[Alberta's Child]

Here's the problem in a nutshell. Most Americans want health coverage that meets the following criteria:

1. It covers everyone.
2. It covers everything.
3. It doesn't cost very much.

In other words, Americans want a health care system that is built on delusion. This is why ANY plan developed by ANYONE in Congress was always destined to fail.

[ClearCase_guy]

Yes. The reality s closer to the classic line about business: “High quality, Low price, Speedy execution — pick any two.”

But everyone always wants it all.

[pepsionice]

The healthcare debate is like the diesel engine debate. Everyone wants a diesel engine which revolves around:
1. Clean emission
2. Durability
3. Performance
4. High mileage

You can’t have such an engine....without giving up one at least one of these features.

I think with healthcare...if you dissolved the state-line approach to it...you might buy some time. But both parties are moving to only one solution in the end...single-payer.

[HotHunt]

All of this hullabaloo about medical care in this country is really about insurance, not medical care.

Who expects their auto insurance carrier to pay for windshield wiper replacements? Or a car wash? Or replacing the spark pugs? Or replacing the tires?

The answer is no one. And yet when it comes to health insurance, people expect every hangnail, runny nose, dandruff remedy and upset stomach to be covered by their medical insurance. This is ludicrous.

Most routine visits and maintenance of your body and health should be borne by the patients themselves, not the insurer or taxpayers. Only catastrophic health problems that can bankrupt people should be considered for coverage.

Trying to provide insurance coverage for every visit to the doctor or pharmacy is what is driving the insurance costs, and therefore the medical costs, through the stratosphere.

The more the government-needs-to-fix-it mentality prevails, the harder it will be to accomplish. Insurance was never meant for routine losses. It was designed to cover catastrophic losses in high risk situations.

But it has strayed so far from that premise, that the government trying to drive the proverbial square peg into the round hole, while never work.

Stop trying to be everything to everyone for every situation. Then, and only then, will we see a solution to this problem come to be.