Universal Health Care: Opinions please?

[deadhand31]

gotta agree with you here... after all the subsidies and sweetheart deals, we still had failures with companies like Enron, etc. and how abut all the personal bankrupcies after giving the largest tax cuts to the richest 2%. from a success perspective, this government has a lot to prove.

You want to get rid of the military? Ok. Let's live in a fantasy land where everyone loves us, and bloodthirsty terrorist scum doesn't ever want to hurt us.

Also, take this into consideration... the richest 2% also pay 50% of the country's taxes. Do you want to pay the same percentage of your income that they have to? Something tells me no. Do you also want to have the same percentage of your income back in your tax cuts? They get a smaller percentage of their taxes back, too.

So, for your socialized health care, you'd see the richest 2% paying for HALF of your health care. Think about that before you condemn them.

And where do you get off thinking that we don't want jobs in customer service, computer science, or telemarketing? We've got lots of people who want to work in those fields. They aren't outsourced because of lack of interest. It's purely financial. They pay the people in India one sixth of what we get paid here. People do want those jobs.

 

[Rob Broad]

I like how this has turned into an arguement about almost everything about the health care system. Healthcare is its own animal, and should not be compared with any other program ran by the government.

I will bow out of this converstaion now since it effects americans and I am up in Canada. Where the health care system is working.

 

[Phoenix44]

I shiver to think what our hospitals would look like after 20 years of MediCare. Uneducated "doctors" performing substandard "treament." What a mix.

MrMike, Medicare has been around since 1965, and it has nothing to do with the education of doctors. In fact, Medicare doesn't employ doctors at all, it merely sets the fees and administers the payment for this federally funded program. However, doctors and hospitals must undergo credentialing before they may accept Medicare payments.

Medicare doesn't stifle competition either. Since most doctors participate in Medicare, patients can choose their doctors as they please. If patients don't like you, or you have a bad reputation, you won't get paid because you'll have no patients.

I'm simply suggesting we do away with the expensive middle men known as "insurance companies," and expand Medicare. The savings would pay for the expanded care. Look, Steve Wiggins, former CEO of Oxford Health Plans, made a $7 million salary. That would buy enough flu vaccine for the US, Canada, and then some!

 

[pete]

You want to get rid of the military?

No, just the "intelligence"... which these days would be minor surgery.

i would also hope by now, that you understand my tongue in placed firmly in cheek as a draw the metaphor of a privatized armed forces. to be more blunt, kinda simultaneously supports and swipes at your indictment that the government can't do anything right.

Do you want to pay the same percentage of your income that they have to? Something tells me no.

if you see "something", tell it otherwise... honestly, i do not mind paying taxes for value in return. i've already spoke about the quality of the public schools in my area and the cost in terms of property taxes... same would hold true for police, fire departments, mail service, road maintenance, sanitation, and what i'd expect from health care.

 

[MisterMike]

MrMike, Medicare has been around since 1965, and it has nothing to do with the education of doctors. In fact, Medicare doesn't employ doctors at all, it merely sets the fees and administers the payment for this federally funded program. However, doctors and hospitals must undergo credentialing before they may accept Medicare payments.

Medicare doesn't stifle competition either. Since most doctors participate in Medicare, patients can choose their doctors as they please. If patients don't like you, or you have a bad reputation, you won't get paid because you'll have no patients.

I'm simply suggesting we do away with the expensive middle men known as "insurance companies," and expand Medicare. The savings would pay for the expanded care. Look, Steve Wiggins, former CEO of Oxford Health Plans, made a $7 million salary. That would buy enough flu vaccine for the US, Canada, and then some!

Hey, I hear ya on eliminating them. We're just not completely on the same page on the Universal stuff. (That's what I meant by MediCare). I couldn't tell you what the name is as I don't use it. Someone just takes it outta my check every week and I hate it.

 

[heretic888]

Someone just takes it outta my check every week and I hate it.

Do you also hate public schools, libraries, the post office, the military, the police, the fire department, social security, congress, etcetera ad infinitum??

