Socialized medicine

First an anecdote
I am all for having other people pay for me HOWEVER now that I have become more successful in my later years I realize that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I was overhearing two people talk at a bar the other night. The lady was talking to her male friend.
She works hard as a waitress and pulls in around $400 a week.
The other day her friend was bragging that she wa laid off and was collecting $450 tax free.
She wanted to get some of that for herself.
She was upset that she, an honest hardworking waitress, was getting screwed by her collecting friend.
As a small business owner I saw this a lot as the laziest people would collect while the hard working people at my company often made less while working.
While there certainly are people who need assistance the government does a really bad job of separating the ones who need and deserve the help from those who do not.

Now there is a proposal not so much to reform our current system but to replace it with a massive government run program that will again put government in the role of trying to decide who does and who does not deserve something. I just do not see them being able to do this as well as the individual.

See this article for
http://tinyurl.com/m7u87f

Instead of moving into something new why don't they fix the current messes.
Government programs that need reform NOW since they are rapidly going broke
Medicare
US Post Office
Social Security
In my family when we were in tough financial times we didn't go out and buy more stuff. We worked hard to fix the problem and then got back to our future plans.
The Govt needs to take the same approach as any other frugal family and not take on more spending in the face of an economic meltdown.
Everyone agrees that we do need health care reform but let's reform it, not replace it.
- make policies simpler
- Increase across state competition of insurance companies
- Share information on which doctors and insurance companies are best.
- Institute real Tort reform
All these points are conspicuously absent from the current HR bill which NO WAY needs to be more than 50-100 pages and certainly MUST be read and understood by our representatives before consideration. How about a test on the contents of the bill. If you fail the test you can't vote on it.