Free basic health care = economic disaster. What we need is regulation, not universal health care. Such things are not even fair as it puts many businesses out of competition and loss of millions of jobs. regulation is the only way to ensure the economy as the same while the fairness is there as well

All I want is the ability to purchase Health Care on the same terms and conditions of everyone else. Why should employees of big groups get a better deal? I say eliminate all group insurance. If the insurance company’s had to compete for each of our individual business then competition would drive the cost down. What happens today is that the big groups purchase all for the resources. By the time the little get a crack at the program there is no way we can compete. The Government can provide equal footing by allowing the health insurance company’s’ to charge based on health and history. For those who can not afford insurance the social net (welfare) can help them buy policies.

I also say hospitals, clinics & every practitioner should be randomly audited.  Huge numbers of people are being paid & yet the services are not being provided, or are substandard.  They act like they're doing you a favor by letting you have an appointment.  The only people who really get proper care are terminal patients.  Helluva deal.  CARE needs to be reintroduced to the profession.

If public education had not been a part of our democracy for ever, we would be arguing about the value of providing it to all of our citizens.  It is the same with medical care.  And, as contagious diseases can travel faster, we are in a more and more risky situation if we do not have a co-ordinated system for providing medical attention to all who need it, easily, trackably, with proper response mechanisms to stop an epidemic in its early stages.  It would greatly reduce the amount of friction in the system now which requires enormous amounts of energy by employers, employees, self employed persons, unemployed persons.  Why are we so stupid?  Why does every other industrialized country on the planet get it but we do not?  

While SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE as a universal right is a necessity for our people, giving it away FREE is unrealistic.
There is nothing that is free, everything has to be paid for one way or another. My plan covers the cost with a modest no-cap payroll tax. Those unable to earn a payroll could be subsidized. Those earning capital gains instead of a payroll would pay a small surtax on them.

"Free basic health care = economic disaster. What we need is regulation, not universal health care. Such things are not even fair as it puts many businesses out of competition and loss of millions of jobs. regulation is the only way to ensure the economy as the same while the fairness is there as well"
This is fundamentally false. Private health insurance is inherently wasteful in that about a third of the costs involved are profit while Medicare is maybe 1-2 percent only overhead. Private health insurance is outdated and already would've been done away with if not for their lobby.

WHY HR 676 IS PERFECT FOR THE UNITED STATES:

1.  MEDICARE HAS A PERFECT 'SYSTEM' IN PLACE.
2.  THE JOBS IT CREATES STAY IN AMERICA.
3.  IT HAS A 3% COST TO RUN ...
4.  THERE WOULD BE CONTINUITY ACROSS STATE LINES
5.  THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF BANKRUPTCY IN AMERICA IS DUE TO HEALTH CATASTROPHES.
6.  WE ALL KNOW THE CORRUPTION GENERATED BY THE 'PRIVATE' HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY..SO I WON'T GO INTO THEM.
The ONE thing I would change in the bill HR 676---so that it will be more 'sell-able'---would be TO KEEP IT FOR LEGAL AMERICANS ONLY.  If we make it 'all inclusive' -- specifically, for illegal aliens, it will fail to get cooperation from all voters. 

I think what most people are failing to address is that WE HAVE ALREADY PAID for healthcare.

 The dollars, however, have been commandeered by 'oil wars,' PHARMA companies, insurance special interests, road building (YES road building), etc.

Leaders of this country need to reconsider where monies that have ALREADY been paid as taxes--are going. 

 I agree with Zaid who stated that 'private healthcare' is outdated.   It originated with unions to stop abuses against employees who were injured. 

Another by product of national healthcare is that the 'unholy alliance' between pharmacy companies and insurance companies would be reduced. 

 Americans pay for research into new medicines and then are charged amazingly high prices for medicines they've already paid for.  SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE WOULD TAKE CARE OF THIS INJUSTICE.

It's important that everybody fight for this.  Tell a friend, a co-worker.... chances are they don't know about it.   The only way a Single-payer bill (HR 676) will ever get passed is if all citizens demands it from our government.  Like education, health care should be available for every soul in America.

Private insurance will fight and lobby like madmen to try and stop Single-payer healthcare for all.  We must stand up for we the people!

Google HR 676 and learn about the bill.  Watch the movie "Sicko"

Then email everybody you know and tell them about HR 676 and Single-Payer Medicare for All.

Politicians scare people when they talk about a "government bureaucrat deciding their health care instead of their doctor", but I've seen myself and my family members get denied the full benefits of a dentist or doctor's prescription because of an insurance company ACCOUNTANT.

$3700 was deducted from my salary last year for medical and dental insurance for me and my family.  Thanks to co-pays and the decisions of insurance company ACCOUNTANTS who denied doctor and dentist prescriptions due to absurd technicalities, I paid an additional $5000.  "Sorry, but general anesthesia for your 4 year old's dental work is not covered."  "Sorry, but replacing the crown on that painful tooth is not covered because the same tooth got a crown less than 5 years ago; we don't care that your dentist wrote us a narrative letter proving medical need." 

Why is 10% of my family's annual salary going to medical care and I'm still getting doctor and dentist prescriptions denied?

We could either replace the private shareholder-centric insurance company altogether with a government system that actually honors my doctor's prescription, or introduce a government-backed system alongside the insurance companies and let the free market take care of itself.

UPS and FedEx have not put the US Postal service out of business.

We take government-provided fire, police, and education for granted.  Even leaving out education, I don't know anyone who would want to a system of privately provided police and fire protection.

Would you want an accountant deciding whether or not you get police or fire assistance?

We need single-payer healthcare that will cover all Americans.  And we need to STOP spending healthcare dollars on comapnies that do not actually provide healthcare (and often work to impede the delivery of healthcare) like insurance companies.
Besides the obvious benefits of healthier Americans, less minor problems becoming serious problems, increased life-expectancies, etc. there are some less obvious benefits:
American companies will be better able to compete in a global economy without having to fund healthcare benefits.
Workers would be more able to retrain and seek better employment.
Innovative start-ups and self-employed workers would have a better chance of success, growing, and employing other workers.
Bankruptcies would significantly decrease.  Unexpected bills for medical needs would not drag familes down financially.

