ProxyCheater makes an interesting, -relatively- strong point, the basic fundamentals of which does carry a degree of validity. On their own however, the premise(s) fail to take into consideration the nature of a beast known as "concentration of wealth" -- (oddly enough quite similar to how the tables here at kdice play out) which carries an inertia, one we've all experienced here, once having reached a tipping point of sorts becomes near impossible to overcome. Commonly, here and in the real world, what’s often termed as “unethical” collusion comes into play... (trucing ??..heh) while certainly not the end game, allows conglomerate parties to make some concession/ or sacrifice to themselves with aims of sustaining the upper hand at the expense of everyone else. Geographical resources, wherever they may be found to exist, ( not evenly across the globe) are also of course tied to if not pivotal to the entire dynamic. Arguably, perhaps the primary force in behind just about every skirmish we’ve ever had of any consequence, known as.... war.

Nonetheless, after the last great depression, the above concepts were in fact quite well understood and in fact rather key in respect to the “limits” that were subsequently placed upon or leveraged against specific areas of finance, in this case namely investment banking. In other words Government in hopes of protecting the world of finance from itself (and in part the rest of us) played a strong role in -inhibiting- their actions, allowing undoubtedly –a range- of freedom, but not without “limits”. The result we witnessed was a relatively even gradual era of prosperity for several decades absent any real financial crisis, that is up until the presidential terms of Ronnie Raygun and others who followed, both democrat and republican, began lifting those limits, claiming them to be obsolete or to quote Clinton... antiquated.

A most interesting part of ProxyCheaters premise lies in what he deemed to be the “creative” aspects of the so called free market. It was in fact Wall Street, and the Investment Bankers who were now quite literally off the leash, were thus able to come up with a whole new set of schemes, business models, derivatives etc. which at face value appeared quite remarkable if not ingenious. It was to their credit and creative ability a whole new realm known as CDO’s, credit default swaps, and it’s subsequent collateralized food chain came into fruition, which now, able to run amok unrestrained with almost little or no oversight essentially cannibalized itself in the process and unfortunately took the rest of us down with it, the worst of which we may not have seen the last of.

Investment Bankers were once tied and bound to some rather limiting boundaries, many of the boundaries heavily tied to leverage, which had they still remained in place would made embarking on their most recent brokerage-firms-on-crack-pig out, virtually impossible. You simply could not do it. There was a wall. It was clearly defined which forced you to conduct your business within a well defined parameter of sorts.

I wouldn't support it at the state level but I would accept it as constitutional. If states want to do universal health care that is with in it's rights. I would just move out of state.

Until you lost your job and got sick...then you would move back.

hmmm... some of Microsofts Word created a bit of havoc in the font characters.... edited version below...

ProxyCheater makes an interesting, -relatively- strong point, the basic fundamentals of which does carry a degree of validity. On their own however, the premise(s) fail to take into consideration the nature of a beast known as "concentration of wealth" -- (oddly enough quite similar to how the tables here at kdice play out) which carries an inertia, one we've all experienced here, once having reached a tipping point of sorts becomes near impossible to overcome. Commonly, here and in the real world, whats often termed as –unethical- collusion comes into play... (trucing ??..heh) while certainly not the end game, allows conglomerate parties to make some concession/ or sacrifice to themselves with aims of sustaining the upper hand at the expense of everyone else. Geographical resources, wherever they may be found to exist, ( not evenly across the globe) are also of course tied to if not pivotal to the entire dynamic. Arguably, perhaps the primary force in behind just about every skirmish weve ever had of any consequence, known as.... war.

Nonetheless, after the last great depression, the above concepts were in fact quite well understood and in fact rather key in respect to the –limits- that were subsequently placed upon or leveraged against specific areas of finance, in this case namely investment banking. In other words Government in hopes of protecting the world of finance from itself (and in part the rest of us) played a strong role in -inhibiting- their actions, allowing undoubtedly.. a range .. of freedom, but not without –limits-. The result we witnessed was a relatively even gradual era of prosperity for several decades absent any real financial crisis, that is up until the presidential terms of Ronnie Raygun and others who followed, both democrat and republican, began lifting those limits, claiming them to be obsolete or to quote Clinton... antiquated. What I find most interesting part of ProxyCheaters premise lies in what he deemed to be the – creative - aspects of the free market. It was in fact Wall Street, and the Investment Bankers who were now quite literally off the leash, were thus able to come up with a whole new set of schemes, business models, derivatives etc. which at face value appeared quite remarkable if not ingenious. It was to their credit and creative ability a whole new realm known as CDOs, credit default swaps, and its subsequent collateralized food chain came into fruition, which now, able to run amok unrestrained with almost little or no oversight essentially cannibalized itself in the process and unfortunately took the rest of us down with it, the worst of which we may not have seen the last of.

Investment Bankers were once tied and bound to some rather limiting boundaries, many of the boundaries heavily tied to leverage, which had they still remained in place would made embarking on their most recent brokerage-firms-on-crack-pig out, virtually impossible. You simply could not do it. There was a wall. It was clearly defined which forced you to conduct your business within a well defined parameter of sorts.

still fucked up... whatever... i give up

Ok since this seems to have turned into a universal health care discussion, I just have to add something from the European perspective.

We do look at the "american" discussion but we know that the system in the United States has simply failed. The per capita costs in the United States is higher than in any other European country and all other systems we deploy here compare favorably.

In the United Kingdom you have a totally "socialized" system, France is not as nationalized and here in Germany we have a truely mixed system of private and public health insurers.

Just to reiterate. The per capita cost in all those three countries is less than in the United States and all Models are very different in real life application. But NO ONE living in these states would ever chose to actively endorse a United-States-Model.

We just wonder at your discussion. You seem to want to spend more money, for less health care for some idiotic ideological reasons. And in this regard I will not look at the United States for guidance.

I want better health care, and I am an American living in the US. That said our country is vastly different from every other country in the world with universal care and I accept that this means we cannot apply other countries experiance to what would work in the US.

Of course your country is very different from any other country.

This DOES NOT IMPLY you can not incorporate other country's experiences.

I know the United States will work on a (more probably first state then union based) solution.

But saying, you are unwilling to learn and look at how other countries do it, seems foolish to me. In the contest of ideas we need to look at other examples and how they work out.

No one claims you should do anything. What the heck, it's your people that suffer. But a for profit health insurance industry does not get you good results. It's your choice as citizens to change it.

Boogy how do I lose my job? I fire myself? Pfft... :p

There are many conceivable scenarios under which anyone could lose their health insurance.