Universal Healthcare

[Tet0 0]

Kickass.

[Grandmaster Phoenix 26]

Padraig, calling me an idiot does nothing, seriously. Also, why the hell did you come back?

[Sahaqiel 1232]

Cuba:Induced abortion is the country's most popular birth control method, and has been used to minimize the frequency of infant mortality.

What does this have to do with anything?

I'm just saying, bro, some people might need gov't healthcare. And they might not be you.

[Cascade 741]

I don't understand how anyone could be against universal healthcare :S I mean it is a good thing right guys?

[Aethix 129]

What does this have to do with anything?

I'm just saying, bro, some people might need gov't healthcare. And they might not be you.

So we should give everybody crappy healthcare because a small fraction of the population doesn't have any? Also, since when is that the government's responsibility?

[Cascade 741]

I thought the point of the government was to look after its' people, guess I was wrong

But seriously, it is kinda the government's responsibility :/

[Aethix 129]

The role of the government is to protect the rights of the people and provide "public goods". Public goods being things like roads and dams. Things that cannot be provided by private entities for whatever reason. The government can also provide education because education is necessary to insure societal stability. Health insurance is not the government's responsibility because it is not a right, it is a product that was created by private companies to sell.

[Sahaqiel 1232]

The deal was that there was just going to be a government paid healthcare option.

Everyone in the US wouldn't have to switch.

[Cascade 741]

Still don't understand why you wouldn't want free healthcare :S Maybe I'm just spoiled by our healthcare system. How horrid.

EDIT: Ok this post was just stupid, ignore it.

[Aethix 129]

The deal was that there was just going to be a government paid healthcare option.

Everyone in the US wouldn't have to switch.

Do you believe that? If so, you shouldn't. Recent talks involve forcing insurance companies to provide policies to anybody who orders them, regardless of pre-existing conditions and capping the rates they can charge on their policies. This will quickly drive all private health insurance providers out of business, leaving only the government option. Even if that isn't included in the bill, taxes will skyrocket and the budget deficit will rise even further.

Edit in response to Cascade: There is no such thing as free health care. One way or another, it has to be paid for.

[Max 10]

Padraig, calling me an idiot does nothing, seriously. Also, why the hell did you come back?

God damnit, GMP. It isn't Padraig. Seriously.

[Teto 2609]

God damnit, GMP. It isn't Padraig. Seriously.

P. sure that post was before he found out.

[Max 10]

P. sure you posted the Teto = Silves thread before he posted this, which makes it pretty clear that Teto =/= Padraig.

[Skippy 82]

Okay, here's my thing on healthcare.

1) We, as a country, cannot afford to socialize healthcare. It is not possible, we do not have the infrastructure, and just take a look at what social security is doing, they are having to borrow, mostly from China, the money they have IOU'd out of that. They are going to impose a tax for four years on this healthcare plan, before it takes effect. This is supposed to pay for it for something like ten years. There is no inflation factor, not to mention, the government has a poor track record regarding healthcare costs. Medicaid is losing money because the cost of providing it is something like three times the initial cost of what it was estimated to be. We just don't have the ability to do it right.

Think of it this way, I'm going to start paying for a 2014 mustang, today, make payments on it for four years, and then when I get it, it breaks and they tell me it's going to be double the price. That's the kind of gamble we are taking here.

2) Universal healthcare will cause problems with doctors who work in a free market system. In a Universal healthcare system, there is no incentive for a doctor to put forth an effort on you case, nor is there an effort for him to need to be right. All the doctor has to do is see you, and he gets paid, whether he diagnoses you, treats you, or not, he gets paid. There is no incentive for him to work for you because no matter how good of a job he does, or ow much extra time and effort he puts into you, all he gets is that one amount. This causes what is known as brain drain, and is part of the reason we have many Indian doctors in our hospitals, because if they work hard here, they get paid better. We are a free market system, if doctor's can't set their prices, or receive the pay that they have worked extra for, then they aren;t going to do it.

3) In the same way, doctors get paid less with UI, this causes problems for new doctors, seeing as the average cost of an MD is around the 250,000 Dollar mark. There is a reason doctors get paid so much, it is because they provide what is generally considered a necessary service, and they have to go through a lot of training for it. Docs go through a minimum

8 years of school/fellowship, and often more for specific training. The pay they receive is reflective of that cost and sacrifice, and level of training. Think about it this way, you have EMT's and you have Paramedics. WHat is the incentive to becoming a paramedic? You get paid more, and have more duties than an EMT, You can step that up to doctor as well. If being a doc didn't pay well, we wouldn't get the doctors we have, and we have many of the best in the world.

You wonder why they premier of Canada flew here for heart surgery? Because they didn't have the option available in Canada. Why? Because no doctors in Canada want to learn how to do a complicated, new procedure, that was developed by American docs in an American free market system, because they don't have any incentive to. Canadians get turned away for that kind of thing every day.