I totally agree with the comments made by Louis Nickens.  Find out about HR-676 http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:h676ih.txt.pdf
Watch the movie Sicko http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/index.html
Read the book "Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn From The canadian Experience" http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Health-Care-Canadian-Experience/dp/1565845153

Yes, "free" is a misnomer.  We'd all pay a modest tax on our income.  However, the savings compared to the current, for-profit system is stagering.  We can't afford to keep paying for health insurance company CEOs' salaries, and for wasteful time spent on paperwork.

Single-payer healthcare would give us our choice of doctor, universal coverage, and reduced costs.

Watch Micheal Moore's movie "Sicko".  Our healthcare system is sick!  The Us is 34th in healthcare quality and first in expense.  Single payer healthcare works.  The poorest British citizen is healthier than the richest US citizen.

It obviously isn't free, it is free or nearly free upfront, but obviously taxpayers have to pay for it through taxation. I'm 100% for public single payer universal health care, I think that cutting out the insurance companies (the profit motive) out of our health care system (which should have a public HEALTH motive) is the only way we are going to fix the broken system. If we can get umbrella coverage like that we can avoid the patchwork of regulations and differing access and trying to keep up with the private sector in closing all the loopholes they will inevitably exploit. Single payer is the only way that makes sense. Anything less is just a stop gap until things get bad enough that we realize we have to go all the way. Public health is too important to be left to the market and greedy corporate America.

Oh, I should add that while it obviously isn't free, it is definitely worth the expense to the taxpayer, as our health care is among the most (or the most) expensive in the world, and we aren't even getting anything close to what we pay for. We'll end up saving money in the end, even if our taxes have to go up.

And sorry Republicans, paying higher taxes for the benefit of all Americans IS patriotic

Health care should be viewed with the same or greater urgency as any conceivable "war on terror" or other national defense priority.  Think about it: while we spent BILLIONS every month on defensive wars we probably didn't need, triggered by a terror attack which took three-thousand-some lives, EACH YEAR health insurance companies jeopardize the lives of many times that number of us through their profit-seeking nickeling and diming of Americans in need of better care. 

Whether it's prenatal care, or just simplifying the process and lowering the costs of meds for the elderly, the health insurance companies are NOT and never will be on our side!  (They like to say their "management" of health care is what saves lives, but as a healthcare provider for decades, I can say without hesitation that they're lying.  They undermine good care and suck off something like a tenth to a quarter of all the money spent on healthcare in our country.  I've never felt that a patient was "helped" -- not once -- by a managed care intervention.)

We need to save American lives by sinking a very small percent of our "national defense" or our "bail out CEOs" funds into a single-payer system that is NOT controlled by a profit-making corporation.  It would be the most significant lifesaving wonderful change in America in our lifetimes.

Police, Fire Depts., Schools, Libraries, etc., are government run social programs and, what we value most HEALTH had better be at the top of that list! Health care is a human RIGHT in any industrialized nation that's civilized. The United States is the ONLY industrialized nation without government provided health care and, that's an outrage! We-The-People must stand up for our rights and, demand single payer health care!

Even though it is allegedly "off the table" according to the beltway conventional wisdom, Single Payer "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All" is the only proposal with widespread grassroots support, and two-thirds of Americans support it:
ABC News/Washington Post, Oct. 9-13, 2003: a universal health insurance program, in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that's run by the government and financed by taxpayers?" Yes=62%
Associated Press/Yahoo News Poll, Dec. 14-20, 2007:"The United States should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers" = 65%

Only single payer can achieve Universality (all people) and Comprehensiveness (all needed care) and control Individual (total out of pocket for you and your family) costs and National costs (e.g., %-GDP).

An unraveling insurance system is leaving more and more Americans feeling insecure about the high cost of health care and their access to it. U.S health care costs are 70% greater than the median cost in other countries. (OECD Health Data 2006, June 2006)  U.S. health care costs are rising by 10% or more each year. (Kaiser/HRET Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits) 46.6 million Americans (nearly 1 out of 6 Americans) were uninsured for all of 2005, an increase of more than a million from the previous year. And additional tens of millions were uninsured for at least part of the year. (US Census Bureau 2006) In 2004, in nearly 3 in 10 (29%) households, someone skipped a medical treatment, cut pills, or did not fill a prescription because of cost. (Health Care Costs Survey, USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health, August 2005)  Almost one-half of all Americans say they are worried they will not be able to pay medical bills in event of serious illness. (Commonwealth Fund Survey 2006)  Half of middle- and lower-income adults experience serious problems paying medical bills or insurance premiums. (Commonwealth Fund Survey 2006)  Increasingly, health care costs are being transferred to employees by their employers. (Kaiser/HRET Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits, 2005) Half of U.S. bankruptcies are attributable to illness or medical bills. Three quarters of those bankrupted by illness were insured when they first got sick. (“Illness and Injury as contributors to Bankruptcy,” Himmelstein et al, Health Affairs, February 2005   2. Our country's reliance on private insurance companies adds cost but no value to our health care system. None of the other industrialized countries in the world rely on private for profit health insurance companies. Only the United States, by a quirk of history does so. All our systems’ failing follow from this... uninsured, underinsured, medical bankruptcies, uncontrolled costs, etc. Private health insurance companies spend 20% or more of their revenue on administration, marketing, and profit. By contrast, the public Medicare program covers more than 40 million Americans with a uniform comprehensive system, and it spends only 3% of its overall cost on administration. (International Journal of Health Services 2005; 35(1): 64-90) Millions of small businesses cannot afford to offer their workers health insurance under the current private insurance system.  (US Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics 2005, 2006) The billing, authorization, second-guessing, appeal and other administrative requirements imposed by the private insurance companies on the entire health care system create enormous waste and inefficiency estimated to cost the country more than $300 billion each year. (Woolhandler, Himmelstein NEJM 1991& 1993; Kahn et al Health Affairs 2005) Costs cannot be controlled in a for-profit multi-payer system. The result is continuing double-digit annual cost increases.  (Kaiser/HRET Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits 2005) Increasingly, private insurance companies limit patients’ access to their physicians and other providers and require company approval before services can be delivered. 
  3. PNHP supports a national health care insurance program that is publicly funded like Medicare and will ensure comprehensive care for all.  This program would cover all necessary medical services such as doctor visits, hospitalization, long-term care, prescription drugs, dental care, mental health, and preventive care. An expanded and enhanced Medicare program would cover everyone regardless of employment, income, or age. The program would be publicly funded but doctors and hospitals would remain as they are now, whether public or private. Hundreds of billions of dollars in administrative costs would be saved. (Health Care for all Californians Plan, Lewin Group, 2005) Costs would be controlled through capital planning and quality reviews conducted through the single insurer. Every other industrialized country has done it -- providing universal coverage at lower cost than we are now spending. 

