Employer provied health care is a stupid idea. Until 1948 people took care of their own doctor's bills.

Hey Rush - I agreed that employer-provided health care is a stupid idea, long overdue for the trash heap of lousy ideas.

But your comment that “until 1948 or so people took care of it themselves” is equally absurd.

Prior to the formation of the first public, full-time paid professional fire department in 1853 (Cincinnati, Ohio), fire fighting was done on a contract basis with fire companies.

It didn’t work out so well, and we decided to go with “government run” and, despite squawking for the Insurance companies, people seem pretty happy with that.

Sorry, Rush, but medicine has become far more technological and advanced than the old days of a country doctor making house calls.

Just as too many houses got burned down while bickering over coverage, so also too many people are dying.*

It ain’t workin’ out so good.

Time for public policy to stop the carnage but, again, the huge corporate monsters are squawking, howling really, saying that it KANT be done.

Oh, and as for your 9:26 a.m. nonsense about only providing coverage for non-smokers or those overweight, nopsie, that’s as ridiculous as saying police or firefighters won’t respond if you have an emergency and did not take all possible advanced precautions. I do, however, support hazard taxes on specific known risky behaviors to be applied toward healthcare costs.

*According to Scientific American, 44,000 human beings -FORTY FOUR THOUSAND - die every year due to lack of health care and you dismiss it so casually.
Reference:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=lack-of-insurance-causes-more-than-2009-09-17