Comments about ‘Rep. Jim Matheson: Health care debate off track’

How about we just get government out of health care ... that is what caused the problem in the first place.

I could make a big list of all the ways gov has messed up the health care market.

But few understand, few listen and few want the truth.

People just want to be told that government will fix it all and it will be FREE to them.

Matheson is on the wrong path as much as the others.

Do you really want doctors and pharmacutical companies to operate without government oversight?

I assume you'd also like poor people dying of serious but easy to treat diseases simply because they are poor?

I'm not sure that ANYONE thinks the government is free. Some things are just worth paying for.

Jake

Jake,
How laughable. The pharmaceuticals don't operate with government oversight. Government does the pharmaceutical's bidding. That's why the big pharma have more lobbyists than anyone else.
Government is not in the business of protecting us or creating fairness. It does the bidding of special interests with our money. That is also ONE reason why the latest Health care reform bill is a piece of garbage that pleases nobody and does nothing to help anyone.
I think doctors would do better without government intervention. It is due to government initiatives that doctors are locked into "corporate medicine" that wants them to see 1 patient every ten minutes and then give them the latest pill from big pharma.

The bottom line is that health care would be more affordable and accessible to everyone if the government hadn't messed it up.

You need to understand the economics of why health care costs are spiraling and what is needed to fix it.

Legislators never give valid reasons as to why costs are spiraling. Oh but they are going to fix it. You can't fix something when you don't know or acknowledge why their is a problem.

According to who? Glenn Beck?

Democrta please do not listen to this Republican Garbage.

Spock is right on the money. The government should be out of healthcare and many other things. The constitution, which is supposed to be the our president and congress have sworn to uphold, gives no power to the federal government to even be involved in any of this. If they feel it should, then make go through the ammendment process.

I think it would be great to find a way to help pay medical expenses for anyone who may find them self's without insurance from time to time. so lets allow them to borrow against their Owen social security to pay their medical expenses this would put them in charge of their Owen medical future if they are successful they would simply pay it back before they would be allowed to draw their benefits this should lower the cost of medical by doing away with the non payer and cutting that financial loss for doctors, their is a staff in place that is already tracking those funds the cost should be minimal and we could dump the billions of dollars the federal government is willing to levy against our future for medical into the social security program securing the financial future of our seniors you know the ones that built this country and fought for the freedoms we enjoy today. I truly believe that the answer could be this simple true Americans don't want a free ride they just need a way to get them thrue the hard times and the ability to make there Owen decisions

I have never seen anything that is government run that really works as planned, healthcare will be no exception, look at the Post office, Social Security, Medicare, medicaid, FEMA, Homeland Security, the devil is always in the detail, and over two thousand pages of details should suffice.
We are broke, the folks in Congress don't get it, throw all the bums out.
"Time to clean out the barn"...Perot

Let us hope it is the most complicated issue he will face in his winding down career. Matheson needs to go the way of Bennett and Hatch. Enough of their fixes for our lives.

Here is where Spock is wrong - he first says that the goverenment is just doing the "big pharma's" bidding and then he postulates that turning it all over to big business would somehow get us a better deal. We need both good government and free enterprise and competition. -I do agree that the Federal government is probably not the level of government that can effectively deal with the issues.- However, with the health care industry being a multi-trillion dollar per year industry, it is going to be very difficult to get decency and honesty to prevail. Having the health insurance moguls rule the roost certainly hasn't gotten us what we need. As far as I can see there is an alliance between health service providers and health insurance that is functioning as a cartel of sorts that needs to be regulated in the interest of the common citizen. Employer based health insurance leaves the individual with few real options getting good individual insurance is next to impossible. I hope that real integrity can be interjected into the solution. It won't be easy and will take some true statesmen to get the job done.

@ The truth? | 12:29 a.m. Feb. 12, 2010

The truth according to anyone who actually understands economics and government.

My opinion is based on many years of study and thought. Also from talking to health professionals. and from working the business side of the medical industry.

Say what you want about Beck. He is not always right ...but he is much closer to the truth than anything we hear out of Washington DC or from lovers of big government.

Government programs like medicare and social security are working just fine, thank you! In fact, all congressmen/women are covered by a federal health care system & pensions--we should all be so lucky! It's not government that rules so much as corporate America & corporate money. As a Democrat, Mr. Matheson has failed, but hey, it's hard being the one petunia in a GOP onion field! Right, Mr. Matheson?

Matheson is off track in the health care debate not the other way around! What do you propose we do Matheson? Or are you just content in your Republican like "No reform" mode? How much do lobbyists pay Matheson?

Spock, you are one scary person!

@ BH | 8:35 a.m. Feb. 12, 2010

You are missing the point.
Big business would not have nearly the power they have without government behind them.

Special interests use the power of the government to give them advantages that they would not naturally have.

You are correct about employer based plans being bad.
It was government that pushed us to employer based plans in the first place and continues to promote 3rd -party payers.

We should all have high-deductible plans that we own personally. We should get them when we are young and healthy and keep them. Those few who get caught without a plan can turn to private charity like we used to do before government destroyed the charity hospital system.

I was able to buy a high-deductible HSA plan for my family of 6 for $200/month. I know people who pay that for cell-phones but don't have insurance.

I do believe we have a responsibility to our neighbors in need. I just disagree vehemently that charity should be handled by government. It allows government to grow too powerful and weakens the character of our people.

If it's about reducing health care costs, then why did the dem bill that just died have so much more in it, including provisions to allow the federal government to gather personal financial data for every U.S. citizen? That's just one example out of hundreds for that bill. They have no business doing 9/10ths of what was in that bill.

I want free auto, home and life insurance while the feds are at it. Throw in free extended warranties for all my appliances, too. Free oil changes would be nice. :)

(Not really. I just want the feds out of my life and 99.999% of American business.)

@ Ted | 9:51 a.m. Feb. 12, 2010

Would you lake to elaborate with something of substance or do you just want to shoot the messenger?

What is scary is all the people who just don't bother to educate themselves or fight for what is right.

What is scary is where our government is taking us.

To everyone who denegrates corporate america: it is private and public business that create the standard of living we enjoy here in America. It's not the feds that caused this. They may have allowed it but they did not create it. It is personal initiative, invention and industry that brought up this country above nearly all others in the world. Other countries that prospered did so by letting business thrive. Today, however, there is so much greed in both industry and government that it is stifling further improvements to our standard of living.

If we get the Government out of the healthcare business (a good idea by the way), then how should the Government address the $38 trillion (another unpaid deficit) that is owed back to all of us "contributors" who paid into the Medicare system over the past 45 years?