Nice to have insurance and have things paid for but now there’s going to be rationing of care….which is the lesser of 2 evils here- no money in your pocket or having to wait for a procedure/medicine that you need RIGHT NOW? Mortality rates will increase unless the focus is on disease prevention. Let me add that even though people have insurance, it doesn’t mean they are going to use it for preventative medicine, thus, increasing the demand of goods and services that are more expensive b/c the focus of care after disease sets in and becomes a chronic issue is long term care, including medications, costly xray and CT scans, surgeries, home medical equipment, home health care, nursing home care, extended hospitalizations etc. The list goes on. Unless you can mandate and monitor the health habits of this Big Mac/supersize nation, people will not change the way they are caring for themselves at home. Not a sustainable system for the long run. Medicare and Social Security are 2 great ideas but they are proving unsustainable in the long run. I am for healthcare reform, not entitlements, b/c government run programs are a bandaid for larger issues. People should never be denied healthcare. Unfortunately, healthcare is a business and will remain that way b/c it involves goods and services that are not free and never will be. It needs reform in many ways but I am fearful for the future of this particular bill. People genuinely believe this is THE simple fix and I think there is some blindness to some major issues. Not saying everything in that bill is bad- it’s not. In principle, it’s fine but in practice….time will tell.

There are a couple of graphs out there that plot health care spend vs life expectancy for around 40 countries. It’s remarkable how much of an outlier the USA is – they spend way more than anyone else on health care and have a lower life expectancy than many other developed countries. Some may argue that it’s the huge amount that is spent on “preventative” medicine that is part of the problem….