1. Jeff - RIGHT ON!!!! I am so happy you spoke up about national healthcare! I used to work for insurance companies and had absolutely NO hesitation telling corporate counsel at the power lunch that it was an ABOMINATION that so many people are left out in the cold - with 17,000 dead bodies a year to prove it.

Personally, I do not have the slightest fear of "socialism." To me, it means controlled capitalism while still having an open and free vibrant market; and as Hillary so aptly put it -"shared prosperity" (increase the revenue by a graduated income tax rate that goes up the more money you make - and increase services to the American people and make a real difference in making their lives better).

I'd have a million more dollars in the bank from my work career (before my health-forced retirement) if it were not for the graduated income tax I paid for years under Clinton - and I was proud to pay every dime. To me, it meant (and I know this is trite because I've said it before) SHARING so that everyone gets a chance at the American dream. Even with the graduated income tax, I was able to live VERY well on my salary - and only the selfish are against the tax. For them there is NEVER enough money or luxury. It becomes an obsession. Its the ULTIMATE hypocrisy for some conservative to shout about "right to life" and then cruelly cut off that right to life, even for a newborn uninsured baby, the second the umbilical cord is cut. After that, that little baby enters the world with only the right to life if she or he has insurance. Hillary already has a bill pending to IMMEDIATELY cover these 9 million American children without insurance.

The reason why the US is the ONLY developed nation in the world without universal health care is because our leaders from Republican Party, and those to the right of the Republican Party (such as Ro........P - I want to make sure the hordes doing constant searches don't see his name and post a bunch of odes to selfishness) are OWNED lock, stock and barrel by Big Pharma, the AMA, the hospital industry, and, or course, the insurance industry. Its time to break the stranglehold.

What is especially heartbreaking is that the incomes for the top 10% of Americans have soared under Republican rule, while everyone else's income has gone down on a statistical average. The super-impoverished get total free healthcare under Medicaid, but John and Jane Q American who are now working at two jobs each instead of one to make ends meet, may simply not be able to afford the insurance premiums. For example, I knew this guy who was extremely obese and had that gastric surgery. The insurance company approved the surgery because it would overall dramatically improve his health - then immediately after he had it raised his rates from $250 a month to $900. Then there is what Hillary refers to as "insurance discrimination." Unless they are forced to accept you as part of a group work insurance plan, insurers will simply refuse to cover you if you have a condition they believe will cost money. Thus, as a paraplegic, I am uninsurable. Moreover, since profit substitutes for sympathy at the insurance company, I believe many employers are reluctant to hire the disabled because the group policy rates will go up. I was VERY lucky to get a good job with good benefits before I had to retire.

Others who fall through the cracks are downright tragic. One of the Time Warner entities told a story awhile back about a woman who had a brain tumor but could not afford insurance. She wasn't impoverished so no Medicaid for her; and she was still able to work (so no Medicare or Medicaid for her based on disability - Medicare is for higher earning seniors and disabled with significant co-pays). She was not entitled to government funded chemotherapy until she permanently lost her sight - and only presuming, but I imagine that by that point, her death sentence was sealed.

The typical Republican or Libertarian response on universal healthcare is that if the uninsured "dead beat would get off his or her ass and work they'd be insured." As you see, that is not true. The new conservative soundbyte is also that only the Mexicans are uninsured - its part of the whole trend of the racists to now blame everything bad on earth on the Mexicans. In relation to the uninsured, 80% are citizens.

To make matters worse, our healthcare statistics for the INSURED are awful too - medical error causes hundreds of thousands to die each year. I can give you a perfect example. I had to have a bladder bypass surgery with a new internal bladder (no external bags, etc), because as a paraplegic my original bladder simply died a very painful (to me) death. No one bothered to tell me that where the ureters connect to the new bladder, 5% of all patients end up with blocked ureters from scar tissue, which leads to water logged enlarged kidneys that are prone to sepsis (the 10th leading cause of death in the US - a whole body blood infection).

They treated me for sepsis after they screwed up and pulled an infected ureter stint through my kidney (knowing I had a bladder infection just a month ago and that the stint had fallen partway into the bladder). I was doomed before I ever got off the table. After four miserable days being trapped watching "Divorce Court" on my hospital roommate's TV - they sent me home with a picc line (a tube running internally through your arm to your heart to avoid burning out your veins when you get IV's) so I could self infuse the antibiotic of LAST RESORT. When I escaped the hospital in the evening, with warnings from the doctor that if I got off on timing of the infusion at all I would get a fever again, I discovered that the hospital case manager had screwed up the delivery of the antibiotics and infusion supplies - and my next dose was hours late. I instantly got a fever and could have died. Then, because this hospital did not secure the picc line with a small suture, the picc line came out - prompting a desperate run back to the hospital to get a new one. I'm happy I'm still here to write about all this.

Another thing that Hillary is set to accomplish is to give EVERYONE with the essential academic merit the chance for an affordable college degree. I went to a law school that was part of the University of California public unversity system. In 1990, my tuition was around $1,600 a semester. I'm told now, in 2007, tuition is around $20,000 a year.

