Hey, the 12-year-old started it

[BT]

I don't see any equality in building anything else on the backs of the poor.

And yet you don't have a problem funding CHIPS on the backs of poor smokers?

You do realize the smoker demographic skews towards low income folks.

How do you rationalize that?

[_JS]

I don't see any equality in building anything else on the backs of the poor.

And yet you don't have a problem funding CHIPS on the backs of poor smokers?

You do realize the smoker demographic skews towards low income folks.

How do you rationalize that?

Who said that I don't have a problem with that?

[_JS]

In fact, I don't even like that states and local governments add "sin taxes" to beer and cigarettes.

Are you talking about SCHIP?

[BT]

Are you talking about SCHIP?

You betcha.The $35billion increase over 5 years to be funded by a buck a pack tax on Kools. Oh and it disallows adults from participating anymore in the program. Some states had expanded the rpogram to allow for healthy moms along with the healthy kids.

[_JS]

Are you talking about SCHIP?

You betcha.The $35billion increase over 5 years to be funded by a buck a pack tax on Kools. Oh and it disallows adults from participating anymore in the program. Some states had expanded the rpogram to allow for healthy moms along with the healthy kids.

So what makes you think that I support added taxes on cigarettes?

The Governor here wanted a steep increase (and won a rather hefty one, only slightly lower than he wanted) on tobacco to fund his pre-K education programs. I was against that as well.

Again, I don't support building anything else on the backs of the poor.

[sirs]

Why would fraud be more of an issue if the hospitals are publically run, the medical staff public employees, and all Americans covered equally?

Because the amount of massive oversight currently required now, yet the waste and fraud within Medicare & Medicaid still remains, promps the accurate assumption of how exponentially worse it would become if made to cover everything and everyone.  And obviouly you seem to have no problem that folks like me need to pay for the heathcare Soros & Gates.  So long as everyone is covered equally, all is right as rain     

Who would be defrauding whom?

Those that take advantage of loopholes & bureacracy, not to mention the flip side of the bureaucracy completely hamstrining and inhibiting quality care by the overwhelming bureaucracy.  It's is bad enough to have to fill out 14page forms and take nearly 2 hours out of a patient's day to teach them how to use a cane, when it should take no more than 15minutes.  That's medicare's doing

[_JS]

Because the amount of massive oversight currently required now, yet the waste and fraud within Medicare & Medicaid still remains, promps the accurate assumption of how exponentially worse it would become if made to cover everything and everyone.  And obviouly you seem to have no problem that folks like me need to pay for the heathcare Soros & Gates.  So long as everyone is covered equally, all is right as rain     

Oversight is required primarily because of the partnerships with private healthcare providers. HCA, a private hospital corporation, is the one who defrauded Medicare out of billions of dollars. If there are no private hospitals and no private insurance providers, then pray tell who is going to be committing the said fraud?

Those that take advantage of loopholes & bureacracy, not to mention the flip side of the bureaucracy completely hamstrining and inhibiting quality care by the overwhelming bureaucracy.  It's is bad enough to have to fill out 14page forms and take nearly 2 hours out of a patient's day to teach them how to use a cane, when it should take no more than 15minutes.  That's medicare's doing

It is easy to blame bureacracy. It is a nameless, faceless entity which carries a very negative connotation in the United States. It is no different than "Big Tobacco." Yet, you provided no one who will defraud the public healthcare system. Just "those that take advantage of loopholes." But, loopholes can and should be closed. Plus, we have nearly fifty years of other nation's work to study and see where the major problem areas were and are.

One area I would be sure to make public along with physicians and medical treatment is dentistry. That was a huge error on the part of the development of the NHS and once you miss that step in first constructing a socialised system, it becomes exceptionally difficult to go back and do it again.

[BT]

So what makes you think that I support added taxes on cigarettes?

So you would be against the SCHIPS program as presented to Bush?

[Lanya]

October 10, 2007
Political Memo
Capitol Feud: A 12-Year-Old Is the Fodder
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 ? There have been moments when the fight between Congressional Democrats and President Bush over the State Children?s Health Insurance Program seemed to devolve into a shouting match about who loves children more.

So when Democrats enlisted 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who along with a younger sister relied on the program for treatment of severe brain injuries suffered in a car crash, to give the response to Mr. Bush?s weekly radio address on Sept. 29, Republican opponents quickly accused them of exploiting the boy to score political points.

Then, they wasted little time in going after him to score their own.