While not perfect by any means, the Canadian and British systems cover EVERYONE.  There is no one without health insurance.  I lived in Canada for 14 years and it is not something people worry about to any great extent.  Here, you have to worry not only about losing your job (particularly in this economy) but your health insurance as well, if you do lose your job.  While COBRA exists to cover people who leave their jobs for any reason, it is generally too expensive for people who are not working!  Heath care costs are astronomical in this country, and the United States ranks far below most other developed nations in infanct mortality (http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20081015/infant-mortality-us-ranks-29th).  This is appalling.  We definitely need to change our entire approach to health care in this nation.

As a recent college graduate and the unlucky sufferer of a persistent infection, I have recently become all too familiar with the many problems that privatized health care poses to our citizens. The most basic concerns I've discovered are as follows:

1. Coverage for young adults, transitioning into or out of full-time student status: Young people taking time off from school to travel or volunteer are not covered. Even as a full-time college student, I was only covered until age 23, so having taken an indirect path to my degree ended up costing me $400 a month. Many of my college friends who graduate in the last few years have had a diffcult time finding fulltime employment and have had to go without insurance.

2. Coverage tied to employment: This simply doesnt work because employers are finding loopholes, scheduling employees for just under  40 hours a week to keep them from qualifying, creating once-a-year enrollment periods, creating waiting periods that last 3 or more months for new employees. What is a hard-working, fully employed person suppossed to do when they break their leg 2 and half months into a new job?

3. Coverage for freelancers: Again, these people are productive members of society working fulltime, sometimes even more, but still must pay through the nose for coverage.

4. Jumping through hoops and excessive paperwork: Even a young, competent, college-educated individual like myself cannot keep track of the intentionally confusing claims departments designed to deter people from getting the coverage they are paying for. At $400 a month, I still cannot get basic reimbursements or bills paid without a fight.

I'm exhausted, poor, and still sick. This industry is so disgustingly mis-managed and anti-patient that "reforms" or "stricter policies" will do little. Wealthy insurance and drug companies pay lobbyists and PR people big money to convince the American public that Universal Healthcare is socialism, would cost us more money and would put people out of jobs. Looking at the government-run healthcare systems around the world proves none of these things are true. Somehow, the message that we're all being fleeced has got to reach the public!

As a recent college graduate and the unlucky sufferer of a persistent infection, I have recently become all too familiar with the many problems that privatized health care poses to our citizens. The most basic concerns I've discovered are as follows:

1. Coverage for young adults, transitioning into or out of full-time student status: Young people taking time off from school to travel or volunteer are not covered. Even as a full-time college student, I was only covered until age 23, so having taken an indirect path to my degree ended up costing me $400 a month. Many of my college friends who graduate in the last few years have had a diffcult time finding fulltime employment and have had to go without insurance.

2. Coverage tied to employment: This simply doesnt work because employers are finding loopholes, scheduling employees for just under  40 hours a week to keep them from qualifying, creating once-a-year enrollment periods, creating waiting periods that last 3 or more months for new employees. What is a hard-working, fully employed person suppossed to do when they break their leg 2 and half months into a new job?

3. Coverage for freelancers: Again, these people are productive members of society working fulltime, sometimes even more, but still must pay through the nose for coverage.

4. Jumping through hoops and excessive paperwork: Even a young, competent, college-educated individual like myself cannot keep track of the intentionally confusing claims departments designed to deter people from getting the coverage they are paying for. At $400 a month, I still cannot get basic reimbursements or bills paid without a fight.

I'm exhausted, poor, and still sick. This industry is so disgustingly mis-managed and anti-patient that "reforms" or "stricter policies" will do little. Wealthy insurance and drug companies pay lobbyists and PR people big money to convince the American public that Universal Healthcare is socialism, would cost us more money and would put people out of jobs. Looking at the government-run healthcare systems around the world proves none of these things are true. Somehow, the message that we're all being fleeced has got to reach the public!

Also, how is giving hundreds of Billions of dollars of taxpayer money to big businesses less socialist than providing the basic health services people need to live?

The first comment has it exactly backward.  National government provided universal health insurance (single payer) would level the playing field between employers, allowing them to compete better internationally where similar systems operate and making competition among U.S. employers focus on aspects directly related to company purpose.  At the same time it would free employees from the quasi-serfdom of having to stay in a job just to keep health insurance benefits.  This would free up people to engage in entrepreneurship as well as giving employees more choice about their work and employers more incentive to have good working conditions. 

Many proposals are based on a payroll tax comparable to Social Security or Medicare.  It this route is taken, I think it needs to be modified such that self-employed persons don't have to pay double, as they do with FICA and Medicare.  The "employer" share for them should come from general funds in order to support entrepreneurial initiative. 

Healthcare is easy to fix.

- Create single payer system, run by the government.
- Disband the HMOs ... 30-40% completely pointless administrative overhead cost eliminated.
- Doctors reduce "HMO paper pushing staff", reducing costs by 10-30%
- Create supplemental NIH run web based expert system for solving medical problems which screen users based on what their problem is / what they want and optional direct them to see the doctor.  Statistically/age deterministic things like heartburn (often mistaken for heart attacks) can all be eliminated via OTC means.
- All services prices fixed cost, this will reduce costs of MRIs here in the U.S. from $1200 to $98 as they are in Japan ... another 30-80% savings.
- Create enormous incentive for doctors to eliminate/cure/prevent health problems as opposed to the current "more they pay more the doctor makes" system where there is an incentive to keep people sick.  Maybe have generally low servicing fees, but 50-80% of revenue bonuses based on patient surveyed "he cured me" type things.
- Create some sort of a "tipping" system so that good doctors that make patients happy can receive substantial income, whereas doctors that keep their patients on long-term drugs and never help them are not likely to receive these sorts of rewards.
- All patients should have to pay a small fee <$50 to see a doctor and to get medication <$20 to eliminate system abuse (this is different than Conyers plan).

Okay, healthcare plan is above ... get it done!

