...is simple. The ones who should have to give up something are the private health insurance companies. Simple. The rest of us can get back some of the 31% we have been paying into them for which we don't get health care. Everybody will be better off in the end. The companies can find something else to sell. That's the way free enterprise works, folks. If you don't produce a product or service of value to us, you don't deserve to make a profit off of us.

...trap the private health insurance industry has set for you.

The private health insurance industry is trying to make us believe that they are entitled to their outsized profits because these represent a very small profit margin (which they claim is about 3%). This, however, is entirely misleading and disingenuous. They base this percentage on total medical costs and compare their “puny” profits with those of, say, automakers.

But here’s what’s going missing in this comparison. Automakers actually produce a product. Their profit margin is a real number. Private health insurers do no such thing. They are not the producer of the medical services that generate those costs. All they do is push paper around and siphon off...

the same tired old arguments.

#1 Medical care is not a "market good" that responds to the normal laws of supply and demand. It just doesn't. Competition is meaningless when talking about health care, except to put in a single-payer system which will let us have free choice of doctors. Then doctors will have to compete among themselves for patients. That will be good competition.

#2 Malpractice reform will only harm patients and take away their rights to a fair trial. It is only 1/2 of 1 percent of total health care costs, not a significant number. Talking this to death will solve nothing.

#3 Republicans have no way to ensure that people do not face catastrophic financial harm on top of catastrophic illness or...

is the way to get universal health care while lowering costs. Aus, basta, fertig.

But why should we bear the cost of [insurers']care and feeding?

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My point exactly. Let's get rid of the scoundrels (the private health insurance industry, that is). We don't need them.

Obama keeps yelling at them, but that's going to do no good. Their one goal is to make profit, and they have figured out how to do that pretty well by snookering Obama and his administration and Congress.

They provide nothing of value, and to keep them around only violates the laws of free enterprise. Every conservative ought to know that, right???

...oppose single payer. Single payer is still the best and only way to reform health care. It will save fully 1/3 of what we pay now, and will be the best way to control costs. The situation described by Steve Chapman will exist in any system we adopt. It is, however, NOT an argument against single payer, and is absolutely NOT a reason to delay enjoying the many benefits single payer can give us as a society.

'Nuff said.

...medical records system. It functions very well and should be the model for all others. If each electronic system was made to be compatible with VistA, we would have universal EMRs in no time. Competition is hindering this effort big time. What is the point of a hospital or medical practice installing a system that can't communicate with anybody else's system???

...the hospitals and clinics are owned by the government and the personnel are employed by the governnment. See, we can run a socialist system.

Yes, there are complaints but there are many more complaints about the private sector and the inhumane way we are treated by the private health insurance industry. The VA, Medicare, and so on are being starved of money by the reactionaries that want to kill them off. This needs to be stopped.

There is an easy way to get rid of a lot of Medicare fraud. Pay providers in 60 or 90 days, not 30, giving time to catch up with the fraudsters. Simple, huh???

This whole abortion issue is nothing more than a red herring, meant to stall meaningful health care reform. The Hyde amendment is good enough. It was not necessary for someone like Stupak to muddy the waters by introducing the issue into the health care bill. As Rachel Maddow said, "Stupak is as Stupak does." Let the Hyde amendment stand and get his superfluous amendment out of the way.

While on the subject, I will point out that the bill before the Senate is horrible. We need to scrap it and "start from scratch" with S 703, so that we can have a single-payer Medicare-for-All. There is nothing more "disruptive" than all the lives "disrupted" by medical debt and untreated conditions. Out with the industry that for far too long...