In recent days, Graeme and his family have been attacked by conservative bloggers and other critics of the Democrats? plan to expand the insurance program, known as S-chip. They scrutinized the family?s income and assets ? even alleged the counters in their kitchen to be granite ? and declared that the Frosts did not seem needy enough for government benefits.

But what on the surface appears to be yet another partisan feud, all the nastier because a child is at the center of it, actually cuts to the most substantive debate around S-chip. Democrats say it is crucially needed to help the working poor ? Medicaid already helps the impoverished ? but many Republicans say it now helps too many people with the means to help themselves.

The feud also illustrates what can happen when politicians showcase real people to make a point, a popular but often perilous technique. And in this case, the discourse has been anything but polite.

The critics accused Graeme?s father, Halsey, a self-employed woodworker, of choosing not to provide insurance for his family of six, even though he owned his own business. They pointed out that Graeme attends an expensive private school. And they asserted that the family?s home had undergone extensive remodeling, and that its market value could exceed $400,000.

One critic, in an e-mail message to Graeme?s mother, Bonnie, warned: ?Lie down with dogs, and expect to get fleas.? As it turns out, the Frosts say, Graeme attends the private school on scholarship. The business that the critics said Mr. Frost owned was dissolved in 1999. The family?s home, in the modest Butchers Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, was bought for $55,000 in 1990 and is now worth about $260,000, according to public records. And, for the record, the Frosts say, their kitchen counters are concrete.

Certainly the Frosts are not destitute. They also own a commercial property, valued at about $160,000, that provides rental income. Mr. Frost works intermittently in woodworking and as a welder, while Mrs. Frost has a part-time job at a firm that provides services to publishers of medical journals. Her job does not provide health coverage.

Under the Maryland child health program, a family of six must earn less than $55,220 a year for children to qualify. The program does not require applicants to list their assets, which do not affect eligibility.

In a telephone interview, the Frosts said they had recently been rejected by three private insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions. ?We stood up in the first place because S-chip really helped our family and we wanted to help other families,? Mrs. Frost said.

?We work hard, we?re honest, we pay our taxes,? Mr. Frost said, adding, ?There are hard-working families that really need affordable health insurance.?

Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have risen to the Frosts? defense, saying they earn about $45,000 a year and are precisely the type of working-poor Americans that the program was intended to help.

Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday said, ?I think it?s really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy.?

The House and Senate approved legislation to expand the child health program by $35 billion over five years. President Bush, who proposed a lower increase, vetoed the bill last week. Mr. Bush said the Democrats? plan was fiscally unsound and would raise taxes; the Democrats say he is willing to spend billions on the Iraq war but not on health care for American children.

Mr. Bush?s plan could force states to tighten eligibility limits, but it seemed likely that the Frost children would still be covered.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their ground and not pull punches.

?The bottom line here is that this family has considerable assets,? Ms. Malkin wrote in an e-mail message. ?Maryland?s S-chip program does not means-test. The refusal to do assets tests on federal health insurance programs is why federal entitlements are exploding and government keeps expanding. If Republicans don?t have the guts to hold the line, they deserve to lose their seats.?

As for accusations that bloggers were unfairly attacking a 12-year-old, Ms. Malkin wrote on her blog, ?If you don?t want questions, don?t foist these children onto the public stage.?

Mr. and Mrs. Frost said they were bothered by the assertion that they lacked health coverage by their own choice.

?That is not true at all,? Mrs. Frost said. ?Basically all these naysayers need to lay the facts out on the page, and say, ?How could a family be able to do this?? S-chip is a stopgap.?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/washington/10memo.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1191985241-ltRuxlzL2VEs82spWkZeIw&pagewanted=print

[sirs]

Because the amount of massive oversight currently required now, yet the waste and fraud within Medicare & Medicaid still remains, promps the accurate assumption of how exponentially worse it would become if made to cover everything and everyone.  And obviouly you seem to have no problem that folks like me need to pay for the heathcare Soros & Gates.  So long as everyone is covered equally, all is right as rain     

Oversight is required primarily because of the partnerships with private healthcare providers. HCA, a private hospital corporation, is the one who defrauded Medicare out of billions of dollars. If there are no private hospitals and no private insurance providers, then pray tell who is going to be committing the said fraud?

