Making health care a 'right' will make the price soar as we have never seen before. This is elemental supply and demand, the demand side is huge, and is why costs have been soaring like crazy. If you pay attention to the real world, you know the market is fewer hospitals, fewer nurses, fewer specialists. Add unlimited demand, and price goes ballistic.

This will get expensive FAST!!

'Republican' is a scare word. What they say or think is crap.

Looking at it from a higher plane, I never thought of health care as a right, but an obligation that we have to one another.

Just one liberal's perspective that I wanted to state for the record..

>"the real world, you know the market is fewer hospitals, fewer nurses, fewer specialists. Add unlimited demand, and price goes ballistic."

Can't tell if you're trolling or using sarcasm.

Ah yes. So people should simply go off and die because the supply of medical care is constrained by a monopolistic guild system dating back to the middle ages?

The Wall Street Journal editorial page is a near-constant source of distortions

and outright lies

tulsatime @4:22 is mistaken to assume that demand will increase with a public option. To the contrary, with financing for care at the preventive or early detection levels, aggregate demand is likely to be redistributed (no more ER rooms filled with uninsured patients who can't afford a doctor for the flu or a tetanus shot) or reduced (more access to primary care reduces demand among specialists and in hospitals--ounce of prevention, pound of cure and all that).

fred hiatt could straighten out those boys with his superb WaPo editorial page -- the goddam platonic idea of editorial pages...

If you pay attention to the real world

Were you planning on starting some time soon?

Entitlement has been a Republican scare word for a loooong time. All those entitlements are putting us on the road to being, you know, Europe.

WSJ editorial pages sucked elephant dong long before Rupert Murdoch got both his right wing paws into it.

When they're less than 50% wrong, its only by accident.

But Richard Shelby said America has the best health care system the world has ever known!

electrolite wrote, "But Richard Shelby said America has the best health care system the world has ever known!"

Yes he did, but he never said that everyone is entitled to have access to it, did he?

The word entitlement is indeed meant as a scare word for the misinformed.

The view of this word (and the word 'taxes' for that matter) demonstrates a clear difference between how Republicans and Progressives see the world, and the United States in particular:

Entitlement: as defined by Republicans, this word means "benefits to people who do not deserve it." Republicans think that entitlements exist as a bounty that can and should be raided for current and near-future wealth on the part of the few. As defined by Progressives, this word means "benefits to people who have earned it." Progressives think that entitlements exist as a means with which to take care of people who have worked hard--or tried to work hard, and through no fault of their own could not--and they recognize that a civilization should be judged by how it takes care of its elders.

Taxes: As defined by Republicans, this means taking hard-earned money from people who have earned it--that's it. Republicans think that taking money from earners via taxes is thievery; after all, the government didn't earn it, the person who worked for the money did. As defined by Progressives, this also means taking hard-earned money from people who have earned it--but it is the why of the taking that is the point. Progressives think that taxing people and corporations is an entirely proper means with which to gather funds to pay for what benefits society as a whole--and not just the few--such as the building of roads, electrical and other utility systems (and their maintenance), and as paychecks for police and firefighters. A price paid for the things usually taken for granted.

But of course we knew all that.

Entitlement has been a Republican scare word for a loooong time. -- Lifelong Dem

Yep. On the other hand, many liberals refer to healthcare essentially as an entitlement, usually along the lines of: 'everyone deserves access to quality, affordable healthcare.'

Truth is, I'm not sure what I deserve. Basic healthcare, sure. An epidural for a herniated disc? Okay. A bone marrow transplant? A quadruple bypass?

So many procedures and tests that were once exotic are now are commonplace, and they're frightfully expensive. Future medical advances are likely to be even moreso.

Sure, there is a lot of overcharging, waste and inefficiency, and reducing those can bring costs costs down -- but how far and for how long?

There has to be some limit to what we can collectively afford under a private or public plan. And when we hit that limit, we're going to ration care or go broke. Essentially, we're doing both now.

Uh tulsatime, you seem to have an error in your comment. You appear to have used the future tense rather than the past tense to describe health care costs. The president hopes to change that delta to less than inflation. Then, you'll just be wrong.
I hope. If not, it will bankrupt the country.

When I hear the word "entitlement" I think of corporations who have been entitled to tax cuts that have enriched them, the rich hiding taxes offshore because they feel entitled to even more money, wallstreet's and others'fradulent practices as they felt entitled to easy money. Should I go on? THAT is what ENTITLEMENT means to me.

Making health care a 'right' will make the price soar as we have never seen before.

No it won't.

This is elemental supply and demand, the demand side is huge, and is why costs have been soaring like crazy.

No it's not. And if you think so, you don't even understand the basics of capitalism or health care.

If you pay attention to the real world, you know the market is fewer hospitals, fewer nurses, fewer specialists.

I can't even pretend to understand what this means.

Add unlimited demand, and price goes ballistic.

What a bizarre understanding of health care. Do you think people aren't going to the doctor now? They are, they are just doing it when things become an emergency -- which IS the most expensive way to treat anything.

Moreover, it's not like we don't have any data to compare public v. private health care markets. We do. Everywhere else is cheaper and more efficient -- from single-payer systems to hybrids like the one Obama is proposing. Overwhelmingly people throughout the industrialized world like their health care systems, while ALSO enjoying universal coverage. The US has an inefficient, good-at-the-top, lousy-at-the-bottom, drain on business health care system that serves a few very well, some decently, and tens of millions not at all. Which, in the end, COSTS US ANYWAY.

Jesus man. Educate yourself. A little. Unless you really are just terminally dishonest.

"Entitlement" is one of the right wing code words, like "welfare," especially~~~~~
"they want us to carry the load while others "freeload."

It is a most unsettling assessment of health care.
But, of course, they want the status quo health care industry to thrive.

Two things:

What Obama meant was that reforming health care will effectively allow us to reform Medicare and the ballooning costs associated with it.

"So many procedures and tests that were once exotic are now are commonplace, and they're frightfully expensive."

They're frightfully expensive because they are done for profit. Lots and lots of profit.

They're frightfully expensive because they are done for profit. Lots and lots of profit. -- OhNoNotAgain

Agreed. And until the practice of medicine becomes a charity, and MRI units engineered for free and sold at cost, it's going to stay that way.

It's an entitlement to live and be healthy, but a winning super bonus to get sick, die and go bankrupt. lol

If being sick and dying were so grand you'd think those opposed to the American people living would already be gone.

CJ, you make an excellent point that Republicans and Status Quo-supporters typically ignore. Preventive care and health maintenance are far less expensive in the long run than either basic or catastrophic care supplied by emergency rooms to people who will be unable to pay the bill.

But there's a moral argument that needs to be made more often: Our current system treats health, and even life, as a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. This is not only ethically indecent, it's unconstitutional. What is an "inalienable right" if not an entitlement? And in our Constitution, the first of the big three is life.

I'm going to agree with tulsatime.

Once health care becomes an entitlement, the price of leeches and mustard plasters will soar!