Then why doesn’t Obama propose raising money for his plans by limiting the home mortgage deduction to the amount it exceeds 7.5 % of a persons income( the current threshold for medical deductions)? Why doesn’t he propose to make health costs fully deductible for those that itemize? And for those that don’t have a special box on the 1040 & EZ. This box would be the deduction for the amount paid for a private healthcare policy (defined by the government as a basic plan). The companies that could give the best rates would get the most business. Why can’t the government define a basic policy? They define the minimum car insurance I need to carry?
Are is a power grab more important? If passed into law, what will be the anticipated date that these government subsidy/ rebate taxes paid back to taxpayer plans will go broke in the same fashion that medicare, medicaid, and social security are anticipated to run out of money and need more tax dollars from EVERYONE?
medicare is not efficient with the same outcomes – at the present time there are restrictions in medicare eligible care that you can get if you have private insurance. Medicare accounts for 40% of all US health spending yet covers far less than 40% of the US population. When they say they are going to reduce medicare costs they do it by reducing the amount the reimburse providers (leaving disadvantaged patients to pick up the difference & more providers opting out of providing Medicare services increasing the stress on heavily regulated hospitals.
Advances in medicine are available more widely and sooner in the US than anywhere else and most come from the US.
Part of the problem is the legal system which encourages and allows patients hit the lottery. Depending on the specialty it is possible for 30-45% of a Drs salary to go to malpractice insurance. That money has to come from somewhere and many Drs leave the field when able rather than tolerate it.

A government health insurance plan sounds nice and pretty, but when you consider a little bit of history concerning the government and its regulation of the private insurance market and consider basic economics it’s pretty darn clear that as time goes on more and more people will be forced into government run plans.

First, the lie that the government wishes to just "compete" with private insurers is complete BOGUS. The federal (and state governments) already heavily regulate the private insurance market. Over the years governments (both state and federal) have required insurers to cover more and more procedures, many which have nothing to do with health thereby forcing customers to shell out more money instead of just simply allowing consumers to customize their plan….you know kinda like how you do with other insurance.

Also doctors spend around 30 billion per year (according to CNN) on malpractice insurance. So if we could have some tort reform of some sort to reduce law suit abuse.

But the point I REALLY try to make to people is this….Private insurance companies need to at least break even to keep themselves in business. Government does not. Government can afford to operate at a loss because it has an endless supply of tax revenue and the ability to borrow money from sales of bonds or by monetizing the debt with the Federal Reserve. Now ask yourself this….if you were a business of some sort, and you were competing against someone who could afford to operate at a loss indefinitely don’t you think you would have a hard time competing against them? They could afford to continually undercut you (at their loss) and eventually put you out of business. So as you can see the government is NOT competing against private insurers in a FREE market because
1) they regulate their competitors already and 2) they can afford to lose as much money as they want since they do not need to make a profit or even break even to stay in business.

Now some people would say that as long as they can afford to give people cheap medical care then it shouldn’t really matter if they operate at a loss….Well ok, but there is one problem with that and that is supply

If the government sets prices artificially low then their will be an increase in demand for those services. The system will not be able to handle everybody in a timely manner which will lead to long waits and rationing. Now to be clear there already is rationing today just as their is rationing of every product and service we buy….the rationing factor is the price. There are ways to lower the price using Free market solutions instead of the heavy coercive hand of government such as:

Tax deductions for health savings accounts that can be used towards deductibles or insurance premiums, tort reform, allowing private insurance to compete in a free market unlike what it has endured over the years as increased government regulation has increased the price.

I’m starting to ramble, but the main point I wanted to put out for debate is that government is NOT competing against private insurers because it is government that is setting the terms of competition and not the market and also the government can afford to operate at a loss while private insurers can’t. Talk about a monopoly!

Please if all you can say is a bunch of rude or ignorant things then please don’t comment.