Still, Arnold’s victory last year irritated the crap out of the MSM and their Democratic pets. That does not make it worth it, but it does make it a bit enjoyable.

Why blame the HMO’s?? they are simply taking advantage of an already corrupt system?? If you want socialized healthcare then that should be your starting model, a large blundering administration that is insulated from the actual impact of it’s decisions. That’s how government operates today, why would healthcare be any different if they decided to force it on everyone?

We don’t live in a socialist society, this is a republic and we encourage capitalism as a healthy way to grow this country. It’s only been since FDR that we started down this mixed road and look where we are today… Healthcare is so expensive that we have to have ‘insurance’ to even get it anymore, somebody, somewhere is making a mint on this. It’s like buying food at a theatre, you know a cup of coke only costs 35 cents max to make (cup and all), yet they go ahead and charge $4.50 for it because you have no choice.

I assure you if a theatre chain offered the same movies as the others, charged a more reasonable ticket price and reasonable prices on the snack bar, they would be overrun with business. It’s the same with healthcare, if we would get out of the way, and let them compete the market would adjust and we’d all win.

To discount Lawyers impact on this society and healthcare in general is oddly surprising, for the last 5 years the country has seen a dramatic drop in smalltown doctors and especially OBGYN doctors. Not because we don’t have enough but because they can’t afford as a small practice to make a simple mistake and get sued, so many Dr’s just don’t do it. John Edwards made a career of suing healthcare providers for things like downs syndrome, and we now have reports that in delivery rooms there are more C-Sections being performed because hospitals are worried about any complication being fueld for a lawsuit.

If you want socialized medicine then head north to Canada, or you can go to England or even France, but good luck to you if you have something wrong and need to see a Dr or if you have something seriously wrong.

I’m all for healthcare for people who can’t afford it, a safety net of sorts and I’d happily pay taxes for something like that. But they way it works today you would get taxed and maybe %3 of that money would even go to the people who need the help, instead it would take a huge government agency that would over-regulate everything and then claim time and time again they need more funds.

Sanity’s right, the people who make these decisions have never needed a free healthcare system, they live and operate in a different class. Arnolds a closet liberal disguised as a conservative and like all liberals they are happy to spend everyone elses money to make the world a better place. Problem is they never do, Hillary Care should have been a warning to us all…

-Paul-

But it is true though biwah, nothing is free.

Somewhere, someone is paying for it.

Take from those that make money and give to those that don’t is what I believe Democrats are about. Redistribution of wealth, unless it starts cutting into THEIR wealth, that is.

How about we start instituting the type of pensions, healthcare and retirement that Senators and Congressman enjoy? They have a completely different system than we peon types do.

That’s our baseline, not “nobody gets nothin for free”.

Hillary care was bad enough but I believe she only proposed it for those that were citizens of this country, Arnold wants it for non-citizens too.

Budget or no budget, where does it come from….other people, working people, who will have to pay more taxes to pay for healthcare of non-citizens, illegal immigrants who are here, you guessed it…illegally.

The previous poster who mentioned removing the tax breaks or tax cuts of the top 1% (who already pay the majority of the taxes) sounds more like class envy to me. Just because they have money doesn’t entitle you to take it just because they earn more than you. We live in a Capitalist society, not a Socialist society. We shouldn’t punish people for making money, or keep increasing their load they pay. If they aren’t paying their fair share, fine. If they are cheating, nail their hides to the wall, but if they are paying and paying and paying, and all you want to do is make them pay more because you figure “well they have money”, then YOU are wrong. They pay the most, and it is because of them that you pay as little taxes as you do and bitch and complain that you pay too much. Perhaps you should compare taxes with one of those that pay the majority of the taxes in the US and gain some perspective.

I am not rich, hell not by far, I am married, 2 children, and I support my family and my wife stays home to take care of our children. We agreed on that so we have a parent with them at all times. Sure we sacrifice by not having an added income, but that was what WE decided. At my current level of income I make below 40k a year, but we make it, bills get paid, rent is made on time, children are fed..ect. I have good insurance through my job and while I wish I made a lot more money, I don’t envy those that do…I could be making less or doing worse.

