"Do we have the money to be our brothers' and sisters' keeper?"

[WhiskeyGirl]

"Do we have the money to be our brothers' and sisters' keeper?" Or, "What responsibility do we have to 'keep' ourselves and our families?"

"Do we have the money to be our brothers' and sisters' keeper? The answer is no," said Uwe Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton University. "We have to worry about Goldman Sachs. That's where we are."

Both presidential candidates insist their health-care plans would not add to the national debt, but independent analyses suggest otherwise. The private Tax Policy Center, for example, puts the price tag for Obama's plan at $1.6 trillion over 10 years and for McCain's at $1.3 trillion over that time.

$1.3 plus trillion is more than the 'bailout' or 'rescue'. 

"They owe us more of an explanation than they gave us at the debates," he said.

McCain and Obama have remarkably similar stances on cost-cutting measures, such as greater use of electronic medical records and greater coordination of care. Those steps don't require large sums of money up front. They also will take many years to reduce health care costs.

"They're not controversial with the stakeholders. That should tell you something about how impactful they will be," Laszewski said. "If you want to get at health care costs, you've got to ... step on some toes. Neither McCain nor Obama are stepping on any stakeholder toes in terms of slowing costs down."

Why is it that a provider may accept $7,000 from a government program or insurance, yet charge the uninsured $20,000 for the same service or procedure?

Why not charge a fair price to everyone?

read more here -
http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2008/10/14/growing_health-reform_challenge_for_next_president