Hot Seat: Health Care

Why would anyone trust the government to fix health care when they can't run medicare, medicaid and the veteran's health system? Until something is done to stop the lawsuits that are not justified, healthcare will continue to be a problem. Not that many young people want to enter the medical profession when they realize that they will spend a huge amount of money to go to medical school and then not earn that much after paying the enormous malpractice insurance costs as well as being told by some non medical person what tests they can and cannot order to diagnose and help their patients.

Who says our health care system is a mess? And is it a mess compared to Canada, the United Kingdom, or any other Western nations? I guess if they mean free health care, it is not free, but it is good. Look at what the attempt to give "free" housing to the public has gotten us. Until people take some personal responsibility for their health, housing, savings and their lives, things will just get worse. If the Democrats get in, forget about having any money left after taxes and prepare for a Depression.

we can solve the health care problems if the universities are contgrol for the goverment and as the high schools all the students have the right for free tuition, that will stop the abuse of the doctors and dentists charges when we have a lot of doctors. at the same time the goverment need to low down the lawsuits charges.STOP THE AMBITIONS AND THE LIVE WILL BE BETTER FOR ALL.

well i don't think that the medical sould go universal, if the people that abuse the medical system, were charged with their falsifing records, and the people would do more to help their health problems, we wouldn't be in this bad situation!you need to want to take care of your health if you have a cronicle illness, sometimes these gov programs will not fully cover you! they must work on the inside of these health care providers, they are getting our primiums for the care and we are not getting good care in return!@! we need to turn the providers inside out, if you please, and start from the bottom and work up! people that abuse the system shoudl be punished!

The government CANNOT and should not be responsible for fixing the healthcare crisis in this country. It is the American people who need to fix it. If people would stop expecting hand-outs from the government and their employers and start being fiscally responsible for themselves and their families we wouldn't have these problems.

Too many people are relying on these types of so-called ENTITLEMENTS. No one is entitled to anything other than life, liberty & the pursiut of happiness. Happiness is not a guarantee and each individual is responsible for achieving his own happiness -- the government is not responsible for creating anyone's happiness!!!

I thought Hillary fixed the healthcare problems back in the 90's when she encouraged HMO's and the like. It is amazing how her fix made it even worse...but not if you listened to Billy Boy last night. The Republicans ruined it all in 2001 when Bush took office. They ruined the entire economy and society as soon as Bush went into the White House. Give me a break! The Democrats were going to fix it all when they took over Congress in 2006 and they have done absolutely nothing other than push a candidate on us for the Presidency since that time.

Back to the issue at hand, though. Healthcare can only be reformed if the people using the system reform their ways. There is no need to take your kid to the ER because he has the sniffles! Go to Wal-Mart and get some cold medicine and deal with it! There is no cure for the common cold. People have begun to use our hospitals and doctors offices at taxpayers' expense instead of spending their own money on medicine at the drug store.

As for drugs being too expensive, I agree; but there are alternatives. Get off the $40/month prescription for high cholesterol and start eating healthy and taking an over-the-counter supplement to combat the malady. No need to spend a fortune on a gym membership that you'll stop using in a month or two; walk for 15 minutes every day at lunch or after work. Walk to work if it's plausible! I spend $6 a month on a cholesterol-fighting supplement and eat more veggies instead of going to McDonald's every day. It's a huge savings and I have never been healthier! Yes, it's tough, but "life ain't easy!" Of course, there are some people that have tried these methods without success; those are the people who need the system. It just takes a little bit of proactive effort on the consumers' part!

The government can fix nothing. If we allow the Democrats to "reform" health care, we will end up with a third world health care system full of imcompetant affirmative action drones posing as doctors, administrators whose main qualification is that they are related to Democrat politicians, and a work force of lazy, worthless, unionized government employees. Those of us who can afford it will be flying overseas for medical care. Those of you who can't will die. That may not be such a bad thing since those who can't afford medical care are generally Democrat parasites.

