[CaptainHaplo]

Clive,

To answer your question regarding thyroid meds. My lady has the same situation. Every month we pay like $15 for her prescription. Without insurance, the cost would be $35 if memory serves.

Now, regarding insurance costs, the family plan I have, covering 4 people at 90/10 (which is better than the normal plan), costs me aboout $280 a month. This includes dental coverage as well.

As AVG has stated, some of the proposals have suggested that if a person refused to get insurance - either private or through the government "plan", they would be "fined" if they used health care. The numbers put out that I have seen have shown me that the government plan will cost me MORE than my private plan. The problem is always in the details however. I could keep my plan, but any "adjustment" or change in the plan would "invalidate" it, meaning it would be no longer able to be offered. That means if the premium needed to increase, the offering company has the choice of either eating the loss and not increasing the cost, or stop offering the plan. At that point, I would have to join the more expensive government plan - or pay a fine if someone has to go to the doctor.

There is a big push to remove the fine for most people - because its unfair to those that wouldn't get insurance. After all - they must not be buying this golden government cow because they must be poor, and if they are poor, its not fair to fine them. So in essence, all you have to do is show up at the hospital, turn out your empty pockets, and sneeze. Free health care. And those paying for it? People like me, that work, already are paying our own way, and don't feel like carrying more of a load.

Mookie - I understand the concept of spreading the risk. But there is a big difference between a private, paid by choice plan, and universal health care. The majority of people who don't have health insurance are one or more of 3 groups.

People who are very high risk

People who choose for whatever reason to not get coverage

People who can't afford it.

The ones who are high risk are kept out - keeping my premiums more reasonable. The people that choose not to get coverage - don't cost the insurance company a dime, so they don't make my premium increase either. The last group - those that "can't afford it" are those who choose not to work, illegal, or simply down on their luck. For the first and second, I have no sympathy because its called get a job flipping burgers if thats what it takes to make your life better, the second - illegals - are already violating the law just being here and deserve no reward for it, and the last - those down on their luck = SHOULD be getting the benefits of a social safety net that is currently too preoccupied with the first two groups to actually do much to help our own who really need it.

So while my premiums do help out some folks who have hit a rough patch, I also can rest assured those people have been doing the same for me, unlike the pregnant crack whore, the illegal who gets paid under the table in cash to avoid taxes and takes his kid that sneezed once to the hospital, or the lazy fat guy who ate so many Whoppers and Big Macs he has to get airlifted out of his house. Think those folks were helping me out? Think they were "spreading the risk"? No they weren't. They are responsible for their own choices. Not me. I owe them nothing.

Take the homeless vet walking in the winter in the park because he can't get a place. I owe him. The guy just like me that is a plumber, a carpenter, or just the kid working at the drive thru window. They are doing what they can, trying and working to make their own life a little better. How about the guy with broken english and 4 kids? He happens to have a work visa, he pays his share, and he does all he can. He is legal, and respects our way - since its OUR country. He is welcome and I am proud to shoulder the load with him.

Those that sneak across in the dead of night, where their first act is to flaunt our law? No, I am not willing to shoulder that burden.

Look. I realize people fall on hard times. I also realize some people CHOOSE hard times. Ultimately the issue is this. I do not owe ANYONE a right to my money to pay for their health care. Universal health care takes my money, to pay for someone else's care. I don't have a choice in that scheme. Its robbing me to pay for something I don't owe. That's called theft.

Private insurance is a choice. Universal health care isn't. One I choose to pay, the other government takes for the benefit of others without my consent.

In the 1770's, that same type of act caused a rather big uproar. People seem suprised that the same act creates the same result today.