Now that little bit of ‘understanding’ from my perspective is out of the way, I have one question…

Do you think if you cannot afford something, that it should be given to you for free?

Healthcare is a service.
Should you get a service for nothing?
That service you want for free has people that need to be paid, test that need to be paid for, medicines that need to be paid for. Should you get that for free?

Where does it say in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that my healthcare or that of an illegal immigrants, should be free?

I know its a sad thing that not everyone has insurance, or healthcare, but most states have something set up for children, like in Michigan they have MIChild. BUT what we get or want in life is paid for, one way or another.

There is no such thing as FREE healthcare, FREE housing..ect. Someone, somewhere is paying for it….which most likely means increases in taxation to cover the ‘FREE’ things you want to offer to illegal immigrants.

Utopia is nice. Conservatives are not evil or mean spirited for understanding that utopia isn’t possible. We also are actually MORE loving for understanding that it’s good to teach a man to fish rather than giving him fish.

Non-able bodied and elderly people should be taken care of and that isn’t part of the discussion. So no need to argue in the extremes.

Enough about this crap that we can’t afford it. This is the richest country in the history of the world.
There’s plenty of money to go around for health coverage for all Americans.

Hell, we LOST $9 Billion in the Iraq War, and are spending another half-trillion to fight it. AND we aren’t getting anything from it.

Money was found to give to BushCo, I’m sure we can find more to give to the needy.
Hell, roll back the richest 1%’s tax break. That should help.

Ahhh Taxes. The small price we pay to live in a civilized society.

Schwarzenegger simply ‘pulled a Bush’, who made the right look utterly inconsistent by flooding education and Medicare with new money.
Where is our alternative plan that answers the real problem of uninsured Americans? Blaming malpractice lawyers doesn’t cut it. After 10 years of being the side with new ideas, we are the ones simply repeating “We can’t do it.”

Schwarzenegger has shown he has no philosophical reason for being a member of the GOP. He was ‘small government’ when it was necessary to get elected, and big gov to stay elected. The national GOP has been pretty much the same.

The left may have old, simplistic ideas. But at least they have ideas.

Someone sold you a bill of goods on the role of lawsuits in all of this. There are thousands of lawsuits over car accidents in the courts at any given time, yet you aren’t taking out a second mortgage to fund your auto insurance are you? Meanwhile, profits well into the billions at HMOS each year.

You see the result of our health system run amok, but largely misidentify the culprits.

The costs are so high because we have overrun our courts with people looking to get rich, anytime someone gets mis-diagnosed or a mistake happens people start suing. They sue doctors, hospitals, nurses, each other, and of course the ONLY thing that will make them feel better is a big lump of cash.

A simple emergency room visit to sew up my hand 3 years ago was priced out at over $1200, and I was there maybe 30 minutes (8 stitches) in the actual room and 2 waiting. We have taken healthcare out of the hands of the healers and handed it to the wolves and snakes in the form of lawyers and people only interested in making a buck.

I understand that the staff needs to get paid, and that there are supplies involved but even still it’s vastly overpriced. Dr’s are also so afraid to make mistakes, so they overtest and instead of making quick decisions make patients suffer while they test and test and test.

Health insurance is a scam pure and simple, and socialized health care is a disaster. How many people from ‘progressive’ Canada come here to America because they can’t get simple things like a CT scan over there without waiting for weeks and weeks and weeks.

We need to change the laws on suing Dr’s and hospitals and protect them from the vultures, we also need to re-vamp our entire health-insurance industry and get some common sense rules around how all that is managed. Let the Dr’s and hospitals actually justify why a couple of simple stitches cost $1200. And finally let them compete for your business, not only with pricing but with service, if we do that then not only will we get better health care but costs will go down dramatically…

-Paul-