Why would anyone trust the government to fix health care when they can't run medicare, medicaid and the veteran's health system? Until something is done to stop the lawsuits that are not justified, healthcare will continue to be a problem. Not that many young people want to enter the medical profession when they realize that they will spend a huge amount of money to go to medical school and then not earn that much after paying the enormous malpractice insurance costs as well as being told by some non medical person what tests they can and cannot order to diagnose and help their patients.
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so your answer is to stop law suits that are not justify. so how decides weather removing the wrong leg or other mistake justifies a law suit or not. and are they the same people that determine what you get. law suits are meant to weed out the bad doctors. what is needed is a universal system where the doctor has the say in the treatment not the hmo or ppo. the reason health care is so expensive is because the paperwork the doctor has to fill out and the hoops the insurance companies make the doctor jump thru. fill this our that and that opps you did not do this three months later you are still trying to collect from the insurance company. or the insurance company tells the doctor that they have to give the drug then that drug before they try the drug they have been on for 10 years and it worked. just because the person switched insurance companies.

we need and should demand that government take care of government
leave our private issues alone
in 2006 nancy took the gavel as speaker of the house they had promised us the moon if we gave them power
well they got power and have done nothing for the american people
gas prices as well as all others food clothing ect have gone thru the roof
nancy turned out the lights and went on vacation just when we need a energy bill passed
drill here drill now
mccain 08 for america
GOD BLESS AMERICA

If the democrats win the white house and keep control of the senate/HoR - healthcare will be fixed. If McCain wins (he who is paid by the pharmaceutical companies), no way.

YES THE BEST CHOICE FOR HEALTH CARE IS LET THE DOCTORS AND DENTISTS CONTINUE EXPLOTE THE PEOPLE WITH THE OVER CHARGES, NO DO NOTHING IS VERY CONSERVATIVE, "STOP THE AMBITIONS AND THE LIFE WILL BE BETTER, DON'T GO TO CHURCH WITH THAT IN MIND"

Health care was not fixed when Hillary was in the white house 2 terms how can it be fixed now same old same old talk a good game. I dont want goverment telling me what doctor I can go to..PLEASE vote MCAIN for a safer america.

I guess Obama is not elitist he just pretends to be. He can't give a speech from the Pepsi center he has to build a worship area for his followers. Spend millions on a movie set for a rock star while millions of american go without health care or food or loose there houses. He sure can spend other peoples money and then say's he just like us. WORDS JUST WORDS...isn'nt that what he said. What an elitist phony. Give me a break.

This is another trick question to get people to say that Obama's health care is the best, well I'll not vote, but I say that Sen. John McCain's health care plan's are much better for everyone!

Obama's follower's think that he is some kind of crist to them. Well I think that he is over playing his hand's, for most of the American people see right through him.
He's just a half black liberal democrat with a big mouth. He has no experience, and is not qualified to be president! That's why he chose Biden as his running mate. Now folk's who do you think that would be president if Obama is elected. He cannot make a decision on his own whithout the advice of Biden an Biden is an arragant, obnoxous, overbearing, a--h---! You liberal's really flabbergast me by the way's you people think. Well, I may go down with the ship, but I'm sticking with a very good an decent man that I believe has the right judgement, experience, knowledge, integraty, honor, an respect to be our next president.
That man is Sen. John McCain.
Vote for a real leader.
Vote for Sen. John McCain to be our next president in Nov.!!!!!!!!

NO ENTITLEMENTS-NO FREEBIES-GET A JOB-GOD HELPS THOSE THAT HELP THEMSELVES. GOVERNMENT STAY OUT OF OUR POCKETS AND OUR HOMES THAT WE PAY THE MORTGAGES ON !! CHARITY WILL TAKE CARE OF THESE SO CALLED HOMELESS (BUMS), WITHOUT HOMELAND SECURITY ALL THESE OTHER THINGS ARE NULL ANYWAY. RAY, I AGREE WITH YOU. OBAMA AND BIDEN ARE JUST TWO SUITS WITH BIG MOUTHS.

