The majority of the people who don’t have insurance have applied for it, but have been denied because of a pre-existing condition.

As for those who don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it, the philosophy is simple: let’s pay for them to have access to pre-emptive care, because right now all they have access to is the ER, which is much more costly.

Health is a condition, not a commodity. I feel that way about my health, my kids’ health, my father’s health and your health. It’s not something that should be used to help deck out some CEO’s pad in the Cayman Islands.

I was always taught that I am my brother’s keeper, and that what you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me. So it’s not about greed or avarice. It’s taking care of my fellow man.

And hell yes, I want the best of everything. I don’t expect government to do it all, but dammit, we should demand more of a system that produces absolutely unacceptable results when it comes to life expectancy and infant mortality. If our health-care system was a college football team, it would be Notre Dame: all sizzle and no steak.

What we have now is totally unacceptable.

If you’ve followed any rational discussion about healthcare reform, the general position of those favoring health security is not to remove responsibility from individuals to ensure their own wellness but rather to ensure access to insurance in the event of a pre-existing condition, whether one that occurred at birth or one that is a result of an accident. These aren’t hypotheticals for actuaries or pundits to poke and prod at; they’re real scenarios affecting real Americans.

In an employer-based health insurance model, loss of a job typically means loss of access to affordable health insurance. If you’ve never faced COBRA premiums (which expire) or HIPAA premiums, try it. You won’t like it.

As someone who clearly favors the free market, I’m surprised by your willingness to trap a labor force that could be operating more efficiently in jobs just so that they can maintain access to healthcare.

A number of Americans interested in this debate want to work but can’t lest they earn so much income they no longer qualify for Medicaid. And if they have a severe enough pre-existing condition, they’re uninsurable in the eyes of private insurers or else, if they exercise their HIPAA rights, they’re charged premiums high enough that they’re pushed right back into poverty.

Imagine my surprise if you turn out to be anti-abortion-rights and also anti-health-security for those Americans with pre-existing conditions from birth.

It’s quite nice of you to put words in my mouth by falsely asserting what i want, but let me spell it out for you since you keep getting it wrong: I want access to affordable healthcare for all Americans. The only thing I want government to give me is the right to compete fairly with all Americans, regardless of how any of us were born or affected by unforeseen circumstances.

In order, I favor:

• Medicare for All
• Wyden/Bennett (the bipartisan Healthy Americans Act)
• a version of the current major proposals before Congress that includes a public option

You’re welcome to adopt a position that punishes the community of Americans who wind up with pre-existing conditions, and I’ll gladly continue to oppose your policy prescriptions.

I don’t understand why you liberals think that everyone deserves to have health care given to them. Anything worth having isn’t going to be free, or cheap, right? Why should health care be any different? It is your responsibility to find and afford care for your family, not mine. Let me handle my family, and you go buy the bottom of the barrel crap (public option) for your family that “means so much to you”… In the meantime, I hope you are explaining to your little kids why daddy can’t work for their healthcare, but he can go on a vacation, drive a new car, have every channel on cable (with his plasma tv), and be carrying around the newest blackberry on the market.

You want the best of everything, and you want the government to give it to us. Good luck with that.

Drop Lamar an email and congratulate him on being this year’s big winner. I did!

Otherwise, though, our point in singling out Sen. Alexander was not that thoughtful skepticism of majority politics should be decried but rather that his tactics and rhetoric are now borderline teabaggery.

I am curious about that, but I find it curious whenever the GOP says it has a plan to reform HC. The GOP had long periods when it was in control of the WH and Congress, but never touched on the issues of pre-existing conditions or the rising cost of the system. Now, with a majority of Americans screaming for reform and the political winds shifting in that direction, we’re supposed to believe that the GOP is genuinely interested in reform?

To your greater point: I think there are Republicans who interested in keeping these programs and helping improve them. But I honestly believe these are the silent Republicans who are being pushed out of the party. These are the Republicans who would deem any program “socialist,” and then hem and haw when it’s suggested the GOP would rather eliminate them altogether.

There are genuine conservatives who are very reasonable. But they, like Sen. Alexander, face a delimma of sticking to their own beliefs or maintaining their power inside the party’s core.