I've been away for a while, but why are we arguing against socialized healthcare. Neither candidate supports it. Kerry's plan has nothing to do with socialized healthcare at all.
The heart of his plan is a revolutionary idea (IMHO) in which the US government will pay for all catastrophic healthcare costs (those over $50,000) by purchasing re-insurance for all plans. This would then reduce the overall risk to insurers allowing them to therefore reduce plan costs. Basically this means guys like Couls could buy the same plan for their employees at a lower cost since they don't have to pay for the occaisional health disaster that causes an overall rise in premiums. Everyone I've talked to in the HMO industry (including a board member at a Major North Eastern HMO think it is a great plan)
Quoting from my favorite site.
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=207"The heart of the Kerry plan would have the federal government pay health plans 75% of the cost of "catastrophic" medical bills -- roughly those over $50,000 a year for one patient -- in return for which the plans would agree to cut the premiums charged to workers by 10%.
Thorpe estimates that Kerry's reinsurance plan alone would cost the government $257 billion over 10 years. Thorpe estimates the cost of the entire Kerry healthcare package at $653 billion over 10 years, even after subtracting estimated savings from such things as increased use of computerized medical claims and requirements for more aggressive "disease management" of such expensive ailments as congestive heart failure and diabetes.
To be sure, that's taking money from taxpayers to subsidize businesses and workers who pay for health insurance, just as the President's supporters often say. It's also true, according to Thorpe's estimates , that Kerry's costly plan would extend health insurance to 27 million persons who don't have it now, while Bush's rival health care proposal would cover only an additional 2.4 million."
Overall more coverage for more people and reduced premium costs for businesses at a reasonable cost ($653B over 10 years) seems like a good solution that allows priviate competition and removes some distoring market forces, with a minimum of government intervention.
