Healthcare in the U.S.

Study Shows Americans Sicker Than English: "CHICAGO -- Middle-aged, white Americans are much sicker than their counterparts in England, startling new research shows, despite U.S. health care spending per person that's more than double what England spends."

Well, hello! What's so hard to understand about this. Privatization demands profit for stockholders. Never mind the sick patients. Never mind that these patients were prompt about paying their contributions. How can we save the stockholders money? Why, by employing an army of lawyers, bureaucrats and nitpickers whose only jobs are to find a way to deny benefits. Something like 30% of the private healthcare cost in this country is spent on administration. As opposed to 2% on the public Medicare.

I think there's something to be said for making people accountable for their health -- make them eat wisely, get exercise and all that. But privatization is the wrong stick.

How about something like: get your checkups done properly (& freely), enroll in free preventive programs (e.g. to manage health issues), then you get free catastrophic health insurance. Even if you do have to pay for minor stuff, like flus and the like, that would be so much better than the moronic policy we have today.