[wmgries]

This is a ridiculous statement. Only around 15% of the country is uninsured and only a small percentage of that number would be "dying" at any given time. Most people in that number are young and relatively healthy. There aren't huge masses of people dying in the streets from treatable diseases and if that's what you believe, you ought to go outside more often.

Regardless, as I've repeatedly said, I'm not arguing for the status quo. The status quo is bad. We do not have a free market currently. If we decoupled health insurance from employers, provided subsidies to the poor, elderly, and our veterans, and removed ridiculous restrictions that prohibit purchase of insurance across state lines we would be well along the way to having a system with universal coverage without the drawbacks of central planning.

This isn't "ignorant Fox News bullshit". Central planning has been repeatedly tried and proven to be less successful than the market mechanism we trust with every other sector of our economy. We simply can't anticipate supply and demand as efficiently as humans as the market (as a force of interacting people) can. I'm not trying to spew some reactionary propaganda - for Christ's sake, I'm advocating the government give people subsidies to help them get insurance in this proposed truly free market. Free market doesn't mean no government or even no government regulation.

The claim that I'm brainwashed carries significantly less weight when you've ignored my comments up and down this thread.

[gnaritas]

> This is a ridiculous statement. Only around 15% of the country is uninsured and only a small percentage of that number would be "dying" at any given time.

You ought to stop relying on your gut so often and look at actual data. 45k people[1] a year in this country die from lack of healthcare. The only thing ridiculous here is you.

> Central planning has been repeatedly tried and proven to be less successful than the market mechanism we trust with every other sector of our economy.

In regards to healthcare, absolutely false; socialized systems in the world work far better than market based systems, this is simply a fact.

> I'm advocating the government give people subsidies to help them get insurance in this proposed truly free market.

Subsidies are a shit solution to any problem, they don't work in free markets because markets simply raise prices to feed off the subsidies. See college tuition rates.

[1] http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-find...