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:While a far more knowledgable source than most people, Phyllis Schlafly would not be considered a health expert for encyclopedic purposes.  Andy might not agree with me, nor should he, after all she's his mother, not mine! Perhaps she sourced the information, and you can use her sources?  Maybe that is what you meant....at any rate, proceed, Brown25. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]<sub><small><small>/Admin</small></small></sub><sup>[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]]</sup> 00:24, 26 July 2009 (EDT)
 
:While a far more knowledgable source than most people, Phyllis Schlafly would not be considered a health expert for encyclopedic purposes.  Andy might not agree with me, nor should he, after all she's his mother, not mine! Perhaps she sourced the information, and you can use her sources?  Maybe that is what you meant....at any rate, proceed, Brown25. --[[User:TK|'''ṬK''']]<sub><small><small>/Admin</small></small></sub><sup>[[User_Talk:TK|/Talk]]</sup> 00:24, 26 July 2009 (EDT)
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::Thank you for removing the unsourced information and protecting the article in the interim.  Anytime someone does not get necessary health care, it is heartrending, be it because of a ridiculous wait time for a cancer patient in Canada (this happened to my late grandfather - I am a dual US/Canadian citizen) or because of a lack of fiscal resources (I have not seen this in my family here in the States, but I have seen this with needy people who have come for assistance to the Church - unfortunately their only option sometimes is to go to the ER and rack up a $1000 debt which kills their already shot credit profile and usually they do not get the care they need).  However, this article must present the facts and only the facts.  Then, the reader must decide, should he or she desire to, what their position is on socialized medicine/universal health care.
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::Because I tend to think of our societal issues in terms of supply-demand diagrams, rather than ideology, I realized something that I had not when I had initially edited this article in a favorable way about the Massachusetts plan - if health care is mandated and long-run supply of doctors is governed by reimbursement rates, wouldn't the insurance companies collude and pay only the minimum reimbursement fee required by law? Two things are accomplished ... they ensure (no pun intended) that they pay the lowest cost per visit and they ensure less visits - two birds with one stone.  This multi-payer system is thus as bad as a single payer system.  Now, it's possible, and I think probable, for a two-tier system to later be created, whereby doctors only accept special insurance plans with higher reimbursement rates ... but only the well and financially well off are able to afford these plans.  However, this brings us back to the same state that our country is in today, except that less people would opt for these truly private plans because the healthy don't need them and they already receive the government care or its equivalent provided by a private insurer at a lower cost.
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::The Romney plan and the equivalent Obama plan is going to morph, and I say this with no negative connotation, into an equivalent of the multi-payer [[National Health Service]].  In my opinion, if universal health care is to succeed, doctors must be allowed to reject certain insurance companies, queue patients differently from different insurance companies and allow patients to pay a premium to get bumped to the front of the line, so long as they publish the results of the various queue times.  Of course, the government can set a baseline maximum wait time through its public option, so long as the public option is not financed to taxes, minus any subsidies for low income individuals.  Secondly, insurance companies and the government must be able to charge differing rates, not on preexisting conditions but on lifestyle choices including body weight and other fitness indicators, including perhaps a Presidential fitness test.
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::Government subsidizing health care will only work if the free market is allowed to pick up the difference.  This is not happening fully in Britain, Canada, Germany, or Massachusetts right now.
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:: [[User:Brown25|Brown25]] 19:12, 26 July 2009 (EDT)
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