This is the solution to our health care crisis. We all ultimately turn to God during times of crisis. This will create a propagating, everlasting, taxable income stream that will create jobs, pay for socialized health care and rebuild social security.

This is the solution to our health care crisis. We all ultimately turn to God during times of crisis. This will create a propagating, everlasting, taxable income stream that will create jobs, pay for socialized health care and rebuild social security.

I am 62 and I have been paying for my future medicare benefits since I was 16. The majority of American people do not expect something for nothing even though there are groups that would like you to believe that everyone does except them.

We should have a single payer system that everyone pays into through payroll deductions. It could be a “medicare” for all system but the pool of people in the group plan would be 340 million people. This would save companies already providing health care benefits to employees. If companies wanted to offer a health care benefit to employees they could increase pay to offset health care plan deductions from employees payroll.

For individuals that need assistance in paying into health care plan then that is where government steps in to assist (this is current medicaid system). If everyone pays into system the increase in taxes should be reduced. The government can work with health care industry to set and control prices. No one wants doctors and health care professionals to suffer financially and health care professionals should not want Americans to suffer financially either. Nor should any American not do their part to make sure everyone has access to health care including primary care.

This has become a moral issue because it has become a “class” issue. The Bible does not address health care as a moral issue but it does speak to the “have vs have-nots” issues in more than one place.

All people of Faith should actively be opposing “ObamaCare” unless this travesty is addressed, not promoting it.

1. “So there is no competion with 1500 insurance companies but 1501 there would be?”

Yes. That 1500 # is misleading for the reason I mentioned above: “94% had commercial markets that were ‘highly concentrated’ by standards set by the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Dept.” Mind you, these are the words of the American Medical Association! (http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/03/09/bis...)

For example, they found that in “Alabama, the biggest insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, controls 83 percent of the statewide market. There, and in nine other states – Hawaii, Rhode Island, Alaska, Vermont, Maine, Montana, Wyoming, Arkansas and Iowa – the two largest health insurers control at least 80 percent of the market.” (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/...)
Much of this is due to the increased consolidation (mergers) of insurance companies (meaning that 1500 number can be reduced to a much smaller number of parent companies), so much so that a former top Federal Trade Commission official is requesting the Justice Department's Antitrust Division investigate the matter!

So, the current market realities are plainly failing to produce competition because consumers don’t have 1500 choices, they often have 1 or 2 (says the AMA). So, introducing a 3rd option everywhere that is more affordable, does not deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, and is not tied to a job, will absolutely provide competition! This is why the insurance companies are so afraid.

2. So when you say, “do you want [health care] ratiioned by the markets or the pols? The market is my preferance as a Christian,” I am truly alarmed:

An ideological commitment to “the market” has nothing to do with biblical mores. If something as sacred as the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, then surely the market does not deserve unswerving loyalty. It must be evaluated for its practical value to produce good results for people. As just noted, it is simply not producing good results by itself in the realm of access to health care. Hence the public option: it would directly increase access to those who have zero (the opposite of rationing) while forcing companies to be more competitive (and so give greater access, less rationing). As I said before, I would trust a non-profit entity over a for-profit entity with my health care insurance (even if that is the government), given how the for-profit entities have behaved. (http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org/blog/entry...)

3. “Under the Kennedy plan my insurance would not meet the guidelines and would go away.”

I’m sorry, but can you produce a quote from the text of the bill that says as much? I’m not trying to be picky here, but I am unaware of any stipulation that would force certain insurance plans to “go away” for not meeting certain “guidelines.” That’s a pretty big claim.

(And which Kennedy plan are you referring to? The one produced a few days ago by the HELP Committee or his original one from a while ago?).

4. “As far as covering 95% of the uninsured I doudt that when 20% are illegal ailens which none of the proposed plans cover.”

The recent HELP Committee bill would ensure 20 million by 2019 and expand Medicare to cover 20 million more people. That’s 40 million out of 45 million uninsured. So, the bill would actually provide coverage to 89% of the uninsured. The 95% number actually refers to the % of the total population that would then be insured (my bad). If we’re only talking about those who are here legally, then the number actually goes up to 97%. (http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/ar...).

Imposing a new tax on working people in the form of taxing their health benefits is NOT acceptable. How would the government define “better benefits?” And it's most likely that the tax will keep on expanding until it includes “all employer-paid benefits.” One big reason I voted for Obama and not for McCain was McCains' advocacy of this new tax. I'm glad to see that Obama still opposed this new tax. I'm sorry to see many “progressives” starting to embrace this idea of this new tax.

Employer-paid health insurance plans do NOT encourage “wasteful spending.” I don't know who came up with that idea or what statistics they twisted (if they even attempted to come up with statistics). I'm in an employer-provided health care plan. Each year, the premiums go up and up and each year, the benefits get cut back with higher co-pays and higher deductibles.

Myself, I'd much rather fund any health care reforms with money saved from not engaging in wasteful military expenses gotten from the U.S. trying to be the Morality Thought Police of the world. Which of course adds tons of health care expenses when soldiers are wounded.

So there is no competion with 1500 insurance companies but 1501 there would be? Giving the pols power over our healthcare is just bad for most Americans. Remember the “better benefits tax” would not effect those under a collective bargaining contract.

The pols have caused the problem getting them out of the way not more into it is how to solve it. Remember they want power, they do not care about you or me.

As far as covering 95% of the uninsured I doudt that when 20% are illegal ailens which none of the proposed plans cover.

Under the Kennedy plan my insurance would not meet the guidelines and would go away. So much for everyone being able to keep what they like now.

Yes, healthcare is rationed, the question is do you want it ratiioned by the markets or the pols? The market is my preferance as a Christian.

94% of the country's insurance markets are “highly concentrated” right now, as noted by the American Medical Association, so the practical result of ending up with only government insurance could hardly be worse than what we have now, since the sole provider would be a non-profit insurer instead of the for-profit insurers that already ration care and price gauge because they lack competition.

And at a moral level, should we be more concerned about protecting companies who have come between people and the health care they need, or should we be more concerned with making sure all or most people have access to health care?

2. That’s interesting about a private company administering state Medicare. Is that what is being proposed with the federal public option? (I honestly haven’t heard anything to that effect). But doesn’t your example show that public-private cooperation is effective after all? And doesn’t that mean that the private companies wouldn’t go out of business since they’d be administering insurance for as much as 45 million new customers?

3. The president does not want to tax benefits, but many economists do because they feel it encourages wasteful use of health care services, driving prices up. Besides, as you put it, this would only be on those with “better benefits” (i.e., not those who can least afford it, as I put it). To me that is more than acceptable.

As far as price tag is concerned, the HELP Committee came out with a new bill a few days ago that would cover 95% of the uninsured with a public option and only costs $600 billion, topping off at $1 trillion once the Finance Committee adds in their costs. Again, that is over 10 years.

The policy that I bought for my family cost a little over $600 for my family of 4. I can afford that since I drive a Saturn and not a Lexis.

The public option will drive private insurers out of business because of governments heavy hand forcing doctors and hospitals take less, leaving them to make up the difference from the private insurance sector.

You say they should be mandated to cover everyone but should I not be rewarded for my health lifestyle? Should car insurance be the same way with bad drivers paying the same rates as good ones?