House insurance is way different than medical insurance. Owning a house is optional. And, if your house burns down, you don’t have to rebuild it. You can merely give the land back to the bank or sell the land (cheaply) to someone who is willing to invest in rebuilding it. You aren’t out of pocket more than what you paid for the house. And house insurance is optional.

For those of us that are alive, having a body is not optional. Any body can get sick. Any body can lose everything regardless of how carefully one cares for himself.

60% of all our health care dollars are coming from taxpayers, who are already paying for most of the care of those at most risk of serious illness (the old, the disabled, and the very poor), Our prices are inflated to cover the cost of those who can’t pay their bills. Since everybody is paying for everybody anyway, why not get rid of the middle man that doesn’t contribute ANYTHING to health and adds 20% to total cost. The middle man is the Insurance Companies. If we had one risk pool, we could have one universal electronic medical record from which we could do a phenomenal amount of “best practices” research. We could put the health care system in the hands of public health people who are trying to produce health instead of grow stockholder value.

House insurance is way different than medical insurance. Owning a house is optional. And, if your house burns down, you don’t have to rebuild it. You can merely give the land back to the bank or sell the land (cheaply) to someone who is willing to invest in rebuilding it. You aren’t out of pocket more than what you paid for the house. And house insurance is optional.

For those of us that are alive, having a body is not optional. Any body can get sick. Any body can lose everything regardless of how carefully one cares for himself.

60% of all our health care dollars are coming from taxpayers, who are already paying for most of the care of those at most risk of serious illness (the old, the disabled, and the very poor), Our prices are inflated to cover the cost of those who can’t pay their bills. Since everybody is paying for everybody anyway, why not get rid of the middle man that doesn’t contribute ANYTHING to health and adds 20% to total cost. The middle man is the Insurance Companies. If we had one risk pool, we could have one universal electronic medical record from which we could do a phenomenal amount of “best practices” research. We could put the health care system in the hands of public health people who are trying to produce health instead of grow stockholder value.

House insurance is way different than medical insurance. Owning a house is optional. And, if your house burns down, you don’t have to rebuild it. You can merely give the land back to the bank or sell the land (cheaply) to someone who is willing to invest in rebuilding it. You aren’t out of pocket more than what you paid for the house. And house insurance is optional.

For those of us that are alive, having a body is not optional. Any body can get sick. Any body can lose everything regardless of how carefully one cares for himself.

60% of all our health care dollars are coming from taxpayers, who are already paying for most of the care of those at most risk of serious illness (the old, the disabled, and the very poor), Our prices are inflated to cover the cost of those who can’t pay their bills. Since everybody is paying for everybody anyway, why not get rid of the middle man that doesn’t contribute ANYTHING to health and adds 20% to total cost. The middle man is the Insurance Companies. If we had one risk pool, we could have one universal electronic medical record from which we could do a phenomenal amount of “best practices” research. We could put the health care system in the hands of public health people who are trying to produce health instead of grow stockholder value.

Since constitutional lawyers disagree on this, I don’t think I am qualified to make a contribution to this debate. That said, “promote the general Welfare” is stated as a goal in the preamble to the Constitution, is it not? I would imagine “general welfare” includes health. If publicly financed schools are constitution, why not publicly financed health care? I imagine any one of a number of constitutional lawyers would suggest that I am a tad simplistic in my analysis.

Similarly, lawyers, especially those who work for health insurance companies should listen carefully to the debate among health care providers. Many of those lawyers walk the halls of Congress both as legislators and lobbyists. Ouch.

What do you say to this?…