your brute ignorance of the rights-vs-responsibility sacred contract a democratic state makes with its citizens.”

How do you come up with this stuff, aziz ?

You say:

“I have also seen the effects that various government policies have had on costs over those years. And in almost every case, the intervening policy has had the opposite effect of what was stipulated when the policy was put into effect.”

This is in large part due to the fundamental difference between conservative and liberal approaches to problems. Paramount among those differences is the tendency for liberals to discount the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Things cost more than liberals think because they always leave out things they don’t want to confront, and because they refuse to acknowledge the effect of feedback mechanisms that come into play and change the environment as soon as the policy is implemented.

This is a LARGE reason that conservatives are suspicious of government solutions to things, we EXPECT them to have unintended consequences, and by and large they are virtually always NEGATIVE ones.

I have been working in the health care industry since 1980. That’s 29 years. I work for a very large medical device vendor so I get to see the operating practices of a lot of both public and private institutions and health care providers.

In every single one of those institutions and providers – from the big university medical centers down to the free-standing, private imaging centers – they are more than willing to negotiate their fees when a patient is paying out-of-pocket. (ie has no insurance) Indeed, most of them actually have a standing discount for no-insurance patients that is substantially lower than the published procedure price.

I have also seen the effects that various government policies have had on costs over those years. And in almost every case, the intervening policy has had the opposite effect of what was stipulated when the policy was put into effect.

A good responsible move.

–HB

Translation: I will give you the shirt of someone else’s back!

HB

You have a flaw in your criticism of Aziz, and it is a flaw which essentially concedes the key point to the Leftist. You say:

This is the false nobility of the leftist: “I care about the poor, and I am morally superior because I am forcing everyone else to help them.”

The falseness of this statement is not just that they are morally superior, but that their “solution” ACTUALLY HELPS THE POOR.

I would hope that the failure of the Great Society had proven that Leftist wealth redistribution efforts simply do NOT WORK. Not only will Aziz force you to do something, but he will force you to do something that does not ACTUALLY HELP THE POOR.

Once health care is rationed, the poor will (as always) be the ones who find it hardest to get new hips, new hearts and new leases on life, while the politically connected will find it easiest.

Absolutely untrue. I know several people without insurance (by choice) and they always get SUBSTANTIAL discounts when they negotiate. The hospital and doctors do not have to deal with the insurance bureaucracy, so it is a good deal for them to discount the services.

Also, the Republicans DO have alternatives on the table – it’s just that the MSM wouldn’t dare let this out.

http://is.gd/1JaQd

And a response to the “some want to do nothing” meme:

http://is.gd/1JaRM

But your caring stops being noble when you want to seize and spend MY money. This is the false nobility of the leftist: “I care about the poor, and I am morally superior because I am forcing everyone else to help them.”

To throw another angle at the issue:

According to Lazarou in JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association), a large meta-analysis, “proper” use of prescription drugs CAUSE about 106,000 deaths each year in hospitals.

Adding the true, but unfortunate, observations of Dr. Starfield of Johns-Hopkins (JAMA, 2000: 284:483- 485), who calculates the iatrogenic deaths each year in the USA as follows:

* 12,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery

* 7,000 deaths/year from medication errors

* 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals

* 80,000 deaths/year from infections acquired from hospital staff or patients

This is about 225,000 deaths/year in the US from doctors and hospitals. This is only outnumbered by cancer and heart disease.

Maybe, the folks who aren’t insured are better off!

–HBarnes