" Why do leaders and royalty from other countries come here for treatment"??

Because they have socialized medicine and long lists to receive health care in their own countries. It's called health care rationing to save money. I went to school in England stayed with a great family, that I still consider to be family. The dad was put on a waiting list for cancer treatment in 2007. At the time the waiting list was 9 months. Not cool. That is why anyone who can will pay cash to come to America or Germany for health care if they want to live.

Great post Joe and an even better tag-line.

Cheers!

Obama.... The Bernie Madoff Of Washington

It took longer than I thought, but Prezbo is making a strong case for only 1 term and maybe even pushing the country into a 2010 tax revolt or a common sense revolt similar to 1994. Despite their pitiful attempts to show the people at town hall meetings as radicals and from an organized mob (how does one organize a mob, by the way) it is obvious the Dems have overreached are are really worried. And they should be. Joe, your points in bold are so common sense and will resonate with everyone - everyone who is not totally in the tank for the far left wing, that is - and that pitiful minority is going to be less than 10% before too long thanks to the Blue Dogs and a bunch of regular people who are really fed up with Obama's control freak approach to "leadership"

Funniest thing I have seen in a while is some guy with an oversupply of ice scrapers has labeled them as "Obama bumper sticker removers" and is marketing them on the internet.

1.) The U.S. Post Office is the only entity allowed by federal law to deliver first class mail to your mailbox. In fact, Fedex and UPS are strictly prohibited from delivering “non-urgent” letters. If the government can fairly compete and is setting fair rules, wouldn’t the post office be open to competition at your mailbox?

2.) If Americans were offered “free” postage paid for by massive government spending and tax hikes, would Fedex and UPS still exist?

3.) The Post Office is on track to lose a staggering $7 billion this year alone. How will a government-run health care plan manage taxpayer resources more efficiently?

4.) Postmaster General John Potter says he lacks the “tools” necessary to run the Post Office effectively like a business. Would a government-run health care system have the tools it needs to run as effectively as the private sector entities it is replacing?

5.) On the one hand, the President remarks how great his public health care plan will be. On the other hand, he notes it won’t be good enough to crowd out your private insurance, i.e. the Post Office comparison. So which is it Mr. President? Will it be so great that private insurance disappears or so awful that it isn’t worth creating in the first place?

6.) But the most important question is this: if you have an urgent piece of mail you need delivered, life or death, who are you going to call? Everyone saying the government…please raise your hands.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

Is run as an independent agency.

It is managed by one politician and 50,000 promoted from within.

They are a slow gaited bunch---doing unnecessary things and paid too much with wonderful cheap health insurance.

If they charged the same for junk mail as they do first class they would be rich.

If the credit card companies, etc., would give us more than 10 days to pay the bill before 30% interest kicks in and a $50 penalty, we could live with once a week delivery. I know the junk would have to come by semi-trailer.

Like hospitals administration, the post office is a job fair mostly.

Watch a UPS guy work a day, then a post office guy. And they never deliver to the wrong address.

They do pay about the same, everything included, though.

Lindsey, Lindsey, Lindsey, my man....great article but you shot yourself in the foot with that one...read on down in the article and see the countries with longer lifespans than Americans who have nationalized health plans.

Just finished watching Lou Dobbs who compared the life span and satisfaction with health plans but unfortunately, we didn't win either one of 'em!

If your ideological slant is its not the American way to have socialized health insurance, thats fine...but you sure as hell cant say what we have is necessarily better.

for a good reason.. It proves that going by who stats are at best slanted against the US..
Our system IS BY FAR BETTER THEN ANY IN THE WORLD.. please go ahead and give me stats from something better.. Be my guest...

Facts and Fiction

Health Care Plan Is Not About 'Health' or 'Caring'

Excuse the C&P but this needed to be in context:

"Inevitably the conversation about reforming our health care system focuses on the question of what are we getting for our money and how are others doing with their health care dollars. Life expectancy, along with mortality and morbidity rates, are fairly straightforward numbers to rely on," Frogner said in an e-mail.

A 2008 study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that with the implementation of the Taiwan single payer systems, gain in life expectancy was slightly faster in the 10 years after reform than the 10 years prior to the reform.

But the issue for the United States is far more nuanced than simple comparisons to other countries, said Nicholas Eberstadt, researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. The population characteristics and risk behaviors for different regions should also be taken into account, he said.

While infant mortality rates in the 1980s and '90s were higher in the United States than in some Scandanavian countries, low birth weight babies had better survival rates in America at the same time, he said.

"The simplest hypothesis for this paradox is that at any given birth weight, especially at the critical high risk low birth rates, American babies got better access to medical care than Scandanavian babies," Eberstadt said.

Similarly, looking at five-year survival rates for cancer patients of any ethnicity, the U.S. generally beats European countries, he said.

"It makes one appreciate that you have to tread a little bit more carefully in accepting some of the broad generalizations about the health care system," he said."

Read the rest of the Article

Show me the people dying in waiting lines for Healthcare or show me homeless people dragging broken legs because they can't get care.. and then I will say we have a Healthcare CRISIS.. We have a Government CRISIS.. get them out of the way.. allow interstate competition do something about tort reform.. and help bring meds to market faster.. all will help those that need it..
You lose your job.. no problem.. I can see giving HC assistance for a year..until you get back on your feet.. But 93% of Americans have Healthcare or access to it.. an 80% of Americans rate their coverage as Good or Excellent..SO TELL ME WHERE IS THE CRISIS?

"Any People who expect to be both IGNORANT and FREE, in a state of CIVILIZATION, expects what NEVER was and NEVER will be."
THOMAS JEFFERSON

"I would wager 99% of the folks on both sides of this debate have never read the particulars of the proposed health care bill.".

Yes, that would include the Senate.

It is a sad day in this country when an issue as important as this has to be PUSHED through without allowing appropriate time for review, debate, and revision. I have spent more time writing a thesis paper than our elected officials have spent on HR 3200. Why would Pelosi want this bill voted in without allowing ample time for review? Seems to me like a case of "let's get this done before they know what hit 'em".

But, hey, you're right that there are problems with the current system. I know a family that didn't have insurance when the husband was run over by his own tractor. His care amounted to over $500,000 which was written off when they filed indigence papers. You and I paid for that. Me, I'm still paying for a surgery I had 2 years ago. Three years later, this family still does not have health insurance. They take trips to Hawaii, but can not afford health care. I can't afford a trip to Hawaii - I'm paying for my health care and theirs.

obvious to me that an overhaul of the current health insurance system "has to happen."
How about detailing a few reasons that you think make it "obvious" because they sure escape me.

There are many reasons (cost, availability, etc) but think about it..traditionally, ones health insurance program has been tied directly to one's place of employment. And that system worked fine for the generation that went to work for the man and stayed there 35-40 years. However, in todays workforce, that's no longer the case. So what happens to the 35 year old worker whose son develops cancer at age 7 but is laid off from his job because the company outsourced his job overseas and can't get another policy due to his son's precondition? And in todays world, AHG, that's a reality not some abstract scenario.

As I said, I'm not necessarily advocating the plans being floated now but somethings gotta change.

A little more obvious now?

I'm not buying into the other side's argument either but, as I stated before, health care amounts to almost 17% of our economy (GDP) and growing. It's hard to have a robust economy when only one element within that economy is sucking in more and more money.

It's beyond me on how to throttle it. If I had the answer I wouldn't be here blogging.
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