Athena4,

I have been a paying member of the country's oldest HMO, who rations treatment, since I decided to become a father. I am now of a prime age to start consuming more than paying until I reach 65. I would go bare now if needed because I am relatively healthy and come from a healthy family. Whatever.

It is more about my grown children and their needs that I worry. They have little beside their health and education to see them through until they become established. I don't want an economic lasso thrown around them to pay for my health care or anyone else's, even those who made no sacrifice to raise them to be responsible, educated hardworking adults.

They need a chance to save and build and prepare for retirement too. It ain't all about me or my fellow baby boomers. Life goes on and paying the gift of life, the good life that I have enjoyed, forward is more important than insuring my acquired property against the ravages of time.

As far as rights go, I just find it amusing that people can make them spring from thin air. Even as liberal a thinker as Jefferson realized he couldn't do that so he invoked "the Creator" in the Declaration.

Ummm... wrong. Not all human needs can be considered rights, and people do not expect the government to provide ALL of their needs. Nice little straw man you have there.

EDBYRONADAMS - do you have health insurance now? Because if you do, you ARE paying for care of the "old and unhealthy" through your premiums. If you don't have health insurance, I wish you continued good health, so that you don't have to deal with this nightmare of a system that we have now.

A human need is a human right.

Where is my food?

Where is my shelter?

Where is my clothing?

Where is my entertainment?

Where is my sexual partner?

C'mon, government, fork it over.

I think there's a second moral question, which is why when health care is a human need, a human right, I would argue, should insurance companies, who hold near monopolies in most markets in the US be allowed to essentially levy a tax or around 30% on every medical transaction that results in huge coorperate profits. The only thing that can really put a cap on this is the public option to force the companies to offer competitive rates. Other options, such as antitrust actions should be considered, too.

You only qualify for Medicaid if you are indigent. If you are one of the millions of people who work who do not have health care, you're screwed. THAT does not seem moral to me!

When the young get sick or injured they can qualify for Medicaid because they are poor and have little (actuarial truths). The problem is that the older and propertied class wants to rope them into paying to insure their property that they would forfeit if they become ill without coverage, a greater actuarial reality as you age.

It doesn't seem moral to me.

No, but they cause the rest of us to pay for their stupidity in not getting health insurance because someone told them that they're indestructible. Stuff happens, no matter if you're young, old, healthy, or sick.

As for pre-natal care, one would think that the pro-lifers would be screaming for this to be included in health insurance. If you're all for "saving babies", one would hope that you would be for making sure that these babies and their mothers are healthy.

Exceptions and anecdotes do not negate actuarial truths.

Your arguement about the "young and healthy" holds no water. What happens when those younger and healthier people get into an accident and don't have insurance? Young, healthy people often do physical activities that will sometimes get them injured, like skiing. And, last I've heard, "building a family" means having babies, which require monthly pre-natal visits to ensure healthy babies. Or, God forbid, something happens and those babies are born with a birth defect? Or someone "young and healthy" gets cancer? (I know a person who had breast cancer at 22, through NO fault of her own.)

How to pay the $871 million dollar bill for universal health care and how to reduce costs:

1. An added two dollar health insurance tax (or higher) on a pack of cigarettes. Ditto taxes on alcolholic beverages, the higher the alcohol content, the higher the tax. Ditto for any product shown to be unhealthy (e.g. guns, high caloric/fatty foods??)

2. Physicals akin to those required for life insurance- the overly obese will pay signficantly more Medicare and universal health insurance (unless the obesity is caused by a medical condition).

3. No universal health care coverage for drivers driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs or using cell phones while driving.

4. No universal health coverage for drug addicts or for those having self-inflicted STDs.

5. No univeral health coverage for abortions unless the life of the mother is at significant risk and judged to be so by at least two doctors.

6. No universal health coverage for euthanasia.

7. No foreign aid given to countries who abort females simply because they are female. Current aid should be used to pay for universal health care.

8. The $8 billion a year we give to Israel and Egypt in foreign aid should now be diverted to universal health care.

Added suggestions?? List here and also send to your legislators.

I had no problem honoring my parents and Medicare and Medicaid are all about compassion for those who cannot take care of themselves. The current medical proposal is about taking from the younger and poorer to the older and richer. That is not a moral proposition in my book especially since those young people face the economic hurdles of forming households and new families. I would much rather pay it forward than back.

Mr. SCHAD:

Please tell your very sick or near death patients that our/thier BIO-FINITE-Death of Many, is never OUR "TRANSF{iNITE-DEATH of many."

Secret: WE "MEME"s come n GO according to Holyi PERMUTATION LAW. That is; when our Immortal Souls reach the NON-Gravity Place; that that We [i] i [WE] get Placed via the Mighty EKLAH's Due-TO-Be Cosmic Machination!

WE are Born from the "MAGMAPERCOLATION-Effect" which is begot via IT's own m iraculous "NEBULA-Plume-WOMB" that has another Holy Cosmic HEART-BEAT Experience, via the Great PALINDROME! We Contract & then Re-Tract via Absolute-HOT and Absolute-COLD Commands/Laws/Info! SO

H-O-P-E is for All whom Believe in "IT" [never a HE nor a SHE]! Praise "IT", a new Name for G-D; which is in n out of us ALL, which is why WE [i] art together forever w/Source-ONE! So

BE GLAD YOU had this Chance; hence another is planned via "IT"s "ETERNITY AVOIDING LONLINESS" Scheme/Plan for Another "ESCHATOLOGICAL POSSIBILITY" Of WHAT "IT" [G-D] can Do for US again!

Remember: Our MEME's was never Created nor can our MEME's can be Destroyed! Similar intutioned, Heart Felt n Frontal-Lobally-Thought, aka Experienced; HERE n THERE, Everywhere!

Honor thy father and mother, Ed. And, while we're at it we should respect our elders and have compassion for all (propertied or not). That, in my opinion, is the morality in question.

We already have Medicaid for the indigent. The question in hand is whether to protect people's property from forfeiture in order to qualify for Medicaid. Unfortunately the program under consideration is one that transfers money from a younger, poorer and healthier class of people to one that is older, sicker and already propertied so as to insure that property from the vicissitudes of ill health.

That is the morality in question.