>>10
I'm not going to get into a huge argument over healthcare, but no doubt it's a system under a mess. The HMOs you speak of were part of the Nixon's Administration's plan to start this idea of managed care which became a status quo among Republican and Democratic Parties, where HMOs and PPOs and certain groups got tax credits, and government subsidies, while others did not. Over the past 35-40 some odd years, this eventually morphed into a system of corporate medicine and where corporations lobby this and that and the other thing, and the whole system just became a big mess with a lot of inequalities that before managed care, were mostly non-existent.
So the question comes down to is, true conservatives (not your Bush/McCain/Palin types mind you) want managed care done away with and back to a true free market medical care approach, and true progressives want to do away with managed care and institute a universal healthcare system. Which one will outlive the other? Who knows, UHC may end up making a crisis 35-40 years later as managed care does now, and then yet another reform may have to be passed.