Quote:Sure can. Write up a bill saying how. See if you can get it passed.
It's very difficult to take you seriously when you substitute emotional appeals for rational argument on an issue like this. It is impossible when you give every sign of not being able to tell the difference between the two.
We already provide healthcare for the needy. There is Medicaid for the poor, there is Medicare for the elderly, there is the VA for veterans, we provide EMS stabilization and transport to the hospital at the dial of a phone, and if all else fails you can just show up at the emergency room. This leaves out insurance for the middle classes, and charitable work by various non-profit groups. The question is less one of care provision than it is of the price of care. How much should be spent, by whom, on what. That is the question, and it is not one that is answered by appeals to pathos.
Quote:Single payer would be one clean simple approach.
That is an option, though to go beyond political rhetoric and on to implementation would require many more hard questions to be answered.
Quote:Subsidizing those who can't afford or access the current mix of private, company and government sponsored systems is uglier, but could be made to work.
That's more or less where we're at now, and it doesn't seem to be terribly effective, either in terms of price or quality.
Quote:Lots of systems could be made to work if there was some sort of consensus on how to go about it.
There's the rub.
Quote:Thing is, there are a lot of self interested folk who want to push costs away from their own demographic.
You know, technically that is what poor people are doing as well when they demand that something be provided to them at the government's expense. This is not necessarily an argument against it, just an observation.
Quote:Lots of ideas being thrown around, but I don't have a magic scheme that will attract a clear stable majority. The nation is too divided. Lots more bickering to be endured.
There does not yet seem to be an effective consensus, too many vested interests (the middle class, the insurance agencies, the existing burauecracies, the AMA, the pharmaceutical companies, etc.) In the absence of one, devolving this to the states is one option.