Americans want universal health coverage, group says
I agree. I don’t believe there should be 40 million uninsured Americans, nor that a person should lose his health coverage when he loses his job.
I’m not paying taxes to subsidize doctors for the whole fuckin’ universe, man! Let those lazy-ass Martians get their own health insurance!
That mainstream media would actually publish such a report is very encouraging. Usually, the corporate media is strongly opposed toward airing beliefs of a social democratic nature.
Yet this “news” is old. Americans have been wanting universal health care for a long time. Not only do we want it, we’re willing to pay higher taxes to get it!
Fear not, my fiscally conservative friends. Thanks to gross inefficiencies in existing private health care, you won’t need to pay more.
FYI, the US is the only industrialized nation without universal healthcare, and the effects are deadly–literally. US healthcare has much room for improvement.[ul][li]The World Health Organization “ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]…37th.” In the fairness of health care, we’re 54th. (The European Dream, pp.79-80)[/li][li]Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That’s six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)[/li][li]Half the bankruptcies in this country are due to health care costs. (Rep. Jim McDermott, March 4, 2004)[/li][li]In 1960, the U.S. was ranked 13th in life expectancy for women; in 1995, it had slipped to 20th. (Anderson, OECD, Nov. 11, 1997)[/li][li]In 1960, the U.S. was ranked 17th in life expectancy for men; in 1995, that position had dropped to 21st. (Anderson, OECD, Nov. 11, 1997)[/li][li]Between 1990 and 1995 the infant mortality rate in the U.S. declined to 8.0 per 1,000 live births but this still left the U.S. at 23 out of 29 industrialized countries because other countries had shown more rapid improvement in reducing infant mortality. (Anderson, OECD, Nov. 11, 1997)[/li][Now] the United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).[/ul]
So if we all want it, why don’t we have it?
How come they’ve never asked me?
I’m not in favor of ‘universal’ health insurance, not in favor of paying higher taxes for it, and quite frankly don’t want it.
I’m very, very happy with the coverage I have, and when it wasn’t provided by my employer I paid out of pocket for a good health insurance plan.
I shopped around and got what I wanted, rather than being stuck with what the government wants to charge me an arm and a leg in taxes for and doesn’t provide what I want.
I don’t want it.
And I’d wager many people in my party don’t want it, and that’s a big part of why we don’t have it.
I make more than enough money to provide my pay for my own health insurance, and I have no interest in providing health coverage to others.
Furthermore, the U.S. life expectancy ratings imo aren’t a good way to judge quality of health care. And according to the CIA World Factbook we’re 48th, not 20th. But look at some of the countries above us:
- Andorra
- Macau
- San Marino
- Guernsey
- Cayman Islands
- Gibraltar
- Monaco
- Liechtenstein
- Faroe Islands
- Martinique
- Malta
- Saint Pierre and Miguelon
- Saint Helena
A lot of these countries are very small states, and thus I really don’t think we should be making decisions simply based on the fact we’re behind (or ahead) of countries like that in anything. By the nature of their tiny populations all of those countries will have statistics that are simply unapplicable to a larger country like the United States.
The European Union as a whole is ranked in at 43, so 5 spots ahead of us. Their life expectancy at birth is 78.30 years, ours is 77.85 years. That’s really not a meaningful different in my opinion.
Factor out things that kill Americans at a greater rate than other states, obesity-related illnesses, for example, and that could very well explain away the entire difference. And people in America aren’t obese at a greater rate than in the EU because they don’t have universal healthcare. Obesity is a whole other can of worms that has nothing to do with health insurance.
It’s nice that you were able to find a plan that fit your budget. My husband and I are both working part time at the moment, and we cannot find a health plan with reasonable benefits that’s cheaper than COBRA, and COBRA paymets are devastating us financially. Its more than our rent, plus our car payment, plus our student loan payment. I’m terrified to go without health insurance, or join a plan with no drug coverage or some ridiculous deductible that will bankrupt us if one of us gets hurt, but that’s all we could afford. We make about $200 too much to qualify for state-subsidized insurance. The only thing that’s saving our bacon is that we had quite a lot of savings from when we were both working full time, and I have a full-time job that starts at the end of August. Our savings will basically be ZERO at that point.
I don’t know enough about how universal health insurance would work to know whether I’m in favor of it or not. I’d be happy with reasonably priced catastrophic coverage. I can pay for doctor visits, lab work, and prescriptions on my own, but not a hospital stay or a cancer diagnosis.
I wonder if universal coverage would help the economy. I know many people in their 50’s and 60’s who would like to retire – freeing up their jobs for someone else – but they keep working just for the group medical, usually because their spouse needs it.
“THe American People” are not rising up and demanding socialized medicine. Few particularly want it.
But it’s coming anyway, and it has nothing to do with the desires of ordinary, working-class Americans, who really don’t care whether their health care is paid for publicly or privately.
It’s coming because Big Business wants it. GM and Ford and Delta Air Lines and a host of other Fortune 500 companies don’t want to pay for their employees’ health care any more. When enough other big corporations decide that paying for their employees’ health care is putting them at a disadvantage, compared to foreign firms, socialized medicine will be inevitable.
How’s that for irony, Liberals? You’re going to get your way because the Robber Barons are on your side!
