True or False?

[Stinky The Clown]

"I will be dead before we have *true* universal healthcare"

I am 60 years old. I think the statement is true.

Please answer the poll, but also please post your answer and age so that maybe we can get a sense of perspective on this critical issue by age.

[monktonman]

1. True....38..... pessimist. n/t

[Buzz Clik]

2. I cannot see a time or situation where the US will ever have true universal coverage.

It would require the 100% dismantling of all health insurance companies, and they will not go away voluntarily.

[Fovea]

11. I don't want them to go away

voluntarily. I want them gutted.

[Buzz Clik]

15. The one universal aspect about US health insurance is ....

... everybody gets screwed sometime.

[EFerrari]

30. I don't either and I hate to be so negative but it's true.

Just like trying to get public campaign financing to replace the firesales we have now.

Corporate welfare is so entwined in the culture, not only are we up against the corporations and their political enablers but we're up against half the populace that is brainwashed enough to believe this is the way things should be.

[ThomWV]

3. True - 61

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. 56-true

[zanne]

5. True. I'm 55. nt

[KansDem]

23. True--I'm 55, too.

I will see MediCare long before I see universal health care...

[Thirtieschild]

6. No contest. True - 73

[laylah]

7. True, 56 nt

[Hepburn]

8. I turn 60 in a few months and IMO, I am gonna see Medicare waaaaaaaaay...

...before there is any universal health care...and IMO, I will be dead before the US makes sure ALL citizens have access to viable health care.

<sigh>

[immoderate]

21. I'm 61, and I think you're right.

--IMM

[Hepburn]

25. From one baby boomer to another....

...maybe we can make sure it's there for the coming generations cuz I sure don't see it for us!

:hi:

[immoderate]

27. Again, I'm with you...

It's an important part of my lack of enthusiasm for our potential nominees. Fortunately for them I desperately don't want another Republican to reach the White House. I'll be knocking on doors for the general election. I hope they don't misinterpret that as support for their announced (lack of) policy.

Back at you, boomer. :)

--IMM

[barbtries]

9. hopefully my children and grandchildren

won't be.

[Fovea]

10. I am

a 52 yo stroke and heartattack survivor with insulin dependent tp 2 diabetes and I take 3 antihypertensives.

I won't make 60 without it.

[MrCoffee]

12. True - 32 years old

[rosesaylavee]

13. I'm going with false as long as we are predicting the future.

I'm 49 and an optimist. Universal healthcare will save the country money. It will happen out of pure economics if nothing else.

[Stinky The Clown]

24. I honestly think that's the only way we'll get it .....

.... and while I see this as a *very long* long shot, the current financial mess the Repubics put us in may be the roadmap to single payer. Our companies simply can't compete without lowering labor costs - or with seeing labor costs elsewhere rise dramatically. One way to get a good chunk of our labor costs off the backs of big (and not so big) bidniss is to relieve them of health care and retirement costs - fringe benefits.

Take the cost of healthcare and reallocate it as a tax on everyone - including bidniss. Take out the profit motive (i.e.: kill the insurance industry dead), hire former insurance company employees into the single payer system, and move on. The net result will be more care for less cost since everyone is contributing.

If we also cancel a few DoD programs and a war or two, we'll be awash in cash to pay for this.

[rosesaylavee]

34. I think that's the road to walk.

Moving to that scenario will have to be stepped. The insurance industry, as deeply flawed as I think it is, does employ a lot of good people. Moving to single payer will have to account for where all those people would work next.

[Stinky The Clown]

38. Establishing a single payer system will **have** to employ tens of thousands of people .....

The only people in danger if we put the insurance companies out of business are the high levels managers, the finance assholes, and the brokers/agents. The average workerbeeschlub will still be needed and, indeed, in demand.

[rosesaylavee]

39. I like that word... workerbeeschlub.

I think I am one of them!

I don't count this possibility out of the next four years. There is so much to fix... hopefully this will be part of the economic solution package created by the next administration.

[scarletwoman]

14. True -- 58 (nt)

[hyphenate]

16. 51 I am not trying to be an optimist

But I think some form of universal health care will exist in my lifetime.

The US is always trying to compete against the other superpowers in the world, and most of them have universal care. I think right now, with the first of the baby boomers retiring, we are bound to have a population of people who will influence the decisions in government to such a large degree that we will have more progress.

In my view, universal health care isn't even the issue. As a disabled person, and as one living solely on disability, I get medicare, and I was getting Masshealth even before that as I had no income. Those below, and up to about 150% of the poverty level, get free care here in Massachusetts, as do most disabled and poverty-stricken folks in other states. It's not that group that won't be covered, as they already are: it will be the lower end and middle of the middle class that will continue to suffer the most--they have insurance that covers them to a certain extent, but then a single hospital visit will knock them off their feet and incur great expense from which many never recover.

Great Britain, Canada, and other such countries manage to provide their citizens with health care, and as the population goes more toward early heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other ailments, they will demand more from the government to change that situation.

So yeah, I think it's conceivable to have some form of healthcare available to most during my lifetime.

[lumberjack_jeff]

17. Healthcare costs are inflating at a double digit rate.

That's unsustainable.

The current system will get replaced with something cheaper.

"Americans can be counted on to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives"
- Winston Churchill

I'm 46. I think it'll be (for all practical purposes) universal before I'm 60.

[Justyce]

18. True -- 39.

[pscot]

19. true, but I'm living on borrowed time

Once you pass 65 the clock really seems to accelerate.

[LordJFT]

20. False 19, but maybe I'm too optimistic

[LWolf]

22. True.

I'm 47. I think that I will be dead, as well.

Edited to add: I'd like to think that my sons will see universal health care, but I'm skeptical. Perhaps my grandson. :(

[Truth2Tell]

26. No choice #3,

We will never have universal health care in America?

[me b zola]

28. True--44

I am not in good health and I have no insurence. I doubt that I will live to see 60.;(

[EFerrari]

29. True, 39 for many years now and I'm sure my lack of access to health care

will end my life before we get UHC.

[elizfeelinggreat]

31. probably true

but still worth fighting like heck for.

[tomg]

32. True. 58

[jkshaw]

33. Absolutely true

I'm 77.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

35. True. 39 years of age. n/t

[B Calm]

36. I think it's coming faster than you think. People are sick of the insurance

companies screwing us over. People are already demanding that something be done about it!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

37. 58 - and I think the healthcare middlemen are too powerful to eliminate

and will continue taking their cut of the pie between doctor and patient. I really hope I'm dead wrong, though.