I stand corrected as to educational costs-you are of course correct. As to community services I doubt very much that communities differ significantly when they retain a monopoly on services. One only need examine the role of cable companies that have de facto monopolies thans to municipalities. Whenever competion is permited costs drop.

In Washing DC various areas of the city have had to stand for tainted water and have zero recourse. A private company would have its back against the wall but a government has neither to explain nor compensate the citizenry.

Does anyone believe public education delivers the same bang for a buck as private or religious education? In Chicago 80% of public school teachers send their children to private high schools.

“Don’t even pretend that most of us save for retirement!”

WHAT!!!! There is no excuse to put away a few bucks a week once you start working. If the Fed didnt take almost 14% of your salary away from you for a bogus retirement fund, you would have even tons more money to invest. The Fed’s rate of return for retirement is about 2% and can be less than zero in many cases. Just imagine also if you could will that 14% to your offspring. The future generations would be wealthier. If a person is too dense to put that money into retirement and would instead party with it, I dont feel I should subsidize that person anymore.

What does paying for big items over time have to do with federal retirement or healthcare? Are you implying the fed should provide you with a house and car as well?

The reason the States do better than other nations on some things is precisely because the fed does not control 100% of healthcare (yet). Once the fed does, its all over, we will fall just like Europe. You think we pay a lot for healthcare now, we will pay more once the takeover is complete. It happens to every single item the fed gets its hands on. The only thing is all the costs will be hidden and just taken away in taxes, but it will cost more.

The issue with healthcare is NOT it being unavailable to people with little money. That is result of the true problem. The true problem is the COST. Totally federalizing healthcare WILL NOT lower the costs. It will increase them due to mismanagement, corruption, and political favoritism. HSA’s get the control of healthcare back to the individual. That WILL lower costs. I would prefer to have a few years hardship and ensure the future survival of my country than take a free ride today at the expense of my progeny.

I’m a charitable person. I give quite a bit every week. I fail to see why I should subsidize even further for someone that is unwilling to give anything back. Sure, I know many people receiving assistance do work hard, but with every federal giveaway, more and more people simply decide to live off the government. After all, if healthcare, education, welfare, retirement are all giving to someone for nothing, why work? One can live easy and sit at home and eat Fritos and watch Oprah every day.

DaleB, your wife must be a saint. The only thing worse than being a patient in a metropolitan Emergency Room must be working there! (This is speaking from a personal experience courtesy of King’s County.) I believe earlier points about there being no such thing as a free lunch have an especial relevance in your example. Surely the hospital that employes your wife makes up the money it looses on the uninsured from the rest of us; even charity costs something. The point that I was making is that we all pay for the uninsured to use the emergency room, in the form of higher insurance rates, higher fees, more taxes, more appeals for donations, etc.

John Galt, HSA’s are a great idea that have little chance of working for the simple reason that most Americans are unable to put aside money to take care of their health. To clarify, lets go through some basic things that hardly anybody saves for:

Houses
Cars
Education
Retirement

Please tell me if you know of an average American who put down 100% to buy their home. How many of us make payments of our cars every month? I think most of us have had student loans, am I nuts? Don’t even pretend that most of us save for retirement! And now saving for personal health care costs? Frankly, you are asking way too much from people! Not to rag on you, because you are correct when you describe the federal governments ability to manage health care. For some reason, the States seem to do a much better job of these things; perhaps because they understand this:

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Ok, so I lied about being brief. Thanks for putting up with me!

“Sorry to get off topic so much, but I really can’t get worked up about oil refineries. Obama or McCain won’t do much about it no matter what they say.”

It really isnt too much off topic. Both the healthcare issue and the refinery issue really stems from the same point. What should the federal government be in charge of? I believe most of us in this forum would like to see the fed stay Constitutionally bound (as they are supposed to). I like to take a simple view of things…If the federal government is truly better at spending the wealth of the economy better than the people are, then the Fed should take every single cent of our paychecks. Hey, if they spend things better, why not? If the fed is not as efficient as the people, then they should be limited to only providing the services that are explicity called forth in the Constitution so as not to have an adverse effect on economic growth.

When the fed does take over the entire healthcare system (and unfortunately, I do believe that it will happen), healthcare wont be free. It will end up costing more than it does now. I predict within 2 years of the takeover, healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP will increase by at least 50%. The money must come from somewhere. And when the inevitable arises that the fed really cant increase taxes anymore, rationing of health care will result. It is inevitable. The problem with Americans these days is that, as a whole, we expect a quick fix to things. It took socialism 70-90 years to get to the level of problems it has created. It will take some time to actually fix things. The true solution is to allow health care spending accounts that can grow tax free and can be utilized for your normal doctors visits and tests (or any health issues). Then, all you need insurance coverage for is the catastrophic stuff. Insurance rates would drop phenomenally and more money would be available in the general economy for growth. That growth will lift ALL boats and fewer folks would actually have difficulty providing their own health care. These accounts could also be passed on to your heirs, increasing the wealth and health of our legacies. Oh, if this would be the case, I’m betting insurance companies would start offering a more a la carte coverage. For example, I have no need for STD coverage. Why should I pay for it? However, many folks in San Francisco probably do need STD coverage so they should pay extra for it for the added risk they impose in their lifestyles. This basic idea will take time to work, BUT IT WILL WORK. For those that dont have the immediate money for care, there are plenty of places where you can get truly free healthcare. The charity of this nation’s people knows no bounds (well, outside of the democrats in Congress that is).