The same Doctors, Equipment providers, Health Care providers, etc., that were doing it before.  The same ones overcharing services, repetatively charging for the same service, providing used equipment for a pateint, and charging new for it.  News Flash Js, it's not principly the "big companies" defrauding medicare, it's largely the individuals, scattered across the country committing the fraud.  and when your oversight is so large, and so labor intensive as the Fed, it makes it relatively easy to commit

Those that take advantage of loopholes & bureacracy, not to mention the flip side of the bureaucracy completely hamstrining and inhibiting quality care by the overwhelming bureaucracy.  It's is bad enough to have to fill out 14page forms and take nearly 2 hours out of a patient's day to teach them how to use a cane, when it should take no more than 15minutes.  That's medicare's doing

It is easy to blame bureacracy. It is a nameless, faceless entity which carries a very negative connotation in the United States.

It's also easy because it's true.  I just provided you a perfect example.  And yet you advocate making it worse, just so that we make sure to get Soros and Gates covered

It is no different than "Big Tobacco." Yet, you provided no one who will defraud the public healthcare system.

Yes, I did.  And they'll do it in spades, which then results in the jacking up the cost of healthcare even more, & exponentially worsening the already out of control bureacracy, by way of requiring still more forms to fill out & longer lines to wait in.  But as long as "everyone is covered", screw the consequences

[_JS]

The same Doctors, Equipment providers, Health Care providers, etc., that were doing it before.  The same ones overcharing services, repetatively charging for the same service, providing used equipment for a pateint, and charging new for it.  News Flash Js, it's not principly the "big companies" defrauding medicare, it's largely the individuals, scattered across the country committing the fraud.  and when your oversight is so large, and so labor intensive as the Fed, it makes it relatively easy to commit

Why would they overcharge when they don't get to set the prices for services? Physicians would be salaried, so they'd have no fraud to commit. As for companies selling equipment at exhorbitant rates...simple economics. When there is only one major buyer, then that purchaser holds all the cards when negotiating the price between different suppliers.

It's also easy because it's true.  I just provided you a perfect example.  And yet you advocate making it worse, just so that we make sure to get Soros and Gates covered

Nonsensical statement backed up with no evidence. And you keep bringing up Soros and Gates. Why shouldn't they be covered like everyone else?

Yes, I did.  And they'll do it in spades, which then results in the jacking up the cost of healthcare even more, & exponentially worsening the already out of control bureacracy, by way of requiring still more forms to fill out & longer lines to wait in.  But as long as "everyone is covered", screw the consequences

No. As you know, every other country with national healthcare spends far less per GDP and per patient than we do. There won't be "more forms" as there certainly aren't in Canada or Britain. In fact, the bureaucracy is far less there than in the United States right now.

What you're doing is the usual Sirs setting up straw men. But you've come to the wrong debate without any evidence. You're simply slamming the current system (or an expansion thereof) and no one is proposing that. At least, I am not.

[Lanya]

www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.frosts10oct10,0,4459992.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout
baltimoresun.com
Frost family draws ire of conservatives

By Matthew Hay Brown

Sun Reporter

October 10, 2007

When Halsey and Bonnie Frost agreed to go public with how the State Children's Health Insurance Program helped them after a car crash left two of their children comatose, the Baltimore couple expected to hear from critics of government-funded health care.

But while the Frosts were helping a bipartisan majority in Congress sell a plan to expand the program, they were not prepared for comments such as this one, posted over the weekend on the conservative Web site Redstate:

"If federal funds were required [they] could die for all I care. Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities. ... I would hire a team of PIs and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. Then I'd do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info."

So has begun the education of the Frosts, the young family of six who volunteered to advocate for the program for moderate-income families - the expansion has been approved by Congress but vetoed by President Bush - and now find themselves the focus of a nasty national debate.

The onslaught began over the weekend, a week after 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrats' weekly radio address with a plea to Bush to sign the bill. A contributor to the conservative Web site Free Republic noted Graeme's enrollment in the private Park School and the sale of a smaller rowhouse on the Frosts' block for $485,000 this year and questioned whether the family should be taking advantage of the state program.

That post was picked up by the National Review Online and other Web sites. By Monday, Rush Limbaugh was discussing the family's earnings and assets on the air, and the blogger Michelle Malkin was writing about her visit to Halsey Frost's East Baltimore warehouse and her drive past the family's Butchers Hill rowhouse. Liberal bloggers, meanwhile, were complaining that the Frosts were being "swift-boated."

