"The exchanges reward people for working less and earning less..."

[Decker]

Here we are, what America will look like within a decade...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/15/news/economy/massachusetts_healthcare_reform.fortune/index.htm

Reminds of the Cycle of Democracy.

-d

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[bugeye]

I've yet to read anything from CNN money that was clear and accurate.

"The problem is that the actual annual cost of these plans is around $10,000..."

That's the problem with our system, the cost per citizen nationwide is about $8000 a year including people who are not insured and get very few services. The whole system has gone nuts providing services at crazy prices and the gov has done little to curb these perpetually increasing costs. The rest of the developed word manages to provide high quality services for everyone for about half our costs, so I think that means they are really at a third of our costs! Now a powerful gov dedicated to providing sustainable - affordable health care would have attempted to creat a system that runs at a third of the costs per person, however this is America and the power of the money of the sacred cows in addition to the well financed Greek Chorus of rightie protests resulted in a watered down bill that left the same entities that have been ripping us off for decades still in charge. The original post is about welfare but our current system is a lot more about corporate welfare, health care is a utility, and it needs to be regulated.

The sad state of America's ability to solve problems has given me great insight into the fall of great empires of the past. If you could somehow clear away the politics and redo our system we could save at least a trillion a year. Replacing inefficient private insurance companies with leaner providers could easily save 200 billion a year alone. Letting drug stores give out antibiotics, setting up low cost nurse pratictioner centers, allowing the gov to dicker with the drug companies, and moving the simple things from the domain of the appointment to a walk in service would also save us a fortune.