Americans must to STOP being selfish. It is that greed that is leading our country to this historic downfall. As it has been written in history, every great empire falls. We need to focus on the well being of everyone. Let's stop making healthcare a business! It is a right we all deserve. It could be your children, your parents, your close friends that might one day have to deal with an illness that will change their lives. So many inocent lives are taken away because they don't have the money to pay for life saving procedures. Kids are getting sick from preventable diseases because their parent's jobs did not offer insurance or can't afford to buy private insurance. If we don't have our health, we don't have anything. There is no future for our country by supporting an unhealthy America. One life that is lost, is one too many!! Who cares if the insurance business loses. I rather save a life than a business that gambles with one.

Nothing is free.

NBC Today show just had a piece based on a new study about the healthiest states and the least healthy states. There are many other factors, but broad access to affordable health care was one key difference. Why should folks in Vermont have greater and more affordable access to health care than folks in Mississippi? We're all Americans.

The idiocy of the whole argument against universal healthcare is that we are all paying for an expensive system that doesn't provide the services it charges for.  What is the difference if we pay for it in an increase in taxes? As it stands now, we have to figure out if we are in network, if we need to get preauthorization for that procedure, if we have met the deductible and on and on and on.  Single payer healthcare would do away with all of that. Many of us now have Health Savings Accounts, so on top of premiums we are paying very high deductibles and getting even less care than we had before.  With an annual increase of approximately 13%, healthcare is becoming unattainable for thousands yearly.  Employers are no longer providing insurance for their employees and there is a steady decline in our nations health.

If we hadn't all been subjected to the story that socialism is the same as Soviet-style communism, HR 676 would be a simple choice. We have socialized police, fire, defense, and education as the norm. We could have socialized health care as well. We should know that insurance companies spend most of their time and money on denying health care, not providing it. They skim off some 30% to provide this "service." Medicare's overhead is on the order of 5%.

   Support H.R. 676!  We have to pay for health care.  I want to pay taxes instead of insurance premiums pluscopays and deductibles and non-covered stuff.  I think almost everyone except insurance companies will be better off with single payer health care.  Even the great majority of health insurance worker bees might be better off with single payer.  Businesses are going to be better off.  I like to think state and local government budgets are going to be better off.  Our present system is a disgrace

Just saw Michael Moore's movie, Sicko. Single payer works!

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    Using the word "free" is extremely misleading.  Of course, health care would be available for everyone but it would be paid for by all taxpayers, businesses, etc as it is in every other country that provides medical care for all their residents.  This notion that we are giving away something free from some unseen pot of funding is bizarre.
   We already pay for public health care through taxation: including Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans health care, public employees' health benefits, etc.  We pay more for public health care than most countries pay for their entire population but people remain uninformed about what single payer actually means.  It means we select our physician, our hospital and instead of hundreds of different private FOR PROFIT health insurance companies taking a big piece of our medical dollars, the government (as in Medicare) becomes the "single payer." 
   It is not socialized medicine in that the providers remain working as they are now - not in the employ of the government.
   Everyone is one pink slip or business bankruptcy  or downsizing away from losing their health insurance.  Single payer provides the only true health care security for everyone, not just those who receive coverage through their jobs - all of which are not nearly as secure as they may have once been.
   Just ask yourself:  what benefit does the private for profit insurance companies provide toward the administration of actual medical care?  Nothing.  They exist to make a profit for their shareholders and nothing else.
   I hope we don't waste a lot of time again in finding out the hard way that all these proposals that keep the private insurers in the mix simply do not work.  We will eventually do the right thing and single payer advocates will be proved correct in that trying to come up with a combination of public and private coverage is doomed as the private will attract the healthy and more financially well off and the public plan will cover the less healthy and less financially well off.
   It's not hard to glean where that scenario will leave us - again.  The President Elect would be wise to craft legislation based on HR 676 and stop listening to all the naysayers saying that single payer is not politically feasible.  He can make it politically feasible and so can the rest of our representatives - if they only tried to remove themselves from the influence of the private insurers.

The Washington Post ran an article the other day: "U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For': Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901025.html). I think that, as part of comprehensive health care reform, in addition to completely re-working our health care finance model, we should improve the quality of the care delivered, using the best evidence and technology we have at our disposal, and encourage (strongly) Americans to take better care themselves, so that we have less preventable chronic health conditions. In fact, to be really successful, I think all these things are necessary. 
It's just that we can't wait for all these things, which may take a generation or more to complete, to delay immediate help for the millions who are suffering at the hands of our system currently.
The best, and most meaningful, and immediate change that we can make today, that will help millions today, is to enact single payer health care finance reform.
Real people can't wait any longer.http://nocompromisehealthcare.blogspot.com/

I think the US government would do well to study how other western industrial nations manage national healthcare and what the cost is in taxes per capita and the ROI. In many cases, patients with national health care coverage get the same or better care for a lower overall cost.

I don't think we should continue to work within an employer-based model, though recent news articles online indicate that the new administration is moving in that direction.  What about small businesses which cannot afford to pay the high premiums? What about the exorbitant cost of COBRA that few people can pay when they get laid off? What about those who cannot get any insurance due to preexisting conditions -- many common and easily managed with inexpensive medications (see asthma, hypertension)?

Having employer-based coverage through different insurance companies with different plans has contributed to the problem. Employees cannot get consistent care when they are forced to switch doctors, specialists, systems, medications, and available covered treatments every time their employer switches to a new insurer and every time they have to leave their job and find a new one.

I think it is wrong that a doctor can state some treatment or medication is medically necessary and an insurer can refuse to cover the cost. Who makes the best qualified decision for your health: a doctor or an insurance agent? I know what the answer is; anyone knows what it is.

I think everyone is entitled to health care. Without it, we can't be a prosperous nation and compete on the world stage. With the existing system, more people are filing bankruptcy.

See:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html

http://www.webmd.com/news/20050202/medical-bills-can-lead-to-bankruptcy

HR 676 is one of the few health plans that includes dental work and hearing aids. I am all for it.

So often we are asked: can the country afford a single payer system.  The real question is: how long can we afford not to do institute one.
A single payer national insurance system is procompetitive, fiscally conservative appoach to the healthcare expenditure crisis.
Furthermore, many physicians prioritize tort reform above all other healthcare solutions.  What could provide more relief malpractice burden than removing from the claim the cost of caring for the injured party?

