please. think it through.
the reason the US doesn't already have a national health care system like the rest of the western nations do - is because most americans have been able to get private health care as a benefit of employment. absent that system, we would have had universal medicare long ago, as opposed to having it just for the elderly who no longer work.
if we destroy the employer benefit based healthcare system, those workers will run screaming to government for a solution. this is what the Dems want, they want the current system to fail - so they can be there dangling the carrot of universal medicare.
the conservative approach to this problem - are medical 401Ks. you can't force workers out of their employer based plans via a tax, you can incentivize a new system - that young workers will be first to adopt, and gradually transition the system with CHOICES, not TAXES.
I am amazed at how many conservatives here have been willing to accept this crazy Bush plan, just because a republican proposed it. If Bill Clinton were proposing to tax employer provided benefits, we would all be going crazy right now.
The key to the system is to have decentralized providers, and price sensitive consumers, when it comes to medical care, with care for everyone at some level within that system. But it will cost more money, and the dirty little truth, is that giving everyone the best medical care available, particularly the aged, will grow ever more horrifically expensive, and is unsustainable. In the end, there will be triage, one way or the other. We can at least stop American drug consumers subsidizing drug research for the planet, but that too is just a palliative -- helpful but not dispositive of anything.
Why is health insurance a "RIGHT"? Because YOU and others who don't remember or know recent history, say it is. And it's not "basic".....no, a lot of these gilt edged plans cover everything under the sun; including braces and eyeglass frames.
People who can get this kind of coverage for free, or very little, abuse it; so do doctors, who never think of the costs, because they assume that every has this kind of coverage, when they don't. What's next.........employer housing benefits?
Once upon a time, companies and the government used to allow people/companies to write off lunches. That was taken away and yes, people used to abuse expense accounts too. So where is all of the hollering about NO MORE FREE LUNCH?
People used to buy their own health insurance and nobody, NOBODY, in the 1950s were calling for socialized health care in America; except for the Commies here.