Is this question a joke?

What is a "Federal Liberal"?

Are you advocating de-regulation of the healthcare and insurance industries? Do you view them as one and the same?

Actually, I think I would love to see all government medical programs abolished, and all rules governing insurance industry practices rescinded. It would be the fastest way to get single-payer in this country if every person had to do battle against the insurance and healthcare industries alone, with no case law and the courts to turn to when they get screwed.

Statistically, only 10% of the people in this country lack healthcare.

So that means 90% of us are covered.

Not bad, eh.

If you're not covered, there are already low-cost options, or you can find a job that offers healthcare coverage. Badabing.

I just find it baffling that the left wants healthcare so bad, that they're willing to stake both Clinton's and Obama's presidencies on the matter.

Really, who cares?

Regulation? That doesn't work. There are always means to get around regulation.

What you need is competition. That works. Allow a Georgia insurance agency to cover Texans, and you'll see prices drop dramatically.

What you need is to protect our doctors from plaintiff lawyers. Reduce the lawsuit abuse, and you'll see a large percentage of your costs removed.

Or, even better, do away with insurance entirely. If you cannot afford treatment, you don't get treatment. Hell, it's not a ~right~ that's guaranteed to anyone who can cross our border.

The bottomest bottom-line end-of-the-line be-all problem is that people are demanding treatment they cannot afford, and suing doctors for money they don't have, and we're running out of other people's money.

And now we have an entire party dedicated to tapping into our Federal Reserve to keep doling out other people's money for things someone else cannot afford, and it just baffles me: Why?

Votes? Is that all there is to this? Get more votes?

What is the bottomest motivation for the liberals? Why do they want to do this so very, very, very very badly?


- Saul

I agree with Schiff that we'd be better off with insurance being out of the hands of employers. That is the biggest thing that I want to see from reform. Without that occurring I will likely not be a fan of the reform that we initially get.

I do worry that the more that the public resists reform the less reform we will get resulting in a far less effective reform. Small steps only yield restricted benefits.

Many moderate to conservative proposals for reform only offer a short-term aids that will have to be manipulated every couple of years because costs will still be rolling out of control.

I do want to see that system blown up & restructured. A minor shift will not produce a noticable difference & will not raise quality of life.

I disagree with Schiff that the government is the cause of the 10-20% yearly increases in costs.

Government may be involved but not as much as the nature of Corporatism.

I don't believe that costs would go down much due to interstate competition. First off the costs of living will not change so I would always pay more than someone in a more rural area. It costs more to live where I live, costs for healthcare providers are still going to be the same. Secondly, heads of the insurance industry would not allow companies to significantly lower the costs of premiums because that would be a really bad long-term approach & would lower overall profits industrywide. It is naive to think that those large insurance companies would not work together to crush those that tried to undercut them. They would exert extreme power to do so. Every industry works under certain guidelines across the board to ensure success.

Doctors do the same thing. They do not undercut each other very much as most procedures have a going rate & shopping around is not very advantageous. I do believe that MD's would advertise their costs much more often if they actually offered a greatly reduced service.