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Very good point. Unfortunately too many words. All good ones though. It is amazing how the public-owned insurance companies, our neighbors posing as doctors and nurses are the problem based on their "cost". The crux of this "health care reform" can be narrowed to one cause, our Government's desire to control more of our lives. Let's all read between the lines. If Medicare is wasting 500 billion, fix it. If insurance companies can't compete for small busines, fix it. Fix the things we can first, then develop a plan. Not a massive Government program that will ceretainly break our country. These challenges can be met without the Government becoming a bigger part of our lives.

The problem has been well defined for years. It is long past time to act.

We spend 16% of the GDP on health care, as opposed to 7% in 1970. It is expected that number will rise to 20% by 2020. Insurance premiums have risen a staggering 73% since 2000. A third of the the 47 million Americans who are uninsured make $50,000 per year.

Part of the problem is insurance companies who cancel policies of the sick, or refuse to pay for treatment after the customer has spent years paying into the plan. Part of the problem is a reimbursement system that favors high priced and unproven treatments at the expense of cheaper, proven treatments: great for specialists and hospitals, bad for primary care docs and patients.

Our society can afford to give great health care to its citizens. The problem is, the system is riddled with waste and political influence designed to maintain the status quo and keep the bucks flowing to the deep pockets of Big Pharma, Hospital CEO's, and specialists. Money drives the decisions made in our health care, and we the consumer have no voice or control over the choices in insurance we have, and little recourse when claims are denied.

A public option will force the insurance industry to compete fairly with consumers. It will set standards and protections for patients so they are not denied care when they need it most.

Your interpretation of the general welfare clause has been used for decades as a justification for involving government in every aspect of our private lives. Please justify that interpretation. It's not in the Constitution.
Why should I be responsible for your, or others, health care issues? I may choose to help as a matter of charity or self-imposed moral obligation. But on what principle(s) do you justify forcing me, through legislation and the power of the state, to participate in taking care of others? If you want me to read the writings of Mr. Reid, perhaps I can suggest that you read Bastiat's analysis of legalized plunder.

Yes, but you use Wendell Potter as a point of reference and positive position. Mr. Potter's entire premise is the taking apart of the heath care establishment in favor of a government controlled system. In fact in a recent article in Forbes Magazine, it was pointed out that our survial rates from major diseases such as cancer and heart disease are significantly better than most all nations having a Government controlled heath care system. In fact it is the left, which you represent in your article cite that our mortality is lower than those with "Government systems". But the fact is the OCED reports that our mortality rates for all cancers is 166 to 100k. This is lower than the average for all and much lower that the 179 per 100k for Canada.

This were the divide is drawn, you and the ilk of Potter want to remove that choice and impose a Government takeover of all our economy, not just health care. This week the government will announce that for the next two years, that social security payments will exceed the inflow from workers. Reforming the system will not be proposed as an option, but an increase in taxes. This a system that the left continually cites as a "great accomplishment". Were is the corporate greed here? We do not need more Government programs that will certainly bankrupt our country beyond the realities that we can never imagine.

Cone, we have issues in our system, Government regulation can fix some of it, but in the end our system is a free system one that is dictated by the demand for quality and the freedom to choose lifestyles. Replacing this with a Government controlled system as Potter suggests, removes more of our freedoms. Liberty is not equality and neither can we be free to make our choices if the Government controls the outcome for the few. Potter is a poor reference for reform, unless you consider more Goverment involvement in our lives reform. Maybe you do, so this is moot.

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He was the leader of the free-trade movement in France from its inception in 1840 until his untimely death in 1850.

You can find a lot of references to Bastiat on the internet including some free mp3's of his books. I'll try to research and post a link later this afternoon.

Some links to Bastiat's writing called The Law:

http://www.constitution.org/law/bastiat.htm
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
http://www.freeaudio.org/

The last link is for MP3 audio's of The Law. It's free.

Quotation from The Law:

Property and Plunder

Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.

L.21
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.

L.22
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain—and since labor is pain in itself—it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.

L.23
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.

L.24
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.

L.25
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.

L.26

Victims of Lawful Plunder

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter—by peaceful or revolutionary means—into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

L.27
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!

L.28
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess. ) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.

L.29
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution—some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.

L.30

The Results of Legal Plunder

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

L.31
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking.

L.32
In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.

L.33
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.

L.34
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.