I was going to bite my tongue on this thread but I have to make a few comments on Kutulu's reply.
If the government was the sole payee of medical care, budget deficits would be remedied by decreasing provider payments, period. They would have no competition to maintain high quality standards. Huge money wasting midlevel pencil pushing bureacrocies that do nothing but provide jobs for the unqualified and uneducated would suck up your tax dollar(see Hilliary's Plan). And physicians would be inundated with even more excessive and ridiculous federal forms and policies to adhere to(see HIPAA).
Why do you think so few physicians take medicaid? Perhaps because of the yearly 4-5% CUTS in reimbursement? How would you like to earn $15 an hour this year, then next year earn $13, then lower and lower each year while the price to travel to that job(malpractice) doubles every year??
As far as socialized medicine goes, its great if you're not sick, so people are happy with inexpensive physicals. But perhaps some of our Canadian or British friends can tell us how long it takes to get a routine non emergency CT scan done? Americans who have been pampered with our present system really have no idea what health care rationing is all about.
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For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking, ...breathlessly.
-Carlos Castaneda
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