Are you stupid?  

But it won't be the same. It will be better because you will be truly free to see the doctor of YOUR choice not the IN-surance company's choice.

I beleive it will be better also, but i think that the general population will think of it as being free and therfore you get what you pay for type of deal. I think people will be scared that since the doctors are giving them free care that they wont try as hard as if they were getting paid by the insurance company.

Not at all, We have a set ammount of doctors, but the whole purpose of this bill is to make it so more people can go to the doctor for whatever reason, and they will. that means the doctors get an even bigger work load, and the good ones are stretched to the max as is. my friend couldn't even go into the doctors office with her one and two year old, you know, little kids who would be more comfortable in that setting with their mommy, not to mention they could do whatever treatment they think of as "standard" and not tell mommy till after even if she dissaproved, I don't care if you get to choose your doctor. If those kind of policies continue (which they will probably increase, I havn't seen them adress what they are going to do to make this easier on the actual medical workers yet.)

Personally I think the best option is to help those who truly truly need it, like those who can't afford medication and treatments that would keep them alive, and thats about it, I'm sorry I would have been wasting hundreds and hundreds of dollars and people's time to be going to the doctor once a year or more for every little thing, (and by little, I mean things such as a spastic cologn that many people go to the doctor for right away, but my mom had had it before, and she knew what I should do. It hurt like hell, but the doctors wouldn't have been able to make the pain go away faster.)
They need to: Increase money going torward medical education and equiptment engineering, possibly create a government issued malpractice insurance, where you only start paying it if you don't meet certain requirements, and medical research into "alternative healing" such as vitamins and herbs (the only reason they are "alternative healing" is nobody has researched them, because if they are found to do something, noone can sell them exclusively, and the magazine reports I hear saying vitamins don't do anything, often are cheap excuses for vitamins, the wrong dosage, or they are checking for something that they are right it doesn't do, but does indeed do something.) And education for the people in what is healthy, and possibly nurses trained to do basic check ups instead of General practitioners, that would probably lower the cost too, but a lot of the cost for a doctor, is they make a lot yeah, but they generally have 6-12 years of college to pay off plus malpractice insurance... and with medication? the pharmacy companies are greedy everyone knows that, possibly force them to become nonprofit organizations? idk... I'm usually for government not getting in the way of business, but these guys screw with peoples health to make a buck.

The IN-surance companies are trying to say that the government will do exactly what they do day in and day out. Only they won't profit by it.

Oh heavens!!! What will we do if the liars cheats and theives in the IN-surance biz can't screw the citizens silly anymore?

I have been watching those sell out GOP congressmen and senators beaking off about not being against reform, but the want to "get it right." That is double speak for, we want to make sure our contributing friends who expect us to look after THEIR interests are in fact looked after at the expense of the citizens of the US.

The motto for most congressmen and senators is "I am for sale to the highest contributor."

I want to know how many of the nay saying GOP are one's having IN-surance companies funding their election campaigns?

once again thank you Mike, you explain it so I can understand it.. I wish they would stop all of the 'doubletalk'....Lori

You can be sure the IN-surance companies are laying out Millions of Dollars to the Politicians to vote down Obama's Plan. The Clinton's tried it, and the In-surance Companies won. For Gods sake America, Give Obama a chance, Any Plan would be better than the In-surance company's plan you have now!

Never one to keep shiit like this bottled up you know...

What can I say to that?

Forget the bigger picture. Focus on the health care.

If the government decides to offer something affordable to all, the money being frittered away on IN-surance companies will go to the affordable solution which will be the universal health option.

The budget will be bigger and more taxes collected for certain. But the additional taxes collected will be more than offset by the premiums not paid to the theives at your local IN-surance company.

Given an opportunity, I would piss on the legs of any IN-surance exec. Either that or their bottle of green tea...

Are you sure that this letter came via your government? And which level of government and are they on the same side as Obama or not? As to the government taking it out of your estate after you die, why not ask Obama himself? He twitters, blogs and all the rest of the social stuff that you and I do so why not ask him to answer your questions?

In Canada it works like this to the best of my knowledge. I am self employed so for two people I pay to the government a premium for basic health care coverage. I pay $399.00 per 3 months so $1596. per year. If I am unemployed social assistance pays for me and they also cover any medications I need, eye care, and dental care. If I work for a company the company and I pay the premiums and they also pay for extended medical through Blue Cross or some other health insurance company and this extended health insurance covers things that the government health insurance does not cover, like dental, prosthetic and stuff like some cosmetic surgery and other things that I may want done. The last time I was working for a company who paid my health insurance it cost the company about $2500. per year.

