Health care reform. Yes or No?

America needs something, but whatever they come up with still isn't going to help :(

reform deffinately yes, but government run absolutely not

The word "Reform", just like the word "Change" can mean ANYTHING you want it to mean. Let's talk SPECIFICS.

The current system here in Britain is terrible. Britain has higher rates of MRSA infection than Bulgaria and the lowest cancer survival rates in the developed world.

We pay for the NHS through our taxes and crucially, there is no way of OPTING OUT.

The American system has different faults. Due to bloated government schemes and the AMA cartel, medical insurance in the USA has become very expensive.

As for claims that Obama is reigning in the insurance companies, please do your due diligence and have a look at campaign funding.

The insurance companies are his patrons. DOH!

The continental "sliding scale" system of healthcare is preferable to both, but still involves an undesirable level of compulsion and government meddling.

Want to talk about healthcare reform? Talk to Dr Ron Paul.

aside from no representative reading a 2,000 page bill as it stands now, and any discussions on what it will and won't cover anyway, This is the one major reason I DO NOT support this "reform?"

PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

Well, the NHS is a bit creaky and frustrating, but at least when i get ill i don't have to worry about scrabbling around for insurance docments. I've paid into it, so did my parents, and their parents. I'm quite proud of it actually, and it has just saved my freinds life!

i get my care through the VA, which is government run. i have zero complaints.

Reform: Yes
Government Control: NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
This is America, people!

maybe

Yes

Yes and No. I work in healthcare. I think we need some way to stop the insurance companies from deciding our health needs and rights for us. But I dont know that this is the answer.

Yes

Y-E-S

The more realistic solution is to get better health education, so people can learn to avoid the many lifestyle pitfalls that wind up placing them in the hospital. How many fewer people would need healthcare if they ate a good diet? Overcame oral fixations and stopped smoking? Exercised? Many don't take the time to do anything to take care of themselves and then want someone else to take care of them when Things Go Wrong.

Of course, even a more educated society won't "reform" health care. But it will cut down on their dependence on health care, and, like most political issues, the more people do for themselves, the less they wind up bitching about the help they're not getting.

I may have told this story before but I'll tell it again:

I have a neighbor who works hard in construction to support his family but he can't afford health insurance for himself, his wife, and their four children. One weekend he came by with a dump truck full of soil. He was selling soil to folks in the neighborhood who wanted to add to their gardens so he could save up enough money for an epidural for his wife when she gave birth to their fifth child later that summer.

When it gets to the point that hard working Americans have to spend their free time earning extra cash to pay for routine anesthetic procedures -- I just have to ask, wtf is wrong with us? How can we NOT make insurance reform a priority?

Obviously something needs to change, because our system is unsustainable. If health care costs continue rising at their current rate, the average American household will be spending half their income on health care costs in about 9 years. That's beyond ridiculous.

The only thing these idiots (on both sides) aren't addressing is how to lower costs.

Maryland already has it figured out. Why the hell aren't we copying them??!!

In Australia we have a free system that works a treat.

Apart from dental I have not had to pay more then a $1000 all told in my 40 years ($2000 including dental)

My son to date (9 years old) has possibly cost me a total of $125 (including dental).

Yes I rely 99% on the government system and it has been excellent.

PS: I have had some MAJOR health scares in my life too.

America needs to wake up and drop private health like the leech that it is. More public money invested in the one most important aspect of every human beings existence - their health.

The system works (kind of) now. It does need to be made more effecient, and allow greater access to more than life threatning illness/injury, but what the IDIOTS in DC are trying to cram down our throats is not going to FIX anything.