He's right about guns, but needs his Dad to teach him again about how *any* insurance works - private or gov't run, car insurance or health insurance. The very goal of insurance is that other people are helping to pay for your large $$ claims. When you have $200k in hospital bills, all of the premiums you've paid to the insurance company over however many years *won't even come close* to covering that. But it gets paid (if you're lucky and the claim isn't denied by the insurance company like a good 20% of our unfortunate fellow countrymen). Where does all that money come from? Well, I'll tell you, it is paid for by all the other people who are paying their monthly premiums to the same c...

He's right about guns, but needs his Dad to teach him again about how *any* insurance works - private or gov't run, car insurance or health insurance. The very goal of insurance is that other people are helping to pay for your large $$ claims. When you have $200k in hospital bills, all of the premiums you've paid to the insurance company over however many years *won't even come close* to covering that. But it gets paid (if you're lucky and the claim isn't denied by the insurance company like a good 20% of our unfortunate fellow countrymen). Where does all that money come from? Well, I'll tell you, it is paid for by all the other people who are paying their monthly premiums to the same company, and most of them aren't using any of the services at that time. Well, sounds a bit like taxes doesn't it? And this is how all private insurance companies and gov't systems work. But if you don't want to be paying for other people's treatments this way, private or gov't run, that's fine. Good luck saving up half a million buckaroos just in case you or a family member come down with cancer, God forbid.

The problem here isn't if we're going to get ripped off or not by some public option, it's if the gov't can offer an option for our hard working Americans who may be unlucky enough to get laid off, while still giving good opportunity for private insurance companies to compete, get lean and strong, and offer decent prices. We've built the greatest and strongest Armed Forces the world has ever seen, so we shouldn't even have to break a sweat to make sure that the very family and friends our soldiers sacrifice their lives for can afford decent healthcare, no matter or not if they've just lost a job because of the bad economy or outsourcing. If we don't have some other option to put pressure on those fancy CEO fat cats on the top floor offices of the big insurance company buildings, it will only get worse.

Stay Strong and God Bless.

There's a huge difference between private and government run insurance that you left out. When you purchase private insurance, you're paying the insurance company to take a risk for you. They're betting that your medical costs won't exceed your premiums during the time that you are consuming their service. For most people that have insurance, it's a good bet for the insurance companies and they are able to stay in business.

To protect the company interests, insurance companies try to avoid taking a bad bet, or one that will likely cost them more money than they will receive in premiums. So that certainly goes for insurance that would cover pre-existing conditions. It's not really insur...

There's a huge difference between private and government run insurance that you left out. When you purchase private insurance, you're paying the insurance company to take a risk for you. They're betting that your medical costs won't exceed your premiums during the time that you are consuming their service. For most people that have insurance, it's a good bet for the insurance companies and they are able to stay in business.

To protect the company interests, insurance companies try to avoid taking a bad bet, or one that will likely cost them more money than they will receive in premiums. So that certainly goes for insurance that would cover pre-existing conditions. It's not really insurance if you've already got a condition that you want insurance for, it's a hand out. That's how private insurance works.

Government run (socialized) insurance works the other way around. The government will insure anyone, regardless of their circumstance, so the government will always take a "bad bet". Of course no private company could survive if they were to take too many bad bets like this.

The only way the government can is to force more and more people into their insurance program, in particular young people who are less likely to need expensive medical treatment. If the young people managed to somehow opt out of the socialized healthcare, the whole system would collapse, or else care would have to be denied to those that consume the most medical care... the elderly.

So there's the big difference. Private insurance will never force you to buy it (nor do they need to) and government insurance can't survive unless they force you to buy it (via taxes or otherwise). That's also why the government would not be competing with the private companies, because they could simply tax everyone for healthcare and tell you "go ahead and purchase the private care... if you can afford it after we tax you for public healthcare."