[Dad was my hero]

But how often do you hear the true facts about that 43 million figure continually thrown out?

A lot of people will say that this is not the ideal, but hospitals cannot refuse treatment to someone based on ability to pay. I agree it is not the ideal, but who cannot come up with the $50 to see a family doctor? And once you begin to talk about what's ideal, then you enter into, what about dental coverage, a low deductible or coinsurance, hey wait a minute, they need vision coverage too.

[FITZ]

agree it is not the ideal, but who cannot come up with the $50 to see a family doctor?

But who runs to the doctors the most? The so-called poor who have the government pay their way. It's the Medicaid and Medicare population who uses doctors and hospitals the most --- the Medicaid families who can afford to take their children into the ER everytime they cough. Those who actually pay $50 out of their own pocket tend to take care of their own health.

[FITZ]

When CHIP came out many of the people dropped their employer health insurance plans for that --- because the government plan was only $20 a month and employer provided insurance cost them more.

[Dad was my hero]

That's a good observation and it is hard to tell because of the long history of government interference in the healthcare marketplace. If it would be suddenly removed there would be massive negative effects on suppliers of healthcare services. That is why we need a conservative in office to implement reform in steps with the overall direction toward free market initiatives. People would probably find that as a percent of GDP healthcare would probably drop, but this is theoretical as there is almost no large scale model to judge it by.

Unfortunately people who talk more like poliscistudent, we need limits on... and we need to nationalize... and we need more controls on the economy... are becoming more and more prevalent. Teaching basic economics is something everyone should be taught. At least they'd understand supply and demand so you wouldn't have to explain why people earn what they earn and why government interference in the economy is almost never a good thing.