is that the money's going to get spent no matter what happens unless they can convince us to just let the uninsured drop in the streets and start scooping them up with bulldozers.

I just can't understand people not seeing that health care is more expensive when you only provide it as a last resort in the emergency room instead of lifelong preventative and maintenance care in normal Dr's offices. Yeah, there'll be people that abuse the option and go to the office for every hangnail but that's the tiny minority of what the usage will be. Instead you'll find what all those countries that now have universal health care have, that people live longer and healthier and that business isn't burdened down with the costs of providing it to their employees.

It wasn't just that GM was too stupid to not build economical cars that has led to Japan taking over the marketplace. Toyota and Honda don't have to add on $1700/vehicle to pay for the health insurance for their workers. HMO's are raping our corporate system because their lobbying force prevents anyone from standing up to them. Why that's OK to conservatives is beyond me. Is their goal to have medical insurance and pharmaceutical companies the only viable industries in the US (other than oil companies who make such obscene profits health care costs probably don't matter to them.)

But, until the neocons get the theocracy they truly want, and completely eliminate the middle class, they'll never be happy.

Art