The only "fix" is to socialize the system. No thanks. People need to be responsible for themselves, change the mentality of "the government should feed, house and medicate me". Our government does too much. We need welfare reform, NOW.
Feed yourselves people.
Get a job, any job.
Insure yourselves.
Quit buying $200 sneakers.
Give the electronics a rest, your government does not owe you a plasma TV.
Look at the recipients of welfare, fridge full of beer, smoking like a chimeny, ipods...the list goes on. No wonder their kids have no health coverage. You can buy it through the public schools for s few hundred a year. But no... they want it free because that means they would have to give up drinking for a month to pay for it. Can't have that, can we? The people who actually need assistance can't get it because of the freeloaders working the system. We need welfare reform NOW.
All the Dem's want to do is add another layer, not fix what they have. If they would fix it, they would have plenty of money to help those who actually need it.
Health care for all...yes, but get off your ass and earn it like the rest of us.
NO FREE PASSES FOR THOSE WHO ARE CAPABLE. WE DON"T OWE YOU ANYTHING.

Social Security was also supposed to be a cure all ills for society when it was first created. Look how that turned out. People need to stop whining and start taking responsibility for their lives in every aspect. Socialists ideas like flip-flopping freaking loser Obummers health care are very dangerous to our way of life. It sounds good, just like communism sounded good at first, but government takes too much power upon itself when it starts regulating like that.

SENIORS SENIORS SENIORS Just released. Please check out this AARP website, with an analysis of Obama/McCain positions on senior issues, including health issues, and also including AARP's opinions on each. AARP has a history of being fair and nonpartisan. This is very important, seniors. Florida polls moved strongly toward Obama today, with good reason. Think about YOUR needs before selecting your candidate.

http://www.aarp.org/makeadifference/politics/voters-guide/voters_guide_channel.response.362.512/#Making%20Health%20Care%20More%20Affordable

Is this the Moral Fibre & Character of a Man we want to Heal a Nation???

The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind.

By Sharon Churcher

Now that Hillary Clinton has at last formally withdrawn from the race for the White House, the eyes of America and the world will focus on Barack Obama and his Republican rival Senator John McCain.

While Obama will surely press his credentials as the embodiment of the American dream – a handsome, charismatic young black man who was raised on food stamps by a single mother and who represents his country’s future – McCain will present himself as a selfless, principled war hero whose campaign represents not so much a battle for the presidency of the United States, but a crusade to rescue the nation’s tarnished reputation.

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons

had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. ‘I have no bitterness,’

she says. ‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce.

‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

McCain was then earning little more than £25,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.

He first met Carol in the Fifties while he was at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He was a privileged, but rebellious scion of one of America’s most distinguished military dynasties – his father and grandfather were both admirals.

But setting out to have a good time, the young McCain hung out with a group of young officers who called themselves the ‘Bad Bunch’.

His primary interest was women and his conquests ranged from a knife-wielding floozy nicknamed ‘Marie, the Flame of Florida’ to a tobacco heiress.

Carol fell into his fast-living world by accident. She escaped a poor upbringing in Philadelphia to become a successful model, married an Annapolis classmate of McCain’s and had two children – Douglas and Andrew – before renewing what one acquaintance calls ‘an old flirtation’ with McCain.

It seems clear she was bowled over by McCain’s attention at a time when he was becoming bored with his playboy lifestyle.

‘He was 28 and ready to settle down and he loved Carol’s children,’ recalled another Annapolis graduate, Robert Timberg, who wrote The Nightingale’s Song, a bestselling biography of McCain and four other graduates of the academy.

The couple married and McCain adopted Carol’s sons. Their daughter, Sidney, was born a year later, but domesticity was clearly beginning

to bore McCain – the couple were regarded as ‘fixtures on the party circuit’ before McCain requested combat duty in Vietnam at the end of 1966.

He was assigned as a bomber pilot on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.

