MANDATORY INSURANCE RIPOFF!

The rush to insurance during this healthcare summit seems to make many presumptions, such as that price fixing is good for one industry but not good for another. I am sure that the lobbyists are leading the charge to mandatory insurance for individuals and businesses, letting Congress take control of providing customers for these private businesses through mandates that take civil rights away from the taxpayers.

Being forced to buy anything is not freedom. Price fixing with a guaranteed ever increasing percent of income in perpetuity for insurance companies will not bring health care costs down. Allowing government and insurance companies an automatic draw on paychecks will not bring health care costs down. Freedom of choice and cash in hand will bring health care costs down.

Oh, but the debt load on the medical profession is huge and there is all that malpractice insurance to pay for and these payments must continue….Perhaps more structured bankrupt medical debtors this time, instead of just auto manufacturers. Where is the debt load? Who are the creditors? Should foreign companies be able to own our insurance pools?

Establish low cost clinics in neighborhoods for routine medical visits covered or not by insurance. Reasonable, available low cost health care, payment in cash or card or insurance, but always at a low cost, payment now or jump through social services hoops.

Facilities for these clinics exist in many cities in the form of unused commercial space, empty government buildings, repossessed homes and unused school space.

Insurance companies are tying up huge sums and then using these sums to get tax money to pay off their gambling losses. Now they want to mandate the continuance of this forced obligation so they can take even more money out of the system. Let government, and private enterprise offer non-mandatory insurance choices and allow the individual to seek out low cost heath care on the open market. Use stimulus money to establish the clinics and man them. Give the people the right to buy or not to buy.

Figure it out! A small clinic operating 24 hours a day would see a patient every half hour average @ $10 a visit, $4800 would be generated or $9,600 @ $20 a visit. Enough money to pay a small staff and what a boon to the neighborhood it would be.

Give the people a real chance to choose healthcare, not a series of predesigned choices that enrich others. This is far more important than more roads.