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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Maggie Gallagher :: Townhall.com Columnist
The Truth About Nationalized Healthcare
by Maggie Gallagher
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But even The New York Times cannot admit the real "free rider" problem here. It's not that the health care needs of uninsured twentysomethings like Brandy are bankrupting the system. It's that not enough twentysomethings like Brandy are paying for the health care of fortysomethings and older. That's the only way insurance makes sense: We pay into it when we are young and healthy, and we get something out of it when we are older and more likely to get sick.

But try running on that as your platform: Make the young people pay more!

Here's the other dirty little secret: National health insurance is going to cost Brandy and other taxpayers a whole lot more than either Hillary or Obama admits. Just ask Gov. Deval Patrick in Massachusetts, where just two years into operation, the state's mandatory health insurance plan is already costing $400 million more than budgeted.

Meanwhile we have a Medicare system that is going to go bankrupt.

Here's a question neither Hillary nor Barack will answer: How can we justify spending billions to insure the Brandys of the worlds, when we haven't yet secured the health care financing for our existing promises to senior citizens?
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About The Author

Maggie Gallagher is a nationally syndicated columnist, a leading voice in the new marriage movement and co-author of The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially.

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(44 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Feb 28, 2008 - 5:52 AM EST
Come to your senses
You're right Maggie, 400 Million over budget is atrocious. Going over budget on healthcare, tsk tsk, inacceptable.

Then again:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

Brandy Coons huh? A waitress you say? Yes, they always make great money and have such stable employment. What does a gym membership cost these days, $20 or $30 a month? A photography hobby, probably digital? What is that these days... free? No you're right, she should scrounge and scurry to get her over-priced policy, so she can stay at home to save the few pennies left her just waiting for the coronary to kick in. Good plan.
Or maybe, we should stop letting these massive companies extort us?
Your style of journalism continues to perpetuate the myth that universal healthcare can't exist. It does and it's wonderful. I'm an American living abroad, I have the most amazing healthcare. Stop listening to the lies, the rhetoric, thay don't want you to have it. Yes, those amazing companies who spend millions of their own hard earned dollars developing new drugs, then rake it in and award their CEO's Billions upon billions. They want your money.
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Reply # 2
Date: Feb 28, 2008 - 12:35 AM EST
Cornpone Harry -- $ Where Your Mouth Is?
Those like Cornpone always claim it's because somebody else is making too much money.

But Cornpone probably doesn't believe the very things he is saying to the rest of us. (He may not be a liar, but boy is he compartmentalized!!)

Those pharma co.s and hospitals he says are overcharging are, in many cases, private corporations. That is, they are owned by their stockholders, and their profits -- high, medium, or low -- belong to those stockholders.

If what Cornpone says is true, then those stockholders are getting rich. Cornpone could join the ranks of those who are getting rich simply by buying the stock -- which can almost certainly be done for a price he can easily afford -- say, $35 per share?

But I'll wager he hasn't done so. One reason might be that Cornpone enjoys poverty and wouldn't want the money that might alleviate that. But a more likely reason is that -- inspite of encouraging the rest of us to believe it -- Cornpone himself doesn't believe that investing in healthcare is a paying proposition.

Although Cornpone is unwilling to invest in the provision of hospital services or pharmaceuticals for his community, he fully expects someone else to do so (so that Cornpone can enjoy those benefits). Cornpone then expects those investors to suffer the calumnies of ungrateful hypocrits like himself.

Nice fellow!
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