"It's really frustrating," said Bonnie Frost, 41, who stated she is upset by the angry Internet posts, e-mails and telephone calls targeting the family. "The whole point of it for me was that this program helped my family, and I wanted it to help others. That's the message, and I can't believe the way the spotlight has been taken off of that."

"It's a distractive technique," said Halsey Frost, also 41. Speaking from their cluttered front room yesterday, the Frosts said they would continue to advocate for government-funded health care.

The Sun, which published articles about the Frosts when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced Bonnie and 9-year-old Gemma at a news conference last month and again when Graeme delivered the radio address, also has drawn criticism from posters on conservative Web sites for not reporting the details of the family's financial circumstances more fully.

At issue is the proposal to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program - also known as SCHIP - which provides coverage for 6.6 million children from families not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. Democrats, joined by some Republicans, voted last month to expand coverage to 4 million more children at a cost of $35 billion over five years. Bush has vetoed the bill.

While the president has called for negotiations on the measure, Democrats and their allies have launched a campaign to pressure Republicans into helping to override the veto. The attempt is scheduled for next week.

The Frosts joined the debate through family acquaintance Vinnie DeMarco, the president of the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative. DeMarco introduced them to the pro-SCHIP organization Families USA, which put them in touch with Pelosi's office.

Bonnie Frost was driving children Zeke, Graeme and Gemma in Baltimore County in December 2004 when the family SUV hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a tree. Graeme sustained a brain stem injury; Gemma suffered a cranial fracture.

The family relied on SCHIP during the more than five months that the children were hospitalized. Graeme had to learn again to walk and talk, his parents say; he remains weak on his left side and speaks with a lisp. Gemma is blind in her left eye; she has difficulty with memory, learning and speech, and sees a behavioral psychologist to help her deal with her frustration.

"Her personality has changed," Bonnie Frost said yesterday. "She's not the same girl."

Bonnie and Gemma Frost joined Pelosi at the Capitol Hill news conference before the SCHIP vote. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked Graeme to record the radio address.

It was the news coverage of that broadcast that set off the blogo- sphere. A pseudonymous contributor to Free Republic cataloged the $20,000 cost of tuition at the Park School, the $160,000 Halsey Frost paid for his warehouse in 1999 and the $485,000 for which a neighbor sold his home in March. Links were provided to photos of the Park School's 44,000-square- foot Wyman Arts Center and the Frosts' 1992 wedding announcement in The New York Times.

Soon strangers were posting accusatory messages describing Halsey Frost as a business owner who lived on a street of half-million-dollar homes, worked out of his own commercial property and paid to send his children to private school, yet still took advantage of government-funded health care.

"Bad things happen to good people, and they cause financial problems and tough choices," Mark Steyn wrote on the National Review Online. "But, if this is the face of the 'needy' in America, then no-one is not needy."

The Redstate contributor was less civil.

"Hang 'em. Publically," the contributor wrote. "Let 'em twist in the wind and be eaten by ravens. Then maybe the bunch of socialist patsies will think twice."

The Frosts say the description of their family's circumstances now circulating is misleading. Halsey, they say, is a self-employed woodworker - he has no employees - while Bonnie works part time for a medical publishing firm. Together, they say, they earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year.

That would make the Frosts eligible for Maryland's Children's Health Program, which is open to families that earn no more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or $82,830 a year for a family of six.

The Frosts declined to show The Sun their 2006 income tax returns, and the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would not confirm their enrollment in the program. But John G. Folkemer, the deputy secretary for health care financing, said yesterday that applicants must prove their income levels through Social Security numbers or tax returns to be accepted for coverage.

Folkemer said a family's assets are not considered in determining eligibility. Halsey Frost purchased the family home for $55,000 in 1990, according to city records, and refinanced in 2005, he says, to make improvements to accommodate the return of Graeme and Gemma from the hospital. The 1936 brick rowhouse, on a side street near Patterson Park, has an assessed value of $263,140.

Halsey Frost purchased a 1920 warehouse in East Baltimore for $160,000 in 1999, according to city records. It is assessed at $160,500. Frost says he is still paying off the mortgages on both properties.

The four Frost children depend on financial aid to attend private school, the Frosts say. In addition, they say, Gemma receives money from the city for special education made necessary by her injuries.

Halsey and Bonnie Frost say they still have no health insurance. Bonnie Frost said she priced coverage recently at $1,200 a month.

Malkin wrote that the Democrats' use of Graeme Frost to deliver the radio address was "poster child abuse"; Limbaugh told listeners that Democrats had "filled this kid's head with lies."

