bac, the persecuted rat that slept with the princess says:

#- Bobbo — “somewhere in “the system” an itemized bill does exists. The fact that its hard to get is also not surprising given it sometimes takes weeks/months to get all the final charges to the right patient” — A decade or two back, the information age was suppose to make this easier.

“This kind of inefficiency is why a single payer can provide coverage to all and save money at the same time.” — Only if the single payer does routine audits of hospitals and doctors.

Floyd says:

When I was 11 years old (this would be 1962), I had infected tonsils that were removed by surgery. I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t pay for the surgery by bartering with chickens.

Sue Lowden is talking about a financial system that hasn’t existed since the 1930s. Doctors don’t take chickens in payment. Corporations won’t take chickens either, unless you’re talking about Pilgrim’s Pride chickens in plastic wrappers, by the truckload.

jbenson2 says:

Which is worse?

Paying for your medical checkup with a chicken, or handing your personal bank account access info over to the govt so they can withdraw your money immediately during each and every medical visit.

The latter is the Democrats wet dream of utopia.

tj says:

We should pay congress with poultry as a pilot test for the program.

BmoreBadBoy says:

The only way to fix health care in america is to get government out of it 100%. Allow doctors and hospitals and insurance companies to compete with each other without government intervention. That way, doctors who give the best care for the lowest possible cost will get the most business. Also, hospitals who give the best service & experience at the lowest cost possible would get the most business. Finally, insurance companies who offered the best service and who actually fought to keep prices low and paid out claims the fastest would get the most business. Who needs the hassle of convincing stubborn politicians who are already in corporate pockets and misguided laws which need to be enforced with a gun and jail time and fines?

bobbo, sorry folks, but its a meaningless universe we inhabit says:

#28–Nextlie==Eggzactly. Imagine the mess the Federal Tax Revenue Service would be if it were made up of 1000′s of competing for profit entities operating under their own rules mostly free from government oversight of a kind that could make any different in the amount of tax each “provider” collected?

Yes, the IRS is VERY EFFICIENT in eggzactly the same way healthcare could be.

Thank you for your supporting analogy.

BBoy–you are an idiot.

BmoreBadBoy says:

qb, #30

I’m in favor of ending every government program, including the federal government in its entirety. Of course, to be practical, some programs would have to die slowly. Others could end today and we’d be a lot better off.

bobbo, #31

You’re more infantile than spongebob squarepants. Instead of the IRS, you’d have individual companies competing for your business. For example, you’d have many security companies vying to provide each person police services. Other companies would compete to provide education, etc. You wouldn’t have many IRS companies vying to provide you everything from health care to libraries to roads to defense. See how simple you are?

BmoreBadBoy says:

@bobbo, #34

See how limited your statist mind is? First of all, 50 competing states (or 13 originally) is what the founding fathers intended in the first place. That way, if you didn’t like how one state’s government was governing, you could move easily to another state. The better states would get a larger tax base, and the worse states would have to shape up or go bankrupt. One major reason the fed gov was put into place was to keep interstate tariffs in check. Of course, that was a dumb idea, since the fed just put tariffs on goods from foreign countries, causing the same kind of problem they were trying to prevent in the first place, and used the interstate commerce clause as an excuse to expand its influence into every type of commerce there is.

Personally, I’d like to see the fed gov dissolve. Then I’d like to see the state governments dissolve. After that, no more local governments. Instead, we can live in a voluntary society where no one is coerced into doing things they don’t want to do. But either you’re too simple or too scared to ever consider that. What you don’t understand is in order to be free, you must allow others to be free. You, on the other hand, don’t mind being enslaved yourself, as long as those you fear (which includes everyone else) is enslaved also.

Rambie says:

#35 “First of all, 50 competing states (or 13 originally) is what the founding fathers intended in the first place”

Another case of selective history from the conservatives again. Sure, why don’t we just go back to the Confederation Congress. Let every state mint their own currency, set their own tariffs.

BmoreBadBoy says:

@tcc3, #36

You tender little person you. I don’t see anyone on this blog violating anyone else’s person or property. Stop being such a little p*ssy. If a couple of curse words and name calling gets your panties in a bunch I suggest you enroll in a Pre-k class.

Just to clarify, anarchy means no rulers, not no rules. If you live in a house with strangers, you don’t need a president and congress. You either all agree to a basic set of rules, or people move out. Those places where there has been no government still had religious law (aka sharia law) and those people didn’t know what freedom or liberty meant. Gee, I wonder why there is corruption in all those places people said “lets get some rudimentary form of gov. running asap.” And there is no such thing as Utopia, but there is a better way than a representative democracy, which has proven itself a colossal failure.

@Rambie, #37

All history is selective. See how you just selected that quote from the middle of my entire argument and attacked it unilaterally? I don’t want any congress. And I’m not a “conservative” either. Instead of states minting currency, banks would mint their own currency, and it would have to be backed by something valuable, otherwise no one would use it for barter.

@bobbo, #38

First of all, corporations are constructs of government which essentially protects companies from “the will of the people” – as you would put it in your communist rhetoric. I hope English isn’t your first language, because the way you construct sentences sometimes baffles the hell out of me. Not to mention the way your logic jumps all over the place.

I stake my position as the logical conclusion to the argument for Liberty. Unlike you, I don’t propose some entity (in your case government) take my liberty (by forcing me to pay taxes) in order to protect that very same liberty(the right not to be stolen from and extortion). How @ss backwards is that?