Single-payer is strongly supported among the comments by others below. Quite a few by people apparently know the facts and, therefore, want Health Care for All with non-profit single-payer national health insurance. ....... What are the facts? Here are examples: ----- We pay FAR too much per person. ----- We get FAR too little per person, such as our life expectancy is around 28th! This is ridiculous. ----- We are 19th out of 19 countries in our ability to minimize the number of PREVENTABLE deaths. If we were average, then about 75,000 lives would be saved under age 75. If we we had one of the best health care systems in the world, 101,000 fewer people would be suffering ... fewer people suffering so much from preventable diseases that they die before age 75. ----- We live in the ONLY industrialized country in the world where one can go into financial stress or disaster due to medical bills. What are the results of that? divorces, bankruptcies, loss of homes, suicides ... and general stress among most of us wondering if we (or our aging parents) (or our children) will get to the end of our lives without suffering the same fate as MILLIONS of our fellow Americans. Is this cracy or what? ----- Another way to express that last point is to say that people in other countries have a peace of mind about health care that some of us have experienced (my family for 4.5 yers) and now dream of. I've written some notes about that at http://www.99oh9.org/pages/Peace_of_Mind ----- How can we get the peace of mind? We can communicate, such as by following the schedule at http://www.99oh9.org/pages/Schedule and getting reminders about the schedule at http://www.99oh9.org/pages/Join ----- I have not gone into all the details here about how the situation regarding our financial health and physical health is documented now has having gotten worse, as per reports issued in 2008. The rate we are going ... with ALL proposals other than non-profit national health insurance --- the situation WILL get worse and worse. It's up to you as a citizen. As far as I know, there is no one else actively and publicly suggesting this kind of set of actions, as per the links above, except that Obama mentioned this kind of action ONE time and in only ONE meeting. --- Regards, Bob Haiducek, Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

Of the two, Obama's seems to be the pick, but falls way short of what we enjoy in Australia, which is a mix of public/private health care. Every Australian is entitled to free health care in a public hospital. That said, the public system does suffer some inconvenience to non urgent patients in that they may have to go on a waiting list. For those who choose to do so, they can overcome some of the problems encountered in the public system by taking out government subsidised private health insurance to allow care in a private hospital. G.P's fees and most common pharmaceuticals are subsidised by the Federal Government. Between the two systems Australians do enjoy good affordable health care free from any concerns of being bankrupted by medical bills. Worth considering further down the track, anyway.

I suppose I shouldn't be, but I am continually amazed that the USA - still I suppose, styling itself as the greatest democracy in the world - can be so crass as not to have a national health service. As a British person, I have to say that our UK system is possibly not the best in Europe; but I have certainly always found that, for me and for my depressed and schizophrenic son, it has given us a hundred times more than we could ever have afforded to pay for ourselves. And Barack-Care is at least stumbling good-heartedly in the right direction, as its progenitor seems to be in most of his projected plans. I do hope that the American people will think rationally when voting and give Barack Obama the chance he so much deserves to prove his great abilities and principles.

We could easily afford all the health care we needed IF we stopped building B-2 Bombers, which have, let's face it, no health care value whatever.

If you are truly open minded and progressive on this medical care issue, please consider another view point. Neither Obama-Care or McCain-Care is the answer. Like a tug of rope game, we libertarians are pulling the conservatives one way and you Progressives are pulling the Liberals another way, and neither of us "see" a compromise as a "workable" solution. Yet a middle of the road miss-mass is what America will get from our mutual tugging at the rope on the medical issue. So, stop for just a week or two, be open minded, and consider the reasoning from your libertarian friends. Before you close the door mentally, recall that we libertarians agree on the evils of War, on Individual Civil Rights, and we are against the Corporate/Fascists-Congressional/Militarist-Complex. Indeed, historically speaking, we are brother and sisters intellectually. The liberal-libertarian split happened around 1900, Classical Liberal libertarians stuck with Adam Smith & Charles Darwin, and Progressive liberals went with Engels and Marx, thus making it the new liberal-progressive era. So we differ on economics, but let us be fair to each other and admit, each side CARES deeply about the issues because we have the best of intentions for all of us living in Society. But to be clear, we libertarians are NOT conservatives. So, I am asking you, please read --if you are open minded-- these books on Medical Care. #1) Code Blue: Health Care In Crisis (Hardcover) by Dr. Edward R. Annis If you can see where we are "coming from" then perhaps libertarians & progressives intellectuals can arrive at a rational heartfelt solution to our common societal problem. After all, we should be talking directly to each other and not through the "two party system". We libertarians after all influence the Conservatives, and you Progressives influence the Liberals, so we really should get together and hammer out this issue between ourselves until we are united. We both represent the intellectual forces inside the USA, and we are stronger force once united on an issue, say like leaving Iraq or stopping the American Police-State. I know its hard to read libertarian books, it takes a special stomach. I know this because its true for us too, reading Progressive books. But we must if we are to truly communicate. We both care deeply about society, its just that our premises and reasoning has lead us to two opposite ends on what would be a "Good" medical solution. So if you can, please also read: #2) Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care (Hardcover) by Arnold Kling. and #3) The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care (Paperback) by David Gratzer Thanks for listening, In Peace & Liberty, Treg

