Oh great...we hear yet again from another socialist expert.

What's new when it comes to any of these critters with the majority of these so-called leftist experts on differing television networks, some of them have been in my face for about as long as I can remember...they are just an arm of the socialist movement, always have been...always will be.

Look at where it seems to be getting Sanjay Gupta from CNN.

Here's what bothers me. We know human nature. And even though we all admire doctors, they're still human. And in my experience, human beings work for whoever pays them.

• When patients paid the doctor, the doctor wanted the patient to feel good.
• Now that insurance companies pay the doctor, the doctor wants to please the insurance company. That's why they order the expensive tests - they're limiting the legal liability, no matter how much they cost. That's why costs have exploded.
• If universal health care means that the government pays doctors, then sooner or later, doctors' chief concern is the government, not the patient.

They recently came out with the national healthcare information czar. The idea was that the government would "offer" a best practices list to the attending doctor for cases similar to the current patient. Now we all know how they play this game. They make it out to be helpful advice. But sooner or later, in some malpractice case, a lawyer is going to ask a doctor (on the witness stand) why he didn't follow the best practice advice from the national database? And when the jury comes back with a million dollar judgment against the doctor, every other doctor will learn the lesson. Follow the database or risk malpractice.

At that moment, the art of medicine will have died. From then on, you'll just have to hope that your illness fits the federal guidelines, or they'll be giving you whatever the computer tells them to give you.

Yet these same liberals can look at the amount we spend on education K-12 per student compared to other countries and come to completely different conclusions.

I can dig up a statistic to support any conclusion about any program you can dream up.

Pick any two Doc. You can't have all three.

There's 300 million of us here and we we get the best healthcare, faster than any other industrialized nation on the planet.

Now you, nearing the end of your career, may be OK with a 20% reduction in earnings to make healthcare more affordable, but I'm guessing the intern in his/her fifth year of med school is not too keen on the idea. And the poor soul who's paid for coverage 30 years on is not real enthusiastic about suddenly having to settle for cut rate medical care.

Don't bull-sh!t me Doc. Remember what Twain said about statistics? Some of us get it.

Dr. Johnson is right about the fact that we do spend twice as much as any other country on Health Care. What do we get for our money though. Well we do get the best Doctors, Hospitals, Treatments etc. I am going to address this another way. Why does Health Care cost so much and as a result the skyrocketing costs of Insurance. I am not an expert but you don't have to be. One is the High cost of Malpractice Insurance, and the Second is the state of modern Product Liability Law.

We do not want incompetent Doctors practicing medicine so the ability to sue for Malpractice is needed. The AMA is supposed to Police thier own Ranks. The results have been somewhat less than stellar. Malpractice suits continued to be filed and settlements reached. The AMA keeps allowing incompetent Doctors to practice. The risisng Malpractice insurance rates and the increasing number of suits being brought also has the side benifit of many unnecessary expensive tests being run just to cover thier collective rear ends.

The current state of Product Liability Law has also led to very expensive Insurance required on any thing that is used in the Medical field. The very same product may have applications outside of the Medical field and the costs are less by over 50%.

What do these two things have in common? Tort Law and the protected Attorney Class. Most of our laws, infact all of them are written by Lawyers, a clear case of conflict of intrest yet we need Lawyers to write them because it is only a Lawyer who can properly understand most of the implications of what becomes law. This is just crazy.

It is the corruption of the very systems meant to protect all of us that is the root cause of the increasing costs of about everything, especially Health Care which is so important to us all. How we got here is a tale of many well meaning people with the best of intentions but the Law of Unintended Consequences has brought us the current mess we are in.

I wish I could say that there is some simple magic solution to this problem, there is not. What is required is something that might be seen as radical as Universal Health Care so embraced by the left. What is required is a deep cultural change as well as a legal change. As a society we need to stop running to Lawyers for all things and expect the Courts to be able to be able to solve all our problems. The Courts and the Law in general have proved to be not only inadequate but incapable of addresssing these problems.