4) The thing you generally don't hear about with UI, is the wait lists and exemptions. If you are above the age of 65, you generally won't receive treatment, get surgeries, so on, because you are too old, and not valuable to the system anymore. The average wait for a hip replacement in Canada is around 6-9 months. I could walk into any clinic and have that surgery scheduled for next week, if I so desired. Over 65 and need a pacemaker? I hope not, the wait is at times over a year. Need an MRI for that tumor in your head, 3-6 months. Need to have that tumor operated on? 6months to a year. Hope you made peace with the family. Need any sort of surgery for something not immediately life threatening? Depending on the surgery, list is 3 months to 4 years.

Take my case in example, I dislocated my shoulder, needed to have my labrum repaired, here, I was in surgery less than a week later, in Canada or Englan, it would have been an 8-10 month wait.

Now I'm not saying that there is nothing wrong with out current healthcare system, because it's nowhere near perfect, but a solution that will likely implode and bankrupt itself is not the answer. We don't need the government to take over any more businesses, we already have free healthcare, no hospital is allowed to deny healthcare to an individual without insurance, or to make them pay if they cannot, if they did, they could be shut down, the thing is, the patient has to inform and work that out with the hospital prior to treatment in all but life threatening emergency cases.

Here's an idea, allow interstate competition of insurance companies, and allow individuals to adapt their own insurance coverage. Allow for government coverage of those who are between jobs or with legitimate medical disability. But don't let it run unchecked, you get unemployment benefits as long as you can show you are actively looking for a job, and fulfilling your end of the bargain, and you have to have a third party doctor verifying your disability every two weeks or so, unless a court has ruled a longer date. Also, stop allowing Illegals access o our healthcare.

The government is spending billions upon billions of dollars that we don't have, and the current healthcare solution is so poorly written and such a horrible idea, that it will make everything that much worse. We need to stop relying on handouts, and work for what we want. Next we are going to want the government to provide our groceries because we need to eat, and for the government to pay our water bills, because we need to eat and drink, and gas bills because we need to heat our houses, and for our houses because we need a place to live. America has stopped being the land of opportunity and turned into an entitlement state, and it's an entitlement we can't afford. We need to be stripping our government own to exactly what it was meant to be, small, keeping out of the way of the people, only stepping in to ensure that our rights as citizens are upheld. I'll support Universal Healthcare when the American People see fit to put a right to healthcare into the Constitution, till then, there are other answers, stop pushing your agenda, and do what a majority of Americans want. It's obvious they don;t want this, the amount of phone calls to senators and congressmen this week has caused a server shutdown and all landlines to be clogged at the senate, I'm not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea.

EDIT TO ADD: Some Democrat's opinion on Healthcare....

"There's going to be a tendency on the part of our people to be in denial about all this, but if you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call, there's no hope of waking up." — Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN)

"Bluntly put, this is the political reality: First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate's reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes." — Patrick H. Caddell & Douglas E. Schoen

"The problem is this: we are spending almost a trillion dollars and folks are telling me I should vote yes and we will fix it later. You wouldn't buy a car for a trillion dollars and say yeah, it doesn't run but we will fix it later." — Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA)

"There's a lot of discomfort with the reconciliation process, the self-implementing rule, where you wouldn't have a formal vote on maybe the most important policy of the past 40 years. I have a big issue with the way they're doing the process. I think it's wrong and my constituents don't like it." — Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA)

"I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget reconciliation process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health care reform and climate change legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted." — Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV)

"I don't believe reconciliation was ever intended for (health care reform). It doesn't work well for writing major, substantive legislation." — Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)

"Anyone who would stand before you and say 'well, if you pass health care reform next year's health care premiums are going down,' I don't think is telling the truth. I think it is likely they would go up." — Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)

"While deeming, like reconciliation, has been used by Republicans and Democrats in the past, the context in which it would be used in this case leads me to conclude that it would poison an already terribly partisan atmosphere and leave the Congress even less able to find bipartisan solutions to fiscal problems that are on the verge of becoming overwhelming." — Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)

"This bill represents a giveaway to the insurance industry. $70 billion dollars a year, and no guarantees of any control over premiums, forcing people to buy private insurance, five consecutive years of double-digit premium increases." — Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

[Jo-Bengt 0]

I've heard some bad things about the system used in Canada, that we're about to establish here as well. My mom fell down and thought that she broke her ankle. She was in the waiting room from about 8 PM to 3 AM. Sound like a long time to you? There was woman from Canada who worked there. She said that when her daughter broke her arm, they had to wait two days for her to get a cast on it. Turned out she needed surgery soon, and she didn't get it for nine months. When she finally got the surgery, it couldn't heal right because of the long wait.

I didn't hear more past that, but you know that's gonna come back on her later in her life, and she's going to need more care on it.

So, I'm thinking, what if that happens to me? What if I break my arm and have to wait that long, and have this nagging unhealed arm the rest of my life? Screw that. Plus, I've got friends who are athletic, and this is bound to happen to them.

It pisses me off. I don't want to see it. The stories I've heard about it in other countries is unsettling.

Still don't understand why you wouldn't want free healthcare

Because I'd rather take something I know I can rely on and actually get to than shitty welfare that I have to wait months to a year to get to.