I'd like to see this "Free single payer" comment blog  merged with the other "Single Payer Health care" blogs--Then we could pool the votes!  I'm posting the same message on both blogs. Hope you don't mind. 
 "Free" is a bit of a misnomer.  I prefer to say that, under "single payer," we as a people would self insure.  Each taxpayer would pay a little; no one would pay a lot; and everyone would have the care available when needed. We would have actually prepaid the care for ourselves and our neighbors with our own tax dollars.  I like to envision an America in which a disadvantaged parent walking into a neighborhood clinic with a sick child is welcomed and cared for with no one saying "I'm sorry, Ma'am. We can't help you if you don't have insurance. " That's not just unjust, it is demeaning and inhumane.

The pro-market "reformers"  will tell us we must save the jobs of the HMO employees. But HR 676, the single payer bill now before Congress, will provide for transitioning those staffers into other fields. Those employees are not health care providers. The census bureau classifies them under banking and insurance. We will need thousands of actual HEALTH CARE workers to take care of the 47 million uninsured who finally come in from the cold!  We are now getting very little return for an est. 30 cents on every health care dollar. We spend twice as much per capita on health care as do other countries, and we are doing a lousy job taking care of our people. 
Get in touch with the President-Elect.  Tell him and your Congressperson, we want a single payer system.

It's time for single payer national health insurance, like HR 676 "Medicare for All". The only way to control costs without sacrificing quality is to eliminate private health plans from health care financing.  Private health plans add no value to the system and cost us 30%-35% in non-health related costs (executive salaries, marketing, lobbying, etc.).  Currently, 61% of health care is funded by the government (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, military, Indian Health Service, local, state, federal health insurance).  These proposals that include giving subsidies to low/moderate income households to then go buy private insurance is just a taxpayer subsidy to private health plans (when we are already paying through the nose for our own premiums and co-pays). Besides, the policies they can buy are often inadequate and they end up being underinsured.  Every other industrialized nation has some form of national health insurance where private health plans only offer supplemental coverage (like private rooms).  They spend half as much as we do and insure everyone.  The best explanation of single payer is the YouTube video:  What is Single Payer?  In less than 4 minutes you will get a thorough, accurate explanation of single payer national health insurance.

It is misleading to say that Single Payer is FREE health care. No health care anywhere in the world is "FREE". It's paid through taxes which are affordable. Regulation has failed in this country. That's why we have a crisis. What would you regulate?? The health insurance industry refuses to be regulated and they are a large part of the problem. They deny care on a daily basis.
HR676, the National Single Payer bill in Congress, proposes a modest 5.9% employer payroll tax ( a LOT less than the 16% they are paying now) and 4.75% employee payroll tax in addition to the govt. programs that already pay for a large amount of health care(SCHIP, Medicare, Medicaid,etc.) These taxes include the current FICA-M tax for Medicare Part A.
Everyone would be covered, the delivery of health care remains private. Single Payer is merely a public, non-profit insurance program. It's basically an expansion of Medicare to cover all but with more money coming in. Therefore a better benefit and reimbursement package. Tom Daschle, the new HHS Secy designee, is proposing a Federal Health Board which would oversee the delivery of care to improve care and decrease medical errors. Go to http://www.healthcare-now.org for more info.

Lot of good comments already: Yes, I agree we need a single payer healthcare which will be paid from our taxes.  It will increase our taxes, but we will no longer pay for the outrageous insurances AND everyone will be "insured".  It is crazy that a wealthy country as the US doesn't have a good health system. 

There have been a lot of good comments.  I want to echo Lynn Huidekoper's comment that calling the health care "free" is misleading.  This will be paid for by both us users and our employers through payroll taxes, would be a lot less than is currently the case.

Single payer health care puts the care back into health care and takes the profit off of illness and out.  
It's not a free system, it's a fair system that let's everyone in and no one out.  It is not welfare but a fair system where everyone, employees and employers pay in according to their means, and receives care according to their needs.
It eliminates the current health care for profit system where the health insurance companies select the healthiest 80% of Americans and insure them and leave the sickest and most costly individuals for the government to pay.  It eliminates cherry picking the healthiest individuals and skimming the cream off the top.
It is a health care system from birth to death and covers everyone.  
It is estimate that it will save $350 billion dollars in the first year of implementation and will do something the current system fails to do - it will cover everyone.
We will collectively be responsible for creating a good solid working health care system and no one will have a system that is any better than anyone else's.

Support Universal Single Payer Health Care in 2009.

 A single payer system as embodied in HR676 may not be perfect, but we can not afford to not adapt it . We presently spend 16% of GDP , that's 7,026. per capita on health care . More than any other country . Yet the US is not healthier for the money . We have 46 million uninsured and 50 m under insured . We live shorter lives and have a higher rate of infant mortality than most other developed countrys . Estimates show that the passage of HR676 could realize a 70 Billion in annual health care savings . The doctors are in favor of a national health system in a study released by Indiana University School of Medicine , 59% of doctors support it up from 49% in 2002 . We have the best technology the best hospitals and the best doctors in the world , but we have no access to the system for most Americans . The system needs to be rebuilt , national information technology needs to be put in force , for one it will stop unnecessary testing knowing the patience history , it will after time show what medicines work for certain treatments and which treatments work for certain ailments . Transparancy in drug trials , not pay offs to academics for stamping approval of new drugs . The Boston Sunday Globe of 11/ 16 /2008 , the head line read A healthcare system badly out of balance . "Call it the partners effect" The same doctor performing the same hip replacement in two differant hospitals with the same results , paid Mount Auburn, Cambridge hospital 17,813. and paid Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston 31, 970. Let's overhaul the healthcare system which will provide quality healthcare for all from the womb to the tomb and save Billions for education , starting with physical education , and good eating habits . That is prevention ! That is common sense , this is the change we need , and the change we want . Those of you who have coverage and have not been ill , will not know what it's like to lay awake at night having been denied coverage and have beaten cancer 3 times (we had the "best" insurance in place) but cannot go back for tests knowing that if it returns you will lose your home for you have no more savings . We make to much to get Medicare or any other help . Stuck in the strangle hold of the private ( For Profit )health insurers . Support Single Payer Health Insurance ! HR676  PS It's not free , can someone take the free off this plan ?

