YOUR COMMENTS

And you know why that is - taxing the poor to pay the rich which is a fundamental concept of conservative politics? Because one hundred and fifty years of Republicanic rule in New Hampshire has gotten even the middle class to think in terms of the fairness of using the property tax to fund essential government services. When this buffoonish idea first arose, property was the main source of wealth. Now that is only true for middle class and below. Rich people have their lucre in stocks, bonds and what are called intangibles and thus excape paying back the money they get to squeeze out of the economy because of government services. On top of that, now the rich have developed a system of no bid contracts, tax breaks and lobbying to just get handed our tax money without having to do any business. What a country - if you are rich.
- William, Deerfield

Simply NO to the manipulation of our health care system and government take over. Lets start with stopping the lawyers and quick dollar schemes first, the illegal aliens second, and re-teaching the population that a cold of flu simply has to take its course but keep an eye on temperature.

Government will do for healthcare what it does to everything else it touches and in the end will cost us dearly and make us dependent on government.
- Deb, Derry

"The cheapest, most efficient, best outcome producing, delivery system would be through government......"

This coming from someone from California! Are you kidding me? How much are you willing to dole out to illegal aliens? To the tune of $5b a year dude. Enjoy.

It's simple, there are far too many people in this country that want to remain children. As a child, MOM and DAD fed you(all the right/healthy things), told you not to smoke, clothed you, bathed you, paid you(allowance) and bandaged your cuts and scrapes. Their MOM and DAD is now the Fegeral Government. They need someone else to do what they won't do for themselves.

I've got to believe that the "usual" posters on this site(you know who you are) are sitting naked in a bean bag chair eating cheetos. Too scared to venture out or come up with a thought until the Govt says it ok and safe enough to do so.

A Californian doling out advice on how good Government is. Well, some of the best flakes do come from California.l
- Michael Belanger, Goffstown, NH

If private insurance could actually provide good decent insurance at a decent price (read: for less than my mortgage!), I'd be all excited about leaving this to the market. Unfortunately all that's happened is that self-insuring has become all but impossible. We spend almost 4.5 times more on health care than National defense. We spend far more per person, even though we cover less, live shorter lives, and have higher mortality rates, than just about any other developed nation.
- Kevin, Denver

Would someone, anyone, even Robert of Deerfield or Tom Dover etc, please name one federal program that has worked as planned and worked efficiently. Just one. Every time the federal government is involved in anything it is a permanent money pit.

I'm just not sure how anyone at all can think that we can lower the cost of anything by spending more money on it.

And while I'm sending out these challenges, how about one person out there who has the confidence to believe that our Congress can solve any problem, just one.

And finally to Mr Bill Watson of Menlo Park CA, you must be kidding, a VA style health care system with government owned hospitals???? Look at the VA budget and ask a Vet how long he/she waits for care. You must be kidding.
- Melvin, Keene

I consider myself a left leaning independent voter. I've voted for a number of republicans over the years. I definitely understand where the right is coming from on a lot of issues. That having been said, I cannot comprehend how any thinking person can oppose socialized medicine.

Every single industrialized country on earth except us has socialized medicine. In many countries the people using this system far outlive American citizens. Our current healthcare system's costs are so obscene it is difficult to comprehend.

France, as just one example, spends less than half as much as we do on healthcare, yet their population is far healthier than ours. Is there system perfect? No. Is better than ours? Absolutely.

Given the overwhelming evidence in support of state sponsored universal healthcare, you would really need to have a soft brain not to support the adoption of a european style health delivery system in this country.
- Fred, Amherst

The only thing that is plain and simple about this debate is that conservative Republicanics are scared to death that a goverment program will compete with their cushy freebies. While shouting from the roof top that competition is the foundation of big business, they arrange tax loop holes, bribe legislators (that is what lobbying does), and fight having to actually produce a product that is better than one provided by the bureaucracy they so much fear and despise. Why would you want something to interfere with your gravy train? 34% administrative costs as opposed to Medicare's 4%. This isn't American business, it's funny business.
- Rob, Deerfield

The system is not working and encourages lies. If you are not a senior and do not have small kids, you get nothing in New Hampshire If you do not owe CMC money they will sit on your application for help for months and do nothing. If you do not marry the father of your children, your children get coverage and his non-family premiums are much lower, the same way unmarrieds get so much in food stamp and heating bill dollars. Internationally, our health care system is way behind in who it covers. Our meds are way overpriced compared to other countries. We make millionaires our of Lilly and Pfizer. Some sick men with cancer and other chronic diseases try to seduce and marry women with coverage just to get covered and too many women go along, even if he's a cheater.
- Kathy, Manc

It is striking that the many folks who comment on this board are ready to trash 'The Government' for how inept and wasteful it is, but when insurance giant AIG nearly tanks - and almost takes the US economy with it - these same commenters don't have a harsh word for the robber barons who put this entire country at risk through their own greed and hapless mismanagement. Why are you so ready to apologize for corporations? What is up with that?

