You're not really suggesting that the health care crises began in last 9 months?

The percentage of Americans w/o health insurance has been on a steady decline for at least 10 years and the cost to those covered by employer-based plans has been rising disproportionately at a higher rate than wages for the last 10 years.

Ignoring that fact as it was for those 8 years between 2000- 2008 was not a solution.

No, actually it started long before that, most of the problems really took off because of the Clinton Administration and the things they did and failed to do. The period of 2000 -2008 was mere icing on the cake. The foundation was laid by Clinton.

Especially the military.

Health care costs as percent of GDP have been rising steadily for 40 years....from about 5% in the 60s to over 15% now.

The steadily rising cost of health care is not a partisan issue....it is fact, without regard to the party in power.

When Reagan took office in 1980, the per capita expenditures on health care were under $1,000....by the time Clinton took office in 1992, that cost rose to about $2.500...in 2000, it was about $4000 and now it is over $7,000.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealt...ads/tables.pdf (see table 6)

But if you want to make it a partisan issue, by blaming Clinton, I would suggest the partisanship comes about with the proposed solutions, if any....Reagan and GHW Bush did nothing to even attempt to address the problem. Clinton tried and failed, with the exception of SCHIP. GW Bush did nothing. Obama is taking it head on.

Under Clinton, Medicaid expanded beyond it's means. After the failure of his health initiatives the insurance industry, HMO's and Managed Care plans took off and essentially have run amock over our healthcare delivery. They have grown exponentially since the late 1990's. That is where it started. With the failure of them to get anything done and to do it right. After the failure they basically quit the game. And here we are today.

http://books.google.com/books?id=tK7...age&q=&f=false

So what? The issue was government run, not whether it's free or not or socialist or not. The government runs VA, which is a health care provider.

My point is that it is not free. That is how she described it. Do you understand that? Where as Medicaid is free for the recipient, and if you have no insurance and need hospitalization or emergency care you still get it, even if you can't pay for it.

THe exponential rise in the cost of health care began long before Clinton, starting in the 60s and continuing unabated for 40+ years, both as a percentage of GDP and on a per capita basis....the data is there for anyone to see.

http://hadm.sph.sc.edu/Courses/Econ/.../nhe_gdp05.gif
The green line shows the percentage of the gross national product going to national health expenditure. It is measured by the scale on the left axis.

The purple line, for gross domestic product (GDP), and the blue line, for national health expenditure (NHE), are in billions of dollars, measured by the right axis scale.

US National Health Care Expenditures

The growth was relatively flat during the Clinton years.

The per capita data shows much the same trends.

As I stated. It was the policy developed in the later half of the Clinton Administration which set the stage for the exponential growth in the following years. Your graph shows that. The growth took off before Bush was elected.

This was a pretty good summary.

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/167/2/163.pdf

http://whatifpost.com/heath-care-his...beginning-1929

HMO's leave Medicare, costs soar for the uninsured:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Medica.....-a0102286841

I accept that you want to ignore all the data before Clinton.,,that somehow, the current health care crises started with Clinton.

Even if that is the case, and the data suggests otherwise, Bush did nothing to address the problem for eight years and it only got worse.

NationalHealthExpenditures perCapita andTheirShareofGross DomesticProduct,1960-2005Source

Graph, Page 6

CumulativeChangeinSingleandFamilyHealthInsurancePremiumsandFederalPovertyThreshold,1996-2004

Graph, Page 15; starting point zero 1996.

http://www.kff.org/insurance/upload/7670.pdf

I never said it has not gotten worse. Only that exponential failures began in the 1990's. That is why I support reform. But up to this point I see nothing on the table that will fix the problems with the system. It wil place a bunch of bandaids over some of the issues, but it will not fix the system as it is.

.

:lol:

Can't blame Bush for the health care dilemma. This has been growing all along - as far back as I can remember. Heck, in the 70's ther was talk about health care problems and people not bing covered. I wasn't concerned because I was in the military and my family was covered.

I remember the divorcee across the lawn in another apartment. Single mom raising two children and no health care. Not an uncommon situation even back then. Honestly, the only thing that has changed it the cost of everything associated with health care. It's an ugly situation.

Americans want Government to solve all our problems. Well, that's what were getting - then we complain when Government get too big - sound like a vicious cycle of circle jerks. Obama is doing what the Democrates have wanted all along - big Government in a socialistic atmosphere under a democratic label. He just happens to be the first democratic presidential candidate who hasn't had a stream of mud clinging to his past.

If this thing doesn't pass, I'll be surprised.

One thing that has puzzled me and I hoped would be answered during the address President Obama made to Congress a couple of weeks ago. I waited for the part on "How would this be paid for?" to come up. It finally did... as a matter of fact... Obama had transitioned with that very question...

"How is this going to be paid for?" He said it... I heard it...

He never answered it.

I understand England has 12% coming out of their citizens paychecks every payday to pay for their health care (I may be wrong). If that happens in this country... it will undoubtedly help many but, it will also bankrupt many.