Dear President Elect Obama - As one of your state convention delegates in Texas first I want to thank you for ousting that fake Texan embarrassment in the Oval Office.  Thankfully, I notice he won't be moving back to Austin.

Now that you are past the formidable election hurdles posed by insurance and drug lobbies please do the right thing.  Support HR676.  Let's move the country into the 21st Century and make our people and our industries competitive again.  Let's not give the same crooks ripping us off now another 110 billion per year to maybe kinda sorta insure most of the remaining people.  Please let us show the world that while the flat 6000 yr old Earth people may be, the rational majority of Americans are not really that scared of Canada or Norway or every other developed nation on the planet for that matter.  Whether it's the health of our planet or the health of our people it's time we once again took care of the common good in this country.  We can do it.  We can crack the top 20 in healthcare and with a little luck maybe even the top 10 in standard of living.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The following 9 steps will simply suggest how, without the inefficiencies and burden to productivity of private insurance corporations and direct pharmaceutical marketing, we can deliver efficient and effective comprehensive health care with great savings and no sacrifice of jobs.  In fact, we may be able to decrease morbidity and mortality in this Country with one coordinated system which cares for all Americans, and concurrently analyzes optimal diagnoses and treatment modalities through its integrated computerized billing system.  The savings incurred insuring all Americans through the more efficient Medicare system will benefit all citizens of our Country.           9 Steps to Comprehensive Quality Health Care in America   1) Shut down the private health insurance corporations.         2) Enroll all Americans (including Veterans) and the 40 million uninsured citizens into the Medicare Health Insurance Corporation.  Since the current functioning Medicare Insurance Company is already accepted by almost all physicians, Hospitals and clinics in the Country, hardly any infrastructure investments on the health care delivery end will be necessary. Have all private businesses pay a Medicare premium for their employees instead of private health insurance premiums.  Let employees as well as businesses contribute a fixed premium amount based on their age up until 65 for their Medicare services and drugs.  Freeze current premiums for all Americans over 65 and adjust in the future according to the cost of living index.  These premiums paid by businesses to Medicare for their employees should be less than that paid to current private insurance companies because of the lower overhead costs of the Medicare Corporation and improved risk distribution.   3)  Hire the now unemployed former private health insurance corporate bureaucrats to actually deliver and not inhibit health care by working in hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics and nursing homes around our Country.  Demographically, the percentage of elderly Americans is rapidly increasing.   With every American now insured through Universal Medicare Insurance, real health care workers will be in desperate need.   For the first time in the brief but bloody history of managed care, these former private insurance corporation employees will actually touch and improve care for patients by working in physical therapy, nursing, home health care and other ancillary patient care capacities.                4) Obtain by eminent domain (for the public good) the best of the intellectual property protected computer codes which the closed private insurance businesses previously used to monitor patient care and doctors utilization and performance.  Private health insurance companies have used these computer programs exclusively for the purpose of strong-arming their contracted health care providers into doing less for their patients and increasing the premium costs for sicker patients in order to achieve higher corporate profits.   Medicare on the other hand can use these same computer programs for the common good; to monitor, collect data and eventually improve the efficacy of diagnoses and the treatment of diseases and medical outcomes every time a doctor submits a bill. For example, wouldn't it be nice to know as a medical consumer (patient) which oncology groups in Boston, New York or Houston have the highest cure rates for stage III breast cancer or Stage II prostate cancer?  All those numbers currently exist in cancer registries nation wide and just need to be collected and honestly disseminated.   Currently, instead of solid medical data which delineates morbidity and mortality and performance, the medical consumer when choosing an oncologist must rely on word of mouth, physician referrals or advertisements in the local papers which show photographs of smiling doctors in white coats who claim to be the ‘best’ doctors in town.  In addition to garnering invaluable instantaneous epidemiologic data on diagnoses and treatment of diseases based on severity and other variables, a strong Medicare based utilization review computer code would also allow Medicare to monitor doctors and hospitals who abuse a fee-for-service billing system. Any physician, institution or service found to abuse the Medicare fee for service billing system after proper review and appeal should be dealt with severely through stiff penalties and loss of their Universal Medicare provider contract.              5) Freeze Medicare physician, hospital and ancillary services reimbursements at current 2007-2008 levels. Adjust reimbursements for future services yearly by Cost of Living increases, or in the event of a deflationary economy a decreases in doctor and hospital payments.  Ask any physician and they'll tell you they would accept current reimbursement rates with COLA over the current mysterious illogical fee adjustment system of Medicare, or the physician population density reimbursement formula used by most private insurance corporations.  Two tiered medical systems separating the “haves and have not’s” of society have and will always exist. Therefore, we must allow physicians to practice medicine without enrolling in or accepting the Universal Medicare reimbursement.  With private medical insurance no longer available, and no performance based evidence for improved morbidity and mortality among their private for-pay patients, these extraordinarily expensive private ‘VIP’ practices will be limited.   6) Allow Medicare, much like the current Veterans Administration System and every private health insurance company and government health care system around the world, to bid on medications from pharmaceutical corporations for its Medicare drug formulary.  Every physician recognizes that we don’t need a choice of a dozen redundant drugs in each pharmaceutical category.  For example, we need only 2-3 statins for cholesterol, a handful of antibiotics for infections,  2 beta blockers for hypertension, and a few pain killers.   Once the Government bids on pharmaceuticals for the Medicare Corporation formulary, macro economics will force prices to massively decrease to levels identical to that which all the other people of the world outside of America are paying for the same medicines.  Since it has not effectively decreased morbidity or mortality in this Country, and only wastes money, we should also prohibit pharmaceutical companies and their workers from contributing to political campaigns or buying commercials on the public airways.  We need to also prohibit the current practice whereby your local  pharmacy and pharmacist sells your private medical diagnoses and your doctors private prescribing drug information to pharmaceutical companies so the pharmaceutical companies in-turn can directly pressure-market physicians.  Prohibit pharmaceutical companies from contributing to organized medicine societies, colleges or associations because the doctors can’t rely on soft bribes or free lunches to prescribe what’s best for their patients.  Prevent pharmaceutical representatives from visiting doctors’ offices or hospital pharmacies directly. Allow delivery of Medicare formulary approved sample medications for patients to physicians’ offices via post office mail only.  Allow pharmaceutical companies to market products to physicians only via peer reviewed publications delivered by email or snail mail.   7)   With the savings incurred from closing the private insurance corporations and paying less for drugs, have the American government fully fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) programs.  