You are a complete idiot, and a selfish one at that!- Who would choose not to have health insurance, unless money was an issue in their lives?

There is something immoral and distasteful about the fact that anyone (the healthy) be forced to give up a right of their own for another (obese slob) to benefit from it.

Or, for that matter, making a profit on the incarceration of others. Or making a profit on children being removed from and/or losing their parents and becoming wards of the state.

There are some things that just aren’t appropriate for profit-making, even if it were true that they did it “better” or “more efficiently”. The fact that they *don’t* just makes it worse.

As President Barack Obama’s health care plan has been revised, rewritten and demonized, it has become increasingly clear that the status quo will remain. Insurance companies will be repaid for their investments in trying to kill the bill, and will continue to profit wildly. Millions and millions of Americans will continue to either be uninsured or be under-insured.

As we’ve come to expect from you, this is a fantastic post, Bill. Your ability to address universal issues with a personal touch is why the Chronicles is a must-stop on my daily laps ’round the Internet.

I pulled out the quote above because I’ve had the same realization over the past few days. I’ve rarely been accused of being overly optimistic, but for a brief shining moment there (Obama in the Oval, 60 Dem senators) I thought we might actually be getting something real & meaningful accomplished re: health care.

It’s of course becoming more & more obvious that that ain’t gonna be the case, & the paragraph above goes a long way toward expressing the obscenity of this failure. Ridiculous insurance company profits, millions of uninsured Americans, & the only ones who can truly have peace of mind are those with a spare few hundred thousand stocked away.

I’m really glad to hear that with all you & your family had to endure during your mom’s illness, continued struggles with finances weren’t particularly egregious. Still, the fact that a relatively well-off woman had to purchase 1/2 prescriptions is a crime.

I know that “Sicko” got ignored in a number of circles as just another instance of Michael Moore being Michael Moore, but his central tenet — it’s not only the uninsured who are being screwed, but also those who actually *have* insurance, yet find they can’t get their treatments funded — oughta be etched in stone & shouted from the rooftops.

‘Scuse me whilst I find a dark room to sit in & sob quietly for a bit …

The federal government spent more than $25 billion on health-related R&D in 2005. Only some of that spending is explicitly related to the development of new pharmaceuticals.

By standard accounting measures, the pharmaceutical industry consistently ranks as one of the most profitable industries in the United States.

The effect of health insurance on drug companies’ revenues—combined with strong patent protection that helps firms maintain higher prices

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/76xx/doc7615/10-02-DrugR-D.pdf

A point I have made for years on web forums is that pharmaceutical research and development in the US is partially subsidized with US tax dollars, yet the pharmaceutical industry is allowed exclusive patents on new drugs for a period of 20 years. If a pharmaceutical company directly benefits from taxpayer money in the R&D of a new drug, the exclusive right to profit from the drug should be reduced to a max of five years.

Some will say this will discourage investment in R&D. But I don’t think so. I believe that large labs will stay away from US tax dollars and use 100% private investment to fund their research, thus avoiding the reduced patent protection. This will open room in the market for smaller labs and startups that will compete with each for the freed tax dollars. Increasing the number of labs and smaller companies competing in this market will lead to increased innovation and ultimately lower costs for patients, IMO.

Still, talking about health care in this way is depressing.