Health Insurance

This country will never be able to afford anything until it gets its house in order and disengages from all foreign entanglements especially foreign wars and foreign aid of any type to countries which are able to stand on their own feet. Bringing all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan would be a good place to start.

As for the insurance companies, they all need to be not-for-profit so that they can't gouge us for everything under the sun. They also need to level the playing field with regard to group plans and individual plans. My dental insurance is a prime example. Since I am retired I have to pay for an individual plan but it has many many exclusions in procedures that someone with a group plan does not have to endure. Why is that? It should not be. And to make matters worse, Medicare does not cover dental procedures at all so I must buy an individual plan from a private insurance company.

An alternative to various plans being discussed by congress would be a "single payer" plan. Some people are opposed to that and I would like to know why. Some people are also opposed to plans like those in Canada and other countries and call them "socialized medicine". This infuriates me because for one thing Americans are paranoid and scared to death of anything that resembles socialism, even beneficial socialism. Then they complain that people in those countries may have to wait a long time in the waiting room to see someone. Well, at least they can see someone and be covered by insurance. As for long waits in a waiting room I know of some people with Kaiser who presently have to do that so it must be in the way a particular hospital is run, not in the way the care if paid for.

I just fear that the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies have a stranglehold on Congress and nothing will change until that is broken. A prime example of this problem can be seen in drugs that cost one thing in this country and much more in Canada for the same drugs. This is a good indicator that something is seriously wrong and we need to end this practice.