Is it a valid comparison to use VA hospitals as a "model of failure" to argue against health care reform?

In my view no. All the reform is going to do is ensure that insurance companies stop screwing the American people and offer people a baseline insurance scheme they will have to take up if they can not afford a better scheme that the insurance companies will be able to offer.

I do not understand why so many Americans have fallen for lies about healthcare in the USA, abroad and also the planned reforms [1]. I mean, if the healthcare system in the USA is so good, why have no other nations taken it up? Could it be due to the following facts?

FACT - the USA spends more on healthcare PER PERSON than any other nation on the planet [2].

FACT - the US has higher death rates for kids under five than western European countries with universal health coverage [3].

Or if the US healthcare system is run so well, why not run the fire service like the healthcare system? [4]

Maybe that is because in the USA, insurance companies push up costs, buy politicians and refuse to pay claims that people pay for [5]. (Look up Wendell Potter on YouTube to hear more if the link below is too long.)

Obama wants to make insurance cheaper, stop insurance companies from refusing health coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, and make sure they pay out when they are meant to [6], a system similar to that which works in Taiwan [7]. He debated this before he was elected [8].

Is it right that a dead American four year old would have had a better chance of life if they were born in Canada, Cuba, Germany and so many other industrialised nations with universal healthcare?

If you think my arguments are wrong, e-mail me with proof. But if you can not, let Obama try to help America. If he fails, vote him out in 2012.

Well, here's the thing. The VA is government-run health care, and therefore it is a valid comparison. The points you bring up are correct, like the mortality rates issue, and it's also true that this system would be rather different than the VA. What that local pastor doesn't realize is that there's not a single veteran with the VA that doesn't want it, not one of them would give it up. The standard of care is actually better with the VA than it is in your average hospital. Compared survival rates may not be the best way to do it, but there's certainly other ways to look at the private system and the VA.

The problems with the VA system is a good example of how poorly the government will handle health care. Many people using the VA are average US citizens. The US is too populated to manage a socialized system, look at Russia. Actually, England has major financial problems now and they have a very high tax rate. It's not helping, government medicine is very expensive.

There are some very good basic things about the VA care. I have seen them save a friends leg. It took over 18 months to get the operation. He hobbled around on crutches, totally depresses about loosing his leg until they got everything needed for the operation. It was a miracle, I was with him for much of it. When I had a chance to talk to these wonderful doctors that healed him, they were not VA doctors at all. The VA did not have the skilled surgeons to this kind of job and they had contracted out to Stanford Medical Center.

The government can not pay these kind of doctor what they are worth to work at the VA. So you have primary care doctors that see what is needed and they pay civilian doctors to do the work.

Much like Canadians coming to America for MRIs.

Actually, Medicare is a much better example of how the public option might work. Medicare is government run insurance that is provided to people over 65 and people with long-term disabilities. People with Medicare can receive care from any provider who accepts Medicare; they are not limited in their choices to government-run facilities. People on Medicare have a far higher rate of satisfaction with their health insurance than people with private insurance. Ideally, the public option would work like Medicare, only anyone would be eligible to subscribe to it.

By the way, your question was well thought out and intelligently posed. Kudos!

First sit down with the pastor and talk to her and give her your side of the story, second you take the VA, medicare, medicaid, social security etc. and they are all going bankrupt. She has part of it right

but needs to use more examples. The reason I don't want govt. health care is because it will really put a financial strain on this country and it's citizens and the health care will suck. That it in a nut shell w/o

writing you a book.

I was a Senior Investigator who investigated Medicaid and some Medicare Fraud for 28 years and saw hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and theft of government monies by Providers ( Doctors ) and Recipients ( Patients ) + health care of such poor quality that I would not subect my dog to it.

I recall one case where we were doing an undercover operation whereby a UC posed as a medicaid recipient patient at a Dentists's office in Bronx, NY. A new dental hygenist remarked to the Dentist that she ( Dentist ) was not sterilyzing the instruments that she was using in different patient's mouths and the Dentist replied " What do you care ? ....They are all junkies with AIDS and they are all going to die anyway !! "

When the Grand Jury heard that undercover tape they wanted the Dentist to hang.

So much for quality government health care.

If your pastor is utilizing the pulpit to wage her campaign against health insurance reform she is jeopardizing the tax exempt status of the church. Hopefully she is confining her efforts to her private life.

Everybody I know on VA loves it, and would never switch.

Just more Right Wing lies and insults to our Vets.

OK then use the American Indian(reservation) free government health plan,and see what its like.