Maggie's Farm

This post and the one above it about the outline of the health-care financing bill are obviously linked.
For openers, health care and health care financing are no more rights than is housing or a car. We are expected to earn our livings and to decide how to allocate our income and resources. If I choose a smaller home to allow me to buy a boat, that's my family's business. We did choose a larger home and keeping our cars longer. Same thing with health insurance: I retired from the military, having stayed in partly to get the health plan. Others have made other decisions -- as is their right and duty.
The other big concern about nationalizing health care -- the clear goal of this program -- is nationalizing compliance with health care. There are a number of procedures that doctors recommend for people in my age bracket that I think don't apply to me and I have skipped them. Saves money, saves me time, avoids discomfort that I believe would have little or no health benefit in my case. That I BELIEVE will have little or no health benefit. I do not want to pay a "fee" or a "penalty" for not complying with the nationally established "best practice". I don't even want a barrage of letters reminding me to have my cholesterol test, my PSA, my prostate exam and my colonoscopy. I foresee this coming; with electronic health records (actually a good idea) comes the chance to query who filled the square and who's hiding out. Clinics will see their compensation finagled according to compliance levels.
Be sure that, if there is harrassment or coercion on procedures, there will be harrassment and coercion on diet, exercise, tobacco, alcohol -- everything except (just watch) currently illegal drugs or sexually irresponsible behavior.
I've also commented before and will again: there is no Constitutional warrant for any of this. I think that Social Security and Medicare are also unconstitutional and I hope we can find a way out of them. I really want to stop adding a similar program.