The flip side to freedom is responsibility. You can't have one without the other.

 

[Gary Crawford]

I hate the idea of universal health care because I have seen how bad it can be.I served at Loring,AFB,Me.A place NOBODY wanted to be.The phiscians only cared about one thing,get you the hell out of the way.The hospital was notorious for abusing enlisted and their dependants(yes dependents).And why not?They were paid the same thing weather they treated or cured one patient or a thousand.Many of the physicians were substandard,non-experienced and sometimes non-english speaking.You had no choice of phisician either.Now,if malpractice was performed,good luck suing the goverment.If you try to get proper treatment by complaining or you go to the IG,kiss your career goodbye.It's not like that at all military instalations,but it is at some and many V.A. hospitals where the administrative people out number the medical people six to one.The V.A. is a great example.If someone was able to prove that universal could work,than do it at the V.A.

 

[rmcrobertson]

By all means, blame socialism for capitalism.

After all, if ya don't ya might notice all the countries in Europe where they have high taxes, socialized medicine, state-sponsored education and child care, and everything works far better than it does here.

As always, I find the extent to which the screwees will cheer for the screwers and their ideas completely fascinating.

 

[PeachMonkey]

As always, I find the extent to which the screwees will cheer for the screwers and their ideas completely fascinating.

The genius of today's capitalists lies in how well they've convinced the working classes that they *deserve* to be, as you say, screwed. Capitalists control the language, rules, and mechanisms of debate anymore.... even people who call themselves leftists will say, with a completely straight face, fun "truisms" like: "Sure it's sad that they laid those people off and moved their jobs to Mexico, but the company needs to maximize shareholder value!"

Argh.

 

[PeachMonkey]

So far, every social program that the government has made, it screws up.

Mythology and classic capitalist rhetoric.

For fun and games, why don't you look up how efficient Social Security is, and compare that to any private retirement fund? Just for laughs, why don't you look at the statistics for changes in effectiveness and efficiency with the new "privatized" Medicare insurance plan? In order to have a few giggles, why don't you look at the actual statistics on welfare, including how much of a percentage of the US budget it takes up?

And, to add a little more hee-hee and haw-haw to the discussion, it might not hurt to throw in the figures for such notable public corporations as Enron (big friends of our current administration), Worldcom (so trustworthy, apparently, that they deserve to rebuild Iraq's telecom infrastructure), and Arthur Anderson ("keeping everyone's books honest for decades")?

As Robert said far more effectively than I, it's mindblowing how easily people allow themselves to be spoonfed rhetoric from the ruling classes.

 

[PeachMonkey]

Screw people, I say. The market's more important.

Hear, hear! Why should the wealthy have to pay progressive levels of income tax in order to improve all of society? I mean, if *I* ever get rich, I don't want those filthy commoners putting their hands in *my* pockets... the nerve of those people.

 

[michaeledward]

I think that we already have universal health care. Trouble is, nobody seems to recognize it, and it is only used in the worst cases.

A Democratic minimum wage earner, is driving to work in their 1984 Ford Escort. Because of the economic situation, they don't have a private, or employer sponsored health care plan. On this particular morning, a Republican Dentist is driving his new, tax deductibe Hummer H2 down the road. The two vehicles somehow end up in the same place at the same time. An ambulance comes and rushes our minimum wage earner to the local hospital (the Republican Dentist give the police his statement and continues on to work). At the hospital, the doctors and nurses try to ask the unconcious democrat what health plan is going to pay for the services; unable to find a health care card, or get a response, they wheel the gurney out onto the side of the street, right?

Nopers! The hospital treats our democratic protaganist. But as there is no one to bill for the services, the financial people pretty much know they are going to have to write off the services as a loss ... so instead, the fees at the hospital get increased, to cover these losses.

What we end up with is 5/6th's of American's with health care coverage end up paying for the 1/6th of Americans who do not have health care through increased premiums & deductibles. And, of course, because those 1/6th of Americans don't have health care, they don't see a doctor when the symptons are small and treatable, they wait, until the illness is chronic and much more expensive to treat.

