Health Care Debate Flowchart

The best minds in America are busy trying to figure out a reason not to reform health care that might stick. With the dual goals of rousing the rabble and applying any veneer of excuses over abject greed, many many reasons have been floated not to take the profit motive out of the system - or at least to provide it with some competition.

If you find yourself debating health care reform, you might like to use this map, to figure out your current location, and your possible options:

Disclaimer: This is a snapshot of the verbiage of the debate in progress - none of it is fact-checked. The fine website http://lmgtfy.com/ will help you forward friendly links to any of this information, to your acquaintances whose InformationAge? skills are lagging.

Suggestions to add nodes and links are welcome, so long as they are fair and balanced, and GraphViz likes them. I also left out some of the more distasteful elements of the debate, because they are only hate-speech applied on top of "France is socialist", and "the Constitution does not say HC is a right".

Happy arguing! --PhlIp

As someone who has had to use the healthcare system extensively (many family members too) and I have a daughter soon to be a licensed physician, the problem and solution are simple. Healthcare needs to be based around these few things:

Ethics/Morels/Scruples (tx - added under "the system should reward general practitioners for prevention, and specialists for clearing their queue")
Truly gifted doctors and nurses (instead of the current system that licenses the wrong type of individual).
Profit is good, but insane profit should be illegal, as it takes unfair advantage of those who can't refuse.
I do believe the only way to accomplish this is with a big-brother watching... otherwise the temptation is too great to abuse patients (physically, emotionally, and monetarily).

Once again, the main problem is corporations, as corporations have no human anything, and all run like the mob. Healthcare should be limited to those that get their high from helping others, instead of making absurd profits, and this includes the providers and manufacturers of supplies and equipment. Healthcare should be humanitarian, and not about profiteering.

That rebutts the "profit is the only way to streamline the system" argument, and the "we can't afford to cover everyone argument".

Compassion is always cheaper than profiteering!

Preventative Health Care is always cheaper than its alternatives!

So live soberly, alert and thoughtfully!
{That sounds dull. I prefer a short exciting life to a long boring one. Something is going to kill you, me, everyone. In my case, I hope it's something fun.}
Fun is more expensive and hazardous because you will pay for it at least twice, with the secondary expenses sometimes proving to be far greater than the primary ones.
Interesting thought generated by this is that some expensive and extensive health care is the result of indulgence, greed, and destructive behaviors (ala poor life-style choices). (forgot that one - thanks! Adding now "reward general practitioners for prevention")
{One person's indulgence, greed, and self-destructiveness is another person's fun day at the park. For example, I like fast cars and motorcycles. Do you consider them indulgence, greed, and self-destructiveness?}
what about a 99yo who needs an expensive treatment but is going to die of old age anyway? (thanks - added "what about expensive fringe case X") In essence that expensive fringe case, if performed, must either be paid for via some benefactor(s), or be the result of write-offs by the physicians and health care providers or can be an experimental subject [Voluntary Health Care]
- If actuary science takes care of the middle of the bell curve, this will provide prosperity that will generate enough largess to take care of the very rare fringe cases

Programmers like Single Payer because we RefactorMercilessly to create the smallest algorithm implementation

Here's another attempt (actually it's the "France is near bankruptcy" attack):

Republicans charge that Obama's plans are too expensive in the face of skyrocketing budget deficits.

Which. They. Caused.

What will be the next unbelievable absurdity in this incredible story? We are all waiting!

Irony is spinning in its grave

("taxation is income redistribution", in honey tongued letters, snipped. Sorry! "Render unto Caesar... etc.!";)

And never forget who heated the insipid "Birther" movement up just before the HC debate started...

CategoryRant (and a phun one at that)