Your screaming-head conservative regulars are more than irritating. Let's have liberal shout-outs more often about what to do!

Wasn't it also the end of the "War to end all wars"? Of course, who could say that seriously even in 1914?

Kend - READ THE ABOVE ARTICLE. Medicare For All; endorsed by a professor of economics, no less! And that is how we will pay for it, my friend. If you truly want answers, here they are! No need to ask that question, ever again... unless you're just being rhetorical and don't care about the answer! - AIW

P.S. Marc, thank you!!

An article by Physicians For A National Health Care Program

Quote 'Medicare for All' would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study:Upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.

That’s the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said.

Quote 'Medicare for All' would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study:Friedman says his analysis shows that a nonprofit single-payer system based on the principles of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and co-sponsored by 45 other lawmakers, would save an estimated $592 billion in 2014. That would be more than enough to cover all 44 million people the government estimates will be uninsured in that year and to upgrade benefits for everyone else.

“No other plan can achieve this magnitude of savings on health care,” Friedman said.

Quote 'Medicare for All' would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study:“These savings would be more than enough to fund $343 billion in improvements to our health system, including the achievement of truly universal coverage, improved benefits, and the elimination of premiums, co-payments and deductibles, which are major barriers to people seeking care,” he said.

Quote 'Medicare for All' would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study:Over the next decade, the system’s savings from reduced health inflation (“bending the cost curve”), thanks to cost-control methods such as negotiated fees, lump-sum payments to hospitals, and capital planning, would amount to an estimated $1.8 trillion.

Quote 'Medicare for All' would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study:Friedman said the plan would be funded by maintaining current federal revenues for health care and imposing new, modest tax increases on very high income earners. It would also be funded by a small increase in payroll taxes on employers, who would no longer pay health insurance premiums, and a new, very small tax on stock and bond transactions.

“Such a financing scheme would vastly simplify how the nation pays for care, restore free choice of physician, guarantee all necessary medical care, improve patient health and, because it would be financed by a program of progressive taxation, result in 95 percent of all U.S. households saving money,” Friedman said.

Friedman’s findings are consistent with other research showing large savings from a single-payer plan. Single-payer fiscal studies by other economists, such as Kenneth E. Thorpe (2005), have arrived at similar conclusions, as have studies conducted by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accountability Office in the early 1990s. Other studies have documented the administrative efficiency and other benefits of Canada’s single-payer system in comparison with the current U.S. system.

Friedman’s research was commissioned by Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit research and educational organization of more than 18,000 doctors nationwide, which wanted to find out how much a single-payer system would cost today and how it could be financed.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/july/%E2%80%98medicare-for-all%E2%80%99-would-cover-everyone-save-billions-in-first-year-new-study

For the details of this plan see this link:

http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/Funding%20HR%20676_Friedman_7.31.13_proofed.pdf

Apropos to #57

Palindromedary ~ I know what you are going to say next; so, here is the answer. Legalize all those vices including drugs and impose a very high society redemption tax. Earmark 100% of that revenue for Medicare for all. That way these vices can "pay as you go" for themselves and the future medical needs for those people who "Chose" the path of self-deterioration regardless of available resources to discontinue the destructive behaviors. In fact, the revenue can also help to finance those resources available to individuals who "Chose" to change that behavior. I think that funding Medicare for all would be a far better thing to do with drug money then enrich international criminal cartels. Would that be an acceptable alternative to healthy taxpayers footing the whole bill for the bad decisions of others?

But Kend, buying an insurance policy is gambling. So is putting your money down on Wall Street Casinos. And both are rigged against us. So why play the game? Why make the house richer. So, really, you are gambling as well.

I do agree, however, that there are those people who do throw their money away at actual Casinos or on the State Lotteries. Some may even lose big time in starting their own business that failed.

I even have relatives that have tastes far richer than their wallets can afford. They are always trying to live way above their means...always complaining that they don't have any money...yet they buy expensive things... late model snazzy cars. I hate it when relatives do that...expecting handouts...when I saved and I don't live beyond my means. So, I do empathize, somewhat, with what Kend is saying.

And I do agree that there are many people who live very unhealthy lives ...smoking ...drinking ...poor choice of food ...illegal drugs. They have a choice but through their very bad attitudes and laziness and bad life-style choices should, in my opinion, be penalized for their actions. I agree...why should people who work hard and save and live healthy lifestyles bail out those who do not?

But don't get the idea from my remarks that I agree that everyone who makes a lot of money should get off the hook. Many of those who make a lot of money do so in sneaky and devious ways of taking unfair advantage of others. They should be penalized for being too greedy.

Many people at the top of the economic pie can well do without all their excessive discretionary income and years of unfair tax breaks since Reagan. Many of the reasons why so many people at the lower end of the economic pie have done so poorly is not because they don't want to work. They just don't want to work for slave wages. They know when they are being shafted.

I heard this story about a man who went from his economically depressed country to work for 5 years in another country. He was able to go back to his country after 5 years and completely paid for a house that he would never have been able to pay off in a lifetime in his own country. What American wouldn't do the same thing? If he could pay off his mortgage in 5 years...would they not do it? People just don't want to work for slave wages that will not make a difference. And when they are constantly blasted with all that marketing propaganda they are being cheated out of reality.

There has been a concerted effort by employers to reduce wages and benefits since Reagan. Add to that the marketing psychological ploys that the rich use to make people believe the misinformation they shovel out. They entice us all to buy, buy, buy and give the illusion that, like many wealthy people, as shown in movies on TV and the Cinema, that money will come easy. But, actually, for many wealthy people, it was not an illusion..the money did come easily for many. Many inherited their money and used that as a tool to make even more money. All they have to do is be sneakier and more devious than the suckers they steal from.

Do rich really believe that they will actually need all the money they have amassed to live a very good life before they die? And why do they really think that they are doing their children any good by leaving a vast fortune for them to squander.

Alice you didn't answer my question. Why stop in America? Is it you don't think healthcare is a "right" all over the world? It is just a right in America I guess.

Alice, If health care is a human right then why stop at just our countries, shouldn't we take it further and have one world universal system. Countries like ours should pay even more personal taxes and supply everyone world wide with the same equal care.

Yes i agree children and seniors should be taken care but able bodied healthy people should have to pay there own freight.

Why should someone who chooses to drink, smoke and gamble there money away when I choose to put mine in a good insurance policy get the same level of care.

Yes kend, it is wrong. Like I keep saying over and over, healthcare is a simple human right; it is not a commodity. Your long workdays might entitle you to a bigger house and more stuff, if that is what you want; however it does not make you more entitled to healthcare. This is really about who we are as a country. Everybody should have a right to healthcare, food, shelter; life's barest necessities; even the so-called "least among us" (a term I hate, by the way). This is the kind of society I want to live in, that DAnneMarc, Palindromedary, Marc Saulys, "10K", Nora, Loren Bliss and many others want as well. A civilized society. If you or Global have a problem with that, I'm sorry. When the discussion gets heated, I'll try keeping insults to a minimum. But TV pundits and their masters are fair game! - Aliceinwonderland

Alice you don't have to change anything for me. I am never offended. I am just trying to make the point that I am tired of working 16 hours a day so some guy that doesn't work at all gets the same health care as me. Is that wrong?

It's [big] business as usual. Maybe the Tea Party is coaching the insurance companies to help destroy Obama care. Some call it a train wreck, but that wreck has Tea Party finger prints all over it. Seems to work fine in states where the state actually wants it to work.