So, what's the moral of this story?

That a small business owner can deduct, under IRS Rule 79, the cost of his new vehicle, as long as the GVW exceeds 6,000 pounds.

Mike

 

[pete]

I think that we already have universal health care... of course, because those 1/6th of Americans don't have health care, they don't see a doctor when the symptons are small and treatable, they wait, until the illness is chronic and much more expensive to treat.

huh... what's universal about 17 out of 100 americans becoming potentially terminally ill because they are denied health care at a time when they may be treatable???

the car crash anecdote reminds me of a joke, where an elderly couple die in a plane crash, go to heaven, and are greeted by st peter, who gives them the tour. for lunch, they have a grand buffet, all free since there's no need for money in heaven, and you can eat anything you like without health risks. "damn bran muffins and brown rice", the husband exclaims, "we could have been here 15 years ago!"...

pete

 

[heretic888]

the car crash anecdote reminds me of a joke, where an elderly couple die in a plane crash, go to heaven, and are greeted by st peter, who gives them the tour. for lunch, they have a grand buffet, all free since there's no need for money in heaven, and you can eat anything you like without health risks. "damn bran muffins and brown rice", the husband exclaims, "we could have been here 15 years ago!"...

Oh, great. Now, you're implying that we should allow the chronically ill to die since they'll have a grand ole time in the Hereafter.

Delightful. A much better alternative to Universal Healthcare, to be sure.

 

[Flatlander]

I don't believe that was Pete's implication. I believe Pete was, if you read the first sentence, implying that it was unfortunate that those who couln't afford to pay for insurance would be left without medical attention until they became terminally ill.

 

[Phoenix44]

"Universal" health care simply means that everyone has coverage. That any decent American could oppose this is simply baffling to me. Or maybe it's the "decent" part that's confusing me.

 

[heretic888]

I don't believe that was Pete's implication. I believe Pete was, if you read the first sentence, implying that it was unfortunate that those who couln't afford to pay for insurance would be left without medical attention until they became terminally ill.

I didn't get hint of concern or compassion in his first sentence (or the rest of the post, for that matter) --- just arguing over the semantics of the word "universal".

"Universal" health care simply means that everyone has coverage. That any decent American could oppose this is simply baffling to me. Or maybe it's the "decent" part that's confusing me.

Ditto.

 

[pete]

I didn't get hint of concern or compassion in his first sentence (or the rest of the post, for that matter) --- just arguing over the semantics of the word "universal".

let's try this one more time, with feelin'...

him-say:

Originally Posted by rmcrobertson
We could afford to ensure that every kid in this country gets fed, gets decent basic health care, gets a good education, lives in a reasonably-safe neighborhood.

me-say:

cool, where do i sign...

the joke (yes, in the immortal words of foghorn leghorn, a joke son, i say its a joke)... just goes to show the illusion of "universal" health care for accident victims in their time of need is about as non-sensical as ignoring your diet and health in order to get to the giant smorgasbord in the sky.

flatlander got it first time out~!

thanks for sticking with it and following along... now i've got to get back to my 24 eight by ten color glossies with pictures and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us...

pete

 

[michaeledward]

... just goes to show the illusion of "universal" health care for accident victims in their time of need is about as non-sensical

Yes Pete .. it is very non-sensical ... but it happens. If you could not detect the dripping sarcasm and anger in my words when I called that "UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE", I apologize. Doctors will treat the sick and injured. This is especially true in emergency rooms. And when that happens, somebody pays for the service.

Certainly, I wouldn't call that universal health care. It's kind of like invading a country with enough soldiers to defeat the enemy army, but not to protect the citizenry in the aftermath.

Can the United States do better for all of its citizens? I believe we can. If you don't think that we, as a nation, can do better for each of us, please take a look at the man in the mirror and ask him why not.

Mike

 

[BlueDragon1981]

Good idea in theory....works for some places but I don't believe it could ever work in the U.S.