Do the planet a favor and kill yourself

[Will Robinson]

...If you can afford to fly all the way to the United States to get a prompt MRI, then good for you since you are one of the very few that don't need socialized medicine. Welcome to the top <1% of the global population.

Top 1%? How about people who drive their car from Canada to get help their government said they have to wait for...sometimes the estimated wait time for the treatment is longer than the doctors estimated remaining life of the patient. Does it really matter how cheap the care is if it arrives after you are dead?

....The legislative branch of our government is a lowest common denominator type of system, meaning the dumbest people in it will set the bar for what it produces.

So I say the government isn't a good choice to run our health care industry and you offer explanations of just how terrible the government is at getting things done?!?!
Your Honor, I rest my case....

I don't disagree that cost is too high. I do strongly disagree that giving the government the control, like they have of Social Security (now broke), is a solution. Let the government fund, as in supplement the citizens payment for insurance if they want to help and use their single payer type buying power to hold the line on costs but do not put government bean counters in charge of every decision between the patient and the treatment unless you want to fly to India for your next operation.

[woodchip]

First off, Kilarin you get it in one. You gave the kind
of response I would expect from the brain power I know exists on this board, full of sly innuendo and tongue in cheek sarcasm. Too bad Jeff and Dak are too rigidly mind locked into the black and white of forum posting

Krom, I suspect all those Costa Ricans have better color because it is a tropical country. Kinda hard to have color when a blizzard is howling outside and you're locked inside. Perhaps under Obamas health plan we can all have tanning beds issued to us.
To flesh out what Will was pointing out, I seem to remember a news story of how people in Britain were pulling their own teeth out as the wait to see a Dentist was so long. Lord knows I can sympathize as I have started pulling my own hair out over the way Alfred E and company are spending our tax dollars.

[Krom]

Well, at least we can agree on something.

Just having the government fund/supplement the cost will definitely not work though. Anyone should be able to tell you that throwing even more money at a system with out of control costs is not going to bring it back.