, and when those values are applied to political issues, I know then what I believe is right and have no need to consider the “other side”. Now, some lefties will say they do the same thing with their values, however, my guess is that their values were learned in a classroom in some higher education institution by a teacher or instructor who’s values run more along statism than anything else (and my apologies Tim, for I know your job and I do not mean to lump all in together in that).

I did not finish higher education, and enlisted in the Navy at age 19. I took an oath on the day of enlistment and as my education was barely beyond high school, I did not understand it completely at the time. The military helped with the UCMJ part, and reading, rereading and studying the text of the Constitution helped me with the rest. Here is the text of the oath:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Our congressional representation and the President take a similar oath about the Constitution. I am not a formally educated Constitutional scholar like some of our current crop of oath takers in DC, but I would put my knowledge and belief in it up there with any and all of them. Much has been said on here by certain individuals over the course of the past couple of weeks about “precedent” in regards to the Constitution and how it applies or should apply in the particular case of Obamacare. I believe that relying on “precedent” like many of the congress critters are in following the disastrous footsteps of the president and congressional leadership is not only wrong, but is in direct violation of the oath taken. I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic . The Constitution is a fairly simple document to understand, indeed, I would put much of the required reading by our high schools at a higher level of reading and comprehension than the Constitution is. It clearly defines the limits of the federal government, and states as well that anything not given to the federal government in the way of it’s duties and actions is reserved for the states and the people. By ignoring what is limited to the federal government, our congress people are breaking their oath and should, without any doubt in my mind, be held accountable for those actions.

We must, as a society, hold our federally elected officials to their oaths, and require compliance by the federal government to the Constitution, or we will find out soon that the liberties and freedoms we have taken for granted are soon gone forever and we will no longer be a representative republic, but a socialist society where only a privileged few have any freedoms and the rest of us are mere serfs to a central government. Indeed, we are already under the thumb of the federal government in many ways, and this healthcare legislation is only one more shackle to keep us there.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

And:

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

Thomas Jefferson

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@Tim.

Man yer good.

People, I would request you’all go back and read it again. Aloud this time. Thar it iz.

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The answer to “What to do about America” should be as plain as the nose on our faces. We need to exercise the real “nuclear option”. No, don’t shoot, not yet. Two thirds of the states may demand a Constitutional Convention! It’s way overdue. Many worry that we can’t control what comes out of such a convention, once it is set in motion — the same concern would have applied to the orginal convention. Anything that comes out of the convention must be ratified by three quarters of the states, so I’m not overly concerned about radical elements hijacking the convention and imposing their will on the rest of the populace. A Constitutional Convention could smack down the federal leviathan, restoring the proper balance between the central government in Washington and the states, and the people. No other means will accomplish anything more than a temporary reprieve from the tyranny of the federal government.

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I’d like some of the drugs he’s on….. must be GOOD stuff!!! LOL!!!

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