Bill Moyers Journal tonight

[IndyFarmer]

THE JOURNAL presents CRITICAL CONDITION, a documentary in which ordinary hard-working Americans tell their stories of battling critical illnesses without health insurance. They discover that being uninsured can cost them their jobs, health, homes, savings, and even their lives.

The country spends more than $2 trillion a year — over $6,000 per person — on health care, yet is the only major industrial nation without universal coverage. Between 45 and 47 million Americans live without health insurance, and 80 percent of them are from working families who either cannot afford insurance premiums or lose their insurance exactly when they need it most: when they fall ill and can no longer work. America ranks 24th in life expectancy, 28th in preventing infant mortality and 19th in halting preventable deaths.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08212009/profile.html

[Brentwood]

I am sorry I missed watching it on the 21st. I found it on youtube and am watching it now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCHVuMgz18c

[Pat]

The vast majority of Americans don't want national health care.

The Dems aren't going to come together and force it now because they know it would kill them at the polls and they would lose their majority status in the House and Senate. Voters are fickle...force something that is important to them, that affects them directly, and that they don't want down their throat just to make a small minority happy and you're gone come election time. The 'all or nothing' approach' helps none of us and doesn't improve health care.

There are ways to fix what we have now. If politicians would just show good faith, work together and make meaningful repairs now, people just might trust them enough in the future to consider a new, more efficient and cost-effective way to deliver health care.

A lot of the protesting we are seeing is the result of the lack of trust the majority of Americans have for politicians. Simple fact is, they can't be trusted to do the right thing and they've proven it over and over. William Jefferson, a Democrat, is just the latest in a long line of members of both parties, locally and nationally, to show just how trust-worthy they are. Neither party has the right to claim the high-ground, so this particular bluster should come to an end.

The level of finger-pointing and rancor, by BOTH sides, is drowning out meaningful discussion on how to fix what we have, hold costs down and move on to future discussions on ways to do things better that won't bankrupt the economy or end up providing poor care for everyone.

It is time to move away from complaining about not getting what we all know will never pass a Democratic House and Senate.

MO

[Pat]

A few suggestions:

Make health insurance portable.

Allow companies to sell across state lines.

Do away with state insurance boards that are nothing more than duplications for special interest lobbying...have regulations that are national.

Disallow any insurance company to write policies that have pre-condition limits.

Pass meaningful Tort reform.

Make insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and the health care industry open their books so we can see what their profit margins look like so we can judge whether or not the claims they make about expense vs. savings are legitimate. Yes, stockholders need to see a return on their investments and drug companies need to make enough of a profit in order to justify research. But the profits and salaries shouldn't be obscene. Private hospitals need to do the same. They need to justify some of the decisions they make when it comes to "doing business".

I realize there will be people whose ideology won't support federal interference in private and state business, but I'm simply expressing my opinion and throwing out my ideas.

I'm sure people who are familiar with the insurance and health care industry could come up with many reasonable suggestions...as long as they aren't beholding to special interest groups.

A number of people have suggested ways to approach heath care reform. Their voices get drowned out in faux outrage (think Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin) and finger-pointing. When the kids are screaming, the adults can't be heard.

[watcher2005]

When we get angels in government maybe they can be trusted with another program that will have some degree of mandatory participation.