I am not in the same moral sphere as Bill Bennett. I have more vices
than Ace Hardware. The one activity, however, that I'm convinced is
immoral, is for-profit medicine. Think about it. Would you want the
hospital's bean counters to rejoice that you ( let's say that you
are a bone fide, card carrying, Blue Cross member,) need a
complicated, i.e. expensive, heart surgery?

By the same logic, however, the bean counters are very saddened to hear
that your laid off, uninsured neighbor needs the same procedure and the
institution will more than likely not be paid for these services.
Your neighbor will probably have another heart attack after he recieves
his ridiculously high hospital bi...

I am not in the same moral sphere as Bill Bennett. I have more vices
than Ace Hardware. The one activity, however, that I'm convinced is
immoral, is for-profit medicine. Think about it. Would you want the
hospital's bean counters to rejoice that you ( let's say that you
are a bone fide, card carrying, Blue Cross member,) need a
complicated, i.e. expensive, heart surgery?

By the same logic, however, the bean counters are very saddened to hear
that your laid off, uninsured neighbor needs the same procedure and the
institution will more than likely not be paid for these services.
Your neighbor will probably have another heart attack after he recieves
his ridiculously high hospital bill and/or have to file for
bankrupcy. The bean counters will be forced to do even more of
that famous "cost shifting" and raise their prices even higher. What a
ridiculous business model!
What if the national health insurance
system (Medicare for everyone, hooray!) consisted mostly of competing,
non-profit HMOs? We could choose to between HMO A or B in our
geographical area depending on which one had the doctor we liked best
or the extra services we needed the most.

It is in an HMOs financial best interest to keep us
as healthy as possible by advocating for healthy life styles, detecting
disease early and managing diseases efficiently when they are
developed. Non-pofit HMOs prefer to do more actual 'health care' and
less 'sick care'.

If all the other industrialized nations can
have much better health care outcomes than the USA--at a much lower
cost--we can do it too! Let's get to work!