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["Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>]

----- Original Message -----  From: Lynda<mailto:lurine AT softcom.net>  
Shouldn't folks be a little more concerned with the one who has his finger on 
the button?  Maybe clearing up Funeralgate?  Enron?  Halliburton?

All I wanna know is, why is everybody 
ignoring Osama bin Laden continuing to
thumb his nose at the U.S. ? Or is it
because the bin Ladens mean more than
Americans to the __it with its finger - never mind ...
>From tvoivozd AT infionline.net  Mon Nov  8 08:52:47 2004
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Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 09:12:00 -0800
From: Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>
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Subject: [Homestead] Where is tipping point on cost vs. ideology?
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The insane U.S. healthcare system now sucks up 15% of GDP, twice that of
other industrialized nations that provide universal healthcare, quite a
number do much better than the U.S.., which, as I remember is about
Number 13 down the list of nations in the statistics that measure the
effectiveness of their healthcare system.

The Cato Institute says the cost of our insane healthcare system will
rise to 21% of GDP.  That should be extremely interesting---I have great
faith in pain, great pain, intolerable pain, as individual and
collective incentive to change.

There is going to be healthcare in the U.S.---when push comes to shove,
health security is more important to Americans than a bigger military,
more cars on the road, education and other privately paid or taxpaid
goodies (they both come out of the same pocket---distinguishing between
them isn't very bright).

I guarantee the cost of healthcare will NOT rise to 28% of GDP---the
pain is simply too great to bear.  Long before that point, enough people
will say enough, and pragmatism will triumph over ideology to force
lower-cost universal healthcare over the screams and bellows of those
who have profited immensely from the atrocious waste built into the
present system---and those not very bright citizens who already pay
twice as much for healthcare as they should, having been persuaded it is
the politically correct thing to do or the sky will surely fall.

latimes.com <http://www.latimes.com/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-medicare8nov08,0,2274352.story


        EDITORIAL


  Taming a Healthcare Monster


November 8, 2004

Healthcare costs are about to start creating a budget crisis that will
make Americans nostalgic for today's federal deficits of merely half a
trillion dollars a year. The population is aging. Thirty years from now,
there will be twice as many Americans over age 65, but only 15% more
Americans of working age to produce the goods and services that retirees
will consume.

The problems of the other huge entitlement program, Social Security, at
least received lip service during the election campaign. Social Security
payments amounted to 4.2% of gross domestic product last year. That
could rise to 6.2% by 2050 under the Congressional Budget Office's
worst-case scenario. President Bush's proposed solution of getting the
government to fund private retirement accounts would reduce federal
revenues by $1 trillion to $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

Fixing Social Security is easy compared with the challenge of keeping
Medicare and Medicaid solvent. By 2050, spending on the two programs
could be equal to 21% of GDP. Fold in Social Security and these programs
would represent 28% of GDP. Today's federal deficit is 3.6%, by comparison.

These healthcare programs cannot be rescued by any combination of
borrowing, raising taxes or cutting benefits. Even if lenders were
willing, even if the president called for a tax increase, even if
Congress supported one, and even if boomer wrath failed to kill any such
project, it wouldn't be enough. Americans already spend 15% of GDP on
healthcare, and that percentage is bound to rise in any event. Fixing
Medicare and Medicaid depends, therefore, on taming healthcare costs.

President Bush has high hopes for a multi-pronged proposal focused on
so-called health savings accounts. How these work exactly is a tale for
another day, but generally the machinery is supposed to work by giving
consumers an incentive to buy healthcare efficiently and use as little
as possible.

A major reform of the healthcare system would be nice, but if Bush is
looking for a way to get the ball rolling, he should repeal his
administration's rules that forbid Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate
lower prices for drugs. The pharmaceutical companies ludicrously
maintain that any attempt by the federal government to affect the price
it pays for drugs is tantamount to price controls. But in the case of
Medicare and Medicaid drugs, the government is a consumer, not a
regulator. It is ridiculous to tell citizens they should go out and
bargain for cost-effective healthcare while the government's own program
is wasting money by buying from the highest bidder.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times