O/T: Amazing

Absolutely. My father-in-law was also a general practitioner (doctoring tends to run in my wife's family). He ran his clinic with just a nurse and a front desk person who also handled the business operation. Very low overhead and, thusly, very low costs to his patients.

On the other hand, it was a cash only business. He did his patient notes in his own shorthand on 3x5 cards, owned the building he worked in, and ended up marrying his nurse.

Now days just nagging insurance companies to pay (either Medicare or private) takes a staff of and least 2 full time employees per practitioner.

It is also spent on advertising the drugs they went out of their way to produce, to make people think they had some new disease, which the drug in question just happens to cure.

Pharmaceutical advertising is in the tens or hundreds of billions annually, depending on your scope.

-- If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door. -- Lois McMaster Bujold

See Ed K's response.

Remember, engage brain before putting mouth in gear :-).

I do believe the Civil War (among other things) more or less ignored the

Do you really believe that health care even entered the founders minds, considering its primitiveness at the time? See death of G. Washington.

I believe the founders were intent on limiting the power of the federal government. That is exactly the reason for the 10th and the remainder of the bill of rights. They were not about to have the same issues in the new government that they fought to escape from.

Health care, retirement, sexual orientation and all the other things the feds are now in the middle of are not in the purview of the Constitution or the intended power of the federal government.

A refresher of "enumerated powers" may help to enlighten.

The reason many people don't already have insurance is that they can't afford it. Obamacare doesn't change that. You can't legislate blood from a turnip. ======================================================================= It would have been a lot easier if they had just got to the point in the first place and made it illegal to be poor. It should work at least as well as this clustrefuck we have now.

Right. Require that the homeless buy a house. Simple!

What scares me is that it can happen.

Our healthcare system does need some work, but mandates from the government to buy insurance is probably not the answer. The next bailout for the auto industry may require us to buy a new car or truck from GM, Ford, or Chrysler or pay a tax. Oh wait, we will be paying taxes for that anyway.

Tax the poor. That's a new tactic.

That's Obamacare.

The "individual mandate" was one of the biggest sticking points about Obamacare. What it amounted to was, either buy insurance or pay the feds a penalty. SCOTUS has now upheld the penalty as a tax. For people who don't already have insurance because they can't afford it, it amounts to a tax on the poor for being poor. Nice going, Barack Hussein.

There are former doctors who quit being doctors because they couldn't afford the $100,000 a year or more the insurance companies demanded for malpractice premiums.

And impose a "homeless tax" on those who can't afford to buy.

Just Wondering wrote in news:4ff00ca8$0$9048$ snipped-for-privacy@usenet-news.net:

Seems people are "forgetting" that there appear to be mechanisms to get the poor subscribed without taxing them.

Its worked in the UK for years called national insurance

"steve robinson" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@reader80.eternal-september.org:

It underwent revolutionary changes in Holland in ~2006. It works in Canada (ask Robatoy), and it is working just fine in Massachusetts.

That is another "logically?" part of this mess. First place a tax on the poorest people among us and then write 100 pages of code setting up a system so they don't pay it.

Bottom line for obama, either except the fact that he has placed taxes on the poor (he still claims its a penalty.) OR accept that his mess is un constitutional, as he can not claim the commerce clause as a reason for the tax. (The only other clause that Congress has is the ability to tax. court not me)

I did compare insurance company and found that while the basics were the same the price varied significantly for the additional that was provided between the various companies and policies. These additional included co pays, and what was deductible and not, eye glass, dental, etc..

Interestingly the social democrats did nothing to address tort reform, which is one of the biggest indirect cause of the increases in medical cost. indirect cost are additional CYA test, cost of expensive new equipment for the CYA test, etc.