Ethnic minorities are especially hard hit unless they have escaped the trap of poverty. Since high schools are usually paid for through property tax, wealthier neighborhoods have better schools. This usually means minorities, if they bother to put up with the bad joke of their awful schools and graduate, often can barely read when they graduate - and have no chance to even meet the academic requirements of college, much less the financial requirements.

For those who want to learn more about the sorry state of our heartless healthcare system, see http://www.nchc.org/ and click on "Facts About Healthcare." For those who reject the immorality of selfishness and want to learn about shared prosperity, see http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=1839 .

Jeff, again, thank you for speaking out on what is truly an issue of morality and life and death. I know I've grumbled about having to watch sour, grouchy, selfish and sanctimonius Ro>>>>P, but now that you've taken a stand, I can probably even stomach watching an occasional clip of him without getting nauseous.

Phil at 4:13AM on Jun 23rd 2007

2. In England the wait to be treated for cancer is 8 months. According to a WHO study 10,000 people die needlessly each year in England from treatable cancer alone. Go to any major city bordering Canada and you will find hospitals filled with Canadians who could no longer wait to be treated in their home country. The Canadian Supreme Court found, “The evidence [] shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.” Every other county that has gone to national health care has been plagued with waiting lists and incidents of mal treatment.

The fact is that as much as many in this county complain about our health system, we have the best care in the world. The lesson of the past century should be that governmental control does not work. When the government does something the result is a worse product at a higher price.

Greg at 12:02PM on Jun 23rd 2007

3. America is the worst country in the world! My grandfather worked at the same job for over 40 years putting money into healthcare for the entire time. Suddenly he is diagnosed with cancer and the fucking insurance company sticks him with a bill and basically tells him to go fuck himself. After four decades of loyalty and all his hard work at that stupid fucking job, this is how he is treated! With all the mounting hospital bills he ends up losing his home after having to refinance it three times! Thirty years in this home he worked so hard for, he ends up dying in a nursing home who was ready to throw him out because they were charging two grand a month for this filthy hellhole! Now deceased, the health insurance company, the mortgage company and the nursing home is coming after his children for the unpaid bills! What a fucking country! Beauracracy sucks and so does the Bush administration!

morris d. king at 1:26PM on Jun 24th 2007

4. morris d. king, your story is one of the millions of tragedies that have resulted from the "haves" being too cheap to pitch in so America's middle class and working poor, in fact EVERY AMERICAN, has access to quality healthcare. This has got to change, and if you vote Democrat in 2008, it will.

Phil at 3:10PM on Jun 24th 2007

5. I agree the Medical system in America is a mess, financially speaking- and I am a doctor. However, we do get (those that can afford it) access to the best medical care in the world today. Yet, we remain fat, we smoke, we eat wrong, and we are sedentary so our overall health is miserable. Do we need a solution: of course we do. But those who know how the government works, are loath to hand these decisions to our leaders, Rep OR Dem. who will then make your medical decision based solely on financial grounds. Once we get socialized medicine (I pray we don't), then, and only then, will the population realize how bad things can get (the members of congress, of course, will have their own docs and etc so they won't suffer at all). We need reform, but we don't need government. Study, really read and study Canadian and British medicine, and you will see those systems are not for us. Not unless you want to wait over a year to be admitted to the hospital or surgery center for a simple procedure or die waiting.

David

David at 10:47AM on Jun 25th 2007

6. Ever notice how those for socialism can only provide sob stories, rather than evidence for their idea?

Sob stories are not evidence. Sob stories should not take the place of evidence. Sob stories should not be used, period. Sob stories are a cover for not having any justification other than "you're just mean and heartless if you don't want to help the whole world".

Knight_of_BAAWA at 12:50PM on Jun 25th 2007

7. Knight_of_BAAWA,

Evidence for socialism in health care in relevance with this issue:

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Roy Hinman II wrote:

"I wonder where Norway would rank on health care statistics if there were 13 million third world illegal aliens living there?"

Stuffing 13 million illegal immigrants into Norway is the equivalent of stuffing 866 million illigal immigrants into the US, thinking realatively.

Let me instead make my case with another country with socialized medicine and a problem with illegal immigrants: Spain

It is estimated that Spain has more than one million illigal immigrants, mostly from africa, living and working there (1). That is approximately 3,3% of the total population in Spain, versus the US' 4,3% illegal immigrants.

In spite of this, Spain ranks ahead of Norway, and far ahead of the USA on the World Health Report (2), and still Spaniards pay far far less on health than US citizens (3).

That's an example of how well a socialized medicine system can perform.

(1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4242411.stm
(2) http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/annex10_en.pdf
(3) http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/09/01/helsesat_en/fig-2007-04-26-01-en.html

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This is just a copy paste from the comments of Powerline's "Beyond "Sicko"".

Håvar at 12:42PM on Jun 26th 2007

8. "Evidence for socialism in health care in relevance with this issue:"

There isn't any. Further, comparing a European socialized healthcare system to the US quasi-socialized healthcare system doesn't really do you much good. I really have no idea why people think the US system is totally private and totally for profit. It simply isn't.

Knight_of_BAAWA at 1:05PM on Jun 26th 2007