Pure idiocy.

Editor,

These two proposals are both pure idiocy.

Buying into Medicare at $7,600 a year: The reason Medicare is popular and the reason Medicare counts as an effective safety net is specifically because it is free. Medicare is the closest thing the U.S.A. has to the way health care is handled by every other developed economy. People who work for a living (capitalists have undoubtedly given themselves a loophole so they don't have to contribute) all chip in to pay for it, then if an old person gets sick, 80% of the cost of that person's health care is paid for by Medicare. Taxes pay for Medicare. More taxes, progressive taxes -- meaning rich people have to pay their fair share, which will never happen in the U.S.A. -- would allow everyone to be on Medicare.

Regulated Non-Profit Insurance: The thieves and scoundrels who have turned health care in the U.S.A. into a scam, a horror, and a crime -- namely the "health" insurance corporations -- are now going to provide non-profit health insurance. Do the Senators suggesting this travesty take the American people for complete fools? The problem with health care in the U.S.A. is almost entirely caused by the "health" insurance corporations -- the rest is caused by big pharma, for-profit hospital conglomerates, and other rip-off artists -- and now we're going to make the insurance corporations the solution? How about a non-profit insurance plan provided by the government, which, before corporate lobbyists took it over, was supposed to be of, by, and for us, the citizens of the U.S.A.

re: "The Non-Public Option" (12/10/2009)