Finally, US has Spoken...

[alewifebp]

Originally Posted by Krimson X

I already pay 15% of my income to health care. Can't we do something about that?

I would hope we can, but I ask you, do you really think that the government can do something positive in that regard? Do you really believe that a massive increase in government spending on a 1,000+ page bill is anything but efficient, and will somehow decrease that figure? Whether a liberal or conservative is in office, I don't believe our government can, and we have a big history to prove that nearly any government run program anywhere is inefficiently run and is prone to waste. I assume you've been to the DMV, or as Obama likes to say, even the poorly run post office.

I don't have the all the answers, and that is exactly why rushing through something as important and as involved as this makes exactly zero sense. No one has the answers, or even knows what the final bits of the bill are going to look like, but for some strange reason Obama wanted to rush it through.

Certainly one area I've heard as being ripe for improvement is malpractice reform. Huge amounts are spent on malpractice insurance, and that also forces doctors to run many more tests than are really necessary. Both of these increase costs. I have an HSA, and our company just went 100% HSA. It only has benefits, and as Laffer pointed out, it decreases the health care wedge. It really makes it more evident the costs associated with health care when you are paying the full negotiated rates. It encourages you to find a doctor that is not necessarily lesser quality, but perhaps lesser cost. It encourages you to avoid going to the doctor for minor things. It encourages you to use generics. All of this saves money. And if you don't spend all of the money you have contributed, you get to keep it, and earn interest on it. While this does not work for everyone, this certainly works for many of us, and would go a long way to reducing the cost burdens.

And why must we upend an entire system when we just need to figure out a way to insure those that need insurance but don't have it? And that number is much less than the often quoted 47 million.