Obama Mercy Hospital

[Philly Mike]

The issue I take with government run healthcare is who gets to make the decisions. You want to put an entity that can't pay its bills, mortgages the future, specializes in short-term fixes, and is known for dragging its feet at nearly every opportunity, in charge of deciding what to do when it comes to your health? Are treatment options going to be about what what course you want and/or your doctor suggest, or will it rely simply on survival and success ratios? I'd like to hear more about it.

I'm not going to pretend I know exactly how it works, but I've heard as many horror stories about government-run healthcare as I've heard about our current system. Year-or-years-long waits for procedures and extreme taxation are a few things I'm concerned about. And I loathe to defend insurance companies, but isn't it possible with an installation of a government program comes the elimination of the private sector? Cuz we really need a couple hundred thousand more people lookin for work... Of course, that's an extreme scenario, but it is completely unlikely?

Well if the private sector did disappear wouldn't those jobs have to go somewhere if the same amount of people are getting insurance? I think if anything it would make the private sector more competitive and hopefully turn around the current trend of insurance going up and covering less. I am not for 100% government healthcare at all, but if they were a competitor and able to set some lower rates then it would be a good thing IMHO.

It would make things more competitive all in all. It would also bring more jobs. With everyone eligable for health insurance there has to be people to work for whatever company or companies are chosen to help drive the government health care and there would have to more than likely be entire departments created within those companies to do so. and like lee says it would probably create lower rates because of the openness created by this which helps us all in the end. It would not eliminate the private insurance agencies at all. If you look at the major universal health care plans out there there is also always a supplemental insurance company or private insurance companies for the people who can afford them if they are purley exclusive like that . but there are also low priced privates and supplemental insurance agencies, but the basics should be covered for people.