is that? Sometimes it is in what they don't say that explains the position? What are they advocating or equivocating?

The surest way to guarentee that prices in a particular industry will sky-rocket (as the HMOs have proven) is to divorce the consumer from any price awarness in the purchase of a product or service.

While we had the "old-fashioned" fee for service health insurances like Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the consumers paid an upfront portion of the service and the insurance paid for the rest. If the costs got too expensive the consumer could go looking for a less expensive alternative. Ever since the HMO concept gave us pre-paid health care and distributed the costs among all their subscribers the costs have been sky-rocketing.

Under the old system if your doctor doubled the cost of an office visit you would feel it and they would lose patients which would be a cap on their raising costs too much. Under the new HMO system if your doctor doubles the cost of an office visit, you don't even know it. When enough do this, it becosmes a $30 a month increase among all the HMO's subscribers. Then the HMOs decided to sign contracts with all their "providers" and agree to pay them a flat yearly fee based on how many patients they see on average per month. That caused the average doctor visit to go from 20 minutes down to 9 minutes today.

What we need is the consumer put back in the loop as far as the cost of health care services go.

Consumer Reports is advocating for the ultimate consumer divorce from any payment information at all. They are advocating for the single payer option similar to England or Canada. That system is worse than the one we currently have. It isn't even cheaper in aggregate yet the quality and quantity of the services are rationed and at a lower level. England's health services equal 1/7 of their total GDP and they can't get a handle on their costs either. They are outsourcing their primary care services to doctors in Germany and Denmark.

In effect CR is advocating that consumers spen the most $$ for the least service. Since this decision is the complete atithesis of their own mission statement, I think it can only be looked at as a political / ideological decision that is completely divorced from what is good for their readers.

Throw 'da bums out!!!

no incumbent re-elected, with very few exceptions!

www.loyaltoliberty.com

No surprise here. There's a rule called O'Sullivan's Law after the author at National Review, that states 'any organization not expressly right-wing by charter, will evolve to become left-wing over time'.

News on the thoroughly corrupted AARP as well, and how they got that way:

The Most Squalid Reform Deal Yet: http://www.nypost.com

"...Yet the Democratic health-care bills targets Medicare Advantage for drastic cuts -- which would force up premiums and drive millions of seniors to drop it. Which brings us to AARP -- which makes a hefty profit selling Medigap coverage, the chief alternative to Medicare Advantage."

This is how the world works.

But I couldn't find an email to tell them why.

Anybody have one?

You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?

This should come as no surprise at all. Consumer Reports has long been a liberal haven! Folks, make your own judgment and don't buy this rag.

I knew they Consumer Reports were commies when they favored Dijon mustard over something American like French's yellow mustard.

Read Jacobson's (Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion) detailed analysis of mustard.

Seriously, there is nothing in the CU ad that is objectionable. Most Americans believe there must be some type of health care reform, and that it can't just fall by the wayside as it did in the Clinton and Bush administrations. The mustard connoisseur's main objection is an item on the CU website that states a poll conducted in April shows most American's favor a public option. Granted, the poll is old and more people are now against it, but that in no way discredits the ad which doesn't even include that item. 

Like Jacobson's mustard rant, it much ado about nothing. The ad itself is in no way biased. It simply says what everyone else is saying - something must be done.

A bit convoluted but there is a customer service link at the top of the page. From there you'll see a "Frequently Asked Questions " paragraph ... the whole thing is a link.

Next page that comes up has a "Contact Us" gray tab. Click then "Send Us An Email". Under "Choose products or services" I chose CR foundation/donations.

Make sure when all is said and done to click on the button that says something about "did not answer my question, send email".

The fact that you have to jump through so many hoops just to talk to them reinforces my cancellation. 

Linkage

"You should always tell the truth, because if you tell the truth you make it the other person's problem." Sean Connery

I long ago found that Consumer Reports favored Japanese products over American, PCs over Macs, slow food over fast food, utilitarian over fun; basically it's as though Pravda had a consumer magazine.

Oh, and most importantly, they would often rate a piece of junk (car or appliance, etc.) higher than something I personally knew to work better and last longer.

Welcome to the land of President Uh.

Why the urgency now? Why is the end of 2009 so paramount? Something coming in 2010? Did Satan have a meeting where he demanded that all rich nations be towing the HealthCare line by his "year 2010" rise to power? Apparently, as the fulcrum of original sin he holds some sincere liability for the whole of the World's pestilence and disease; best he arrives on the scene to a "well"-covered constituency. God knows that if the Liberal can defend Roman Polanski with a straight face, then Health Reform only emboldens the rank and file excuse makers as they divert attention from The Great Deceiver to the scurrilous Adam and Eve! So, why the urgency? I'm just not feeling it.