Sam..this is a personal opinion only on universal health. I have a health condition, it can be incredibly inconvenient, there are much worse health conditions, and my health condition isn't terminal. I use to visit a health care related site and the doom and gloom, medical tests, and pill popping is why I left the site. If I was a newbie to my affliction and read that site I would be terrified. My point is that I wonder how badly the system would get abused by particular individuals? A lot of the people have had surgeries and medical equipment and weren't even properly diagnosed with the health condition. Then the people who truly need to health care are waiting. It's very frustrating.

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Ephesians 5:15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyR41JbpL_g

No they did not negotiate with our pharmacutical companies.... THEY STRONG ARMED THEM...... they told our companies that they are only going to pay A certain amount...... If the companies want to charge them more then the FRENCH GOVERNMENTS OWN PHARMACUTICAL COMPANIES will manufacture the drugs iregardless of patents and trademarks.............

Sam-I understand very little about how to fix healthcare or even what the options are. The only thing that I do know is that our system is broke.

We as a nation have some of the best medical care there is offered in the world. I believe that wholeheartedly. However, how good is that medical care, if you can't afford to get it? What use is a prescription, if you can't afford to buy it? Do people realize how often someone will put off going to the doctor, simply because they really don't have the funds. This just leads to more complications down the road I believe.

I don't understand the single payer healthcare you are referring to. However, what makes sense to me, is that if the government takes 40 extra dollars out of your paycheck a week to pay for a government assisted healthcare for your family, that is much less expensive than not having insurance at all or having to pay $250 or more a month for individual healthcare, and it would probably help businesses that are having trouble with providing benefits to their employees. More and more businesses are not offering insurance benefits, so I really think that we are just going to see more people uninsured.

Freedom, what you are asking about is the same program that employers used to offer to its employees. The program makes sense but why should the goverment manage the program. Why not get the insusrance lobby to backoff and have plans that employers can afford to offer to its employees?

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

Rob, I could agree to that. As a business, I would love to offer my employees healthcare. I've looked into it. The cost to my employees and myself right now is astronomical. We just can't afford it.

Lady you raise a great point and that is one reason the system will not work here. You research and understand science and implications of just jumping onto drugs etc. Americans are different types of consumers and that is one of many reasons why the French system would not work here. Your thoughts on medicine/pharmaceuticals/science are well thought out. I am not advocating the French system...but it might warrant considering some aspects.Fortunately we have a great medical cultural exchange so many of our specialists recieve training in French hospitals.

Gix The French negotiated the same contract that the veterans adminstration did for costs of pharmaceuticals. I can tell you do not know what you are taliking about. BIG PHARMA Lobbyist bought our last congress so medicare part D did not get this bulk buying discount so all of us tax payers are shouldering this huge waste of money and paying for it with our taxes. Almost ever country negotiates for bulk pharmaceuticals produced in the US including Asia/Western Europe.

Freedom I will link you to an explanation of a one payer system. I need to run but I will get back to this later and find the link.

Again my point is not to promote their system but to recognize that although they are always ranked above the US for quality of care I do not believe their system would work for us. However there are some minor adjustments that we could emulate so we could improve our system. Other countries are also ranked about our sytem..I only chose France because I am somewhat familiar with it and so many of our local physicians do CE in France for high tech procedures.

Freedom, my company doesn't offer affordable insurance. The company says this is the best plan they could find.

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An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

Freedom..one comment i want to make before I sign off is this... People that spend all day on this healthcare crisis and have degrees in medicine and economics and really do have the countries best interest at heart are not quite sure how to fix the system. There is no sure shot answer. I will get back to this and griffin v. teague if I can later.

I am just a person with a little experience in one area weighing this situation IMHO.

"I do not believe a complete socialized healthcare system would work in the US."

>>>I do. Any kind of hybrid system is just going to be a continuation of what we have now except that there will be even more abuse. Private industry has blown its opportunity.

wha tthe fuckin shit ar yu peple sayin.rush asays the french ar coms an what the fuck who wold do it.