My question, do YOU think health care and iron work construction fall
into the same category, i.e. free enterprise with only profit as a
worthwhile goal? *Do you even really believe that "profit" is the only
important ( even the most important) product of your own biz? *if so,
sorry

no, of course profit is not the only important aspect of business. I
think it is pretty rare that you find a co. whos mission statement
consists of "profit"

I also think that profit is not the evil it is made out to be. Profit
allows the hospital to build the new cardiac wing, or add the new MRI
center, or ----.

In our case, profit may allow for the addition of new forklifts,
welders, safety gear, etc. strictly managing to pull in overhead w/o
profit pretty much means status quo. keep what you have going, pay
the rent, keep the lights turned on.

I have no prob. with insurance co.s making a profit, nor the Dr. that
yanks a messed up gall bladder. I do wish the ins. co's were more
efficient with their (my) money. From what I've learned, they have a
pretty substantial overhead cost - I think they need a bit more
competition so they can run a little leaner. At the same time, I
think they do their level best to get out of paying claims while
getting slaughtered by legislation that sticks them with costs that
were never intended to be covered. I seriously dislike ins. co's -
but I would absolutely not want to do what they do.

I think that coverage for all is a great idea- but the costs have to
be addressed realistically. I have no idea how many unisured people
there are in the US, but I am sure how ever many there are, they all
have the same, statistically speaking, health costs I have. So if you
dump them into the system - and they can't afford the costs of
coverage - my costs go up. If my costs go up, my cost of doing
business goes up, if my costs of business go up, either I gotta go
find free money, or I have to increase my bill to john Q customer.

actually a fairly simple concept.

I still think the answer is along the lines of catastrophic coverage -
say $10,000. under that is 100% on you, over that is 100% on
insurance. Think of the amount of paper that gets eliminated (paper =
money, it means secretaries, reviewers, auditors, etc etc etc), If
everyone had, and paid, for that policy there would be huge funds
available for those that needed catastrophic health care. Say one
person in 20 needs that kind of coverage in a given year, the premiums
would be drasticaly reduced - and you could afford a health savings
account that could build up to 10k in a couple three years, so the
9000 gall bladder surgery is cash payable. My premium runs $500/mo
for just me, cut it to 200 and let me stick 200-300 in an HSA, in 2 -
3 years assuming limited draws for little things, my one time 10 k
deal is paid for. gotta work the numbers - but I think something like
that would work.

jh