In the UK we have free health treatment at point of use paid out of national taxes, the only fair method of funding a health service. The service which was introduced in 1948 by Nye Bevin the Minister of Healthat the time, was a compromise.Despite a lot of criticism from certain quarters it works very well aqnd although the Conservatives have tried to sabertage it, they have never dared to scrap it. I have had two operations in the last ten years and have nothing but praise for the doctors and nurses. We have to pay for prescriptions and dentistry but originally these were free. Unfortunately the so called Labour Government has privatised some of the services, but it still free at the point of use. I can't help thinking that the poor old citizens of the US have been brainwashed by your media. Ours is bad enough but it is possible to get at the truth. Murdoch controls the press in the US, UK and Australia all prime agents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Watch out Iran.

Why is it that we only talk about who is going to pay and how much? I don't hear anyone including the problem we have with the Doctors' fees (as well as all the other providers that get their piece of flesh) and the hospital costs. The Shouldice Hernia Center in Toronto will perform the hernia surgery, provide a private room for five days, including daily doctor check-ups and meals and drugs, if needed, to a non Canadian for $3600. In the U.S. the patient gets the surgery and one hour in recovery room and on your way home never to be seen again for $27,000. The surgeon alone gets $7000 for this 45'-60' operation. That's double the entire stay at Shouldice. Our hospital gets most of the balance for using their OR room for an hour. $20,000 an hour. Not bad. If the medical profession started practicing their oath not their greed, we wouldn't need such high, unaffordable insurance policies, no matter who pays for them. I remember the day they took the big sign "St. Mary's Hospital" down. The new sign says "St. Mary's Medical Center". Translation: we are no longer not for profit. In fact, buckle up 'cause you're going to see astronomical profit making...off of your pain. I you have a problem you don't waste time treating the symptoms or throwing more money at it. You search for the cause. Isn't at least one of the causes the totally unnecessary costs charged by our Medical Profession?

The number one problem with a national health care system here, is that most Americans believe Spaghettios, Cocoa Krispies, and Lean Pockets are real food, and eat billions of dollars worth of the crap every year. Personally, I don't want to pay for a sickness-care system for tens of millions of people to make insane dietary choices every single day. I'd rather see the money go to subsidize small, organic farms, and to support alternative and integrative medicine that encourages health instead of sickness. Maybe we could tax any food that wasn't real food and put it into a fund that pays for the damage it causes. Kind of like having a tax on cigarettes to pay for all of the oxygen tanks and lung transplants people who use the products may need later on. We should at least make the sicknesses pay for themselves. Too bad there's way more profit in being unhealthy than there is in being healthy. Health just doesn't pay in America, and that's the way the food and medical industries like it. It's astounding to realize that the nation's enonomy would collapse if people started eating good food instead of the psuedo-food found in most grocery stores. But then again, what can you expect from a nation who's every system is based on dysfuntion rather than function?

Mr Baker also forgets Cynthia McKinnney-Care. Ironic that a group which touts itself as being 'progressive" and speaking Truth, does not mention those who really are progressive. Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney. Of course there is an ignoble tradition with this. Air America, Mother Jones, Nation magazine Oh yes, and the the corporate media. All of them have sold out. All these groups agree on not mentioning the names and ideas of Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney. Truthout, Nation magazine, Mother Jones, Air America, corporate media everywhere. They have all been exposed for what they are. Sellouts Now that is truth-peace-out

