Health Insurance reform?

If Americans are so up in arms, why don't they just reform the tort laws and leave a more regulated private heath care system for the middle class and rich, whilst at the same time expanding the VA System to take the poor, whilst also making sure every family doctor and hospital in the US System has a duty to take a percentage of poor patients. Medicare and other such schemes could also be left fairly much as they are now.

The US could also negotiate better deals with the Pharma Industry through collective bulk buying, possible through a Government backed Association of Private Hospitals, which would stand together in terms of purchasing power.

Nobody's looking at a Canadian or a British system. Much of continental Europe does better. Also, overall cancer mortality rates aren't a very good talking point, since there are too many confounding variables (smoking rates, distribution of cancer types, etc.). Private insurance, I'd point out, also does well until you get sick. Paying the typical 20% of charges can run you out of money is a big hurry, and private insurers are more likely than public ones to deny payment for atypical cases. It might have been better to begin change by simply grafting a single-payer system for catastrophic costs on top of the current system, but it's hard to fault them for trying to do more.

No, it is not a single payer system. It allows it, but it does nothing to existing packages...except for a few regulations.

It is just establishing a public alternative, to catch everyone that doesn't have insurance. Oh, and it makes excluding people for "pre-existing conditions" illegal.

That is like saying the united states post office is the only legal way to get parcels. UPS and FEDex are still around.

I hope so. Many people don't see this as a crisis, until you are in a situation where you cannot afford insurance premiums or to go to the doctor.

Also, I hear horror stories about Canada and Europe, yet when I talk with contacts who are in those plans, they say it is not as bad as the horror stories.

It's a moral outrage when someone who is unemployed or working in a high unemployment rate cannot obtain healthcare coverage because they cannot afford the premiums.