Universal Health Care Push Being Revived

One can only hope ...but then we'd have to wonder how much we will be taxed for this when the cost of healthcare is pushed by wealthy for profit healthcare companies like the one Frist comes from ....

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A push for universal health coverage is being rekindled in some states by the soaring cost of health care and the lack of political support in Washington for federal changes.

Advocates of a single-payer system - where the government would collect taxes and cover everyone, similar to programs in Canada and across Europe - have introduced bills in at least 18 state legislatures. Some are symbolic gestures, but heated debate is taking place in California and Vermont.

In Ohio, doctors, union officials and religious leaders are gathering signatures to get a single-payer health system placed on a ballot next year.

"The level of misery with private insurers is rising, and that's why we're seeing this increased activity," said Larry Levitt, vice president of the California-based Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzes health care issues. "But whether one state can succeed, I don't know."

more....

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HEALTH_CARE_PUSH?SITE=NVLAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

...and I try like hell to stay out of the ER and the hospital.

My monthly payout for health care, in the public school employee healthcare program in Arkansas, is $847 per month (and it is going up to $938 in October). Our deductible is $500 each, and Blue Cross disallows just about every medical claim. We have to call our 'case manager' and argue to even get BC to even allow scheduled doctor visits to count against the deductible. After the deductible, the 80/20 payout is sometimes reduced to 60/40. Our prescriptions run $50/40/25 copay, and damn near every month a new medication is added to the list of 'no longer covered' by insurance.

before long you will be hearing and seeing all kinds of nay sayers going on about the "people dying for lack of care" or "not having a choice of doctors" or any number of lies....I was asked some months ago by a DUer about Canadian health care and here's what I posted.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3009706

not bite the insurance, pharmaceutical, health care industry hands that feed their campaigns.