With the fed in charge of all healthcare, I’m willing to bet there will be nothing that the people will not be responsible for covering. I predict sex change operations will be covered. I predict nose jobs and facelifts will as well. After all, all it takes is a lobbyist to grease a politician and that politician slips these bogus things into a defense appropriations bill when the public isnt looking. We all know this will happen.

So, no, the Fed should not be responsible for healthcare, or refineries, or energy production, or a myriad of other things. The costs will just continue to rise until rationing, and thus NO healthcare, is the result.

>>Just try going without it for a while and see if your feeling don’t change. What is the point of having the best health care in the world if you can’t afford it?<<

I guess that you have never been to a metropolitan Emergency Room.

Take this challenge, go to any metropolitan or inner city hospital Emergency room and ask any of the nurses that work there if their clientèle have health insurance. Then ask them what kinds of routine diagnostic tests are performed that anyone with health insurance has to get prior approval for or they may not get approval for, i.e., CAT scans, MRIs, other HIGH cost diagnostic tests.

My wife is an emergency room/ trauma nurse at a level 1 trauma center in an inner-city setting. The vast majority patients come into the emergency room with chest pains when they want a place to stay for eight hours and get food and a warm bed all for the inconvenience of having a CAT scan, numerous blood tests and other diagnostics that are VERY expensive and they don’t have a lick of health insurance. There are regulars that come in EVERY day with a variety of complaints, but they aren’t turned away and they are treated.

I have had the occasion to be without health insurance for a number of months and sometimes it was a choice of food or a visit to the doctor and then filling a prescription. In almost every instance, I told the doctor the situation and the doctor was willing to help by either reducing the fee or allowing me to pay it over time and the doctor provided drug samples for the medication. I for one don’t think the federal government can run anything efficiently, they can’t even run their own organizations.

Second, there you go again stuffing a straw man. I guess you pushed my button.

Third, if you are so concerned about govt screwups, why not revive the Grace Comission report, a Reagan request? Sure, let’s privatize the Coast Guard. And re modern times, why cannot we farm off the mideast to Blackwater? Let me know about the IPO.

Rick, I didn’t reply to jambrowski in my last post because his comment had not posted at the time. What is the average delay between making a comment and seeing it posted? I understand that this is probably beyond your control, but is there a way to make posting more timely?

John Galt, I really agree with your point about the federal government not taking on more responsibilities than called out for it in the Constitution. To be honest, I really don’t care if achieving universal coverage in this country is accomplished entirely by the private or public sector or by some combination of the two. It seems like you and me had similar ideas about responsibility when we didn’t have insurance, and I commend you for taking that positive approach. However, this does not cover the catastrophic things that can happen to ones health, like cancer or a tumor, or disability. Who pay for that when one does not have insurance? We all do! It is that very real danger (and expense) that health coverage really is needed for. I suspect having the states mandate it the same way they mandate drivers insurance is probably the best way to achieve it; politically and culturally it is the most sensible course of action for America. (Why Romney couldn’t make this a winning issue is a whole other story!)

Thomas Jackson, I can only conclude that local government differs in its efficiency and fairness depending on which municipality and service one is talking about. Obviously, we have vastly different experiences when it comes to water!

By the way, I feel confident in stating that no child in Thomas Jackson’s community gets an “average” of 11,000 dollars per year in spending. A more likely breakdown of actual costs are:
Regular kids: 5,000
Gifted kids: 6,000
Bilingual Ed kids: 20,000
Special Ed kids: 40,000
Now try telling the parents of a Special Ed. child to educate their kid on 11,000 a year and to make up the difference through their own pocket. You may as well tell a person with a brain tumor to sell their house to pay for their operation.

This actually happened to my Aunt. She transfered title of the home to her kids and declared bankruptcy rather than do such a thing. As jambrowski reminded us, “there is no such thing as a free lunch” and to this day, we are all paying for my Aunt’s brain tumor, as well as millions of others who use our system and don’t pay for it.

Sorry to get off topic so much, but I really can’t get worked up about oil refineries. Obama or McCain won’t do much about it no matter what they say.

This rate goes up if you use over a cretain amount each month. But this is based on your off season usage, so if you winter in Florida and have zero usage guess what-you’re screwed and pay extremely high rates. And do you think the kindly bureaucrats care?

Anyone who wishes the government to run anything only needs to examine the VA or our school systems. Who would end their kids to a public school if you could send them anywhere else (assuming you could use the same funds the government spends for your child’s education). In my community its over 11,000 a year per child. What a joke.

Anyone who thinks the government runs anything on a businesslike or efficient manner has to be a RINO or dhimmierat.