Yes, but Health Insurance can be shopped.

Gas prices can vary if you're willing to spend $20 in gas to drive to where the prices are lower. And don't give me the BS about alternative vehicles. I need a truck. I can't haul refridgerators and lumber and rolls of carpet in a Toyota Hybrid. I can't haul it on a bike. I cant take it on a train. I cant load it in a taxi. I need a fucking truck, as do millions of other people in this world.

Mortgage rates can be shopped to an extent, but there's only so much one can do.

Mechanic friends? Sounds great... except thats kind of a dick move to pull on your friend who might have other plans on saturday when you need your car fixed. As for shopping them... yeah right.

I've got one company I can get electricity from, maybe thats different elsewhere, but not here. And my bills are fucking unreasonable.

You could drive a biodiesel truck

You could not get sick. Its worked great for me!

Yeah.... I been doing that.... it does work pretty good

this sounds a little like my father in law...he's a long haul trucker and it's not fun getting him started on the gas prices right now...if they go any higher, some trucks won't run...that'll screw up a lot more in the states...he's already been turning down normally good loads, but anything he would make financially would go into the tanks...so if companies have to raise their rates to pay the trucks...guess where that money will be coming from.

he's really pushing for bio diesel however, he even tried opening a truck stop devoted to it...but town pump bought it out from under him and his investors, to put up another one of their convenience/keno room stores.

it's really too bad, a lot of people drive big diesels around here, and do drive two hours away to get bio diesel in missoula.

i did actually have a few of the "doctors" in the town we were living in tell me that they don't work on children, because the risks are too high...that's why we ended up spending all the time in st. petersburg, at the children's hospital, that's where we were told to go...

the procedure needed to be done, her elbow was disjointed and it had to be put back in place or would have healed incorrectly and she would not have been able to use her arm...i guess it was my fault that i cared to keep my daughters use of her arm and had no idea where to go outside of small town florida.

if i was in kalispell, it wouldn't have happened like that, but silly us moving to a larger state, hoping to find better paying jobs, when ours were outsourced.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/medicare_expenses

"The researchers concluded that the federal government could save tens of billions of dollars a year, plus improve care, if it took steps to prevent the overuse of health care."

i've heard similiar ideas mentioned before as this being an issue with healthcare, do those who make the money really want it fixed?

if they can make more money over assisting those who rely on the government for a few more years of life...what is the incentive for the medical field to work out a reasonable solution in making healthcare affordable, for everybody?

did you read this article? Are you really agreeing with it?

yes, i do agree with it, i don't know if it's really the magic wand that would cure all problems with the state of health care, but if people can be cared for while they die, at home, saving more money to help healthcare become affordable for everyone?

if a person is going to die, they're going to die, why not help those who are the future of our nation rather than dwelling on those who have little to offer?

"We must reward, rather than penalize provider organizations that successfully reduce excessive care and develop broader strategies for managing patients with chronic illness."

perhaps if there were some limitations on the extent they went to with my daughter, a dislcated elbow would have cost less than ten thousand(they were expecting us to qualify for medicaid...they even had the application in their office to fill out, and faxed it in?

the medical community seems to be attached to the easy buck from the government, rather than caring to assist those who make more than the state established income requirements, but not enough to afford health care.

how? are we going to give a bonus to the doctors that refuse the most patients?

Goverment regulation has never suceeded in accomplishing anything but waisting tax payors money, increaseing the classes gap and reducing the level and quality of the regulated service.

perhaps under the "cost reduceing" medicade plan your daughter would have only recieved one treatment by an underqualfied Doctor that would have done a "cost reduced" job perhaps the result was actually worth $10,000.00?

i don't see how they were too qualified, spending asix hours one day to have them say it's a sprain, wrapped, cast and bandaged and then being called back spending, literally all day, half of it spent pulling and twisting her arm to "pop" it back in, before having to resort to surgery to make sure it was properly placed?

if they were enticed to do it quickly and efficiently, we would not have had to pay for two trips to the emergency room(one by call back) and several months of follow up visits to other doctors...to make sure it was healing properly, and finally deciding that physical therapy was not necessary(by this time they knew we weren't getting medicaid to pay)?

i wonder how much it would have cost the first time to have an efficient doctor xray it, say they had to operate and be done with it?

it would have saved the excess spending in gas, time requests off from work and the two hours it took to drive to the hospital, and another two hours to drive home, two days...in a row, and they knew that we were that far away?!?!?!

the problem is that doctor's come to rely too much on medicaid for payments of services, knowing that as long as it's within the guidelines they can charge top dollar...what about those who do not have medicaid and paying for it out of their own pocket, they're stuck paying the higher rates that dioctors can charge to the government?

funny, i thought you already claimed they regulate various aspects of our necessities(energy, food etc) like it was a good thing?

I dont remember saying anything about regulating the industry ie dictating what services to provide, which is what is intailed by your article (gov has historically failed at that). I did say price setting and subsizeing which is completely diffrent, the govement can succesfully impact prices and in my opinion it is beneficial, there are other economists that would disagree with me.

why can't they "set" prices in the medical community?

they're already subsidizing...just in ways that's detrimental to people who are not...poor, terminal or workless enough to qualify. why not use the subsidies to encourage providing affordable healthcare for all, not only welfare recipients, the terminally ill or those over sixty five, they are rewarding doctors with more money by serving those who can qualify for government services, inadvertantly encouraging the medical community to quickly dismiss those, who are not on medicaid or medicare?

i thought perhaps maybe a stock market of sorts for insurance services, which should reduce costs, increase comp, and increase consumer power.

personally, i don't care the methods employed, i'd just like to see working people get the same chances for medical services, as those who do not work, and not go into debt...

it's not right making solid families who work for a living, having to choose between working eighty or more hours a week , with as many jobs as they physically can to afford medical, assuring their families physical well being or spending quality time with their family, assuring their mental well being and emotional security.