Of course, I'm healthy as a horse and I hardly ever need medical or dental or any other kind of care but in the event that I got bucked off my horse, was involved in a car accident, I fell skating and knocked out my front teeth, tripped and fell and broke something like my leg, had a baby or like that, I didn't have to worry about how I was going to pay for the health care. I usually had to pay a percentage of my dental care, like 20% to zero when we worked for a company that provided extended health care. If one of my children was injured at school or while skying on the mountain or ski dooing again, I didn't have to worry about the cost of them getting injured, we might have to pay for the ambulance or if needed the air ambulance but not if it were an accident at work if we worked for a company who provided extended health care coverage. Having said that, I for one am damn glad that I don't have to worry in the event that I get the swine ahem, H1N1 flue and happen to be one of the very few who are susceptible to it and need hospitalization or more visits to my doctor than normal. People who have diseases that they have no control over are covered by the governments social medi care program which means that they and their families are not going to have to borrow money or go bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills. Of course it helps if one has the where withall to pay for the extra stuff like wheel chairs, nurses and the other things that make life more bareable but then there is always charitable organizations who help those who need it out. Again, if everyone had to pay for the full cost of their medical needs as they do in the US I doubt that these organizations would be as successful or as able as they are now.

There are also other places that the money to pay comes from. For instance, friends of mine in their seventies, needed hip replacement surgery. They both waited about a year for the surgery each. But when my mother needed the same surgery on her hip, she waited about two months for hers. All of them were provided their surgeries through health care but one of them had extended health insurance through her teacher's pension plan who paid part of the cost of the surgery, the hospital stay and the visits to her at home after the surgery to change bandages and clean the wounds etc. and for her physical therapy after the surgery. In some cases, like ours, we owned a company that provided services to the logging industry, we paid premiums to Workers Compensation yearly and if one of our employees was injured on the job, WCB helped pay some of the medical costs. Not without a fight mind you but mostly they did. This also helped with the loss of wages while the medical paid for the doctor's services, hospital stay and meds.
Personally, I don't think that most people in Canada even think about how lucky we are that we don't have to worry about medical costs putting us in the poor house. Of course there is some misuse and abuse of the system, there are crooks everywhere these days but our system is sure something that we depend upon from birth!

No kidding!!

They are going to drag this thing to death. Too bad the American people are not smart enough to see the BS being sprayed on them.

I have MS. There is no way I could afford IN-surance myself. Then there is the meds.

And up here we don't have to get a divorce so that we can get onto government medicare

No you don't. You want something universally fair and affordable which meets the needs of you and your family. You want to be able to choose your doctor without being told who you can see. You want to be covered no matter where you go in your own country.

And you want to be confident that you will be treated when you are ill or hurt. Our universal health care does all of that for $100 each month including hospitalization coverage, and procedures like CT and MRI scans. ALL with zero deductables.

No you don't understand. A few years ago I went to the chiropractor that I had been seeing for years to have my back adjusted. He told me that my thyroid was swollen and I should go and see my doctor, which I did. She sent me for an x-ray at the hospital and during the first of my 1/4 cup of barium swallow the radiologist came out from behind his wall and told me not to finish swallowing, to stand right there he would be right back. Ten minutes later he came running back and said get dressed while I write down directions so you can go to the ear, nose and throat specialist because you have a hole in your esophagus and you need help right now. He wrote down detailed directions for the specialist's office and sent me off to my emergency appointment which he had made while he was gone and I waited. Off I went directly to the specialist, no waiting for permission from some impersonal HMO or anyone else including my own doctor. I went to the specialist's office where he examined me with a scope and immediately got on the telephone to book the surgeon and the OR for a surgery that was in a week's time. I didn't need to contact medical, nor HMO or insurance company nor did my doctor or the specialist who incidentally was visiting from South Africa. I checked into the hospital at 8:00 am and by 10:30 I was being prepped for the surgery and by 12:30 I was coming to in my hospital room and four days later after reassuring himself that I was perfectly capable of driving for a few hours through 3 feet of new snow in a new blizzard which dumped an additional 2 feet of snow on the highway home, he discharged me with an appointment to see me in two weeks to follow up and see that everything was fine. I could have chosen to stay an extra day or so until the storm was over and the highway crews were able to get the highway cleared of snow. I never even had to hesitate to think of the cost if I had chosen to stay, in fact, it never even crossed my mind until I read the above. Being a single mother with a dependent ten year old at home waiting for me to come home I did not have to worry about the cost of this emergency surgery which my specialist told me was an emergency because I could well have choked to death in my sleep one night and he was amazed that I had not done so already. I didn't realize that I had a tear and that food was going where it had no business going at all. All this and it did not cost me a single cent I didn't even have any decisions to make, in fact it never even crossed my mind to ask what this operation and four day stay in the hospital and the meds cost.
There is no plan to be pigeon-holed into. If you require or your child requires or your great grandmother requires health care, that is what they get and they get the same level of care whether you are white, black, orange or purple with pink polka dots! You get it whether you are a dish washer or a doctor, the Prime Minister of Canada or someone's great grandmother who is 100 years old or someone's new born baby. If you chose to go to the US instead of waiting for a surgery room or a certain doctor then that is your choice and you may do that without consulting anyone except that service for yourself. In other words, if you have the money and you want to you can go anywhere and see any doctor and receive any level of health care that you want to. Canada's health care program will even cover any follow up medical costs you might have, like a visit to your doctor so they might check to see that the whole operation went as planned ')

Why is it that the American people are the only one's who cannot see the benefits of universal health care?

The rest of the industrialized world has it and has so for many years. Why would this be a bad thing for you?