I find it maddening and confusing in equal degrees that even after it is pointed out to them, over and over and over again, that America could easily provide universal nationalised (the rest of the world stopped calling it “socialised” 60 years ago, guys) healthcare without raising taxes one bare cent, the majority of Americans still oppose it because…the Communists would win?
You would see it opposed because some people have benefits and are happy with them and see no reason to put their buck-oh-five into the kitty. A few have already expressed this.
For others, it would be the invincibility of youth, letting dirty, filthy, stinking, Communists win, and sweet, sweet paralyzing apathy.
Republicans.
Hmm. This seems rather like saying that “Why should I buy health insurance right now? I’m not ill.” At best, shortsighted. At worst, callous.
Not to mention that your buck is already in the kitty! It got taken out of your paycheck, and tacked onto your taxes! For that matter, if you put it all in the hands of the government, it’s rather likely (not certain, I’ll admit) that you would have to pay less, since a purely publicly-provided healthcare system is more efficient than a private-public mix*.
*Yes, I will qualify my statement. Every publicly-provided healthcare system in Western Europe, and nearly all those in the world, spend less money as a percentage of GDP than America, and many (most, in Western Europe) have better public health- see also Britain, France and Germany, just for starters.
Actually, lots of Americans do want it. It does seem odd that what the liberals have been asking for for twenty + years is now what big business needs to keep jobs in the U.S.
Hell, INDIA has a socialized medicine program. We simply can’t compete on the job market until we have one. The company Brainiac4 works for outsourced to CANADA - because of health care. They get first world English speaking employees on the same time zone, and don’t need to pay health care costs.
Don’t worry, for people who don’t like what the government provides, the health care companies will offer a slew of supplimental coverage you can pay out of pocket for. Just like Medicare.
However, by the time our government gets done handing out the pork, we won’t have socialized medicine, or even Universal Health Care. We will have something that looks like the Medicare drug program that costs US more while making the insurance companies wealthier.
No. We oppose it because we realize there is simply no way that our good-old-boy-network campaign-favor-driven government could provide anything that worked. You want the folks who gave us FEMA providing your healthcare?
Is this the same good-old-boy-network campaign-favour-driven government whose health care industry cronies put out ads in the '80s that basically said, ‘If you vote for National Health Care, you will die!’?
FEMA worked fine before Bush put his moron cronies in charge. Social Security works fine, as does the VA hospital system.
I am happy to see Republicans showing their true stripes in this thread, which seems to be - I’ve got good health insurance, so screw those who don’t. I’ve got good health insurance too, and this sort of stuff is why I recovered from being a Republican. Not to mention that reduced costs would actually raise all our salaries, by making insurance cheaper, but better to give up money and not let in that ole debbil socialized medicine. And Happy Clam is right - it wouldn’t be a bit socialized.
See you in GD 
Because firing millions of bureaucrats, putting hundreds of insurers out of business and completely overhauling the current system is going to be very unpopular. I brought this up with global warming in another thread. It is easy to fix global warming, about $25 billion a year over 15 years could switch almost 90% of our grid electricity to non polluting, renewable sources. But after that what do you do with the hundres of abandoned coal plants, abandoned coal mines, thousands of people trained to work in coal plants, etc?
And even though I like that this board has people who don’t like universal healthcare (it would be boring as hell here if everyone agreed on everything) the reality is 2/3 of americans do support it. And that is with all the myths and distortions about universal healthcare floating around. Ones like
-We have the best healthcare in the world, Canadians flock to the US to get healthcare
-Universal healthcare will drastically increase costs (in reality it will lower them as your employer no longer needs to withhold your wages to pay your healthcare. A persons take home income will go up with UHC, not down).
-People in ‘those’ countries all have long waiting lines, die waiting for surgery and want our system
-the UHC system is communist
-UHC limits your choices and we are the land of the free. In reality our system limits choices far more than any UHC system. Ours limits choices in which jobs you can get (you have to get a job that covers healthcare), which insurer you get as job provides those, which doctors your insurers PPO will allow you to go to, and which treatments the insurer will cover
These are all false but even with all the myths and distortions against UHC it still have a 2/3 support rating. That is pretty remarkable. That is like me holding up a picture of a guy and saying ‘this guy is a rapist, murderer, spent 5 years in prison and sets fire to churches. Do you like him’ and 2/3 saying yes. Imagine how many would say yes if they knew all that stuff wasn’t true?
Martin Hyde - I assume you mean the republican party? That or libertarian. Libertarian I can understand, but even 59% of republicans/conservatives support UHC.
http://www.badgerblues.org/2005/05/30/a-republican-argument-for-universal-health-care/
I give you liberalism FAQs (a great site on liberalism) short list of government success programs.
http://home.att.net/~resurgence/Governmentsuccesses.htm
Comically FEMA is on that list. FEMA was actually better under Clinton, it only went to crap when it was switched to the Dep. of homeland security.
Originally Posted by Reply
So if we all want it, why don’t we have it?
**rjung **
Republicans.
Dmark
Exactly. Kerry suggested offering the same exact health insurance that everybody in the Congress and Senate has.
If you don’t have health insurance, it is almost impossible to buy - especially if there are “pre-existing” health conditions. They can simply refuse to sell you a policy, period. So unless you are employed by an employer with health insurance, or you are in perfect health and have pots of money to spend on health insurance you are screwed.