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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >What am I missing here?
> >Why would anyone keep their insurance if there is a free program that 
> will insure me?

You are not missing anything.  Just because Obama's version of 'health 
care' stinks to high Heaven, it doesn't mean that it isn't addressing a real 
problem.

I'd answer your question this way:  The medical industry now of days is a 
monopoly in which only guild memebers are allowed to participate.

Do you realize that as recently as the 1940's you typically became a doctor 
by apprenticing to a doctor and then hanging out your shingle.  This varied 
widely from state to state.  Doctors made more money than most people, but 
not a lot more.

The monopoly is the function of the AMA.  Oh, I know that scarcely 1/3 of 
practicing doctors are actually members of the AMA, but that doesn't matter.  
 Beginning in the late 1800's the AMA basically made a pact with the 
American people saying that the quacks and snake oil salesmen running around 
were 
dangerous.  Put us in charge as a benign dictator and we will promise that 
we will keep medicine safe and accessible.  They have not kept their bargain. 
  It doesn't matter that most doctors are not AMA memebers,  the AMA is a 
guild whose main function is to keep the cost of medicine artificially high 
to keep the incomes of medical personnel artificially high.

In 1948 there was a proposal for universal insurance coverage for the US 
,,, this just about the same time as in Canada whose first province debated 
universal coverage in 1946.  Unversal coverage was adopted in Canada but in 
the US the AMA lobbied mightily against it .... almost all pontificators of 
medical history freely admit that the most important impetus for opposing it 
was that the AMA feared it would limit doctors' incomes.

The gist of my point is this:  We spend 17% of our GDP on 'health care' and 
between Bev and her husband's empoyer, it takes $1200 a month to provide 
coverage for them.  There is no reason for this.  There is no reason that 
'health care' should cost 17% of every dollar made in the US except to keep 
one 
segment of the population with an artificially higher income.

The AMA as it presently operates, is willing to allow a percent of the 
population to suffer and die so it can scare the rest into coughing up (pun 
intended) an inordiante amount of their income to make the memebers of the 
medical monoply wealthy.

That is why it is the AMA and insurance companies that so fear a 
"government option".   Indeed, Bev, if a government option were available, 
why would 
you want to keep paying $600 a month and do without the other $600 a month 
Ron's employer would be able to offer him as salary if it weren't spending it 
on medical coverage??  The point is, if there is any real competition to the 
Guild, it would collapse.  People could afford most medical services out of 
pocket and insurance for the really expensive things would be dirt cheap.

Remeber our Canadian member on here who a few days ago said it was $110 
(Canadian) to cover a family of four in BC.   That's right at $100 US right 
now, $25 dollars a month per person.   That probably reflects the actual cost 
of providing medical services minus the tribute we pay here to the medical 
plutocracy.

James