Thanks for fixing the cite. I ended up crashing for half an hour.

Creeping socialism.

Pretty soon, all the sick people will be able to seek medical treatment.

Thanks for the report, OGD. Hope you're right.

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Evening check-in

Nice to see you all . . . Thanks to everyone for chiming in.

Undoubtedly, there remains many a hurdle to get over and hoops to jump through before anything such as the Massachusetts type plan becomes a national reality that is affordable and equitably covers all the citizens of the United States.

As so many here already know, many detractors say that we as a nation cannot afford this type of universal system. I am of the camp that say we cannot afford not to institute a system nation wide.

In the macro-economic sense, in 1989 we spent $1.2 trillion in this country on health care. In 2001 the costs were $1.4 trillion dollars. That number rose to $2.1 trillion on health care in 2006 and reached $2.3 trillion in 2007. And according to National Coalition on Health Care while citing a report from the National Health Expenditure Accounts Projections Team at HealthAffairs.org:

In 2008, total national health expenditures were expected to rise 6.9 percent -- two times the rate of inflation.

Total spending was $2.3 TRILLION in 2007, or $7900 per person. Total health care spending represented 17 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

U.S. health care spending is expected to increase at similar levels for the next decade reaching $4.3 TRILLION in 2017, or 20 percent of GDP.

Plus: The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation 2008 annual report states:

Premiums rose a modest 5 percent this year, but they have more than doubled since 1999 when total family premiums stood at $5,791 (of which workers paid $1,543). During the same nine-year period, workers’ wages increased 34 percent and general inflation rose 29 percent.

This year many workers are also facing higher deductibles in their plans, including a growing number with general plan deductibles of at least $1,000 – 18 percent of all covered workers in 2008, up from 12 percent last year. This is partly, but not entirely, driven by growth in consumer-directed plans such as those that qualify for a tax-preferred Health Savings Account.

The shift has been most dramatic for workers in small businesses with three to 199 workers, where more than one in three (35 percent) covered workers must pay at least $1,000 out of pocket before their plan generally will start to pay a share of their health-care bills – rising from 21 percent last year.

By any measurement, while looking at all those numbers and speculating on the probable "...inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, poor management, and inappropriate care, waste and fraud..." I personally see there needs to be a major overhaul of this nation's health care system.

My favorite is the USNHI Expanded and Improved Medicare for All system ... Although, I'm willing to compromise in the short term and over the long term watch the "incremental universalism" eventually overtake the present way of doing inefficient business.

I'll close with what I pointed out initially. We cannot afford not to institute a system nation wide. The future of our economic security depends on it.

~OGD~