Martin, let me welcome you to the fold.

I am sorry you lost an eye in a hunting accident.

I am 72 and attend thrice weekly kidney dialysis sessions which is very expensive. I know the importance of medically necessary procedures despite cost effectiveness judgments made in the hallowed halls of hell (Washington). For me, this program could be the difference between life and death (mine).

Kidney transplant would be less expensive but politicians are disinclined to pass legislation that would make donated organs more readily available than currently.

Socialized medicine scares the hell out of me, especially when it is designed by a crew of social and cultural iconoclasts such as those who would remotely control our lives from Washington.

They know what they are doing, that is why they maintain a solid gold program for themselves while designing a genuine Simulated Gold Tone program for us peons.

Part two:

#5: Medical insurance “ … companies have had it pretty darn good for many years ... [and] ... are having record years and still laying people off.” You seem to be faulting profit making private enterprise for making profits and for discharging unneeded workers. Please explain how private enterprise could attract investment capital if profit could not be anticipated. Please also explain why you think the cost of your medical-care would be reduced if insurance companies (or any other enterprise) maintained an unnecessary and unproductive workforce. Make it personal, explain how your company could afford to hire and continue to pay you if it did not make a profit and/or discharge unneeded workers. As an alternative, couch your explanation in terms of GM or Chrysler.

#6: Medical insurance companies “ ... spend 1.4 million dollars a year to lobby our gov't.” Are you certain they spend so little? Do you understand that this would probably support at most 2 or 3 shoestring budgeted lobbyists in Washington? Do you think that medical insurance companies should be forbidden to petition the House and Senate on behalf of their corporate and customer interests? Would you advocate the same restrictions on all other potential petitioners?

#7. You “ ... essentially want the same coverage and premiums ... members of congress or the senate have [or] ...Federal Employees get … “ Explain how and why you believe the proposed legislation will fulfill this essential desire of yours . How do you anticipate convincing the writers of this legislation that they should not exempt themselves from the 'public option' they have designed for you while forbidding you the option of participating in the health-care program designed of, by, and for federal employees.

#8. You state “I really wish we wouldn't of (sic) wasted all that money on Iraq.” Please explain how the fulfillment of this wish would have reduced your health-care costs. Also explain in some detail why the energetic bipartisan support of the Iraqi enterprise could have been so wrong as to be regarded as a waste. You could, alternatively, just strike this seemingly irrelevant remark from your explanations.
Best regards to you, Sir.

Part One:

Martin, I want to thank you for responding so rapidly to my request for information, I must inform you, however, that if I were your university professor, and you were presenting me with a formal position statement as per an assignment, I would be required, even in this era of rampant grade-inflation, to give you a 'D.' Being generous, and adding in a grade for effort, I would give you a grade of 'D+' and the telephone number of the nearest academic dean.

Permit me the luxury of taking your points in order of occurrence and suggesting ways in which you could provide more informative contributions to this discussion.

#1: We rank 34th in Health-care. Do you know the origin of this claim? Do you know that the claim is based on 1997 data? Do you know that eight elements of performance were used to generate the index upon which the ranking of 37th was based? Have you ever examined these elements and evaluated them for possible validity and reliability for evaluating the performance of an entire nation's health-care system?

#2: You spend 12-15% of your income on heath-care. Do you know that the national average for health-care expenditures is closer to 17%? What do you do with the other 83-88% of your income? Are those expenditures more important than your health and that of your family? If you didn't spend your income on maintaining your own and your family's health, what would you spend it on? If you did not pay for your own health-care, who do you think should take on this responsibility and why?

#3:Your health-care expenditures are annually increasing 20-30%. Can you document this assertion? Could you detail the elements of this dramatic inflation of your health-care budget? Presuming your assertion to be true, have you carefully looked at the factors influencing general increases in health-care expenditures? Please study the effects of each of the following factors influencing health-care expenditures and identify which you would be willing to forgo: Medical research leading to improved procedures, pharmaceutical research leading to improvement in medicines, compensation improvements for all the working stiffs who staff our medical institutions, medical training, including routine and advanced, for physicians and other medical practitioners, defensive medicine costs, malpractice insurance costs, jackpot justice for those who claim injury. You, of course, could add to this list since your additions may improve your thesis.

#4: Unnamed persons use scare tactics concerning regulations and using comparisons to other health-care systems such as the Canadian system. Who are the purveyors of these scare tactics? Have you considered the origin of these 'scare tactics' and whether they emanate from professional evaluations of the proposed legislation or if they are simply invented in the fevered imaginations of those who are opposed to nationalization of our health-care system? When thinking of the future, do you anticipate being denied life-saving procedures because they are not cost effective for a man of your age by a remote bureaucrat with a moral affinity to the late Dr. Joseph Mengele? Do you personally look forward to month-long queues for appointments to see physicians, medical tests, medical operations? If so, why?

This is an excellent article and I commend you for your straightforward approach to this very important topic. It is the first structured discussion I have seen of the pernicious effects of our tort system on the medical profession. John Edwards may actually do a real service to our country if using his name in your title inspires widespread readership.

In your final sentence you state: "If he were serious about lower costs, this would be the cornerstone of his movement. Instead, he maligns “greedy doctors,” many of whom work 16 hours or more a day trying to help people, and lets the “greedy trial lawyers” off the hook." I focus on "If he were serious ... " and can think of no other rejoinder than: Yes, but he is not.

Virtually every argument proffered by the president involves the use of straw men, men he seems to conjure on demand in support of his weak arguments. He also seems to vilify any and all those with different viewpoints as being in possession of evil motives, His assignment of evil to his perceived enemies seems to flow from a Cartesian wellspring of paranoid fantasies.