It is our right to pay our bills from their labor. Without other’s money, can you imagine, we would go bankrupt!

All of us that benefit agree so it must be so.

Welfare doesn’t pay for health care; it is not a health insurance plan. Over 50% of bankruptcies of hard-working people (who are not people on welfare) are because they THOUGHT they had a good health insurance policy – but the for-profit companies refused their claims. Things like bone-marrow transplants and cochlear implants have been labeled as “experimental” and people have been labeled as have pre-existing conditions that will then invalidate their policies in the eyes of the for-profit company. This is not health insurance – this is a bait and switch scheme, where people pay in for years into a program and then get dumped when they need it. This is not welfare; this is not happening to people on welfare; people on welfare have Medicaid and thankfully, are covered by a government-run, private-health giver provided service that, like Medicare, only has a 1-3% overhead because it is non-profit. Our story and the 50 million other Americans without health care has nothing to do with welfare recipients – you are using a class-based argument that doesn’t fit the facts.

Do you really think Stephen Hemsley should be making $102,000 per hour as CEO of UnitedHealth Care? Should the premiums that folks who have private for-profit insurance policies pay that kind of compensation to the administrators of their policies? If you think so, then fine – stay with your for-profit insurance. My wife and I, and everyone we know, believe health care is a right, not a privilege. Even FOR folks on welfare because, you know, they are human beings.

Every western nation supplies non-profit Medicare-type programs for their citizens. Honestly, I haven’t seen the piles of corpses lining the streets in Canada or, for that matter, floating off the coasts of England, France, or Cuba.

So, stay with your for-profit policy (a policy you CAN lose) – we chose to cover ALL our citizens because it is the patriotic American thing to do – and the right thing to do.

You never came across as a deadbeat and my point is not that you have no financial stability.

But ANY time you take more money out of a government system than you put in you are taking money from others and what you use your money for then can and should be questioned.

I addressed you, not necessarily on a personal level but for what your comments represented: You stated you wanted to keep your house. But many people who would be giving you their money under your plan do not even have a house. How is this equitable?

Benefiting Bob (or metaphorically, the Bobs of the world who need more than they give out to maintain things that others don’t have) is not the definition of equity.

They already have that plan, it’s called WELFARE. So it’s not the poor or destitute we are addressing here, they have WELFARE already. We are looking to give WELFARE to the middle class.

I would rather see a company profit than the government gain more power through a new WELFARE for the middle class. But you can keep taking from others so you can keep your personal possessions if you want.

the friend’s child with the birth defect isn’t so much interested in affordable insurance as having others help with the expected extensive costs over their life. This is what is being worked out. Who is expected to pay and what are they expected to pay for?

since most of the true horror stories, like that one, are catastrophic situations I wonder why we don’t just develop a catastrophic plan to cover everyone.

My issue is the one Bob brings to light. He wants help paying for his house in case he gets sick.

That is called financial planning. How many of the 75 million can’t really afford it, and of those that say they can’t afford it, how many have big screens, new cars and, yes, even houses?

Why would I expect other people to pay for my house?

Extensive, unpreventable health issues like the heart defect, maybe, but so I can keep a home while others paying for it don’t even have one?

Not a chance.

The one thing that worries me about universal healthcare is the quality of service. I’ve been in customer service for years, and I know that when dealing with bureaucracies service levels tend to plummet. No competition means no “need” to be nice to people; after all, if people only have 1 place they can go for a certain item, what incentive is there in providing good customer service since there’s no competition? Just think of all the jokes and horror stories of dealing with the DMV for examples of this. Therefore, I’d be curious to see what happens in a more universal system when it comes to service levels. Any non-Americans here care to share their bedside manner experiences?