China has socialized medicine. And sure, it costs only $1.2 to see a doctor. But it sucks.

I am a believer in socialized medicine. And I believe it works well in some other countries.

You all keep saying its cheaper...prove it. Or, prove that it can be done, without overhauling our tax system. Prove that it can be done without providing socialized higher education. Prove it can be done without further eroding America's economy. Prove that it can be done in a country where everyone is over-weight, where people sit in a car for 2+ hours each day instead of getting basic exercise from walking.

Why will socialized medicine be cheaper? Because the government will put price controls on Big Pharma? How long will that last? Will it be cheaper because the government will pay doctors less? And who will pay 150K+ for medical school? (and how will this address the current shortage of doctors in most of the US?) Because the government will limit the amount of money claimants, lawyers, and technical analysts can get in lawsuits?

You people are talking bullshit. You're not thinking.

Prove that this can be done without a complete overhaul of the structure of the US Economy.

I agree that bi-partisanship should not be an end in itself. I believe that a plan which passes 51-49 is fine.

However, you don't seem to grasp all the complexity involved in this issue. You can't take a system that developed in another country over 60 years and just plop it down in the United States. It will not work. Even if a plan is rammed through congress,it will not work without industry buy-in.

Here are some of the issues:

Currently doctors pay around 160K or more for their education bill. Then they work for between 40K - 60K per year during their residency. Now, if you are going to regulate the pay doctors get, you will also have to regulate the education costs they pay...or there will be no doctors. But if you do that, why would you not also regulate the costs of all education?

Regulating insurance is fine. But then there would need to be strict rules on malpractice suits. Hospitals are sued all the time, evey day. Some of these lawsuits are legitimate, some are not. Each one must go through many legal and technical evaluation processes. How will this be regulated?

England and Europe all have semi-socialist systems. They have high income tax to pay for their services. They have much better, but much more highly subsidized education systems. They do not maintain as large standing military. In short, to change health care in the US means changing many many aspects of our society. And this needs broad support from everyone, including republicans and the AMA.

Betzee wrote: "The woman just saw him as an American, assumed he was like the father figure in the TV shows, when instead it was someone who went abroad to escape the rat race and earn enough by teaching English to live on."

QFT. They are escapees. Often...losers. Divorces. And in one case of a guy I knew here in Suzhou, a freaky child molester pretending to be a normal guy. And they get English teaching jobs cause its easy. Many get burned out because they basically have to be entertainers. And then they look down on their students (kids who don't want to be in school at night + bored housewives) and then they get cynical. And snotty.

A friend of mine - a beautiful 30 year-old single Chinese mother - asked me for advise about her 25 year old English teacher soon-to-be husband. She just discovered he was sort of lazy and seemingly content to just be an English teacher. I told her "You know, you are with a 25 year old boy who's getting free sex with a hot woman in China, far from home. A boy who has not gone to graduate school. Someone who came here because they didn't have any direction. So you want to stay with him, you got to push him to have direction. And in pushing, you may push him away. I'm talking from experience, cause I used to be a lazy 25 year-old English teacher in China. At least I learned Chinese while here."

Note that here in China though, to me the foreign men get not-really-that-attractive girlfriends / wives. That's because they tend to meet nerdy career-oriented girls at work who speak English fluently and are interested in Foreigners...they don't meet average people very often.

"Maryann represents chaotic evil, and not chaotic good."

Sp when tp Heather discover D&D?

Or for that matter, does that place have any halal (or kosher) butchers?

Does the government see any issue with releasing 17 Muslim prisoners, who have been away from their families for 8+ years, onto an island with no one of the same religion, who don't speak the same language?

I do not believe they will see this a paradise...this is exile to a strange land.

And why couldn't the US send them to Turkey? At least Uighurs would understand the language there.