Pelosi fired back yesterday.

"I think that the attack on this family is just breaking new ground and stooping to new lows in terms of what happens in Washington, D.C.," she told reporters. "I think it's a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against SCHIP that they attack a 12-year-old."

The Frosts say they stand by their support of the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

"I'm just trying to understand this moment of nastiness," Bonnie Frost said. "The nastiness caught me by surprise."

matthew.brown@baltsun.com
Sun reporter Lynn Anderson contributed to this article.

Copyright ? 2007, The Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.frosts10oct10,0,5063837,print.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout

[sirs]

The same Doctors, Equipment providers, Health Care providers, etc., that were doing it before.  The same ones overcharing services, repetatively charging for the same service, providing used equipment for a pateint, and charging new for it.  News Flash Js, it's not principly the "big companies" defrauding medicare, it's largely the individuals, scattered across the country committing the fraud.  and when your oversight is so large, and so labor intensive as the Fed, it makes it relatively easy to commit

Why would they overcharge when they don't get to set the prices for services? Physicians would be salaried, so they'd have no fraud to commit.

Ahh, so in your system, not only does every Doctor get paid the same (perhaps some with expertise get payed a little more for their specialty), they won't be allowed to bill for their services.  In other words, what other disencentive can we add to the already decreasing Physician pool and to those who might want to become one?        (damn those consequences, so long as Gates & Soros are covered)

As for companies selling equipment at exhorbitant rates...simple economics. When there is only one major buyer, then that purchaser holds all the cards when negotiating the price between different suppliers.

News flash Js, it's still done, and what you are advocating is simply one big massive monopoly, so where's the negotiation for the best product at the lowest price??   Precisely the identical complaint you had against in another thread, relating to bureacracies, and how you'd apparently choose the smaller ones vs the big nasty one. 

It's also easy because it's true.  I just provided you a perfect example.  And yet you advocate making it worse, just so that we make sure to get Soros and Gates covered

Nonsensical statement backed up with no evidence.

Ahhh, so now I'm a liar.  Great.  I guess I can refer to any of your Civil Servant examples & experiences as complete fabrications as well.  Gotcha. 

And you keep bringing up Soros and Gates. Why shouldn't they be covered like everyone else?

You mean why should I, and every other middle class, not to mention the lower classes that pay income tax, pay for their healthcare, when they could, if they wanted pay for nearly everyone elses's out of their own pockets?  I think that's pretty self explanatory     

Yes, I did.  And they'll do it in spades, which then results in the jacking up the cost of healthcare even more, & exponentially worsening the already out of control bureacracy, by way of requiring still more forms to fill out & longer lines to wait in.  But as long as "everyone is covered", screw the consequences

No. As you know, every other country with national healthcare spends far less per GDP and per patient than we do.

We are a MUCH bigger nation, than any other country with UHC, and the reasons we spend more per capita have already been referenced before.  Fact remains that your prescious lower "per capita" costs are trumped by insidiously worse bureacracy, rising healthcare costs, waiting lines, decreased quality of care, and decreased incentive to even move into the healthcare field, all for the feel good intention of "at least everyone is covered"

What you're doing is the usual Sirs setting up straw men. But you've come to the wrong debate without any evidence. You're simply slamming the current system (or an expansion thereof) and no one is proposing that. At least, I am not.

No, what I'm "slamming" is trying to make what is already bad in both this country, and those many others who do have UHC, and exponentially make it worse, with examples already provided in so many other threads.  I know your intentions are not to (make things worse), but the ramifications and consequences of such are pretty transparent in how they will

[BT]

"I'm just trying to understand this moment of nastiness," Bonnie Frost said. "The nastiness caught me by surprise."

The Frost's are obviously not frequent visitors to oniline forums.

The debate should be about the effectiveness  of the newly proposed increase and how it would be funded. Not victimhood politics and which side is more mean spirited. Fact is both sides have their moments. The debate shouldn't be about who cares more for poor people or conversely who cares less about them. It should be about whether this country is ready for universal coverage and what it would look like.

This whole SCHIPS controversy  is a trojan horse and frankly a disservice to the american people.

[_JS]

Ahh, so in your system, not only does every Doctor get paid the same (perhaps some with expertise get payed a little more for their specialty), they won't be allowed to bill for their services.  In other words, what other disencentive can we add to the already decreasing Physician pool and to those who might want to become one?        (damn those consequences, so long as Gates & Soros are covered)

*yawn*

Britain and Canada still have physicians and specialists. Keep trying.

