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One independent mind?
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This would be freaking awesome. I would gladly pay a small increase in taxes for such a service. I mean heck me and my wife are currently paying $6000 a year now in medical insurance and we are both relatively healthy in our 40's. This is currently about 10% of our income. Yes, we are not rich. Oh yeah, that is only half of the insurance money. The government pays the other half. Talk about the insurance companies sticking to everybody. So by my calculations the total so far would be about $180000.

Like aehurst points out though I do not see a big change coming anytime soon. No use to complain anyhow.

Here's a really good article from the Guardian discussing the various claims made by the American vocal minority regarding NHS:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...lthcare-reform

While most claims are decidedly false, there are a couple (lower survival rates for breast cancer victims, for example) that are correct.

Trevor

Ah the nhs....i recently became a volunteer at the manchester hospital which as of last week is the biggest outside of america or something like that. Ah if you knew how the nhs was actually run youd be horrified...and i only see a tad more then the general public.

Anywho...the times ive had to deal with the nhs as far as injuries they have done well...i cant imagine the mass amounts of poor people or immigrants paying for insurance or expeses for each trip to the dr

A couple of comments about your link.

First, Ted Kennedy. In reality, he would not be refused by the NHS. He would pay a Harley Street doctor as a private patient for treatment. The treatment would then take place in a NHS hospital, but he would probably jump the queue.

The worry here is about a two-tier service. NHS patients and rich patients. You can buy private insurance if you like. It claims to provide quicker, better service.

Second, no heart surgery for over 59-year-olds. I had my angioplasty at the age of 61. There were 14 people on my ward that day and I was certainly not the youngest.

There are always debates about how much longer the UK can afford the NHS. Some doctors are asking that a nominal charge per visit be instituted, mainly to keep down the time wasting. Others are adamant that the service should always be free and new ways of funding it be found.

None of the political parties would suggest doing away with the NHS. The head of the Conservative Party says his son owed his life to the NHS.

Healthcare compared

Health spending as a share of GDP

US 16%

UK 8.4%

Public spending on healthcare (% of total spending on healthcare)

US 45%

UK 82%

Health spending per head

US $7,290

UK $2,992

Practising physicians (per 1,000 people)

US 2.4

UK 2.5

Nurses (per 1,000 people)

US 10.6

UK 10.0

Acute care hospital beds (per 1,000 people)

US 2.7

UK 2.6

Life expectancy:

US 78

UK 80

Infant mortality (per 1,000 live births)

US 6.7

UK 4.8

Source: WHO/OECD Health Data 2009

I'd just like to say that I find it admirable that someone your age is doing something voluntary. Well done. (I'm assuming it isn't court ordered :D)

well if the nhs discount which gives you 10% off at apple and 40% off at krispey kremes isnt enough incentive lol

Obama blinks.... public plan off the table. Health care reform is dead and it is now clearly insurance reform only.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_sebelius_health_care

My guess is they won't get much in the way of insurance reform either, except possibly more people covered but only if the government, not the insurance companies, foot the bill.

Big money wins again.

Obama's crowd did a poor job of selling health care reform to the American public. Almost nobody understands his plan, and the handful who do knows it wasn't nearly enough. Obama now just trying to save what he can of his proposal so he can claim victory where none exists.

Not-for-profit cooperative? That sounds like the old mutual insurance society. That is, insurance companies owned by their policyholders as members, retaining earnings. No dividend to non-members. But then along came the MBAs said they couldn't compete and had to be demutualised. Translation: we couldn't loot them.

"Obama's crowd did a poor job of selling health care reform to the American public."
- How could it have been done better, do you think -- how would you do it? Could it be done at all, in the light of the culture of ignorance and hysterical lying that we have been discussing?

To be sold, I think it has to be an up or down vote on adopting something similar to Norway, England, France or Canada.

It needs to be a simple message.... "Free health care. It works everywhere in the world but the USA. We CAN afford it because it costs less. We should do it."

Get the debate away from this or that technicality... vote on a whole new system and then let the Americans live with however they voted, bankruptcy and all.

Thoughts and questions
 

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It strikes me that Ms Sebelius has been strangely absent in this debate.

Given the influence of highly effective Washington DC lobbyists, the number of senators on both sides of the aisle beholden to the insurance companies, and the number of politicians willing to downright lie about what is being proposed, I think passing true Health Reform Bill is an almost impossible task.

I hope someone proves me wrong, but there are too many Democrats squirming away from their responsibility to the electorate. My optimism is fading.

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Edit: Is it true that you cannot purchase health insurance across state lines? i.e. that instead of having one national market, there are separate markets for each state, with far more limited competition?

Is it true that you can purchase car insurance across state lines?

If this is true, why the difference? And wouldn’t tearing down this barrier in itself improve things?
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There doesn't seem to have been any effort to prepare citizens for what was coming..... just kinda let the House and Senate come up with something and let the info leak out. Advocates have lost and there was never a firm plan even put before the public to debate.... just bits and pieces out of committees.

Still not too late to get something meaningful out of this, but I fear it is not going to be anything near universal coverage. The poor will still do without.

What has boggled my mind about the whole debate is the extent to which media networks have frankly taken sides; there is no attempt whatever to present an unbiased reporting of the news of the day and I suspect, to a large extent, opinions are shaped by the channels folks watch. American society really is driven by the big corporations who lobby Congress and Senate, and who promote their views on the news channels. What really blows my mind is the extent to which the media tell outright lies.

Three barriers...
 

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Perhaps the most succinct description of the state of things is this one:

"All that stands in the way of universal health care is greed, lies and gullibility."

Paul Krugman elaborates on that view in his column.
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Yes and No, you can purchase your insurance anywhere you like..... BUT you are going to pay the premium based on where you live. It's not just the state, it goes right down to your city. States do regulate insurance companies, so depending on how tight the regulation is not all insurance companies will offer policies in all states.

By and large, the big companies operate everywhere and simply charge a different rate with the rate presumably being based on the "cost" or "risk" of providing the service in your area. Yes they compete, but the level of competition may vary from state to state.

The state regulation may include things like a policy must include coverage for x, y or z. Some states require an insurance company post a bond to insure they can pay their claims or participate in some kind of insurance pool to, again, assure a company will be able to pay their claims.

Lots of insurance scams in our past.

Fareed Zakaria on Health Care and the lack of a crisis. Good point.

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This is perhaps one of the saddest cases of an ex-senator who sells himself.

His convoluted self-justification is truly amazing!


Edit:
Rachel Maddow has a rather scathing evaluation of the state of things:

"Why is the public option dying now? It's dying because of a lack of political ambition. The Democrats are too scared of their own shadow to use the majority the American people elected them to in November to actually pass something they said they favored."

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That piece and several New York Times editorials make it clearer and clearer that the Democrats have folded their tent on the only part of Obama's health care reform package that would actually help the constituency it's intended for. Watch the mid-term elections coming up next year if at the end of the day big Pharma and the health insurance providers win -- big conservative gains is my prediction. I think Rachel Maddow is right.

An interesting take in Newsweek: Health Care as a Civil Right

We have ourselves a ratchet here -- and I say "we" because I don't think this is confined to the US -- in that fierce right-wing opposition to a progressive reform is a political veto, while fierce progressive opposition to a right-wing project is a public-order problem. Like when a million Brits marched against the Iraq adventure, net effect zero.

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An ugly statistic:
Every year over 18,000 Americans die because they cannot afford life-saving medical procedures, or because their insurance company (should they have one) refuses to cover it.

Question:
Where is the "Right to Life" movement when we need it?
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