'Patients First' rally planned

You don't wait until you have a car accident to shop for auto insurance, do you? Why would you wait until you were sick to shop for health insurance?

If you do not have the "time or interest", why should others pay for your lack of caring in your own health?

Personally I wish the system was more of a free market where there was more choices in coverage and we didn't depend on employers to cover us, but to make it a government system is the wrong way to go for a whole host of reasons.

There are better ways to "reform" healthcare than to pass a plan that will convert the vast majority of the population to a universal system, which is what this bill does. It does not make sense to spend the outrageous amount of money that this will take (that we do not have) and change millions of people's healthcare that are happy with it to a program where the government determines whether you are treated or not to cover a small percentage of the population. There are many, many more ways to do this.

As to the claim that "46 million Americans are uninsured", according to the Census Bureau, of the 46 million, nearly 10 million have household incomes of at least $75,000. They probably could afford coverage but have chosen not to buy it because they were young and healthy and would rather spend the money on other things. Another 14 million of the uninsured are already eligible for government programs such as Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program, but for whatever reason have not gotten into the program. Finally, there is a portion in there (I've heard from 10 to 20 million) who are not American citizens. Finally, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 45% of uninsured people will be uninsured for less than 4 months.

The bill they are proposing doesn't even cover people until 2013 and according to the CBO will only cover a relatively small portion of the uninsured (about 1/3).

Why not take the "stimulus money" and use it to cover those currently uninsured if it is such an emergency?

I'm glad you mentioned auto insurance. I hope Obama will nationalize car insurance so we can have that paid for as well. We'll soon be in the land of milk and honey. I hope we replace asphalt will gold. That will make the roads so pretty.

Healthcare is NOT a RIGHT, NOR, a FUNCTION of OUR government. EACH ONE is personally responsible for HIS/HER own healthcare, NOT the taxpayers! TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY!!!

PAY FOR YOUR OWN! You have car insurance mandates, right? Ditto healthcare!!!

I wish they'd bus the attendees over to Broughton and surprise the folks when they come out of the 'event'.

The current health insurance system is not a free market. Most people have very little choice about their health insurance coverage. Moreover, free market solutions cannot work. When people are sick, they are unable to shop for insurance. When they are well, they often do not have the time, interest, or information resources to make intelligent comparisons between plans.

I'm guessing only people with adequate health insurance will show up for this "rally". What about the 46 million Americans who do not have health insurance?

They're patients too.