Emphasis should be placed on basic bench research carried out at not-for-profit American Institutions which employ or utilize a majority of American Citizens in their laboratories and clinics. Too often American Universities rely on free overseas labor to conduct bench research.  Clinical trials should emphasize new drugs and devices which have promise to significantly decrease morbidity and mortality for any disease, including orphan diseases.   Since a large percentage of private funding for drug and device studies will originate in the expanding financial liquidity and innovations and patients of the emerging developing world, we should allow the FDA to utilize research data obtained by reproduced laboratory and clinical studies performed overseas as well as in this Country.     Corruption of honest academics should be curtailed.   Force all investigators to release reproduced publicly funded scientific data for all scientists to review on the internet via the Freedom of Information act (The Senator Shelby Amendment).  Prohibit rights of first refusal on scientific data for private companies performing research in non-for profit institutions which receive public funding. Any rights to profits obtained from intellectual property and patents invented with combined funding from government and private sources should be split fairly among the contributing government institutions and any other private corporations funding the research, as well as with the individual inventor.  Prevent organized medicine societies, associations or colleges from contributing to political campaigns since campaign donations have no relevance for physician performance or patient morbidity or mortality.     8) Offer physicians the same legal protection from malpractice lawsuits which have been established for commercial health insurance corporations during the last 3 decades.   9) The quality of current medical records software lags two decades behind business software. Therefore, we need to fund and challenge America’s best software corporations to finally develop standardized electronic medical records software for use in doctors’ offices and hospitals in order to increase the efficiency and productivity of physician charting, billing and prescribing.  We should use the integrated medical records system to instantaneously and confidentially gather important epidemiologic data on physicians’ performance, patient diseases, and treatments.  With new potent viruses and unsophisticated biomedical and nuclear warfare on the horizon, this system will be absolutely necessary for rapid National Security responses.   Protect patient confidentiality at all costs to prevent the commercialization and abuse of patient data like that which the pharmacies trade today.   Lastly, some argue that Universal Government run health care in America will result in delays in diagnosis and treatment similar to those experienced in Britain and Canada.  One can not simply compare the massive extremely functional Medicare insurance corporation based infrastructure which seamlessly delivers health care to tens of millions of people yearly in the USA to the government run westernized health care systems of Canada and Britain, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Scandinavia,  and Israel.  America, for the last 40 years, thanks to the government run health insurance corporation-Medicare, has built an incredibly dense and fluid public insurance system involving almost all doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics and ancillary services.  The Medicare system dwarfs in breadth and actual practitioners and efficacy the lesser insurance systems established in all other countries. The billing and reimbursement bureaucracy for health care providers contracted with Medicare Insurance is already relatively streamlined and efficiently centralized in America thanks to 40 years of physician, hospitals and government cooperation.   We all know that the medically bankrupt private health insurance corporations and medical malpractice lawsuit threats have caused many disheartened physicians to quit practicing or downsize their practices in America.  A continuation and technological upgrading of our most fair Universal Medicare based health insurance Corporation based on the concepts outlined above would undoubtedly motivate those disenfranchised physicians to return to the profession and bright younger physicians to invigorate the field.   If patients, physicians and the Medicare Corporation continue to work together, without the deleterious interference of private for-profit health insurance corporations, malpractice threats and overt pharmaceutical marketing,  the future for American health care will be healthy indeed..  A continuation of the status-quo mixture of a government subsidized private health maintenance insurance industry operating parallel to and within Medicare is wasteful, and will continue to provide no potential future health improvements for America.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} The following 9 steps will simply suggest how, without the inefficiencies and burden to productivity of private insurance corporations and direct pharmaceutical marketing, we can deliver efficient and effective comprehensive health care with great savings and no sacrifice of jobs.  In fact, we may be able to decrease morbidity and mortality in this Country with one coordinated system which cares for all Americans, and concurrently analyzes optimal diagnoses and treatment modalities through its integrated computerized billing system.  The savings incurred insuring all Americans through the more efficient Medicare system will benefit all citizens of our Country.           9 Steps to Comprehensive Quality Health Care in America   1) Shut down the private health insurance corporations.         2) Enroll all Americans (including Veterans) and the 40 million uninsured citizens into the Medicare Health Insurance Corporation.  Since the current functioning Medicare Insurance Company is already accepted by almost all physicians, Hospitals and clinics in the Country, hardly any infrastructure investments on the health care delivery end will be necessary. Have all private businesses pay a Medicare premium for their employees instead of private health insurance premiums.  Let employees as well as businesses contribute a fixed premium amount based on their age up until 65 for their Medicare services and drugs.  Freeze current premiums for all Americans over 65 and adjust in the future according to the cost of living index.  These premiums paid by businesses to Medicare for their employees should be less than that paid to current private insurance companies because of the lower overhead costs of the Medicare Corporation and improved risk distribution.   3)  Hire the now unemployed former private health insurance corporate bureaucrats to actually deliver and not inhibit health care by working in hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics and nursing homes around our Country.  Demographically, the percentage of elderly Americans is rapidly increasing.   With every American now insured through Universal Medicare Insurance, real health care workers will be in desperate need.   For the first time in the brief but bloody history of managed care, these former private insurance corporation employees will actually touch and improve care for patients by working in physical therapy, nursing, home health care and other ancillary patient care capacities.                4) Obtain by eminent domain (for the public good) the best of the intellectual property protected computer codes which the closed private insurance businesses previously used to monitor patient care and doctors utilization and performance.  Private health insurance companies have used these computer programs exclusively for the purpose of strong-arming their contracted health care providers into doing less for their patients and increasing the premium costs for sicker patients in order to achieve higher corporate profits.   Medicare on the other hand can use these same computer programs for the common good; to monitor, collect data and eventually improve the efficacy of diagnoses and the treatment of diseases and medical outcomes every time a doctor submits a bill. For example, wouldn't it be nice to know as a medical consumer (patient) which oncology groups in Boston, New York or Houston have the highest cure rates for stage III breast cancer or Stage II prostate cancer?  All those numbers currently exist in cancer registries nation wide and just need to be collected and honestly disseminated.   Currently, instead of solid medical data which delineates morbidity and mortality and performance, the medical consumer when choosing an oncologist must rely on word of mouth, physician referrals or advertisements in the local papers which show photographs of smiling doctors in white coats who claim to be the ‘best’ doctors in town.  