Blogging Invitational--Health Care Reform

Monthly Blog invitational. I will post your thoughts on this blog site related to this topic: the Health Care Reform debate.

I moved this post back to the top of the page to encourage you to take a side. Send me your thoughts by email. I will post them all here.

Send submissions to: mbroute66@charter.net Include your name if you want credit.

Monday, August 17, 2009

First Guest Blogger-- Barry Ritter who writes:
My view is that it is time that we mature, evolve or move forward in thinking our fellow man is worth having health-care. This idea that we become less by helping a person in need is at best bad behavior and at most turning ourselves into gulag Nazis is patently ridiculous. Can we not see that the attitude of the health insurance industry is to make huge unconscionable profits off the back of human suffering and death is certainly barbaric and needs to pass away?

My opinion is that it is time to grow up. Our young nation is woefully behind the world in health care and needs radical change. I voted for President Obama for this reason among others.

Barry Ritter
Comments welcome

Second Guest Blogger--Bill Gruhn

Great idea setting up a blog. Here's my comments.

It still puzzles me why people think we as a collective should provide things people have since primordial times provided for themselves. If you provide people with food and shelter, they don't necessarily become model citizens. Many never provide themselves with anything and their children run amok. Nature has been cruel long before capitalism entered the picture. If you provide healthcare, people will not save and the majority of people are able to provide some kind of insurance for themselves. People in China save 40% of their income because they have no safety net to speak of.

People admire the health plans of European designs but fail to realize that the benefits of welfare states distort the way business is done in those countries. Only large corporations can handle such an environment. America is unique in the number of small businesses it encourages. If you pile up obligations upon them, it will transform how business is done in America and it won't be America any longer.

I favor the conservative idea of restructuring insurance pools among the states and everybody having a health saving account for catastrophic illnesses. Insurance shouldn't be connected with work at all nor need the government be an insurance market. There needs to be a moderate and middle ground between collectivism and self reliance.

Bill Gruhn

From Simmie Berroya McMillan Today at 11:05am

[Personal note deleted]

I'm still not resolved on the issue at hand (health care reform). I can understand the fears of the people. I don't think we've had such a progressive president in such a long time that the people are feeling the rocking of the boat, and it's frightening them. On the other hand, change has been needed for a long time. So, we need these progressive moves if we are to further the cause of the brotherhood of man. The Ultra conservatives want to continue dualistic practices to further their own agenda of the haves vs. the have-nots, the Jews vs. the Arabs, the Christians vs. the non christian, and so on and so forth.

Maybe the answer lies not so much in government intervention, as it does in the health care providers (doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies) willingness to forgo the bottom line enough to show compassion and mercy towards those who have no means to pay for their services. Of course, this would piss off the insurance companies, who I suspect are the real culprits in this matter. Should then, however, the government further regulate the insurance companies? Probably not. I'm sure there are already some regulations in place to protect the consumer. With the consumer already up in arms about the situation, they wouldn't like that either.

Has the government (with Obama at the helm) awakened a sleeping giant here? By the time it's all over, maybe Obama will be sorry he ever brought it to the table. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Simmie
From Sim's World: http://simmcmillan.typepad.com/simsworld/


Not My Words, but...
John Mackey's Campaign Against Single-Payer
Boycott Whole Foods
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER in Counterpunch

John Mackey is a right wing libertarian.
He’s a union buster.
He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes.
He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system.
And he’s the CEO of Whole Foods.
Primo hangout of liberal Democratic yuppies.
read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/mokhiber08132009.html