http://nmindependent.disqus.com/enSat, 04 Oct 2008 12:55:19 -0000http://newmexicoindependent.com/?p=3385#comment-2840346Who said "free" healthcare? Somebody has to pay, and most of us already do, big time, and much more than our broken system is worth. The only question is whether a country has to tolerate the grotesquely elevated costs of that healthcare when insurance companies demand their "cut." They add nothing to the quality of our health system and only crank up costs overall with their ridiculous CEO pay packages, shareholder dividends, and collusion with corrupt doctors and hospitals.<br><br>You're saying over forty million Americans have "chosen" NOT to have any healthcare at all? And, strange to say, they all seem to be in the lower income group. America STILL manages to spend more per capita than anywhere else in the world. Why? We have let the insurances companies become the last vestige of the nineteenth century robber barons.<br><br>TJ, reliable access to health care is a human right, not socialism. Health care should be like any other necessity to America's citizens like clean water, clean air, police and fire protection, access to public transportation.<br><br>As may probably know, Domenici became a convert to his very modest mental health proposal ONLY after his own daughter became a mental health consumer and he got to experience that system up close and personal. It's nice to recognize Pete's one area of concern to America's mental health community, but few articles connect all the dots in showing how he got so "radicalized."<br><br>Universal health care would be the single biggest economic boost to the American economy in modern time. Research this important topic, TJ, instead of repeating the same tired old talking points of the defenders of the insurance corporations.JeeterSat, 04 Oct 2008 12:55:19 -0000http://newmexicoindependent.com/?p=3385#comment-2827805Jeeter if you want free healthcare go to a country where they have surrendered their freedom in favor of having a government decide best how they should receive their healthcare. Quit trying to drag our country in socialism and the surrender of our freedoms.Thomas_JamesFri, 03 Oct 2008 16:16:16 -0000http://newmexicoindependent.com/?p=3385#comment-2824770Too bad Domenici always has been dead-set against Universal Health Care for the US. His special carve out for mental health consumers would be unnecessary if we Americans had the same universal coverage as every other civilized country in the world. <br><br>But the insurance lobby is too powerful to allow Pete to vote for that!JeeterFri, 03 Oct 2008 13:46:16 -0000