I hate insurance companies too but...

Does anyone like insurance companies? No, but does that mean we should totally dismantle our healthcare system? I have been increasingly concerned as I have watched the Obama administration and the Congress and the Senate make very irresponsible choices with our money and our freedoms. Regardless of your feelings about healthcare you should be very wary of any plans being put forth by the Democratic Party. Every solution they offer up, although couched in good intentions-like helping the poor, really enables and weakens the poor as well as the middle class. What they are really saying is that the average individual is too incompetent or stupid and is incapable of making their own choices so they will decide things for you. The Democrats value power and control over freedom of choice or freedom of speech. Since when do constituents become the enemy?

It is starting to feel Nixonian to me with the paranoia being pushed by Obama and his people-doctors are bad, insurance companies are bad, profits are bad, CEO's are bad, people that disagree with them are out of control lunatics, Republicans are evil and the government, run only by democrats are all good and above reproach. Everything a democrat says is true and morally superior to what anyone else could come up with. Ya think?

Who is crazy here, the upset people at town hall meetings or our elected representatives ? What happened to that rallying cry that led to the American Revolution-taxation without representation? My ancestors and your ancestors left Europe for a reason-do we really want to go back there? What country is the envy of all the world? What country really funds the world? Which country pays for safe keeping forces, for education, for healthcare, for food, clothing, water for the African continent, for Europe, for Asia, for South America? I think it comes from all of those profits the Democrats are so worried about. We in America have the freedom to make money and to use money and if you take that away you are not only not helping our poor you are hurting the rest of the world. No one will have the resources to give nor will they give in the degree that we have if given the choice. China does not care what happens to anyone outside of China, France has a puny economy as does every other country in Europe. California has the world's 6th largest economy. Do you really want to dismantle our free marketplace one industry at a time?

Obama isn't wanting to improve the healthcare delivery system he wants to control it. I know many of us are enamored by his smooth speeches and flattering words but I think you have seen by now that what he says is at best partially true and sometimes and outright lie. If you can't believe what someone says how can you allow them to change things that will affect not just millions of Americans but billions of people around the world. Killing the private healthcare system will shoot a giant hole into our economy which will have worldwide ripples. Killing profits will limit research and ingenuity so that we will no longer be the leader in medical technology and treatment innovations. Having the government run healthcare will increase waste, inefficiency and incompetency, think the VA, military medicine, Medicare and Medicaid. I have worked in government healthcare. There is no incentive to do your best-I got in trouble for doing more than my coworkers and making them look bad. We were unionized, did mediocre work and had poor morale and high turnover . You really want that on a grand scale?

Also, people have a gross misunderstadning of howgovernment healthcare is presently funded. Medicare is subsidized big time by private insurance-it does not cover its own costs. So yes they provide services more cheaply but because your insurance picks up the tab by shifting the cost to you. For example, Medicare will reimburse a hospital $800/day when it costs $1000/day and your insurance company will get billed $1200/day. This is true with every government healthcare program-you really pay twice-once with your taxes and two if you have provate insurance. Part of the reason insurance costs have syrocketed is because people enrolled in government programs have syrocketed. In California we pay a large percentage of Mexico's healthcare costs but without the respect of being asked if we wanted to do that.

True reductions in healthcare costs involves immigration reform, government regulations being changed, tort reform,removing barriers between consumers and services. None of these issues is seriously or significantly addressed in present legislation. They neeed to burn those 1,00 pages and try again.

Wake up America before your told what time to wake up and what you should eat and who your doctor will be and what banks you can use and who knows what else. One of the reasons I liked being an adult is that I finally got to make my own decisions. I'd like to keep it that way.