Problem 1. We are providing free healthcare to the citizens of Mexico. When congress passed the law saying that anyone that walk into a hospital emergency room get free health care, the Mexican government pointed their people north. Mexico puts hardly any money into the health care of their citizens because they don’t have to. The cost is around 60 billion a year to our healthcare system; this is an old estimate so it’s probably well over a hundred billion by now. This is driving our hospitals into bankruptcy and is the reason why it’s so expensive to go to a hospital. When you pay $200 for a band aide you are paying for the health care of the Mexican people.

Problem 2. Technology. Healthcare technology, Just talking about the machines, the new machines are advancing at lighting speed. Each machine is very expensive and it requires at least one specialist if not three to run it. I recently saw a new machine that does brain surgery without having to cut open the patient. Cost huge money and three specialists to run it.
But everyone whats and demands the latest technology.

Problem 3. Heroic care and end of life care. Babies can be born at 6 months and now be keep alive. Hands can be severed and reattached. Bodies can be destroyed and restored. End of life can be extended for many years now with the use of technology and drugs.
The cost is about half of all healthcare dollars spent in this country, on very few people. This area alone is going to break the bank so to speak as no one dies anymore.

Problem 4. People don’t take care of their bodies anymore. They rely on drugs to remove cholesterol and keep their diabetes under control. There is a pill for everything, and these pills are very very expensive.
An example of this is a guy that I met at the gym. He was engaged in a serious jaw workout. He said “why worry about what you eat? After I eat my fried fish I just pop a bill to get rid of the cholesterol.

Problem 5. Litigation. Doctors have to practice defense medicine simply because of the fear of getting sued. This lead to unnecessary tests as the doctors are more worried about covering their ***** then costs. Even if a doctor does everything right and a patient dies or isn’t healed the way they want, the doctor get sued. This is a huge cost to our healthcare system.

Until these issues are addressed health care will just keep getting more expensive. Universal health care will never work under these conditions. The government just doesn’t have enough money.

In America, the phrase, "Because that's how somebody makes the most money," is generally the answer to most of these types of questions.

Health care is expensive because there's more money to be made this way than if health care were cheaper. I think it's a foolish strategy in the long term, because a sick population is neither productive nor ultimately profitable. But that's just me. In America, I'm considered a loon.

Nevertheless, socialized medicine is inevitable.

That is so much unadulterated hogwash. It was a conscious decision by Richard Nixon back in the early 1970's to give the Kaiser Permanente Foundation what they wanted: A for-profit healthcare system. This overturned decades of things like community hospitals. It also put insurance companies between doctors and their patients. EVERY OTHER First World nation had government healthcare plans covered by taxes.

The "illegal immigrants" and litigation excuses are rightwad talking points which have nothing to do with reality. A single-payer system is economic to run and efficient to utilize...but the HMOs, the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies won't make any money that way. THEY'RE the ones who are lobbying the government to keep you paying through the nose and making them fatter.

Are you telling me that the richest nation in the world cannot afford the same or better care than anyone else??

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"Tomorrow, you're all going to wake up in a Brave New World, a world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem cell research laboratory, run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags!"

From personal experience, I can tell you that you are wrong on this.

When my wife and I shopped for private insurance coverage a few years ago, it cost close to as much to add maternity coverage to that insurance as it did to have a baby. We worked out that if we had 3 kids with 18 month breaks in between, we would actually pay less if we did the whole thing out of pocket versus carrying maternity coverage with private insurance. Why was it so expensive? The hospital told me it was because I lived in Texas.

The insurer said the same thing. She said it was more expensive in Texas, California, and the other border states/high illegal immigrant states because so many just had babies, added costs to the system and ditched.

So yeah, that's all to say that illegal immigrants do pose a financial burden on the system.

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"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.

Not what Republican isolationists would have us believe...and I'll bet you didn't try shopping for it in Canada...did you?

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"Tomorrow, you're all going to wake up in a Brave New World, a world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem cell research laboratory, run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags!"

I live in Texas... why should I think to shop in Canada?

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"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.

So you are saying that healthcare is less expensive in New Hampshire, Idaho and other states with a smaller presence of illegals?

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You, you, and you, panic. The rest of you follow me.

Last book read: "Child 44"
Now reading: "Tree of Smoke"

Health care is big business there is a lot of money to be made.

That's simple why it is so expensive. The bottom line counts.

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Acceptance is the answer

"Im a Tarte, what! you want some of this?"

No, that's not what I said or implied. I said that adding maternity coverage to a private insurance policy is most expensive in states like Texas and California. That's what I said and that's what I meant.

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"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.

That's true, katiegrrl10, but if you ever saw the Michael Moore movie Sicko--and I recommend it highly--you'll understand that the other industrialized countries in the world pay for their universal health care with taxes...and you pay NOTHING when you have to, for example, go to the emergency room.

Consequently, the risks are spread over the entire population, just like insurance. Thus costs for each individual are actually lower than what we pay here because we pay for BOTH health insurance and taxes. Plus--and here's the kicker!--people in those countries LIVE LONGER, HEALTHIER LIVES.

There's really no argument for keeping the privatized system we have here...

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"Tomorrow, you're all going to wake up in a Brave New World, a world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem cell research laboratory, run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags!"