What follows is the stuff of the McCain legend. He was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam and was badly beaten by an angry mob when he was pulled, half-drowned from a lake.

Over the next five-and-a-half years in the notorious Hoa Loa Prison he was regularly tortured and mistreated.

It was in 1969 that Carol went to spend the Christmas holiday – her third without McCain – at her parents’ home. After dinner, she left to drop off some presents at a friend’s house.

It wasn’t until some hours later that she was discovered, alone and in terrible pain, next to the wreckage of her car. She had been hurled through the windscreen.

After her first series of life-saving operations, Carol was told she may never walk again, but when doctors said they would try to get word to McCain about her injuries, she refused, insisting: ‘He’s got enough problems, I don’t want to tell him.’

H. Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, future presidential candidate and advocate of prisoners of war, paid for her medical care.

When McCain – his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton – was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again.

But friends say privately he was ‘appalled’ by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: ‘I don’t look so good myself. It’s fine.’

He bought her a bungalow near the sea in Florida and another former PoW helped him to build a railing so she could pull herself over the dunes to the water.

‘I thought, of course, we would live happily ever after,’ says Carol. But as a war hero, McCain was moving in ever-more elevated circles.

Through Ross Perot, he met Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California. A sympathetic Nancy Reagan took Carol under her wing.

But already the McCains’ marriage had begun to fray. ‘John started carousing and running around with women,’ said Robert Timberg.

McCain has acknowledged that he had girlfriends during this time, without going into details. Some friends blame his dissatisfaction with Carol, but others give some credence to her theory of a mid-life crisis.

He was also fiercely ambitious, but it was clear he would never become an admiral like his illustrious father and grandfather and his thoughts were turning to politics.

In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.

Carol and her children were devastated. ‘It was a complete surprise,’ says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide.

‘They never displayed any difficulties between themselves. I know the Reagans were quite shocked because they loved and respected both Carol and John.’

Another friend added: ‘Carol didn’t fight him. She felt her infirmity made her an impediment to him. She justified his actions because of all he had gone through. She used to say, “He just wants to make up for lost time.”’

Indeed, to many in their circle the saddest part of the break-up was Carol’s decision to resign herself to losing a man she says she still adores.

Friends confirm she has remained friends with McCain and backed him in all his campaigns. ‘He was very generous to her in the divorce but of course he could afford to be, since he was marrying Cindy,’ one observed.

McCain transferred the Florida beach house to Carol and gave her the right to live in their jointly-owned townhouse in the Washington suburb of Alexandria. He also agreed to pay her alimony and child support.

A former neighbour says she subsequently sold up in Florida and Washington and moved in 2003 to Virginia Beach. He said: ‘My impression was that she found the new place easier to manage as she still has some difficulties walking.’

Meanwhile McCain moved to Arizona with his new bride immediately after their 1980 marriage. There, his new father-in-law gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political powerbrokers who would smooth his passage to Washington via the House of Representatives and Senate.

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won’t forget his treatment of his first wife.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

One old friend of the McCains said: ‘Carol always insists she is not bitter, but I think that’s a defence mechanism. She also feels deeply in his debt because in return for her agreement to a divorce, he promised to pay for her medical care for the rest of her life.’

Carol remained resolutely loyal as McCain’s political star rose. She says she agreed to talk to The Mail on Sunday only because she wanted to publicise her support for the man who abandoned her.

Indeed, the old Mercedes that she uses to run errands displays both a disabled badge and a sticker encouraging people to vote for her ex-husband. ‘He’s a good guy,’ she assured us. ‘We are still good friends. He is the best man for president.’

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

Additional reporting by Paul Henderson in Virginia Beach and William Lowther in Washington

Every time I open the AOL election straw poll, McCain is always rating twice that of Obama. Is there something fissy about it? Well, our presidential contenders are first of all politicians. Whatever they say should not be believed but should be examined by our conscience. Is experience really matters? Yes. I am not a politician!