One way to get a true debate over Health Care Reform going would be to pass a congressional resolution spelling out the broad principles of agreement, where there is agreement. Where there is not agreement, at least people would know what we are arguing about. This resolution could be passed quickly on a majority vote and could guide the House and Senate as they craft the detailed legislation. This resolution would be a bill that people could really read and understand.

Health care for all people protects all people, by allowing for the control of pandemic diseases like influenza and reducing the strain that preventable disease has on emergency rooms. Current public health efforts are hampered by having to care for the uninsured and underinsured on a host of preventable illnesses and chronic diseases. Small businesses and individuals have a hard time getting affordable and portable coverage. There is clearly a need for reform.

I propose a short bill of no more than 2 pages with simple declarative sentences, such as:

1) No health insurance plan may decide to drop coverage on a person because the value of their life is not deemed worth coverage.
2) When a person leaves one insurance plan, their previous insurer must maintain coverage for six months or until they get their new coverage in place.
3) No health insurance plan may choose to ration care by creating wait lists for care procedures.
4) Health insurers can no longer deny coverage on basis of pre-existing conditions.
5) All citizens will be required to have health insurance coverage.
6) All citizens can retain their existing health insurance plans.
7) All citizens whose employers do not provide health insurance must purchase their own health insurance.
8) The Federal Government will allow citizens who are currently ineligible for Medicare benefits, the option of enrolling in Medicaire by paying premiums. This optional Medicare coverage will help bring down the cost of health insurance for the uninsured who work.
9) The optional Medicare coverage will work just as Medicare does: reimbursing private doctors for covered services.
10) The optional Medicare coverage must be self-sustaining financially, not draining any benefits away from enrolled Medicare recipients.
11) Those citizens who cannot afford private health insurance or optional Medicare coverage will get government vouchers to cover the extra cost of the optional Medicare premiums.
12) The vouchers will be paid for by the extra revenue generated by the cap on health insurance tax exemptions for those making more than $250,000 per year. No one making less than $250,000 per year will have their exemption for employer paid health insurance capped. Those making $250,000 per year or more will have their health insurance tax exemption capped and their tax deduction for health care costs capped.

DrGreg,

While I appreciate your use of P.J. O'Rourke as a theologian, I do not think this is the topic at hand. Health Care Reform is not the placeholder to throw every right wing talking point. It is a specific set of proposals to remedy specific problems. It is not about envy. It is not about collectivism. It is about catching up with the rest of the civilized world.

Charity is by definition voluntary. The very word derives from the Latin "Caritas," often used to translate the word agape in Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, the Thirteenth chapter. The more modern translation is the word love.

Health care reform is about the practical aspects of keeping a modern society competitive. We have had medical care based on a mixture of private recompense and charity in this country for hundreds of years. Some time ago, we decided to encourage businesses to provide insurance. Some time later, we decided to offer government health insurance to the elderly and the destitute.

As things stand now, the U.S. Government pays more for health care per capita than any OECD nation (except Norway and Luxembourg) Yet even with that huge outlat, we do not cover all of our citizens, as the other OECD countries do. Are Australians communists? Is Switzerland some secret bastion of Che Guevera politics?

I respectfully submit that the status quo makes America weaker. We must have reform!

My doctor is not on strike, by the way. He got in this profession to help and to heal. Why did you get in it?

Besides, right-wingers are dishonest (no big surprise there) when they depict publicly-available healthcare as some kind of "entitlement". What grotesque framing (again, no surprise)! Roads aren't an "entitlement", nor is our National Guard, or clean water. What happens is, we decide as a society (or our professional representatives do what we vote for them to do, which is represent our interests by deciding) that we want something to be publicly guaranteed and available because it helps the country as a whole and becuase it's the right thing to do.

I didn't want my tax dollars to go into some fatcat war profiteer's pocket for a $50 screw that broke when used, but I didn't have a say in it. I never showed up outside the Pentagon with a gun, sulking and stamping my feet as if the American system of democracy was in danger. Only right-wingers do that, because (apparently) they have no actual appreciation of American democracy.