Heath Care
There are no easy answers to our country's health care crisis. There is so much to consider including sky-rocking insurance premiums, the high mal-practice insurance cost paid by medical professionals, unlimited jury awards, Medicare fraud, and the cost of health care for illegal immigrants. But I do not believe the solution is “Universal Health-Care”.
If you search bill text in current legislation on the floor of Congress(http://thomas.loc.gov) using the term "health care", you'll find 1000 results. With this many bills and ideas floating around our legislators are bogged down in a quagmire of ideas and information.
The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 contains a provision for $250 million per year for fiscal years 2005-2008 in payments to eligible providers for emergency health services provided to undocumented aliens and other specified aliens. That is 1 billion dollars going to people who are in this country illegally!
Pregnant mothers who are in this country illegally can now walk into an emergency room and the hospital has to provide medical care at no charge. (And their child is considered an American citizen ["anchor babies"]). Medical service for Americans in affected communities is being severely damaged as hospitals absorb more than $200 million in unreimbursed costs. Some emergency rooms have shut down because they cannot afford to stay open. Local tax-paying Americans are either denied medical care or have to wait in long lines for service as the illegals use the facilities. It is unfair for hard-working Americans to pick up the medical tab for illegal immigrants.
I believe that the solution will be a combination of many elements. Perhaps it is time for the medical profession to compete for our health care dollars as they did when many of us were children.