[Riot]

Everyone paying for their own expenses is the best way to preserve our individual rights.

Which is exactly why I support healthcare reform, Joey. Because that is one of the main goals.

There is no reason to make the government, or any third party for that matter, a participant in the relationship between a patient and their doctor.

I think you do not realize how interactively insurance companies dictate your health care today, via what is "standard and usual", what they will pay for, or not.

Right now, insurance companies dictate, to your doctor (via what they will pay for), which drugs a doctor should use first, which treatments a doctor must try first, etc.

When you pay for your own, whether directly or through an insurance company of your choosing, others have nothing to say about it.

No. Insurance companies define the standard protocols of medical care. If a doctor wants to do something outside the "standard treatment" box, good luck. He can do it, but you'll have to pay for it, and then your insurance company can deny further coverage because your doc went outside the box.

For example, the "wear and tear" sore knee with some cartilage tear, effusion, etc. Insurance companies dictate (pay for) the common medical treatment protocol that steroid injections will be used before glucosaminogycan injections.

If you or your doctor decided a GAG injection would work, and you don't want to get a steroid injected into your knee because there's good medical evidence that it cuts pain, but may hasten degradation of the joint, you can pay for it yourself, as your insurance company will not. I know that it's $700, btw. For an injection I do to a horse or dog for $45.

At the pharmacy, your insurance company will pay for certain brands of drugs, but not others. The pharmacy will substitute (unless your doctor absolutely insists no) the drug your insurance company has approved for the script written. Because the insurance company has made a deal with the drug company, that all their patients will only use "X" antibiotic, not "Y", to keep the cost of "X" down for you.

But when you choose to go on any form of "public assistance", that's not the case. The difference is that the Democrats want everyone to be a ward of the state so they will shut up and let them "rule".

Joey - insurance companies you purchase dictate what they will pay for, just as public assistance dictates why they will pay for. And doctors follow that, if you want your insurance to pay for it. There isn't much difference at all.