President Bush has been travelling around the country talking about healthcare reform. His proposal advocates that healthy, reasonably affluent people have the opportunity to set up tax free health care savings accounts. This proposal does nothing to address rising health care costs or the care of low income ill and elderly people.

So here is the plan: the U.S. should make a deal with Mexico to OUTSOURCE our elderly population to Mexico! The cost of nursing home care and pharmaceuticals is a fraction the cost in the United States. It would mean JOBS,jobs, jobs for Mexicans and heck, all those people would go to Mexico to visit their relatives and spend money. Terrific for our ecomomy/great for theirs. I make this cynical recommendation because I can see that as long as the Republican juggernaut continues, we will gradually abandon collective responsibility for our elders in favor of bloated military spending and with a negative savings rate, most people will not have enough money to take care of their own end of life health care. Opinions? On an ad hoc basis this phenomenon is already occuring.

On that same line of thinking, insurance companies should offer plans that cover emergency and chronic care; stuff that has to be addressed domesticly. For all elective care( knee surgery, hip replacement, carpal tunnel etc.) the person can be self pay and go to India or Mexico for excellent care on a budget .

They have these policies now. They are in place only for major medical emergencies. All basic care comes out of pocket.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.