| The McCain health care plan might not be the best possible option. But I am not in favor of universal coverage for all Americans because I don’t see health care as a right. It is a privilage and as such one needs to work to obtain the privilages in life.
I would agree that something needs to be done to control the spriralling cost of health care but I don’t see universal coverage as the answer to helping to control costs. IMHO the willy-nilly handing out of extra coverage in the 70’s and 80’s is a big part of the reason costs have gotten so far out of hand in the first place.
The way health care coverage has been handled placed insurance companies between the buyer and the seller. As such the buyer became obliviouse to the cost. Because of this buyers no longer factored in cost in determining what kind of care and from what provider they got that care. This lead to many (too many) providers taking advantage of the system and jacking up prices and giving out care above and beyond what was necessary - to maximize their profit. Now we are all paying the price for that seperation of the buyer and the seller in the marketplace.
There is also the extreamly litigious nature of things in the US which has led to exorbinate liability coverage for care givers that also has become a rather major factor in the cost of health care. The dad of one of me best mates from school is a doctor and he left private practive nearly ten years ago because of the cost of his insurace and what that meant to the prices he had to charge customers for their care.
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"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion" - Steven Weinberg |