I totally agree CG that approach always improves the product quality and price.

"It is to the doctors benefit that a free market approach is avoided by the patients."
It seems that on the surface, but I actually think it's to everyone's benefit to pursue a free-market approach.

It is to the doctors benefit that a free market approach is avoided by the patients.

We always do that. In fact, we use a clinic that's has no relationship with our insurance. We only keep the insurance to protect our wealth in case of a major illness, and I fear we would end up using our money in that case anyway because the insurance would not want to pay. I hope they would pay. For now they're not involved. We just pay cash.

Negotiate with the doctors business office on costs prior to treatments or surgeries when possible and after when not. Most will work at a lower rate if paid cash.

Hitler did the same thing for people he thought were unfit to live. We all know how that little experiment (The Third Reich) turned out...

Another example of why single payer healthcare is just the worst possible system.
Time for full repeal of ocare and move to the free market for healthcare options. With the government stepping out of the picture.

Well Sco-J, it's obvious we'll have to agree to disagree.
I wish I shared your optimism.

I fear nothing else really and in the big picture I don't even fear this.
But I love this country and it breaks my heart to live in the last years of the American Experiment.

But WE exist and lessons learned will not be forgotten.
We've been to the mountaintop and seen the Promised Land.

And I suppose with all the perks of living in America it's just plain ungrateful to wish for more.

OUTRAGEOUS. How can anyone have the right to decide for another (who is incapable of the judgment, and has expressed no previous opinion, as in the case of a "living will") that it is in his best interest to die?--I read about this the other week, on the library computer. Also I heard
about it on the radio. I sent an e-mail to the President, hoping that maybe he would try to raise a stink about it, and have some influence.
I also looked up the British Prime Minister's e-mail address, and sent her an e-mail, trying to get her to see that it is a long-standing principle of our two countries' civilization that a man has the right to live. I tried to find the Queen's e-mail
address, but apparently she doesn't have one, but the machine gave a regular mail address, so
I sent Her gracious Majesty a handwritten letter,
trying to persuade her to use her influence (if any; she being a constitutional monarch.) There is also a website, "charlie'http://sfight.org", but I haven't sent any messages over it yet, since there is, as with many websites, a long Terms of
Service agreement, and I don't know if I can agree to all of that; it is a thing with me, that I don't agree to something without knowing what it is, which is like an illiterate putting an X on a contract he cannot read, without even getting anyone to read it to him. (
This sometimes interferes with my applying for jobs.) (But maybe I can get it
printed, and read it over between now and the next time I can go to the library). But I read today that there has been a reprieve.

How cruel laissez-faire advocates are; and
how compassionate the proponents of socialized
medicine! (HA!!!)

Many have come before... many will come after... and it would unleash a boom to catch up to and overtake the Chinese - stemming off that coming war.

My bad, allow me to rephrase,
"What politician will sell the vast tracts of virgin land to miners, foresters and developers?
And what politician will replace him?"

The only people that should be involved in this decision are the parents, those who brought this life into being. When the state is involved its decisions are based on the benefits to the state. While the efficacy of the treatment might be debated by others and opinions offered it should only be their decision, never anyone else's. If the state can make this decision then no one's life is safe from any decision made by the state in its self interest.

Why sell a national park when about 70% of the empty land in the western states is owned by the federal government?

How do you figure we are so far?
Who is gong to loan us the money that has propped up those lesser economies?

What politician will sell the National Parks?
What politician will replace him?

The house will collapse in our lifetimes.
Do you doubt it?

I'm not a proponent for debt. Read my statement, we are a long way from being Greece or Italy, and unlike smaller countries, we can always sell land and assets to pay off debt with.

An ant can fall from a great height and walk away unscathed while an elephant that falls from the height of its own head will suffer grave injury.

The mass of a thing bears its own weight.
---
"Experts" lay statistical smoke screens with ratios and percentages while media water-bearers assure us all is well, "It's not so bad, just look over there...."

