The current healthcare system is run by insurance companies. Their finance model is simply a wager, laid off across the spectrum of premium-buyers. The bet is that the premiums paid (which insurers re-invest to multiply the return) will be greater than the costs of delivering care. The dynamics are the same as any other bet, except that the bettors are actual participants in the game. As it is, the bulk of the care is disproportionate to older users, and the cost of elder care is growing disproportionately itself.

If you take the finance away from insurers and use government resources, you're still doing the same thing. You're spreading the cost to the taxpayers. The difference is that insurers spread the wager across the pool of premium-payers, who are (by definition) working people who pay money into the system. The government spreads the wager to the whole population, where a huge chunk of them aren't working and don't contribute. 

To be clear, the fact that they're not working shouldn't be considered a moral strike against them. But it does mean that when you add them into consideration, much more care is required overall, only with the same number of paying contributors.

The cost to each paying contributor (i.e., each taxpayer) will skyrocket.  

Alter's deception is obvious. He's offering the government as an alternative financier. But if your intention is to change healthcare overall, you're hoping that the government alternative attracts people away from private insurers to public programs. What Alter isn't telling you is that as that transition happens, it changes the dynamic. When you have more people in governent programs, you'll need more tax dollars to fund it. Tax-paying citizens who remain with private insurers will still have to pay for the government system through their taxes. Like Catholic school parents, they'll just be paying twice. That, alone, will drive them to the government program.

The difference is that even though it's presented as an "alternative," you're paying for it anyway. The only alternative is whether you wish to pay twice.

How many times did BarryO (and Biden) scoff openly at the notion that there was anything "socialist" about his plans?   He went so far at one point as to say he wouldn't have **time** to take a hard left in policy so people shouldn't worry.   Last time he was honest about his socialism was in one of his books, where he said he chose his friends **very carefully** (Ayers and Wright and Khalidi included one would conclude) and proceeded to list "Marxist professors" among them.

My point being that it doesn't matter much if someone told the guy to say it or not, because he's made it clear to the media that they have to downplay the word socialist and call it something else - just like the "Fairness Doctrine" and the "Employee Freedom of Choice Act" - both named the opposite of what they really are.   

Sure, let's hand health care over to the federal government. That will fix the problem, NOT!

You think you're getting cheated now? Wait until Obama takes control: "Specifically, Obama's health budget calls for significant cuts to payments the government makes to health insurers, hospitals and physicians."
Source

Once Heath Care is "nationalized," you won't get paid at all!

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
The US Constitution

Unless you're a fetus.
The US Supreme Court

Don't feel bad.  Last night I showed my son and brother in law this picture:  http://mine.icanhasc... and my son said, "Yeah, he's circus-ugly."  We all had a good laugh about that; the term just cracked me up. 

Thank you!

 Hey Norman,

You are dead on. I does'nt matter who is bitching about the SOCIALIST label, today's leftist does'nt like what they are doing being labeled SOCIALISM.

Joe "The Plumber" pointed out to Obama that his economic & tax policies as sounding like SOCIALISM, & the MSM machine went after him hell bent for leather. His privacy was violated by Ohio state officials. When the NYSlimes asked Obama about SOCIALISM during an interview, & he calls them back afterword to clear the air about it. Now Jonathan Alter is bitching about it, & it is clearly pissing off these hard left SOCIALISTS that people are calling them what they are...SOCIALISTS.

The fact is this, the MSM, the Dems, & the Obama administration HAAAAAAATE the fact that many Americans are catching to the fact that Obama is a SOCIALIST, & THAT what he is doing is SOCIALISM. If Jonathan Alter does'nt like, too damn bad.

 "The Fairness Doctrine = Jim Crow laws for Conservatives".  Jim Quinn from "Quinn & Rose"

TN Mom:

While the Dems buried the healthcare reform passages among all the other passages in a 1000 plus page document voted on with less than 24 hours time to review and debate, the legislative changes/additions to government provided healthcare (Medicare/Medicaid) were known but ignored by our legislators.  For instance, Bloomberg News published a commentary on these healthcare changes on Feb. 9th, four days before the vote.  Frightening!

Medical insurers, private as well as government-based, have used several criteria on what constitutes acceptable healthcare for some time - safety, effectiveness, and cost.  For instance, insurers have a Formulary of medications, a list of approved drugs that are covered under the insurer's plan.  Medicaid is the most stringent - prescribe a drug not on Medicaid's formulary and the pharmacist will call for clarification/reselection, otherwise the patient, usually cash strapped, will have to pay out of pocket.  The idea is that the government has determined their are similar drugs that perform essentially the same and that using generics, for instance, save money.  A patient may be granted an exception IF need is demonstrated by their physician. 

The savings to the government are signifigant, the patient receives a medicine that is effective (though may not be optimal in some respect) and the physician and pharmacist have an additional layer of bureaucracy to slow down their day and add cost at some point in time to implement and follow the government's dictates. 

The intrusion of the government into the patient-physician relationship is tolerated because the patient is usually helped at a reasonable cost and the physician acquieces to decreased autonomy because it is of small proportion, they do not want to hurt the patient with out of pocket expenses, and they want to be reimbursed and avoid auditing.

The impact of these potential sea changes in the practice of medicine, by force I might add, represent a furthering of the death of American healthcare as we know it by a thousand cuts.  And this particular cut is a deep one.

These new regulations are meant to significantly and imperiously change the practice of Medicine.  Good luck appealing your case to the "Federal Council".  If the authoratative bodies in Canada and England are any indication, and they were templates for this legislation, then the American people will have little recourse before a reversible or manageable condition becomes permanently debilitative or results in death.  Quality Of Life, a consideration in current therapies, may no longer be a consideration if the government decides the cost is not consistent with the public's interest -

If you're old or have a rare condition, live with it or do your country a favor and die before you cost the rest of us too much.

And what inducement is there for research and development into new treatments if the government disallows spending for diseaeses/conditions it has deemed unworthy of treating currently?

Yes, this is change.  Just not so much the Hope as promised.