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I would like to see some suggestions from the Bishops on how to give universal health insurance without bankrupting the country. I am glad they are standing firm on the pro-life position, but I don't know that they understand the costs of this to the nation as a whole.

We already have universal care. No one can be denied treatment in this country because he is indigent. That is why emergency rooms are full of people who really should be in a doctor's office.

My solution:

1. Massive tort reform, to reduce insurance premiums for doctors and to decrease the amount of defensive medicine practiced.
2. The creation of a catastrophic illness fund paid into by all insurance companies to help subsidize the costs of the insured who incur excessive costs.
3. Insurance portability across state lines, and independent of employer.
4. The ability of insured people to choose their policies. For example, as an older woman I do not need to be paying premiums to cover me for pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, drug abuse treatment, etc. As a corollary, younger people need not pay for Alzheimer coverage. The costs of those individual items should be listed separately, much as earthquake insurance is done in homeowners' policies.
5. Insurance shouldn't pay for normal doctor visits. Those costs should be paid for through medical savings accounts, and insurance should have a larger deductible, again, reducing the cost.

The Bishops don't seem to have any specifics and it's not helpful to simply issue general statements which can be used by the administration as evidence of support for their plan. I understand their duties to encourage the most compassionate ways to address this problem, but some specifics that could be discussed would be more productive, in my opinion.

The Bishops are having pipe dreams. Our Bishop Gerald Barnes of the San Bernardino, CA Diocese penned an article in the diocese monthly newsletter. Pie-in-the-sky thinking. Everyone deserves health care as a human right. Oh really? How is it going to be paid for? What happens when millions more people flood a health care system that would not have enough doctors and medical facilities, etc., etc., etc. Oh, and of course they do not address the issue of illegal immigrants. In fact, he seems to make it sound like all immigrants are legal and deserving of health care.