NN:> Yuck-- a lot of working people have chosen to take the risk of not having health care because they have no assets to attach when they show up at the emergency room. It's not the best health care possible, but it's better than being forced to shell out thousands of dollars a year that they can't afford, just so the insurance companies and hospitals get their pound of flesh.
> I find it mind-boggling that you see this as a step towards single payer. It's a step towards health savings accounts and "personal responsibility" for each person to see to their own health care. But yes, it gets packaged with the same rhetoric attacking the employer-based health care system. So since it's using good rhetoric, that makes it a good thing? <
Universal coverage is a major step against the cream-skimming practices of health insurers, i.e., covering only the healthy. Standardization of health care and universal coverage are steps toward combining the insurance funds for more efficient pooling of risk. Having combined pools (a state-level monopoly health company) is a step toward having state government regulation of the monopoly and even state ownership.
But you're right, a national single-payer system is the only real solution. -- Jim Devine Bust Big Brother Bush!
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm