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And you just made the liberal argument for aborting defective babies and death panels. You’re also reinforcing the liberal argument that conservatives only want the rich to live. Only those who can afford to be sick can live.

We can’t afford it, so let them die.

As I said, we’ve entered a strange time in medical development. People who would’ve died at the age of 60 of a heart attack and never touched Social Security or Medicare can now survive another 25 years with medical care. Babies who would’ve died shortly after birth are living complete lifespans. My own son would’ve died ten years ago from diabetes. With medication and a possible kidney transplant in his future, he could live as long as anyone else.

We are not in such desperate straights that we have to kill off the weak.

You’re right. Health INSURANCE isn’t the answer. But letting grandma go because she’s too expensive isn’t the answer either.

And you just made the liberal argument for aborting defective babies and death panels.

I made absolutely NO such argument, and there is a bit of intellectual dishonesty here for you to suggest I did. The concept of forced abortions or death panels is a result of a single-payer type of system, which is what Obamacare wants to be, and what you seem to be advocating. The current system has insurance companies, which have a finite level of money, using actuarial tables and selective clientele in order to be able to direct those finite funds to help their clients. If you force such a company to take on clients who are a greater health risk, or who are a GUARANTEED health payout, you are forcing that company to spend all of their money, or even money they don't have, on those guaranteed payouts, which results in little or no money to pay for those people who were healthy when they signed up but experienced an unexpected event. That means that those who paid in when they were healthy get screwed because the money goes to those who were forced into the system with known problems.

If you signed on with an insurance company when you were healthy, or signed on with an existing condition that the insurer accepted but made you pay higher premiums for, then that risk vs payout is built in, and the insurer will survive.

If you take away the ability of the insurer to live within their means by assessing risk BEFORE signing clients, then their only alternative is to deny care to certain patients in order to save the money for those who do get care. That is your death panel right there.

It's like this: we've got 100 people on a boat that is sinking. There are two lifeboats, each of which can only hold 45 people. If you put 46 people in the lifeboat, it will capsize. That means that out of our 100 people, 10 are going into the water. You are focusing on the 10 people who need a lifeboat, while I am focusing on the 90 people we can save. We have a choice: either 10 people drown, or everyone drowns. Your way will drown everyone, while mine would only drown 10. What we have to accept is that we can't save everyone, because certain acts of God are simply beyond our power to fight.

All you have to do is look at what's happening to single-payer systems like the UK. In trying to guarantee healthcare for everyone, they are collapsing their entire system and MORE people are dying than would have died if they had left it to private enterprise. They are capsizing the boats. Forcing private insurers to take on people with pre-existing conditions will also capsize the boat. We simply have to accept that there is NO SYSTEM that will save everyone. Period.