The other Awards Obama will will this year...

[kandrathe]

And yet, an ethically necessary system, and the system of medical ethics is not something I would want to damage. Until those people have actual health coverage, the system will continue to have to pay the spillover costs of their emergency treatment - driving up prices. Rather than buying the ounce of treatment, you'll be forking over time and time again for the pound of cure.

Well, you are seeing only the one side of ethics; the obligation of society to be compassionate. There is also the part of ethics where society should expect a level of citizenship, lawfulness, and self reliance from those who are seeking that compassion. But, here again, you are trying to suck me into the lie that we need socialized medicine to keep people from dying in the street. That simply is not true. We will not solve any social ills suffered by the poor by nationalizing health insurance. They are the ones who have health insurance now, as well as the elderly. The people who have the gaps are people who have lost their job and don't qualify for any social programs, or young adults who fall off their parents insurance, who don't have a job that offers health insurance, and cannot afford to pay for it out of pocket. Oh, and those who are in the country without documentation who work for cash.

In a democracy, people can take responsibility for things collectively. The military is everyone's responsibility, and it works (more or less) fine.

I think it is often misused and our military personnel are taken advantage of and often under appreciated.

Roads work that way.

It would be fairer if the costs for roads were levied locally, however, for ports and airports it would make sense for more blended federal support.

So does education.

It should be a local issue.

Why not health care? It works well in other countries. It's not like this is untested speculation.

I don't think it works well in other countries. Again, by anecdote, I've heard of many ways that it doesn't work well, and some where it does work. Care is rationed, and costs are controlled by fiat. And, like I said, if you did that with food, or housing, or motor vehicles, you could drastically drive down the costs and implement the governments ecology strategies overnight. But, if you want to give people choices, like those offered by a "free" market, then you need to accept that the market drives the price. Things were pretty stable in the health care insurance market until the government stepped in and took over half the market about 50 years ago, and since then, the prices have spiraled out of control. The more the government does to try to fix the problem, the more they hork it up worse.

I hope it works out for you. Being without health care coverage is a serious gamble.

I'm getting out of consulting and IT, and I landed a full time very stable job in academia doing research at a local private college. I think the job is a very good fit for me. I'm going to also finish my graduate degree and then maybe do some teaching. My insurance starts at the 1st of November. It's only gambling if you have a choice, and my family didn't have any choices. Our country really needs to focus on decoupling insurance from employment, and in my opinion, having government run it is not the right option either.

If it were even remotely true that countries with public systems had inferior outcomes, then I'd agree with you that this is the trade off. But it's not true. People in most first world countries are not getting poor quality health care - instead, wasteful excesses are constrained, coverage is extended to everyone, and treatment is prioritized according to medical criteria, rather than capitalistic ones (IE: MRIs go to people who need MRIs, not people who can afford MRIs.) It saves money, and it does the job. The evidence is all out there.

Health care ain't like other products. Kenneth Arrow figured that out ages ago. The uncertainties are too large, the potential costs too enormous (or zero, luck of the draw), the nature of medical ethics too important to let markets work effectively. (See: entire other thread.)

Health care, no. But, health insurance, yes. Think of any other common insurance product (home, car, life, liability) that people would willing choose to skip. They don't unless the costs are way out of wack with their perceived benefit. If auto insurance cost at the rate that health insurance did, then many people would be uninsured. If life insurance cost $6000 a year, then people would go without it. There is a point where people will decided to take risks, with their health, with their home, or with their families security. Usually, it is when you need to figure out how to buy groceries, and make the house payment. Starvation and homelessness are two situations that are known to be bad for your health.