OK, convince me . . .

that in order to get single-payer health care, we won't have to take to the streets en masse with torches and pitchforks. :banghead:

All these threads today about health care horror stories!

But it's not. People are, however, pulling together behind the public option, compiling lists of specific pols to target, answering questions, and planning national rally days.

well, the health insurance where I work is so skimpy as to be nonexistent. that's why I'm sympathetic about the threads I have seen today about horror stories related to our crappy excuse for a health care system.

and I know how to make a torch.

out of the crapper I will be more apt to give them more responsibility. I haven't seen any improvement in our current situation. Why should they be trusted with more!

As to not being trusted have you forgotten that it is not the Obama administration that caused this mess?

screwed up our economy. President Obama vowed to correct it. When he has done so then it is time to tackle the health care issue.

Universal single-payer being adopted would FIX a huge part of the economy.

Employers can now hold down wages because their employees are too terrified about losing their health insurance to fight them.

Employers having to carry insurance for their employees are restrained in expanding their workforce, because they can't afford the insurance on new employees. At the same time, they opt to hire part-time and contract work for which they are not responsible for health insurance which itself holds down wages.

Both the above, of course, limit income tax revenues for the government - if people are not making money they cannot pay taxes on that money.

People are now paying out the ass for coverage that is often denied them by the people they are paying - IOW, fear of being uninsured is an extortion racket by the insurance companies which are more than willing to take your money, but are loathe to pay out when required to. See SICKO, and the story of the claims agent who was instructed to always deny the first claim, regardless, on the hope that the claimant will just throw up his hands a pay out of pocket.

Medical bankruptcies account for 50% of ALL bankruptcies in this country - single payer would stop 50% of all bankruptcies. This, of course, ties to forclosures as well.

You want to fix the economy? Fix health care.

If we are paying $9,000 per capita for 'healthcare' now, and we pay $6,000 per capita under single-payer, where does the expense figure in?

Our business become more competitive, generating more revenue. Our workforce becomes more secure, and thus more productive, generating more revenue.

The 30% of healthcare costs that are today going for outrageous CEO compensation, ad compaigns, lobbiests, and insurance company overhead will instead go to actually providing healthcare or be retained by the citizens.

So what the fuck does China have to do with it?

And you are the first person I have met that doesn't know we continue to borrow money from china. Where do you think Bush got the money for the so called tax rebates and why do you think hillary was in china sucking up to them. We need to quit buying things and funding new programs on the backs of our children and their children. Wait till they are in charge and realize the debt we have buried them under! Can you say euthanasia?

The program is not ADDED to what we are already paying. Instead of business and individuals mailing monthly checks to the insurance companies, we would be paying taxes which would cover the program. And we would be paying 30% LESS than what we are currently paying. These revenues going to the government instead to Cigna mean the government will borrow LESS from China - you don't need to borrow money if you HAVE money.

Business and individual incomes rise. Income tax revenues increase. The single-payer plan pays for itself. We SAVE money.

Get it?

http://www.4ibew.com/2009/05/27/health-insurance-profits-soar-as-industry-mergers-create-near-monopoly/

Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while consumers paid more for less coverage. One of the major reasons, according to a new study, is the growing lack of competition in the private health insurance industry that has led to near monopoly conditions in many markets

In the past 13 years, more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets but haven’t delivered on promises of increased efficiency. According to the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated, and insurers are thriving in the anti-competitive marketplace, raking in enormous profits and paying out huge CEO salaries.

Amen and amen. :yourock:

The health care issue played a big part in what happened at GM, for example. Health care coverage for present and retired workers added about $1500 to the cost of a new GM car, and added $1700 to the cost of building a car, according to an article in TIME magazine I read a few years ago, before the bankruptcy.

able to start up new enterprises - entrepreneurship will flourish.

I, for one, would be able to quit my government job with its lousy pay and good insurance to be able to open the bookstore I've wanted to open for decades - with my health care costs I simply cannot do it, now. With single-payer, I could finally stop sucking on the government teat.

Thereby helping with unemployment. So simple even a Republican can do it. :)

do it in the next month.

people say, getting single payer, or even a decent public option, or even any decent health care reform for that matter, would involve a movement much like the civil rights movement.