JustJess

The bootstrap analogy is not applicable here. It's great when you're talking about jobs - yeah, I can work at a crap job to pay the bills, and so can you. But those same people who are willing to work their asses off can't control their employers' offering of health benefits. Nor can they control getting sick. Less sick people = better economy = richer Cynthetiq, which is all you care about, right? (I should know better than to talk to you about this, you always make me mad!! Gah.)

Anyway... this is my actual contribution:
We will never have nationalized healthcare in the US because the doctors would never allow it. Think about the salaries of doctors now... and after the government is in charge of their pay. One of the simplest reasons for that is that schooling to become a doctor is both grueling and HUGELY expensive. They are several hundred thousand dollars in debt by the time they're done. And they're supposed to be okay with getting paid maybe 100K a year? After all that training? And if pay becomes that limited, we're going to have an even greater shortage of physicians on hand. As it is, it's nearly impossible to get decent care in the inner cities and rural areas (why do you think they created PAs??). So... it costs too much to become a doctor, thus the doctors will never allow a system that limits their salaries. Plus, many people who become doctors aren't in it for the nice feelings... if it's just left to those who want to do something good in the world, then we'll have even less people.

I think we will not have national healthcare until we do something about our university system, at least for medical training, if not for everyone. I know there are state universities that are more affordable... but frankly, it's pretty rare that those schools are as good as the private universities, and they're often turning out less than stellar graduates.

That being said, I do believe both the university systems and the healthcare systems should be overhauled. I very much believe in national healthcare because of our poor working class. They're working their asses off, and they STILL can't get affordable healthcare. They should. They're not lazy or making bad choices, like Cyn implies... they're just working class, that's all. If Cyn had his way, I think we'd all be in a class system in truth rather than just in practice.

__________________
My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.