Companies like GE and AT&T used to self insure their employees and covered them for life if they retired from the company.

Couple points.

On school lunches, actually that was the first lady's project. But we shouldn't forget that she first started out talking about eating healthier. Smaller portions and less junk food. Then some of the larger processed food companies reminded Barry about the campaign donations they made. So her fight changed quickly to just "don't over eat"


And as for the gulf oil settlement, any other times the left whine about how cheap BP got out the spill and weren't fined enough.

$200 in 1960 is equivalent to $1600 now, so it's not quite that simple. And of course you have to consider that, had something gone wrong during your birth, you'd have had a far reduced chance of survival as well. It's very difficult to compare then and now in an apples and apples sort of way.

But anyway, my 'always' was not well considered, and I retract that. But it's been expensive for a long time now. And competition didn't seem to do anything to prevent that. And, no matter how it got that way, it still remains the case that it's too expensive for a lot of people who are not working for large companies and who therefore have no leverage against the insurance companies to get the prices to something they could afford.

Without some organization to allow these people to pool their purchasing power like large companies do, they will continue to have trouble getting health care and that's no good for any of us.

Affordable health care comes from competition, just like anything else. If you could shop a plan across state lines, there would be companies that could compete, that never could in the past. That being said, how can you put a value on the best health care in the world? Why do people come to Houston to MD Anderson to be treated for cancer? Why is that?

Well, I'm a business owner, so I do believe in competition, but it doesn't always work for all situations. That's another problem with politics in this country. So many people seem to think that only one set of answers can work and must be optimal in all situations.

Anyway, so let's say they could do that. Now, they have to go to another state, possibly across the country to get treated. Who is going to pay for that? And you know that the most wealthy will always get access in those situations while the less well off will not. They just won't be able to afford it. Is insurance going to pay for a plane ticket and for them to stay in a hotel for a week? They can't work while they are there even if it's just some treatment that requires them to go in every couple days or something, is insurance going to cover that loss of income?

If their insurance does cover those things, how is that reducing the cost of health care? Everyone else has to pay the premiums to cover those expenses that wouldn't be there if they could get good local treatment.

Dean, you are wasting your time on these bozos.  They have been fully radicalized by FNC and Rush.

There must be something in the water up there that make you guys so angry.

Casey, remember when we all met him on the sky deck in Denver at Cedia?

I guess our assessment of him was correct.

Creating cross state line competition doesnt mean you have to go across state lines for service. ATT, Comcast, Dish and DirecTV are not headquarted in Texas yet I can shop all of them. (course they all suck! lol)

He was talking about being able to go wherever he wanted to do get the best health care, which is sort of what I was replying to.

No, I meant competition. Insurance companies have been kept out of certain states. I could get Blue Cross Blue Shield in Texas, but not Colorado. Doesn't make sense. More competition, better savings. I was trying to say before ACA, you could pick. Not now. Doctors are getting screwed over also. What used to pay $1000.00 now pays $250.00.

It was all a scam to get a few people covered. Now people are forced to buy it. Doesn't sound much like a free country anymore.

You libs are the ones that need to wake up. Unless you are of the elite, you will get screwed like the rest of us.

Guaranteed

But no one is forced to buy it. If you have private insurance you don't have have to have it. If you are insured via your employer you don't have to have it. If you are uninsured you don't even have to buy it, though if you have sufficient taxable income you have to pay a small fine into the pool, to help cover when you show up in the emergency room without any insurance. So I'm failing to see how this is something being forced on you against your will.

As to doctors getting screwed over, how exactly is the cost of medical care going to get substantially lower without doctors taking substantially less money? They and everyone else on the other side of the counter? I can't see how you can pay everyone in the medical profession the same thing but significantly lower health care costs.

Right, and the costs in healthcare aren't the insurance companies overhead. Allowing cross-state competition will just let them headquarter in whatever state offers the friendliest terms and continue to merge into a very few monolithic providers. None of which will drastically bring down costs or improve services.

Please try and stick to the topic. Only post your opinion about Trumps speech.

Shades of: "a chicken in every pot".

'Trust me, I can do this'.

Based on his past "deals" I think that, world wide, everyone should keep their hands on their wallets.

Elected or not, this should be a movie: "The Ugly American **II".