THe bottom line is EVERYONE believes in universal health care

Koaj has a point about drugs, but the wrong one.  The problem is the US drug companies are gauging the American public.  Why is the same drug double in price in the US compared to the EU or Canada???  The FDA should allow all importations of drugs from Canada and the EU.  See what would happen to drug prices in the US.  That would be a big start in reducing healthcare costs.
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all things considered, i actually trust our FDA over whatever goes on in other countries

drugs are way expensive over here b/c of the R&D costs. pfizer, merck, etc own their drugs on patent for 3 years i think while they are usually available immediately overseas in generic form.

without the exclusivity, big pharma stops creating new drugs

france has universal HC and its running major deficits

here's the status of your beloved scandinavian welfare state

The economists said that the direction of the Danish economy is so questionable that in a few years Danes will have to choose between paying much more in taxes or saving on welfare services that most Danes support.

i guess you can be the happiest nation on earth when a good deal of the population is on the dole...but once the welfare checks stop, well those will be fun times

Koaj,

The problem is the US companies (Merck, Pfizer,Bristol-Myers Squibb, etc...) are charging the American public double what they charge for the same products.

Why should the US consumer pay for the R&D for everyone else?  As a Canadian, I'm thrilled that you pay my share for me.  Why Americans put up with it is beyond me...

Do a price check on a few drugs...you will be shocked.

Also, as someone who has seen all the health regulators in action, I would say that the FDA does the poorest job.  I would trust Health & Welfare Canada and the EU health commission much more that the FDA.

The FDA is more interested in protecting the American corporations than the American public.  They are just as corrupt as all the other government organizations.

There is a point to be made here...

Drug companies are TAXING the American public with ALL their R&D costs, costs for the whole world because we ALLOW them to, which is a direct tax of billions of dollars to us and the healthcare system.

I know that R&D is important, but as a country we shouldnt carry the brunt of the world, rather put limits on pricing and force the drug companies to fight their own battles in other countries rather than sock it to us and recoup R&D costs on our backs.

Wallstreet hit my point.  As a Canadian, I'm thrilled that my costs are kept low because of this.  But, it's stupid for Americans to put up with this.  Especially as you are looking for a way to bring down health care costs.

But the drug companies are never going to cut prices.  That's an unfortunate fact.  The only way it would happen would be to open up the market to Canadian and European companies.  Then they would have no choice but to lower prices.  Just threatening to open the market might give them the kick in the ass they need to lower prices.

The FDA is more interested in protecting the American corporations than the American public.  They are just as corrupt as all the other government organizations.

i agree 100%, if they had to choose one or the other, my guess would be damn the population and covet the corps.

Funny how all the yapping about 'universal health insurance' and you never hear much quacking about the side effects, and how to pay for these crazy ideas.  I guess that's the difference between some of us, on one hand you have those that worry about how they want things to be, and on the other hand you have those of us that worry about the consequences and how to pay for them

I wish i was 'on the other hand' ,,,,,,,life sounds so much easier for those guys

case in point, i tried to insert some conversation about how we bear all the burden of R&D before (actually the big evil corps fund it, and Americans pay for it) not to mention that for how many years all foreigners with prospects of getting into modern medicine or furthering their current knowledge and training have flocked exclusively to the (evil)U.S, only to return home with all that wealth of knowledge,,,,,,,,,and as always, Americans continue the thankless tasks of bettering the world


as we all agree, noone gets turned away here for health care, it's only a matter of how do we pay for it,,,,,,problem is, that is too far down the scale of importance for pressing issues right now, i repeat we cannot begin to address universal health care until we have a paradigm shift on the way we handle the war on drugs, and drug use.  Citizens should not be criminalized for choosing which drugs work best for themselves, and in the case of 'dangerous' drugs, we must first trade misinformation for education and then treating people for addictions rather then criminalizing them.  The war on drugs must end (war on citizenry).  Think of all the other 'problems' that would be solved by approaching the issue civilly, for christs sake it is 2009, and we have Obama agent of change, hopefully he can do something to correct all the damning problems brought about from the Clinton admin and their tripling down on past admin terribly misguided approach to 'the war on drugs' 

People without insurance know they CANT be turned away from the ER because of the oath doctors take. They also know they won't afford what they are going to get done and society will foot the bill.

So either way everyone pays for the uninsured.

Every dime that person earns for the rest of their lifetime other than the essential costs of living should be taken from the people until every last dime has been paid off, unless the kick the bucket first... then the debt should be passed on to the family.... That would deter this utter negligence

What's the arguement against private companies paying for their own R&D costs, considering they sell their products for a profit?

If it's a profit industry, why on earth should tax dollars help cut R&D costs for private corporations

What a joke

"government" health care and the words 'efficiently' and 'effectively' cannot occur in the same sentence..   Get a clue  Depeche ...   

Because our current private health care is the model of efficiency....

Yep...the private sector is doing a bang up job in having an efficient meeting of supply and demand over the last 10 years or so..

its not like government is the solution. please dont present it as such

60 billion medicare fraud

and since we know how good the government is at stopping fraud lets add another 200m people to the medicare roles

government solutions

DJ, are you aware that government insurance programs have historically cost more than planned.  One had "modest" cost expectations when it was created in 1965, but is now one of the biggest contributors to the federal budget deficit...  Think Medicare  

Healthcare inflation is some of the highest we have as a country, so since we havent kept up with payments IN, we have to run a deficit.

If you are mad at the medicare hole, again blame the private sector..until we increase contribution, we cannot keep pace with the year over year increases in healthcare costs.

We pay what 1.45% now into Medicare from our gross wages? That is matched from an employer to equal under 3%. It has gone up from .35% in 1965 and it was last raised in 1986 to 1.45%.

So in 25 years, in which healthcare inflation has outpaced general inflation by FOUR times, we have not compensated by increasing our Medicare taxes..

Gee I wonder why Medicare has a deficit..it cant have anything to do with the fact we are not compensating for the private sector not controlling supply and demand in an efficient manner and we arent keeping pace with inflows..