Ah...but you do, you just don't know it. You've belonged to a union. I used to be anti-union, but I've changed. I recognize that I wouldn't be paid what I am paid were it not for a union. But in the "real world" that wasn't unionized, we had to pay a portion of our health care coverage for years...in my case, about $150 a month...your union negotiated 100% from the company. When I retire from my company, I lose my insurance coverage...but according to the topic of this thread, your company didn't drop your coverage. Now they want to dump that. While I have a pension where I work now, most places don't...the pension was your company saving for your retirement. Those two things were "redistributing" income from the company to you. Now...we've seen what's happened to pensions...dump them on the PBGC (which IMHO will translate to "taxpayer" when the PBGC can no longer cover all the dumped pensions). So in my view I will be funding YOUR retirement pension because the federal government is going to be called upon to bail out the PBGC...but I digress. Now they want to dump retiree medical benefits. Because they represent a "redistribution of wealth" from the company to the retiree. And it today's world, there ain't an insurance company out there that is going to cover you for cost only...it'll always be in it for a profit. So SOMEBODY is going to have to get involved to make sure that there is affordable coverage for people.
As far as "socialized medicine" (which IS a misnomer for what single payor coverage is) - how about this scenario...the government becomes our health care nanny...releasing companies all over the US from the burden of providing coverage for their employees...in return, the government DEMANDS that the bring production back to America - especially any jobs that were offshored or outsourced because of the burden that health insurance put on a company. put more Americans to work to help fund the health insurance programs.
Bush likes tax cuts...he says they "create jobs", although from what I've seen, there has been a loss of "good jobs" and the jobs that have been "created" are the low paying dirt jobs. Imagine if GM was relieved of a $5,000 cost per vehicle - think they could compete profitably with Toyota then? Think it might be cheaper to build cars here and put them on a train rather then build them in Korea and put them on a boat? Think they might hire Americans to build American cars? Foreign companies don't worry about health care...American companies HAVE to, because as Delldude has said, it's expected from employees. Since American companies are spending so much on health care, they have to cut back on other costs in order to compete. Guess what they cut first - American labor.
And the insurance companies are looking for reasons not to cover...my ex wife has had rheumatoid arthritis since she was 19...OOPS...preexisting condition. Spend a bundle - get nothing. What we've got sucks royally. I don't want to be like Canada - I want to be BETTER than Canada. And we can. I would bet you a dollar to a donut that under "socialized medicine", you wouldn't wait any longer than you do today for medical services - unless doctors are fool enough to quit and become airline employees or computer programmers. That ain't gonna happen.