As a Country we need to honestly debate these problems. Just saying that everyone should have Health Care and the Govt. should pay for it does nothing to address the issue. Government, the Legal System, and in a large part, the Medical Profession has failed us. Doctors through the AMA protect Doctors and continue to allow the incompetent to practice. Silly Lawsuits are filed daily and clog up the system. Sky High Punitive Damages are awarded driving up Insurance Costs. Intrusive Insurance companies are dictating how it is best and what remedies are allowed. All of these problems are easily seen by anyone yet no one is addressing the problem instead all we discuss is which Party can throw the best Circus and who has the best Bread.

...our drug research would barely exisit. With American drug companies spending the money, doing the research, and trials for new life saving drugs more than any other country in the world..... guess what would happen if universal health care kicks in?

Sorry to be so cynical, but I've read about this for the last couple of years and understand the consequences of nationalizing/socializing health care.

 Unfortunately a society that's spent their way into oblivian with credit cars they couldn't afford and bought houses they couldn't qualify for, only to hear that the government is going to bail them out can't grasp the concept of Trillions of dollar in deficits that they will ultimately have to pay back....one way or another.

Dr. Tim will never have to fall into line for common treatment but he quickly prescribes it for the little people... the people he's pushing into the ovens.

We all heard the stories of endless waits just to see a doctor in countries that have govenment run health care.  So here's my experience today with my private HMO plan and medical group:

I've had a hacking cough for a fews days now that got really bad last night.  Call our clinic and they said urgent care has Sunday walk in hours. Went in and saw a Dr. within 15 minutes.  He ordered chest x-rays, got those down the hall 30 minutes later. Dr. says I have pneumonia and prescribed anti-biotics.  The drugs were available at the pharmacist as soon as I got there.  Total time from calling in to see if a Dr. was on call to being home with appropriate medicines, less than 4 hours.

Can the government promise me that kind of efficiency?

If it's working, why are you guys determined to f*** it up?

Hey Doc...why don't you lead by example and recieve your medical care from gov't health plans like Medicaid.   Give up your physican and lets see what drugs you are taking.   Let me decide if there aren't viable cheaper alternatives. 

Is this really cause for shame.  The USA develops and tests and brings to perfection the majority of new treatments and new medications.  And that is not free.  The rest of the worlds's medical care is dependent on our ability and willingness to innovate.  Yet the ignorance of this 'medical expert' of this calls into question anything he has to say.

And let's not forget the contributions to exhorbitant health costs by the shark lawyers like John Edwards.

"I dont need to read a newspaper to know the world's been shaved by a drunken barber."

Walter Brennan, The Colonel, Meet John Doe, 1941

We spend more than twice as much, per person, on health care in his country as the average of all other industrialized countries, yet we're the only one that doesn't have universal coverage.

Why do we spend twice as much?  Well, in Canada and the UK - two places liberals love to point to as prime examples of how socialized medicine "works", they have:

1. Quotas.  Only X number of Y procedure are allowed each week/month/year.  You don't get on the list - sorry, you're waiting.  I found a news article once about a woman who needed a simple, but rationed, procedure to treat a relatively minor bladder problem.  She was put on a list because only 12 of those procedures could be done each year.  She ended up losing her bladder.
2. Values on life.  If you're in your 40s or 50s, and your illness is deemed "too expensive" to treat, they'll send you home to die.
3. An upper-limit age.  In the UK, someone said it's the "duty" of elderly citizens to die if they get too sick.  Tom Daschle, Obama's former choice for HSS, said that the elderly need to "deal with" aging and not expect to have every ailment treated.
4. Increasing restrictions on diet and other habits.  Countries are now trying to figure out how to deal with the costs associated with obesity, smoking, etc. - pretty much are going to tell you what, when, where, why, and how you can eat and/or what activities you can/can't participate in.

America spends more because we treat people far more extensively than socialized systems do.

And, frankly, I'd rather go bankrupt - sell everything I own - to pay for medical treatment here rather than have some government bean-counter with limited or NO medical training tell me I have to die to save a few pennies.

 Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

Ever notice how these guys tend to be paid MSM experts?

I wonder how physicians who, oh, I don't know, actually treat patients for a living feel about how the government has already hamstrung their ability to make the money they feel they should be getting?

One of the 24% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 89% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory.