Jay,

The problem is just not that simple. There is a lot of confusing on what is on the actual bill. It would be nice if someone offers a copy of the bill for us to read.

Once of things that could be causing the increase in health care are that people who are not US citizens are giving free health care and do not have to pay for it.

Maybe if we had more preventive care from doctors health care would not be so expensive. If you go see the family doctor and tell him what is ailing you. He/She sends you to specialist which cost even more money.

Healthcare problem is not easy problem to fix. True some people are trying to cause problems but getting false information out.

Maybe the Baltimore Sun should request a copy of the bill. Print in the Sun for people to read it. Then people will read for themselves what is in the bill. They can call the people they voted into office if they have any questions.

Now there are supposedly to be several different bills being considered to reform health care.

Which one is which? I think that is also leading to a lot of the confusing for people.

Les, to your first point, H.R. 3200, sponsored by Rep. Dingell, has been available online for public review for over a month at the following sources, among others.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:H.R.3200:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3200
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/show

The reasons for the confusion about what's in the bill are that 1) people don't bother themselves to find out where the text of the bill is presented, both by government and by watch-dog groups, and 2) opponents of the bill are lying about it in an attempt to terrorize the aforementioned people. If Americans would start behaving like responsible citizens by reading the legislation, speaking with their representatives, *listening* to their representatives, and voting out representatives who fail them, we'd have "a more perfect union."

To your second point, if you were to fall ill or be injured in Canada, South America, or anywhere in Europe, you would be treated immediately either for free or for a nominal sum. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation on Earth where you have to pay out of pocket for health care.

" Canada, South America, or anywhere in Europe, you would be treated immediately either for free or for a nominal sum. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation on Earth where you have to pay out of pocket for health care."

The citizens of those nations pay for it in the form of higher taxes. Conservatives aren't the only ones lying about health reform. Obama and every Legislator who says that this reform won't cause significant tax increases down the road for all Americans in lying as well. At the end of the day someone has to pay.

Do you really thing this is about health care? Look at the people that are holding the signs and what do you see? Rascism is easy to see if you look with your eye wide open. Really look at who's holding them and what they say. I saw a poster today on CNN of Barack Obama wearing a Hitler mustache. I didn't see this much anger when Bush started the war in Iraq looking for bombs that didn't exist. Thousands of american's and Iraq's are dead today because of that one decision. And yet I don't remember seeing Bush displayed in that way. The republicans have been looking for an in to start dividing this country again and they found it. Out of all the things in this country that's wrong they ignite the smoldering embers on a health plan that will try to help it's own people. God bless america.

I'm confused. Wasn't Ellen Sauerbrey already euthanized?

I sent the following to President Obama:
I will support a new health care plan when you tackle the litigation lobby
I will support a new health care plan when you agree to not insure ILLEGAl immigrants.
I will support a new health care plan when you can explain why health care costs are so high. If you mean the government’s health care costs, i.e, Medicare/Medicaid, are too high; they’re expensive because there are more folks on these programs AND our politicians have decreed that services will be available, for example, transplants, dialysis for all individuals regardless of age or other medical conditions.
I will support a new health care plan when you tackle the drug industry that has agreed to help you if only you agree not to allow Medicare to receive favorable drug pricing or to let American’s buy their medicines from overseas (where the same drugs are always much cheaper).
I will support a new health care plan when you won’t tax me to pay for those who have chosen not to purchase insurance.
You can easily provide insurance to many of the estimated 47 million in America in need by simply lowering the eligibility limits for Medicaid. Perhaps permit Medicaid benefits to the unemployed and their families. This would eliminate the need to create a new federal health care bureaucracy at the same time it preserves states’ rights and responsibilities.
It seems you have enough to do with working on the economy and the war in Afghanistan. You can’t afford health care for all because you’ve spent trillions already on other things.
Your health care reform is too ambitious a project in such a short time, Mr. President. Tackle it in your second term AFTER a commission has spent the next two years reviewing the current process and making recommendations.

RavensFan,

Of course they (Europeans, etc.) pay in taxes. The point is that everyone pays a little bit and no one pays alot; and no one goes bankrupt because they get sick. This is what insurance *used to* be about. Nowadays, insurance companies no longer feel bound be law, regulation, or human decency, and they drop sick people in order to avoid paying back a little of what they've taken in in premiums over the years.

The villians here aren't Democrats, or Republicans. The villians are the blood-sucking insurance companies and their various hangers-on, including congresspeople or senators of either party who do the companies' bidding.

There is room for private insurance in the medical field but there is no room for what it has been allowed to become over the last 30 years... an octopus with tentacles in every corner of your life.

One of a very few roles for the Federal Government (and our taxes) is to take on the really serious medical care (catastrophic and traumatic etc). Eliminate this category altogether and health insurance becomes something akin to a home or auto policy.

Conveniently this approach also allows elimination of employer involvement as well as "pre existing condition" issues.

There are a few other appropriate roles for the Government and for the insurance industry and mostly for individuals and there are more details of course... but I'd love to see it happen.