Good post. I think this thread has run it's course. The ideas on how to help solve have been laid out but there are fundamental ideological differences in how people think we should approach this. We'll just keep talking in circles.

Great post, golfwidow. Um, you ever thought of entering the Faux Faulkner contest? Just kidding.

I'm not familiar with the Faux Faulkner contest (I suspect that it is some sort of parody?) - but I am known for making "interesting" answering machine recordings and I do write occasional twisted entries in a Golfwidow Digest (my husband is the only subscriber) and in emails to friends (who won't have me committed). I do aspire to do some "real" writing one day - but I must first improve my basic skills (spelling - even spell check can't help me, grammar, etc.) I have historically been one to keep my thoughts to myself - but I am becoming quite verbose now that I can hide behind my keyboard and spew to the world in anonymity - but aren't we all? If and when I make my move to the next level I'll give credit to the folks on the MIBB - for tolerating my fledgling rhetorical skills. I have nothing left to say about this matter (those are words that my husband loves to hear), so I will end it here and go and raise a glass of freshly squeezed - squoze? : ) orange juice - to our good health!

Check your PMs.

Our nation desperately needs health care reform that lets Americans begin reducing exploding health care costs. The best way to do this is to reform the tax code to move away from employer sponsored health care and remove regulations that are preventing a true health insurance market from functioning. But the President does not want this change. He wants to build off the failed models of Medicare and Medicaid that got us into this mess in the first place. Worse, President Obama is set to fund his massive expansion of government run health care on the backs of small businesses. The Senate wants to pay for this health care plan with an employer mandate that will cost small businesses hundreds of billions of dollars a year and the House wants to pay for their health plan with a “surtax” on individuals with gross incomes above $280,000. Problem is, six of every ten who earn that much are small business owners, operators, and investors.

How about we just pass a law that keeps lawyers out of the hospital, then see how low the cost of medicine goes.

...so if you own a small business in the health care field will you have to pay higher taxes to pay for a plan that in turn pays you? And if your small business is successful enough to allow you to gross over $280,000 will you have to pay higher taxes to pay for the plan that in turn pays you? Will it pay to be a successful owner of a small health care business? Can one make a profit this way? How about if owners of small health care businesses don't pay anything and in turn don't make anything - at least it will cut down on red tape and paperwork.

This health care issue is giving me a headache! ; )

Best solution: government get out of the game - period!
Fat chance of that happening, though.

The price tag for the new House bill is estimated at $1.3 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the figure for a government health care program at $1.6 trillion. Heritage scholars estimate twice that much. While the ultimate cost of government-run health care is impossible to predict, two things are abundantly clear: No one can accurately predict the future of government spending programs, and projections are always too low. I found a recent article posted at American Thinker that raises an important fact to illustrate this argument:

“It is naïve to believe that increased government intervention will lower the cost of medicine. All past evidence indicates that the reverse is true. In 1965, the government promised that Medicare part A would cost $9 billion by 1990. The actual cost was more than $66 billion -- over seven times projected costs. There has never been a single large federal social program that has come in at budget or has performed as predicted.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/the_failed_promises_of_governm.html

The President touts his plan as just one more of many that will be available to consumers. Yet common sense says otherwise. The government already dictates rates at which it will pay health care providers through Medicare. What private insurer has the power to do that? The government will set the rules under which the insurance industry will operate. And the government, unlike private insurers, has no need to make a profit.

Democrats in Congress are doing their part in this orchestrated campaign of deceit. A piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal outlines a cynical doublecross in negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry. Here’s the punch line.

“Democrats remember the failure of HillaryCare, and they blame industry ads that alerted the public to the rationing and loss of choice that will accompany government health care. Their negotiations this time around are intended to buy business silence, at least long enough for Democrats to spring legislation into law before the companies have enough time to educate the public and defeat it.

Big Pharma and others have been played for suckers. We'd say these companies deserve what they get, except that the real victims of government health care will be American patients.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124770335901048655.html

There’s nothing open or honest about the national health care debate. Our elected leaders are doing everything they can to mislead and deceive. That should scare the living hell out of all of us.

Shut off care for illegals and give every family $5,000 and every individual $2,000 and let them spend that money in the free market to determine their healthcare needs from the providers they choose. This creates competition and will keep costs under control.