In addition to garnering invaluable instantaneous epidemiologic data on diagnoses and treatment of diseases based on severity and other variables, a strong Medicare based utilization review computer code would also allow Medicare to monitor doctors and hospitals who abuse a fee-for-service billing system. Any physician, institution or service found to abuse the Medicare fee for service billing system after proper review and appeal should be dealt with severely through stiff penalties and loss of their Universal Medicare provider contract.              5) Freeze Medicare physician, hospital and ancillary services reimbursements at current 2007-2008 levels. Adjust reimbursements for future services yearly by Cost of Living increases, or in the event of a deflationary economy a decreases in doctor and hospital payments.  Ask any physician and they'll tell you they would accept current reimbursement rates with COLA over the current mysterious illogical fee adjustment system of Medicare, or the physician population density reimbursement formula used by most private insurance corporations.  Two tiered medical systems separating the “haves and have not’s” of society have and will always exist. Therefore, we must allow physicians to practice medicine without enrolling in or accepting the Universal Medicare reimbursement.  With private medical insurance no longer available, and no performance based evidence for improved morbidity and mortality among their private for-pay patients, these extraordinarily expensive private ‘VIP’ practices will be limited.   6) Allow Medicare, much like the current Veterans Administration System and every private health insurance company and government health care system around the world, to bid on medications from pharmaceutical corporations for its Medicare drug formulary.  Every physician recognizes that we don’t need a choice of a dozen redundant drugs in each pharmaceutical category.  For example, we need only 2-3 statins for cholesterol, a handful of antibiotics for infections,  2 beta blockers for hypertension, and a few pain killers.   Once the Government bids on pharmaceuticals for the Medicare Corporation formulary, macro economics will force prices to massively decrease to levels identical to that which all the other people of the world outside of America are paying for the same medicines.  Since it has not effectively decreased morbidity or mortality in this Country, and only wastes money, we should also prohibit pharmaceutical companies and their workers from contributing to political campaigns or buying commercials on the public airways.  We need to also prohibit the current practice whereby your local  pharmacy and pharmacist sells your private medical diagnoses and your doctors private prescribing drug information to pharmaceutical companies so the pharmaceutical companies in-turn can directly pressure-market physicians.  Prohibit pharmaceutical companies from contributing to organized medicine societies, colleges or associations because the doctors can’t rely on soft bribes or free lunches to prescribe what’s best for their patients.  Prevent pharmaceutical representatives from visiting doctors’ offices or hospital pharmacies directly. Allow delivery of Medicare formulary approved sample medications for patients to physicians’ offices via post office mail only.  Allow pharmaceutical companies to market products to physicians only via peer reviewed publications delivered by email or snail mail.   7)   With the savings incurred from closing the private insurance corporations and paying less for drugs, have the American government fully fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) programs.  Emphasis should be placed on basic bench research carried out at not-for-profit American Institutions which employ or utilize a majority of American Citizens in their laboratories and clinics. Too often American Universities rely on free overseas labor to conduct bench research.  Clinical trials should emphasize new drugs and devices which have promise to significantly decrease morbidity and mortality for any disease, including orphan diseases.   Since a large percentage of private funding for drug and device studies will originate in the expanding financial liquidity and innovations and patients of the emerging developing world, we should allow the FDA to utilize research data obtained by reproduced laboratory and clinical studies performed overseas as well as in this Country.     Corruption of honest academics should be curtailed.   Force all investigators to release reproduced publicly funded scientific data for all scientists to review on the internet via the Freedom of Information act (The Senator Shelby Amendment).  Prohibit rights of first refusal on scientific data for private companies performing research in non-for profit institutions which receive public funding. Any rights to profits obtained from intellectual property and patents invented with combined funding from government and private sources should be split fairly among the contributing government institutions and any other private corporations funding the research, as well as with the individual inventor.  Prevent organized medicine societies, associations or colleges from contributing to political campaigns since campaign donations have no relevance for physician performance or patient morbidity or mortality.     8) Offer physicians the same legal protection from malpractice lawsuits which have been established for commercial health insurance corporations during the last 3 decades.   9) The quality of current medical records software lags two decades behind business software. Therefore, we need to fund and challenge America’s best software corporations to finally develop standardized electronic medical records software for use in doctors’ offices and hospitals in order to increase the efficiency and productivity of physician charting, billing and prescribing.  We should use the integrated medical records system to instantaneously and confidentially gather important epidemiologic data on physicians’ performance, patient diseases, and treatments.  With new potent viruses and unsophisticated biomedical and nuclear warfare on the horizon, this system will be absolutely necessary for rapid National Security responses.   Protect patient confidentiality at all costs to prevent the commercialization and abuse of patient data like that which the pharmacies trade today.   Lastly, some argue that Universal Government run health care in America will result in delays in diagnosis and treatment similar to those experienced in Britain and Canada.  One can not simply compare the massive extremely functional Medicare insurance corporation based infrastructure which seamlessly delivers health care to tens of millions of people yearly in the USA to the government run westernized health care systems of Canada and Britain, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Scandinavia,  and Israel.  America, for the last 40 years, thanks to the government run health insurance corporation-Medicare, has built an incredibly dense and fluid public insurance system involving almost all doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics and ancillary services.  The Medicare system dwarfs in breadth and actual practitioners and efficacy the lesser insurance systems established in all other countries. The billing and reimbursement bureaucracy for health care providers contracted with Medicare Insurance is already relatively streamlined and efficiently centralized in America thanks to 40 years of physician, hospitals and government cooperation.   We all know that the medically bankrupt private health insurance corporations and medical malpractice lawsuit threats have caused many disheartened physicians to quit practicing or downsize their practices in America.  A continuation and technological upgrading of our most fair Universal Medicare based health insurance Corporation based on the concepts outlined above would undoubtedly motivate those disenfranchised physicians to return to the profession and bright younger physicians to invigorate the field.   If patients, physicians and the Medicare Corporation continue to work together, without the deleterious interference of private for-profit health insurance corporations, malpractice threats and overt pharmaceutical marketing,  the future for American health care will be healthy indeed..  A continuation of the status-quo mixture of a government subsidized private health maintenance insurance industry operating parallel to and within Medicare is wasteful, and will continue to provide no potential future health improvements for America.