People will say anything when there is something they must have. In this case, never-ending, ever-expanding, government largess.

But the mass of a thing bears its own weight.
And 20,000,000,000,000 Dollars is a mountainous mass.

For many years now our budget deficit has been greater than the interest on the National Debt.
Already we cannot service the amount we owe.

To forstall inevitable collapse we hold interest rates to historic, and unsustainable, lows.
Rates so low they have transmogrified the banking industry from a system of investment to a ponzi scheme of constant borrowing.

Rates so low it is now impossible to hold cash in our personal finances. CD's, Money Markets, Savings Accounts - the safest of all personal investments - are gone forever.

We are already "borrowing" from our great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. Do the math.(https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...)

But there is nothing to see here. It's really OK. Nothing to worry about.

In fact the runaway National Debt is the only - truly existential - threat to America.
And only a Balanced Budget Amendment can save us.

Worse yet - under the poop sandwich you mention you will be forced under medical treatments. Want health care? Do what we say. Take the drugs we want you to. Or else...

I recommend you read Albert R. Jonsen's books on casuistry: Decades ago I attended a week long seminar on medical ethics at the University of Washington. His approach to moral analysis of medical ethics issues helped me a lot. D. Marsh, D.O.

If I were one of those parents, I would find some way to sneak out of Britain with the child and defy this outrageous ruling, even if it meant I can't go home.

Certainly if he dies, that judge needs to go on trial for murder.

I don't actually see that happening, at most, the US can increase the safety nets, but constitutionally, the government really can't force states to do that. Once a generation or so we get a leftist like Obama, then the youngsters find out what socialism really is and we quickly snap back to a center-right nation.

We're not arguing over ObamaCare in Congress, we are arguing over whether to deeply cut it, or eliminate it.
Our history is very different from that of Canada or Europe, I don't see it ever divulging to that.

As for tax rates... we pay a heck of a lot, you need to count all the layers...

This is the same type of garbage we will be seeing with the implementation of what Obama and the Progressives really want, that is fully Socialized, state run, single payer monstrosity. First real step towards Orwell's 1984. Death panels (which we already have in "Stealth" mode under Obama-care) will be the rule rather than an exception! At least for now, Americans can opt to use private insurance and doctors.

Under the Democrat desired crap sandwich known as "Single Payer", you will not have that option to try to save your child! It is what it is and this is what the ignorant have voted for.

The only thing to save us from that fate is for the Republicans (establishment) to stand up and do what they were elected to do! Dismantle this mess (Obama-Care) and replace it with a well thought out private sector solution, one with choices and responsibilities! For what its worth!

You make a good point, and a good comparison of debt levels, thanks for the info.

However, for measuring debt management a better comparison is revenue (tax) instead of GDP (as analogy, mortgage assessment is based on your salary, not on the pool of money from which your employer pays your salary). The US has much lower tax rates than most euro countries.
To grossly oversimplify... at 72% the US has just as big a problem as a country with double the total tax rate and with debt 144% of GDP.

The other important factor is the higher cost in the US for same medical treatments. As the US slides further down into government healthcare, those costs might rise faster, as the downward pressure of consumer choice will then become non-existent. To cope with rising price of each treatment, the only course left for gov will be to increase rationing (eg. longer wait times).

I know that most people don't like to think of people as property. But actually, that's how laws work. Laws cannot account for the intangibles of life. If looked as property, Charlie is defective and only can be maintained at great expense. Letting the creators of the property pay for subsequent maintanence cannot be allowed as it would create caveats in the law that would weaken it. As against all rationality, the law had to be obeyed. And so it is when it comes to the difference between private ownership and government control.The government should always be considered a secondary source of disposal rather than primary. True compassion always faces in the direction of life.

So much for, "it's all about the children" rhetoric from the bicameral parasitical evil leftest.

It's clear, these parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Too bad they couldn't of predicted the outcome and left the country for a better solution before the ruleless delete got wind of their intentions.