We all know and understand how insurance works, in principle- the more people you can insure under one umbrella, the more you can spread the costs and keep everyone's premiums low. Why not take that to its natural conclusion- insure just about everyone - and keep the costs as low as they can possibly be?

Perhaps you just hate Democrats so much that you simply cannot go along with a better health care alternative, even though over 70% of Americans polled support it?
- Dave, Sandwich

If you remove from the equation people who choose to self-insure, non-citizens, and people eligible for SCHIP or Medicaid who choose not to sign up, you are left with a single-digit percentage of Americans who truly are without healthcare coverage through no choice of their own. For that small percentage of people, are we willing to squeeze private insurance out of the market and replace it with more and higher taxes, rationed care and another massive government bureaucracy? Isn't there a more targeted and responsible approach, perhaps involving vouchers, that would provide help to those truly in need at far lower costs (both monetary and in terms of quality of care)? Or is the objective of the "reformers" really to grab more taxpayer dollars, more power over your lives, and feed the unending appetite of the public employee unions?
- Rick, Portsmouth

PS to Mae, who says "means-test Medicare and Social Security"--The government, during the past three decades when it was stealing 13% from my pay and promising me security in my old age, at no time told me that the promise was void if I over-achieved!

If you don't flinch at breaking promises, then you cannot believe Obama's promise of "health security." You are probably a mind bought and paid for by public employee unions, which simply crave even more power over the citizenry.
- Spike, Brentwood NH

Here's a thought to consider.

If you are on Welfare and/or a Public Healthcare Program (Taxpayer Subsidized) then you are deemed to be a Ward of the State and as such are not in any position to make decisions (adult) for yourself or anyone else.

As such Wards of the State should not be allowed to vote.

That will cure our Long Term Entitlement woes pretty quickly of people that are capable of working but choose not to.

If you are unwilling to provide for yourself how can you contribute to making decisions that effect others?
- J, Bradford

Keep a watchful eye on our state run health care system. Lynch's proposed expansion of the Hew Hampshire Health Kids Program to include "youths" up to age 26 is a back door aproach to expanded government run health care. Obama's plan to federalize our health care system has started already on a state level. Keep your eyes on BOTH hands. Deception and illusion is an art form that this current administration has mastered. Government estimates states that this will cost one trillion over ten years? I would likely double that estimate. Who is this program going to include? Will we include a mandate for all recipients to be US citizens? That would be a first. Before we reform health care, let's find out why it costs what it does and who's paying for itt No amount of cigatette taxes will possibly cover these proposed changes.....
- Jeff, Dunbarton

Clearly, Obama has only two ways to cut health-care costs via big government: (1) Deny treatment, for example to those "at the end of their lives," and (2) enforce "healthy" personal behavior at gunpoint.

Meanwhile, even Republican health-care "reforms" are exceeding cost estimates. Romney-care (where the Mass. tax collector checks that you are buying satisfactory insurance--as Gregg would use the IRS "if I had a magic wand") and Bush's Medicare Part D (free meds for Warren Buffett) are far over budget. It is not surprising that, if you set yourself up to hand out freebies, demand increases. It is surprising that any voters think they can vote themselves benefits at no cost.

But Tom Labrie says Obama is more "trustworthy" than the Union-Leader. I can think of no issue on which this is true--most recently, in the turbulence following the elections in Iran, where Obama has both taken personal credit for the outcome and asserted that the US President ought not to "meddle."
- Spike, Brentwood NH

This is just a cowardly politicians attempt to forestall the oncoming medicare/medicaid/social security debacle through higher taxes. Health insurance is a matter best left to the states, as they can control costs by the revising state mandates that keep costs high, & would be very effective in a small, relatively healthy population as in NH. The feds have botched up every sector they have touched, with the exception of the US military, thanks to the troops themselves. Time to means test medicare & social security. Anyone with an income of $100K or more, (ie. millionaire Ted Kennedy, et al), can well afford to pay their own insurance costs and support themselves. Problem solved.
- Mae, Plaistow

Nothing will work until the pres, reps and senators are on the same medical and retirement plans as everyone else. Until then, they have no problem chaning the system to help others becasue it doesn't effect them.

I woudl also like to propose that each rep and senator makes the average salary of their constituants. This will save money and bring them down to reality.
- CJ, Bedford

Well said - Obama just keeps piling on the debt, all in the name of Big Government and Pro-Unions. Granted he is a likeable enough man, he just is way out of line on all these "activist" programs. He wont win this one, and even middle of the road Dems should start to see the baloon effect of all his plans. I agree that health care spending is out of control, but I positively disagree that choice should be taken out of the picture. How about stressing more that peple start to be accountable for their health? Most Americans understand tragedies and illnesses happen, and I believe most of us understand there has to be some sort of break for families that require major treatments due to cancers, etc. But to dole out free medical to ALL (including MILLIONS of illegals, drug abusers, heavy smokers, heavy drinkers - people who have CHOICES that we ALL need to make) - that's more than what I should have to pay for. I dont want to pay for some maniacs decision to have 14 children - as a single mother. And yet I am. We all are. Wake up people - take back the country in 2010 elections - your Congress and Senate - they belong to us. We are the taxpayers.....we need more fiscal responsibility. Imagine the dollar damage that will be wreaked on this nation in 3 and a half more years!! And my Dem friends - why is it that you have to revert to name calling when you dont agree with an opinion?
- Joanne, Londonderry

The cheapest way to collect money to pay for health care is through a national sales tax, and not by forcing people and companies to purchase questionable insurance, to pay for services, in a system with bloated costs, that has failed so many.

