But what about the person who has a crappy policy because they worked with an unscrupulous agent? What about the person who had coverage through work but then the employer stopped offering coverage and the employee doesn’t qualify for individual insurance because of pre-existing conditions? These people might make too much money for Medicaid, but if they live in a state where there is no high-risk pool, their only option is to find a different job that offers health insurance. A national health care system would take care of people with pre-existing conditions in a much more fair way than we have now, and would eliminate the huge differences that we currently see between good and bad policies (which are often sold with similar premiums and pitch-lines, since the bad policies often have the slickest agents)

“Given our governments track record for medicare”??

They’re actually doing a very good job (especially pre-PartD). Overhead for Medicare is 1 percent to 2 percent. The overhead for various private insurance plans (HMOs, etc.) is 15 percent to 25 percent. This is especially good given the fact that Medicare is covering the higher cost over 65 age group and under 65 patients with expensive enough treatments, like dialysis, that private insurers aren’t covering. These “clients”, with their high volume of claims, create MUCH more work for medicare to deal with.

Frugal Babe said, “I guess by that logic it’s ok for someone who works in the oil industry to be opposed to research into alternative energy?”

Maybe. Is the alternative energy better? Then that smart person should leave the oil industry and start a new alternative energy business. But that doesn’t really connect up with the previous post. You will lose your job to something that WILL NOT be better.

I’m not suggesting we keep the status quo. And certainly, if you were making horse buggies today I would not suggest you should take on GM to keep your job. But you are in the health care industry. Are you saying that the government is your best answer to this alleged health care crisis?

You propose a national program is THE FIX for a faulty health care system. You are correct that national healthcare “works” in other countries but it is not the best alternative. A despotic leader “works” in other countries but it is not the best environment for his people.

Government involvement in medicine in the US is one reasons the health care system is in the condition it is in today. (Medicare, resulting in fraud and price gouging, for example). Allowing the government to run the entire program will result in further corruption and poorer treatment.

I would think you could propose a better alternative than another billion dollar government program. Perhaps one that is in a more capitalistic vein?

There are very few things the government is good at. Given their track record with Social Security, Medicare, welfare and the like, I am circumspect when it comes to their management of my health care.

Ron

As a society, we should take care of those who can’t care for themselves. But we don’t do that. We take care of those who refuse to take care of themselves and then wring our hands that we aren’t doing enough.

National healthcare, run by our government, is a terrible idea.

Ron

On the other hand I think it is very valid to think that you may be staying home for a while anyways-and once your child (children?) are in school you may choose to take a job that is more of a “part time” thing to be home in the afternoons when they get home (it is a possibility) so it may be that the masters is not so necessary. Then again, if you have one child, stay home till kindergarten and go back into the workforce you may really wish you had that degree in 5 years!

I will say that studying with an infant is insane. Studying with a toddler is possible (that’s when I finished up mine-btw it took me 7 years to do my masters. . . .obviously I didn’t do it straight through!) but I found I actually had to leave the house and go to the library or the bookstore in order to study. I just couldn’t study without constant interuptions at home. And by the end of the day when she was asleep I was too tired to want to deal with too much studying.

I’m not trying to say you can’t do it, I ‘m just saying that it might take you a while to do it-you should check how long the credits are good for while you are enrolled in the program.

The other option may be to get a job specific training course. I know it sounds goofy, but sometimes things like medical transcriptionists or something like that might be a tech course and very marketable with decent salaries (I’m totally picking that out of thin air, but you know what I mean)

Good luck with all these difficult thoughts and decisions.