Quote Originally Posted by mrchanger
what valued added role do the insurance companies play in the delivery of healthcare...NONE! They are just the middle man between our money and the providers. And they make billions playing that role.
a properly regulated insurance industry stands as a buffer between the individual and the financial devastation of catastrophic illness. insurance is a gamble on your health, sometimes the individual is rewarded for that gamble, relieving him of the strain of outrageous hospital bills, and more often than not the house wins. the notion that there should be no profit for those who provide that service or that those profits should be regulated by the great bureaucracy is insane. just as medical professionals do not invest in years of schooling to earn no better than the common wage slave and medical institutions are not built, equipped and staffed for strictly altruistic purposes, so too are those who provide that financial buffer due their recompense. considering the billions upon billions of dollars that the insurance industry handles, it should be able to expect a profit margin commensurate with that responsibility. aside from the occasional anecdotal evidence of extreme corruption and malfeasance, the millions of satisfied policy holders attest to the general workability of the system in place.

the addition of a public option introduces an entirely new level of corruption into an industry that is already easily taken advantage of. to believe that government does not receive some sort of profit from their meddling is naive. their profit comes in the form of further control over a profitable industry, a control not shared with the people they represent, and an infusion of billions more dollars in the form of premiums to do with as they please. that public option would also place the fates of millions of americans more firmly in the grasp of the bureaucrats of the nanny state, whose actions and intentions are artfully hidden from the very people who provide their salaries and their power. where a corporation may be held accountable through the marketplace, government's armed might makes it impervious to any justice the people may wish to hand down.

the mob, in its quest for more "free stuff", seems incapable of looking beyond its immediate needs. the intent of the founders of this country seems to have been to create a balance between the needs of the individual and the desires of the mob and this experiment has yet to run its course. we are constantly faced with those who say, "but nationalized health care works just fine elsewhere". i suggest they look closely at those elsewheres for a difference between those societies and our own. in most of those societies there is a distinct limiting of personal freedoms and intrusion into the people's everyday lives that we would consider unacceptable. perhaps those dissatisfied with our way of life should emigrate to those more loving climes. i would thoroughly enjoy seeing how well canada, great britain or france would cope with millions of our poor flooding across their borders and demanding free health care, a place to live and the means of existence. i doubt they would be as accepting as we are of the millions who choose to immigrate here.
delusionsofNORMALity Reviewed by delusionsofNORMALity on . Senate Panel REJECTS Public Option Speaks for itself Senate panel rejects public healthcare option | Politics | Reuters Rating: 5