To the Blue Dawgs concerned about the economic cost of a strong public option or single payer

[Uncle Joe]

universal coverage, aka:Medicare for every American from the cradle to the grave.

What is the economical cost of the current system with it's exploding medical costs; far outstripping the vast majority of Americans' salaries?

How much could it be costing our economy to have an entire Vietnam's equivalent of American Deaths occur every fifteen months because some groups of people or corporations having nothing to do with health care must have their right to profit from the American Peoples illness, injury and death protected? Surely that must have some impact not only from the loss of those people but the effects on their families and communities as well?

Has anyone calculated the cost to the economy in regards to lost equity in real estate due to the leading cause of foreclosures; that being health related, of the victims, their families and the surrounding neighborhoods?

Has anyone calculated the affective cost of *high interest rates from credit cards, and astronomical, loan shark, interest rates from payday loan establishments to the overall economy and how the current dysfunctional private for profit medical coverage system has provided fertile breeding grounds for those twin adverse dynamics?

These are only a few examples but I'm just wondering from a purely economical standpoint how much our current dysfunctional private for profit system is costing or stunting our national economy and if this has ever been taken in to consideration by those Congress People voicing opposition because of economic cost?

* Not just to those with bad credit but kept artificially high for those with good credit as well.

I may need to leave here shortly but will be back tomorrow.

[sharesunited]

1. Health care should be a public amenity as ubiquitous as streets and sidewalks.

It would have the same or greater benefits to the commonwealth.

[Uncle Joe]

5. That seems logical to me, if we leave no Marine or soldier behind and

we leave no child behind, why do we leave our sick and injured behind?

Of course none of those stated goals are perfected, inevitably Marines, soldiers and children get left behind, but at least they're stated as goals. With the sick and injured Americans; it's fend for your self.

But ultimately I wonder if that approach has national economic consequences in addition to the obvious; to me, moral ones?

[napi21]

2. When they talk about the econ cost, are they talking about the

effect on the ins. co's? I suspect it WOULD have an adverse effect on the profits of the ins. co's and because we have let these blood suckers become 6% of the economy, they're probably right.

I don't care! TS that some investors will be hurt. The rest of us will be helped!

[Uncle Joe]

7. And yet if 6% of your body was cancer,

you wouldn't want to keep it in the hopes of the cancer reforming itself?

Private for profit "health" insurance; by it's very defintion is a dyfunctional leech to the noble and essential cause of health care.

[jwirr]

3. I was registering at the hospital several days ago and behind the

desk was sign proclaiming the answer to our health care costs: Non-profit community hospital.

[bigtree]

4. the cost is just a cover blue dogs use for the political benefit

. . . to look to their conservative constituency like they're standing up to their party. What a sham.

[kenny blankenship]

6. Real reform would cut costs. Half-assed reform on the other hand will raise them

watch and see.

[Uncle Joe]

8. I must leave for the evening but would like to thank everyone

having posted or recommended so far and to any that come after.

[LostInAnomie]

9. They aren't actually concerned about it.

Concerns about cost only come up whenever politicians have nothing else to argue against. Even if they are completely wrong about it, the media is so lazy, illiterate, or misinformed about the subject that they will never challenge them on it.