The cheapest, most efficient, best outcome producing, delivery system would be through government owned and operated hospitals and clinics, operated as a civilian VA style system, that would deliver all government funded health care and medications free to seniors and everyone choosing to use government care, no restrictions period.

Businesses that choose public care for their employees will have no financial obligations or any other responsibilities concerning health care.

People who prefer, and could afford to pay for private insurance and care could do so, but no public funding for private systems.

Ask OMB; how much this dual choice, public or private system, would save annually, and what stimulus would it provide for the US economy.
- Bill Watson, Menlo Park, California

Let's see, we have now have a socialized car industry, banking, mortgage, and now healthcare.

I guess for those of us unable/wanting to work they will get something for free. But for the rest of the people we will have to wait a weekend for emergency care, a month for an mri or cat scan, and a year for an operation.

By that time we will be dead as a doornail and pushing up daisies. Well maybe in the grander scheme of things this works out well for the US Governement as if we die before we are eligible for medicare or social security they won't have to reform either and then will happily keep our contributions.

Just remember folks, you heard it here first, keep your life insurance paid up. You will need it more than medical insurance.
- Jack Alex, Manchester

Does anyone doubt that obscene $1 trillion estimate is grossly understated? And if Obama's proposed "reforms" are supposed to reduce the cost of healthcare, why is he asking us to spend trillions more?

Obama and his supporters exhibit a willful ignorance of reality. If enacted, Obama's socialist takeover of healthcare can be expected to be as successful as his socialist takeover of the rest of the economy has been.
- Tom, Campton

Mr. Obama HOPES to CHANGE the laws of physics. The trillion plus dollars that the "Health Care for Illegal Aliens, Drug Addicts and Alcoholics Living in Gutters Act of 2009" will cost will be produced out of thin air using magic dust (perhaps some of the magic dust that Mr. Obama admits snorting in his youth). Trust him, he "has a gift" accordingly to Harry Reid's memoirs. The problem is, I have yet to see the oceans recede since his election, and am not sure that woud even be a good thing. On a more practical note, he was nominated by pandering to the left of the Democratic party with his promise of immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and now that the war in Iraq has been won under the leadership of the evil ogre, George W. Bush, Obama has adopted Bush's timetable, and stopped talking about withdrawal. It is time that the American people realize that they were completely hoodwinked by this shameless charlatan, who promises all thing to all people (and for free). It is long past time that the American people embrace the connection of big government spending to taxes, and stop expecting a free lunch. Not only do we not need a health care takeover by the feds, we need to cut federal spending by perhaps a trillion dollars to balance the budget. If we don't, we will look like a a third world nation in a matter of a few years.
- mo, derry

They are so many ways to fix healthcare.You can start by "streamlining" state insurance regulations that have driven health insurers out of this state. You are listening Martha Fuller Clark.

As for "Obamacare" the public option has a high hill to climb. Obama wants a victory here, even a small one. This will be the "battle royal" on Capitol Hill that will drain Obama's political capital.
- Chris, Merrimack

To believe any government program will come in at predicted cost must meet at least one definition of insanity. ( ie: doing the same thing over and over in exactly the same way and expecting different results). I would argue that there need to be changes in how healthcare is paid for but a new government program to pay for health care is unlikely to prove superior to what we now have. Taxes will go up on the rich, and guess what, if you earn anything above minimum wage, you'll be the "rich".
- jeff, goffstown

Having no affordable comprehensive health care costs us more that anything the wise Mr Obama's team will come up with. We can know this, and also know that this paper is wrong, because Obama is trustworthy, and this paper is not.

The sour grapes here pollute all ideas, all this rag cares about is politics, and as monumental LOSERS it spews these wild fantasy articles.
- Tom Labrie, Rochester

All I can say
Fight taxes and balance the budget.
OBAMA you are wasting our money and soon we may all be bankrupted. I do not have the answer. But we must lower the national debt.
Get our peoples jobs,educated, and healthcare. But do not up the budget or higher taxes. STOP PORK SPENDING NOW.
- mo baxter, plymouth

if we keep redistributing the wealth like this, to people who won't pay for their own healthcare we may as well concede we are headed for another civil war.
- Michael Layon, Derry

Taxes are going to go up for everybody big time. It is not amusing a bit that the Obama minions do not understand that.

Our President is squandering our nations wealth plain and simple.
- Bob, Salem