The shell game, the linguistic framing slight of hand here, attempts to posit to the reader that they are still stuck with the choice of the lessor of two evils, that maintains the status quo, with private underwriters literally owning and controlling the disease care delivery system in the US. So, the "differences" are minimal, but exaggerated to look as if they are really meaningful. They aren't. First fatal Jedi mind game flaw is calling this a "health" care system. Its a disease care industry (not "health") and, yes, there is no "system" except triage of services based on the underwriter's reserves, and profit margins. Ask a "health care" provider to define "health" for you! Then get them to show you how they provide you with "health". Health care is dangerous to your health because its not "health" care, its disease care. The private underwriters have successfully transfered the financial risk to the providers and population at large, while accepting none of the medical risk. Can you spell "tort reform", for example? This one piece, of many unconnected moving parts, has done nothing for disease providers, or their clients, but it has certainly helped the underwriter's bottom lines. The determinants of herd health in the US for the last century have been education and socioeconomic status, period! There is no benefit to US herd health from the entire disease care industry, none! Disease care service delivery costs, technology, etc have gone up, and at inflation rates consistently two to three times the rates of the rest of the economy. Herd health stats have consistently gone down. Now, even longevity has started decreasing. How can this be ignored? Particularly by the media. Compared to the other developing and developed countries, we are near the bottom of any herd health rankings, as are our secondary public education rankings. Hundreds of thousands of Americans die prematurely each year directly as a result of utilizing disease care services. Somewhere between 1/20th and 1/40th of that die prematurely, each year, directly from lack of access to disease care services. The age old principals involved: "First, do no harm", and consideration of a "treatment worse than the disease"! The economic manifestation of this is "a cure looking for a disease", ie with a paying patient, particularly one who has prepaid, set the money aside before hand. No "pass-through" private financial intermediary "provider" of paper fabrications will ever address this issue. There's disincentive to do disease population evidence based patient outcome benefit studies and risk documentation stratification. In risk:benefit terms, what are you left with, if you sell a treatment that doesn't work, ie no benefit? Second Jedi mind game flaw is the manufactured confusion between "coverage" and direct utilization of disease care services: "access". Coverage doesn't create access to meaningful, evidence based (proven benefit) disease care services, for individuals or the disease population. "Universal coverage" is political double speak for private underwriting of a troubled industry because of poor outcomes, and cost implosion. Universal coverage is Nixon speak, Nixon hype, more than three decades after the fact. Universal coverage is worthless pablum that protects private underwriters of the appearance of meaningful disease care services, protects the industrial status quo. "Coverage", particularly "affordable coverage" has nothing to do with meaningful access to vetted disease care services, certainly nothing at all to do with "health". Think: "cherry picking, denials, pre-existings, exclusions", etc, etc, etc coupled to no demonstrated benefit. You cannot "regulate" out the fundamental flaws in pervasive private underwriting of ineffective and inefficient services. It simply hasn't worked. The starting point is a public single payer system that ultimately minimizes fee for service. Health care is dangerous to your health, and private underwriters support continuation of that exploitation, just as does Big Pharma, with a cabal of government baffoons, and want to bes. Neither political party, or their candidates has any intent of anything beyond status quo, or any incentive or desire to address real corrective action, real "change". Tweeking the "regulatory" environment won't help. Large national professional associations for nursing and physicians have endorsed single payer systems, as have 60% of the physicians surveyed. Its NOT time for more Nixon-care, now called John-care, Dubya-care, Hillary-care, Bama-care, whatever-care, conjured up fabrications by those in government, of either party, who are owned by private underwriters.

McCain's system is, of course, completely unacceptable. Obama's system is a major subsidy for the already very profitable health care insurers. It makes an inefficient system richer. What we need is socialized health care like every country in Europe where we cut out the middle man, the for-profit concept. I was born and raised in Germany and when I first immigrated I was appalled (and still am) at the way American's take their corrupt medical system for granted. Neither Obama nor CLinton nor McCain were willing to take the insurers on. What;s worse, Obama takes his campaign contributes out of the pockets of the American people, 50 dollars at a time, and still supports the corporate kleptocrats which make a business out of the sick and dying.

The US is currently spending 16% of it's GNP on health care. In ten years even without Barrack-Care covering 47 million more people it is projected at 19.5% of GNP. Such costs are unsustainable! One dollar in every five going to health care. A leading Democratic contender for the VP slot made a large fortune out of junk science malpractice claims. Throwing the lawyers out of the hospitals might be a start of a solution but I doubt it will happen with the dems in power..

It seems to be that the whole idea of medical insurance is wrong. Medical insurance exists to provide profits to some fortunate few. Rather than insurance, I want my $$ to go to health care. Eliminate the insurance part of the system because that's where the frustration and waste thumbs its nose at sick people. I know, it's not possible. There's too much money invested. So, my second comment is stop talking about what good Christians Americans are when they will defend $$ to their death but can kick a sick person to the side of the road.

The health care "system" under Medicare is already privatized and is a boon for insurance companies. As Medicare recipient I currently have to pay nearly $300 dollars a month out of a miserably low disability income check that barely covers rent. The current system in place is another road to financial hardship and ruin for millions of elderly and disabled people. We are the collateral damage of the insurance companies and lobbyists war on America machine. Unfortunately, Campaign Finance reform has failed, several bills that are written never get out of committee, and millions of people in America suffer and thousand day as a result of the ineffectual congress and senate. Unless we recharter corporations we don't ever have a chance at democratic reforms. Currently these corporation are threatening the very foundations of democracy in this country. They are also in collusion with our government administration with destroying humanity in regards to Climate change. Charging them with crimes against humanity would be too good for them . But in fact this is what we are faced with in this country. whether health care or climate change it is all connected and if not changed we will die.

Barack's plan is better than McCain's but neither is a solution. They system is broke beyond any repair. The real solution is to take profit completely out of the equation and run a single payer system like Denmark or any number of more enlightened countries. These countries get it - whether one lives or dies, and what quality of life one has, should not depend on one's checkbook. How to pay for it - easy, restructure a tax code to a more fair system and quit watsing trillions on insane, counter productive military operations - while making contractors quite rich..

If simply fixing a broken system is the goal - which it appears to be - then neither plan is worth supporting. John-Care is Don't-Care; Barack-Care is missing the whole point--it's not a system, it's a patchwork of expedient 'saves' for the powers that be. Maybe if we stopped calling it a system, we could really solve the problem. Until then, it's another bandaid applied that allows employers and insurers the power of life and death over all of us. None of these sectors has to worry about being insured - they all have what the rest of us need and deserve, if not more so.