News flash Js, it's still done, and what you are advocating is simply one big massive monopoly, so where's the negotiation for the best product at the lowest price??   Precisely the identical complaint you had against in another thread, relating to bureacracies, and how you'd apparently choose the smaller ones vs the big nasty one.

It isn't that difficult. You put out bids for special equipment and you take the best quality mixed with the best price. Simple cost/benefit analysis. Who says it has to be "the big nasty one?" This can be done on a hospital by hospital basis, or a regional trust basis. Oversight would not have to be that complicated. I'm sure that HCA doesn't pay more than they have to for equipment, why should the regional trusts? 

Ahhh, so now I'm a liar.  Great.  I guess I can refer to any of your Civil Servant examples & experiences as complete fabrications as well.  Gotcha.

I've never called you a liar Sirs, do not make this personal. Yet, you simply cannot say "I say so" and expect me to accept it as the Gospel with no evidence at all. I mean, if we were having a beer at a bar and swapping sports stories, then sure. But, a debate is a debate.

You mean why should I, and every other middle class, not to mention the lower classes that pay income tax, pay for their healthcare, when they could, if they wanted pay for nearly everyone elses's out of their own pockets?  I think that's pretty self explanatory     

Then you need to bring up the other side of the story as well. Why does someone in Mott Haven who is dying of AIDS, spitting up blood every day and is a young single mother, not qualify for disability? In fact, she has failed three times?!? Why does she have to go to a terrible hospital and live in shitty, run down tenement housing, all so politicians can say things like, "people need to make it on their own" or "we all need to learn to sacrifice." All so you, and the rest of the "we pay too much taxes" middle class thumb suckers can live a little more comfortably.

Tell me why when she goes to the hospital, she has to remove the bloody linens of the person who died in the ER room before her, herself, because the hospital staff is too overburdened to do make the room properly sanitary for her.

Why?

Because assholes from the Middle Class, who have "made it" believe the God damned world begins and ends with them. "We pay too much taxes" they cry. Too many poor people are on benefits! DEPENDENCE! God Forbid!

Well fuck that!

Ms. Washington, who was unexpectedly given HIV by her then husband, who left her after she became pregnant, is dying of AIDS in a Mott Haven tenement that you wouldn't keep your pet in for a kenel. She's just one case of millions of Americans who cannot afford basic necessities, and get no help from their government (i.e. their fellow Americans). Yes, they get some paltry help from a few charities. Most of the churches that remain in the inner cities are equally poor. Many won't help homeless or AIDS patients, as some worry about infections or theft themselves.

But you know what Sirs, you keep bringing up your Middle Class needs and Bill Gates and George Soros, as if they are relevant to this conversation. You keep going home to your comfortable life and bitch and moan about your taxes.

We are a MUCH bigger nation, than any other country with UHC, and the reasons we spend more per capita have already been referenced before.  Fact remains that your prescious lower "per capita" costs are trumped by insidiously worse bureacracy, rising healthcare costs, waiting lines, decreased quality of care, and decreased incentive to even move into the healthcare field, all for the feel good intention of "at least everyone is covered"

The bigger nation reference is moot because I'm not using "per capita" I am using per GDP and per patient. Learn metrics or stop debating this. I'm tired of explaining basic statistics every time this is argued.

Queues are simply not that bad. Ask Tee or a Brit how bad they really are. I think you'll find that it isn't the massive problem the right wing press of the United States claims it to be.

Health Care quality in Canada and Europe has led to statistical categories in which they have far superior results than we do, including the length of life and neonatal care. If our quality of care is so superior, why is that the case?

I'd suggest that for the lower income folks, the quality of care in Canada and Europe is far superior than the United States. But for your precious wealthy folks, they might see a drop in the quality of care, sure.

No, what I'm "slamming" is trying to make what is already bad in both this country, and those many others who do have UHC, and exponentially make it worse, with examples already provided in so many other threads.  I know your intentions are not to (make things worse), but the ramifications and consequences of such are pretty transparent in how they will

Then prove it.

I've been to Europe and Canada. I know many Europeans and Canadians (in fact, my soon to be sister-in-law is a Canadian) and I've yet to hear all this testimony from real people from those countries. I've never met a Brit, even some of my most Tory friends, who wishes to install the U.S. system of private health insurance in Britain.

So let's see it.