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We don't get what we are paying for!

"You get what you pay for!"

How is that for selective wisdom?

If there is a grain of truth there, it may be that
really well-crafted things and services cannot be had
for the price of junk. Sometimes--just sometimes--
the best things cost the most, but more often,
the things with the highest prices are just most desired,
not the best to be had. And how often have we not all
paid good prices for things and discovered they were junk?

Consider our health care system:
we pay approximately twice as much for health care
as any other developed nation, and our health outcomes
are well below what those other nations receive.
We really do not get what we pay for!
We die earlier. Our child mortality rates are higher.
We have more people without health care, at all.
Insurance companies skim off 30% for themselves.
Top insurance and medical plan executives pay themselves
salaries and stock options and bonuses at a rate
that would lead us to believe that they had found
the fountain of youth and the secret to eternal life
and were offering it free to anyone who would agree
to chant, "Government should stay out of health care!"

We are not getting what we are paying for except,
perhaps, from Medicaid and Medicare. Those government-run
programs are models of efficiency, inclusiveness,
cost-effectiveness, and fairness that are so obvious
that the recipients themselves demand that government
keep their hands off their Medicaid and Medicare! Huh?

How is that for letting your preconceived notions
interfere with your common sense?

How can anyone defend our health care system?
The outcomes are abysmal compared to other developed nations.
The cost of what we have is incredibly higher.
The number of people who have not health care, at all, is staggering.
The profits being made by private insurance companies are criminal.

Most of what Congress proposes to do is patchwork:
add some people, spend more money, leave the system intact.
We NEED a single-payer system like Medicaid and Medicare.
At the very least, while leaving the present system intact
for those who like what they have, we should institute
an alternative, government-run system for those who want it.

We do, after all, like our State universities, our fire departments
and police departments, our military and space programs,
our highways, airports, sewer systems, and social security.

Government-run, those!
But, then, they are essential;
not profit centers for insurance companies.
.

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