How long until we get universal health care?

[pstans]

Every other industrialized nation has it, when will we get it?

Please post any comments.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. And how is it going in other countries?

I really have no idea. With the exception that I have Canadian cousins who complain about it and come here for medical work.

But what about Europe? Is it working?

[jannyk]

3. The grass is always greener...

I live part-time in Canada (BC) and they tend to whine about their health care a lot. However, they wouldn't take our system if you paid them!

My husband's mother died of cancer in Vancouver a year ago. 5 Years of chemo, radiation, 2 major ops, MRI's - you name it, she had it. She was given medical marijuana (at 82!) and massage treatments. She had home health visitors. All this cost NOTHING!

Two months before she died she entered a hospice. She had a private room with cable tv and a private bathroom. There was a bed in the room for my husband or his sister to stay overnight and they got fed. She got the best, most compassionate care I have ever experienced and died peacefully and in no pain surrounded by her kids and grandkids. Total cost for this care - $25 a day! If she had shared a room with one other it would have been free!

I get really angry when I hear them carping about their healthcare system - they have no idea how lucky they are.

[dflprincess]

4. In theory, one of the advantages the U.S. would have,

if and when we ever get universal healthcare, is that we could look at the systems in all the countries that have it and figure out what works and what doesn't. In theory that is. In reality, we'll come up with a system so difficult to figure out that it will make the rules for Medicare D look like a "Dick and Jane" book and hand the administration of the program over to private insurers just to make sure the costs continue to spiral upwards.

[0007]

2. When we're way past the third world country status and

the Repukes have left the country for greener pastures.

[geekgirl72]

5. Ain't gonna happen

[jaxx]

6. When the SS goes down and medicare dies, we'll get it........

it'll be too late for a lot of us, but maybe our kids can get medical care when they need it.

[driver8]

7. Where do I vote for "When hell freezes over"??

It will never happen. Not in my lifetime. This issue is so far on the back burner it isn't even funny.

[xray s]

8. The only way "we" will get it is if "we" move to Canada

'eh?

[A Simple Game]

9. I picked 8 years for two reasons.

First, no one else had picked it.

Second, I am an optimist.

[pstans]

10. I think businesses are pushing towards it

GM said one reason they had to lay off so many people is because of healthcare costs. Healthcare adds on an additional $1600 to each car they sell, a cost that foreign automakers don't have to pay. I have heard small business owners say they would be able to hire workers, but then they would have to pay healthcare. The momentum is starting in the business world and the American people know that their health care system is messed up. If Democrats push the issue, it could happen sooner rather than later.

[LWolf]

11. When progressives are a majority.

And I don't mean the centrists currently labeling themselves as "progressive."

[leesa]

12. When our health care system completely crashes, which will happen soon.

But it will be very ugly because there is no longer any money in the piggy bank thanks to Dubya and his gang of thugs. Your employer won't be paying for insurance, you won't be able to pay for it, the hospitals and clinics can't absorb the costs of non-payment, no one but the ultra wealthy can afford to pay cash for health care...what do you suppose is going to happen?

It was EXTREMELY FOOLISH not to have a national healthcare plan and especially foolish to have the burden of insurance placed on employers. We are now paying for that foolishness. Stupid irrational fear of communism!

[raccoon]

13. I didn't vote because there was nowhere I could vote for,

"Are you kidding me, neither the Repubs nor the Democrats
will ever let that happen."