There was also something in the letter about how we should give people the opportunity to get health care through their job if they're not already covered.

Ack, I really want to have a health care system where employers don't have to be in the health insurance business. Just imagine if entrepreneurs didn't have to worry about getting health care or provide health care for employees. What a load that would be off people who wanted to go into business for themselves.

Techinically, we might have the best medical professionals and procedures, but that's not what this is all about.

We can have the best or the worst in the industrialized world if you get to choose the metric.

My rep is kooky, but she's my kind of kooky:

Enacting comprehensive, quality health care reform is one of my highest priorities. I have been a long time supporter and cosponsor of Representative John Conyers’ (D-MI) bill to provide single payer health care, H.R. 676, the United States National Health Care Act or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.

...

I want you to know that I will fight for health care reform, including a robust public option for all Americans. The keystone of this plan’s success will be a strong public health insurance option.

Ask your rep if he/she is going to support the provision that is designed to ensure that health insurance companies get 35 cents of every dollar in premiums as profit. That's at least 10 cents more than Las Vegas casinos are limited to!! I first heard about it on MSNBC last night (can't remember if it was Countdown or Rachel, though).

I wrote back, told him not to spout Republican talking points at me, pointed out that bureaucrats already decide what doctors I can see and what treatments I can afford, and told him not to send me another form letter. And never to expect my vote.

health insurance companies get 35 cents of every dollar in premiums as profit.

That sounds suspiciously high. Where did they get that number?

Someone stop me before I post again. The Facebook troll is DRIVING ME UP A FUCKING WALL. And nothing is going to change this guy's mind - he's just repeating shit Glen Beck's said with no facts to back up any of it.

10 more minutes until my internet access is taken away by my commute. I can ignore him that long.

health insurance companies get 35 cents of every dollar in premiums as profit.

Hmm. That doesn't really pass the smell test with me. So if they have cost overruns, what? They come back for more premiums? They automatically recapture by curtailing payouts? Even in the centrally planned soviet-style economy Obama is clearly intending it just couldn't logistically be done.

Which is not to say I don't believe there are some insane industry incentives buried in there.

I just got a letter from my House Rep that I wrote to about health care. He can't support a system that would "put federal bureaucrats between you and your doctor".

What a fucking hypocrite. Where exactly does he get his health insurance from?

As a member of the US House of Representatives? He gets health care through his Federal Employee Health Insurance. Complete with health, vision, dental, life, flexible spending accounts and long-term care.

But evidently his constituents should be spared that trauma.

Life expectancy in the US may have peaked: [link]

Life expectancy in the United States rose to an all-time high, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today. But that's only half the story.

The country is behind about 30 others on this measure.

Though the United States has by far the highest level of health care spending per capita in the world, we have one of the lowest life expectancies among developed nations — lower than Italy, Spain and Cuba and just a smidgeon ahead of Chile, Costa Rica and Slovenia, according to the United Nations. China does almost as well as we do. Japan tops the list at 83 years.

And in an era where advances in medicine and better understanding of health issues should boost life expectancy significantly, the gains announced today were modest.

U.S. life expectancy reached nearly 78 years (77.9) in 2007, the latest year for which data from death certificates has been compiled. That's up from 77.7 in 2006. Over the past decade, life expectancy has increased 1.4 years.

In fact, U.S. life expectancy gains may be pretty much over, as some groups — particularly people in rural locations — are already stagnating or slipping, explains LiveScience columnist Christopher Wanjek. Meantime, soaring rates of obesity and diabetes among children and adults, owing mostly to lousy diets and lack of exercise, portend depressing mortality rates to come.