Health Care Reform

You want to know what significantly socialized medicine would look like in this country? Look no further than the Veterans Association. VA 'beneficiaries' have so many red tape horrors stories, they are actually the source of the term. It seems to me what the average person wants in relation to universal health care is a combination of widespread availability and affordabilty, both of which can be readily provided by a system involving the creation of a national health insurance company. Instead of socially regulating hospitals, doctors and other providers (which causes a significant increase to the overall cost of health care), better to take a constitutionally mandated position.

In Article 1, section 8 of the US Constitution there reads the following:

Congress shall have power ....To establish post offices and post roads

At the time the Constitution was written in 1789, medicine was not widely considered a necessary public service, but the post was. The ability to send and receive mail was deemed so important, it was constitutionally mandated, and I believe it can be easily and rationally argued that, had cardio-thoracic surgery existed in 1789, federally mandated health care would have been included as a power of congress.
Instead of paying larger, profit driven middle men for expensive and limited coverage, every citizen should be able to pay the government health care insurance company and affordable premium, show their insurance card and receive coverage anywhere in the United States. Why do so many people make a direct correlation between employers and health benefits? Forcing employers to mandatorily provide benefits reduces either the amount they are able to pay their workers, or the number of employees they are able to hire. Yes, many insurance providers shop their plans to companies, insisting on it as a brilliant worker incentive, and it often can be, but in the process the service provided is expensive, and COBRA aside (which most workers never use) it is usually far to expensive coverage to carry without the employer's assistance.

Choice is important. In the UK, for example, the quality of health care often depends on where you live, because you generally have to see physicians in your neighborhood, even if there is a better hospital elsewhere. This has much to do with the simple fact that more qualified doctors live in more affluent areas, and therefore work at more affluent hospitals. We cannot force people to be physicians, therefore we cannot 'entitle' medicine. However, so long as such services are available, we can provide a system that allows citizens to receive care without going bankrupt.

National Guard

With all the flooding and disasters in Texas and the midwest this month, I think it would be brilliant for one or more of the state governors to call up their national guard (most of whom are in Iraq and Afghanistan) and pressure the President to return them home. If he refused, they should take it immediately to the Supreme Court (since it would be the only court with jurisdiction I believe), where they would probably win, because in a states rights vs federal, the states have the right to the National presence of the National Guard.